Here are haunting tales told around the hearths of drafty, isolated Maine farmhouses and midnight campfires in the Great North Woods. Handed down over generations, re-told by master storyteller Helen Caldwell Cushman, they still beckon. "These are the secrets that we who live along Thirty Mile River keep," they say. "You are fortunate to know them now, because they have made you one of us, closer to this land, to these lakes and streams, to the forests and farmlands, and to the strange and wonderful things that can happen here." HELEN CALDWELL CUSHMAN (1905-1986) was a well-known personality to mid-20th century Maine radio and newspaper audiences. Still, had it not been for a fragile scrapbook saved by her children, she would now only be remembered as the great storyteller she was by the few who knew her. She came to Thirty Mile River as a small child, daughter of legendary University of Virginia basketball coach "Pop" Lannigan, to a former colonial tavern called Greentrees. While her father ran a summer training camp for his Virginia basketball players, Helen especially loved to canoe on nearby Parker Pond. She believed the spirits of the Indians who once called the land theirs alone still inhabited the place; she felt and even saw them. In her life, she was many people -- wife and muse to the young Erskine Caldwell of Tobacco Road fame; devoted mother of Erskine Jr., Dabney, and Janet. In her later years, from towns around, she assembled a group known as the "Thirty Mile River Historical Association." They met at Greentrees, which many believe still haunted, shared tales, and she gathered the best to retell to her radio and newspaper audiences. She died at Greentrees at the age of 81.