"I am very tired of people," she wrote, "and want to rest myself by living a while with things.""I rely upon you to keep an honorable distance yourselves, and not to divulge my place of retreat to others, especially to -- you know whom! Do not pursue me. I will never be taken alive!"Her story of her life on a farm, keeping hens, Belgian hares, and especially geese, and her portraits of those she abides with form the basis of a charming tale.Kate Douglas Wiggin is best known for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. A popular author of children's books, also opened the first free kindergarten in California -- the Silver Street Free Kindergarten, and worked there till the late 1880s.