Classics Books

A MERRY DANCER Nobody in Pleasant Valley ever paid any attention to Freddie Firefly in the daytime. But on warm, and especially on dark summer nights he always appeared at his best. Then he went gaily flitting through the meadows. And sometimes he even danced right in Farmer Green's dooryard, together with a hundred or two of his nearest relations. No one could help noticing those sprightly... more...

I. PROLOGUE. The present century has seen the rise and development of many towns in various parts of the country, and among them Birmingham is entitled to take a front place. If Thomas Attwood or George Frederick Muntz could now revisit the town they once represented in Parliament they would probably stare with amazement at the changes that have taken place in Birmingham, and would require a guide to... more...

ONCE upon a time there was a little girl called Lucie, who lived at a farm called Little-town. She was a good little girl—only she was always losing her pocket- handkerchiefs! One day little Lucie came into the farm-yard crying— oh, she did cry so! "I've lost my pocket-handkin! Three handkins and a pinny! Have you seen them, Tabby Kitten?" THE Kitten went on washing her white paws; so... more...

SANDY'S NAME In the first place, no doubt you will want to learn why he was known as Sandy. Many others, before you, have wondered how Sandy Chipmunk came by his name. Whenever any one asked Sandy himself why he was so called, he always said that he was in too great a hurry to stop to explain. And it is a fact that of all the four-footed folk in Pleasant Valley—and on Blue Mountain as well—he... more...

PROEM. Timber Town lay like a toy city at the bottom of a basin. Its wooden houses, each placed neatly in the middle of a little garden-plot, had been painted brightly for the delight of the children. There were whole streets of wooden shops, with verandahs in front of them to shade the real imported goods in their windows; and three wooden churches, freshly painted to suit the tastes of their... more...

TRAGEDY FOR NELLIE “Just one more dive,” pleaded Penny, climbing nimbly up the rungs of the bright brass ladder. “Then make it snappy,” commanded Louise Sidell, a dark-haired girl in a blue bathing suit. She sighed and sank down on the edge of the tiled swimming pool. “We have to dress and get out of here sometime, you know. I promised Mother I’d stop at the doll shop.” “Oh, we still... more...

Jean de La Fontaine was born on the 8th of July, 1621, at Chateau-Thierry, and his family held a respectable position there. His education was neglected, but he had received that genius which makes amends for all. While still young the tedium of society led him into retirement, from which a taste for independence afterwards withdrew him. He had reached the age of twenty-two, when a few sounds from the... more...

PREFACE. It has been somewhere said by Johnson, that merely to invent a story is no small effort of the human understanding. How much more difficult is it to construct stories suited to the early years of youth, and, at the same time, conformable to the complicate relations of modern society—fictions, that shall display examples of virtue, without initiating the young reader into the ways of... more...

TOMMY ENJOYS HIMSELF Tommy Fox was having a delightful time. If you could have come upon him in the woods you would have been astonished at his antics. He leaped high off the ground, and struck out with his paws. He opened his mouth and thrust his nose out and then clapped his jaws shut again, with a snap. Tommy burrowed his sharp face into the dead leaves at his feet and tossed his head into the air.... more...

CHAPTER I. Some years ago, a lad of the name of William Jervas, or, as he was called from his lameness, Lame Jervas, whose business it was to tend the horses in one of the Cornwall tin-mines, was missing. He was left one night in a little hut, at one end of the mine, where he always slept; but in the morning, he could no where be found; and this his sudden disappearance gave rise to a number of strange... more...