Juvenile Fiction Books

FOREWORD On a cold January morning of 1848, James Wilson Marshall picked up two yellow bits of metal, about the size and the shape of split peas, from the tail-race of the sawmill he was building on the South Fork of the American River, some forty-five miles northeast of Sutter's Fort, now Sacramento City. These two yellow pellets proved to be gold; and soon it was discovered that all the region... more...

CHAPTER I. Melody, My Dear Child:I   SIT down to write my story for you, the life-story of old Rosin the Beau, your friend and true lover. Some day, not far distant now, my fiddle and I shall be laid away, in the quiet spot you know and love; and then (for you will miss me, Melody, well I know that!) this writing will be read to you, and you will hear my voice still, and will learn to know me better... more...

Chapter I The Dimplesmithy Grown people have such an exasperating way of saying, "Now, when I was a little girl—" Then, just as you prick up the little white ears of your mind for a story, they finish, loftily, "I did—or didn't do—so-and-so." It is certainly an underhand way of suggesting that you stop doing something pleasant, or begin doing something unpleasant; and you... more...

CHAPTER I. DON JOHN OF BELFAST, AND FRIENDS. "Why, Don John, how you frightened me!" exclaimed Miss Nellie Patterdale, as she sprang up from her reclining position in a lolling-chair. It was an intensely warm day near the close of June, and the young lady had chosen the coolest and shadiest place she could find on the piazza of her father's elegant mansion in Belfast. She was as pretty as... more...

Ida was a kind-hearted girl, and one day when crossing a bridge near her home, she saw two boys on the banks of the stream, trying to drown a little dog. Ida, like all good girls, could not bear to see anything suffer, and was brave enough to try and prevent it. So, she ran to the shore, wringing her hands, and crying loudly, "Oh! you bad, wicked boys! how can you be so cruel to that poor little... more...

CHAPTER I. "He that has light within his own clear breast,May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day."MILTON. The farming plan succeeded beyond Fleda's hopes thanks not more to her wisdom than to the nice tact with which the wisdom was brought into play. The one was eked out with Seth Plumfield's; the other was all her own. Seth was indefatigably kind and faithful. After his... more...

CHAPTER I THE EYE OF THE FLEET The fleet of boats and canoes bearing supplies for the far east turned from the Mississippi into the wide mouth of the Ohio, and it seemed, for a time, that they had come into a larger river instead of a tributary. The splendid stream, called by the Indians "The Beautiful River," flowed silently, a huge flood between high banks, and there was not one among the... more...

All the Proctors but Phil. Mr Proctor, the chemist and druggist, kept his shop, and lived in the Strand, London. His children thought that there was never anything pleasanter than the way they lived. Their house was warm in winter, and such a little distance from the church, that they had no difficulty in getting to church and back again, in the worst weather, before their shoes were wet. They were... more...

CHAPTER I. THE MAN IN THE MOON. Children, down on the planet which you call Earth, allow me to introduce myself to you! I am the Man in the Moon. I have no doubt that you know a good deal about me, in an indirect way, and that your nurses have told you all sorts of nonsense about my inquiring the way to Norwich—as if I didn't know the way to Norwich! and various things equally sensible. But now... more...

CHAPTER I THE 'SLUG' 'Now for the Quay Flat!' said Arthur Graydon. 'I say, Dick Elliott, you cut ahead, and see if that crew out of Skinner's Hole are anywhere about! You other fellows, get some stones and keep 'em handy!' A dozen day-boys from Bardon Grammar School were going home one Saturday midday after morning school. All of them lived in a suburb which lay... more...