Juvenile Fiction Books

CHAPTER I. DOTTY'S BABYHOOD. Alice was the youngest of the Parlin family. When Grandma Read called the children into the kitchen, and told them about their new little sister, Susy danced for joy; and Prudy, in her delight, opened the cellar door, and fell down the whole length of the stairs. However, she rolled as softly as a pincushion, and was not seriously hurt. "But you can't go into... more...

The Little Red Hen Little Red Hen lived in abarnyard. She spent almost all ofher time walking about the barnyard   in her picketty-pecketty fashion, scratching everywhere for worms.     he dearly loved fat, delicious worms and felt they were absolutely necessary to the health of her children. As often as   she found a worm she would call   “Chuck-chuck-chuck!” to her chickies. hen they were... more...

CHAPTER I. KEEPING SECRETS. We might begin this story of Susy Parlin on a New Year's day, only it is so hard to skip over Christmas. There is such a charm about Christmas! It makes you think at once of a fir tree shining with little candles and sparkling with toys, or of a droll Santa Claus with a pack full of presents, or of a waxen angel called the Christ-child. And it is just as well to date... more...

CHAPTER I. The birds were singing their best one spring morning, and that means a great deal, for they can sing down in the New Forest on a sunny morning in May, and there was quite a chorus of joy to welcome the Skipper and Dot as they went out through the iron gate at the bottom of the garden. The Skipper had on his last new suit of white duck, bound with blue, and his straw hat with the dark band... more...

Young Mrs. Herbert Cary picked up her work basket and slowly crossed the grass to a shady bench underneath the trees. She must go on with her task of planning a dress for Virgie. But the prospect of making her daughter something wearable out of the odds and ends of nothing was not a happy one. In fact, she was still poking through her basket and frowning thoughtfully when a childish voice came to her... more...

I. BELOW STAIRS. The children came home from school—Charles and Lucy. "I have a surprise for you in the kitchen," said their mother, Mrs. Van Buren. "No, take off your things first, then you may go down and see. Now don't laugh—a laugh that hurts anyone's feelings is so unkind—tip-toe too! No, Charlie, one at a time; let Lucy go first." Lucy tip-toed with eyes full of... more...

THROUGH THE FIELDS The sunniest place upon the hillside was the little pasture in which the old mare was grazing, moving slowly about and nipping at the short grass as if that which lay directly under her nose could not be nearly as choice as that which she could obtain by constant perambulation. A blithe voice awoke the echoes with a fragment of an old song. The mare looked up and gave a welcoming... more...

I. THIS WAY, AND THAT. The parlor blinds were shut, and all the windows of the third-story rooms were shaded; but the pantry window, looking out on a long low shed, such as city houses have to keep their wood in and to dry their clothes upon, was open; and out at this window had come two little girls, with quiet steps and hushed voices, and carried their books and crickets to the very further end,... more...

CHAPTER I. DYNEVOR CASTLE. "La-ha-hoo! la-ha-hoo!" Far down the widening valley, and up the wild, picturesque ravine, rang the strange but not unmusical call. It awoke the slumbering echoes of the still place, and a hundred voices seemed to take up the cry, and pass it on as from mouth to mouth. But the boy's quick ears were not to be deceived by the mocking voices of the spirits of... more...

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION Books have their fates and this one's has been curious. I wrote it between January and March 1916, when I was seventeen and a half years old and in camp at Berkhamsted with the Inns of Court O.T.C. I loathed it there, everything about it, the impersonal military machine, the monotonous routine of drills and musketry, the endless foot-slogging, the perpetual petty... more...