Family Books

CHAPTER I ASTOUNDING NEWS FROM THE SHORE "This is most astounding news!" exclaimed Captain Horatio Passford. It was on the deck of the magnificent steam-yacht Bellevite, of which he was the owner; and with the newspaper, in which he had read only a few of the many head-lines, still in his hand, he rushed furiously across the deck, in a state of the most intense agitation. It would take more... more...

An Independent Young Gentleman. “I want do d’an’ma!” This sudden and unexpected exclamation, uttered as it was in a shrill little voice like that of a piping bullfinch, and coming from nowhere in particular, as far as he could make out, for he had fancied himself all alone on the platform, made the tall railway porter almost jump out of his skin, as he expressed it, startling him out of his... more...

FOUR YEARS OLD"I was four yesterday; when I'm quite oldI'll have a cricket-ball made of pure gold;I'll never stand up to show that I'm grown;I'll go at liberty upstairs or down."He trotted upstairs. Perhaps trotting is not quite the right word, but I can't find a better. It wasn't at all like a horse or pony trotting, for he went one foot at a time, right foot... more...

CHAPTER I THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME The Bobbsey twins were very busy that morning. They were all seated around the dining-room table, making houses and furnishing them. The houses were being made out of pasteboard shoe boxes, and had square holes cut in them for doors, and other long holes for windows, and had pasteboard chairs and tables, and bits of dress goods for carpets and rugs, and bits of... more...

CHAPTER I. Up and down, to and fro, backwards and for wards over the sunny garden the butterflies, white, sulphur, and brown, flitted and fluttered, lightly poising on currant-bush or flower, loving life as they basked in the sunshine; and Penelope lay and watched them. What did it matter to them that the garden was neglected, the grass rank and uncut, the currant-bushes barren from neglect, the lilacs... more...

A Supplanter 'For troubles wrought of men,Patience is hard.'—J. Ingelow. The firelight shone upon a comfortably-furnished drawing-room in one of the quiet London squares, and upon four girlish figures grouped around a small tea-table. Agatha Dane, the eldest, sat back in her chair with a little wrinkle of perplexity upon her usually placid brow. Rather plump and short of stature, with no... more...

Prehistoric Man. This is a story about things that happened ages and ages ago, before any of us were born, or our great-great-grandfathers either, for that matter. It was so very long ago that there were no houses, or farms, or roads from one place to another, and there was not a single city, or a town, or even a village in the whole earth. There was just the great, round world, all fresh and new, and... more...

MERRY life had Dame Desley and her four children led in their rural home. The sound of their cheerful voices, the patter of their little feet, the laugh, the shout, and the song, had been heard from morning till night. I will not stop to tell of all the daisy-chains and cowslip-balls made by the children under the big elm-tree that grew on their mother's lawn; or how they gathered ripe... more...

CHAPTER I UNCLE TOBY'S LETTER "What you going to put on your ship, Ted?" "Oh, swords and guns and gunpowder and soldiers. What you going to load on your ship, Jan?" "Oranges and lemons and pineapples," answered the little girl, who was playing with her brother at sailing boats in the brook that ran back of the house. "And maybe I'll have gold and diamonds and... more...

THE CURLYTOPS AND THEIR PLAYMATES CHAPTER I "When do you s'pose it'll come, Teddy?" "Oh, pretty soon now, I guess. We're all ready for it when it does come," and Ted Martin glanced from where he sat over toward a slanting hill made of several long boards nailed to some tall packing boxes. The boxes were piled high at one end, and on top was a little platform, reached by... more...