Lifestyles Books

Chapter One. “There’ll be such a game directly. Just listen to old Dicksee.” I was very low-spirited, but, as the bright, good-looking lad at my side nudged me with his elbow, I turned from casting my eyes round the great bare oak-panelled room, with its long desks, to the kind of pulpit at the lower end, facing a bigger and more important-looking erection at the upper end, standing upon a broad... more...

THE TALLYHO "I never saw a gold mine in my life; and now I'm going to see one," cried Lucy, skipping along in advance of the others. It was quite a large party; the whole Dunlee family, with the two Sanfords,—Uncle James and Aunt Vi,—making ten in all, counting Maggie, the maid. They had alighted from the cars at a way-station, and were walking along the platform toward the tallyho... 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...

My early days at home. Brother Jack, a seaman’s bag over his shoulders, trudged sturdily ahead; father followed, carrying the oars, spars, sails, and other gear of the wherry, while as I toddled alongside him I held on with one hand to the skirt of his pea-jacket, and griped the boat-hook which had been given to my charge with the other. From the front of the well-known inn, the “Keppel’s... more...

CHAPTER I. NICK. Nicholas Ribsam was a comical fellow from his earliest babyhood, and had an original way of doing almost everything he undertook. When he became big enough to sit on the porch of the humble little home, where he was born, and stare with his great round eyes at the world as it went by, that world, whether on horseback, in carriage, or on foot, was sure to smile at the funny-looking... more...

THE LITTLE LANDING. A short distance from where Rollo lives, there is a small, but very pleasant house, just under the hill, where you go down to the stone bridge leading over the brook. There is a noble large apple tree on one side of the house, which bears a beautiful, sweet, and mellow kind of apple, called golden pippins. A great many other trees and flowers are around the house, and in the little... more...

The Dragon off the Bonins—A conversation between Tom Rogers and Archie Gordon—Gerald Desmond on the sick-list—Threatenings of a typhoon—It strikes the ship—She runs before it—The ship hove to—The bowsprit carried away—A marine Will-o’-the-wisp—Enter a bay in one of the Bonin Islands—Tom, Gerald, and Billy get leave to visit the shore—A beautiful cavern—Land on the... more...

A   POMPOUS old gander who lived in a barn-yard thought himself wiser than the rest of the creatures, and so decided to instruct them.He called together all the fowls in the barn-yard, and the pigeons off the barn-roof, and told them to listen to him. They gathered around and listened very earnestly, for they thought they would learn a great deal of wisdom. "The first thing for you to learn,"... more...

THE BROWNIES. A little girl sat sewing and crying on a garden seat. She had fair floating hair, which the breeze blew into her eyes, and between the cloud of hair, and the mist of tears, she could not see her work very clearly. She neither tied up her locks, nor dried her eyes, however; for when one is miserable, one may as well be completely so. "What is the matter?" said the Doctor, who was a... more...

CHAPTER I. IN THE SPRING OF 1857. All through India, with its fanatical population five times as great as that of England, the rumblings of the coming uprising had been heard for months. The disaffection had been spreading and taking root. The emissaries of the arch-plotters had passed back and forth almost from end to end of the vast empire, with their messages of hatred and appeal. The people were... more...