Lifestyles Books

On the east coast of England, there is a small hamlet surrounded by high sand-hills, with scarcely a blade of grass or even a low shrub to be seen in its neighbourhood. The only vegetable productions, indeed, which can flourish in that light soil, are the pale green rushes, whose roots serve to bind the sand together, and to prevent the high easterly winds, so constantly blowing on that coast,... more...

CHAPTER I. BEGINNING TO REMEMBER. Katie Clifford was a very bright child. She almost knew enough to keep out of fire and water, but not quite. She looked like other little girls, only so wise,—O, so very wise!—that you couldn't tell her any news about the earth, or the sun, moon, and stars, for she knew all about it "byfore." Her hair was soft and flying like corn-silk, and when the... more...

CHAPTER I. AN ARITHMETICAL PUZZLE. A sunny and a dark head, both bent over a much-befigured, much-besmeared slate, the small brows beneath the curls puckered,—the one in perplexity, the other with sympathy; opposite these two a third head whose carrotty hue betrayed it to be Jim's, although the face appertaining thereto was hidden from my view, as its owner, upon his hands and knees, also peered... more...

CHAPTER I. THE TELEGRAM. "A telegram for you, Andy!" said Arthur Bacon, as he entered the room ofAndy Grant in Penhurst Academy. "A telegram!" repeated Andy, in vague alarm, for the word suggested something urgent—probably bad news of some kind. He tore open the envelope and read the few words of the message: "Come home at once. Something has happened. "MOTHER." "What... more...

CHAPTER I. SAM'S NEW CLOTHES. "If I'm goin' into a office I'll have to buy some new clo'es," thoughtSam Barker. He was a boy of fifteen, who, for three years, had been drifting about the streets of New York, getting his living as he could; now blacking boots, now selling papers, now carrying bundles—"everything by turns, and nothing long." He was not a model... more...

In the present volume will be found twenty stories from early writers for children, the period being roughly 1790 to 1830, with three later and more sophisticated efforts added. Having so recently made remarks on the character of these old books—in the preface last year to Old-Fashioned Tales, a companion volume to this—I have very little to say now, except that I hope the selection will be found... more...

CHAPTER I. THE HOUSE IN THE LANE. It stood not very far from the corner—the corner where the lane turned off from the high-road. And it suited its name, or its name suited it. It was such a pretty, cosy-looking house, much larger really than it seemed at the first glance, for it spread out wonderfully at the back. It was red too—the out-jutting front, where the deep porch was, looking specially... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCING OUR HEROES. "Hip, hurrah! Hip, hurrah!" "Well, I declare; Mont Folsom, what is the matter with you?" "Matter? Nothing is the matter, Tom, only I'm going to a boarding school—just the best place on the face of the earth, too—Nautical Hall, on the seacoast." "Humph! I didn't know as how a boarding school was such a jolly place,"... more...

BABY TED."Where did you get those eyes so blue?""Out of the sky as I came through."Christmas week a good many years ago. Not an "old-fashioned" Christmas this year, for there was no snow or ice; the sky was clear and the air pure, but yet without the sharp, bracing clearness and purity that Master Jack Frost brings when he comes to see us in one of his nice, bright, sunny... more...

CHAPTER . MR. WITTLEWORTH GETS SHAVED. "Next gentleman!" said André Maggimore, one of the journeyman barbers in the extensive shaving saloon of Cutts & Stropmore, which was situated near the Plutonian temples of State Street, in the city of Boston. "Next gentleman!" repeated André, in tones as soft and feminine as those of a woman, when no one responded to his summons. "My... more...