Lifestyles Books

Down in the Country. “Here, I say, Josh, such a game!” “What is it?” The first speaker pointed down the gorge, tried to utter words, but began to choke with laughter, pointed again, and then stood stamping his feet, and wiping his eyes. “Well,” cried the other, addressed as Josh, “what is it? Don’t stand pointing there like an old finger-post! I can’t see anything.”... more...

Dethroned by Fire and Water—A Tale of the Southern Hemisphere. The Open Boat. Early one morning, in the year 18 hundred and something, the great Southern Ocean was in one of its calmest moods, insomuch that the cloudlets in the blue vault above were reflected with almost perfect fidelity in the blue hemisphere below, and it was barely possible to discern the dividing-line between water and sky. The... more...

Off at last! “Ahoy, there! All on board?” “Yes; all right.” “Got all your tackle?” “I think so.” “Haven’t forgotten your cartridges!” “No; here they are.” “I’ll be bound to say you’ve forgotten something. Yes: fishing-tackle?” “That we haven’t, Mr Wilson,” said a fresh voice, that of a bright-looking lad of sixteen, as he rose up in the long boat lying by the... more...

Penelope’s Plan. Penelope Hawthorne sat in the school-room window-seat at Easney Vicarage, one afternoon, looking very gravely out at the garden. She had sat there for some time, with her hands in her lap and a little troubled frown on her forehead, and anyone who knew her well would have guessed at once that she was thinking over a “plan.” Penelope was just thirteen years old, the eldest of the... more...

Why I went to my Uncle’s. “I don’t know what to do with him. I never saw such a boy—a miserable little coward, always in mischief and doing things he ought not to do, and running about the place with his whims and fads. I wish you’d send him right away, I do.” My aunt went out of the room, and I can’t say she banged the door, but she shut it very hard, leaving me and my uncle face to face... more...

THE RIDE. When I was a child I used to glance at the first sentence in a new book to see whether it looked interesting. If it began, "There was once a boy, who lived in a fine house," I was encouraged to go on. Now I wish to make these little books very interesting to my young readers. I want to have the words so simple that they can be read and not skipped over, and at the same time my object... more...

ROSES AND ROSES. TOLD BY JACK. WHEN papa said positively that only Phil could go to college, we all felt so badly for Felix that we held a council in the schoolroom that very afternoon. At least, six of us did; the other four had been ruled out by Felix, who declared that "kids were not allowed in council." Paul and Mädel didn't mind so much,—they're the twins, they're only... more...

Wreck of Winstanley’s Lighthouse. “At mischief again, of course: always at it.” Mrs Potter said this angrily, and with much emphasis, as she seized her son by the arm and dragged him out of a pool of dirty water, into which he had tumbled. “Always at mischief of one sort or another, he is,” continued Mrs Potter, with increasing wrath, “morning, noon, and night—he is; tumblin’ about... more...

CHAPTER I. The beginning—My early life and character—I thirst for adventure in foreign lands and go to sea. Roving has always been, and still is, my ruling passion, the joy of my heart, the very sunshine of my existence.  In childhood, in boyhood, and in man’s estate, I have been a rover; not a mere rambler among the woody glens and upon the hill-tops of my own native land, but an enthusiastic... 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...