Lifestyles Books

MARY'S MEADOW. CHAPTER I. Mother is always trying to make us love our neighbors as ourselves. She does so despise us for greediness, or grudging, or snatching, or not sharing what we have got, or taking the best and leaving the rest, or helping ourselves first, or pushing forward, or praising Number One, or being Dogs in the Manger, or anything selfish. And we cannot bear her to despise us! We... more...

THE SETTING OUT. One pleasant morning in the autumn, when Rollo was about five years old, he was sitting on the platform, behind his father's house, playing. He had a hammer and nails, and some small pieces of board. He was trying to make a box. He hammered and hammered, and presently he dropped his work down and said, fretfully, "O dear me!" "What is the matter, Rollo?" said... more...

CHAPTER 1 "How I wish I had lived hundreds of years ago, when the Vikings lived; it must have been prime!" He was a Shetland boy of fifteen who so spoke, and he was addressing his young sister of eleven. They were sitting on a low crag by the shore, dangling their feet over the water, which flowed clear and bright within a short distance of their toes. They were looking out upon a grand stretch... more...

CHAPTER I. RUPERT'S LECTURES—THE OLD YELLOW LEATHER BOOK. We were very happy—I, Rupert, Henrietta, and Baby Cecil. The only thing we found fault with in our lives was that there were so few events in them. It was particularly provoking, because we were so well prepared for events—any events. Rupert prepared us. He had found a fat old book in the garret, bound in yellow leather, at the end of... more...

CHAPTER I. Low stirrings in the leaves, before the windWakes all the green strings of the forest lyre.LOWELL. The light of an early Spring morning, shining fair on upland and lowland, promised a good day for the farmer's work. And where a film of thin smoke stole up over the tree-tops, into the sunshine which had not yet got so low, there stood the farmer's house. It was a little brown house,... 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...

Do you know what envy means? I hope you have never felt it, for it is a very wicked feeling. It is being sorry when another has any good thing. Perhaps you will know better what the word means when you have read my story; and I hope it will help you to keep the feeling away from your own heart. Not far from Mr. Lee's house, in Riverdale, lived a man by the name of Green. He was the agent of one of... more...

“Boat on the weather bow, sir!” shouted the lookout on the top-gallant forecastle of the Young America. “Starboard!” replied Judson, the officer of the deck, as he discovered the boat, which was drifting into the track of the ship. “Starboard, sir!” responded the quartermaster in charge of the wheel. “Steady!” added the officer. “Steady, sir,” repeated the quartermaster. By this... more...

I.  HIGH AND DRY. A gallant ship, some three feet in length, with full equipment of white sails and sturdy masts, rigging, pennon, and figurehead; but it had never seen the sea—never!  It had “cast anchor” nearly a year before my story begins in the Leslies’ nursery—a very pleasant, airy room, with nice pictures on the wall and a good many toys scattered about, but certainly not the very... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ESCAPE. The summer sun blazed down scorchingly on the white road, on the wide stretch of moorland in the distance, and on the little coppice which grew not far from the road. The only shady spot for miles, it seemed, was that one under the trees in the little coppice, where the caravan stood; but even there the heat was stifling, and the smell of hot blistering varnish mingled with the... more...