CHAPTER I. UNDER THE CEDAR TREE. "There are twelve months throughout the year,From January to December,And the primest month of all the twelveIs the merry month of September!Then apples so redHang overhead,And nuts, ripe-brown,Come showering downIn the bountiful days of September!" Mary Howitt. It was pleasant under the shade of the huge cedar tree on the lawn at Firgrove that golden Sunday afternoon. It was autumn, really and truly, going... more...

CHAPTER I THE AUNTS 'Child, be mother to this child.'—E. B. BROWNING.   t was seven o'clock on an autumn morning nearly a hundred years ago. A misty October morning, when the meadows looked grey with the heavy dew, and the sky was only just beginning to show pale blue through the haze which veiled it. There was a certain little hamlet, just a few cottages clustered together beside a country road, where the world seemed hardly yet... more...

CHAPTER I I GO ON AN ERRAND A fierce gust of wind and rain struck the windows, and Jessie, on her way to the breakfast table, dish in hand, paused to listen. “Raining again!” she exclaimed, setting the dish down emphatically. “It seems to me that it has rained every day this spring. When it hasn’t poured here in the valley, it has more than made up for it in the mountains.” “You are more than half... more...

Uncle Noah's Christmas Inspiration I The twilight of a Christmas Eve, gray with the portent of coming snow, crept slowly over the old plantation of Brierwood, softening the outlines of a decrepit house still rearing its roof in massive dignity and a tumbledown barn flanked by barren fields. A quiet melancholy hovered about the old house as if it brooded over a host of bygone Yuletides alive with the shouts of merry negroes and the jingle of... 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 with interest at the slate. Wanderer,... more...

CHAPTER I. UNDER THE LINDENS. The daily promenaders who moved slowly back and forth every afternoon under the shade of the lindens on the eastern side of the pretty town of Karlsruhe were very much interested in the appearance of two persons who had lately joined their ranks. It was beyond doubt that the man was very ill. He could only move slowly and it was touching to see the care with which his little companion tried to make herself useful... more...

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE THIRD KITTEN   Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, came walking slowly up the front path that led to his hollow-stump bungalow. He was limping a little on his red, white and blue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, had gnawed for him out of a corn-stalk. “Well, I’m glad to be home again,” said the rabbit uncle, sitting... more...

STORY I UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE WILLOW TREE "Well, it's all settled!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one day, as he hopped up the steps of his hollow stump bungalow where Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, his muskrat lady housekeeper, was fanning herself with a cabbage leaf tied to her tail. "It's all settled." "What is?" asked Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "You don't mean to tell me anything has happened to you?" and she looked quite... more...

UNCLE WIGGILY STARTS OFF Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, hopped out of bed one morning and started to go to the window, to see if the sun was shining. But, no sooner had he stepped on the floor, than he cried out: "Oh! Ouch! Oh, dear me and a potato pancake! Oh, I believe I stepped on a tack! Sammie Littletail must have left it there! How careless of him!" You see this was the same Uncle Wiggily, of whom I have told you... more...

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE RED SQUIRREL You know when Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old rabbit gentleman, started out to look for his fortune, he had to travel many weary miles, and many adventures happened to him. Some of those adventures I have told you in the book just before this one, and now I am going to tell you about his travels when he hoped to find a lot of money, so he would be rich. One day, as I told you in the last story in the other... more...