PROLOGUE. [To be skipped by children if they like.] It was a very silent old house. Outside, the front windows stared gravely down upon the tidy drive with its rhododendron shrubberies, the well-kept lawn with the triangular beds, and the belt of gloomy fir trees edging the high brick wall that ran along the public road. The windows were always draped and curtained, and opened one foot at the top with monotonous regularity. No one was ever... more...

The wind was whistling through the old lime and maple trees opposite my windows, the snow was sweeping down the street, and the sky was black as a December sky can possibly be here in Christiania. I was in just as black a mood. It was Christmas Eve,—the first I was to spend away from the cosey fireside of my home. I had lately received my officer's commission, and had hoped that I should have gladdened my aged parents with my presence... more...

"SEQUIL" OR THINGS WHITCH AINT FINISHED IN THE FIRST Sept. 7, 186- Gosh, what do you think, last nite father and mother and me and Keene and Cele and aunt Sarah was sitting at supper when father, he sed i am a going to read your diry tonite. Gosh i was scart for i hadent wrote ennything in it for a long time. so after supper i went over to mister Watsons and asked him if he dident want to see father and he sed he wood and i went home and told... more...

THE HISTORY OFAAPPLE PIE.   A Apple Pie. B bit it. C cut it. A Apple Pie. B Bit it. C Cut it. D dealt it. E eat it. F fought for it. D Dealt it. E Eat it. F Fought for it. G got it. H hid it. J joined it. G Got it. H Hid it. J Joined it.  K kept it. L longed for it. M mourned for it. K Kept it. L Longed for it. M Mourned for it.  N nodded at it. O... more...

A Big Temptation By L. T. Meade. Netty stood on the doorstep of a rickety old house and nursed the baby. She was ten years old and had the perfectly white face of a child who had never felt any fresher air than that which blows in a London court. It is true that the year before she had gone with her brother Ben into the country. The Ladies' Committee of the Holiday Fund had arranged the matter, and Netty and Ben had gone away. They had spent... more...

A BIT OF SUNSHINE. "Mam-ma," said Kate, as she stood at the door, which she had o-pened to let puss in, "may I not go out and play? the clouds are all gone and the sun shines bright and warm."   "But the grass must be quite soaked af-ter all the rain," said mam-ma. "I will tell you what to do; run to pa-pa, and ask him if he will not take us to drive." Pa-pa was just go-ing out, and had his hat in his hand, but he sat down at once to... more...

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CHAPTER I THE CROW’S NEST “You never told me how you happened to name her Blythe.” The two old friends, Mr. John DeWitt and Mrs. Halliday, were reclining side by side in their steamer-chairs, lulled into a quiescent mood by the gentle, scarcely perceptible, motion of the vessel. It was an exertion to speak, and Mrs. Halliday replied evasively, “Do you like the name?” “For Blythe,—yes. But I... more...

EARLIEST EXPERIENCES. I call it a Boy's Town because I wish it to appear to the reader as a town appears to a boy from his third to his eleventh year, when he seldom, if ever, catches a glimpse of life much higher than the middle of a man, and has the most distorted and mistaken views of most things. He may then indeed look up to the sky, and see heaven open, and angels ascending and descending; but he can only grope about on the earth, and he... more...

MARLEY'S GHOST. Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't... more...