INTRODUCTION The successful garden has a permanent basis. There must be some flowers that appear year after year, whose position is fixed and whose appearance can be counted on. The group classed as perennials occupies this position and about flowers of this class is arranged all the various array of annuals and bulbs. These last act as reinforcements in rounding out the garden scheme. Perennials are... more...

CHAPTER I. AT THE SIGN OF THE SHIP. On a September evening, before the setting of the sun, a man entered the tavern of the Ship in Thursley, with a baby under his arm. The tavern sign, rudely painted, bore, besides a presentment of a vessel, the inscription on one side of the board:—   "Now before the hill you climb,   Come and drink good ale and wine." On the other side of the board the... more...

I. THE SAUVIATS In the lower town of Limoges, at the corner of the rue de la Vieille-Poste and the rue de la Cite might have been seen, a generation ago, one of those shops which were scarcely changed from the period of the middle-ages. Large tiles seamed with a thousand cracks lay on the soil itself, which was damp in places, and would have tripped up those who failed to observe the hollows and ridges... more...

  didn't much like the way Max—that's the guy who trained me—fastened the broad leather straps over my body. There was a smell of nervous excitement in the air and Max's hand trembled as he fumbled with the buckles. Thinking back on it, the whole morning had been like that. Nervous and excited. Right after breakfast, Max had given me a good bath and loaded me in the car. I always... more...

THERE were no two horses to be seen winding along the base of a precipitous hill; and there were no dark-looking riders on those horses which were not to be seen; and it wasn't at the close of a dusky autumn evening; and the setting sun didn't gild, with his departing rays, the steep summit of the mountain tops; and the gloomy cry of the owl was not to be heard from the depths of a... more...

VOCES POPULI. IN A FOG.—A REMINISCENCE OF THE PAST MONTH. SCENE—Main Thoroughfare near Hyde Park. Time 8 P.M. Nothing visible anywhere, but very much audible; horses slipping and plunging, wheels grinding, crashes, jolts, and English as she is spoke on such occasions. Mrs. Flusters (who is seated in a brougham with her husband, on their way to dine with some friends in Cromwell Road). We shall be... more...

PREFACE A collection of about 2000 questions asked by children forms the foundation on which this book is built. Rather than decide what it is that children ought to know, or what knowledge could best be fitted into some educational theory, an attempt was made to find out what children want to know. The obvious way to discover this was to let them ask questions. The questions collected were asked by... more...

The prologue   THe prudent problems / & the noble werkes Of the gentyll poetes in olde antyquyte Vnto this day hath made famous clerkes For the poetes Wrote nothynge in vanyte But grounded them on good moralyte Encensynge out the fayre dulcet fume Our langage rude to exyle and consume The ryght eloquent poete and monke of bery Made many fayre bookes / as it is probable From ydle derkenes / to... more...

KIDD'S TREASURE Captain Kidd is the most ubiquitous gentleman in history. If his earnings in the gentle craft of piracy were frugally husbanded, he has possibly left some pots of money in holes in the ground between Key West and Halifax. The belief that large deposits of gold were made at Gardiner's Island, Dunderberg, Cro' Nest, New York City, Coney Island, Ipswich, the marshes back of... more...

It wanted but five minutes to twelve in Miss Fitch's schoolroom, and a general restlessness showed that her scholars were aware of the fact. Some of the girls had closed their books, and were putting their desks to rights, with a good deal of unnecessary fuss, keeping an eye on the clock meanwhile. The boys wore the air of dogs who see their master coming to untie them; they jumped and quivered,... more...