Hector Malot - "Conscience, v2"

Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v12: Monks of Catalonia & The Cradle"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1570 72"

Louis Stone - "Jonah"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: The Junior Classics Volume 8

S >> Selected and arranged by William Patten >> The Junior Classics Volume 8




"No, we'll have to write," said Edmund; "I'll do it."

But Oscar shook his head. "No, Ned, that ain't fair. I'm the most
to blame and I ought to do it. Besides _you_ wouldn't say it
was my fault."

Then the last barrier of Edmund's pride broke down. "Don't,"
he cried again. "I tell you it's I'm to blame, not you. And--
and--Oscar, I've been very mean to you all along"--

"No, you haven't," said Oscar promptly; "it was me bullying you
in the first place made all the trouble. Aunt Nora told me maybe you
wouldn't be friends for a while, and she told me all about the mad
dog and I thought you were a pretty nice boy and I wished you would
like me, but you wouldn't, so I pretended I didn't care. But I did.
It's lonesome travelling around with a feller that's mad with you
all the time."

Edmund swallowed a little lump in his throat. "If you'll make up
with me, now, I'll never be mad with you again," said he, holding
out his hand.

Oscar clasped it across the bed over the mangled remains of the
too-adventurous Marcus Aurelius, whose adventures, thus, were not
quite in vain.

Edmund kept his word. Indeed, he was surprised to find how easy it
was to like Oscar; and Nora's prediction was fulfilled. The two
boys were very happy in Europe; but Edmund never forgot Marcus. He
told the truth to Nora and she persuaded Mrs. Morris to deal gently
with Oscar. He went to the races, after all. Previously Edmund had
written the whole story to Lady Margaret in a letter which she read
with smiles and tears. The postscript was by Oscar. It ran as
follows:


DEER LADY MARGARET:--

Ned wont let me see his letter but I'm sure he
took all the blame on himself becaws he always dose
but it was me too blame and not him becaws I
pined the snake in my coat pocket becaws I was
affraid to handel it and ran off too the punch
and gudy show and it got out and the head water
killed it I didn't give him any tip when he went
away I'm very sorry and I'm sorry I kicked the
mormossits but they bit my legs No more at pressent
from your obedient servent too comand.

OSCAR T. W----.

It only remains to say that Marcus Aurelius is back home, at Lady
Margaret's; but she never makes a bracelet of him, now; most
ingeniously mended and stuffed, he abides perpetually in a glass
case; and she describes his perfections and his lamentable end with
tears in her eyes.



ANNA AND THE RATTLER

By Mrs. Cornell

A voice rose wrathfully in the back yard, "Wee-lie! What iss this?
You fell in the pig trough? Come here, that I beat you! Come here,
I say!"

Willie did not accept the invitation. A shrill whimpering was his
sole response. Twelve-year-old Anna stepped to the kitchen door,
peering round the sash. "Pa's scolding Willie," she announced to
her mother.

The storm continued to rage in the back yard.

"Shust look at your clothes! Go now! To the creek wit' you! Come
_not_ in the house until you are cleaned. Ach!"

Ex-Sea-Captain Schulz, now prune-grower in the mountain boundary
west of Santa Clara Valley, turned in at the kitchen door.

"I don't know what to do wit' the boy. Go, mine Anna, get the lad a
clean shirt, and take it down to the creek."

On Anna's return from the bathing pool she said softly to her
mother, "Willie isn't at the creek. Perhaps he has run off."

"O child, don't bother me about Willie! He'll run back again fast
enough, he's that scared of the mountains and the trees."

Anna was conscious of an undercurrent of sympathy with the forlorn
waif her father had brought from the city some months before. The
very love and awe with which the mountains filled her imaginative
soul gave her comprehension of the fear with which they imbued the
dull-witted offspring of San Francisco gutters.

Willie did not return all that long, August day. The captain and
his American wife spread and dipped prunes busily on the hot south
slope. The box-laden wagon rolled by at intervals. Household duties
went helter-skelter under Anna's management. At six o'clock Mrs.
Schulz, hot and tired, wakened her lazy little daughter,
outstretched beneath the hollyhocks and poppies in the small front
garden.

"For gracious sake, Anna! Hurry! You've not done the dinner
dishes!"

"Have the cows come?" Anna asked, resourcefully.

"Land! If I hadn't forgotten about Willie! Come--hurry! You'll have
to go for the cows. I'll wash the dishes."

Anna felt quite in the mood to go for the cows. It meant an hour or
so of patting barefooted and bare headed along the soft dust of the
road, or over the slippery brown grass of the mountain pastures,
with tall pines on every hand and a gold-blue sky above.

She mused about the missing Willie. Had he carried out his
occasional threat to run away?

"The road is open, go when you like," was her father's one reply to
such futile outbursts. But they well knew the road was not open to
Willie. The six mountain miles intervening between their ranch and
the station formed an impassable barrier to his timorous soul.

"I guess he's afraid of the bigness of things," Anna concluded.
"And he's got no call to run away. Papa threatens him, but he's
never laid hand on him yet. I s'pose it's on account of the bath he
ran away."

There was no Willie at the bathing-pool. The checked gingham shirt
fluttered lonesomely where she had that morning placed it.

Some minutes later, shuffling deliciously among the dappled leaves
of a hill trail, she sprang aside in quick dismay.

"Goodness!" What had seemed to be a bunch of dry leaves and grass
coiled swiftly, with the rattling whir that goes straight to the
fear center of the human heart. In a flash Anna's hands were full
of rocks. The first article in every California mountain child's
education is to destroy every rattlesnake that comes in sight. Anna
dodged the first strike of the snake, and before he could get
nearer she began a fusillade of such efficiency that the reptile
enemy sought retreat.

Then Anna was privileged to witness a strange thing--a very strange
thing; so unusual, in fact, that when reported to the head of the
zoological department of the State university that conservative
gentleman would have given the story little credence had it not
been for the unimpeachable authority of a celebrated naturalist,
who had reported it as occasionally occurring among the large,
much-to-be-dreaded species of the Eastern States--the _Crotalus
horrible_, or banded rattler.

To Anna's unutterable surprise, the snake turned for refuge to a
near-by oak-tree. Perhaps he came against it unintentionally, as
the rattlesnake sees badly by daylight. At any rate, he reared his
head against it much as he would have done in ascending the side of
a sunny boulder in the early days of his chilled awakening from his
winter sleep.

He writhed spirally but slowly up its rough trunk, which seemed
from eighteen to twenty inches in circumference. When the rocks
ceased flying he would halt, evidently not half-liking his task, to
wave his bluntly triangular head in the direction where the moving
shadow indicated to his blurred vision the position of his enemy.
But on the resumption of active hostilities, he would begin again
his painful ascent.

"Ow-w-w-ch!" sounded a howl from above.

Looking up at the cry, Anna discerned among the clustering leaves
of the black oak a huddled figure, with raccoon-like eyes, peering
down at the mounting snake, to escape from which he had, in fact,
climbed the tree.

"Willie," she shouted, "jump! The snake's coming! Jump!"

"Ow-w-w-ch!" he continued to wail.

The snake stopped, confused, craning its head upward at the new
complication, then downward at its known adversary. Its hesitation
would make Willie's escape practicable, if he could conquer his
crazy fear.

"Willie, break off a limb--beat it back! I can run!"

The snake undulated a few inches farther. The reiterated cry was
Willie's only response. Anna's quick eye saw another chance.

"There's that big limb on the redwood. You can reach it. Swing
across. It's easy. You must!" stamping. "O Willie, do it! Do it!"

Her sailor father had often reproved Anna for her delight in
climbing and swinging from tree to tree, by means of her long arms
and practised hands.

"It iss not goodt for you to be a monkey, mine Anna," he would say.
"Little girls need nefer to go to the masthead. Thou hast no call
to be a sailor. Be only a brave _kindchen_, and help our goodt
mother wit' the dishes."

His admonition would dissolve in an unrestrained roar of laughter
as she wickedly "shinned" up the porch post to a coign of vantage
on the vine-covered roof.

But she could not climb the tree where the snake still clung. There
was the neighboring redwood, huge-girthed, smooth-boled, with limbs
out of reach, yet with the lowest bough almost touching the limb on
which Willie crouched, mechanically clutching the body of the tree,
but dumb and stupefied with the horror of his situation.

Anna hurriedly piled large rocks under a thick, broken branch-stump
of the redwood, which was at least eight feet from the ground. Four
times she leaped upward and fell back, wounding her tough little
feet. She noticed blood-stains on the rocks as she heaped them with
a broader base for her fifth attempt. The snake rested, waving his
head downward as if in query. Fortunately, he was full and
sluggish.

Once more Anna crouched and shot upward. Her right hand caught the
projecting stump, her left easily followed. Clasping the decreasing
trunk of the tree with her slim, muscular legs, hanging also by her
hands, she dropped her head backward to take observation. The snake
hung out, also, toward her, from his tree, then resumed his
deliberate climbing. Evidently the task was neither easy nor to his
liking.

Anna hitched breathlessly up toward the coveted limb. Reaching it,
she took out her jack-knife,--inseparable companion,--scientifically
cut a wedge from a short limb above her, and broke off the weakened
branch. Recovering her balance, she reached out with this flexible
club, but could not touch the snake, now roused to accelerated
activity.

Holding her weapon between her teeth, Anna worked her way nearly to
the end of her tough support. Throwing out her right hand, she was
able to catch the big limb, at the base of which Willie, almost
insensible, still huddled. Then she swung, pendulum-like, by her
hands, increasing her momentum. At the right moment she released
the redwood bough and flung her light body full upon the young oak.
Grasping the limb with both hands, she hauled herself up beside the
terrified boy.

The snake, shaken by the tumult above, wavered and stopped. As a
rule, a rattlesnake, conscious of his defense, makes a good fight;
but here the conditions were unusual and confusing. On level
ground, where he could have coiled, and where his sensitive under
surface could have slid comfortably over smooth earth, he would not
have shirked combat when cornered. Now, with his enemy mysteriously
above, his one idea seemed to be escape.

Willie jabbered an idiotic welcome.

"He can't strike until he gets clear here," Anna reassured him. "He
can't coil."

Her rapid blows still further dismayed her antagonist. He bit
viciously at the stick, touching it more than once; for the
rattler's strike is deadly swift, despite his languid locomotion.

At last Anna, settling herself firmly on the limb, raised her club
with both hands and delivered a slashing blow on the neck of her
foe, breaking, as they afterward found, his vertebral column.

The darting head hung limp; a progressive loosening ran through the
mottled coils; there was a slight rasping sound, a thud, and then a
whitish heap on the ground, which Anna cleared when, swinging down
by her hands to a safe distance, she leaped lightly to the ground.

Willie followed, dazed and fearful. He helped round up the cows,
casting furtive glances ahead and on each side at every footstep.
Before entering the house, he slunk, although still agonized with
fear, through the golden twilight to the abhorred bathing-pool and
the languidly fluttering cross-bars of the repudiated gingham
shirt.

But Anna, too ill for supper, crept into her father's arms, where
he sat on the vine-darkened veranda, and fell asleep on his
shoulder.

"Ach, mine Anna," the captain said, tenderly, "it iss sometimes
goodt for little girls to make themselves to be sailors!"



THE BUTTERFLY'S CHILDREN

By Mrs. Alfred Gatty

"Let me hire you as a nurse for my poor children," said a Butterfly
to a quiet Caterpillar, who was strolling along a cabbage-leaf in
her odd lumbering way. "See these little eggs," continued the
Butterfly; "I don't know how long it will be before they come to
life, and I feel very sick and poorly, and if I should die, who
will take care of my baby Butterflies when I am gone? Will
_you_, kind, mild, green Caterpillar? But you must mind what
you give them to eat, Caterpillar!--they cannot, of course, live on
_your_ rough food. You must give them early dew, and honey
from the flowers, and you must let them fly about only a little way
at first; for, of course, one can't expect them to use their wings
properly all at once. Dear me! it is a sad pity you cannot fly
yourself. But I have no time to look for another nurse now, so you
will do your best, I hope. Dear! dear! I cannot think what made me
come and lay my eggs on a cabbage-leaf! What a place for young
Butterflies to be born upon! Still you will be kind, will you not,
to the poor little ones? Here, take this gold-dust from my wings as
a reward. Oh, how dizzy I am! Caterpillar! you will remember about
the food--"

And with these words the Butterfly drooped her wings and died; and
the green Caterpillar, who had not had the opportunity of even
saying Yes or No to the request, was left standing alone by the
side of the Butterfly's eggs.

"A pretty nurse she has chosen, indeed, poor lady!" exclaimed she,
"and a pretty business I have in hand! Why, her senses must have
left her or she never would have asked a poor crawling creature
like me to bring up her dainty little ones! Much they'll mind me,
truly, when they feel the gay wings on their backs, and can fly
away out of my sight whenever they choose!"

However, there lay the eggs on the cabbage-leaf; and the green
Caterpillar had a kind heart, so she resolved to do her best. But
she got no sleep that night, she was so very anxious. She made her
back quite ache with walking all night round her young charges, for
fear any harm should happen to them; and in the morning says she to
herself--

"Two heads are better than one. I will consult some wise animal
upon the matter, and get advice. How should a poor crawling creature
like me know what to do without asking my betters?"

But still there was a difficulty--whom should the Caterpillar
consult? There was the shaggy Dog who sometimes came into the
garden. But he was so rough!--he would most likely whisk all the
eggs off the cabbage-leaf with one brush of his tail. There was the
Tom Cat, to be sure, who would sometimes sit at the foot of the
apple-tree, basking himself and warming his fur in the sunshine;
but he was so selfish and indifferent! "I wonder which is the
wisest of all the animals I know," sighed the Caterpillar, in great
distress; and then she thought, and thought, till at last she
thought of the Lark; and she fancied that because he went up so
high, and nobody knew where he went to, he must be very clever, and
know a great deal, for to go up very high (which _she_ could
never do), was the Caterpillar's idea of perfect glory.

Now in the neighbouring corn-field their lived a Lark, and the
Caterpillar sent a message to him, to beg him to come and talk to
her, and when he came she told him all her difficulties, and asked
him what she was to do to feed and rear the little creatures so
different from herself.

"Perhaps you will be able to inquire and hear something about it
next time you go up high," observed the Caterpillar, timidly.

The Lark said, "Perhaps he should;" but he did not satisfy her
curiosity any further. Soon afterwards, however, he went singing
upwards into the bright, blue sky. By degrees his voice died away
in the distance, till the green Caterpillar could not hear a sound.
So she resumed her walk round the Butterfly's eggs, nibbling a bit
of the cabbage-leaf now and then as she moved along.

"What a time the Lark has been gone!" she cried, at last. "I wonder
where he is just now! I would give all my legs to know!" And the
green Caterpillar took another turn round the Butterfly's eggs.

At last the Lark's voice began to be heard again. The Caterpillar
almost jumped for joy, and it was not long before she saw her
friend descend with hushed note to the cabbage bed.

"News, news, glorious news, friend Caterpillar!" sang the Lark;
"but the worst of it is, you won't believe me!"

"I believe everything I am told," observed the Caterpillar,
hastily.

"Well, then, first of all, I will tell you what these little
creatures are to eat. What do you think it is to be? Guess!"

"Dew, and the honey out of flowers, I am afraid," sighed the
Caterpillar.

"No such thing, old lady! Something simpler than that. Something
that _you_ can get at quite easily."

"I can get at nothing quite easily but cabbage-leaves," murmured
the Caterpillar, in distress.

"Excellent! my good friend," cried the Lark, exultingly; "you have
found it out. You are to feed them with cabbage-leaves."

_"Never!"_ said the Caterpillar, indignantly. "It was their
dying mother's last request that I should do no such thing."

"Their dying mother knew nothing about the matter," persisted the
lark; "but why do you ask me, and then disbelieve what I say? You
have neither faith nor trust."

"Oh, I believe everything I am told," said the Caterpillar.

"Nay, but you do not," replied the Lark; "you won't believe me even
about the food, and yet that is but a beginning of what I have to
tell you. Why, Caterpillar, what do you think those little eggs
will turn out to be?"

"Butterflies, to be sure," said the Caterpillar.

"_Caterpillars!_" sang the Lark; "and you'll find it out in
time;" and the Lark flew away, for he did not want to stay and
contest the point with his friend.

"I thought the Lark had been wise and kind," observed the mild
green Caterpillar, once more beginning to walk around the eggs,
"but I find that he is foolish and saucy instead. Perhaps he went
up _too_ high this time. I still wonder whom he sees, and what
he does up yonder."

"I would tell you if you would believe me," sang the Lark,
descending once more.

"I believe everything I am told," reiterated the Caterpillar, with
as grave a face as if it were a fact.

"Then I'll tell you something else," cried the Lark; "for the best
of my news remains behind. _You will one day be a Butterfly
yourself_."

"Wretched bird!" exclaimed the Caterpillar, "you jest with my
inferiority--now you are cruel as well as foolish. Go away! I will
ask your advice no more."

"I told you you would not believe me!" cried the Lark, nettled in
his turn.

"I believe everything that I am told" persisted the Caterpillar;
"that is"--and she hesitated--"everything that it is _reasonable_
to believe. But to tell me that Butterflies' eggs are Caterpillars,
and that Caterpillars leave off crawling and get wings, and become
Butterflies!--Lark! you are too wise to believe such nonsense
yourself, for you know it is impossible."

"I know no such thing," said the Lark, warmly. "Whether I hover
over the corn-fields of earth, or go up into the depths of the sky,
I see so many wonderful things, I know no reason why there should
not be more. Oh, Caterpillar! it is because you crawl, because you
never get beyond your cabbage-leaf, that you call _any_ thing
_impossible_."

"Nonsense!" shouted the Caterpillar, "I know what's possible, and
what's not possible, according to my experience and capacity, as
well as you do. Look at my long green body and these endless legs,
and then talk to me about having wings and a painted feathery coat!
Fool!--"

"And fool you!" cried the indignant Lark. "Fool, to attempt to
reason about what you cannot understand! Do you not hear how my
song swells with rejoicing as I soar upwards to the mysterious
wonder-world above? Oh, Caterpillar; what comes to you from thence,
receive, as _I_ do, upon trust."

"That is what you call--"

"_Faith_," interrupted the Lark.

"How am I to learn Faith?" asked the Caterpillar.

At that moment she felt something at her side. She looked
round--eight or ten little green Caterpillars were moving about,
and had already made a show of a hole in the cabbage-leaf. They had
broken from the Butterfly's eggs!

Shame and amazement filled our green friend's heart, but joy soon
followed; for, as the first wonder was possible, the second might
be so too. "Teach me your lesson, Lark!" she would say; and the
Lark sang to her of the wonders of the earth below and of the
heaven above. And the Caterpillar talked all the rest of her life
to her relations of the time when she should be a Butterfly.

But none of them believed her. She nevertheless had learnt the
Lark's lesson of faith, and when she was going into her chrysalis
grave, she said--

"I shall be a Butterfly some day!"

But her relations thought her head was wandering, and they said,
"Poor thing!"

And when she was a Butterfly, and was going to die again, she
said--

"I have known many wonders--I have faith--I can trust even now
for what shall come next!"



THE DRAGON-FLY AND THE WATER-LILY

By Carl Ewald

In among the green bushes and trees ran the brook. Tall,
straight-growing rushes stood along its banks, and whispered to the
wind. Out in the middle of the water floated the Water-Lily, with
its white flower and its broad green leaves.

Generally it was quite calm on the brook. But when, now and again,
it chanced that the wind took a little turn over it, there was a
rustle in the rushes, and the Water-Lily sometimes ducked
completely under the waves. Then its leaves were lifted up in the
air and stood on their edges, so that the thick green stalks that
came up from the very bottom of the stream found that it was all
they could do to hold fast.

All day long the Larva of the Dragon-Fly was crawling up and down
the Water-Lily's stalk. "Dear me, how stupid it must be to be a
Water-Lily!" it said, and peeped up at the flower.

"You chatter as a person of your small mind might be expected to
do," answered the Water-Lily. "It is just the very nicest thing
there is."

"I don't understand that," said the Larva. "I should like at this
moment to tear myself away, and fly about in the air like the big,
beautiful Dragon-Flies."

"Pooh!" said the Water-Lily. "That would be a funny kind of
pleasure. No; to lie still on the water and dream, to bask in
the sun, and now and then to be rocked up and down by the
waves--there's some sense in _that_!"

The Larva sat thinking for a minute or two. "I have a longing for
something greater," it said at last. "If I had my will, I would be
a Dragon-Fly. I would fly on strong, stiff wings along the stream,
kiss your white flower, rest a moment on your leaves, and then fly
on."

"You are ambitious," answered the Water-Lily, "and that is stupid
of you. One knows what one has, but one does not know what one may
get. May I, by the way, make so bold as to ask you how you would
set about becoming a Dragon-Fly? You don't look as if that was what
you were born for. In any case you will have to grow a little
prettier, you gray, ugly thing,"

"Yes, that is the worst part of it," the Larva answered sadly. "I
don't know myself how it will come about, but I hope it _will_
come about some time or other. That is why I crawl about down here
and eat all the little creatures I can get hold of."

"Then you think you can attain to something great _by feeding!
_" the Water-Lily said, with a laugh. "That would be a funny way
of getting up in the world."

"Yes; but I believe it is the right way for me!" cried the
Dragon-Fly Grub earnestly. "All day long I go on eating till I get
fat and big; and one fine day, as I think, all my fat will turn
into wings with gold on them, and everything else that belongs to a
proper Dragon-Fly!"

The Water-Lily shook its clever white head, "Put away your silly
thoughts," it said, "and be content with your lot. You can knock
about undisturbed down here among my leaves, and crawl up and down
the stalk to your heart's desire. You have everything that you
need, and no cares or worries--what more do you want?"

"You are of a low nature," answered the Larva, "and therefore you
have no sense of higher things. In spite of what you say, I wish to
become a Dragon Fly." And then it crawled right down to the bottom
of the water to catch more creatures and stuff itself still bigger.

But the Water-Lily lay quietly on the water and thought things
over. "I can't understand these animals," it said to itself. "They
knock about from morning till night, chase one another and eat one
another, and are never at peace. We flowers have more sense.
Peacefully and quietly we grow up side by side, bask in the
sunshine, and drink the rain, and take everything as it comes. And
I am the luckiest of them all. Many a time have I been floating
happily out here on the water, while the other flowers there on dry
land were tormented with drought. The flowers' lot is the best; but
naturally the stupid animals can't see it."