"SWEET SIXTEEN"
THE red coat Lloyd wore that winter was long remembered in the Valley,
for wherever it went it carried a bright face above it, a cheery
greeting, and some pleasant word that made the day seem better for its
passing.
Mrs. Bisbee and the little Crisps were not the only ones who learned to
watch for it. As all the lonely town of Hamelin must have felt toward
the one child left to it after the Pied Piper had passed through its
streets, so all the Valley turned with tender regard to the young girl
left in its midst. Mothers, whose daughters were away at school, stopped
to talk to her with affectionate interest. The old ladies whom she
regularly visited welcomed her as if she were a part of their vanished
youth. The young ladies took her under their wing, glad to have her in
the choir and the King's Daughters' Circle, for she was bubbling over
with girlish enthusiasm and a sincere desire to help.
So she found the cobwebs in the neighbourhood sky, and disagreeable
enough they were at times, even more disagreeable than her experience
with Mrs. Perkins. But she swept away with praiseworthy energy, till
gradually she found that the accumulation of outside interests, like the
cobweb strands which Ederyn twisted, made a rope strong enough to lift
her out of herself and her dungeon of disappointment.
After the novelty of giving music lessons had worn off, it grew to be a
bore. Not the lessons themselves, for Agnes's delight in them never
flagged. It was the tied-up feeling it gave her to remember that those
afternoons were not her own. It happened so often that the afternoons
devoted to Agnes were the ones which of all the week she wanted to have
free, and she had to give up many small pleasures on account of them.
It grew to be a bore, also, calling on some of the people who claimed a
weekly visit. She never tired of Mrs. Bisbee's lively comments on her
neighbours and her interesting tales about them. But there was old Mr.
and Mrs. Apwall, who, with nothing to do but sit on opposite sides of
the fire and look at each other, were said to quarrel like cat and dog.
It mortified Lloyd dreadfully to have them quarrel in her presence, and
have them pour out their grievances for her to decide which was in the
wrong.
She always rose to go at that juncture, flushed and embarrassed, and
vowing inwardly she would never visit them again. But they always
managed to extract a promise before she got to the door that she would
drop in again the next time she was passing.
"Somehow you seem to get husband's mind off himself," Mrs. Apwall would
whisper at parting. "He isn't half so touchy when you've cheered him up
a spell."
And Mr. Apwall would follow her out through the chilly hall to open the
front door, and say, huskily: "Come again, daughter. Come again. Your
visits seem to do the madam a world of good. They give her something to
talk about beside my fancied failings."
So inwardly groaning, Lloyd would go again, painfully alert to keep the
conversation away from subjects that invariably led to disputes. And
inwardly groaning, she went dutifully to the Coburns' at their repeated
requests. The first few times the garrulous old couple were interesting,
but the most thrilling tale grows tiresome when one has heard it a
dozen times. She could scarcely keep from fidgeting in her chair when
the inevitable story of their feud with the Cayn family was begun. They
never left out a single petty detail.
No one will ever know how often the thought of the little rosary in the
sandalwood box helped Lloyd to listen patiently, and to keep tryst with
the expectations of those about her, so that at nightfall there might be
another pearl to slip on the silken cord, in token of another day
unstained by selfishness.
There was rarely time for envying the girls at school now. The days were
too full. Almost before it seemed possible, the locusts were in bloom
and it was mid-May by the calendar. In that time perfect health had come
back to her. There were no more crying spells now, no more hours of
nervous exhaustion, of fretful impatience over trifles. She went singing
about the house, with a colour in her cheeks that rivalled the pink of
the apple blossoms.
"Spring has come indoors as well as out," said Mrs. Sherman one morning.
"I think that we may safely count that your Christmas vacation is over,
and you may go back to your music lessons whenever you choose."
The night before her birthday, Lloyd sat with her elbows on her
dressing-table, peering into the mirror with a very serious face.
"You'll be sixteen yeahs old in the mawning, Lloyd Sherman," she told
the girl in the glass. "'Sweet sixteen!' You've come to the end of lots
of things, and to-morrow it will be like going through a gate that
you've seen ahead of you for a long, long time. A big, wide gate that
you have looked forward to for yeahs, and things are bound to be
different on the othah side."
Next morning, just in fun, she trailed down to breakfast in one of her
mother's white dresses, with her hair piled on the top of her head. It
was very becoming so, but it made her look so tall and womanly that she
was sure her grandfather would object to it.
"He'll nevah let me grow up if he can help it," she said, half-pouting,
as she gave a final glance over her shoulder at the mirror, vastly
pleased with her young ladylike appearance. "He'll say, 'Tut, tut!
That's not grandpa's Little Colonel.' But I can't stay his Little
Colonel always."
She was standing by the window looking down the locust avenue when he
came in to breakfast, so she did not see his start of surprise at sight
of her. But his half-whispered exclamation, "_Amanthis!_" told her why
he failed to make the speech she expected to hear. With her hair done
high, showing the beautiful curve of her head and throat as she stood
half-turned toward him, he had caught another glimpse of her startling
resemblance to the portrait. He could not regret losing his Little
Colonel if that loss were to give him a living reminder of a beloved
memory.
After breakfast, when an armful of birthday gifts had been duly admired
and the donors thanked, and she had spent nearly an hour enjoying them,
she strolled down the avenue, feeling very much grown up with the long
dress trailing behind her. She wandered down to the entrance gate,
hoping to meet Alec, who had gone for the mail. She was sure there would
be a letter from Betty, for Betty never forgot people's birthdays. Then
she trailed back again under the white arch of fragrant locust blooms.
At the half-way seat she sat down and tucked a spray of the blossoms
into her hair and fastened another at her belt. She had not long to wait
there, enjoying the freshness of the sweet May morning, for in a few
minutes Alec came up the avenue with a handful of letters and papers.
She sorted out her own eagerly, six letters and a package.
She opened Betty's first. It was a long one, ending with a birthday
greeting in rhyme, and enclosing a handkerchief which she had made
herself, sheer and fine and daintily hemstitched, with her initials
embroidered in one corner in the smallest letters possible.
The letters from Allison and Kitty were profusely illustrated all around
the margins, and by the time Lloyd had read them, and Gay's ridiculous
summary of school news, she felt as if she had been on a visit to
Warwick Hall, and had seen all the girls. The next letter was from
Joyce, a good thick one. But before she read it, curiosity impelled her
to open the package, which was a flat one, bearing a foreign postmark
and several Italian stamps. There were two photographs inside. She
slipped the uppermost one from its envelope.
"Why, it is Eugenia Forbes!" she exclaimed aloud. "But how she has
changed!"
The picture was not at all like the Eugenia whom Lloyd remembered, the
thin slip of a girl who had raced up and down the avenue five years
before at her house-party. She had blossomed into a beautiful young
woman.
"A regulah Spanish beauty!" Lloyd thought, as she looked at the picture,
long and admiringly,--the picture of a patrician face with great dark
eyes and a wealth of dusky hair. The old self-conscious, dissatisfied
expression was gone. It was a happy face that smiled back at her. It had
been nearly a year since Lloyd had had a letter from Eugenia. She had
written from the school near Paris that her father was on his way over
from America to join her and take her home immediately after her
graduation. Lloyd had sent a reply addressed to her cousin Carl's
office, but had heard nothing more.
Thinking that the other photograph was her cousin Carl's, Lloyd
unwrapped it, wondering if he had changed as much as Eugenia. To her
surprise, it was not a middle-aged man she saw, with gray moustache and
kindly tired eyes. It was the handsome boyish face of a stranger, yet so
startlingly familiar that she looked at it with a puzzled frown.
"Why should Eugenia be sending me this?" she thought. "And where have I
seen that man befoah?" Then, "Phil Tremont!" she exclaimed aloud the
next instant. "That's who it reminds me of. It is almost exactly like
him, only it is oldah-looking, and the nose isn't quite like his."
She turned the picture over. There on the back was written in Eugenia's
hand the word Venice, and a date underneath the name, Stuart Tremont.
"Phil's brother!" gasped Lloyd, in astonishment. "How strange that she
should know him!"
Tearing open the envelope lying on the bench beside her, Lloyd unfolded
a twenty-page letter from Eugenia, written on thin blue foreign
correspondence paper. Before her glance had travelled half-way down the
second page, she gave another gasp, and sat staring at an underscored
sentence in open-mouthed amazement. Then, never waiting to gather up the
other letters which fluttered into the grass at her feet, as she sprang
up, she rushed off toward the house as hard as she could go, waving
Eugenia's letter in one hand and the photographs in the other.
"Mothah!" she called, as she reached the end of the avenue. She was
tripping over her long skirt, and scattering hairpins at every step, as
her reckless flight sent her hair tumbling down over her shoulders.
"Mothah!" she shrieked again, as she stumbled up the porch steps.
"Here in my room, dear," came the answer from an upper window. Falling
all over herself in her undignified haste, Lloyd tore up the stairs. A
final tangling of skirts sent her headlong into her mother's room, where
she half-fell in a breathless, laughing heap, and sat at Mrs. Sherman's
feet with her hair almost hiding her eager face.
"Guess what's happened!" she demanded, breathlessly. "_Eugenia is
engaged!_ And to Phil Tremont's brother Stuart!"
Then she sat enjoying her mother's surprise, which was almost as great
as her own. "And she isn't much moah than eighteen," Lloyd exclaimed,
rocking back and forth on the floor, with her arms clasped around her
knees, while her mother examined the pictures.
"She looks twenty at least in this picture," answered Mrs. Sherman,
"even more than that. Eugenia was always old for her years. If you
remember, she was wearing long dresses when we left her the summer we
were in Europe together."
"Yes, but it doesn't seem possible that Eugenia is old enough to be
_married_," insisted Lloyd. "I can hardly believe it is true."
She sat staring dreamily out of the window until a slight breeze
fluttering the sheets of paper still clutched in her fingers reminded
her that she had read only two of the twenty pages.
"Heah is what she says about it," began Lloyd, reading slowly, for the
closely written sheets were hard to decipher.
"'I know you are going to wonder how it all came
about, so I'll begin at the beginning. Last summer
papa came on to Paris in time for Commencement. He
was so pleased because I took first honours, when
he hadn't expected me to take any, that he said he
would do as fathers sometimes did in
fairy-tales,--grant me three wishes, anything in
reason; for he had had an unusually successful
year and could well afford it.
"'Well, I thought and thought, but I couldn't
think of anything I really wanted, as I just had
an entire new outfit in clothes, so I told him
finally I'd like to stop in London long enough to
have a tailor make me a riding-habit, and I'd
think of the other two wishes sometime during the
year. So we went to London. Papa is such an old
darling, and we've grown to be real chums. After
the tailor had taken my measure, we drove to our
banker's for the mail, and who should papa meet
there but Doctor Tremont, an American physician
whom he knew years ago when they were young men.
They belonged to the same college fraternity.
"'They forgot all about poor little me, sitting
over in the corner of the office, and stood and
talked about old times, and asked each other about
Tom, Dick, and Harry, until I was thoroughly tired
of waiting. But after awhile the handsomest young
man came into the room, and Doctor Tremont
introduced him to papa as his oldest son, Stuart.
Then they remembered my humble existence, and papa
brought them both over to me. In about two minutes
we all felt as if we had known each other always.
"'Doctor Tremont said he had had a very hard
winter in Berlin, making some study of microbes
with a noted scientist,--I forget his name. He
said Stuart had been closely confined also (he was
taking a medical course), and they were off on a
hard-earned holiday. They were going coaching up
in the lake regions, first in England, then in
Scotland, and maybe later would go over to the
Isle of Skye.
"'Would you believe it, before we left the bank,
Doctor Tremont had persuaded papa that he needed a
vacation also, and almost in no time it was
arranged that we should join them on their
coaching trip. We had a perfectly ideal time, and
Stuart and I got to be the best of friends. We
corresponded all summer and fall after that. I
didn't expect to see him again for two years,
because he intended to stay abroad until he had
finished his medical course. But along in the
winter papa's health broke down, and the doctor
told him he must keep away from business for a
year, and ordered him to Baden-Baden for the
water.
"'He was horribly ill after we got there, and I
was so frightened and inexperienced that I thought
he was going to die, and I telegraphed for Doctor
Tremont. It isn't far from Berlin, you know, as we
Americans count distances. But the doctor had gone
to Paris for several weeks, and Stuart came at
once in his place. Of course he wasn't an
experienced physician like his father, but he was
such a comfort, for he cheered papa up so much,
and assured us that the doctor in charge was doing
everything that his father could do. And he helped
nurse papa, and boosted up my spirits mightily,
and was so dear and thoughtful and considerate
that, when he went away, I felt as if the bottom
had dropped out of everything. You can't imagine
how kind and lovely he was all that week. Papa
fairly swore by him.
"'We wrote to each other every week after he went
back to Berlin. Early this March papa and I went
down into Italy. We shifted about from place to
place,--Naples, Sorrento, Rome, Florence, and
finally to Venice. I don't know why I never wrote
to you those days. You were often in my thoughts,
but you know how it is when one is constantly on
the wing.
"'I used to wish daily that Stuart could be with
us. He is the most satisfactory of travelling
companions, but I didn't know how very much I
wished it until one day in Venice. Papa was asleep
at the hotel, and I was so lonely that I started
out by myself to explore. I left a message with
the clerk that I had gone to vespers at Saint
Mark's Cathedral. There was a crowd of tourists in
the square in front of the cathedral, feeding the
pigeons. Hearing their English speech after so
many months of nothing but foreign tongues made me
homesick. In the whole plaza, no one but myself
seemed to be alone. They were walking in groups or
couples, and everybody seemed so gay and happy
that I was glad to cross over to the cathedral to
get out of sight.
"'The vesper service had just begun, and I stood
inside the door listening to the chanting of the
monks' voices, and getting more homesick every
moment. Just as the tears were ready to brim over,
I looked up, and there in the dim light beside me
stood Stuart. I thought I must be dreaming, but it
was a very happy dream, for I felt that I could
never be homesick or unhappy again when he looked
down and smiled.
"'I couldn't believe that I was awake and that he
was really there, until we got outside the
cathedral and he began to talk. Then he told me
that he had gone to the hotel, and they had given
him the message I had left for papa. It never
occurred to me to wonder why he had come to
Venice. It just seemed so natural and lovely that
he should be there that I never even asked him
why. He called a gondola, and we got in and went
drifting down the canals under the bridges and
past the old palaces, with the sunset turning
everything around us to rose-colour and gold. Oh,
I can't begin to tell you how perfectly heavenly
it all was. There was a new moon in the sky when
we turned back to the hotel, and, though Stuart
_hadn't_ proposed in the same way that Laurie did
to Amy in "Little Women," he had told me why he
came so far to find me, and I liked his way a
great deal better than Laurie's.
"'Wasn't it all romantic? Papa was awfully
surprised to see him, and nearly as glad as I, and
I told him that now I'd claim the other wishes he
had promised me at Commencement, and take the two
in one. I wished that he would say yes to the
question Stuart had come to ask him. Dear old dad,
he always keeps his promises, so he said yes after
awhile. After Stuart had explained that he didn't
intend to ask him to give me up. When he finishes
his medical course here next year, he has a
position waiting for him near New York City. We're
to have a little home on the Hudson, and papa is
to live with us. So is Doctor Tremont, when he
gets through with his microbe business. We are
done with hotels for ever.
"'I cannot remember ever having had a home, Lloyd.
I have always lived either in a hotel or at
boarding-school. And Stuart says the only one he
can remember distinctly was the one presided over
by his great-aunt Patricia, and she never did
understand boys. This summer I shall spend with
papa in Switzerland. He is about well now. Then in
the fall, when he goes back to New York, I am
going to a delightful school near Berlin which I
have just heard of. It is a school where none but
the daughters of the German nobility are
received, as a rule. They make an exception
sometimes in the case of Americans like myself.
There they are taught all the housewifely arts
that delight a good frau's soul. Don't laugh at
me, Lloyd. I'm going to learn how to broil and
brew and conduct a well-regulated establishment
from attic to cellar.
"'A year from this June, Cousin Jack and Cousin
Elizabeth are to bring you and Betty on to New
York to be my bridesmaids. I'd love to have Joyce,
too, if it were possible for her to leave home.
She has been so good to Stuart's brother Phil.
Isn't it strange that we should all be so linked
together? I'd like to have all of you girls that I
met at your never-to-be-forgotten house-party.
That was where I had my first taste of a real
home, and found out that there is something to
live for besides the things that money can buy.
"'I have looked so often lately at my little
Tusitala ring. I have been a better girl because
of that ring, Lloyd, and I intend it shall be the
inspiration of all my married life,--to help me
leave a road of the loving heart in the memory of
every one around me.
"'I wish everybody in the world could be as happy
as I am. I am sending Stuart's picture, so that
you can see for yourself what a fine, splendid
fellow you are to have for a cousin some day. Give
my love to your father and mother and Betty, and
do write soon and tell me that you are glad.
"'Your loving cousin,
"'EUGENIA.'"
Lloyd looked up from the reading of the letter, wondering what sort of
an expression she would find on her mother's face. To her surprise, it
was one of approval, and there were tears in her eyes.
"Poor motherless child!" said Mrs. Sherman, softly. "I shall write to
her to-day. I don't approve of early marriages, but Eugenia has always
been more mature than most girls of her age, and she does need a home
sadly. The care and pleasure of one will develop her character in a way
that nothing else will. Let me see. She will be nearly twenty next June.
Yes, I have no doubt but that, with this next year's training in
housekeeping which she intends to take, she will be far better fitted
for home-making than many an older woman."
"And may Betty and I be bridesmaids?" interrupted Lloyd, eagerly, a
starlike expectancy shining in her eyes.
Mrs. Sherman considered a moment, then answered, slowly: "There is no
reason why you should not be, so long as you are willing to go as little
maids, and not young ladies. I am very jealous for your girlhood, Lloyd
dear. I must guard against anything that would shorten it in the least.
Mother's baby must not grow up too fast."
"I don't want to grow up fast, honestly!" cried Lloyd, scrambling to her
feet and tripping over the long skirts again as she threw her arms
around her mother's neck. "I'm not dignified enough yet to fit yoah
dresses, and my hair simply won't stay up. Sweet sixteen doesn't seem
half as old when you really get there as you think that it is going to.
I'll do my hair down and weah short skirts as long as you want me to,
but, oh, I'm so glad that I'm going to be a bridesmaid! It will be
_such_ fun. I must write to Betty this minute to tell her that you are
willing."
That night Lloyd sat before her dressing-table again, this time with the
new photographs propped up in front of her. Stuart's picture almost
seemed to bring Phil before her eyes, and for a moment, instead of the
familiar walls of her room, she saw the moonlighted desert, and smelled
the orange-blossoms, and heard a strong young voice ringing out across
the silence of the sandy cactus plains:
"Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold."
"Wouldn't it be strange," she thought, "if he were really the one
written for me in the stars, as Betty said in the beginning, and that we
should meet at Eugenia's wedding again, and that some day, a long time
after, I should find that he is the prince? But it couldn't be Phil,"
she said to herself after another glance. "He doesn't measuah up to Papa
Jack's yardstick. Neithah does Malcolm now, for that mattah," she mused,
with her chin in her hand. "Jack Ware might, or Rob, but they seem moah
like brothahs than anything else, and would not fit my ideal of a prince
at all."
"'As the falcon's feathahs fit the falcon,'" she quoted, dreamily. "It
would have to be some strangah that I've nevah yet seen, to do that. Or,
maybe Mammy Easter's grandmothah was right when she read my fortune in
the teacups. Maybe I'll be an old maid. I wish I knew. I _wish_ I knew!"
She peered wistfully into the mirror, as if she half-expected to see a
shadowy hand stretch out of its dim background, and lift the veil of the
future to her eager gaze. "The thoughts of youth are long, long
thoughts." Lloyd's flew back to Eugenia's romance for an instant, then
drifted far beyond the two in the gondola, with the Venetian sunset
turning all their little world to rose-colour and gold.
[Illustration: "'NO MATTAH WHAT LIES AHEAD . . . I'LL NOT DISAPPOINT
THEM'"]
One is a mariner at sixteen, sailing toward an undiscovered country,
with seaweed and driftwood on the crest of every wave beginning to
whisper, "Land ahead." Toward the dim outline of that untried shore,
Lloyd drifted now in her reverie.
"I _wish_ I could know what the next sixteen yeahs hold for me," she
whimpered. "I hope it will be something bettah than I could choose for
myself. Mothah and Papa Jack expect so much of me."
Then her glance fell on the unfinished rosary, and, picking up the
string of tiny pearls, she looped it around her throat, and faced the
girl in the mirror with resolute eyes.
"No mattah what lies ahead," she said, bravely, "I'll not disappoint
them. I'll keep the tryst!"
THE END.
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Square 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, $1.50
All boys and girls who take an interest in school athletics will wish to
read of the exploits of the Millvale High School students, under the
leadership of Captain Jack Lorimer.
Captain Jack's Champions play quite as good ball as do some of the teams
on the large leagues, and they put all opponents to good hard work in
other summer sports.
Jack Lorimer and his friends stand out as the finest examples of
all-round American high school boys and girls.
=Beautiful Joe's Paradise=; OR, THE ISLAND OF BROTHERLY LOVE. A sequel
to "Beautiful Joe." By MARSHALL SAUNDERS, author of "Beautiful Joe."
One vol., library 12mo, cloth, illustrated, $1.50
"This book revives the spirit of 'Beautiful Joe'
capitally. It is fairly riotous with fun, and as a
whole is about as unusual as anything in the
animal book line that has seen the light. It is a
book for juveniles--old and young."--_Philadelphia
Item._
='Tilda Jane.= By MARSHALL SAUNDERS.
One vol., 12mo, fully illustrated, cloth decorative, $1.50
"It is one of those exquisitely simple and
truthful books that win and charm the reader, and
I did not put it down until I had finished
it--honest! And I am sure that every one, young or
old, who reads will be proud and happy to make the
acquaintance of the delicious waif.
"I cannot think of any better book for children
than this. I commend it unreservedly."--_Cyrus
Townsend Brady._
=The Story of the Graveleys.= By MARSHALL SAUNDERS, author of "Beautiful
Joe's Paradise," "'Tilda Jane," etc.
Library 12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated by E. B. Barry, $1.50
Here we have the haps and mishaps, the trials and triumphs, of a
delightful New England family, of whose devotion and sturdiness it will
do the reader good to hear.
=Born to the Blue.= By FLORENCE KIMBALL RUSSEL.
12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, $1.25
The atmosphere of army life on the plains breathes on every page of this
delightful tale. The boy is the son of a captain of U. S. cavalry
stationed at a frontier post in the days when our regulars earned the
gratitude of a nation.
=In West Point Gray.= By FLORENCE KIMBALL RUSSEL.
12mo, cloth decorative, illustrated, $1.25
West Point forms the background for the second volume in this series,
and gives us the adventures of Jack as a cadet. Here the training of his
childhood days in the frontier army post stands him in good stead; and
he quickly becomes the central figure of the West Point life.
=The Sandman: His Farm Stories.= By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS. With fifty
illustrations by Ada Clendenin Williamson.
Large 12mo, decorative cover, $1.50
"An amusing, original book, written for the
benefit of very small children. It should be one
of the most popular of the year's books for
reading to small children."--_Buffalo Express._
=The Sandman: More Farm Stories.= By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS.
Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated, $1.50
Mr. Hopkins's first essay at bedtime stories met with such approval that
this second book of "Sandman" tales was issued for scores of eager
children. Life on the farm, and out-of-doors, is portrayed in his
inimitable manner.
=The Sandman: His Ship Stories.= By WILLIAM J. HOPKINS, author of "The
Sandman: His Farm Stories," etc.
Large 12mo, decorative cover, fully illustrated, $1.50
"Mothers and fathers and kind elder sisters who
put the little ones to bed, and rack their brains
for stories, will find this book a
treasure."--_Cleveland Leader._
"Children call for these stories over and over
again."--_Chicago Evening Post._
=Pussy-Cat Town.= By MARION AMES TAGGART.
Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in
colors, $1.00
"Pussy-Cat Town" is a most unusual delightful cat story. Ban-Ban, a pure
Maltese who belonged to Rob, Kiku-san, Lois's beautiful snow-white pet,
and their neighbors Bedelia the tortoise-shell, Madame Laura the widow,
Wutz Butz the warrior, and wise old Tommy Traddles, were really and
truly cats.
=The Roses of Saint Elizabeth.= By JANE SCOTT WOODRUFF, author of "The
Little Christmas Shoe."
Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in
colors by Adelaide Everhart, $1.00
This is a charming little story of a child whose father was caretaker of
the great castle of the Wartburg, where Saint Elizabeth once had her
home.
=Gabriel and the Hour Book.= By EVALEEN STEIN.
Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in
colors by Adelaide Everhart, $1.00
Gabriel was a loving, patient, little French lad, who assisted the monks
in the long ago days, when all the books were written and illuminated by
hand in the monasteries.
=The Enchanted Automobile.= Translated from the French by MARY J.
SAFFORD.
Small quarto, cloth decorative, illustrated and decorated in
colors by Edna M. Sawyer, $1.00
The enchanted automobile was sent by the fairy godmother of a lazy,
discontented little prince and princess to take them to fairyland, where
they might visit their story-book favorites.
=The Red Feathers.= By THEODORE ROBERTS, author of "Brothers of Peril,"
etc.
Cloth decorative, illustrated, $1.50
"The Red Feathers" tells of the remarkable adventures of an Indian boy
who lived in the Stone Age, many years ago, when the world was young,
and when fairies and magicians did wonderful things for their friends
and enemies.
=The Wreck of the Ocean Queen.= By James Otis, author of "Larry Hudson's
Ambition," etc.
Cloth decorative, illustrated, $1.50
This story takes its readers on a sea voyage around the world; gives
them a trip on a treasure ship; an exciting experience in a terrific
gale; and finally a shipwreck, with a mutineering crew determined to
take the treasure to complicate matters.
But only the mutineers will come to serious harm, and after the reader
has known the thrilling excitement of lack of food and water, of attacks
by night and day, and of a hand-to-hand fight, he is rescued and brought
safely home again,--to realize that it's only a story, but a stirring
and realistic one.
=Little White Indians.= By FANNIE E. OSTRANDER.
Cloth decorative, illustrated, $1.25
The "Little White Indians" were two families of children who "played
Indian" all one long summer vacation. They built wigwams and made camps;
they went hunting and fought fierce battles on the war-trail.
A bright, interesting story which will appeal strongly to the
"make-believe" instinct in children, and will give them a healthy,
active interest in "the simple life."
PHYLLIS' FIELD FRIENDS SERIES
_By LENORE E. MULETS_
Six vols., cloth decorative, illustrated by Sophie Schneider. Sold
separately, or as a set.
Per volume, $1.00
Per set, 6.00
=Insect Stories.=
=Stories of Little Animals.=
=Flower Stories.=
=Bird Stories.=
=Tree Stories.=
=Stories of Little Fishes.=
In this series of six little Nature books, it is the author's intention
so to present to the child reader the facts about each particular
flower, insect, bird, or animal, in story form, as to make delightful
reading. Classical legends, myths, poems, and songs are so introduced as
to correlate fully with these lessons, to which the excellent
illustrations are no little help.
THE WOODRANGER TALES
_By G. WALDO BROWNE_
=The Woodranger.=
=The Young Gunbearer.=
=The Hero of the Hills.=
=With Rogers' Rangers.=
Each 1 vol., large 12mo, cloth, decorative cover, illustrated,
per volume, $1.25
Four vols., boxed, per set, 5.00
"The Woodranger Tales," like the "Pathfinder Tales" of J. Fenimore
Cooper, combine historical information relating to early pioneer days in
America with interesting adventures in the backwoods. Although the same
characters are continued throughout the series, each book is complete in
itself, and, while based strictly on historical facts, is an interesting
and exciting tale of adventure.
THE LITTLE COUSIN SERIES
The most delightful and interesting accounts possible of child life in
other lands, filled with quaint sayings, doings, and adventures.
Each one vol., 12mo, decorative cover, cloth, with six or more full-page
illustrations in color.
Price per volume, $0.60
_By MARY HAZELTON WADE (unless otherwise indicated)_
=Our Little African Cousin=
=Our Little Alaskan Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Arabian Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Armenian Cousin=
=Our Little Brown Cousin=
=Our Little Canadian Cousin=
By Elizabeth R. Macdonald
=Our Little Chinese Cousin=
By Isaac Taylor Headland
=Our Little Cuban Cousin=
=Our Little Dutch Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little English Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Eskimo Cousin=
=Our Little French Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little German Cousin=
=Our Little Hawaiian Cousin=
=Our Little Hindu Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Indian Cousin=
=Our Little Irish Cousin=
=Our Little Italian Cousin=
=Our Little Japanese Cousin=
=Our Little Jewish Cousin=
=Our Little Korean Cousin=
By H. Lee M. Pike
=Our Little Mexican Cousin=
By Edward C. Butler
=Our Little Norwegian Cousin=
=Our Little Panama Cousin=
By H. Lee M. Pike
=Our Little Philippine Cousin=
=Our Little Porto Rican Cousin=
=Our Little Russian Cousin=
=Our Little Scotch Cousin=
By Blanche McManus
=Our Little Siamese Cousin=
=Our Little Spanish Cousin=
By Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
=Our Little Swedish Cousin=
By Claire M. Coburn
=Our Little Swiss Cousin=
=Our Little Turkish Cousin=
[Illustration: THE LITTLE COLONEL TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFFICE]
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Frontispiece, "BOB" changed to "ROB" to match text. (EXCLAIMED ROB, IN)
Page 50, "dreadfuly" changed to "dreadfully" (so dreadfully effusive)
Page 176, "wth" changed to "with" (with the ruddy glow)
Page 256, "amost" changed to "almost" (Lloyd almost gasped)