“Come ye yourselves into a desert place and rest a while; for there were many coming and going, so that they had no time so much as to eat.” ‘Mid the mad whirl of life, its dim confusion,Its jarring discords and poor vanity,Breathing like music over troubled waters,What gentle voice, O Christian, speaks to thee? […]

” Socrates. –‘However, you and Simmias appear to me as if you wished to sift this subject more thoroughly, and to be afraid, like children, lest, on the soul’s departure from the body, winds should blow it away.’ * * * * * “Upon this Cebes said, ‘Endeavor to teach us better, Socrates. * * […]

‘Tis morning now–upon the eastern hillsOnce more the sun lights up this cheerless scene;But O, no morning in my Father’s houseIs dawning now, for there no night hath been. Ten thousand thousand now, on Zion’s hills,All robed in white, with palmy crowns, do stray,While I, an exile, far from fatherland,Still wandering, faint along the desert […]

“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother.. O wondrous mother! Since the dawn of timeWas ever joy, was ever grief like thine?O, highly favored in thy joy’s deep flow,And favored e’en in this, thy bitterest woe! Poor was that home in simple Nazareth,Where thou, fair growing, like some silent flower,Last of a […]

“Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man; thou shalt keep them secretly as in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.” When winds are raging o’er the upper ocean,And billows wild contend with angry roar,‘Tis said, far down beneath the wild commotion,That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. Far, […]

THE FIRST CHRISTMAS. Can any of us look back to the earlier days of our mortal pilgrimage and remember the helpless sense of desolation and loneliness caused by being forced to go off to the stillness and darkness of a solitary bed far from all the beloved voices and employments and sights of life? Can […]

“Wal, the upshot on’t was, they fussed and fuzzled and wuzzled till they’d drinked up all the tea in the teapot; and then they went down and called on the Parson, and wuzzled him all up talkin’ about this, that, and t’other that wanted lookin’ to, and that it was no way to leave everything […]

Once there was a nice young hen that we will call Mrs. Feathertop. She was a hen of most excellent family, being a direct descendant of the Bolton Grays, and as pretty a young fowl as you could wish to see of a summer’s day. She was, moreover, as fortunately situated in life as it […]

Mr. and Mrs. Nutcracker were as respectable a pair of squirrels as ever wore gray brushes over their backs. They were animals of a settled and serious turn of mind, not disposed to run after vanities and novelties, but filling their station in life with prudence and sobriety. Nutcracker Lodge was a hole in a […]

Under the window of a certain pretty little cottage there grew a great old apple-tree, which in the spring had thousands and thousands of lovely pink blossoms on it, and in the autumn had about half as many bright red apples as it had blossoms in the spring. The nursery of this cottage was a […]

Miss Katy-did sat on the branch of a flowering azalea, in her best suit of fine green and silver, with wings of point-lace from Mother Nature’s finest web. Miss Katy was in the very highest possible spirits, because her gallant cousin, Colonel Katy-did, had looked in to make her a morning visit. It was a […]

Old Mother Magpie was about the busiest character in the forest. But you must know that there is a great difference between being busy and being industrious. One may be very busy all the time, and yet not in the least industrious; and this was the case with Mother Magpie. She was always full of […]

Once upon a time a gentleman went out into a great forest, and cut away the trees, and built there a very nice little cottage. It was set very low on the ground, and had very large bow-windows, and so much of it was glass that one could look through it on every side and […]

At Rye Beach, during our summer’s vacation, there came, as there always will to seaside visitors, two or three cold, chilly, rainy days,–days when the skies that long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to bethink themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, not by drops, but by pailfuls. The chilly wind […]

We have just built our house in rather an out-of-the-way place–on the bank of a river, and under the shade of a patch of woods which is a veritable remain of quite an ancient forest. The checkerberry and partridge-plum, with their glossy green leaves and scarlet berries, still carpet the ground under its deep shadows; […]

And now, at the last, I am going to tell you something of the ways and doings of one of the queer little people, whom I shall call Whiskey. You cannot imagine how pretty he is. His back has the most beautiful smooth shining stripes of reddish brown and black, his eyes shine like bright […]

“Aunt Lois,” said I, “what was that story about Ruth Sullivan?” Aunt Lois’s quick black eyes gave a surprised flash; and she and my grandmother looked at each other a minute significantly. “Who told you any thing about Ruth Sullivan,” she said sharply. “Nobody. Somebody said you knew something about her,” said I. I was […]

One of our most favorite legendary resorts was the old barn. Sam Lawson preferred it on many accounts. It was quiet and retired, that is to say, at such distance from his own house, that he could not hear if Hepsy called ever so loudly, and farther off than it would be convenient for that […]

Scene.–The shady side of a blueberry-pasture.–Sam Lawson with the boys, picking blueberries.–Sam, loq. As, you see, boys, ’twas just here,–Parson Carryl’s wife, she died along in the forepart o’ March: my cousin Huldy, she undertook to keep house for him. The way on’t was, that Huldy, she went to take care o’ Mis’ Carryl in […]

“Now, Sam, tell us certain true, is there any such things as ghosts?” “Be there ghosts?” said Sam, immediately translating into his vernacular grammar: “wal, now, that are’s jest the question, ye see.” “Well, grandma thinks there are, and Aunt Lois thinks it’s all nonsense. Why, Aunt Lois don’t even believe the stories in Cotton […]