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The Bungalow Boys in the Great Northwest by John Henry GoldfrapJohn Henry Goldfrap (1879 – November 21, 1917) was a North American journalist and author of boys' books, participating in the "American series phenomenon." He always wrote under pseudonyms.CHAPTER I. - IN THE VALLEY.Turning over his morning mail, which Jared Fogg had just brought into the little Maine valley, Mr. Chisholm Dacre, the Bungalow Boys’ uncle, came across a letter that caused him to pucker up his lips and emit an astonished whistle through his crisp, gray beard. A perplexed look showed on his sun-burned face. Turning back to the first page, he began to read the closely written epistle over once more.Evidently there was something in it that caused Mr. Dacre considerable astonishment. His reading of the missive was not quite completed, however, when the sudden sound of fresh, young voices caused him to glance upward.Skimming across the deep little lake stretched in front of the bungalow came a green canoe. It contained two occupants, a pair of bright-faced lads, blue-eyed and wavy-haired. Their likeness left no doubt that they were brothers. In khaki trousers and canoeing caps, with the sleeves of their gray flannel shirts rolled up above the elbow exposing the tan of healthy muscular flesh, they were as likely a looking couple of lads as you would have run across in a muster-roll of the vigorous, clean-limbed youth of America. Regular out-of-door chaps, they. You couldn’t have helped taking an immediate liking to Tom Dacre and his young brother Jack if you had stood beside Mr. Dacre that bright morning in early summer and watched the lightly fashioned craft skimming across the water, its flashing paddles wielded by the aforesaid lusty young arms.“Well, who would think to look at those two lads that they had but recently undergone such an experience as being marooned in the Tropics?” murmured Mr. Dacre to himself, as he watched his two nephews draw nearer.There was a fond and proud light in his eyes as they dwelt on his sturdy young relatives. In his mind he ran over once more the stirring incidents in which they had all three participated in the Bahamas, and which were fully related in a previous volume of this series—“The Bungalow Boys Marooned in the Tropics.”

The New Forest by Elizabeth Godfrey The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily populated south east of England. It covers south-west Hampshire and extends into south-east Wiltshire and towards east Dorset.The name also refers to the New Forest National Park which has similar boundaries. Additionally the New Forest local government district is a subdivision of Hampshire which covers most of the Forest, and some nearby areas although it is no longer the planning authority for the National Park itself. There are many villages dotted around the area, and several small towns in the Forest and around its edges.In these modern days, when towns are increasing on every side, and the new idea of garden cities threatens to swallow up what little is left us of the true country, it is good to remember that in one quiet corner of Hampshire lies a sanctuary, a little region set apart with its own laws and customs for over eight centuries for the preservation of wild life.In our childhood we were taught to look upon the deed of Norman William with horror, as an iniquity perpetrated by an inhuman conqueror, and we spouted in the words of good Miss Smedley:“Oh Forest! green New Forest! Home of the bird and breeze, With all thy soft and sweeping glades, and long, dim aisles of trees, Like some ancestral palace thou standest proud and fair; Yet is each tree a monument to death and wild despair.”

Mildred and Elsie by Martha FinleyMorning was breaking over the landscape; a cool, refreshing breeze, laden with woodland sweets and wild birds' songs, softly kissed Mildred's cheek and awoke her.She started up with a low exclamation of delight, sprang to the open window, and kneeling there with her elbow on the sill and her cheek in her hand, feasted her eyes upon the beauty of the scene—a grand panorama of wooded hills, falling waters, wild glens and forests and craggy mountains, above whose lofty summits the east was glowing with crimson and gold.Another moment and the sun burst through the golden gate and began anew his daily round, "rejoicing as a strong man to run a race."The brightness of his face was too dazzling for Mildred's eyes, and her gaze fell lower down, where wreaths of gray mist hung over the valleys or crept slowly up the mountain sides. Presently it rested on one of the nearer hill-tops, and a sudden, vivid blush suffused her cheek, while a sweet and tender smile shone in her eyes and hovered about her lips.But a sigh quickly followed, smile and blush faded away, and she dropped her face into her hands with a low-breathed exclamation, "Oh what shall I do? What ought I to do?"There was a question of grave importance awaiting her decision—a decision which would in all probability affect the happiness of her whole future life on earth; yea, who should say its influence would not reach even into eternity?She longed to take counsel of her mother, but that mother was far distant, and the question one the girl shrank from putting upon paper and trusting to the mails.But a dearer, wiser, even more loving friend was close at hand, and to Him and His Word she turned for guidance.

The Boy Chums in the Gulf of Mexico - or, On a Dangerous Cruise with the Greek Spongers by Wilmer M. Ely"It's just like stepping suddenly into a strange country. I am glad we came even if we decide not to go into the business."The speaker, a sturdy, manly-looking boy of eighteen, was one of a party of four persons who were strolling along a street in the Greek section of Tarpon Springs, a small Florida town, located on the Anclote River, a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico. His companions were a boy about his own age but of less robust appearance, a little negro lad with a good-humored intelligent face, and a middle-aged, heavily-bearded, blue-eyed man whose tattooed arms and rolling gait told of a life spent on tossing seas and whose confident bearing and air of authority stamped him as one above the rank of a common sailor.Those who have followed The Boy Chums through their many adventures will recognize in the little party their old friends Charley West, Walter Hazard, Captain Westfield and the Bahama lad, Chris, who lately returned from a perilous trip along the Atlantic beach searching for wreckage, and now seeking some promising venture in which to invest the Fifteen Hundred Dollars they earned on that voyage."You're right, Charley," agreed the other boy. "I didn't know before that there was a sight like this in Florida. Here's a bench. Let's set down and rest a bit. I am tired from walking.""Golly, I reckon dis nigger's tired some too," chimed in the little darkey, "I'se dun had de toothache in mah legs for most an hour, but I'se had to keep up wid you-alls. Don't dare let you white chillen prognostracate 'round a queer place like dis alone."

The Khaki Boys at Camp Sterling - Training for the Big Fight in France by Josephine Chase“You, over there in the crowd, and you and you, why don’t you get busy and help Uncle Sam? What are you hanging back for? Now’s your chance to show that you’re a real American, and ready to fight for your country. What’s the use of waiting for the draft to get you? You’re just wasting time! The sooner you enlist, the sooner you’ll be ready to do your bit in France. It’s up to good old Uncle Sam to jump into the big war and win it. But he can’t do it alone. It needs a lot of brave, husky fellows to lick the Boches off the map. Are you going to be one of ’em? Every little bit helps, you know!“Now we’re going to sing you one more song. While we’re singing it, get on the job and think hard. We want to take a bunch of you back with[2] us to the recruiting station. All right, boys. Give ’em ‘The Glory Road to France!’”Standing in the middle of a big recruiting wagon, lavishly decorated in red, white and blue, the orator, a good-looking young soldier of perhaps twenty years, bawled out, “Let ’er go!”From one end of the wagon rose the strains of a lively air, enthusiastically hammered out on a small, portable piano by another khaki-clad youngster, seated on a stool before it. Gathered about him, half a dozen clean-cut soldier boys immediately took it up. The sheer catchiness of the melody, tunefully shouted out by the singers, had its effect on the crowd. The sturdy quality of the words, too, brought a flash of newly aroused patriotism to more than one pair of eyes belonging to the throng of persons closely packed about the big wagon. It appeared to deepen with the lustily given chorus:

Children of the Soil by Henryk SienkiewiczThe title of this book in the original is Rodzina Polanieckich (The Family of the Polanyetskis); “Children of the Soil” has been substituted, because of the difficulty of the Polish title for American and English readers, because the Polanyetskis are called children of the soil in the text of the volume, and because all the other characters are children of the soil in the same sense.For most readers this book will have a double interest,—the interest attaching to a picture of Polish life, and the general human interest inseparable from characters like those presented in the narrative of Pan Stanislav’s fortunes.The Poles form a part of the great Slav race, which has played so important a rôle in the world’s history already, and which is destined to play a far more important one yet in the future.The argument involved in the career and meditations of Pan Stanislav is of interest to every person in civilized society; it is an argument presented so clearly, and reinforced with such pointed examples, that neither comment nor explanation is needed.The translation was finished in Warren, Vermont, and revised carefully. To new readers of Sienkiewicz I may state that Pan, Pani, and Panna, when prefixed to names, mean Mr., Mrs., and Miss respectively.It was the first hour after midnight when Pan Stanislav Polanyetski was approaching the residence in Kremen. During years of childhood he had been twice in that village, when his mother, a distant relative of the present owner of Kremen, was taking him home for vacation. Pan Stanislav tried to remember the place, but to do so was difficult. At night, by the light of the moon, everything took on an uncertain form. Over the bushes, fields, and meadows, a white mist was lying low, changing the whole region about into a shoreless lake, as it were,—an illusion increased by choruses of frogs in the mist.It was a July night, very calm and perfectly bright. At moments, when the frogs became silent, landrails were heard playing in the dew; and at times, from afar, from muddy ponds, hidden behind reeds, the call of the bittern sounded as if coming from under the earth.Pan Stanislav could not resist the charm of that night. It seemed to him familiar in some way; and that familiarity he felt all the more, since he had returned only the previous year from abroad, where he had spent his first youth and had become engaged afterward in mercantile matters. Now, while entering that sleeping village, he recalled his childhood, memorable through his mother, now five years dead, and because the bitterness and cares of that childhood, compared with the present, seemed perfect bliss to him.At last the brichka rolled up toward the village, which began with a cross standing on a sand mound. The cross, inclining greatly, seemed ready to fall. Pan Stanislav remembered it because in his time under that mound had been buried a man found hanging from a limb in the neighboring forest, and afterward people were afraid to pass by that spot in the night-time.

The Adventure Girls books were written by Clair Blank, author of the Beverly Gray books. Not surprisingly, the books flow much like the Beverly Gray books. The protagonists are a group of girls who have named themselves the Adventure Girls, just as Beverly Gray and her friends are the Alpha Deltas. The main character is Gale Howard who has reddish brown hair like Beverly Gray and has a romance with a pilot, also like Beverly Gray.Gale Howard, Valerie Wallace, Phyllis Elton, Janet Gordon, Madge Reynolds, and Carol Carter visit Gale's cousin Virginia Wilson in her home on her father's Arizona ranch. The girls have named themselves the Adventure Girls and plan to live up to the name during their vacation. After the girls learn to ride horseback, they take a long camping trip through very rough country. Gradually the girls become experts at roping and horseback riding, and thoroughly enjoy their vacation.During their time in the west, the girls endure attacks by a snake and a cougar, get lost in a cave, and are kidnapped more than once by cattle rustlers. Their thrill-packed Arizona vacation ends after a final confrontation with the cattle rustlers. The girls help capture the bandits, collect a reward, and give the reward to a needy person.

Joan of Arc by Laura Elizabeth Howe RichardsFrance in the fifteenth century: what was it like?King Charles VI. of France (to go back no further) whose reign Sully, "our own good Maximilian," calls "the grave of good laws and good morals in France," was not yet twelve years old when (in 1380) his father, Charles V., died. His majority had been fixed at fourteen, and for two years he was to remain under the guardianship of his four uncles, the Dukes of Anjou, Berry, Burgundy and Bourbon. With the fourth, his mother's brother, we have no concern, for he made little trouble; the other three were instantly in dispute as to which should rule during the two years.The struggle was a brief one; Philip of Burgundy, surnamed the Bold, was by far the ablest of the three. When the young king was crowned at Rheims (October 4th, 1380), Philip, without a word to anyone, sat him down at his nephew's side, thus asserting himself premier peer of France, a place which was to be held by him and his house for many a long day.At seventeen, Charles was married (in the Cathedral of Amiens, the second jewel of France, where that of Rheims was the first) to Isabel of Bavaria, of infamous memory; and the first shadows began to darken around him.The war with England was going on in a desultory fashion. Forty years had passed since Créçy. The Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester, uncles and regents of Richard II., the young English king, were not the men to press matters, and Charles V. of France was wise enough to let well alone. The young king, however, and his Uncle Philip of Burgundy, thought it would be a fine thing to land in England with a powerful army, and return the bitter compliments paid by Edward III. "Across the Channel!" was the cry, and preparations were made on a grand scale. In September, 1386, thirteen hundred and eighty-seven vessels, large and small, were collected for the voyage; and Olivier de Clisson, Constable of France, built a wooden town which was to be transported to England and rebuilt after landing, "in such sort," says Froissart, "that the lords might lodge therein and retire at night, so as to be in safety from sudden awakenings, and sleep in security." Along the Flemish and Dutch coasts, vessels were loaded by torchlight with "hay in casks, biscuits in sacks, onions, peas, beans, barley, oats, candles, gaiters, shoes, boots, spurs, iron, nails, culinary utensils, and all things that can be used for the service of man." The Flemings and Hollanders demanded instant payment and good prices. "If you want us and our service," they said, "pay us on the nail; otherwise we will be neutral."

Stanley in Africa - The Wonderful Discoveries and Thrilling Adventures of the Great African Explorer, and Other Travelers, Pioneers and Missionaries by James P. BoydBEAUTIFULLY AND ELABORATELY ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS, COLORED PLATES AND MAPSA volume of travel, exploration and adventure is never without instruction and fascination for old and young. There is that within us all which ever seeks for the mysteries which are bidden behind mountains, closeted in forests, concealed by earth or sea, in a word, which are enwrapped by Nature. And there is equally that within us which is touched most sensitively and stirred most deeply by the heroism which has characterized the pioneer of all ages of the world and in every field of adventure.How like enchantment is the story of that revelation which the New America furnished the Old World! What a spirit of inquiry and exploit it opened! How unprecedented and startling, adventure of every kind became! What thrilling volumes tell of the hardships of daring navigators or of the perils of brave and dashing landsmen! Later on, who fails to read with the keenest emotion of those dangers, trials and escapes which enveloped the intrepid searchers after the icy secrets of the Poles, or confronted those who would unfold the tale of the older civilizations and of the ocean’s island spaces.Though the directions of pioneering enterprise change, yet more and more man searches for the new. To follow him, is to write of the wonderful. Again, to follow him is to read of the surprising and the thrilling. No prior history of discovery has ever exceeded in vigorous entertainment and startling interest that which centers in “The Dark Continent” and has for its most distinguished hero, Henry M. Stanley. His coming and going in the untrodden and hostile wilds of Africa, now to rescue the stranded pioneers of other nationalities, now to explore the unknown waters of a mighty and unique system, now to teach cannibal tribes respect for decency and law, and now to map for the first time with any degree of accuracy, the limits of new dynasties, make up a volume of surpassing moment and peculiar fascination.All the world now turns to Africa as the scene of those adventures which possess such a weird and startling interest for readers of every class, and which invite to heroic exertion on the part of pioneers. It is the one dark, mysterious spot, strangely made up of massive mountains, lofty and extended plateaus, salt and sandy deserts, immense fertile stretches, climates of death and balm, spacious lakes, gigantic rivers, dense forests, numerous, grotesque and savage peoples, and an animal life of fierce mien, enormous strength and endless variety. It is the country of the marvelous, yet none of its marvels exceed its realities.And each exploration, each pioneering exploit, each history of adventure into its mysterious depths, but intensifies the world’s view of it and enhances human interest in it, for it is there the civilized nations are soon to set metes and bounds to their grandest acquisitions—perhaps in peace, perhaps in war. It is there that white colonization shall try its boldest problems. It is there that Christianity shall engage in one of its hardest contests.Victor Hugo says, that “Africa will be the continent of the twentieth century.” Already the nations are struggling to possess it. Stanley’s explorations proved the majesty and efficacy of equipment and force amid these dusky peoples and through the awful mazes of the unknown. Empires watched with eager eye the progress of his last daring journey. Science and civilization stood ready to welcome its results. He comes to light again, having escaped ambush, flood, the wild beast and disease, and his revelations set the world aglow. He is greeted by kings, hailed by savants, and looked to by the colonizing nations as the future pioneer of political power and commercial enterprise in their behalf, ...