Books published by publisher Frederick A. Stokes Company, Publishers

Jack's cowboy life began just as a great change was sweeping over the cattle range. Cattle had first been brought into the country only a few years before—old-fashioned long-horns driven up over the trail from Texas.In those days the people in the West were not many. Towns were small, farms almost unknown, wagon roads few. Except about the pastures of the larger ranches, there were no fences. Over most of the land the cowboy roamed alone.His seemed a life of romance. Free as the birds, he wandered over the wide range, going when and where he pleased. But this romance was only apparent. No man worked harder than he, or for less reward. His toilful days and short broken nights; his small pay and his poor food were recorded in the songs that he sang as he rode about the cattle. This was in the early days of the cattle industry.A little later, on the plains came a change from pioneer conditions to those approaching luxury.The earlier cattlemen in the North—those who ranged their stock on the Platte and the various forks of the Loup River—made great profits. Yet as time went on they saw competition constantly growing sharper and ranges being overstocked. As the news of their profits drifted eastward many young men, allured by the romance of the cowboy's life, and ignorant of its actual conditions, came into the cattle country. These believed that success with cattle was to be attained by riding about and watching the cattle increase and grow, and shipping them to market when they had grown. They were glad to be interested in a business at once so agreeable and so profitable; and many a one exchanged his money for a herd, a brand and some log buildings, and rode over the range awaiting the advent of his riches. Many of the early cattlemen sold their herds to the newcomers, who, somewhat later, discovered that with the cattle they had bought also much experience.These changes were in operation when Jack entered on his cowboy life.

The Goops and How to Be Them created by the artist, poet, art critic, author, and humorist Gelett Burgess. The originals debuted, conceptually, in the pictures of Burgess' publication The Lark. The Directory also appeared in panels in the traditional monthly children's magazine St. Nicholas. The Goop Directory is one of his most famous works. The Goops, they lick their fingers, They spill their broth on the tablecloth, They lead disgusting lives! The Goops, they lick their knives; The Goop Directory has become the quintessential series on training children in the importance of polite behavior and manners. When you are playing with girls, you must not pull their lovely curls; if you are considerate when you play, you will be glad you did some time! Though widely distributed during the height of Burgess' fashionableness, some of the manners and has become difficult to find.

This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format. Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship.

An Island Story by Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall. A child's history of England from earliest legendary times delightfully retold. Beginning with the stories of Albion and Brutus, it relates all the interesting legends and hero tales in which the history of England abounds through the end of the reign of Queen Victoria. This is a story book. There are many facts in school histories, that seem to children to belong to lessons only. Some of these you will not find here. But you will find some stories that are not to be found in your school books,–stories which wise people say are only fairy tales and not history.

The six children of Anne Blythe (of Anne of Green Gables fame) and their four young neighbors of the Manse are just the sort of lovable incorrigible that keep the town aghast at their mischief while it secretly gloats over their irresistibleness. It is around their adventures and misadventures that the story turns and it is partly through them that two romances are brought to a happy outcome.