Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903. Excerpt:... THE COLD STEEL TRAP AND SPEAR IN due time the cold snap passed, and one morning Jim raised a window, and a moment later felt a puff of damp, warm air, the first breath of the genuine spring. There is no mistaking that wonderful air. There are many mild, sometimes really warm days toward the end of a Northern winter, but the real thing is different and unmistakable. As Ned had declared, one could smell the spring, and as the boy stood at the window and inhaled deeply, he realized the meaning of his cousin's words. Soft and damply sweet, that wonderful air seemed to whisper of perfumes and blooms, brightness and bird music soon to be, and the magic of it stirred the boy's blood and filled him with eagerness to be out of doors and active. Below, he could see the bare, damp fields sloping to the discolored and still slightly swollen river. The prospect certainly had no beauty, but still it beckoned with sly power, for it was mainly mud and water, and he was a healthy boy possessed of a boy's soul and--rubber boots. A sharp rap on his door, and Ned's voice saying, "Tumble out, lazybones! There's work to be done!" caused him to speed needful matters, and soon he was in his place at the breakfast table. To his great delight, Ned was in what he called "war-paint," i 113 i.e. heavy gray sweater and corduroy trousers. The sight of these almost spoiled Jim's breakfast, for he felt there was something in the wind, and the thought of it made him almost too excited to eat. But Maume Duckett was a veritable sorceress, and soon Jim yielded to the witcheries of cakes and homecured bacon, backed by those best of eggs which only a thoroughbred game hen knows how to produce. "Now, son, go paint yourself--waders and all," chuckled Ned an hour later, and Jim flew upstairs, to...