Little Daffydowndilly and Other Stories: And Biographical Stories

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Houghton, Mifflin, 1887 - Readers - 171 pages

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Page 53 - As a keeper of the peace, all water drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices, when they are posted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in...
Page 8 - If ever I should have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here...
Page 11 - How beautiful it was, that one bright day In the long week of rain ! Though all its splendor could not chase away The omnipresent pain. The lovely town was white with appleblooms, And the great elms o'erhead Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms, Shot through with golden thread.
Page 55 - Drink, and make room for that other fellow who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations — which he drained from no cup of mine.
Page 56 - Go draw the cork, tip the decanter ; but, when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again ! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout ? Are you all satisfied?
Page 48 - Lindsey to be running about his garden in pursuit of a snowdrift, which the west wind was driving hither and thither ! At length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased the little stranger into a corner, where she could not possibly escape him. His wife had been looking on, and, it being nearly twilight, was wonderstruck to observe how the snow-child gleamed and sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a glow all round about her ; and when driven into the corner, she positively glistened like a star...
Page 14 - I can't bear it any longer," said Daffydowndilly to himself, when he had been at school about a week. " I 'll run away, and try to find my dear mother ; and, at any rate, I shall never find anybody half so disagreeable as this old Mr. Toil...
Page 55 - I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; and at night, I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am, and keep people out of the gutters. At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. Like a...
Page 59 - Impute it, I beseech you, to no defect of modesty, if I insist a little longer on so fruitful a topic as my own multifarious merits. It is altogether for your good. The better you think of me, the better men and women will you find yourselves. I shall say nothing of my all-important aid on washing days ; though, on that account alone, I might call myself the household god of a hundred families..
Page 58 - ... at the corner of two streets. In the hot months, when its refreshment was most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birthplace of the waters, now their grave. But, in the course of time, a Town Pump was sunk into the source of the ancient spring; and when the first decayed, another took its place—and then another, and still another—till here stand I, gentlemen and ladies, to serve you with my iron goblet.

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