Little Daffydowndilly, and Other Stories

Front Cover
Mifflin, 1887 - 89 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 54 - town treasurer ' is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire department, and one of the physicians to the Board of Health.
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 58 - 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.
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 apple-blooms, 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 21 - Yonder it is, — there is the school-house!" said the stranger; for though he and little Daffydowndilly had taken a great many steps, they had travelled in a circle instead of a straight line. "Come; we will go back to school together.
Page 61 - In the moral warfare, which you are to wage — and, indeed, in the whole conduct of your lives — you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust, and sultry atmosphere, the turbulence and manifold disquietudes of the world around me, to reach that deep, calm well of purity, which may be called my soul.
Page 41 - What imaginative little beings my children are ! " thought the mother, putting the last few stitches into Peony's frock. " And it is strange, too, that they make me almost as much a child as they themselves are ! I can hardly help believing, now, that the snowimage has really come to life...

Bibliographic information