From Canal Boy to President
The present series of volumes has been undertaken with the view of supplying the want of a class of books for children, of a vigorous, manly tone, combined with a plain and concise mode of narration. The writings of Charles Dickens have been selected as the basis of the scheme, on account of the well-known excellence of his portrayal of children, and the interests connected with children--qualities which have given his volumes their strongest hold on the hearts of parents. These delineations having thus received the approval of readers of mature age, it seemed a worthy effort to make the young also participants in the enjoyment of these classic fictions, to introduce the children of real life to these beautiful children of the imagination. With this view, the career of Little Nell and her Grandfather, Oliver, Little Paul, Florence Dombey, Smike, and the Child-Wife, have been detached from the large mass of matter with which they were originally connected, and presented, in the author's own language, to a new class of readers, to whom the little volumes will we doubt not, be as attractive as the larger originals have so long proved to the general public. We have brought down these famous stories from the library to the nursery--the parlor table to the child's hands--having a precedent
such fool as to go on payin' a woman for havin' a dead husband when
she catches holt of a livin' one? Don't you know that?"
"Josh Butterfield!--you don't mean--"
"Why, that's true. Didn't you know that? Well, well! Why, a smart
widow woman could get consid'able of a income by sendin' husbands to
wars, if it wa'n't for that. Well, well; to think you didn't know
that! Wonder if Lizzie does?"
"She don't!" Mrs. Butterfield said, excitedly; "course she don't.
She's calculatin' on havin' that pension same as ever. Why, she
_can't_ marry Nat. Goodness! I guess I'll just step down and tell
her. Lucky you told me to-night; to-morrow it would 'a' been too late!"
IV
Lizzie Graham was sitting in the dark on her door-step; a cat had
curled up comfortably in her lap; her elm was faintly murmurous with a
constant soft rustling and whispering of the lace of leaves around its
great boughs. Now and then a tree-toad spoke, or from the pasture pond
behind the house came the metallic twang of a bullfrog. But nothing
else broke the deep stillness of the summer night. Lizzie's elbow was
on her knee, her chin in her hand; she was listening to the peace, and
The present series of volumes has been undertaken with the view of supplying the want of a class of books for children, of a vigorous, manly tone, combined with a plain and concise mode of narration. The writings of Charles Dickens have been selected as the basis of the scheme, on account of the well-known excellence of his portrayal of children, and the interests connected with children--qualities which have given his volumes their strongest hold on the hearts of parents. These delineations having thus received the approval of readers of mature age, it seemed a worthy effort to make the young also participants in the enjoyment of these classic fictions, to introduce the children of real life to these beautiful children of the imagination. With this view, the career of Little Nell and her Grandfather, Oliver, Little Paul, Florence Dombey, Smike, and the Child-Wife, have been detached from the large mass of matter with which they were originally connected, and presented, in the author's own language, to a new class of readers, to whom the little volumes will we doubt not, be as attractive as the larger originals have so long proved to the general public. We have brought down these famous stories from the library to the nursery--the parlor table to the child's hands--having a precedent