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Overview
• Illustrated book
• Images has been resized and optimized for the Nook
• Table of contents with working links to chapters is included
The slim dark girl, with big black eyes, rushed to the edge of the crumbling wharf, where she dropped to her hands and knees to peer eagerly into the green depths below.
There was reason for haste. Only a second before, the very best suit of boys' clothing in Bancroft had tumbled suddenly over the edge to hit the water with a most terrific splash. Now, there was a wide circle on the surface, with bubbles coming up.
It was an excellent suit of clothes that went into the lake. Navy-blue serge, fashioned by Bancroft's best tailor to fit Roger Fairchild, who was much too plump for ready-made clothes. But here were those costly garments at the very bottom of Lake Superior; not in the very deepest part, fortunately, but deep enough. And that was not all. Their youthful owner was inside them.
That morning when Jeannette, eldest daughter of Léon Duval, tumbled out of the rumpled bed that she shared with her stepsister, the day had seemed just like any other day. It was to prove, as you may have guessed, quite different from the ordinary run of days. In the first place, it was pleasant; the first really mild day, after months of cold weather. In the second place, things were to happen. Of course, things happened every day; but then, most things, like breakfast, dinner, and supper, have a way of happening over and over again. But it isn't every day that a really, truly adventure plunges, as it were, right into one's own front yard.
To be sure, Jeanne's front yard invited adventures. It was quite different from any other front yard in Bancroft. It was large and wet and blue; and big enough to show on any map of the Western Hemisphere. Nothing less, indeed, than Lake Superior. Her side yard, too, was another big piece of the same lake. The rest of her yard, except what was Cinder Pond, was dock.
In order to understand the adventure; and, indeed, all the rest of this story, you must have a clear picture of Jeanne's queer home; for it was a queer home for even the daughter of a fisherman. You see, the Duvals had lived on dry land as long as they were able (which was not very long) to pay rent. When there were no more landlords willing to wait forever for their rent-money, the impecunious family moved to an old scow anchored in shallow water near an abandoned wharf. After a time, the scow-owner needed his property but not the family that was on it. The Duvals were forced to seek other shelter. Happily, they found it near at hand.
Once on a time, ever so far back in the history of Bancroft, the biggest, busiest, and reddest of brick furnaces, in that region of iron and iron mines, had poured forth volumes of thick black smoke. It was located right at the water's edge, on a solid stone foundation. From it, a clean new wooden wharf extended southward for three hundred feet, east for nine hundred feet, north for enough more feet to touch the land again. This wharf formed three sides of a huge oblong pond. The shore made the fourth side. The shallow water inside this inclosure became known, in time, as "The Cinder Pond."
After twenty years of activity, the furnace, with the exception of the huge smoke-stack, was destroyed by fire. After that, there was no further use for the wharf. Originally built of huge cribs filled with stone, planked over with heavy timbers, it became covered, in time, first with fine black cinders, then with soil. As it grew less useful, it became more picturesque, as things sometimes do.
By the time the Duvals helped themselves to the old wharf, much of its soft black surface was broken out with patches of green grass, sturdy thistles, and many other interesting weeds. There were even numbers of small but graceful trees fringing the inner edge of the old wharf, from which they cast most beautiful reflections into the still waters of the Cinder Pond. No quieter, more deserted spot could be imagined.
Jeannette's father, Léon Duval, built a house for his family on the southwest corner of the crumbling dock, three hundred feet from land.
When you have never built a house; and when you have no money with which to buy house-building materials, about the only thing you can do is to pick up whatever you can find and put it together to the best of your small ability. That is precisely what Léon Duval did. Bricks from the old furnace, boards from an old barn, part of the cabin from a wrecked steamboat, nails from driftwood along the shore, rusty stove pipe from the city dump ground; all went into the house that...
• Images has been resized and optimized for the Nook
• Table of contents with working links to chapters is included
The slim dark girl, with big black eyes, rushed to the edge of the crumbling wharf, where she dropped to her hands and knees to peer eagerly into the green depths below.
There was reason for haste. Only a second before, the very best suit of boys' clothing in Bancroft had tumbled suddenly over the edge to hit the water with a most terrific splash. Now, there was a wide circle on the surface, with bubbles coming up.
It was an excellent suit of clothes that went into the lake. Navy-blue serge, fashioned by Bancroft's best tailor to fit Roger Fairchild, who was much too plump for ready-made clothes. But here were those costly garments at the very bottom of Lake Superior; not in the very deepest part, fortunately, but deep enough. And that was not all. Their youthful owner was inside them.
That morning when Jeannette, eldest daughter of Léon Duval, tumbled out of the rumpled bed that she shared with her stepsister, the day had seemed just like any other day. It was to prove, as you may have guessed, quite different from the ordinary run of days. In the first place, it was pleasant; the first really mild day, after months of cold weather. In the second place, things were to happen. Of course, things happened every day; but then, most things, like breakfast, dinner, and supper, have a way of happening over and over again. But it isn't every day that a really, truly adventure plunges, as it were, right into one's own front yard.
To be sure, Jeanne's front yard invited adventures. It was quite different from any other front yard in Bancroft. It was large and wet and blue; and big enough to show on any map of the Western Hemisphere. Nothing less, indeed, than Lake Superior. Her side yard, too, was another big piece of the same lake. The rest of her yard, except what was Cinder Pond, was dock.
In order to understand the adventure; and, indeed, all the rest of this story, you must have a clear picture of Jeanne's queer home; for it was a queer home for even the daughter of a fisherman. You see, the Duvals had lived on dry land as long as they were able (which was not very long) to pay rent. When there were no more landlords willing to wait forever for their rent-money, the impecunious family moved to an old scow anchored in shallow water near an abandoned wharf. After a time, the scow-owner needed his property but not the family that was on it. The Duvals were forced to seek other shelter. Happily, they found it near at hand.
Once on a time, ever so far back in the history of Bancroft, the biggest, busiest, and reddest of brick furnaces, in that region of iron and iron mines, had poured forth volumes of thick black smoke. It was located right at the water's edge, on a solid stone foundation. From it, a clean new wooden wharf extended southward for three hundred feet, east for nine hundred feet, north for enough more feet to touch the land again. This wharf formed three sides of a huge oblong pond. The shore made the fourth side. The shallow water inside this inclosure became known, in time, as "The Cinder Pond."
After twenty years of activity, the furnace, with the exception of the huge smoke-stack, was destroyed by fire. After that, there was no further use for the wharf. Originally built of huge cribs filled with stone, planked over with heavy timbers, it became covered, in time, first with fine black cinders, then with soil. As it grew less useful, it became more picturesque, as things sometimes do.
By the time the Duvals helped themselves to the old wharf, much of its soft black surface was broken out with patches of green grass, sturdy thistles, and many other interesting weeds. There were even numbers of small but graceful trees fringing the inner edge of the old wharf, from which they cast most beautiful reflections into the still waters of the Cinder Pond. No quieter, more deserted spot could be imagined.
Jeannette's father, Léon Duval, built a house for his family on the southwest corner of the crumbling dock, three hundred feet from land.
When you have never built a house; and when you have no money with which to buy house-building materials, about the only thing you can do is to pick up whatever you can find and put it together to the best of your small ability. That is precisely what Léon Duval did. Bricks from the old furnace, boards from an old barn, part of the cabin from a wrecked steamboat, nails from driftwood along the shore, rusty stove pipe from the city dump ground; all went into the house that...
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940012572127 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Unforgotten Classics |
| Publication date: | 05/17/2011 |
| Series: | Unforgotten Classics , #1 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 1 MB |
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