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MOONSHINE & CLOVER
This book was especially republished to raise funds for these charities & many more...
33% of the publishers profit from the sale of this book will be donated to charities.
A GREAT READ FOR CHILDREN!
Herein you will find eighteen tales of THE PRINCE WITH THE NINE SORROWS, A CAPFUL OF MOONSHINE, ROCKING-HORSE LAND, JAPONEL, GAMMELYN THE DRESSMAKER and many more which will keep even the youngest minds occupied for hours.
Here you will find stories of fairies, Kings and Queens, Princes and Princesses, promises made and promises broken and the consequences thereof teaching children vital morals. There are also stories of majic, its use and misuse, as well as attempts at deceipt and deception which all come to naught when the deceiver is found out, as they always are in these stories. There are stories of rocking-horses which, at night, turn into real horses taking their young charges on nocturnal adventures only to have to dash home before sunrise when the horse is due to return to its original state and return their young riders safely to bed where they must be found tucked up and safe and sound.
These eighteen stories have been extracted from four editions by Laurence Housman, originally published between 1894 and 1904, but which are now out of print. The four editions are : A Farm in Fairyland, The House of Joy, The Field of Clover and The Blue Moon.
The sixteen original woodcuts by Clemence Housman may seem old-fashioned by todays standards, but are in keeping with the age of the book.
33% of the net profit from the sale of this book will be donated to OLIVERS HOUSE, a non profit organisation in Benoni, South Africa focusing on childcare and education.
Excerpt from MOONSHINE & CLOVER
THE FEEDING OF THE EMIGRANTS
OVER the sea went the birds, flying southward to their other home where the sun was. The rustle of their wings, high overhead, could be heard down on the water; and their soft, shrill twitterings, and the thirsty nibbling of their beaks; for the seas were hushed, and the winds hung away in cloud-land.
Far away from any shore, and beginning to be weary, their eyes caught sight of a white form resting between sky and sea. Nearer they came, till it seemed to be a great white bird, brooding on the calmed water; and its wings were stretched high and wide, yet it stirred not. And the wings had in themselves no motion, but stood rigidly poised over their own reflection in the water.
Then the birds came curiously, dropping from their straight course, to wonder at the white wings that went not on. And they came and settled about this great, bird-like thing, so still and so grand.
On to the deck crept a small child, for the noise of the birds had come down to him in the hold. "There is nobody at home but me," he said; for he thought the birds must have come to call, and he wished to be polite. "They are all gone but me," he went on; "all gone. I am left alone."
The birds, none of them understood him; but they put their heads on one side and looked down on him in a friendly way, seeming to consider.
He ran down below and fetched up a pannikin of water and some biscuit. He set the water down, and breaking the biscuit sprinkled it over the white deck. Then he clapped his hands to see them all flutter and crowd round him, dipping their bright heads to the food and drink he gave them.
They might not stay long, for the water-logged ship could not help them on the way they wished to go; and by sunset they must touch land again. Away they went, on a sudden, the whole crew of them, and the sound of their voices became faint in the bright sea-air.
"I am left alone!" said the child.
Many days ago, while he was asleep in a snug corner he had found for himself, the captain and crew had taken to the boats, leaving the great ship to its fate.
And forgetting him because he was so small, or thinking that he was safe in some one of the other boats, the rough sailors had gone off without him, and he was left alone. So for a whole week he had stayed with the ship, like a whisper of its vanished life amid the blues of a deep calm. And the birds came to the ship only to desert it again quickly, because it stood so still upon the sea.
But that night the mermen came round the vessel's side, and sang; and the wind rose to their singing, and the sea grew rough. Yet the child slept with his head in dreams. The dreams came from the mermen's songs, and he held his breath, and his heart stayed burdened by the deep sweetness of what he saw.
Dark and strange and cold the sea-valleys opened before him; blue sea-beasts ranged there, guarded by strong-finned shepherds, and fishes like birds darted to and fro, but made no sound. And that was what burdened his heart,that for all the beauty he saw, there was no sound, no song of a single bird to comfort him.
The mermen reached out their blue arms to him, and sang; on the top of the waves they sang, striving to make him forget the silence of the land below. They offered him the sea-life: why should he be drowned and die?
And now over him in the dark night the great wings crashed, and beat abroad in the wind, and the ship made great way. And the mermen swam fast to be with her, and ceased from their own song, for the wind overhead sang loud in the rigging and the sails. But the child lifted his head in his sleep and smiled, for his soul was eased of the mermen's song, and it seemed to him that instead he heard birds singing in a far-off land, singing of a child whose loving hand had fed them, faint and weary, in their way over the wide ocean.
In that far southern land the dawn had begun, and the birds, waking one by one, were singing their story of him to the soft-breathing tamarisk boughs. And none of them knew how they had been sent as a salvage crew to save the child's spirit from the spell of the sea-dream, and to carry it safely back to the land that loved him.
But with the child's body the white wings had flown down into the wave-buried valleys, and to a cleft of the sea-hills to rest.
Table of Contents for MOONSHINE & CLOVER
| THE PRINCE WITH THE NINE SORROWS |
| HOW LITTLE DUKE JARL SAVED THE CASTLE |
| A CAPFUL OF MOONSHINE |
| THE STORY OF THE HERONS |
| THE CROWN'S WARRANTY |
| ROCKING-HORSE LAND |
| JAPONEL |
| GAMMELYN, THE DRESSMAKER |
| THE FEEDING OF THE EMIGRANTS |
| WHITE BIRCH |
| THE LUCK OF THE ROSES |
| THE WHITE DOE |
| THE MOON-STROKE |
| THE GENTLE COCKATRICE |
| THE GREEN BIRD |
| THE MAN WHO KILLED THE CUCKOO |
| A CHINESE FAIRY TALE |
| HAPPY RETURNS |
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