Starlight Stories Told to Bright Eyes and Listening Ears, Illustr. by K. Greenaway

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877. Excerpt: ... WHY THE ICEBERGS COME SO FAR SOUTH. ONCE upon a time, so many, many years ago that we must not stop to count them, a little lad lay dying on the ice. Nothing earthly could save him; not all the little longeared fur caps, not all the thickly fur-lined x coats and leggings, not all the warm seal-skin waistcoats and gloves and stout boots in the world would have been K enough to keep out the intense cold that was around him. For the ice on which the little lad was lying was the ice of the wide, wide Arctic Ocean. Not that he suffered in any way. The drowsiness that had so suddenly overcome him, as he ran wildly, deliriously to and fro, on the boundless dreary expanse of frozen sea, had given way to profound sleep; and as he lay there quietly sleeping his life away, he dreamt, yet without pain or distress, of the brave little vessel, where, though the work was so much harder than he had thought it would be, yet the men were after all so much kinder to him than from their rough manners he had at first thought they might be, seeing that he was but a naughty little fellow who had run away from home to go to sea, and, being rather confused about things, was apt to be getting continually in somebody's way. Of the long, dreary voyage he dreamt, and of his own quick repentance, and of the good resolutions he formed. And of the storm that had come upon them so suddenly, and of the wrong course that the captain had taken. Of the first view of the glittering white and blue wall of ice, and of the gradual surrounding of their disabled, struggling little vessel by that same ice. Of the long, dreary Tjonths of anxiety and dire forebodings, and of the 'ble few days of lingering starvation from the cruel cold and gnawing hunger. Of the gradual dying away of the little crew;...