Maida's little house

The three were Laura Lathrop; her brother, Harold Lathrop; their friend, Arthur Duncan. Rosie did not join them on the grass. She seated herself in the hammock behind them and b...

“When did you land?” “Why didn’t you let us know?” “How long are you going to stay?” “Did your father come too?” “Where’s Billy Potter?” “How’s Dr. Pierce?” And “Oh how you’ve g...

As the train drew into the Satuit Station, it seemed to spill children from every door. Counting them carefully, Granny Flynn and Mrs. Dore found to their great relief that the...

“Do you want to see the place now or wait until after supper?” Maida asked after the last admiring exclamation had died, the last pair of cramped legs had stretched themselves out.

The sun poured through the windows onto Maida’s bed. She stirred. Was it a bird calling her? No. It was the phonograph. She peeped out the window. Arthur had brought the phonogr...

“There isn’t very much to tell, except that they’ve come here every summer ever since I can remember and, indeed, long before I was born. Father has always permitted them to cam...

“I think that Silva Burle was just horrid!” Rosie burst out suddenly. “Just horrid!” she repeated with an enraged accent. “I never took such a dislike to a girl in my life. I ju...

“I feel like reading,” Maida said with a determined air. She marched into the library. “There’s a book here I haven’t read for a long time, _At the Back of the North Wind_.” She...

“Now,” Maida announced at breakfast a week later, “we’ve had all the vacation we’re going to get--at least all that the Big Six get. To-morrow begins our work. Father said we co...

Really, as Rosie pointed out, the work for Floribel’s and Zeke’s day out began the morning before. You had to make sure then that there was enough raw material in the house for...

After the second Thursday, which was Floribel’s and Zeke’s day out, came the second Saturday of the children’s stay in the Little House, and on that Saturday all the parents cam...

The Big Six--as the older children were now called--were returning from their swim. A shower, early in the morning, had delayed the bathing hour until afternoon. And their pent-...

“Do you know I think it would be fine if we went off some day this week on a picnic,” Laura said unexpectedly one morning. “I just love to go on picnics. And we haven’t had one...

In the midst of the clearing, the paper tablecloth still lay on the ground, a great shining rectangle of white. Scattered about, crumpled, soiled, or torn were the paper napkins...

It was after eleven, a cloudless night and a beautiful one. A great white moon filled the sky with white light and covered the earth with a thin film of silver. The barn door op...

Arthur’s first inclination was to call. But something within him warned him not to do that. Something just as imperative advised him to another course of action. He waited a mom...

“I never saw such a place as this,” Rosie wailed once. “There aren’t hours enough to do all the things you want to do every day; and not days enough to do all you want to do eve...

A very quiet group of children gathered at breakfast the next morning. Conversation was intermittent and devoted mainly to piling offers of assistance in the housework on Granny...

At first because of the noise which prevailed at breakfasts in the Little House, nobody noticed Maida’s continued silence. Then finally Rosie Brine made comment on it. “Sleepy-h...

Maida crept slowly out of her room; stole softly down the stairs; ran quietly to a side entrance; opened the screen door gently; closed it inaudibly; dashed down the trail to th...

Indoors was the scene and sound of confusion. Delia, sensing the panic that lay in the atmosphere, was crying wildly for her mother. The other children, unchecked, were running...

“After the dishes are washed and wiped, let’s set the table for supper,” Laura suggested. “Floribel will be so tired when she gets home, and thinks of all the work she’ll have t...

When Maida woke up the next morning, it was to the sound of a baby’s crying. It was not however a sick cry; it was a sleepy cry. She glanced swiftly at the clock; then jumped ou...

When Maida turned the bend in the path just before it came out on the Little House, she found Rosie, Laura, Arthur, Harold and Dicky drawn up in a straight soldier-like line.

Outside all was wind, rain, confusion and destruction. Occasionally a bough came crashing down to earth and always the branches of the great tree beside Maida’s window, rubbed a...

“Oh how I wish your father would let you,” Rosie declared fervently. “Wouldn’t it be fun? But then you know all they could teach you there. You know geography and history and li...