The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

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• Publié par: jitem
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 54
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pot of Gold, by Mary E. Wilkins This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Pot of Gold And Other Stories Author: Mary E. Wilkins Release Date: August 7, 2005 [EBook #16468] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POT OF GOLD *** Produced by Ted Garvin, Lesley Halamek and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net frontispiece FLAX LOOKS INTO THE POT OF GOLD. SHORT STORY THE POT OF GOLD AND OTHER STORIES BY MARY E. WILKINS Author of "A New England Nun," "A Humble Romance," etc. ILLUSTRATED BOSTON D LOTHROP COMPANY 1893 COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY D. LOTHROP COMPANY. SHORT STORY CONTENTS. Page THE POT OF GOLD THE COW WITH GOLDEN HORNS PRINCESS ROSETTA AND THE POP-CORN MAN. I. THE PRINCESS ROSETTA II. THE POP-CORN MAN THE CHRISTMAS MONKS THE PUMPKIN GIANT THE CHRISTMAS MASQUERADE 11 25 41 41 51 69 98 115 DILL THE SILVER HEN TOBY THE PATCHWORK SCHOOL THE SQUIRE'S SIXPENCE A PLAIN CASE A STRANGER IN THE VILLAGE THE BOUND GIRL DEACON THOMAS WALES'S WILL THE ADOPTED DAUGHTER 135 154 176 198 219 237 261 273 290 306 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Flax looks into the Pot of Gold The settle and the kettle Drusilla and her gold-horned cow A Knight of the Golden Bee The princess was not in the basket! The bee guards patrolled the city "You!" cried the baron scornfully Both the king and queen were obliged to pop Going into the chapel The boys read the notice The prince and Peter are examined by the monks The boys at work in the convent garden The prince runs away He picked up an enormous young Plantagenet and threw it at him They were all over the field Then the king knighted him on the spot There never was anything like the fun at the mayor's Christmas ball Their parents stared in great distress "I will go and tend my geese!" She sang it beautifully A strange sad state of things Nan returns with the umbrellas Such frantic efforts to get away Dame Elizabeth stared with astonishment The count thinks himself insulted They fairly danced and flourished their heels. The snow was quite deep Two by two The snow man's house Puss-in-the-corner To the rescue "I'll put this right in your face and—melt you!" Letitia stood before uncle Jack School children in Pokonoket Pokonoket in stormy weather Toby and the crazy loon Toby ran till he was out of breath The patchwork woman The patchwork girl Julia was arrested on Christmas Day Julia entertains the ambassador through the keyhole The grandmothers enjoy the Chinese toys "Six"—she began feebly "What!" said Squire Bean suddenly Little Patience obeys the squire's summons Watching for the coach "Just look here!" said Willy's sweet voice The little stranger Frontis. 14 27 45 51 53 61 64 71 77 81 87 93 104 106 111 119 122 125 129 141 145 148 150 152 153 155 157 163 164 169 173 178 181 185 188 193 200 202 205 211 215 221 223 233 239 249 263 She almost fainted from cold and exhaustion A conveyance is found 301 321 [Page 11] THE POT OF GOLD. THE POT OF GOLD. The Flower family lived in a little house in a broad grassy meadow, which sloped a few rods from their front door down to a gentle, silvery river. Right across the river rose a lovely dark green mountain, and when there was a rainbow, as there frequently was, nothing could have looked more enchanting than it did rising from the opposite bank of the stream with the wet, shadowy mountain for a background. All the Flower family would invariably run to their front windows and their door to see it. The Flower family numbered nine: Father and Mother Flower and seven children. Father Flower was an unappreciated poet, Mother Flower was very much like all mothers, and the seven children were very sweet and interesting. Their first names all matched beautifully with their last name, and with their personal appearance. For instance, the oldest girl, who had soft blue eyes and flaxen curls, was called Flax Flower; the little boy, who came next, and had very red cheeks and loved to sleep late in the morning, was called Poppy Flower, and so on. This charming suitableness of their names was owing to Father Flower. He had a theory that a great deal of the misery and discord in the world comes from things not matching properly as they should; and he thought there ought to be a certain correspondence between all things that were in juxtaposition to each other, just as there ought to be between the last two words of a couplet of poetry. But he found, very often, there was no correspondence at all, just as words in poetry do not always rhyme when they should. However, he did his best to remedy it. He saw that every one of his children's names were suitable and accorded with their personal characteristics; and in his flower-garden—for he raised flowers for the market—only those of complementary colors were allowed to grow in adjoining beds, and, as often as possible, they rhymed in their names. But that was a more difficult matter to manage, and very few flowers were rhymed, or, if they were, none rhymed correctly. He had a bed of box next to one of phlox, and a trellis of woodbine grew next to one of eglantine, and a thicket of elder-blows was next to one of rose; but he was forced to let his violets and honeysuckles and many others go entirely unrhymed—this disturbed him considerably, but he reflected that it was not his fault, but that of the man who made the language and named the different flowers—he should have looked to it that those of complementary colors had names to rhyme with each other, then all would have been harmonious and as it should have been. Father Flower had chosen this way of earning his livelihood when he realized that he was doomed to be an unappreciated poet, because it suited so well with his name; and if the flowers had only rhymed a little better he would have been very well contented. As it was, he never grumbled. He also saw to it that the furniture in his little house and the cooking utensils rhymed as nearly as possible, though that too was oftentimes a difficult matter to bring