The Rachel Field Signature Classics (5-Volume Illustrated Box Set) : Hitty Her First Hundred Years, Time Out Of Mind, Calico Bush, All This, and Heaven Too and Others , livre ebook

Rachel Field
The Rachel Field Signature Classics (5-Volume Illustrated Box Set):
Hitty Her First Hundred Years, Time Out Of Mind, Calico Bush, All This, and Heaven Too and Others
The Rachel Field Signature Classics (5-Volume Illustrated Box Set) brings together the finest works of one of America’s most beloved and lyrical authors. Known for her poetic style, emotional depth, and richly detailed historical settings, Rachel Field left a lasting mark on both children’s and adult literature.
This beautifully curated collection includes her Newbery Medal-winning novel Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, a charming tale told from the perspective of a well-traveled doll over the course of a century. It also features Calico Bush, a Newbery Honor book about a young French girl forging a new life on the colonial American frontier, and Time Out of Mind, winner of the National Book Award, a powerful story of love, identity, and class on the coast of Maine.
Also included is All This, and Heaven Too, a sweeping historical romance based on true events that shook 19th-century France, as well as other carefully selected works that reflect Field’s range—from historical fiction and romance to children's storytelling.
With original illustrations and timeless prose, this deluxe box set is a celebration of Rachel Field’s literary legacy. A perfect collection for lovers of historical fiction, classic children’s literature, and beautifully crafted storytelling.
Contents:
- Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
- Time Out Of Mind
- Calico Bush
- All This, and Heaven Too
- And Now Tomorrow
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
Chapter I. In Which I Begin My Memoirs
Chapter II. In Which I Go Up In The World And Am Glad To Come Down Again
Chapter III. In Which I Travel-By Land And Sea
Chapter IV. In Which We Go To Sea
Chapter V. In Which We Strike Our First And Last Whales
Chapter VI. In Which I Join The Fishes And Rejoin The Prebles
Chapter VII. In Which I Learn The Ways Of Gods, Natives, And Monkeys
Chapter VIII. In Which I Am Lost In India
Chapter IX. In Which I Have Another Child To Play With Me
Chapter X. In Which I Am Rescued And Hear Adelina Patti
Chapter XI. In Which I Sit For My Daguerreotype And Meet A Poet
Chapter XII. In Which I Go Into Camphor, Reach New York, And Become A Doll Of Fashion
Chapter XIII. In Which I Spend A Disastrous New Year’s And Return To New England
Chapter XIV. In Which I End My Hay-Days And Begin A New Profession
Chapter XV. In Which I Learn Much Of Plantations, Post Offices, And Pin Cushions
Chapter XVI. In Which I Return To Familiar Scenes
Chapter XVII. In Which I Am Sold At Auction
Last Remarks
Time Out of Mind
Part I
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Part II
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Part III
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Part IV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Part V
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Calico Bush
Part I. Summer
Part II. Fall
Part III. Winter
Part IV. Spring
All This, and Heaven Too
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Part II
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Part III
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Fourty
Chapter Fourty-One
Chapter Fourty-Two
Chapter Fourty-Three
Chapter Fourty-Four
Chapter Fourty-Five
And Now Tomorrow
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Publisher: Asimis Books © Ukraine - Kyiv 2025
ISBN: 978-617-8710-19-4
Hitty: Her First Hundred Years
Chapter I. In Which I Begin My Memoirs



The antique shop is very still now. Theobold and I have it all to ourselves, for the cuckoo clock was sold day before yesterday and Theobold has been so industrious of late there are no more mice to venture out from behind the woodwork. Theobold is the shop cat—the only thing in it that is not for sale, which has made him rather overbearing at times. Not that I wish to be critical of him. We all have our little infirmities and if it had not been for his I might not now be writing my memoirs. Still, infirmities are one thing, and claws are another, as I have reason to know.
Theobold is not exactly a bad cat, but he is far from considerate. Besides, he is prowlishly inclined and he has the most powerful claws and tail I have ever known. Then, just lately he has taken to sleeping in the shop window with his head on the tray of antique jewelry. If Miss Hunter could have seen how narrowly he missed swallowing one of the garnet earrings when he yawned night before last, she would be very uneasy indeed. But Miss Hunter has had Theobold ever since she opened the antique shop and she seems to set great store by him for his trying ways. Miss Hunter has a good many queer ones of her own and I must say that I felt a little wadgetty, as Phoebe Preble’e mother used to say, at first over her habit of poking and peering and turning everything upside down. One grows used to this in time, though it wasn’t what I was brought up to consider the best manners. But Miss Hunter means well and if she decides you are genuine there is nothing she will not do for you. That is why after she found me knocked off my chair and on my nose three different mornings she said she would run no chances with such a valuable old doll but would take me out of the window each night before shutting up shop.
So here I am in the midst of her very untidy desk with my feet on a spattered square of green blotting paper, my back against
a pewter inkstand, and a perfect snow bank of bills and papers heaped about me. Nearby, weighting down another pile of scribbled sheets, is an old conch shell. I have seen far handsomer ones in my time; still, it is a reminder. I cannot see the light shine on its curving sides without thinking of the Island in the South Seas and all the adventures that befell us there. Across the store on the mantelpiece is the model of a sailing vessel, square-rigged, in a glass bottle. But its sails are not so well trimmed, and its gilding not so fine as the Diana-Kate when we sailed out of Boston Harbor. Perhaps tonight the old Swiss music box will begin to play all of itself, as it does sometimes without the least warning. It is strange to sit here and listen while it tinkles out the “Roses and Mignonette” waltz with the same precise gaiety as in the days when Isabella Van Rensselaer and the rest danced to that tune at Monsieur Pettoe’s select salon for young ladies and gentlemen. That was just across Washington Square, scarcely a block away from where I sit today, but there were no skyscrapers then nor any street of little shops like this,
It may have been the ship in the bottle, or it may have been the music box, though I think it more likely that the quill pen gave me the idea of writing the story of my life. The pen belongs with the pewter inkstand, but quills are as much out of fashion today as whalebones in ladies’ dresses and poke bonnets for little girls. Still, one cannot forget one’s early training, and not for nothing did I watch Clarissa copy all those mottoes into her exercise book with a quill pen. If it is true, as Miss Hunter and the Old Gentleman declare, that I am the most genuine antique in the shop, why should I not prefer quills to these newfangled fountain pens! Nor am I inclined to scratchy steel affairs with sharp points. So I will be true to my quill pen which I now take in hand to begin my memoirs. I begin my memoirs.
As far as 1 can learn, 1 must have been made something over a hundred years ago in the State of Maine in the dead of winter. Naturally I remember nothing of this, but I have heard the story told so often by one or another of the Preble family that at times it seems I, also, must have looked on as the Old Peddler carved me out of his piece of mountain-ash wood. It was a small piece, which accounts for my being slightly under-sized even for a doll, and he treasured it greatly, for he had brought it across the sea from Ireland. A piece of mountain-ash wood is a good thing to keep close at hand, for it brings luck besides having power against witchcraft and evil. That was the reason he had carried this about in the bottom of his pack ever since he had started peddling. Mostly he did his best business from May to November when roads were open and the weather not too cold for farmers’ wives and daughters to stand on their doorsteps as he spread out his wares. But that year he tramped farther north than he had ever be