Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Village Stradivarius
    A Village Stradivarius
    A Village Stradivarius
    Ebook56 pages51 minutes

    A Village Stradivarius

    By Kate Douglas Wiggin

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Classic short story for children. According to Wikipedia: "Kate Douglas Wiggin ( 1856 -1923) was an American children's author and educator. Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin was born in Philadelphia, and was of Welsh descent . She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). With her sister in the 1880s she also established a training school for kindergarten teachers. She was also a writer of children's books, the best known being The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903)."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeltzer Books
    Release dateMar 1, 2018
    ISBN9781455359189
    A Village Stradivarius
    Author

    Kate Douglas Wiggin

    Kate Douglas Wiggin (1856–1923) was an American educator, author, and advocate who is best known for writing Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. After graduating from kindergarten-teacher training in Santa Barbara, Wiggins moved to San Francisco, where she founded the first free kindergarten on Silver Street in 1878.

    Read more from Kate Douglas Wiggin

    Related to A Village Stradivarius

    Related ebooks

    Children's Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      THE HOUSE with the BLUE DOOR

      May 7, 2020

      THE HOUSE with the BLUE DOOR
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Beyoğlu Municipality Waste Management Orchestra

      Jun 8, 2021

      Selim the half-wit hoarded everything—that was the story they told me my first day in waste management. Selim had lost his wife, and I guess everyone figured he took up hoarding as a way to fill the void. It started out with stuff his wife might have

      24 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Summer Beach Reads

      Jan 10, 2021

      Summer Beach Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      Picks Of Our Literati

      Dec 9, 2019

      Sarah Lang: It’s a toss-up between the Anne of Green Gables series and the Little House on the Prairie series. I’ve read all the books in both series perhaps a hundred times, often right before bed. They remind me of hiding in a giant toy box so my f

      5 min read

    • Article

      Worlds Of Ink And Paper

      Nov 22, 2022

      As a young girl, I still remember my dear mother, smile on her face, curled up with Family Circle magazine in her lap. She was engrossed in an article titled “Butternut Wisdom,” written by Gladys Taber. At my age, it didn’t mean a thing to me. But as

      6 min read

    • Article

      Cricket League

      Apr 1, 2020

      Linden, age 9 Green Bay, WI Ophidia, the medusa, tried desperately to sketch a self-portrait. Later she would add color. Her problem was every time she looked into the lake at her reflection, the snakes of her hair were in a very different place. Sh

      8 min read

    • Article

      The Portrait

      Mar 1, 2018

      I WAS BORN almost completely deaf, and by the time I was seven I had already become a prisoner to my education. In the morning, I had speech therapy and tutoring with Mr. Bishop. We sat at my family’s long dining-room table, which was always covered

      9 min read

    • Article

      Jack of Knives

      Jun 3, 2021

      WINNER £100 Jennifer is the author of four middle grade children’s novels published by Maverick (writing as Jenny Moore). Her latest book, The Misadventures of Nicholas Nabb, is set during the same period as her winning story and also includes a scen

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Library of Gromma

      Jul 10, 2023

      Zac was sweating and panting as he reached the top of the hill. The crooked beams of the library loomed over him. He dropped the buckets of water, swore at the few drops that spilled, and escaped the piercing morning sun in the shade of the library.

      22 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Jun 1, 2023

      Table Talk
      11 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2024

      I was trying to look a little less like myselfand more like other humans, humans who belonged, so I put on a skort.Purchased in another life, when I had a husband and wrote thank-you notes and held dinner parties,the skort even had its own little poc

      6 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: March 2021

      Mar 4, 2021

      Our own Nick Ripatrazone takes a look at six new poetry titles from the likes of Adrienne Su, Dennis James Sweeney, and Karen Fish. The post Must-Read Poetry: March 2021 appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Library Of Gromma

      Feb 10, 2021

      Zac was sweating and panting as he reached the top of the hill. The crooked beams of the library loomed over him. He dropped the buckets of water, swore at the few drops that spilt, and escaped the piercing morning sun in the shade of the library. He

      22 min read

    • Article

      The Last Friend on Earth

      May 4, 2023

      It was as if Doreen Saunders had been waiting for me, passing the time until my arrival. She might as well have been sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, jam tarts cooling on the side, the door wide open, waiting for the next visito

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Joys Of Reading With A Second Grader

      Nov 18, 2019

      My daughter would need a chair to reach them, and I could see it was this fact—not my endorsement of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classics—that sold her on them. The post The Joys of Reading with a Second Grader appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      READER Reviews

      Jun 4, 2021

      by Peter van den Ende Pushkin Children’s Books, £16.99 Review by Amélie PW, age nine This book has loads of gorgeous black and white pictures, which all look like they took days each to draw, but no words. However, this book is not for babies! I

      5 min read

    • Article

      All My Tomorrows

      May 10, 2022

      It was Misha’s first day minding the shop, and already she’d broken the fifth rule. Always lock the door immediately. When you had the most valuable merchandise in the universe, you had to take the utmost precautions. She hadn’t meant to disobey. It

      13 min read

    • Article

      Literary Paper Dolls: Franny

      May 20, 2019

      Literary Paper Dolls: Franny
      5 min read

    • Article

      Cul-de-Sac

      Dec 1, 2021

      That old rage for order: how my father drove a square mouthed mower over-and-back, over-and-back, each row of neatly trimmed grass cut just like he told his barber: boy’s short, regular. O pioneer, taming this joke bit of prairie, no bindweed or dog

      5 min read

    • Article

      Breathing And Interested

      Jul 1, 2019

      I want to tell you a story about my daughter Jane Bell. Not long ago, she was nearly five at the time, we were walking to get the mail. Our driveway is long—about two-fifths of a mile from the house to the mailbox—so it is a substantial hike for some

      15 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Village Stradivarius

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Village Stradivarius - Kate Douglas Wiggin

      A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

      Published by Seltzer Books

      established in 1974, now offering over 14,000  books

      feedback welcome: seltzer@seltzerbooks.com

      Children's books by Kate Douglas Wiggin available from Seltzer Books

      The Birds' Christmas Carol

      Cathedral Courtship

      Diary of a Goose Girl

      Flag-Raising

      Homespun Tales

      Marm Lisa

      Mother Carey's Chickens

      New Chronicles of Rebecca

      Penelope's English Experience

      Penelope's Experiences in Scotland

      Penelope's Irish Experiences

      Penelope's Postscripts

      Polly Oliver's Problem

      Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

      Romance of a Christmas Carol

      Story of Patsy

      Story of Waitstill Baxter

      Summer in a Canyon

      Timothy's Quest

      Village Stradivarius

      CHAPTER I.

      CHAPTER II.

      CHAPTER III.

      CHAPTER IV.

      CHAPTER V.

      CHAPTER VI.

      CHAPTER I

      "Goodfellow, Puck and goblins,

      Know more than any book.

      Down with your doleful problems,

      And court the sunny brook.

      The south-winds are quick-witted,

      The schools are sad and slow,

      The masters quite omitted

      The lore we care to know."

      EMERSON'S April.

      Find the three hundred and seventeenth page, Davy, and begin at the top of the right-hand column.

      The boy turned the leaves of the old instruction book obediently, and then began to read in a sing-song, monotonous tone:

      'One of Pag-pag' -

      Pag-a-ni-ni's

      'One of Paggernyner's' (I wish all the fellers in your stories didn't have such tough old names!) 'most dis-as-ter-ous triumphs he had when playing at Lord Holland's.'  (Who was Lord Holland, uncle Tony?)  'Some one asked him to im-provise on the violin the story of a son who kills his father, runs a-way, becomes a high-way-man, falls in love with a girl who will not listen to him; so he leads her to a wild country site, suddenly jumping with her from a rock into an a-b- y-s-s'

      Abyss.

      '--a--rock--into--an--abyss, where they disappear for ever. Paggernyner listened quietly, and when the story was at an end he asked that all the lights should be distinguished.'

      Look closer, Davy.

      'Should be EXtinguished.  He then began playing, and so terrible was the musical in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the idea which had been given him that several of the ladies fainted, and the sal-salon-sAlon, when relighted, looked like a battle-field.'  Cracky!  Wouldn't you like to have been there, uncle Tony?  But I don't believe anybody ever played that way, do you?

      Yes, said the listener, dreamily raising his sightless eyes to the elm-tree that grew by the kitchen door.  I believe it, and I can hear it myself when you read the story to me.  I feel that the secret of everything in the world that is beautiful, or true, or terrible, is hidden in the strings of my violin, Davy, but only a master can draw it from captivity.

      You make stories on your violin, too, uncle Tony, even if the ladies don't faint away in heaps, and if the kitchen doesn't look like a battle-field when you've finished.  I'm glad it doesn't, for my part, for I should have more housework to do than ever.

      Poor Davy! you couldn't hate housework any worse if you were a woman; but it is all done for to-day.  Now paint me one of your pictures, laddie; make me see with your eyes.

      The boy put down the book and leaped out of the open door, barely touching the old millstone that served for a step.  Taking a stand in the well-worn path, he rested his hands on his hips, swept the landscape with the glance of an eagle, and began like a young improvisator:

      The sun is just dropping behind Brigadier Hill.

      What colour is it?

      "Red as fire, and there isn't anything near it--it's almost alone in the sky; there's only teeny little white feather clouds here and there.  The bridge looks as if it was a silver string tying the two sides of the river together.  The water is pink where the sun shines into it.  All the leaves of the trees are kind of swimming in the red light--I tell you, nunky, just as if I was looking through red glass. The weather vane on Squire Bean's barn dazzles so the rooster seems to be shooting gold arrows into the river.  I can see the tip top of

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1