Stories and Sketches for the Young Author:Harriet Beecher Stowe General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1896 Original Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin and Company Subjects: Children Conduct of life Children's stories Fiction / General Fiction / Anthologies Fiction / Literary Fiction / Short Stories Juvenile Fiction / General Self-Help / General Notes: This is a... more » black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE MINISTER'S WATERMELONS It was a proud day in my life when I first counted myself as an academy boy in Highland Academy. Highland was about as still and dreamy a little village as one could see among the White Mountains ; but it was a grand, lively metropolis, compared to Blueberry, where my tender years were spent, and where I acquired sufficient primary knowledge to enable me to graduate into Highland Academy. I remember now my emotions, as, seated on the top of the stage, with a very ancient and dilapidated hair trunk as the repository of my worldly goods, we came dashing into Highland in a glorious cloud of dust, which the setting radiance of the afternoon sun illuminated with splendor. " Here we go," thought I, as two dogs barked, and some roosting hens flew down and cackled, and a cat ran away from before us, and a flock of geese opened their beaks, and flapped their wings, and hissed, and the driver cracked his whip, and the clerks of the one country store, where the post-office was kept, came and stood out in the porch, while a half-dozen boys sat on a fence and waved their hats. " This is something like life," thought I, and my breast heaved, as I thought of the confined stillness of Blueberry, which was nine miles from any stage station. The academy I surveyed with awe. It was quite as big as our meeting-house, and had a bell on it, which our meet...« less