FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27  
28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   >>   >|  
ap is Submerged a Hundred Yards or so from Shore" 130 "NEXT" 172 "Please Look at My Tongue, Doctor" 172 The Hospital Ship, STRATHCONA 220 "I Have a Crew Strong Enough to Take You into My District" 234 I THE SANDS OF DEE The first great adventure in the life of our hero occurred on the twenty-eighth day of February in the year 1865. He was born that day. The greatest adventure as well as the greatest event that ever comes into anybody's life is the adventure of being born. If there is such a thing as luck, Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, as his parents named him, fell into luck, when he was born on February twenty-eighth, 1865. He might have been born on February twenty-ninth one year earlier, and that would have been little short of a catastrophe, for in that case his birthdays would have been separated by intervals of four years, and every boy knows what a hardship it would be to wait four years for a birthday, when every one else is having one every year. There _are_ people, to be sure, who would like their birthdays to be four years apart, but they are not boys. Grenfell was also lucky, or, let us say, fortunate in the place where he was born and spent his early boyhood. His father was Head Master of Mostyn House, a school for boys at Parkgate, England, a little fishing village not far from the historic old city of Chester. By referring to your map you will find Chester a dozen miles or so to the southward of Liverpool, though you may not find Parkgate, for it is so small a village that the map makers are quite likely to overlook it. Here at Parkgate the River Dee flows down into an estuary that opens out into the Irish Sea, and here spread the famous "Sands of Dee," known the world over through Charles Kingsley's pathetic poem, which we have all read, and over which, I confess, I shed tears when a boy: O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, Across the Sands o' Dee; The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam, And all alone went she. The creeping tide came up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see; The blinding mist came down and hid the land-- And never home came she. Oh i
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27  
28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
adventure
 

twenty

 

February

 

cattle

 
Parkgate
 
Chester
 

greatest

 
Grenfell
 

birthdays

 

village


eighth

 

historic

 
makers
 

southward

 
Liverpool
 
referring
 

overlook

 

estuary

 
creeping
 

blinding


Charles

 

Kingsley

 

pathetic

 
spread
 

famous

 
Across
 

western

 

fishing

 

confess

 

occurred


Wilfred

 

Thomason

 
parents
 

District

 

Please

 

Tongue

 
Submerged
 
Hundred
 

Doctor

 

Hospital


Strong

 

Enough

 

STRATHCONA

 

fortunate

 
Master
 

Mostyn

 
school
 

father

 
boyhood
 

separated