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John Whopper The Newsboy By: Thomas M. (Thomas March) Clark (1812-1903) |
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[Illustration: JOHN WHOPPER AT THE NORTH POLE.] JOHN WHOPPER THE NEWSBOY. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1871. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by ROBERTS BROTHERS, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. Stereotyped and Printed by
ALFRED MUDGE & SON,
Boston, Mass.
CHAPTER I. HOW JOHN WHOPPER DISCOVERED THE AIR LINE TO CHINA.
Two years ago last February, I think it was on a Tuesday morning, I
started as usual very early to distribute my papers. I had a large
bundle to dispose of that day, and thought that if I took a short cut
across the fields, instead of following the road from Roxbury to Jamaica
Plain, I could go my rounds in much less time. I do not care to tell
precisely where it was that I jumped over the fence; but it is a rough,
barren kind of spot, which nobody has ever done any thing to improve. After walking about a third of a mile, I began to think that I had
better have kept to the turnpike; for I found that I was obliged to
clamber over an uneven, rocky place, among trees and bushes and shrubs,
that grew just thick enough to bother me, so that I hardly knew where to
put my feet. All at once I lost my balance, and felt that I was sliding
down the side of a smooth, steep rock; while underneath, to my horror, I
saw what looked like a circular cave, or well, some five or six feet in
diameter. I tried to grasp the rock with my hands, and ground my heels
as hard as I could against the surface, but it was of no use; down I
slipped, faster and faster, until at last I plunged, feet foremost, into
the dark hole below. For a moment I held my breath, expecting to be
dashed to pieces; and oh, how many things I thought of in that short
minute! It seemed as if every thing that I had ever done came back to
me, especially all the bad things; and how I wished then that I had
lived a better life! I thought, too, of my poor mother and my little
brother and sister at home, and how they would wait breakfast for me
that morning; and how they would keep on waiting and waiting, hour after
hour and day after day; and how the neighbors would all turn out and
search for me; and how I should never be found, and nobody would ever
know what had become of me. And then I wondered whether Mr. Simpson,
who employed me to distribute the papers, would suppose that I had run
away somewhere, to sell them on my own account; and so I went on
thinking and wondering, until it seemed as if there was no end to the
time. And yet I didn't strike the bottom of the cave, but just went on
falling and falling, faster and faster, in the darkness, and sometimes
just grazing the sides, and still not so as to hurt me much. My great
trouble was to breathe; when it occurred to me to lay the sleeve of my
coat across my mouth: and then I found that I could breathe through the
cloth with tolerable ease. After a while, I recovered my senses; and
though I continued to fall on still faster and faster, I experienced no
great inconvenience. How long this continued, I cannot tell; it
appeared to be an age; and I must have been falling for several hours,
when I began to feel as though I was not sinking as fast as I had been;
and after a while, it seemed as if I were rising up, rather than
tumbling down. As I was now able to breathe much more freely than I had
done, I began to think calmly about my condition; and then the thought
flashed across my mind, that perhaps I had passed the centre of the
earth, and was gradually rising to the surface on the other side. This
gave me hope; and when I found that I continued to move slower and
slower, I tried to collect my faculties, so that I might know just what
it would be best to do, if I should be so fortunate as to reach the
other end of the hole into which I had tumbled. At last, looking down,
I saw a little speck of light, like a very faint star; and then, I tell
you, my heart bounded with joy... Continue reading book >>
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Genres for this book |
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Fantasy |
Fiction |
Teen/Young adult |
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