Excerpt from Mist of Morning

Head for the front door, tails for the back!" David flipped a copper into the air and watched it fall with pretended calm. "Heads it is! Guess I would have gone to the front door anyway."

This was pure bluff but it served to stiffen his courage. He knew it was no light thing for a small boy to ring the front door bell at the house of the Widow Ridley. Boys had tried it before but they had only pulled the handle and then had run away. It was another thing to stand one's ground and deliver a parcel, even when the parcel came from the minister and might be said to be under the protection of the church.

It was a breathlessly hot day. The shadows of the cedar trees lay like dark and pointing fingers over the close cut lawn. The house of the Widow Ridley slumbered in the heat, its wide green shutters closed. But behind those shutters - ! David banged the iron gate and marched boldly up the gravelled walk. His hand was already upon the bell to pull it when the door flew open. It opened so silently and so swiftly that it seemed the very worst had happened and that the Widow Ridley would appear in person. But she didn't. The door-opener was not a terrible old woman, with a hooked nose and a very useful cane, but a little girl.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.