Public-domain ebook
Language: en4,526 downloads on Project Gutenberg
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In: Children & Young Adult Reading·Novels
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #25972.
The story opens on a golden Sunday afternoon beneath a towering cedar at the Dene family’s country home, Firgrove. The narrative paints a vivid autumn landscape, ripe grain, heavy fruit, and a sky so bright it seems to contradict the calendar, while introducing Captain Dene and his two young children, Darby and Joan, as they sit together in a tender, almost silent tableau. Their father’s impending departure for the South African war looms over the scene, prompting the children’s plaintive questions about loss, faith, and the absence of their mother, who died a year earlier. The opening therefore establishes a domestic setting steeped in Christian reflection, sibling affection, and the looming conflict that will shape their lives, aligning with the book’s listed subjects of Christian life, conduct, and family dynamics in a juvenile context.
Written in the ornate, earnest prose of the late‑Victorian era, the novel blends a moralizing voice with detailed description, offering a gentle yet firm guidance on duty, piety, and perseverance. Its rhythm and diction will appeal to readers who enjoy classic children’s literature that emphasizes character formation and spiritual comfort, especially those interested in historical portrayals of family life and the home‑front experience of military service.
It was pleasant under the shade of the huge cedar tree on the lawn at Firgrove that golden Sunday afternoon. It was autumn, really and truly, going by the calendar at the back of the small cat-eared diary which Darby had coaxed from his father and always carried in his pocket. Yet the sunshine was so bright and warm, the birds were singing so joyously in the thickets, the rooks cawed so loudly as they wheeled and circled like a dense black battalion at drill up against the cloudless blue of the sky, that it was hard to believe the diary people had not made a mistake in their reckonings or stupidly mixed their dates. …
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