TOP o' the WORLD - A Once Upon a Time Children's Fantasy Tale E-Book

Mark E. Swan

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

TOP o’ the WORLD is a tale of ONCE UPON A TIME…..
This is a child’s fantasy / fairy tale of Maida who visited the Wishing Pole at the North Pole, despite some very wise men with bald heads and long white beards who say there isn’t a Wishing Post at all!

This is one of those gems of the children’s literary world that for some unfathomable reason never became a best seller. Not only does it have a cracking story-line it also has six exquisitely crafted full page colour plates but also 20 BnW vignettes to help young readers visualise the story as it progresses.

In this book you will read about how Maida, who loves ice-cream, met the “Man with the Growly Voice”, who was an arctic explorer who told her a whole lot of interesting things about his journeys and voyages AND about the wishing post. The last thing she remembered, he was telling her about the time he met Father Christmas at the North Pole – and then she woke up in bed with a desire to find the Wishing Post and Father Christmas. Then he room was flooded with a bright eerie light. So, she went to the window and saw the Man with the Growly Voice who came to her and said, “I’ve come to take you to the Wishing Post.”
What happened next you may ask? Well you’ll just have to download this book and find out for yourself.
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KEYWORDS/TAGS: Top o the World, Maida, Aunt Mary, Man with the Growly Voice, North Pole, Polar Bear, Santa Claus, afraid, airship, alone, Arctic, Arcturia, Aurora Borealis, beautiful, bedtime story, believe, Billy, Candy, children, children’s story, climate, Disconsolate, Eskimos, explorer, fable, Fairy tale, fantasy, Folklore, Forbidden, happy, ice-cream, Illusia, Inuit, journey, Jack Frost, Jack-in-the-Box, Kankakee, Kokomo, Lover, Nortern Lights, poor, scream, Snow, story, three, two, Walrus, White Queen, window, Wishing, wonderful, young

Leseprobe

TOP O’ THE WORLDA Once upon a Time Tale

ByMark E. Swan

Pictures by Hy. Mayer

Originally published byE. P. Dutton & Company The Knickerbocker Press, New York[1908]

Resurrected By

Abela Publishing, London

[2014]

Top o’ the World

Typographical arrangement of this edition

© Abela Publishing 2019

This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Abela Publishing,

London

United Kingdom

2018

ISBN-13: 978-X-XXXXXX-XX-X

email

[email protected]

Website

Abela Publishing

Waiting for the Queen

Dedication

To My Little NieceMarionWho Loves Ice-Cream

Acknowledgements

THE TOP O’ THE WORLD was made into a story by permission of Mr. J. M. Allison from the fanciful extravaganza, THE TOP O’ THE WORLD. Book by Mark E. Swan, Lyrics by James O’Dea, Music by Anna Caldwell and Manuel Klein.

Foreword

Oh, little ones, with your pink cheeks and shining eyes, come clamber on my knee, put your arms about my neck, and listen with all your ears while I tell you a tale of

ONCE UPON A TIME.

Illustrations in Color

Waiting for the QueenFrontispiece

She Could See Castles in the Coals

When One is Sailing a Flying Machine

He Walked Deliberately into the Wall

In the Cake of Ice

They Laughed and Laughed

Illustrations in Black and White

Aunt Mary Wore Fluffy Dresses

Growly Voice Eats Snowballs

Aunt Mary Gets a Sealskin Coat

Maida Crept out of Bed

The Letter

The Birds Came to the Rescue

The Wolf Swallows a Tablet of Climate

Maida Meets Santa Claus

Out Popped Jack-in-the-Box

A Duel with Icicles

The Walrus Mends the Street

“How Do You Do?” in Eskimo

The Explorer Turns on the Tropical Climate

Maida was Carted away in a Box

Fido Flew

The Queen Sees Her Face

The Gates of the Prison Flew Open

Maida

THE TOP O’ THE WORLDChapter I

The Wishing Post grows right out of the ground at the Top of the World. Some very wise men with bald heads and long white beards say it isn’t a Wishing Post at all, and call it the North Pole, but Maida knows more about it than they do for she has been there and they haven’t. She really and truly went there in a flying ship, and I can’t begin to tell you all that she saw and all that she did, but I will try and remember as much as I can.

If you doubt my story ask Maida herself. She is a dear little girl, just nine, with curly brown hair and deep blue eyes, and she lives in a big house with papa and mama and Aunt Mary. If you want to find her go to Central Park and turn to the left. Maida’s house is the third from the corner. I don’t just remember the number, and I’ve forgotten the street, but as she nearly always wears a red dress and you know how she looks, you can easily find her.

All the trouble began because Maida was such a little girl. She was just big enough to know how little she was, and she didn’t like being a little girl at all. She wanted to be grown up. She told me so herself. She had reasons, too, oh so many. To begin with, there was ICE-CREAM. Maida loved ICE-CREAM. She could never get enough. (Perhaps you can never get enough, so you know just how she felt.) And she could eat and eat and eat, and ICE-CREAM never hurt her. On this point she differed with papa and mama.

Once she awoke in the night with a most burning feeling right in her tummy, and had to drink all sorts of horrid medicine before she felt better. But she could not convince mama and papa it was the brown bread and baked beans she had eaten two days before. They insisted it was three plates of ice-cream for supper. Grown-ups are so silly sometimes.

Then there was bedtime. Maida hated to go off to bed as soon as supper was over and leave everyone else up having a good time. Just at dusk when the flames in the fireplace began to dance and glitter and flash—and she could see castles and trees and mountains in the coals—SOMEBODY with a white cap and apron would snatch her up and carry her off to a little pink and white room and plump her into a pink and white bed—when she wasn’t a bit sleepy.

“She could see castles ... in the coals”

Maida often meant to rebel at such treatment, but somehow when she cuddled up in the pink and white bed and finished yawning, she overlooked it, and the next thing—it would be morning.

Still this ruffled her dignity every time it happened—as if she were sleepy, and didn’t know it, and she realized—just as you do—that it was because she was a little girl; for grown-ups can stay awake as long as they like.

Then there were the clothes. Maida wore dresses which reached only to her knees, and plain little petticoats, while her shoes were so strong and tough—oh, you’ll never believe what tough shoes they were unless you wear the same kind. It was almost impossible to kick holes in them. Then her hair was done in a braid and she had to wear a pinafore—oh, I can’t tell you how badly Maida felt about her clothes—especially when she looked at Aunt Mary. Aunt Mary wore fluffy dresses all hangy and traily, and the sweetest slippers with great high heels, and her hair was puffed out all over her head—oh, it was simply beautiful.

And Aunt Mary read lovely books too, all about lords and ladies, while all of Maida’s books were about, Where is Peru? and, How many is six times eight? Poor Maida, she had so many troubles—but you understand, don’t you?

Aunt Mary Wore Fluffy Dresses

So she wished and wished with all her heart that she were a really grown-up; that she could read those lovely books and have her hair fuzzed all over her head—that she could wear those traily, hangy gowns, and stay up nights, and never, never, NEVER have to eat anything but ICE-CREAM.

Chapter II

If you stand with one hand on the Wishing Post, and think hard of what you would like most in all the world, your wish comes true. Isn’t that lovely? Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? But it isn’t a fairy tale at all, it’s really true. Of course those old men with the goggles and the bald heads don’t believe it. If you ask them they will tell you the North Pole is just the end of the axis of the earth, whatever that may mean, and they will insist it isn’t a Wishing Post at all. Now, when they tell you this, here’s a crusher for them. Ask them how they know. Ask them if they’ve ever been there to see. Just see what they say to that. Maida has been there, and she knows all about it. To8 commence at the very beginning, this is how she came to make the trip.