



Produced by David Widger.  HTML version by Al Haines









                 A WONDER-BOOK FOR GIRLS AND BOYS

                     By Nathaniel Hawthorne


                     THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES




CONTENTS:

  TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--Introductory to "The Three Golden Apples"
  THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES
  TANGLEWOOD FIRESIDE--After the Story




INTRODUCTORY TO "THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES"

The snow-storm lasted another day; but what became of it afterwards, I
cannot possibly imagine.  At any rate, it entirely cleared away, during
the night; and when the sun arose, the next morning, it shone brightly
down on as bleak a tract of hill-country, here in Berkshire, as could be
seen anywhere in the world.  The frost-work had so covered the
windowpanes that it was hardly possible to get a glimpse at the scenery
outside.  But, while waiting for breakfast, the small populace of
Tanglewood had scratched peepholes with their finger-nails, and saw with
vast delight that--unless it were one or two bare patches on a
precipitous hillside, or the gray effect of the snow, intermingled with
the black pine forest--all nature was as white as a sheet.  How
exceedingly pleasant!  And, to make it all the better, it was cold
enough to nip one's nose short off!  If people have but life enough in
them to bear it, there is nothing that so raises the spirits, and makes
the blood ripple and dance so nimbly, like a brook down the <DW72> of a
hill, as a bright, hard frost.

No sooner was breakfast over, than the whole party, well muffled in furs
and woollens, floundered forth into the midst of the snow.  Well, what a
day of frosty sport was this!  They slid down hill into the valley, a
hundred times, nobody knows how far; and, to make it all the merrier,
upsetting their sledges, and tumbling head over heels, quite as often as
they came safely to the bottom.  And, once, Eustace Bright took
Periwinkle, Sweet Fern, and Squash-blossom, on the sledge with him, by
way of insuring a safe passage; and down they went, full speed.  But,
behold, half-way down, the sledge hit against a hidden stump, and flung
all four of its passengers into a heap; and, on gathering themselves up,
there was no little Squash-blossom to be found!  Why, what could have
become of the child?  And while they were wondering and staring about,
up started Squash-blossom out of a snow-bank, with the reddest face you
ever saw, and looking as if a large scarlet flower had suddenly sprouted
up in midwinter.  Then there was a great laugh.

When they had grown tired of sliding down hill, Eustace set the children
to digging a cave in the biggest snow-drift that they could find.
Unluckily, just as it was completed, and the party had squeezed
themselves into the hollow, down came the roof upon their heads, and
buried every soul of them alive!  The next moment, up popped all their
little heads out of the ruins, and the tall student's head in the midst
of them, looking hoary and venerable with the snow-dust that had got
amongst his brown curls.  And then, to punish Cousin Eustace for
advising them to dig such a tumble-down cavern, the children attacked
him in a body, and so bepelted him with snowballs that he was fain to
take to his heels.

So he ran away, and went into the woods, and thence to the margin of
Shadow Brook, where he could hear the streamlet grumbling along, under
great overhanging banks of snow and ice, which would scarcely let it see
the light of day.  There were adamantine icicles glittering around all
its little cascades.  Thence be strolled to the shore of the lake, and
beheld a white, untrodden plain before him, stretching from his own feet
to the foot of Monument Mountain.  And, it being now almost sunset,
Eustace thought that he had never beheld anything so fresh and beautiful
as the scene.  He was glad that the children were