Little Fishers and Their Nets

by Pansy

JOE DECKER gave his chair a noisy shove backward from the table, over the uneven floor, shambled across the space between it and the kitchen door, a look of intense disgust on his face, then stopped for his good-morning speech:

"You may as well know, first as last, that I've sent for Nan. I've stood this kind of thing just exactly as long as I'm going to. There ain't many men, I can tell you, who would have stood it so long. Such a meal as that! Ain't fit for a decent dog!

"Nan is coming in the afternoon stage. There must be some place fixed up for her to sleep in. Understand, now, that has got to be done, and I won't have no words about it."

Then he slammed the door, and went away.

[8]

Yes, he was talking to his wife! She could remember the time when he used to linger in the door, talking to her, so many last words to say, and when at last he would turn away with a kind "Well, good-by, Mary! Don't work too hard."

Genres: Christian Fiction, Fiction

264 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 3, 2010

About the author

Note: In her lifetime, Isabella Macdonald Alden was usually published under the pseudonym Pansy, and occasionally under the name Mrs. G.R. Alden.

Aunt to Grace Livingston Hill

The sixth of seven children born to Isaac and Myra Spafford Macdonald, of Rochester, New York, Isabella Macdonald received her early education from her father, who home-schooled her, and gave her a nickname - "Pansy" - that she would use for many of her publications. As a girl, she kept a daily journal, critiqued by her father, and she published her first story - The Old Clock - in a village paper when she was ten years old.

Macdonald's education continued at the Oneida Seminary, the Seneca Collegiate Institute, and the Young Ladies Institute, all in New York. It was at the Oneida Seminary that she met her long-time friend (and eventual co-author), Theodosia Toll, who secretly submitted one of Macdonald's manuscripts in a competition, setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to the publication of her first book, Helen Lester, in 1865.

Macdonald also met her future husband, the Rev. Gustavus Rossenberg Alden, at the Oneida Seminary, and the two were married in 1866. Now Isabella Macdonald Alden, the newly-married minister's wife followed her husband as his postings took them around the country, dividing her time between writing, church duties, and raising her son Raymond (born 1873).

A prolific author, who wrote approximately one hundred novels from 1865 to 1929, and co-authored ten more, Alden was also actively involved in the world of children's and religious periodicals, publishing numerous short stories, editing the Sunday Juvenile Pansy from 1874-1894, producing Sunday School lessons for The Westminster Teacher for twenty years, and working on the editorial staff of various other magazines (Trained Motherhood, The Christian Endeavor).

Highly influenced by her Christian beliefs, much of Alden's work was explicitly moral and didactic, and often found its way into Sunday School libraries. It was also immensely popular, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with an estimated 100,000 copies of Alden's books sold, in 1900.

Information taken from:

readseries.com

isabellamacdonaldalden.com

Reviews

[Anete Ābola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely preteen book. Thankful for Librivox that gave me the opportunity to listen to this while doing other things.

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming and lovely book, I’m not religious and drink like a fish, but still loved reading it…. the temperence propaganda is very very interesting.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love all the books by Pansy. They are old fashion, clean, Christian novels.