LITTLE NELLY.
THIRTY-FIRST THOUSAND.
LITTLE FERNS
FOR
FANNY'S LITTLE FRIENDS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"FERN LEAVES."
WITH ORIGINAL DESIGNS BY FRED M. COFFIN.
AUBURN AND BUFFALO:
MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN.
1854.
Published first in England by International Arrangement with the
American Proprietors, and entered at Stationers' Hall.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, by
DERBY AND MILLER,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New-York.
STEREOTYPED BY
DERBY AND MILLER,
AUBURN.
to my little daughter
these
"Little Ferns"
are
affectionately dedicated
"They reckon not by months, and years
Where she hath gone to dwell."
Transcriber's Note:
Thestanzaof poetry quoted inScott Farmis fromThe Reaper and The Flowersby Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This same stanza, with a slight variation, can be found inWoman's Endurance, by A. D. L., B.A., Chaplain in the Concentration Camp,Bethulie, O.R.C., PG EText-No. 16859. The complete poem, again with aslightly different first stanza, can be found inThe Complete Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,PG EText No. 1365.
PREFACE.
Dear Children:—
Aunt Fanny has written you some stories, which she hopes will please and divert you. She would rather have come to you, andtoldthem, that she might have seen your bright faces; but as that could not be, she sends her little book instead. Perhaps you will sometime come and see her, andthenwon't we have a nice time telling stories?
Where do I live?
Won't you tell—certain true? Won't you tell Susy, or Mary, or Hatty, or Sammy, or Tommy, or even your pet Uncle Charley?
Oh, Ican'ttell!
"If I tell it to one, she will tell it to two,
And the next cup of tea, they will plot what they'll do;
So I'll tell nobody,
I'll tell nobody,
I'll tell nobody; no—not I!"
Fanny Fern.