Tale Teller Kids™

Lullaby-Land: Songs of Childhood
by Eugene Field

section 1 of lullaby land songs of childhood this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org lullaby land songs of childhood by eugene field the rock-a-bye lady the rock-a-bye lady from hashebai street comes stealing comes creeping the poppies they hang from her head to her feet and each hath a dream that is tiny and fleet she bringeth her poppies to you my sweet when she findeth you sleeping there is one little dream of a beautiful drum rub-a-dub it goeth there is one little dream of a big sugar plum and low thick and fast the other dreams come of pop guns that bang and tin tops that hum in a trumpet that bloweth and dollies peep out of those wee little dreams with laughter and singing and boats go floating on silvery streams and the stars peekaboo with their own misty gleams and up up and up where the mother moon beams the fairies go winging would you dream all these dreams that are tiny and fleet they'll come to you sleeping so shut the two eyes that are weary my sweet for the rock-a-bye lady from hashebai street with poppies that hang from her head to her feet come stealing comes creeping

garden and cradle when our babe he goeth walking in his garden around his tinkling feet the sun beams play the poses they are good to him and bow them as they should to him as fareth he upon his kingly way and birdlings of the wood to him make music gentle music all the day when our baby goeth walking in his garden when our babe he goeth swinging in his cradle then the night looketh ever sweetly down the little stars are kind to him the moon she hath a mind to him and layeth on his head a golden crown and singeth then the wind to him a song the gentle song of bethlehem town when our babe he goeth swinging in his cradle the night wind have you ever heard the wind go tis a pitiful sound to hear it seems to chill you through and through with a strange and speechless fear tis the voice of the night that broods outside when folks should be asleep and many and many's the time i've cried to the darkness brooding far and wide over the land and the deep whom do you want a lonely night that you wail the long hours through and the night would say in its ghostly way you you you my mother told me long ago when i was a little tad that when the night went wailing so somebody had been bad and then when i was snug in bed whether i had been sent with the blankets pulled up around my head i think of what my mother said and wonder what boy she meant and who's been bad today i'd ask of the wind that hoarsely blue and the voice would say in its meaningful way you you you

that this was true i must allow you'll not believe it though yes though i'm quite a model now i was not always so and if you doubt what things i say suppose you make the test suppose when you've been bad someday and up to bed or sent away from mother and the rest suppose you ask who has been bad and then you'll hear what's true for the wind will moan in its rulest tone you you you

the dinky bird in an ocean way out yonder as all sapien people know is the land of wonder wander where their children love to go it's their playing romping swinging that give great joy to me well the dinky bird goes singing in the amphilula tree there the gumdrops grow like cherries and taffy's thick as peas caramels you pick like berries when and where and how you please big red sugar plums are clinging to the cliffs beside that sea where the dinky bird is singing in the amphilula tree so when children shout and scamper and make merry all the day when there's not to put a damper to the order of their play when i hear their laughter ringing then i'm sure as sure can be that the dinky bird is singing in the amp fallula tree for the dinky bird's braviras and staccatos are so sweet his roulades appoggiaturas and robusto so...

Märchen - Alamanach auf das Jahr 1827
by Wilhelm Hauff

Publication date 2009-04-06
Usage Public DomainCreative Commons Licensepublicdomain
Topics librivox, literature, audiobook, children, Hörbuch, German, deutsch, Märchen, Zwerg Nase, Almansor, fairy tale
LibriVox recording of Märchen - Almanach auf das Jahr 1827, by Wilhelm Hauff.

Read in German by Hokuspokus.

Hauffs Märchen entstanden in der Spätromantik. Der zweite Band um den Scheik von Alessandria und seine Sklaven verlässt den rein orientalischen Handlungsraum; Zwerg Nase und zwei von Wilhelm Grimm übernommene Märchen (in dieser Aufnahme nicht enthalten) stehen in der europäischen Märchentradition.
(Summary by Wikipedia)
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The Day Boy and the Night Girl 7 by George MacDonald Free Audiobooks Kids Family Entertainment
section 7 of the day boy and the night girl this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recorded by laurie ann walden the day boy and the night girl the romance of photogen and nectaris by george mcdonald chapters 18 through 20 chapter 18 refuge fixing her telescope on the motionless form that she might see it at once when the morning came watho went down from the tower to photogen's room he was much better by this time and before she left him he had resolved to leave the castle that very night the darkness was terrible indeed but watho was worse than even the darkness and he could not escape in the day as soon therefore as the house seemed still he tightened his belt hung to it his hunting knife put a flask of wine and some bread in his pocket and took his bow and arrows he got from the house and made his way at once up to the plane but what with his illness the terrors of the night and his dread of the wild beasts when he got to the level he could not walk a step further and sat down thinking it better to die than to live in spite of his fears however sleep contrived to overcome him and he fell at full length on the soft grass he had not slept long when he woke with such a strange sense of comfort and security that he thought the dawn at last must have arrived but it was dark night about him and the sky no it was not the sky but the blue eyes of his niad looking down upon him once more he lay with his head in her lap and all was well for plainly the girl feared the darkness as little as he the day thank you he said you are like live armor to my heart you keep the fear off me i have been very ill since then did you come up out of the river when you saw me cross i don't live in the water she answered i live under the pale lamp and i die under the bright one ah yes i understand now he returned i would not have behaved as i did last time if i had understood but i thought you were mocking me and i am so made that i cannot help being frightened at the darkness i beg your pardon for leaving you as i did for as i say i did not understand now i believe you were really frightened were you not i was indeed answered nictras and shall be again but why you should be i cannot in the least understand you must know how gentle and sweet the darkness is how kind and friendly how soft and velvety it holds you to its bosom and loves you a little while ago i lay faint and dying under your hot lamp what is it you call it the sun murmured photogen how i wish he would make haste ah do not wish that do not for my sake hurry him i can take care of you from the darkness but i have no one to take care of me from the light as i was telling you i lay dying in the sun all at once i drew a deep breath a cool wind came and ran over my face i looked up the torture was gone for the death lamp itself was gone i hope he does not die and grow brighter yet my terrible headache was all gone and my sight was come back i felt as if i were new maid but i did not get up at once for i was tired still the grass grew cool about me and turned soft in color something wet came upon it and it was now so pleasant to my feet that i rose and ran about and when i had been running about a long time all at once i found you lying just as i had been lying a little while before so i sat down beside you to take care of you till your life and my death should come again how good you are you beautiful creature why you forgave me before ever i asked you cried photogen thus they felt a talking and he told her what he knew of his history and she told him what she knew of hers and they agreed they must get away from waffo as far as ever they could and we must set out at once said nictras the moment the morning comes returned photogen we must not wait for the morning said nictras for then i shall...

The Day Boy and the Night Girl 5 by George MacDonald Free Audiobooks Kids Family Entertainment

section 6 of the day boy and the night girl this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recorded by laurie ann walden the day boy and the night girl the romance of photogen and nectaris by george mcdonald chapter 16 to 17 chapter 16 an evil nurse watho was herself ill as i have said and was the worst tempered and besides it is a peculiarity of witches that what works in others to sympathy works in them to repulsion also watho had a poor helpless rudimentary spleen of a conscience left just enough to make her uncomfortable and therefore more wicked so when she heard that photogen was ill she was angry ill indeed after all she had done to saturate him with the life of the system with the solar might itself he was a wretched failure the boy and because he was her failure she was annoyed with him began to dislike him grew to hate him she looked on him as a painter might upon a picture or a poet upon a poem which he had only succeeded in getting into an irrecoverable mess in the hearts of witches love and hate lie close together and often tumble over each other and whether it was that her failure with photogen foiled also her plans in regard to nectaris or that her illness made her yet more of a devil's wife certainly watho now got sick of the girl too and hated to know her about the castle she was not too ill however to go to poor photogen's room and torment him she told him she hated him like a serpent and hissed like one as she said it looking very sharp in the nose and chin and flat in the forehead photogen thought she meant to kill him and hardly ventured to take anything brought to him she ordered every ray of light to be shut out of his room but by means of this he got a little used to the darkness she would take one of his arrows and now tickle him with the feather end of it now prick him with the point till the blood ran down what she meant finally i cannot tell but she brought photogen speedily to the determination of making his escape from the castle what he should do then he would think afterwards who could tell but he might find his mother somewhere beyond the forest if it were not for the broad patches of darkness that divided day from day he would fear nothing but now as he lay helpless in the dark ever and anon would come dawning through it the face of the lovely creature who on that first awful night nursed him so sweetly was he never to see her again if she was as he had concluded the nymph of the river why had she not reappeared she might have taught him not to fear the night for plainly she had no fear of it herself but then when the day came she did seem frightened why was that seeing there was nothing to be afraid of then perhaps one so much at home in the darkness was correspondingly afraid of the light then his selfish joy at the rising of the sun blinding him to her condition had made him behave to her in ill return for her kindness as cruelly as watho behaved to him how sweet and dear and lovely she was if there were wild beasts that came out only at night and were afraid of the light why should there not be girls too made the same way who could not endure the light as he could not bear the darkness if only he could find her again ah how differently he would behave to her but alas perhaps the sun had killed her melted her burned her up dried her up that was it if she was the nymph of the river chapter 17 waffo's wolf from that dreadful morning nictras had never got to be herself again the sudden light had been almost death to her and now she lay in the dark with the memory of a terrific sharpness a something she dared scarcely recall lest the very thought of it should sting her beyond endurance but this was as nothing to the pain which the recollection of the rudeness of the shining creature whom she...

The Day Boy and the Night Girl 5 by George MacDonald Free Audiobooks Kids Family Entertainment
section 5 of the day boy and the night girl this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recorded by laurie ann walden the day boy and the night girl the romance of photogen and nectaris by george mcdonald chapters 14 to 15 chapter 14 the sun there nectarus sat and there the youth lay all night long in the heart of the great cone shadow of the earth like two pharaohs in one pyramid photogen slept and slept and nicturus sat motionless lest she should wake him and so betray him to his fear the moon rode high in the blue eternity it was a very triumph of glorious night the river ran baffle murmuring and deep soft syllables the fountain kept rushing moonward and blossoming momently to a great silvery flower whose petals were forever falling like snow but with a continuous musical clash into the bed of its exhaustion beneath the wind woke took a run among the trees went to sleep and woke again the daisies slept on their feet at hers but she did not know they slept the roses might well seem awake for their scent filled the air but in truth they slept also and the odor was that of their dreams the oranges hung like gold lamps in the trees and their silvery flowers were the souls of their yet unembodied children the scent of the acacia blooms filled the air like the very odor of the moon herself at last unused to the living air and weary with sitting so still and so long nictrace grew drowsy the air began to grow cool it was getting near the time when she too was accustomed to sleep she closed her eyes just a moment and nodded open them suddenly wide for she had promised to watch in that moment a change had come the moon had got round and was fronting her from the west and she saw that her face was altered that she had grown pale as if she too were won with fear and from her lofty place despite a coming terror the light seemed to be dissolving out of her she was dying she was going out and yet everything around looked strangely clear clearer than ever she had seen anything before how could the lamp be shedding more light when she herself had less ah that was just it see how faint she looked it was because the light was forsaking her and spreading itself over the room that she grew so thin and pale she was giving up everything she was melting away from the roof like a bit of sugar and water nictorus was fast growing afraid and sought refuge with the face upon her lap how beautiful the creature was what to call it she could not think for it had been angry when she called it what watho called her and wonder upon wonders now even in the cold change that was passing upon the great room the color as of a red rose was rising in the wand cheek what beautiful yellow hair it was that spread over her lap what great huge breaths the creature took and what were those curious things it carried she had seen them on her walls she was sure thus she talked to herself while the lamp grew paler and paler and everything kept growing yet clearer what could it mean the lamp was dying going out into the other place of which the creature in her lap had spoken to be a son but why were the things growing clearer before it was yet a sun that was the point was it her growing into a sun that did it yes yes it was coming death she knew it for it was coming upon her also she felt it coming what was she about to grow into something beautiful like the creature in her lap it might be anyhow it must be death for all her strength was going out of her while all around her was growing so light she could not bear it she must be blind soon would she be blind or dead first for the sun was rushing up behind her photogen woke lifted his head from her lap and sprang to his feet his face was one radiant smile his heart was full of daring that of the hunter who will creep into the...

The Day Boy and the Night Girl 4 by George MacDonald Free Audiobooks Kids Family Entertainment
section 4 of the dayboy and the night girl this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recorded by laurie ann walden the day boy and the night girl the romance of photogen and nectaris by george mcdonald chapters 12 to 13 chapter 12 the garden although nictras took care not to stay out long at a time and used every precaution she could hardly have escaped discovery so long had it not been that the strange attacks to which watho was subject had been more frequent of late and had at last settled into an illness which kept her to her bed but whether from an excess of caution or from suspicion falca having now to be much with her mistress both day and night took it at length into her head to fasten the door as often as she went by her usual place of exit so that one night when nictras pushed she found to her surprise and dismay that the wall pushed her again and would not let her through nor with all her searching could she discover wherein lay the cause of the change then first she felt the pressure of her prison walls and turning half in despair groped her way to the picture where she had once seen falca disappear there she soon found the spot by pressing upon which the wall yielded it let her through into a sort of cellar where was a glimmer of light from the sky whose blue was paled by the moon from the cellar she got into a long passage into which the moon was shining and came to a door she managed to open it and to her great joy found herself in the other place not on the top of the wall however but in the garden she had long to enter noiseless as a fluffy moth she flitted away into the covert of the trees and shrubs her bare feet welcomed by the softest of carpets which by the very touch her feet knew to be alive whence it came that it was so sweet and friendly to them a soft little wind was out among the trees running now here now there like a child that had got its will she went dancing over the grass looking behind her at her shadow as she went at first she had taken it for a little black creature that made game of her but when she perceived that it was only where she kept the moon away and that every tree however great and grand a creature had also one of these strange attendants she soon learned not to mind it and by and by it became the source of as much amusement to her as to any kitten its tail it was long before she was quite at home with the trees however at one time they seemed to disapprove of her at another not even to know she was there and to be altogether taken up with their own business suddenly as she went from one to another of them looking up with awe at the murmuring mystery of their branches and leaves she spied one a little way off which was very different from all the rest it was white and dark and sparkling and spread like a palm a small slender palm without much head and it grew very fast and sang as it grew but it never grew any bigger for just as fast as she could see it growing it kept falling to pieces when she got close to it she discovered that it was a water tree made of just such water as she washed with only it was alive of course like the river a different sort of water from that doubtless seeing the one crept swiftly along the floor and the other shot straight up and fell and swallowed itself and rose again she put her feet into the marble basin which was the flower pot in which it grew it was full of real water living and cool so nice for the night was hot but the flowers ah the flowers she was friends with them from the very first what wonderful creatures they were and so kind and beautiful always sending out such colors and such scents red scent and white scent and yellow scent for the other creatures the one that was invisible and everywhere took such a quantity of their sense and...

The Day Boy and the Night Girl 3 by George MacDonald Free Audiobooks Kids Family Entertainment

section 3 of the dayboy and the night girl this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recorded by laurie ann walden the day boy and the night girl the romance of photogen and nectaris by george mcdonald chapters 10 through 11 chapter 10 the great lamp it was some time before she had a second opportunity of going out for falca since the fall of the lamp had been a little more careful and seldom left her for long but one night having a little headache nictrac lay down upon her bed and was lying with her eyes closed when she heard falka come to her and felt she was bending over her disinclined to talk she did not open her eyes and lay quite still satisfied that she was asleep falca left her moving so softly that her very caution made nectaris open her eyes and look after her just in time to see her vanish through a picture as it seemed that hung on the wall a long way from the usual place of issue she jumped up her headache forgotten and ran in the opposite direction got out groped her way to the stair climbed and reached the top of the wall alas the great room was not so light as the little one she had left why sorrow of sorrows the great lamp was gone had its globe fallen and its lovely light gone out upon great wings a resplendent firefly oring itself through a yet grander and lovelier room she looked down to see if it lay anywhere broke into pieces on the carpet below but she could not even see the carpet but surely nothing very dreadful could have happened no rumbling or shaking for there were all the little lamps shining brighter than before not one of them looking as if any unusual matter had befallen what if each of those little lamps was growing into a big lamp and after being a big lamp for a while had to go out and grow a bigger lamp still out there beyond this out ah here was the living thing that could not be seen come to her again bigger tonight with such loving kisses and such liquid strokings of her cheeks and forehead gently tossing her hair and delicately toying with it but it ceased and all was still had it gone out what would happen next perhaps the little lamps had not to grow great lamps but to fall one by one and go out first with that came from below a sweet scent and then another and another ah how delicious perhaps they were all coming to her only on their way out after the great lamp then came the music of the river which she had been too absorbed in the sky to note the first time what was it alas alas another sweet living thing on its way out they were all marching slowly out in long lovely file one after the other each taking its levofer as it passed it must be so here were more and more sweet sounds following and fading the whole of the out was going out again it was all going after the great lovely lamp she would be left the only creature in the solitary day was there nobody to hang up a new lamp for the old one and keep the creatures from going she crept back to her rock very sad she tried to comfort herself by saying that anyhow there would be room out there but as she said it she shuddered at the thought of empty room when next she succeeded in getting out a half moon hung in the east a new lamp had come she thought and all would be well it would be endless to describe the phases of feeling through which nectar is passed more numerous and delicate than those of a thousand changing moons a fresh bliss bloomed in her soul with every varying aspect of infinite nature air long she began to suspect that the new moon was the old moon gone out and come in again like herself also that unlike herself it wasted and grew again that it was indeed a live thing subject like herself to caverns and keepers and solitudes escaping and shining when it could was it a prison like hers it was shut in and did it...

The Day Boy and the Night Girl 2 by George MacDonald Free Audiobooks Kids Family Entertainment

section two of the dayboy and the night girl this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recorded by laurie ann walden the day boy and the night girl the romance of photogen and nectaris by george mcdonald chapters eight to nine chapter eight the lamp watho having given orders took it for granted they were obeyed and that falca was all night long with nictras whose day it was but falca could not get into the habit of sleeping through the day and would often leave her alone half the night then it seemed to nictrace that the white lamp was watching over her as it was never permitted to go out while she was awake at least nictras except by shutting her eyes knew less about darkness than she did about light also the lamp being fixed high overhead and in the center of everything she did not know much about shadows either the few there were fell almost entirely on the floor or kept like mice about the foot of the walls once when she was thus alone there came the noise of a far-off rumbling she had never before heard a sound of which she did not know the origin and here therefore was a new sign of something beyond these chambers then came a trembling then a shaking the lamp dropped from the ceiling to the floor with a great crash and she felt as if both her eyes were hard shut and both her hands over them she concluded that it was the darkness that had made the rumbling and the shaking and rushing into the room had thrown down the lamp she sat trembling the noise and the shaking ceased but the light did not return the darkness had eaten it up her lamp gone the desire at once awoke to get out of her prison she scarcely knew what out meant out of one room into another where there was not even a dividing door only an open arch was all she knew of the world but suddenly she remembered that she had heard falca speak of the lamp going out this must be what she had meant and if the lamp had gone out where had it gone surely where falca went and like her it would come again but she could not wait the desire to go out grew irresistible she must follow her beautiful lamp she must find it she must see what it was about now there was a curtain covering a recess in the wall where some of her toys and gymnastic things were kept and from behind that curtain watho and falca always appeared and behind it they vanished how they came out of solid wall she had not an idea all up to the wall was open space and all beyond it seemed wall but clearly the first and only thing she could do was to feel her way behind the curtain it was so dark that a cat could not have caught the largest of mice nictrac could see better than any cat but now her great eyes were not of the smallest use to her as she went she trot upon a piece of the broken lamp she had never worn shoes or stockings and the fragment though being of soft alabaster it did not cut yet hurt her foot she did not know what it was but as it had not been there before the darkness came she suspected that it had to do with the lamp she kneeled therefore and searched with her hands and bringing two large pieces together recognized the shape of the lamp therefore it flashed upon her that the lamp was dead that this brokenness was the death of which she had read without understanding that the darkness had killed the lamp what then could falca have meant when she spoke of the lamp going out there was the lamp dead indeed and so changed that she would never have taken it for a lamp but for the shape no it was not the lamp anymore now it was dead for all that made it a lamp was gone namely the bright shining of it then it must be the shine the light that had gone out that must be what falca meant and it must be somewhere in the other place in the wall she started afresh after it and groped her way to the...

The Day Boy and the Night Girl by George MacDonald Free Audiobooks Kids Family Entertainment
Publication date 2007-06-12
section one of the day boy and the night girl this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recorded by laurie ann walden the day boy and the night girl the romance of photogen and nectaris by george mcdonald chapters one through seven chapter one watho there was once a witch who desired to know everything but the wiser a witch is the harder she knocks her head against the wall when she comes to it her name was watho and she had a wolf in her mind she cared for nothing in itself only for knowing it she was not naturally cruel but the wolf had made her cruel she was tall and graceful with a white skin red hair and black eyes which had a red fire in them she was straight and strong but now and then would fall bent together shudder and sit for a moment with her head turned over her shoulder as if the wolf had got out of her mind under her back chapter 2 aurora this witch got two ladies to visit her one of them belonged to the court and her husband had been sent on a far and difficult embassy the other was a young widow whose husband had lately died and who had since lost her sight watho lodged them in different parts of her castle and they did not know of each other's existence the castle stood on the side of a hill sloping gently down into a narrow valley in which was a river with a pebbly channel and a continual song the garden went down to the bank of the river enclosed by high walls which crossed the river and there stopped each wall had a double row of battlements and between the rows was a narrow walk in the topmost story of the castle the lady aurora occupied a spacious apartment of several large rooms looking southward the windows projected oreal wise over the garden below and there was a splendid view from them both up and down and across the river the opposite side of the valley was steep but not very high far away snow peaks were visible these rooms aurora seldom left but their airy spaces the brilliant landscape and sky the plentiful sunlight the musical instruments books pictures curiosities with the company of watho who made herself charming precluded all dullness she had venison and feathered game to eat milk and pale sunny sparkling wine to drink she had hair of the yellow gold waved and rippled her skin was fair not white like waffles and her eyes were of the blue of the heavens when bluest her features were delicate but strong her mouth large and finely curved and haunted with smiles chapter 3 vesper behind the castle the hill rose abruptly the northeastern tower indeed was in contact with the rock and communicated with the interior of it for in the rock was a series of chambers known only to watho and the one servant whom she trusted called falca some former owner had constructed these chambers after the tomb of an egyptian king and probably with the same design for in the center of one of them stood what could only be a sarcophagus but that and the others were walled off the sides and roof of them were carved in low relief and curiously painted here the witch lodged the blind lady whose name was vesper her eyes were black with long black lashes her skin had a look of darkened silver but was of purest tint and grain her hair was black and fine and straight flowing her features were exquisitely formed and if less beautiful yet more lovely from sadness she always looked as if she wanted to lie down and not rise again she did not know she was lodged in a tomb though now and then she wondered why she never touched a window there were many couches covered with richest silk and soft as her own cheek for her to lie upon and the carpets were so thick she might have cast herself down anywhere as befitted a tomb the place was dry and warm and cunningly pierced for air so that it was always fresh...

The Mystery of the Fires by Edith Lavell 19 Adventure Teen Young Reader Novels Free Audiobooks

chapter 19 conclusion the mystery of the fires by edith lavelle this librivox recording is in the public domain mary louise was putting the last dabs of powder on her nose when she heard a car stop at the porch steps peering through the screened window of her bedroom she immediately decided that it must be the detectives yes and oh joy of joys they had tom adams with them in another moment the men were out of the car and up on the porch where her father joined them congratulations exclaimed mr gang i see that you got tom adams i remember him now yes answered one of the men but he won't admit a thing about your daughter he says he never saw mary louise after she went back to the tennis court that afternoon on what grounds could you arrest him then demanded mr gay he stole a car on his way to the west mary louise repressed a giggle and turned away from the window her father evidently meant to find out what he could before he announced his daughter's return you have a sister rebecca haven't you adams he inquired the young man nodded yes she's feeble-minded why we know that mary louise saw her the afternoon she disappeared rebecca told us so and she also said that you came home that afternoon just as my daughter started to leave the farm rebecca's mind wanders a lot muttered tom she don't know what she's talking about half the time he shifted his feet uneasily you have been thinking of putting rebecca into an asylum persisted mr gay yeah we considered it why because she's in one now announced mr gay calmly of her own free will and asylum about 20 miles from here a doctor federer i believe is the head of the institution he paused and gazed intently at tom the young man's jaw dropped his face grew white and his hands trembled mr gabe burst out laughing and mary louise came to the screen door hello tom she said quietly the young man started as if he had seen a ghost but he managed to stammer a reply hello miss gay he said all three of the plainclothes men stepped forward in amazement you found her gay they demanded of mary louise's father no answered mr gay to be frank i didn't two of her young friends from riverside did she was confined in an insane asylum about 20 miles from shady nook under the name of rebecca adams all of tom's threatens fell away from him at this announcement he knew his game was up his limbs grew weak he groveled at the men's feet don't send me to the chair he cried i didn't harm her she's all right ain't she we'll let the judge and the jury decide that replied mr gay now suppose you sit down there and tell us the truth adams you might as well for we know most of it already the young man crawled into his seat but he made no attempt to tell his story we know that you burned three houses here at shady nook said mr gay we know too that you did it because you were bribed by frasier didn't he pay you a certain sum of money to start those fires yes he did acknowledge tom he gave me 500. why did he want them burned down asked one of the plainclothes men he figured that he'd get 500 at least from the hunters during the summer entertaining their friends and all then flicks fire turned out to be better business yet all the folks from shady nook except the dipmars begun eating at the hotel once ian was gone and smith's burning down brought all them children and servants and even mom paw over to the royal did frazier expect to burn any more cottages what's the next question no he wasn't planning on it only when mrs ditmar started up the boarding house and took his business away from him that made him soar but i wasn't going to do no more dirty work i figured i'd just get my money and clear out i never did expect to burn didn't worse only threaten him well what made you do that dreadful thing to marry louise demanded mr gay i wanted to get rid of her till i made my getaway frazier and me was scared she was onto...