The children’s short story The Dissatisfied Little Lamb by Catherine Jones, perhaps under her maiden name Catherine Hallman, published in a magazine sometime between 1940-80, about a lamb who leaves the farm to go exploring and finds a dog or wolf who is actually friendly and brings him home and he then protects the flock from a predatory wolf or other animal. Probably a magazine published in Georgia or SC.
A friend of mine recently told me a story he’d read long ago (That I had also read, but couldn’t remember for the life of me where or when.) We’re both in our mid thirties and swore we’d read it as children, though he grew up in Ireland and I in Canada. However this is the gist of it:
A messenger is carrying a crystal or jewel on behalf of his ruler across a desert, as a gift.
The crystal naturally formed around water, and is full of water, so is incredibly rare.
He runs into difficulty and has to choose between destroying the jewel for its water (and being executed) or dying of thirst.
The last line is a variation of ‘The water was salt.’ He thought it might have been Lord Dunsany, while I was thinking it might have been a Sufi Parable, but he’s read all of Lord Dunsany and found nothing, and all my searching in the Sufi Parables came up blank too. It’s in that same vein as “The Tigers and the Strawberry.” from the old zen story, or the “That Hell-Bound Train” but yeah, neither of us could really find anything like it. Hopefully someone remembers or knows! Thank you!
Possibly a short story. I may have read it in the 1980s, and I had the impression that it was already old then. It may have taken place anywhere from the mid 1800s to the 1960s. A man had a stopwatch or pocket watch that could freeze time for everyone but himself. He went to a fancy party, stopped time, and stole everyone’s jewels. At the end, he dropped the watch and it shattered irreparably. About the ending, I should probably add: the watch shatters while time is frozen. So the implication is that he will never be able to un-freeze time again.
The book I’m looking for is as follows:
Children’s book – from the UK
I read it in the UK when i was a kid in the 1970s
It was illustrated but with line drawings – was for older kids, maybe 7/8 and up?
There was a story in it about a family who takes an elevator down into the ground, and they whistle to each other if they get lost.
It was a collection of stories for kids.
It might have also had poetry in it
This story has haunted me for years, no idea if it will ring a bell with someone somewhere
I probably read it sometime before 1970, but I might be lying.
I don’t remember if it’s a short story or an episode in a novel.
It involves a small crew of some sort of exploration or trading vessel.
They land on a planet that lacks space travel but does have powerful artillery and clever control stuff.
At a key point in the plot one member of the crew, a small creature who can jump far and fast, is hiding outside the ship.
The locals have the ship surrounded and have pointed an artillery piece at the main port.
The shells are not powerful enough to damage the exterior of the ship, but if they open the door even for a fraction of a second, they will get hit with a shell.
Finally they decide to chance having the outside guy jump through the air toward the door. The control computer opens the portal just long enough for the guy to fly through.
Sadly, the artillery shell that is automatically fired when the port is seen to open gets through the door.
It destroys the (sentient) computer that controls the ship.
In the milliseconds before it is destroyed, however, the main computer downloads a route “home” into the “idiot” nav computer so that they can get away and get home.
They mourn the dead computer.
The lesson I took from it is how human-centric my intuition about response time is and how really fast computers are.
My vague recollection is that the author was Poul Anderson and it involved a small (fiveish?) crew of humans and non-humans that adventure around. It may be one of the Technic Civilization stories, but it might not.
I think this might have been a short story published in Cricket Magazine in the 1980s – early 90s, perhaps with Quentin Blake illustrations? It was a short story that told about a reader that had a voracious appetite for books AND for any food that was mentioned in the books they read. If the character in a book was drinking tea, the reader had to have tea, and so on.
The memory of this story has plagued me for years, I’d love very much to read it again.
I had (in the 60s or 70s) a collection of horse stories. One was about a Native American young man named (I believe) Johnny, who was a handsome man who was “lame” (walked with a limp and was self conscious about it). He had a horse he named Bay-ee because the horse was sort of copper-colored like a penny. He won some sort of race with the horse. Would love to find this story again.
I am trying to find a story from 45 to 50 years ago. My mother was an English teacher and had a stash of older literature including a story that follows this story line. I believe it was English literature.
A man returns to the train station nearest his home after a long trip. His footman picks him up in a buggy and during the trip home they talk.
So Jeaves, how are things at home? Well sir, I hate to tell you but your fathers dog died. What? He wasn’t an old dog. Pray tell how did he die? Well sir, he overate himself to death. How could that be. What did he get a hold of that he was able to overeat? Well sir, he overate horse meat. And where would he get so much so much horse meat. All of your fathers horses died. Oh my, what killed my father’s horses? They died carrying water to put out the fire.
And on and on it goes. The house burned down from all the candles that were lit for the funeral of his mother.
I want to say the title is How To Tell Bad News.
I really appreciate your help on this.
I am looking for a children’s short story read in mid-‘70’s about children in old-time village where once a year parents put protection on doors and windows. Naughty kids look out window at night and see villagers crouched naked on rooftops with shining silver eyes.
I have a book I read in 6th grade, which was around 1992. The book itself could have been older, like 1980s. It was a definite Young Adult book even if that didn’t have the description at that time. It was about a Lady who was recently widowed, very young, who lived in a crumbling Tower (Castle). She may have had one servant. She had a Rose garden which I think was a big part of the book. A criminal possibly a thief or murderer arrives at the castle one day and stays essentially taking her hostage. I remember it was a romance. It was a really short story in a very thin book, it reminded me very strongly of “A Door in the Wall” just in terms of time. And may have been plague mentions I can’t remember. It also reminded me of Secret Garden, just because the Rose garden seemed to play a huge part in the story.