What Sami Sings with the Birds (Illustrated)
()
About this ebook
Johanna Spyri
Johanna Spyri (1827-1901), a lifelong resident of Switzerland, began to write stories to earn money for refugees from the Franco-Prussian War. Heidi, her first novel, was also her most successful, though she wrote many other children's books. Spyri's firm belief in the natural innocence of children and their ability to grow up into decent, caring adults if left to their own devices was remarkably similar to that of her Danish contemporary, Hans Christian Andersen.
Read more from Johanna Spyri
The Complete Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen (127 Stories in one volume): From the most beloved writer of children's stories and fairy tales, including The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling, The Nightingale, The Emperor's New Clothes, Thumbelina and more Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn German! Lerne Englisch! HEIDI: Auf Englisch und Deutsch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heidi Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Apprends l'Anglais! Learn French! LA PETITE SIRENE ET D'AUTRES HISTOIRES Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeidi and Eight Other Novels Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeidi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassic Starts®: Heidi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHans Christian Andersen: Fairy Tales and Stories (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeidi: Adapted for Young Readers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moni the Goat Boy, and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeidi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heidi (World Classics, Unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeidi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Christmas Novels of All Time Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeidi: An Illustrated Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heidi (Illustrated by Alice Carsey) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heidi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to What Sami Sings with the Birds (Illustrated)
Titles in the series (99)
Tarzan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pinocchio Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Princess and Curdie Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tailor of Gloucester Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Return of Tarzan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVeronica and Other Friends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tale of Benjamin Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jumblies and Other Nonsense Verses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib and Japan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeauty and the Beast and Other Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFairy Tales of Oscar Wilde Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRico and Wiseli (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Owl and the Pussy-Cat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Aesop's Fables Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tale of Timmy Tiptoes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsErick and Sally (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of Mother Goose Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Garden Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Swiss Family Robinson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlice Through the Looking-Glass Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Voyage to Lilliput Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Moni the Goat Boy (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tale of Squirrel Nutkin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Princess and the Goblin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related ebooks
What Sami sings with the Birds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoni the Goat Boy, and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThorn Hill Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMark Twain: Young Writer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoni the Goat Boy, and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMari, Our Little Norwegian Cousin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoni the Goat Boy and Other Stories: Moni the Goahout a Friend; The Little Runaway Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTime of the Witch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mari, Our Little Norwegian Cousin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSian and the Winterwife, a Fairytale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Hivernante: Marie Anne Lajimoniere, the White Mother of the West Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMary's Little Lamb A Picture Guessing Story for Little Children Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoni the Goat-Boy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHighland Moon #1 (BBW Scottish Werewolf Shifter Romance): Highland Moon, #1 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Highland Moon #1 (Scottish Werewolf Shifter Romance) Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Highland Moon #1 (BBW Scottish Werewolf Shifter Romance) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A New Window On the World: A Pair of Historical Romances Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMidwife's Christmas Proposal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDawn of the Morning Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeidi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFive Happy Weeks Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNoel: Christmas Retold Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ghosts of Sherwood Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Coming Through the Rye Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Vinzi (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTalbot's Angles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rubicon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThirty Short, Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Nursery, November 1881, Vol. XXX A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Moorland Cottage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Classics For You
A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Titus Groan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for What Sami Sings with the Birds (Illustrated)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
What Sami Sings with the Birds (Illustrated) - Johanna Spyri
Johanna Spyri
orna03.jpgJohanna Spyri
What Sami Sings with the Birds
Published by Sovereign
This edition first published in 2015
Copyright © 2015 Sovereign
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 9781910833902
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 1
OLD MARY ANN
For three days the Spring sun had been shining out of a clear sky and casting a gleaming, golden coverlet over the blue waters of Lake Geneva. Storm and rain had ceased. The breeze murmured softly and pleasantly up in the ash-trees, and all around in the green fields the yellow buttercups and snow-white daisies glistened in the bright sunshine. Under the ash-trees, the clear brook was running with the cool mountain water and feeding the gaily nodding primroses and pink anemones on the hillside, as they grew and bloomed down close to the water.
On the low wall by the brook, in the shadow of the ash-trees, an old woman was sitting. She was called Old Mary Ann
throughout the whole neighborhood. Her big basket, the weight of which had become a little heavy, she had put down beside her. She was on her way back from La Tour, the little old town, with the vine-covered church tower and the ruined castle, the high turrets of which rose far across the blue lake. Old Mary Ann had taken her work there. This consisted in all kinds of mending which did not need to be done particularly well, for the woman was no longer able to do fine work, and never could do it.
Old Mary Ann had had a very changeable life. The place where she now found herself was not her home. The language of the country was not her own. From the shady seat on the low wall, she now looked contentedly at the sunny fields, then across the murmuring brook to the hillside where the big yellow primroses nodded, while the birds piped and sang in the green ash-trees above her, as if they had the greatest festival to celebrate.
Every Spring, people think it never was so beautiful before, when they have already seen so many,
she now said half aloud to herself, and as she gazed at the fields so rich in flowers, many of the past years rose up and passed before her, with all that she had experienced in them.
As a child she had lived far beyond the mountains. She knew so well how it must look over there now at her father’s house, which stood in a field among white-blooming pear-trees. Over yonder the large village with its many houses could be seen. It was called Zweisimmen. Everybody called their house the sergeant’s house, although her father quite peacefully tilled his fields. But that came from her grandfather. When quite a young fellow, he had gone over the mountains to Lake Geneva and then still farther to Savoy. Under a Duke of Savoy he had taken part in all sorts of military expeditions and had not returned home until he was an old man. He always wore an old uniform and allowed himself to be called sergeant. Then he married and Mary Ann’s father was his only child. The old man lived to be a hundred years old, and every child in all the region round knew the old sergeant.
Mary Ann had three brothers, but as soon as one of them grew up he disappeared, she knew not where. Only this much she understood, that her mother mourned over them, but her father said quite resignedly every time: We can’t help it, they will go over the mountains; they take it from their grandfather.
She had never heard anything more about her brothers.
When Mary Ann grew up and married, her young husband also came into the house among the pear-trees, for her father was old and could no longer do his work alone. But after a few years Mary Ann buried her young husband; a burning fever had taken him off. Then came hard times for the widow. She had her child, little Sami, to care for, besides her old, infirm parents to look after, and moreover there was all the work to be done in the house and in the fields which until now her husband had attended to. She did what she could, but it was of no use, the land had to be given up to a cousin. The house was mortgaged, and Mary Ann hardly knew how to keep her old parents from want. Gradually young Sami grew up and was able to help the cousin in the fields. Then