To The six for whom it was written in exchange for a pair of slippers...

Roger, aged seven, and no longer the youngest of the family, ran in wide zigzags, to and fro, across the steep field that sloped up from the lake to Holly Howe, the farm where they were staying for pa...

Ship’s Articles, though important, are but a small part of making ready for a voyage of discovery. There was a great deal more to do. Luckily, mother had nearly finished making the tents. She had deci...

There was very little room in the Swallow when they had finished loading her at the little jetty by the boathouse. Under the main thwart was a big tin box with the books and writing-paper and other th...

Susan was ashore next. Then Titty with her basket of crockery. John stayed in the Swallow to hand out the stores. First went the loose cooking things that had been tucked in anywhere. Then went the tw...

After they had finished the eggs and the rice pudding and the brown bread and butter and the seed cake and the apples, the mate and the able-seaman did some washing up. The spoons had to be cleaned an...

The next day was a busy one. It began early. Sunshine in a tent is even more waking than sunshine in a room. Titty woke first and lay awake looking at patches of sunlight and shadow playing on the whi...

Next morning the whole of Swallow’s ship’s company bathed before breakfast. The landing-place, with its little beach, on the eastern side of the island was a good place for bathing. There was sand the...

It must have been about eleven o’clock in the morning of that third day when all four of the ship’s company were at the lookout place at the northern end of the island. The mate was sewing a button on...

In the morning John was the first to wake. It was already late. The sun was high overhead. The first days had gone by on which the beginning of the morning light had been enough to waken the explorers...

“It’s not the houseboat man,” said Titty. “It’s the pirates from the pirate ship.” “And in our tents,” said Susan. “Let’s take them prisoners,” said Roger. “Hands up,” said the pirate girl from the Am...

The Swallows and the Amazons went together to the harbour at the southern end of the island. The path was now well trodden, though they had to stoop under boughs and step over brambles and push branch...

That night the Swallows were very late to bed. Soon after the Amazon’s little white sail had vanished beyond the Peak of Darien, Captain John took the hammer and a few nails and the two candle-lantern...

Next day there was a dead calm, most unfit for war. Captain John turned over on his haybag and looked at the barometer, which was steady. He crawled out of his tent and looked at the sky. It was witho...

The Swallows were back in real life, almost before they were out of sight of the charcoal-burners. “They’re the finest savages we ever met,” said Titty. “I expect the serpent is for witchcraft. Medici...

The first thing John did when he woke in the morning was to listen. He could hear Roger’s breathing somewhere in the blankets on the other haybag. He could hear a wren quarrelling with some other bird...

After about half an hour at the lookout place, Captain John felt himself again. After all, nothing could be done about Captain Flint without the help of the Amazons. He was their uncle, not the uncle ...

They spent that evening round the camp fire, making their plans. There would surely be a wind in the morning. But who could tell which way it might blow. A southerly wind would mean one plan and a nor...

She looked round the camp, and felt at once that there was something wrong. There were two tents, and a shipwrecked mariner on a desert island ought only to have one. For a moment she thought of takin...

The sun set behind the hills on the western shore of the lake. The belt of light along the tops of the hills on the eastern side narrowed and narrowed, and at last was gone. The wind dropped. The isla...

After mother had gone, Able-seaman Titty thought it well to go all over her island. Everything was as it should be. The dipper had come back to a stone outside the harbour and bobbed to her again and ...

With Mate Susan at the oars, Roger on the lookout in the bows, and Captain John at the tiller, the Swallow moved up the Amazon River in the rapidly gathering dusk. There were walls of reeds on each si...

Captain John let loose a hurrah that startled even himself and woke the sleeping Roger. “Titty, Titty, how ever did you do it?” he said. “Well done, Titty,” said Susan. Roger sat up in the bottom of t...

That day it was one o’clock before John and Roger rowed across and went up to Dixon’s farm for the milk and a new supply of eggs and butter. It had been nearly seven in the morning before Susan had hu...

After a good night’s sleep the Swallows felt themselves again. They were up early and bathed. Then they went fishing for their breakfast and caught a dozen perch, for they wanted plenty of breakfast f...

The houseboat man, Captain Flint, sometimes known as Uncle Jim, was alone with his green parrot in the cabin of his ship grimly trying to put things straight after his visitors. First there had been t...

For some moments after Nancy had rowed away Peggy and the Swallows stared after her in silence. No one knew exactly what she was going to do. “Perhaps I ought not to have told her about it,” John said...

The Amazons were the first to wake in the morning, because for some time they had been sleeping in a house, and had not grown accustomed, like the Swallows, to the early morning sunlight through the w...

Titty had gone to sleep with one idea firm in her head, and she woke up next morning with it still there. She crawled out to see what sort of a day it was. It was a fine day without much wind, just wh...

“There’s nothing for it,” said the able-seaman. “We shall have to fetch the others and Captain Flint. It’s his sea-chest. I’m sure it is, and it’s got his pirate book in it.” “Let’s take Swallow and r...

All this time the skies had smiled on the Swallows and the Amazons. There had been a few hours’ drizzling rain, a few hours of fog and that dark night of sordid burglary and high adventure. But day af...

And then came the natives. The first to arrive was Mrs. Dixon. Just as the fire was beginning to burn the shipwrecked sailors saw her coming down the field from the farm above Shark Bay, with a milk-c...