Title:  The Golden Bird

Author:  Maria Thompson Daviess

Illustrator:  Edward L. Chase

Release Date:  October 30, 2005 [EBook #16963]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of this project gutenberg EBOOK the golden bird ***

Produced by David Garcia, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library)

THE GOLDEN BIRD

BY

MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS

Author of “The Melting of Molly,” “Phyllis,” “Sue Jane,” “The Tinder Box,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY EDWARD L. CHASE

New York
the century Co.
1918

Copyright, 1918, by
the century Co.

Copyright, 1918, by
BUTTERICK publishing company

Published, September, 1918

[Transcriber’s note:  Minor typos corrected.]

[Illustration:  “Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed Polly, all restraint leaving her young face and body as she fell on her knees before the sultan]

To
Ida Clyde Clarke
whose courage inspires me

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“Oh, how beautiful!” exclaimed Polly, all restraint leaving her young face and body as she fell on her knees before the sultan

A poor old sheep was lying flat with pathetic inertia while Adam stood over her with something in his arms

I put his babykins in a big feed-basket and the lamb twins came and welcomed him

And Bud was beautiful in the “custom-made” fifteen-dollar gray cheviot with his violet eyes and yellow shock, in spite of his red ears

THE GOLDEN BIRD

CHAPTER I

The primary need of a woman’s nature is always supposed to be love, but very suddenly I discovered that in my case it was money, a lot of it and quick.  That is, I thought I needed a lot and in a very great hurry; but if I had known what I know now, I might have been contented feeding upon the bread of some kind of charity, for instance, like being married to Matthew Berry the very next day after I discovered my poverty.  But at that period of my life I was a very ignorant girl, and in the most noble spirit of a desperate adventure I embarked upon the quest of the Golden Bird, which in one short year has landed me—­I am now the richest woman in the world.