A Poor Man’s House

Outside a brightly lit grocer’s shop, fisherman Tony Widger stands in the rain-dark street, crying because his son George has gone to sea—not in a fishing boat, but in the Navy.

In Seacombe, where the surf grinds against the shingle and work is scarce after a bad herring season, the narrator returns to the homes and lives of the fishing folk he has come to know. George has joined the Navy, hoping for a surer livelihood and a future with his sweetheart. Tony is proud of the boy, yet dreads the rules and dangers ahead—and feels the empty place George has left at home. With tenderness and a keen eye for the cost of making a living, Stephen Sydney Reynolds finds dignity in the everyday struggles of a poor seaside community. What does a secure future ask of the people who need it most?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.