[ Daphne Dale (ed.) / Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad ]
This illustrated volume is a collection of very brief stories for children, intended to illustrate various virtuous behaviors. There are multiple authors of these tales as well as multiple illustrators, and individual stories and images are not credited.
This work was published in 1894 by William B. Conkey (New York).
Two of the stories — anecdotes, really — mention Newfoundland dogs. The first to mention a Newfoundland — it's actually a pair of anecdotes — is entitled "The Yacht Starlight / The Story of the Dog and the Yacht Starlight."
The Starlight was in Gloucester harbor for three days, and Rob and Phyllis went on board with mamma one day, to lunch with Arthur and Helen and their mamma. They had never been on a yacht before. They were surprised to find it so pretty. It was finished in beautiful mahogany with a great deal of brass-work, the latter brightly shining, too, for the housekeeping on a yacht is always first-rate.
The ceiling of the cabin was of blue satin, and so were the curtains, which hung before the funny little windows, and at the doors. On each side of the cabin was a long seat covered with blue satin cushions.
These cushions lifted up, and underneath were kept books, dishes, clothes, in fact, all sorts of things. Every bit of room on a vessel is always precious, there can be so little of it, anyway. Helen showed Phyllis her sleeping room. It was a mite of a place, about half as big as the bed Phyllis slept in at home. The walls were lined with blue satin and the bed was covered with blue satin, and it was a real blue satin nest for a little girl, instead of for a bird.
Then they went on deck to watch the sailors, who were running up and down the rigging. Arthur has been on his father's yacht so much, for his father owns the Starlight, that he can run up and down the ratlines almost as fast as the sailors can. The ratlines are the rope ladders you see in the picture. There was on board a big Newfoundland dog named Gil. Arthur’s aunt Lou told them a story about Gil.
The above image appears at this point in the text;
the wooden staves behind the dog
create the letter "N" which begins the next anecdote.
By this point in breed history, Newfoundlands basically did not
look like this. I'm guessing the illustrator couldn't be
troubled to learn what a Newfoundland looked like.
NOW Gil once belonged to an officer in our Navy and he sometimes went to sea with his master.
Once when he went on a voyage a little kitten went too. She was everybody’s pet and a very friendly kitty. She was afraid of Gil, though, and would never let him come near her, but would make such a loud spitting and growling at him, when he tried to play with her, that poor Gil had to go away and play by himself.
One day kitty fell overboard and Gil saw her and plunged into the sea to save her. Kitty thought it was bad enough to fall into the water, but to see Gil come jumping after her was too much, and she was ready to die with fright.
When he opened his great mouth to take her and hold her above water, she felt sure that her last moment had come, and she fought and scratched so, that Gil could not get hold of her.
The officers stood watching Gil and pussy. Poor little mistaken pussy was getting very tired and would soon sink if she did not let good old Gil save her.
Suddenly Gil dove down out of sight and then rose again just under kitty, so that she stood on his back. Puss was so glad to feel something solid under her little tired legs, that she clung to it with all her nails. Then Gil swam slowly to meet the boat which had been sent to pick him up.
The second anecdote mentioning a Newfoundland is "How the Days Went at Seagull Beach," an account of some childrens' seaside vacation. Older children, we are told, enjoyed themselves into the evenings, but the busy days proved too much for some of the younger children, who "really couldn't stand the excitement, and rolled around in odd corners on the floor, or sought the grateful obscurity behind the sofas, to indulge in naps, long before nine o'clock. I found Gracie, in her pink silk dress and violet slippers, lying curled up under the table, with her head on the back of Bosin, [sic] the great Newfoundland dog that had stolen into the parlor against rules." There is no illustration for this anecdote.