Chapter 1 of The White Christmas and other Merry is here in full — 353 sentences across 71 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
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Chapter I
Chapter 1 of The White Christmas and other Merry is here in full — 353 sentences across 71 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
RUTH. Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay. THOMAS. So many travelers came this way today. RUTH.
Chapter 1 of The White Christmas and other Merry is here in full — 353 sentences across 71 reading sections, with audio for every sentence and word.
Reading 25/70 · 5 reading units · Lines 121–125
These definitions explain words found in the current reading and keep every example grounded in its original sentence.
Oxford-style entry order: headword, part of speech, US IPA, concise definition, contextual example, and audio.
overfilled or compacted or concentrated
From this reading “Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.”
bright and pleasant; promoting a feeling of cheer
From this reading “Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.”
full of or characterized by joy
From this reading “Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.”
United States professional baseball player famous for hitting home runs (1895-1948)
From this reading “RUTH.”
United States clockmaker who introduced mass production (1785-1859)
From this reading “THOMAS.”
the present time or age
From this reading “So many travelers came this way today.”
an urban area with a fixed boundary that is smaller than a city
From this reading “Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.”
plural of “traveler” — a person who changes location
From this reading “So many travelers came this way today.”
Every word in these five lines is listed here, and every one of them can be played on its own.
Dictionary details are shown only when verified; these are not licensed Oxford entries.
inflected form of “come” — move toward, travel toward something or somebody or approach something or somebody
From this reading So many travelers came this way today.
overfilled or compacted or concentrated
From this reading Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.
bright and pleasant; promoting a feeling of cheer
From this reading Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.
the form of “be” used with he, she, it, or a singular noun
From this reading Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.
full of or characterized by joy
From this reading Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.
limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent
From this reading Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.
a quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by “as” or “too” or “so” or “that”; amounting to a large but indefinite number
From this reading So many travelers came this way today.
belonging to the speaker and others
From this reading Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.
United States professional baseball player famous for hitting home runs (1895-1948)
From this reading RUTH.
for that reason; with the result that
From this reading So many travelers came this way today.
used for a person or thing that is near, or that has just been mentioned
From this reading So many travelers came this way today.
United States clockmaker who introduced mass production (1785-1859)
From this reading THOMAS.
the present time or age
From this reading So many travelers came this way today.
an urban area with a fixed boundary that is smaller than a city
From this reading Our little town is crowded, joyous, gay.
plural of “traveler” — a person who changes location
From this reading So many travelers came this way today.
how something is done or how it happens
From this reading So many travelers came this way today.
Chapter 1 of The White Christmas and other Merry by Walter Ben Hare holds 353 sentences, grouped into 71 reading sections of at most 5 sentences. The text is the source edition, unabridged, and the chapter records which sentences cover which part of the work so that nothing is dropped. Every word can be tapped for its pronunciation and dictionary entry.
Chapter 1 holds 353 sentences of The White Christmas and other Merry, unabridged, divided into 71 reading sections.
This page carries chapter 1 of The White Christmas and other Merry by Walter Ben Hare exactly as it stands in the source edition, without abridgement. It runs to 353 sentences, grouped into 71 sections of at most 5 sentences so that a reader can take the chapter in steady, finishable pieces. The chapter also stores a coverage record mapping every one of its sentences to a part of the work, which is how the edition demonstrates that no line was dropped.
Work through the 71 sections in order, replaying any sentence and tapping unfamiliar words for their entries.
Each of the 71 sections in this chapter is short enough to read once, hear once, and then re-read with the vocabulary in view. Tapping a word plays it alone and opens its dictionary entry with IPA, part of speech and meaning, so the reader is never forced to guess a pronunciation from spelling. Working section by section keeps a long chapter from becoming an undifferentiated wall of text, which is the usual reason a reader abandons a work of this period.
Yes — every sentence and every individual word in chapter 1 can be played aloud in United States English.
Audio covers the whole chapter: any sentence can be played, and any single word within it can be played on its own. The voice uses United States English. For a work of this period that matters, because spelling is an unreliable guide to pronunciation for vocabulary that has fallen out of daily use, and a learner who guesses wrong tends to keep the error. Hearing the word in its own sentence, and then alone, settles it.
Common questions about reading The White Christmas and other Merry by Walter Ben Hare on this page, its source edition and its audio.
Yes. All 4783 sentences of Project Gutenberg eBook #19826 are kept, with a record of which sentences cover which part.
Project Gutenberg eBook #19826, unabridged. The Project Gutenberg header, footer and licence are removed.
About 398 minutes of reading across 957 sections of 5 sentences each, at an unhurried pace.
How to work through The White Christmas and other Merry section by section, using the audio and the tap-to-define vocabulary.
Choose one of the 12 chapters of The White Christmas and other Merry to begin.
Each section holds 5 sentences; read it once through.
Play the section aloud, then tap any unfamiliar word for its entry.
Words and structures a reader meets early in The White Christmas and other Merry, each tappable for pronunciation and meaning.
