LOOKING COLLEGEWARD "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" By no possibility could Aunt Alvirah Boggs have risen from her low rocking chair in the Red Mill kitchen without murmuring this complaint. She was a little, hoop-backed woman, with crippled limbs; but she possessed a countenance that was very much alive, nut-brown and innumerably wrinkled though it was. She had been Mr. Jabez Potter's... more...

CHAPTER I ON THE LUMANO RIVER The steady turning of the grinding-stones set the old Red Mill a-quiver in every board and beam. The air within was full of dust—dust of the grain, and fine, fine dust from the stones themselves. Uncle Jabez Potter, the miller, came to the door and looked across the grassy yard that separated the mill and the farmhouse attached from the highroad. Under a broad-spreading... more...

CHAPTER I THE GORED COW For lack of a better listener, Betty Gordon addressed the saucy little chipmunk that sat on the top rail of the old worn fence and stared at her with bright, unwinking eyes. "It is the loveliest vase you ever saw," said Betty, busily sorting the tangled mass of grasses and flowers in her lap. "Heavy old colonial glass, you know, plain, but with beautiful lines."... more...

THE EXODUS The sun was a regular lie-abed on this Autumn morning, banked about by soft clouds and draperies of mist; but they glowed pink along the horizon—perhaps blushing for Old Sol's delinquency. The mist hung tenderly over the river, too—indeed, it masked the entire Valley of the Lumano—lying thick and dank upon the marshes and the low meadows, but wreathed more lightly about the... more...

MERCY Ruth felt that she was not very successful at Miss Cramp's school. Not that she had fallen behind in her studies, or failed to please her kind instructor; but among the pupils of the upper grade she was all but unconsidered. Perhaps, had time been given her, Ruth might have won her way with some of the fairer-minded girls; but in the few short weeks she had been in the district she had only... more...

BREAKFAST EN ROUTE “There, Bob, did you see that? Oh, we’ve passed it, and you were looking the other way. It was a cowboy. At least he looked just like the pictures. And he was waving at the train.” Betty Gordon, breakfasting in the dining-car of the Western Limited, smiled happily at Bob Henderson, seated on the opposite side of the table. This was her first long train trip, and she meant to... more...