CHAPTER I The Metropolitan Dry Goods and Variety Store at Trumet Centre was open for business. Sam Bartlett, the boy whose duty it was to take down the shutters, sweep out, dust, and wait upon early-bird customers, had performed the first three of these tasks and gone home for breakfast. The reason he had not performed the fourth—the waiting upon customers—was simple enough; there had been no... more...

CHAPTER I “ Ostable!” screamed the brakeman,opening the car door and yelling his loudest, so as to be heard above the rattle of the train and the shriek of the wind; “Ostable!” The brakeman’s cap was soaked through, his hair was plastered down on his forehead, and, in the yellow light from the car lamps, his wet nose glistened as if varnished. Over his shoulders the shiny ropes of rain... more...

TWO PAIRS OF SHOES I don't exactly know why Cap'n Jonadab and me went to the post-office that night; we wa'n't expecting any mail, that's sartin. I guess likely we done it for the reason the feller that tumbled overboard went to the bottom—'twas the handiest place TO go. Anyway we was there, and I was propping up the stove with my feet and holding down a chair with the... more...

THE COD-FISHER Where leap the long Atlantic swellsIn foam-streaked stretch of hill and dale,Where shrill the north-wind demon yells,And flings the spindrift down the gale;Where, beaten 'gainst the bending mast,The frozen raindrop clings and cleaves,With steadfast front for calm or blastHis battered schooner rocks and heaves. To same the gain, to some the loss,To each the chance, the risk, the... more...

CHAPTER I Overhead the clouds cloaked the sky; a ragged cloak it was, and, here and there, a star shone through a hole, to be obscured almost instantly as more cloud tatters were hurled across the rent. The pines threshed on the hill tops. The bare branches of the wild-cherry and silverleaf trees scraped and rattled and tossed. And the wind, the raw, chilling December wind, driven in, wet and salty,... more...

CHAPTER I A LAMB FOR THE SACRIFICE "Perez," observed Captain Eri cheerfully, "I'm tryin' to average up with the mistakes of Providence." The Captain was seated by the open door of the dining room, in the rocker with the patched cane seat. He was apparently very busy doing something with a piece of fishline and a pair of long-legged rubber boots. Captain Perez, swinging back... more...

CHAPTER I Mr. Horatio Pulcifer was on his way home. It was half-past five of a foggy, gray afternoon in early October; it had rained the previous day and a part of the day before that and it looked extremely likely to rain again at any moment. The road between Wellmouth Centre, the village in which Mr. Pulcifer had been spending the afternoon, and East Wellmouth, the community which he honored with his... more...