PREFACE What are the words most commonly misspelled by the average high school pupil? In an endeavor to solve this problem, two thousand letters, with five postal cards in each, were sent to representative high schools in every state in the United States, requesting the heads of the various departments to report the words most commonly misspelled in their classes. From the many thousand replies, this... more...

APRIL DAYS. "Can trouble dwell with April days?" In Memoriam. In our methodical New England life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons reluctantly resign themselves to being decently happy in June, at least. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complained of the earlier months as cold, and so spent them in the city; and they will complain of the later months as... more...

ithin a thick-walled sphere of steel eight feet in diameter, with crystal-clear fused-quartz windows, there crouched an alert young scientist, George Abbot. The sphere rested on the primeval muck and slime at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, one mile beneath the surface.Marooned on the sea-floor, his hoisting cable cut, young Abbot is left at the mercy of the man-sharks.The beam from his 200-watt... more...

THE DELIGHTS OF THE SEASIDE.H merry, merry sports had we, last summer on the beach,—  Lucy and Oliver and I, with Uncle Sam to teach!  At times, clad in our bathing-suits, we'd join our hands, all four,  And rush into the water, or run along the shore.The wet sand, how it glistened on the sunny summer day!And how the waves would chase us back, as if they were in play!And when, on the... more...

COUPON BONDS. PART I. On a certain mild March evening, A. D. 1864, the Ducklow kitchen had a general air of waiting for somebody. Mrs. Ducklow sat knitting by the light of a kerosene lamp, but paused ever and anon, neglecting her stocking, and knitting her brows instead, with an aspect of anxious listening. The old gray cat, coiled up on a cushion at her side, purring in her sleep, purred and slept as... more...

CAST. The auctioneer glanced at his book. "Number 29," he said, "black mare, aged, blind in near eye, otherwise sound." The cold rain and the biting north-east wind did not add to the appearance of Number 29, as she stood, dejected, listless, with head drooping, in the centre of the farmers and horse-dealers who were attending the sale of cast Army horses. She looked as though she... more...

Southern Aids To The North. Perhaps the most difficult question at present before the American people is that so often and so insolently put by Southern journals, and so ignorantly babbled in weak imitation of them by English newspapers, asking what, after all, in case of a victory, or even of many victories, can we do with the revolted provinces? The British press, prompt to put the worst construction... more...

THE GREAT CANAL ENTERPRISE. [FROM OUR SPECIAL BOSTON CORRESPONDENT.] BOSTON, May 8th, 1870. We Bostonians are greatly surprised that your valuable journal has as yet taken no notice of the great undertaking of the century—the Cape Cod Canal. However, you New-Yorkers are quite out of the world, and unless you read the Boston Transcript regularly, can not be expected to know much about the enterprises... more...

CHESUNCOOK. At 5 P.M., September 13th, 185-, I left Boston in the steamer for Bangor by the outside course. It was a warm and still night,—warmer, probably, on the water than on the land,—and the sea was as smooth as a small lake in summer, merely rippled. The passengers went singing on the deck, as in a parlor, till ten o'clock. We passed a vessel on her beam-ends on a rock just outside the... more...

CHAPTER I. I was asleep and dreaming—dreaming dreadful, horrible, soul-shattering dreams—dreams that flung me head-first out of bed, and then flung me back into bed off the uncarpeted floor of my chamber. But I did not wake—why should I?—it was unnecessary—I wanted to dream—I had to dream and therefore I dreamt. I was walking home from a cheap restaurant in one of the poorer quarters of... more...