Fiction Books

1. The Way to Butterfield "Please, miss," said the shaggy man, "can you tell me the road to Butterfield?" Dorothy looked him over. Yes, he was shaggy, all right, but there was a twinkle in his eye that seemed pleasant. "Oh yes," she replied; "I can tell you. But it isn't this road at all." "No?" "You cross the ten-acre lot, follow the lane to the... more...

CHAPTER I. The breaking waves dashed highOn a stern and rock-hound coast:And the woods against a stormy sky,Their giant branches tost.And the heavy night hung darkThe hills and waters o'er,When a hand of exiles moored their barkOn the wild New England shore. HEMANS. It was, indeed, a stern and rock-bound coast beneath which the gallant little Mayflower furled her tattered sails, and dropped her... more...

THE BIRD ON ITS JOURNEY, By Beatrice Harraden It was about four in the afternoon when a young girl came into the salon of the little hotel at C—— in Switzerland, and drew her chair up to the fire. "You are soaked through," said an elderly lady, who was herself trying to get roasted. "You ought to lose no time in changing your clothes." "I have not anything to change," said... more...

CHAPTER I. DEFINITION.—EVERY PERSON HAS SOME SPECIAL VOCATION. Q. What is a vocation? A. A call from God to some state of life. Q. Which are the principal states of life? A. Matrimony, virginity, the religious state, and the priesthood. Q. Has every person a vocation? A. Yes; God gives a special vocation to each person. Q. How is this doctrine proved? A. St. Paul says: "Every one hath his proper... more...

PART I It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook's shop in the county town of Eltham. My father had left me that afternoon, after delivering himself of a few plain precepts, strongly expressed, for my... more...

A STRANGE VISIT I turned the corner abruptly and found myself in a long, dreary street; looking in the semi-fog and drizzle more desolate than those dismal old-world streets of Bath I had passed through already in my aimless wandering; I turned sharply and came almost face to face with her. She was standing on the upper step, and the door stood open; the house itself looked neglected and with the... more...

He was already a thief, prepared to steal again. He didn't know that he himself was only booty! Phil Garfield was thirty miles south of the little town of Redmon on Route Twelve when he was startled by a series of sharp, clanking noises. They came from under the Packard's hood. The car immediately began to lose speed. Garfield jammed down the accelerator, had a sense of sick helplessness at... more...

TAORMINA I What should there be in the glimmering lights of a poor fishing-village to fascinate me? Far below, a mile perhaps, I behold them in the darkness and the storm like some phosphorescence of the beach; I see the pale tossing of the surf beside them; I hear the continuous roar borne up and softened about these heights; and this is night at Taormina. There is a weirdness in the scene—the... more...

There had been rumors all winter that the engineers were going to strike. Certainly we of the operating department had warning enough. Yet in the railroad life there is always friction in some quarter; the railroad man sleeps like the soldier, with an ear alert—but just the same he sleeps, for with waking comes duty. Our engineers were good fellows. If they had faults, they were American... more...

CHAPTER I A MIDNIGHT ALARM "Fire! Fire! Turn out, everybody! Fire! Fire!" This cry, coming like a clarion call, at midnight, awoke the inhabitants of the peaceful little New England village of Lakeville. "Fire! Fire!" Heads were thrust out of hastily-raised windows. Men and women looked up and down the street, and then glanced around to detect the reddening in the sky that would... more...