Fiction Books

CHAPTER I—AFTER A STORMY LIFE. To hear people talking about North Devon, and the savage part called Exmoor, you might almost think that there never was any place in the world so beautiful, or any living men so wonderful. It is not my intention to make little of them, for they would be the last to permit it; neither do I feel ill will against them for the pangs they allowed me to suffer; for I dare... more...

CHAPTER I. A GREAT CHANGE. HALF a dozen boys were gathered in one of the studies at Shrewsbury. A packed portmanteau and the general state of litter on the floor was sufficient to show that it was the last day of term. "Well, I am awfully sorry you are going, Bullen; we shall all miss you. You would certainly have been in the football team next term; it is a nuisance altogether." "It is a... more...

STARLIGHT RANCH. We were crouching round the bivouac fire, for the night was chill, and we were yet high up along the summit of the great range. We had been scouting through the mountains for ten days, steadily working southward, and, though far from our own station, our supplies were abundant, and it was our leader's purpose to make a clean sweep of the line from old Sandy to the Salado, and... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. "It is not often that what we call the 'great sorrows of life' cause us the greatest sorrow. Death, acute disease, sudden and great losses—these are sometimes easily borne compared with those intricate difficulties which, without name and without appearance, work themselves into the web of our daily life, and, if not rightly met, corrode and tarnish all its... more...

SUZANNE CARROLL Though J. H. jeer And "Smith" incline to frown, I do not fear To write these verses down And publish them in town. The solemn world knows well that I'm no poet; So what care I if two gay scoffers know it? Buck up, my Muse! Wing high thy skyward way, And don't refuse To let me say my say As bravely as I may. To praise a lady fair I father verses, Which Admiration... more...

CHAPTER I "In the mud and scum of thingsSomething always always sings!" "MY, but it's nice an' cold this mornin'! The thermometer's done fell up to zero!" Mrs. Wiggs made the statement as cheerfully as if her elbows were not sticking out through the boy's coat that she wore, or her teeth chattering in her head like a pair of castanets. But, then, Mrs. Wiggs was... more...

CHAPTER ITHE EXODUS “Do you know, Peggy Raymond, that you haven’t made a remark for three-quarters of an hour, unless somebody asked you a question?–and, even then, your answers didn’t fit.” It was mid-June, and as happens not unfrequently in the month acknowledging allegiance to both seasons, spring had plunged headlong into summer, with no preparatory gradations from breezy coolness to... more...

CHAPTER I. MR. HAMILTON FYNES, URGENT There was a little murmur of regret amongst the five hundred and eighty-seven saloon passengers on board the steamship Lusitania, mingled, perhaps, with a few expressions of a more violent character. After several hours of doubt, the final verdict had at last been pronounced. They had missed the tide, and no attempt was to be made to land passengers that night.... more...

Introduction For the purposes of our study, the tales have been roughly divided into three parts. The first, which deals with the mythical period, contains thirty-one tales of similar type in which the characters are for the most part the same, although the last five tales do not properly fit into the cycle, and the concluding story of Indayo is evidently a recent account told in the form of the older... more...

A PILGRIM IN THE FAR WEST. The Peak was superb that morning, big and strong, and glittering with snow. Little Mrs. Nancy Tarbell turned, after shutting and locking the door of her cottage, and looked down the street, at the end of which the friendly giant stood out against a clear blue sky. The cottonwood trees on either side of the road were just coming into leaf, and their extended branches framed in... more...