Fiction Books

CHAPTER I The Bruised Reed The fair girl who was playing a banjo and singing to the wounded soldiers suddenly stopped, and, turning to the surgeon, whispered: “What’s that?” “It sounds like a mob——” With a common impulse they moved to the open window of the hospital and listened. On the soft spring air came the roar of excited thousands sweeping down the avenue from the Capitol toward the... more...

I: GETTING READY Perhaps we were pretty big boys--Jack and I. In fact, I'm afraid we were so big that we haven't grown much since. But Ollie was a boy, anyhow; he couldn't have been more than a dozen years old, and we looked upon him as being a very small boy indeed; though when folks saw us starting off, some of them seemed to think that we were as boyish as he, because, they said, it... more...

IN THE DUST OF THE LONG HIGHWAY The man who called himself Walker Farr plodded down the dusty stretches of a country road. He moved leisurely. He neither slouched like a vagabond nor did he swing with a stride which indicated that he had aim in life or destination in mind. When he came under arching elms he plucked his worn cap from his head and stuffed it into a coat pocket which already bulged... more...

CHAPTER I THE FACE AT THE WINDOW Like a clap of thunder, the north wind, rushing seawards, seemed suddenly to threaten the ancient little building with destruction. The window sashes rattled, the beams which supported the roof creaked and groaned, the oil lamps by which alone the place was lit swung perilously in their chains. A row of maps designed for the instruction of the young—the place was a... more...

CHAPTER I ENGLISH ORIGIN AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN JUDICIARY No government can live and flourish without having as part of its system of administration of civil affairs some permanent human force, invested with acknowledged and supreme authority, and always in a position to exercise it promptly and efficiently, in case of need, on any proper call. It must be permanent in its character. Only... more...

CHAPTER I THE WAY IT ALL HAPPENED I WAS very young and I was engaged to be married. We had just lost our money in rather dramatic fashion, and we were all doing what we could to supply the sudden deficit. My sister began to prepare herself to be a teacher, my brother left his boarding school and came home to go into a friend's office, and I—well, I accepted the hand and heart of the young man in... more...

CHILD LIFE IN TOWN AND COUNTRY FANCHON FANCHON went early one morning, like Little Red Riding-Hood, to see her grandmother, who lives right at the other end of the village. But Fanchon did not stop like little Red Riding-Hood, to gather nuts in the wood. She went straight on her way and she did not meet the wolf. From a long way off she saw her grandmother sitting on the stone step at her cottage door,... more...

It seems justly due to Mr. Hawthorne that the occasion of any portion of his private journals being brought before the Public should be made known, since they were originally designed for his own reference only. There had been a constant and an urgent demand for a life or memoir of Mr. Hawthorne; yet, from the extreme delicacy and difficulty of the subject, the Editor felt obliged to refuse compliance... more...

It was a Thursday evening, the fifteenth of October; and although only half-past six o'clock, it had been dark for some time already. The weather was cold, and the sky was as black as ink, while the wind blew tempestuously, and the rain fell in torrents. The servants at the Hotel de Chalusse, one of the most magnificent mansions in the Rue de Courcelles in Paris, were assembled in the... more...

CHAPTER ONE Six feet one in his stockings, broad-shouldered and without an ounce of extra flesh, Harvard Weldon suddenly halted before one of a line of deck chairs. "I usually get what I want, Miss Dent," he observed suggestively. "You are more fortunate than most people." Her answering tone was dry. Most men would have been baffled by her apparent indifference. Not so was Weldon.... more...