Fiction Books

"ONE OF THOSE IMPOSSIBLE AMERICANS" "N'avez-vous pas—" she was bravely demanding of the clerk when she saw that the bulky American who was standing there helplessly dangling two flaming red silk stockings which a copiously coiffured young woman assured him were bien chic was edging nearer her. She was never so conscious of the truly American quality of her French as when a... more...

AN ODD FREAK "Speaking o' money," said the night-watchman thoughtfully, as he selected an empty soapbox on the wharf for a seat, "the whole world would be different if we all 'ad more of it. It would be a brighter and a 'appier place for everybody." He broke off to open a small brass tobacco-box and place a little quid of tobacco tenderly into a pouch in his left cheek,... more...

CHAPTER I. NORA. "Why, then, Miss Nora—" "Yes, Hannah?" "You didn't see the masther going this way, miss?" "What do you mean, Hannah? Father is never at home at this hour." "I thought maybe—" said Hannah. She spoke in a dubious voice, backing a little away. Hannah was a small, squat woman, of a truly Irish type. Her nose was celestial, her mouth wide,... more...

I. A Gentleman of the Range When Madeline Hammond stepped from the train at El Cajon, New Mexico, it was nearly midnight, and her first impression was of a huge dark space of cool, windy emptiness, strange and silent, stretching away under great blinking white stars. "Miss, there's no one to meet you," said the conductor, rather anxiously. "I wired my brother," she replied.... more...

CHAPTER ONE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY "Once upon a Time." "Once upon a time,"[1] men and women dwelt in caves and cliffs and fashioned curious implements from the stones of the earth and painted crude pictures upon the walls of their rock dwellings. Archaeologists find such traces in England and along the river valleys of France, among the sands of Egyptian deserts and in India, where armor... more...

Some joker in the dear, dead days now virtually beyond recall won two-bit immortality by declaring that, "What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar." Which is, of course, Victorian malarkey. What this country really needs is a good five-cent nickel. Or perhaps a good cigar-shaped spaceship. There's a fortune waiting somewhere out in space for the man who can go out there and claim... more...

CHAPTER I: Peter Rabbit Meets Lightfoot Peter Rabbit was on his way back from the pond of Paddy the Beaver deep in the Green Forest. He had just seen Mr. and Mrs. Quack start toward the Big River for a brief visit before leaving on their long, difficult journey to the far-away Southland. Farewells are always rather sad, and this particular farewell had left Peter with a lump in his throat,—a queer,... more...

"Him?" the local postmaster of Calivada would say, in reply to your question about the quaint little old man who had just ambled away from the desk with a bundle of letters stuffed in his pocket. "Why, that's Lightnin' Bill Jones! We call him Lightnin' because he ain't. Nature didn't give no speed to Bill. No, sir, far as I know, Lightnin' 'ain't... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LIBRARY I had just finished my studies at Oxford, and was taking a brief holiday from work before assuming definitely the management of the estate. My father died when I was yet a child; my mother followed him within a year; and I was nearly as much alone in the world as a man might find himself. I had made little acquaintance with the history of my ancestors. Almost the only thing I... more...

HOW LIN McLEAN WENT EAST In the old days, the happy days, when Wyoming was a Territory with a future instead of a State with a past, and the unfenced cattle grazed upon her ranges by prosperous thousands, young Lin McLean awaked early one morning in cow camp, and lay staring out of his blankets upon the world. He would be twenty-two this week. He was the youngest cow-puncher in camp. But because he... more...