FOREWORD THIS narrative offers a gentle but permanent answer to the problem presented to humanity by the German people. It seeks to go beyond the stage of indemnities, diplomatic or trade control, peace by armed preponderance. These agencies do not take into account Teuton nature, character, manner of living, beliefs. Unless the Germans are changed, the world will live at swords' points with them... more...

THE HEALTHFULNESS OF SINGING. The boy's voice, though an immature organ of delicate structure, is capable of much work, providing only that its mechanism be rightly used and not forced. Some people are unnecessarily nervous about boys; as a rule, under competent guidance, they will get nothing but good from vocal work. A cathedral organist wrote to me the other day:— "Our best solo boy, who... more...

The designer of this bulletin first had in mind something of the sort for the use of his students, not only the undergraduates, but others living on farms, or teaching in Michigan and elsewhere. Whoever grows seeds to sell, or buys seeds to sow, should be benefited by consulting the illustrations which are unsurpassed for accuracy by anything in this country. They were all made by Mr. F. H. Hillman. A... more...

I The time was the year 1872, and the place a bend in the river above a long pond terminating in a dam. Beyond this dam, and on a flat lower than it, stood a two-story mill structure. Save for a small, stump-dotted clearing, and the road that led from it, all else was forest. Here in the bottom-lands, following the course of the stream, the hardwoods grew dense, their uppermost branches just beginning... more...

CHAPTER I The most remarkable thing about the boy was his eyes––that is, if any man with his spread of shoulder and masculine grace of flat muscled hips could be spoken of any longer as a boy, merely because his years happened to number twenty-four. They, however––the eyes––were gray; not a too light, off-color, gleaming gray, but more the tone of slate, deep when one chanced to find... more...

BROWN WOLF She had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass, in order to put on her overshoes, and when she emerged from the house found her waiting husband absorbed in the wonder of a bursting almond-bud. She sent a questing glance across the tall grass and in and out among the orchard trees. "Where's Wolf?" she asked. "He was here a moment ago." Walt Irvine drew himself away with a... more...

DONKEY SKIN There was once upon a time a king who was so much beloved by his subjects that he thought himself the happiest monarch in the whole world, and he had everything his heart could desire. His palace was filled with the rarest of curiosities, and his garden with the sweetest flowers, while the marble stalls of his stables stood a row of milk-white Arabs, with big brown eyes. Strangers who had... more...

CHAPTER I THE THREE FRIENDS A canoe containing two boys and a man was moving slowly on one of the little lakes in the great northern wilderness of what is now the State of New York. The water, a brilliant blue under skies of the same intense sapphire tint, rippled away gently on either side of the prow, or rose in heaps of glittering bubbles, as the paddles were lifted for a new stroke. Vast masses of... more...

I JERRY Only the good little snakes were permitted to enter the "Eden" that belonged to Aunt Jerry and Uncle Cornie Darby. "Eden," it should be explained, was the country estate of Mrs. Jerusha Darby—a wealthy Philadelphian—and her husband, Cornelius Darby, a relative by marriage, so to speak, whose sole business on earth was to guard his wife's wealth for six hours of the day... more...

I AN OMNIBUS OFFICE The office in question stood near Porte Saint-Martin, at the corner of the Boulevard and Rue de Bondy, in the same building as the Deffieux restaurant, which was one of the most popular establishments in Paris in respect of wedding banquets; so that one who passed that way during the evening, and often after midnight, was likely to find the windows brilliantly lighted on the first... more...