Fiction Books

CHAPTER I REWARDS OFFERED The sign on the tree attracted the man’s attention while he was still far down the slope. He could see the tall pine on the crest of the ridge above a veritable landmark in that country of stunted timber, and the square of paper, tacked to its trunk under the lowest branches, gleamed white against the background of vivid green. The air was clear, and every detail of the... more...

CHAPTER I OUT OF THE WILDERNESS He appeared an odd figure, sitting loosely on an old white mare which held her nose to the ground and cautiously single-footed over the uneven road. Unconcerned, perhaps unconscious that he bestrode a horse, his head was thrown back and his gaze penetrated the lace-work of branches to a sky exquisite blue where a few white, puffy clouds were aimlessly suspended. And,... more...

CHAPTER I GRUELLING FOOTBALL PRACTICE A shrill whistle sounded over the field where almost two dozen sturdily built boys in their middle 'teens, clad in an astonishing array of old and new football togs, had been struggling furiously. Instantly the commotion ceased as if by magic at this intimation from the coach, who also acted in practice as referee and umpire combined, that the ball was to be... more...

It was clear that the sleigh from Weymore had not come; and the shivering young traveller from Boston, who had counted on jumping into it when he left the train at Northridge Junction, found himself standing alone on the open platform, exposed to the full assault of night-fall and winter. The blast that swept him came off New Hampshire snow-fields and ice-hung forests. It seemed to have traversed... more...

CHAPTER I THE CURTAIN RISES "For the Lord's sake, Jennie—" Dick Welford paused at the bottom of a range of steps which wound up the capitol hill from Pennsylvania Avenue. The girl standing at the top stamped her foot imperiously. "Hurry—hurry!" "I won't—" "Then I'll leave you!" The boy laughed. "You don't dare. It's barely sunup—still... more...

CHAPTER I A.B.C. This world of initials ... in which the members of the British Expeditionary Force live and move—it is a bewildering place for the outsider. Particularly to one who, like the writer, has never been able to think in initials, any more than in dates or figures. The members of the B.E.F.—and that at least is a set of letters that conveys something to all of us—not only live amidst... more...

CHAPTER I THE SHADOW In the afternoon of the last day of April, 190-, a billowy sea of little broken clouds crowned the thin air above High Street, Kensington. This soft tumult of vapours, covering nearly all the firmament, was in onslaught round a patch of blue sky, shaped somewhat like a star, which still gleamed—a single gentian flower amongst innumerable grass. Each of these small clouds seemed... more...

No description available

I ALTHEA Nothing impairedbut all disordered.—Midsummer Night's Dream. There are four guest-rooms in my house. It is not a large house, and how there came to be so many rooms to spare for the entertaining of friends is not a story to be told here. It is only a few years since they were all full—and not with guests. But they are nearly always full now. And when I assign each room it is after... more...

CHAPTER I IN WHICH I LEARN FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAVE AN UNCLE The first remembrance I hold of my father is of a dark-suited tall man of an unchanging gravity on all occasions. He had, moreover, a manner of saying "Ay, ay," which I early came to regard as the prologue to some definite prohibition; as when I asked him (I being then but a scrubbed boy) for his great sword, to give it to a... more...