Fiction Books

JUNE 23, 1863, ended the Army of the Cumberland's six months of wearisome inaction around Murfreesboro its half-year of tiresome fort-building, drilling, picketing and scouting. Then its 60,000 eager, impatient men swept forward in combinations of masterful strategy, and in a brief, wonderfully brilliant campaign of nine days of drenching rain drove Bragg out of his strong fortifications in the... more...

CHAPTER I. OUT ON PICKET THE BOYS SHOW THE DEACON A NEW WRINKLE IN THE CULINARY ART. SOME days later, Si had charge of a picket-post on the Readyville Pike, near Cripple Deer Creek. The Deacon went with them, at their request, which accorded with his own inclinations, The weather was getting warmer every day, which made him fidgety to get back to his own fields, though Si insisted that they were still... more...

CHAPTER I. THROUGH MUD AND MIRE DUTY'S PATH LEADS THE 200TH IND. SOUTHWARD FROM NASHVILLE. "SHORTY" said Si Klegg, the morning after Christmas, 1862, as the 200th Ind. sullenly plunged along through the mud and rain, over the roads leading southward from Nashville, "they say that this is to be a sure-enough battle and end the war." "Your granny's night-cap they do,"... more...

AND WHAT BECAME OF IT. AFTER Si Klegg had finally yielded to his cumulative patriotic impulses and enlisted in the 200th Ind. for three years or until the rebellion was put down, with greater earnestness and solemnity to equip himself for his new career. He was thrifty and provident, and believed in being ready for any emergency. His friends and family coincided with him. The Quartermaster provided him... more...

Except for old Dworken, Kotha's bar was deserted when I dropped in shortly after midnight. The ship from Earth was still two days away, and the Martian flagship would get in next morning, with seven hundred passengers for Earth on it. Dworken must have been waiting in Luna City a whole week—at six thousand credits a day. That's as steep to me as it is to you, but money never seemed to worry... more...

Just before the close of the performances at Niblo's Garden, where the Jarrett combination was then playing, one evening in the latter part of June, 1862, two young men came out from the doorway of the theatre and took their course up Broadway toward the Houston Street corner. Any observer who might have caught a clear view of the faces of the two as they passed under one of the large lamps at the... more...

CHAPTER I WISHING A NEW ONE ON SHORTY Do things just happen, like peculiar changes in the weather, or is there a general scheme on file somewhere? Is it a free-for-all we're mixed up in—with our Harry Thaws and our Helen Kellers; our white slavers, our white hopes, and our white plague campaigns; our trunk murders, and our fire heroes? Or are we runnin' on schedule and headed somewhere? I... more...

CHAPTER I Excuse me, mister man, but ain't you—Hello, yourself! Blamed if I didn't think there was somethin' kind of natural about the looks, as you come pikin' by. How're they runnin', eh? Well say, I ain't seen you since we used to hit up the grammar school together. You've seen me, eh? Oh, sure! I'd forgot. That was when you showed up at the old... more...

THE FATHER[1] By Björnstjerne Björnson (1838-1910) The man whose story is here to be told was the wealthiest and most influential person in his parish; his name was Thord Överaas. He appeared in the priest's study one day, tall and earnest. "I have gotten a son," said he, "and I wish to present him for baptism." "What shall his name be?" "Finn,—after my... more...

SHORT STORY WRITING   some old belief vitalized by its bearing on our lives to-day, an analysis of an obscure calling, a glimpse at a forgotten quarter ... but one thing it can never be—it can never be 'a novel in a nutshell'." "A short story ... must lead up to something. It should have for its structure a plot, a bit of life, an incident such as you would find in a brief... more...