Fiction Books

CHAPTER I THROUGH THE FOOTHILLS WITH A FLOCK OF SHEEP In the great Central Valley of California there are only two seasons—spring and summer. The spring begins with the first rainstorm, which usually falls in November. In a few months the wonderful flowery vegetation is in full bloom, and by the end of May it is dead and dry and crisp, as if every plant had been roasted in an oven. Then the lolling,... more...

Iceland is a little country far north in the cold sea. Men found it and went there to live more than a thousand years ago. During the warm season they used to fish and make fish-oil and hunt sea-birds and gather feathers and tend their sheep and make hay. But the winters were long and dark and cold. Men and women and children stayed in the house and carded and spun and wove and knit. A whole family sat... more...

CHAPTER I THE BLACK DOUGLAS RIDES HOME Merry fell the eve of Whitsunday of the year 1439, in the fairest and heartsomest spot in all the Scottish southland. The twined May-pole had not yet been taken down from the house of Brawny Kim, master armourer and foster father to William, sixth Earl of Douglas and Lord of Galloway. Malise Kim, who by the common voice was well named "The Brawny," sat in... more...

CHAPTER I THE GUN MAN’S HERITAGE Lost Valley lay like a sparkling jewel, fashioned in perfection, cast in the breast of the illimitable mountain country––and forever after forgotten of God. A tiny world, arrogantly unconscious of any other, it lived its own life, went its own ways, had its own conceptions of law––and they were based upon primeval instincts. Cattle by the thousand head ran on... more...

All divisions of history into periods are artificial in proportion as they are precise. In history there is, strictly speaking, no end and no beginning. Each event is the product of an infinite series of causes, the starting-point of an infinite series of effects. Language and thought, government and manners, transform themselves by imperceptible degrees; with the result that every age is an age of... more...

CHAPTER I On a certain island in the Paumotu Group, known on the charts as Chain Island, but called Anaa by the people themselves, lived a white man named Martin Flemming, one of those restless wanderers who range the Pacific in search of the fortune they always mean to gain, but which never comes to them, except in some few instances—so few that they might be counted on one's fingers. Two years... more...

In vain, after that, did Anty try to sleep; turn which way she would, she saw the bloodshot eyes and horrid drunken face of her cruel brother. For a long time she lay, trembling and anxious; fearing she knew not what, and trying to compose herself—trying to make herself think that she had no present cause for fear; but in vain. If she heard a noise, she thought it was her brother's footstep, and... more...

Two names were used for the only girl at Overlook. In addressing her, the men of the place always said "Miss Warriner." In mentioning her, they often said "Mary Mite." The reason for this distinctive difference was revealed by the sight of Miss Mary Warriner herself, as she sat on a high stool behind a rude desk, under a roughly-boarded shelter, and with rapid fingers clicked the key of... more...

CHAPTER I. The Second Generation is Removed When Daniel J. Bines died of apoplexy in his private car at Kaslo Junction no one knew just where to reach either his old father or his young son with the news of his death. Somewhere up the eastern slope of the Sierras the old man would be leading, as he had long chosen to lead each summer, the lonely life of a prospector. The young man, two years out of... more...

CHAPTER I.FRANKIE'S COUSIN NELLY.In another little book I have given you an account of Frankie when he was a baby, and have spoken of some things which he said and did when he began to talk and to walk. In this book I shall tell you more about him, and also about his cousin Nelly, who came to pass some months in his father's house, while her parents visited Europe. Nelly was six years old,... more...