Fiction Books

I THE LAST MILE It had been one of the warm and almost sultry days which sometimes come in November; a maligned month, which is really an epitome of the other eleven, or a sort of index to the whole year's changes of storm and sunshine. The afternoon was like spring, the air was soft and damp, and the buds of the willows had been beguiled into swelling a little, so that there was a bloom over... more...

"COWARD!" A little party of tourists might be seen one lovely day in January, on the hill back of the city of Valetta, on that gem of Mediterranean islands, Great Britain's Malta. The air is as clear as a bell, and the scene is certainly one to charm the senses, with the blue Mediterranean, dotted with sails, a hazy line far, far away that may be the coast of Africa, the double harbor... more...

These eight stories are made from our Western Frontier as it was in a past as near as yesterday and almost as by-gone as the Revolution; so swiftly do we proceed. They belong to each other in a kinship of life and manners, and a little through the nearer tie of having here and there a character in common. Thus they resemble faintly the separate parts of a whole, and gain, perhaps, something of the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE EAGLE AND THE BUZZARD. "Hurrah!" The shout went upward in a swelling volume of sound as a thousand voices took up the cry. "Say, those boys can fly!" "I should say so." "Did you see that swoop!" "Did I? I thought they were goners sure." "They handle that sky-clipper like a bicycle." These admiring exclamations came in a perfect hailstorm as... more...

This was the rainy year. Last year had been the dry one, and it would come again. But they wouldn't be here to see it, Captain Louis Carnahan thought. They had seen four dry ones, and now had come the fourth wet one, and soon they would be going home. For them, this was the end of the cycle. At first they had kept track of the days, checking each one off on their calendars, but the calendars had... more...

CHAPTER I. In Which Morris Suspects How very little does the amateur, dwelling at home at ease, comprehend the labours and perils of the author, and, when he smilingly skims the surface of a work of fiction, how little does he consider the hours of toil, consultation of authorities, researches in the Bodleian, correspondence with learned and illegible Germans—in one word, the vast... more...

CHAPTER I THE AUTO CRASH "How about it, Joe?" asked Bob Layton of his chum, Joe Atwood, as they came out of school one afternoon, swinging their books by straps over their shoulders. "Going up to Dr. Dale's house to-night?" "You bet I am," replied Joe enthusiastically. "I wouldn't miss it for a farm. I'm keen to know more about this wireless business, and... more...

LITTLE MOTHER. One day Kitty's mother called her little daughter to her, and taking both her dimpled dots of hands in her own soft white ones, said, "Kitty, my darling, I am going to New York this morning, to see your dear grandma', and I shall have to leave the house in your charge until I come back. Do you think you can be my little housekeeper for to-day?" "Oh yes, mamma! I... more...

THE LION'S BROOD. INTRODUCTION. Centuries come and go; but the plot of the drama is unchanged, and the same characters play the same parts. Only the actors cast for them are new. It is much worn,—this denarius,—and the lines are softened and blurred,—as of right they should be, when you think that more than two thousand years have passed since it felt the die. It is lying before me now on my... more...

I AN OFFER TO OPEN THE RIVER Considering the state of the imperial city of Frankfort, one would not expect to find such a gathering as was assembled in the Kaiser cellar of the Rheingold drinking tavern. Outside in the streets all was turbulence and disorder; a frenzy on the part of the populace taxing to the utmost the efforts of the city authorities to keep it within bounds, and prevent the... more...