Fiction Books

CHAPTER I SHOT INTO THE AIR "Hurrah!" shouted Jack Darrow, flicking the final drops of lacquer from the paintbrush he had been using. "That's the last stroke. She's finished!" "I guess we've done all we can to her before her trial trip," admitted his chum, Mark Sampson, but in a less confident tone. "You don't see anything wrong with her, old croaker; do... more...

SATURDAY.—I am almost a whole day old, now. I arrived yesterday. That is as it seems to me. And it must be so, for if there was a day-before-yesterday I was not there when it happened, or I should remember it. It could be, of course, that it did happen, and that I was not noticing. Very well; I will be very watchful now, and if any day-before-yesterdays happen I will make a note of it. It will be... more...

Happy nowadays is the tourist, with earth's wonders, new and old, spread invitingly open before him, and a host of able workers as his slaves making everything easy, padding plush about him, grading roads for him, boring tunnels, moving hills out of his way, eager, like the devil, to show him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and foolishness, spiritualizing travel for him with... more...

Governesses used to tell us that the seasons of the year each consist of three months, and of these March, April, and May make the springtime.  I should like to break the symmetry, and give February to spring, which would then include February, March, April, and May.  It has been said that winter is but autumn “shyly shaking hands with spring.”  We will, accordingly, make winter a short link of... more...

CHAPTER I Dressed in a plain white shirt waist and an equally plain black cloth skirt, Miss Hazel Weir, on week days, was merely a unit in the office force of Harrington & Bush, implement manufacturers. Neither in personality nor in garb would a casual glance have differentiated her from the other female units, occupied at various desks. A close observer might have noticed that she was a bit... more...

In which there is more Ale than Argument. It was on a blusterous windy night in the early part of November, 1812, that three men were on the high road near to the little village of Grassford, in the south of Devonshire. The moon was nearly at the full, but the wild scud, and occasionally the more opaque clouds, passed over in such rapid succession, that it was rarely, and but for a moment or two, that... more...

CHAPTER I OUR FRIENDLY NERVES "Hop up, Dick, love! See how glorious the sun is on the new snow. Now isn't that more beautiful than your dreams? And see the birdies! They can't find any breakfast. Let's hurry and have our morning wrestle and dress and give them some breakie before Anne calls." The mother is Ethel Baxter Lord. She is thirty-eight, and Dick-boy is just five. The... more...

CHAPTER I. UNCORKING A BOTTLE. We left New York in the afternoon of — day of May, 184-, and embarked on board of the good Packet ship "Tyler" for England. Our party consisted of the Reverend Mr. Hopewell, Samuel Slick, Esq., myself, and Jube Japan, a black servant of the Attache. I love brevity—I am a man of few words, and, therefore, constitutionally economical of them; but brevity is apt... more...

"It is my theory," Professor Falabella said, helping himself to a cookie, "that no one ever really makes a decision. What really happens is that whenever alternative courses of action are called for, the individuality splits up and continues on two or more divergent planes, very much like the parthenogenesis of a unicellular animal ... Delicious cookies these, Mrs. Hughes." "Thank... more...

CHAPTER ONE AN UNEXPECTED LETTER Clearly engraved on the walls of my memory there still remains a picture of the great gray house where I spent my childhood. It was originally used for more than a hundred years as the convent of the "White Ladies", with its four long galleries, one above the other, looking proudly down upon the humbler dwellings of the village. On the side of the house, where... more...