Fiction Books

IT Prana Beach would be a part of the solid west coast if it wasn't for a half circle of the deadliest, double-damned, orchid-haunted black morass, with a solid wall of insects that bite, rising out of it. But the beach is good dry sand, and the wind keeps the bugs back in the swamp. Between the beach and the swamp is a strip of loam and jungle, where some niggers live and a god. I landed on Prana... more...

The first mention of bats in Nebraska possibly was by Harrison Allen, in his "Monograph of the Bats of North America" (1864:14, 20, 30, 35, 42), who listed Nycticejus crepuscularis [= Nycticeius humeralis], Lasiurus borealis, Scotophilus carolinensis and Scotophilus fuscus [both = Eptesicus fuscus], and Scotophilus noctivagans [= Lasionycteris noctivagans], as collected in... more...

The Offshore Pirate I This unlikely story begins on a sea that was a blue dream, as colorful as blue-silk stockings, and beneath a sky as blue as the irises of children's eyes. From the western half of the sky the sun was shying little golden disks at the sea—if you gazed intently enough you could see them skip from wave tip to wave tip until they joined a broad collar of golden coin that was... more...

CHAPTER I.THE TRAPPER'S ART. During past ages many of the wild creatures of the forest and stream were hunted and captured in various ways by the inhabitants of the wilderness,--the flesh of these animals being the principal food of many tribes of savages and the skins being used for clothing; but it was only after furs became a staple article of wearing apparel among civilized nations and the... more...

So far as my literary work is concerned 'Pierre and His People' may be likened to a new city built upon the ashes of an old one. Let me explain. While I was in Australia I began a series of short stories and sketches of life in Canada which I called 'Pike Pole Sketches on the Madawaska'. A very few of them were published in Australia, and I brought with me to England in 1889 about... more...

CHAPTER I THE TOY BALLOON "I am the last of my kind. This is the very peak of loneliness."—TheMurmuring Pine. There is a State in the North Mississippi Valley unexcelled for its quiet beauty. To the casual traveler there may be a certain monotony in the unending miles of rolling green hills, stretching on and on into distant, pale skies. But the native of the State knows that the monotony is... more...

CHAPTER I. Charles Thompson, born in Atala County, Mississippi—Division of Kirkwood's Slaves Among his Six Children—The Writer and his Two Sisters Fall to Mrs. Wilson—The Parting Between Mother and Child—Deprived of a Fond Mother Forever—Old Uncle Jack—Wilson Buys Uncle Ben from Strucker—Uncle Ben Runs Away and is Hunted with Blood-Hounds—Two Hundred Dollars Reward. I was a slave,... more...

CHAPTER I None but the residents consider Mount Mark, Iowa, much of a town, and those who are honest among them admit, although reluctantly, that Mount Mark can boast of far more patriotism than good judgment! But the very most patriotic of them all has no word of praise for the ugly little red C., B. & Q. railway station. If pretty is as pretty does, as we have been told so unpleasantly often,... more...

HOW PILLINGSHOT SCORED Pillingshot was annoyed. He was disgusted, mortified; no other word for it. He had no objection, of course, to Mr Mellish saying that his work during the term, and especially his Livy, had been disgraceful. A master has the right to say that sort of thing if he likes. It is one of the perquisites of the position. But when he went on to observe, without a touch of shame, that... more...

CHAPTER I. 'Eureka!' It was I, Carl Masters, of the secret service, so called, who uttered this exclamation, although not a person of the exclamatory school; and small wonder, for I was standing beneath the dome of the Administration Building, and I had but that hour arrived at the World's Fair. I was not there as a sight-seer, not on pleasure bent, and even those first moments of... more...