Fiction Books

CHAPTER ONE Miss Philura Rice tied her faded bonnet-strings under her faded chin with hands that trembled a little; then she leaned forward and gazed anxiously at the reflection which confronted her. A somewhat pinched and wistful face it was, with large, light-lashed blue eyes, arched over with a mere pretense at eyebrows. More than once in her twenties Miss Philura had ventured to eke out this scanty... more...

Since the Koenig Wilhelm, of the Dutch East India Service, left Batavia, the sky had been torpidly blue, that suffocating indigo which seems so neighborly that the traveller fancies were he a trifle taller he could touch it with the ferule of his stick. When night came, the stars would issue from their ambush and stab it through and through, but the glittering cicatrices which they made left it bluer... more...

I FAREWELL TO THE TOWN The town is one large house of which all the little houses are rooms. The streets are the stairs. Those who live always in the town are never out of doors even if they do take the air in the streets. When I came into the town I found that in my soul were reflected its blank walls, its interminable stairways, and the shadows of hurrying traffic. A thousand sights and impressions,... more...

CHAPTER I. CLOUDS GATHER AT WILKES-BARRE. There are few valleys to compare with that of the Susquehanna. In point of picturesque scenery and modern alteration attained by the unceasing labor of man, the antithesis between the natural and the artificial is pronounced in many respects; especially at that place in the river where it runs through the steep banks on which is situated the thriving city of... more...

It was a burning hot day. Yan was wandering in pursuit of birds among the endless groves and glades of the Sandhill wilderness about Carberry. The water in the numerous marshy ponds was warm with the sun heat, so Yan cut across to the trail spring, the only place in the country where he might find a cooling drink. As he stooped beside it his eye fell on a small hoof-mark in the mud, a sharp and elegant... more...

WHAT IS A FOREST? First, What is forestry? Forestry is the knowledge of the forest. In particular, it is the art of handling the forest so that it will render whatever service is required of it without being impoverished or destroyed. For example, a forest may be handled so as to produce saw logs, telegraph poles, barrel hoops, firewood, tan bark, or turpentine. The main purpose of its treatment may be... more...

CHAPTER I TWO VILLAINS AND THE HEROINE "Your Highness will find your opportunity now; Miss Maynard is for the moment alone," Mr. Travers Nugent whispered to his companion. A guttural "Ah!" was the only answer as the individual addressed left the speaker's side and made his way through the crush towards a tall girl who had just dismissed her partner in the last dance. The ball-room... more...

"That is your ultimatum, Glamorgan? My boy for your girl or you scoop up my possessions and transfuse them into yours?" Peter Courtlandt tapped the arm of his chair nervously as he regarded the man who sat opposite in front of the fire. The two men were in striking contrast. Courtlandt seemed a component part of the room in which they sat, a room which with its dull, velvety mahogany, its... more...

CHAPTER I. "The Harvester."   "It is my turn tonight to relate for your entertainment a story of my past, and I shall repeat to you the most pathetic happening that I have ever experienced in all my life. I have never been able to eradicate its details from my memory, as I witnessed its beginning with my own eyes, and its ending, many years later, was told to me by one of the principal... more...

CONCERNING MORALS There were fifty thousand acres within view of the ranchhouse—virgin grass land dotted with sage, running over a wide level, into little hills, and so on to an upland whose rise was so gradual that it could be seen only from a distance, best from the gallery of the ranchhouse. The first tang of autumn was in the sage-scented breeze that swept the county, and the tawny valley,... more...