Fiction Books

When the author resolved upon a journey to the Antipodes he was in London, just returned from Norway, Sweden, and Russia, and contemplated reaching the far-away countries of Australia and New Zealand by going due east through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and then crossing the Indian Ocean. But this is not the nearest route to Oceania. The English monthly mail for that part of the... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LIBERTY TREE. It was on the evening of February 21, 1770, in the city of Boston, that a party of boys, ranging in age from ten to eighteen years, were assembled at what was known as "Liberty Hall," which was not a building, but simply the open space sheltered by the wide-spreading branches of the "Liberty Tree." Although General Gage's troops occupied the city, and... more...

THE UNDERSTUDY "Dogs on board ship is a nuisance," said the night-watchman, gazing fiercely at the vociferous mongrel that had chased him from the deck of the Henry William; "the skipper asks me to keep an eye on the ship, and then leaves a thing like that down in the cabin." He leaned against a pile of empty casks to recover his breath, shook his fist at the dog, and said, slowly—... more...

CHAPTER I. FAIR ACRES. It was a fair morning of early summer, when the low beams of the eastern sun, threw flickering shadows across the lawn, which lay before Fair Acres Manor, nestling under the shelter of the Mendip Hills, somewhere between Wells and Cheddar. Truth compels me to say, that the lawn was covered with daisies, and that their bright eyes looked fearlessly up into the blue sky; for mowing... more...

OUR AGREEABLE FELLOW PASSENGER n the same spirit in which a solicitous mamma or benevolent middle-aged friend will sometimes draw forth from the misty past some youthful misdeed, and set the faded picture up before a girl's eyes, framed in fiery retribution—for an object lesson and a terrible example—so will I, benevolent, if not middle-aged, put before the eyes of my sisters a certain... more...

CHAPTER I AUNT HARRIET HAS A COUGH When this story begins, Elizabeth Ann, who is the heroine of it, was a little girl of nine, who lived with her Great-aunt Harriet in a medium- sized city in a medium-sized State in the middle of this country; and that's all you need to know about the place, for it's not the important thing in the story; and anyhow you know all about it because it was... more...

CHAPTER I Outside there was shimmering heat and dry, thirsty sand, miles upon miles of it flashing by in a gray, barren blur. A flat, arid, monotonous land, vast, threatening, waterless, treeless. Its immensity awed, its bleakness depressed. Man's work here seemed but to accentuate the puny insignificance of man. Man had come upon the desert and had gone, leaving only a line of telegraph-poles... more...

DICK MAKES A FRIEND The American consul in the small but highly important city of Semlin, in Hungary, was a busy man. He was probably one of the first men in the world who knew how great was the danger of war between Austria-Hungary and the little kingdom of Servia after the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne in the summer of 1914. Now, since the Austrian ultimatum to Servia had aroused... more...

CHAPTER I. It was the last day of Captain Wilbur Cranston's leave of absence. For three blissful months he had been visiting his old home in a bustling Western city, happy in the happiness of his charming wife in this her first long restoration to civilization since their marriage ten years before; happy in the pride and joy of his father and mother in having once more under their roof the soldier... more...

CHAPTER ITHE LIVE WIRE Dale Tompkins slung the bulging bag of papers over one shoulder, and, turning away from the news-stand, walked briskly down the main street of Hillsgrove. The rain had ceased, and the wind that had howled fiercely all day long was shifting into the west, where it tore to tatters the banks of dun gray clouds, letting through gleams and patches of cold blue sky tinged with the... more...