Fiction Books

Mrs. Lidcote, as the huge menacing mass of New York defined itself far off across the waters, shrank back into her corner of the deck and sat listening with a kind of unreasoning terror to the steady onward drive of the screws. She had set out on the voyage quietly enough,—in what she called her "reasonable" mood,—but the week at sea had given her too much time to think of things and had... more...

hen, in 1861, President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to enlist for a three months’ service to uphold the authority and preserve the unity of the United States, I, a boy of nineteen, sought the first opportunity that offered, to enlist. I was at the door of the recruiting office long before it opened. Dr. D. W. Bliss, who afterward became a famous army surgeon and was one of the surgeons who... more...

"Here, Uncle Ike, let me give you a nice piece of paper, twisted up beautifully, to light your pipe," said the red-headed boy, as Uncle Ike, with his long clay pipe, filled with ill-smelling tobacco, was feeling in his vest pocket for a match. "I should think nice white paper would be sweeter to light a pipe with than a greasy old match scratched on your pants," and the boy lighted a... more...

CHAPTER I This is the story of Doggie Trevor. It tells of his doings and of a girl in England and a girl in France. Chiefly it is concerned with the influences that enabled him to win through the war. Doggie Trevor did not get the Victoria Cross. He got no cross or distinction whatever. He did not even attain the sorrowful glory of a little white cross above his grave on the Western Front. Doggie was... more...

CHAPTER XVIII Month by month the Fair Emily crept down south. The Great Bear and other constellations gave way to the stars of the southern skies, and Mr. Chalk tried hard not to feel disappointed with the arrangement of those in the Southern Cross. Pressed by the triumphant Brisket, to whom he voiced his views, he had to admit that it was at least as much like a cross as the other was a bear. As they... more...

CHAPTER I. THE DEACON PROVIDES RESORTS TO HIGHWAY ROBBERY AND HORSE STEALING. THE Deacon was repaid seventyfold by Si's and Shorty's enjoyment of the stew he had prepared for them, and the extraordinary good it had seemed to do them as they lay wounded in the hospital at Chattanooga, to which place the Deacon had gone as soon as he learned that Si was hurt in the battle. "I won't go... more...

At sunset they were in sight of the Ryzga mountain. Strangely it towered among the cliffs and snow-slopes of the surrounding ranges: an immense and repellently geometric cone, black, its sides blood-tinted by the dying sun. Neena shivered, even though the surrounding cold could not reach her. The ice-wind blew from the glacier, but Var's love was round her as a warming cloak, a cloak that glowed... more...

Chapter 1 My name's Dick Marston, Sydney-side native. I'm twenty-nine years old, six feet in my stocking soles, and thirteen stone weight. Pretty strong and active with it, so they say. I don't want to blow—not here, any road—but it takes a good man to put me on my back, or stand up to me with the gloves, or the naked mauleys. I can ride anything—anything that ever was lapped in... more...

PARIS AT THE BEGINNING OF 1792. Paris in 1792 is no longer what it was in 1789. In 1789, the old French society was still brilliant. The past endured beside the present. Neither names nor escutcheons, neither liveries nor places at court, had been suppressed. The aristocracy and the Revolution lived face to face. In 1792, the scene has changed. The Paris of the nobility is no longer in Paris, but at... more...

CHAPTER I. "Thou art the sky, and thou art the nest as well."—Tagore.By the shimmer of blue under the beeches Roy knew that summer—"really truly summer!"—had come back at last. And summer meant picnics and strawberries and out-of-door lessons, and the lovely hot smell of pine-needles in the pine-wood, and the lovelier cool smell of moss cushions in the beech-wood—home of... more...