Fiction Books

CHAPTER I HOW TOM BRANGWEN MARRIED A POLISH LADY I The Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in the meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire. Two miles away, a church-tower stood on a hill, the houses of the little country town climbing assiduously up to it. Whenever one of the Brangwens in the fields lifted his head... more...

I. RED LAKE Shefford halted his tired horse and gazed with slowly realizing eyes. A league-long slope of sage rolled and billowed down to Red Lake, a dry red basin, denuded and glistening, a hollow in the desert, a lonely and desolate door to the vast, wild, and broken upland beyond. All day Shefford had plodded onward with the clear horizon-line a thing unattainable; and for days before that he had... more...

CHAPTER ONE—THE TRYING-OUT OF ONE RODNEY PARKER, ASSISTANT ENGINEER All at once the stump-dotted, rocky hillside became clamorous and animated. From the little shacks sheathed with tarred paper, from the sodded huts, from burrows sunk into the hillside men suddenly came popping out with shrill cries. Three men, shouldering surveying instruments, stopped in their tracks on the freshly-heaped soil of a... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION. The Guinea Pig or Cavy belongs to the rabbit family and is a native of South America. Why they are called Guinea Pigs, no one seems to know, unless their shape suggests a small pig and the name Guinea is a corruption of Guiana, a country in South America. In size, shape and texture of fur they resemble a squirrel or rabbit. They have large bodies, short legs, small feet, no... more...

The Rake's Progress I borrow De Quincey's Confessionsof an Opium Eater, the aforementionedan account of that singularOriental vice,whereupon misplacing the volumein transitfrom the checkpoint, I attemptto capsulizethe book's misadventures only tosuffer taciturnityon the part of the staff until,the duplicityof a continued numbers game inChinese wearingthin and with lassitude similar tothe... more...

INVOCATION.(1) Praise to Válmíki,(2)bird of charming song,(3)  Who mounts on Poesy’s sublimest spray,And sweetly sings with accent clear and strong  Ráma, aye Ráma, in his deathless lay. Where breathes the man can listen to the strain  That flows in music from Válmíki’s tongue,Nor feel his feet the path of bliss attain  When Ráma’s glory by the saint is sung! The stream... more...

CHAPTER I A NIGHT LETTER Sand and gravel slithered and slid under the heels of Old Pie Face as Skinny Rawlins whirled the broncho into the open space in front of the low-built, sprawling, adobe ranch house of the Quarter Circle KT and reined the pinto to a sudden stop. Skinny had been to Eagle Butte and with other things brought back the mail. It was hot, late June, the time between cutting the first... more...

CHAPTER I THE BAITING OF THE ANCIENT LION War and Peace had swapped corners that morning in the village of Fort Canibas. War was muttering at the end where two meeting-houses placidly faced each other across the street. Peace brooded over the ancient blockhouse, relic of the "Bloodless War," and upon the structure that Thelismer Thornton had converted from officers' barracks to his own... more...

CHAPTER I LET US START AT THE BEGINNING Four trail-worn oxen, their necks bowed to the yoke of patient servitude, should really begin this story. But to follow the trail they made would take several chapters which you certainly would skip—unless you like to hear the tale of how the wilderness was tamed and can thrill at the stern history of those who did the taming while they fought to keep their... more...

CHAPTER I.THE LOST TRAIL. OVER the brown plain a shaggy broncho trotted slowly, with its head drooping.A girl stood up in her saddle with one hand to her lips. "Halloo! Halloo!" she cried. "I wonder where on earth I am? I thought I knew every inch of this country, yet here I am lost and I can't be but a few miles from our ranch. I must have missed the trail somewhere. Jim! Jim Colter!... more...