Classics Books

CHAPTER I DEFINITIONS Arena.—The space included by the boundaries of the croquet ground, within which a ball driven out of it is entitled to be placed. Blow.—The stroke of the mallet. A blow opposed to a push. Booby.—A ball that fails to run the first bridge. Bridged Ball.—A ball that has run the first bridge. Central Bridges.—Those in a line between the stakes. Chiefs.—The leaders of the... more...

Crowded Out. I am nobody. I am living in a London lodging-house. My room is up three pair of stairs. I have come to London to sell or to part with in some manner an opera, a comedy, a volume of verse, songs, sketches, stories. I compose as well as write. I am ambitious. For the sake of another, one other, I am ambitious. For myself it does not matter. If nobody will discover me I must discover myself.... more...

Every Rivermouth boy looks upon the sea as being in some way mixed up with his destiny. While he is yet a baby lying in his cradle, he hears the dull, far-off boom of the breakers; when he is older, he wanders by the sandy shore, watching the waves that come plunging up the beach like white-maned sea-horses, as Thoreau calls them; his eye follows the lessening sail as it fades into the blue horizon,... more...

The plants named in the following notes were collected at many localities on the coasts of Alaska and Siberia, and on Saint Lawrence, Wrangel, and Herald Islands, between about latitude 54° and 71°, longitude 161° and 178°, in the course of short excursions, some of them less than an hour in length. Inasmuch as the flora of the arctic and subarctic regions is nearly the same everywhere, the... more...

CHAPTER I FRANCE OF THE BOURBONS France, when she undertook the creation of a Bourbon empire beyond the seas, was the first nation of Europe. Her population was larger than that of Spain, and three times that of England. Her army in the days of Louis Quatorze, numbering nearly a half-million in all ranks, was larger than that of Rome at the height of the imperial power. No nation since the fall of... more...

CHAPTER I "I'm sure of one thing," said Aralia to her little sister Pansy, as they sat together one lovely summer afternoon on the garden seat, and gazed away and away far over the North Sea. "I'm quite sure of one thing. Nobody ever could have so good an uncle as our uncle. Now, could anybody, Pansy?" "Oh no!" answered Pansy, shaking her pretty head. Pansy was hardly... more...

Cuba In War Time When the revolution broke out in Cuba two years ago, the Spaniards at once began to build tiny forts, and continued to add to these and improve those already built, until now the whole island, which is eight hundred miles long and averages eighty miles in width, is studded as thickly with these little forts as is the sole of a brogan with iron nails. It is necessary to keep the fact of... more...

Jan ran tirelessly, his long clean limbs carrying him at express train speed across the uneven terrain. The small deer was beginning to show evidences of tiring. Its foam-flecked mouth was open, the swollen tongue protruding over the teeth. The ten or more miles of the chase had proven Jan's superior strength. The deer rounded a dense patch of blackberry bushes and bounded out of sight over the... more...

THE SCHOOLMASTER IN TROUBLE. Carl crept stealthily up the bank, and, peering through the window, saw the master writing at his desk. In his neat Quaker garb, his slender form bent over his task, his calm young face dimly seen in profile, there he sat. The room was growing dark; the glow of a March sunset was fading fast from the paper on which the swift pen traced these words:— "Tennessee is... more...

After too many years, T. L. Sherred returns with a story that gets our SPACE SPECIAL rating. It's the story of a man with a headache—who found a cure for it! And the cure gave him more power than any man could dream of. So I had a headache. The grandfather of all headaches. You try working on the roof line sometime, with the presses grinding and the overhead cranes wailing and the mechanical... more...