Classics Books

CHAPTER I Bukowiec, a station on the Dombrowa railroad, lies in a beautiful spot. A winding line was cut among the beech and pine covered hills, and at the most level point, between a mighty hill towering above the woods with its bald and rocky summit, and a long narrow valley, glistening with pools and marshes, was placed the station. This two-story building of rough brick containing the quarters of... more...

INTRODUCTION. HOW I, LUCIA DACRE, CAME TO WRITE THIS HISTORY, AT THE TIME THAT I WITH MY SISTER WAS LODGED IN A DESERTED HOUSE IN LONDON, WHEN THE GREAT PLAGUE WAS AT ITS HEIGHT; WHICH WAS IN THE MONTHS OF JULY AND AUGUST, ANNO SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE. Now that my sister and myself are in such a strange melancholy case, and I enforced to spend many hours daily in idleness, I find the time hang... more...

AN ARKANSAS PLANTER. Lying along the Arkansas River, a few miles below Little Rock, there is a broad strip of country that was once the domain of a lordly race of men. They were not lordly in the sense of conquest; no rusting armor hung upon their walls; no ancient blood-stains blotched their stairways—there were no skeletons in dungeons deep beneath the banquet hall. But in their own opinion they... more...

CHAPTER I. The breaking waves dashed highOn a stern and rock-hound coast:And the woods against a stormy sky,Their giant branches tost.And the heavy night hung darkThe hills and waters o'er,When a hand of exiles moored their barkOn the wild New England shore. HEMANS. It was, indeed, a stern and rock-bound coast beneath which the gallant little Mayflower furled her tattered sails, and dropped her... more...

CHAPTER I. Something unusual was going on at division headquarters. The men in the nearest regimental camps, regular and volunteer, were “lined up” along the sentry posts and silently, eagerly watching and waiting. For a week rumor had been rife that orders for a move were coming and the brigades hailed it with delight. For a month, shivering at night in the dripping, drenching fogs drifting in... more...

CHAPTER I. HERE AND THERE. She was swinging her gingham sunbonnet, faded beyond any recognition of its pristine coloring, her small hand keeping tight hold of the strings. At every revolution it went swifter and swifter until it seemed a grayish sort of wheel whirling in the late sunshine that sent long shadows among the trees. When she let it go it flew like a great bird, while she laughed sweet,... more...

THE NEW LODGERS AT NO. 7 PHILIBERT PLACE There are many dreary and dingy rows of ugly houses in certain parts of London, but there certainly could not be any row more ugly or dingier than Philibert Place. There were stories that it had once been more attractive, but that had been so long ago that no one remembered the time. It stood back in its gloomy, narrow strips of uncared-for, smoky gardens, whose... more...

CHAPTER I When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had... more...

CHAPTER I THE GIRL WHO TOOK A DARE "Attention, children! Close copy books and pass them to the right. Monitors, collect." Tired Miss Phelps laid down her crayon, with one sweep of her arm erased the letter exercises she had so laboriously traced on the blackboard for her fifty pupils to copy, wiped the clinging chalk from her dry, chapped hands, and sank wearily into her chair beside the... more...

INTRODUCTORY. In making my bow to the public as an author, I feel it incumbent upon me to make a brief explanation of the motives that induced me to attempt this autobiographical sketch of nine years of my life. At intervals during the past decade, the country has been electrified by the recital of some horror perpetrated by Indians on white travelers, and those, who, having journeyed to the Far West,... more...