Classics Books

CHAPTER I THE KIRKWOODS BREAK CAMP "Stuff's all packed, Phil, and on the wagon. Camera safe on top and your suit-case tied to the tail-gate. Shall we march?" "Not crazy about it, daddy. Why not linger another week? We can unlimber in a jiffy." "It's a tempting proposition, old lady, but I haven't the nerve." Kirkwood dropped an armful of brush on the smouldering... more...

CHAPTER I. THE YOUNG MAN WHO CAME TO STAY There is a fertile stretch of flat lands in Indiana where unagrarian Eastern travellers, glancing from car-windows, shudder and return their eyes to interior upholstery, preferring even the swaying caparisons of a Pullman to the monotony without. The landscape lies interminably level: bleak in winter, a desolate plain of mud and snow; hot and dusty in summer,... more...

THE RAT-CATCHERS OF THE WABASH "Hey, you swate-scented little heart-warmer!" cried Jimmy Malone, as he lifted his tenth trap, weighted with a struggling muskrat, from the Wabash. "Varmint you may be to all the rist of creation, but you mane a night at Casey's to me." Jimmy whistled softly as he reset the trap. For the moment he forgot that he was five miles from home, that it was a... more...

MY LADY OF THE CONSTELLATIONS Sylvia was reading in her grandfather's library when the bell tinkled. Professor Kelton had few callers, and as there was never any certainty that the maid-of-all-work would trouble herself to answer, Sylvia put down her book and went to the door. Very likely it was a student or a member of the faculty, and as her grandfather was not at home Sylvia was quite sure that... more...

CHAPTER I On the Heart of the Hearth A strenuous sense of justice is the most disturbing of all virtues, and those persons in whom it predominates are usually as disagreeable as they are good. Any one who assumes the high plane of "justice to all, and confusion to sinners," may easily gain a reputation for goodness simply by doing nothing bad. Look wise and heavenward, frown severely but... more...

CHAPTER I Howrah City bows the kneeMore or less to masters three,King, and Prince, and Siva.Howrah City pays in painTaxes which the royal twainGive to priests, to give again(More or less) to Siva. THAT was no time or place for any girl of twenty to be wandering unprotected. Rosemary McClean knew it; the old woman, of the sweeper caste, that is no caste at all,—the hag with the flat breasts and... more...

POOR DEAR MAMMA The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky, The deer to the wholesome wold, And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid, As it was in the days of old. Gypsy Song. SCENE.—Interior of Miss MINNIE THREEGAN'S Bedroom at Simla. Miss THREEGAN, in window-seat, turning over a drawerful of things. Miss EMMA DEERCOURT, bosom—friend, who has come to spend the day, sitting on the bed,... more...

CHAPTER I. A CHANCE MEETING AT GENEVA. "By Jove! I may as well make an end of the thing right here to-night!" was the dejected conclusion of a long council of war over which Major Alan Hawke had presided, with the one straggling comfort of being its only member. All this long September afternoon he had dawdled away in feeding certain rapacious swans navigating gracefully around Rousseau's... more...

CHAPTER I A watery July sun was hurrying toward a Punjab sky-line, as if weary of squandering his strength on men who did not mind, and resentful of the unexplainable—a rainy-weather field-day. The cold steel and khaki of native Indian cavalry at attention gleamed motionless between British infantry and two batteries of horse artillery. The only noticeable sound was the voice of a general officer,... more...

The “Glamorgan Castle” on her Voyage to India—Her Passengers—Our Hero—Combined Effects of a Kick and a Roll—Violet Ross—Cupid at Work—Our Hero’s Gallant Exploit—The Ship reaches the Hooghly—Parting of Reginald and Violet. The stout old Glamorgan Castle, with studding-sails on either side, was running before the trade-wind on her course to India. The passengers were lounging about... more...