Short Stories (single author) Books

Little Oley had wandered into forbidden territory again—Big Brother Sven's ham shack. The glowing bottles here were an irresistible lure, and he liked to pretend that he knew all there was to know about the mysteries in this room. Of course, Sven said that not even he knew all of the mysteries, though he admitted he was one of the best ham operators extant, with QSOs from eighteen countries and... more...

"I'm washed up," Preston growled bitterly. "They made a postman out of me. Me—a postman!" He crumpled the assignment memo into a small, hard ball and hurled it at the bristly image of himself in the bar mirror. He hadn't shaved in three days—which was how long it had been since he had been notified of his removal from Space Patrol Service and his transfer to Postal... more...

"Must you go up to that tiresome old college again to-night?" Pouting lips and delicate brows fretted in pretty importunity over the troubled eyes enforced the pleading tones, and yet the young man to whom they were addressed found strength to reply:— "I 'm afraid I can't get rid of it. I particularly promised Sturgis I would look in on him, and it won't do for me to cut my... more...

This garden of our childhood, said Monsieur Bergeret, this garden that one could pace off in twenty steps, was for us a whole world, full of smiles and surprises. "Lucien, do you recall Putois?" asked Zoe, smiling as usual, the lips pressed, bending over her work. "Do I recall Putois! Of all the faces I saw as a child that of Putois remains the clearest in my remembrance. All the features... more...

Introduction To the perverse all courtships probably are quaint; but if ever human nature may be allowed the full range of originality, it may very well be in the exciting and very personal moments of making love. Our own peculiar social structure, in which the sexes have so much innocent freedom, and youth is left almost entirely to its own devices in the arrangement of double happiness, is so... more...

A Hoosier Fairy Tale. You think that folks in fine clothes are the only folks that ever see fairies, and that poor folks can't afford them. But in the days of the real old-fashioned "Green Jacket and White Owl's Feather" fairies, it was the poor boy carrying fagots to the cabin of his widowed mother who saw wonders of all sorts wrought by the little people; and it was the poor girl... more...

MY JOB, finished now, had been getting them to Disneyland. The problem was bringing one in particular—one I had to find. The timing was uncomfortably close. I'd taken the last of the yellow pills yesterday, tossing the bottle away with a sort of indifferent frustration. I won or lost on the validity of my logic—and whether I'd built a better mousetrap. The pills had given me 24 hours... more...

Of course that was not his name. Even in the State of Maine, where it is still a custom to maim a child for life by christening him Arioch or Shadrach or Ephraim, nobody would dream of calling a boy "Quite So." It was merely a nickname which we gave him in camp; but it stuck to him with such bur-like tenacity, and is so inseparable from my memory of him, that I do not think I could write... more...

The Hundred and Oneth Rebecca Mary took another stitch. Then another. "Ninety-sevvun, ninety-eight," she counted aloud, her little pointed face gravely intent. She waited the briefest possible space before she took ninety-nine. It was getting very close to the Time now. "At the hundred an' oneth," Rebecca Mary whispered. "It's almost it." Her breath came quicker under... more...

REGINALD I did it—I who should have known better.  I persuaded Reginald to go to the McKillops’ garden-party against his will. We all make mistakes occasionally. “They know you’re here, and they’ll think it so funny if you don’t go.  And I want particularly to be in with Mrs. McKillop just now.” “I know, you want one of her smoke Persian kittens as a prospective wife for Wumples—or... more...