Short Stories (single author) Books

There was a colored crayon in a crowded shop-window. Other people passed it by, but a Youth of the Town, with Hope in his heart, leaned over the guard-rail and looked upon the beauty of that pictured face long and earnestly. It was the head of a pretty girl with dark hair and dark eyes. She was clad in a dainty white gown, loose-flowing and beautiful. In her left hand, slender and uplifted, a letter;... more...

THE PIAZZA "With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele—" When I removed into the country, it was to occupy an old-fashioned farm-house, which had no piazza—a deficiency the more regretted, because not only did I like piazzas, as somehow combining the coziness of in-doors with the freedom of out-doors, and it is so pleasant to inspect your thermometer there, but the... more...

THE LAST OF THE TROUBADOURS   Inexorably Sam Galloway saddled his pony. He was going away from the Rancho Altito at the end of a three-months' visit. It is not to be expected that a guest should put up with wheat coffee and biscuits yellow-streaked with saleratus for longer than that. Nick Napoleon, the big Negro man cook, had never been able to make good biscuits. Once before, when Nick was... more...

The red-headed secretary asked, "Names, please?" "Ted Baker." "Bill Stephens." "To see H. Joshua Blair. We have an appointment." "It's for three-thirty. We called up two weeks ago." The secretary said, "Oh, yes. I have you on the list." She checked them off, studied them vaguely, asked, "What was it you wanted to see Mr. Blair about?" Ted... more...

THE GOLDSMITH'S DAUGHTER. A LEGEND OF MADRID. Many, many years ago, in those "good old times" so much bepraised by antiquaries and the laudatores temporis acti,—the good old times, that is to say, of the holy office, of those magnificent autos when the smell of roasted heretics was as sweet a savor in the nostrils of the faithful, as that of Quakers done remarkably brown was to our godly... more...

Jean de Marselait, Inquisitor Extraordinary of the King of France, raised his head from the parchments that littered the crude desk at which he sat. His glance shifted along the long stone-walled, torchlit room to the file of mail-clad soldiers who stood like steel statues by its door. A word from him and two of them sprang forward. "You may bring in the prisoner," he said. The two disappeared... more...

A few weeks ago I was reading a charmingly written book by a lady (the wife of a distinguished savant) who had spent three months on Funafuti, one of the lagoon islands of the Ellice Group. Now the place and the brown people of whom she wrote were once very familiar to me, and her warm and generous sympathy for a dying race stirred me greatly, and when I came across the name "Funâfala," old,... more...

The deep and widespread interest which the writings of Mr. Rudyard Kipling have excited has naturally led to curiosity concerning their author and to a desire to know the conditions of his life. Much has been written about him which has had little or no foundation in truth. It seems, then, worth while, in order to prevent false or mistaken reports from being accepted as trustworthy, and in order to... more...

CHAPTER I. MRS. HAMILTON. For many years the broad, rich acres, and old-fashioned, massive building known as "The Homestead on the Hillside," had passed successively from father to son, until at last it belonged by right of inheritance to Ernest Hamilton. Neither time nor expense had been spared in beautifying and embellishing both house and grounds, and at the time of which we are speaking... more...

HOW TO TELL A STORY The Humorous Story an American Development.—Its Differencefrom Comic and Witty Stories. I do not claim that I can tell a story as it ought to be told. I only claim to know how a story ought to be told, for I have been almost daily in the company of the most expert story-tellers for many years. There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind—the humorous. I will... more...