Juvenile Fiction Books

PREFACE. Several persons have asked me when Tom Slade was ever going to grow up and cease to be a Scout. The answer is that he is already grown up and that he is never going to cease to be a Scout. Once a Scout, always a Scout. To hear some people talk one would think that scouting is like the measles; that you get over it and never have it any more. Scouting is not a thing to play with, like a tin... more...

CHAPTER I THE THREE SCOUTS At Temple Camp you may hear the story told of how Llewellyn, scout of the first class, and Orestes, winner of the merit badges for architecture and for music, were by their scouting skill and lore instrumental in solving a mystery and performing a great good turn. You may hear how these deft and cunning masters of the wood and the water circumvented the well laid plans of evil... more...

THE LIGHT GOES OUT If it were not for the very remarkable part played by the scouts in this strange business, perhaps it would have been just as well if the whole matter had been allowed to die when the newspaper excitement subsided. Singularly enough, that part of the curious drama which unfolded itself at Temple Camp is the very part which was never material for glaring headlines. The main occurrence... more...

ROY'S SACRIFICE "Rejected by a large majority—I mean, elected by a large majority." Roy Blakeley gathered up the ballots in his two hands, dropped them into the shoe box and pushed the box across the table to Mr. Ellsworth as if the matter were finally settled. "Honorable Roy Blakeley," he added, "didn't even carry his own patrol." This humiliating confession,... more...

PREFACE It was good advice that Rudyard Kipling gave his "young British soldier" in regard to the latter's rifle:"She's human as you are—you treat her as sichAnd she'll fight for the young British soldier." Tommy Atkins' rifle was by no means the first inanimate or dumb thing to prove human and to deserve human treatment. Animals of all sorts have been given this... more...

THE HOME IN ALSACE In the southwestern corner of the domains of Kaiser Bill, in a fair district to which he has no more right than a highwayman has to his victim's wallet, there is a quaint old house built of gray stone and covered with a clinging vine. In the good old days when Alsace was a part of France the old house stood there and was the scene of joy and plenty. In these evil days when... more...

CHAPTER FIRST AT HOME IN THE LITTLE STONE HUT High up in the Bernese Oberland, quite a distance above the meadow-encircled hamlet of Kandergrund, stands a little lonely hut, under the shadow of an old fir-tree. Not far away rushes down from the wooded heights of rock the Wild brook, which in times of heavy rains, has carried away so many rocks and bowlders that when the storms are ended a ragged mass... more...

CHAPTER I THE APPLE TREE Although he was an officer in full uniform he was a youth in years, and he had the spirits of youth. Moreover, it was one of the finest apple trees he had ever seen and the apples hung everywhere, round, ripe and red, fairly asking to be taken and eaten. Dick Mason looked up at them longingly. They made him think of the orchards at home in his own state, and a touch of coolness... more...

CHAPTER I DOCTOR JOE, SCOUTMASTER "Doctor Joe! Doctor Joe's comin'! He just turned the p'int!" Jamie Angus burst into the cabin at The Jug breathlessly shouting this joyful news, and then rushed out again with David and Andy at his heels. "Oh, Doctor Joe! It can't be Doctor Joe, now! Can it, Pop? It must be some one else Jamie sees! It can't be Doctor Joe,... more...

Mrs. Beauchamp sat in a stuffy third-class carriage at Liverpool Street Station, and looked wistfully out of the window at her husband. Behind her the carriage seemed full to overflowing with children and paper parcels, and miscellaneous packages held together by straps. Even the ticket collector failed in his mental arithmetic when nurse confronted him with the tickets. "There's five halfs... more...