Boys / Men Books

PREFACE If this kind of composition, of which the two years' product is now laid before the public, fail in art, as it constantly does and must, it at least has the advantage of a certain truth and honesty, which a work more elaborate might lose. In his constant communication with the reader, the writer is forced into frankness of expression, and to speak out his own mind and feelings as they urge... more...

CHAPTER I BREWSTER'S CENTRE Maybe you think just because scouts go camping in the summer time, and take hikes and all that, that there's nothing to do in the winter. But I'm always going to stick up for winter, that's one sure thing. Anyway, this story isn't exactly a winter story, it's a kind of a fall story—lightweight. Maybe after this I'll write a heavyweight... more...

CHAPTER I. THE START. BR-R-R-RUB-A-DUB-DUB! Br-r-r-rub-a-dub-a-dub-dub! Br-r-r-rub-adub-dub-a-dub-dub-a-dub-dub!" "What's that?" cried Jimmieboy, rising from his pillow on the nursery couch, and looking about him, his eyes wide open with astonishment. "What's what?" asked mamma, who was sitting near at hand, knitting a pair of socks for a small boy she knew who would... more...

CHAPTER I A CRY IN THE AIR  "Well, Bob, here we are again. And no word from Jack yet." "That's right, Frank. But the weather has been bad for sending so great a distance for days. When these spring storms come to an end the static will lift and well stand a better chance to hear from him." "Righto, Bob. Then, too, the Hamptons may not have finished their station on time."... more...

CHAPTER I — ALL RIGHT! OFF WE GO! "Yet here... you are stayed for... There; my blessing with you,And these few precepts in thy memorySee thou character——-" "Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.I rather would entreat thy companyTo see the wonders of the world abroad,Than living dully, sluggardis'd at home,Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness." "Where unbruised... more...

CHAPTER I. DON JOHN OF BELFAST, AND FRIENDS. "Why, Don John, how you frightened me!" exclaimed Miss Nellie Patterdale, as she sprang up from her reclining position in a lolling-chair. It was an intensely warm day near the close of June, and the young lady had chosen the coolest and shadiest place she could find on the piazza of her father's elegant mansion in Belfast. She was as pretty as... more...

All the Proctors but Phil. Mr Proctor, the chemist and druggist, kept his shop, and lived in the Strand, London. His children thought that there was never anything pleasanter than the way they lived. Their house was warm in winter, and such a little distance from the church, that they had no difficulty in getting to church and back again, in the worst weather, before their shoes were wet. They were... more...

AT THE EDGE OF THE FIRE A pall of smoke, dark, ugly, threatening, hung over a wood in which the Thirty-ninth Troop of the Boy Scouts had been spending a Saturday afternoon in camp. They had been hard at work at signal practice, semaphoring, and acquiring speed in Morse signaling with flags, which makes wireless unnecessary when there are enough signalers, covering enough ground. The Scout camp was near... more...

CHAPTER I. I FIND MYSELF A FOUNDLING. My earliest recollections are of a square courtyard surrounded by high walls and paved with blue and white pebbles in geometrical patterns—circles, parallelograms, and lozenges. Two of these walls were blank, and had been coped with broken bottles; a third, similarly coped, had heavy folding doors of timber, leaden-grey in colour and studded with black... more...

CHAPTER I. BERT IS INTRODUCED. If Cuthbert Lloyd had been born in the time of our great grandfathers, instead of a little later than the first half of the present century, the gossips would assuredly have declared that the good fairies had had it all their own way at his birth. To begin with, he was a particularly fine handsome baby; for did not all the friends of the family say so? In the second... more...