Boys / Men Books

CHAPTER I. THE BIRTHDAYIAbout thirty years ago there was at the top of the right-hand side of Orange Street, in Polchester, a large stone house. I say "was"; the shell of it is still there, and the people who now live in it are quite unaware, I suppose, that anything has happened to the inside of it, except that they are certainly assured that their furniture is vastly superior to the furniture... more...

Chapter V. Tom as a patrician. Tom Canty, left alone in the prince's cabinet, made good use of his opportunity.  He turned himself this way and that before the great mirror, admiring his finery; then walked away, imitating the prince's high-bred carriage, and still observing results in the glass.  Next he drew the beautiful sword, and bowed, kissing the blade, and laying it across his... more...

Down the Line. “Bob!” The noise of the train, however, drowned Nellie’s voice; besides which Master Bob was further prevented from hearing this appeal to him by reason of his head and shoulders being at that precise instant projected out of the window of the railway-carriage, in utter defiance of the Company’s bye-laws to the contrary and of his sister’s solicitous entreaties to the same... more...

FIRST NOTE The pages which follow have been extracted from a pile of manuscript which was apparently meant for the eye of one woman only.  She seems to have been the writer’s childhood’s friend.  They had parted as children, or very little more than children.  Years passed.  Then something recalled to the woman the companion of her young days and she wrote to him:... more...

CHAPTER I When Pee-wee Harris returned from Temple Camp in the fall, he found himself a scout without a patrol. He had indulged in a colossal speculation and lost out. Forsaking the Raving Ravens, he had set forth to mobilize all the small, unattached boys at camp into the Pollywog Patrol, but the Pollywog Patrol had proved about as substantial as the shifting sand. Like the beloved Black Lake it had... more...

CHAPTER I. FEARNOT AND OLCOTT AT FREEDONIA.Fearnot and Olcott remained in Wall Street after the great excitement occasioned, by Fred's sudden change of front, when he turned from a bull to a bear in the market, quietly waiting for another chance to make a deal. All the brokers in the Street had nothing else to talk about for the time being but that singular event, and it became well known that the... more...

CHAPTER I THE BATTLE OF THE BANANA PEE-WEE HARRIS, mascot of the Raven Patrol, First Bridgeboro Troop, sat upon the lowest limb of the tree in front of his home eating a banana. To maintain his balance it was necessary for him to keep a tight hold with one hand on a knotty projection of the trunk while with the other he clutched his luscious refreshment. The safety of his small form as he sat on the... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCING THE BOYS "I say, Ned, this is beginning to grow wearisome," drawled Randy Moore as he tipped his chair against the wall, and crossed his feet on the low railing in front of him. "Clay promised to be here half an hour ago," he went on in an injured tone, "and if he doesn't come in a few minutes I'm going to have a spin on the river. It's... more...

Chapter XXXII. Coronation Day. Let us go backward a few hours, and place ourselves in Westminster Abbey, at four o'clock in the morning of this memorable Coronation Day.  We are not without company; for although it is still night, we find the torch-lighted galleries already filling up with people who are well content to sit still and wait seven or eight hours till the time shall come for them to... more...

THE BOOMS At nine o'clock one morning Bobby Orde, following an agreement with his father, walked sedately to the Proper Place, where he kept his cap and coat and other belongings. The Proper Place was a small, dark closet under the angle of the stairs. He called it the Proper Place just as he called his friend Clifford Fuller, or the saw-mill town in which he lived Monrovia—because he had always... more...