General Books

HIS HERO BY MARGARET MINOR It was an October afternoon, and through Indian summer's tulle-like haze a low-swinging sun sent shafts of scarlet light at the highest peaks of the Blue Ridge. The sweet-gum leaves looked like blood-colored stars as they floated slowly to the ground, and brown chestnuts gleamed satin-like through their gaping burs; while over all there rested a dense stillness, cut now... more...

Their Boy. “Well, why not be a soldier?” Philip Hexton shook his head. “No, father. There’s something very brave in a soldier’s career; but I should like to save life, not destroy it.” “You would save life in times of trouble; fight for your country, and that sort of thing.” “No, father; I shall not be a soldier.” “A sailor, then?” “I have not sufficient love of adventure,... more...

CHAPTER I. It was a village of fountains. They poured from the sides of houses, bubbled up at street corners, sprang from stone troughs by the roadside, and one even gushed from the very walls of the old Church itself, and fell with a monotonous tinkle into a carved stone basin beneath. The old Church stood on a high plateau overlooking the lake. It jutted out so far, on its great rock, that it seemed... more...

A Boy at Sea. Many many years ago seem like yesterday, and I hope it will always be the same. For, just to be serious for a moment, what is the full stretch of the oldest man’s life to time? Just one star-wink, if the astronomers are right about the passage of light, and that the glitter of stars that we see now are only the rays which started from them away there in space long before we were born.... more...

MERCY Ruth felt that she was not very successful at Miss Cramp's school. Not that she had fallen behind in her studies, or failed to please her kind instructor; but among the pupils of the upper grade she was all but unconsidered. Perhaps, had time been given her, Ruth might have won her way with some of the fairer-minded girls; but in the few short weeks she had been in the district she had only... more...

CHAPTER I Across the now placidly flowing Lumano where it widened into almost the proportions of a lake just below the picturesque Red Mill, a bank of tempestuous clouds was shouldering into view above the sky line of the rugged and wooded hills. These slate-colored clouds, edged with pallid light, foredoomed the continuance of the peaceful summer afternoon. Not a breath of air stirred on the near side... more...

CHAPTER I ON THE LUMANO RIVER The steady turning of the grinding-stones set the old Red Mill a-quiver in every board and beam. The air within was full of dust—dust of the grain, and fine, fine dust from the stones themselves. Uncle Jabez Potter, the miller, came to the door and looked across the grassy yard that separated the mill and the farmhouse attached from the highroad. Under a broad-spreading... more...

Chapter I. "Which London shall we visit first?" said Mr. George to Rollo. "Why," rejoined Rollo, surprised, "are there two of them?" "Yes," said Mr. George. "We may almost say there are two of them. Or, at any rate, there are two heads to the monster, though the immense mass forms but one body." While Mr. George was saying these words Rollo had been standing on... more...

Chapter I. Preparations. Holland is one of the most remarkable countries on the globe. The peculiarities which make it remarkable arise from the fact that it is almost perfectly level throughout, and it lies so low. A very large portion of it, in fact, lies below the level of the sea, the waters being kept out, as every body knows, by immense dikes that have stood for ages. These dikes are so immense,... more...

PROLOGUE A STORY BEFORE THE STORY On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that she might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was about her. There was so very, very much beauty—the sky, azure blue overhead and paling where it touched the green-fringed earth; the whispering tree under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like waves of a sea, the... more...