Historical Books

CHAPTER I. A WARNING In the valley of the Rio Pecos, years ago, an attempt at founding a settlement was made by a number of hardy and daring New Englanders, whose leader was a sort of Don Quixote, who traveled hundreds of miles, passing by the richest land, the most balmy climate, where all were protected by the strong arm of law, for the sake of locating where the soil was only moderate, the climate... more...

CHAPTER I A LIBERTY POLE Anna and Rebecca Weston, carrying a big basket between them, ran along the path that led from their home to the Machias River. It was a pleasant May morning in 1775, and the air was filled with the fragrance of the freshly cut pine logs that had been poled down the river in big rafts to be cut into planks and boards at the big sawmills. The river, unusually full with the spring... more...

THE PLANTATION OF REDLAWN. One soft summer evening, when Woodville was crowned with the glory and beauty of the joyous season, three strangers presented themselves before the Grant family, and asked for counsel and assistance. The party consisted of two boys and a girl, and they belonged to that people which the traditions of the past have made the "despised race;" but the girl was whiter and... more...

CHAPTER I "The Huns are coming!" exclaimed Frank Sheldon, as from the American front line his keen, gray eyes searched a broad belt of woodland three hundred yards away. "Bad habit they have," drawled his special chum and comrade, Bart Raymond, running his finger along the edge of his bayonet. "We'll have to try to cure them of it." "I think they're getting over it... more...

AN ARROW IN A SUNBEAM.   he minister of a fashionable church had noticed Sunday after Sunday a little old lady with a sad, patient face, dressed in very shabby mourning, sitting in the strangers' pew. Like Job this good man could say, "The cause that I knew not, I sought out." He soon learned from the sexton her name and residence, and was surprised to find her in the very topmost room of... more...

CHAPTER I. HOW LODBROK THE DANE CAME TO REEDHAM. Elfric, my father, and I stood on our little watch tower at Reedham, and looked out over the wide sea mouth of Yare and Waveney, to the old gray walls of the Roman Burgh on the further shore, and the white gulls cried round us, and the water sparkled in the fresh sea breeze from the north and east, and the bright May-time sun shone warmly on us, and our... more...

Chapter One. The Western Paradise. “Well, boys, where have you been?” The speaker, a sturdy-looking, sun-tanned man, seated upon a home-made stool at a rough home-made table in a home-made house of rugged, coarsely-sawn boards, with an open roof covered in with what one of the boys had called wooden slates, had looked up from his writing, and as he spoke carefully wiped his pen—for pens were... more...

THE RAFT. Although the Venture was by no means so large a raft as many that Winn Caspar had watched glide down the Mississippi, he considered it about the finest craft of that description ever put together. He was also a little more proud of it than of anything else in the whole world. Of course he excepted his brave soldier father, who had gone to the war as a private, to come home when it was all... more...

My first Appearance in Uniform. “Um!” ejaculated my father as he thoughtfully removed his double eye-glass from his nose with one hand, and with the other passed a letter to me across the breakfast-table—“Um! this letter will interest you, Dick. It is from Captain Vernon.” My heart leapt with sudden excitement, and my hand trembled as I stretched it out for the proffered epistle. The mention... more...

DANGER AHEAD. There was snow in the air. Warren Starr had felt it ever since meridian, though not a flake had fallen, and the storm might be delayed for hours yet to come. There was no mistaking the dull leaden sky, the chill in the atmosphere, and that dark, increasing gloom which overspreads the heavens at such times. Young Warren was a fine specimen of the young hunter, though he had not yet passed... more...