THE WESTERN TRAIL “An overland highway to the Western sea” was the thought variously expressed by many men in both public and private life among the French, English, and Americans from very early times. In 1659 Pierre Radisson and a companion, by way of the Great Lakes, Fox, and “Ouisconsing” Rivers, discovered the “east fork” of the “Great River” and crossed to the “west fork,” up... more...

CHAPTER I Mrs. Ussher was having a small house party in the country over New Year's Day. This is equivalent to saying that the half dozen most fashionable people in New York were out of town. Certain human beings are admitted to have a genius for discrimination in such matters as objects of art, pigs or stocks. Mrs. Ussher had this same instinct in regard to fashion, especially where fashions in... more...

CHAPTER I GREEN FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW The Imperial Limited lurched with a swing around the last hairpin curve of the Yale canyon. Ahead opened out a timbered valley,—narrow on its floor, flanked with bold mountains, but nevertheless a valley,—down which the rails lay straight and shining on an easy grade. The river that for a hundred miles had boiled and snarled parallel to the tracks, roaring... more...

CHAPTER I. PAUL DUNCAN DISOBEYS ORDERS. "I'll give you a quarter, Paul, if you will take me down to the Point in your boat," said Thomas Nettle, as he came down to the beach where the boy addressed was baling out an old dingy-looking boat. "It blows too hard," replied Paul Duncan. "The club went down in their boat." "But it didn't blow so hard then as it does now.... more...

CHAPTER I. Arrival of Jung Bahadoor in Ceylon—Voyage to Calcutta—Rifle practice on board the Atalanta—Rifle-shooting—Colonel Dhere Shum Shere—A journey along the Grand Trunk Road of Bengal—The experimental railway—The explosion at Benares. Towards the close of the year 1850 a considerable sensation was created in the usually quiet town of Colombo by the arrival in Ceylon of His Excellency... more...

CHAPTER I MY FIRST JOURNEY I was born in the year 1800, in the town of Newnham-on-Severn, in Gloucestershire. I am sure of the year, because my father always told me that I was born at the end of the century, in the year that they began to build the great house. The house has been finished now these many years. The red-brick wall, which shuts its garden from the road (and the Severn), is all covered... more...

BABY, BEE, AND BUTTERFLY. BY MARY D. BRINE. aby, Bee, and Butterfly,Underneath the summer sky. Baby, bees, and birds together,Happy in the pleasant weather; Sunshine over all around,In the sky, and on the ground; Hiding, too, in Baby's eyes,As he looks in mute surprise At the sunbeams tumbling overMerrily amid the clover, Where the bees, at work all day,Never find the time for play. Happy little... more...

DURATION OF TIME M. Asinius Marcellus, Manius Acilius Aviola. (A.D. 54 = a.u. 807 = First of Nero, from Oct. 13th). Nero Caesar Aug., L. Antistius Vetus. (A.D. 55 = a.u. 808 = Second of Nero). Q. Volusius Saturninus, P. Cornelius Scipio. (A.D. 56 = a.u. 809 = Third of Nero). Nero Caesar Aug. (II), L. Calpurnius Piso. (A.D. 57 = a.u. 810 = Fourth of Nero). Nero Caesar... more...

There were George and Bert, Sarah and the baby. "And you and I have pretty good appetites, Bert," George would say, whenever the Fieldens' finances were discussed, which, since the father's death, had been pretty often. "If we could only have staid on in the house in Fayetville! The garden was getting along so nicely, and now to think all the fruit and vegetables will be picked... more...

CHAPTER I Plumbing Fixtures and Trade Modern plumbing as a trade is the arranging and running of pipes to supply pure water to buildings, the erecting of fixtures for the use of this supply, and the installing of other pipes for the resulting waste water. The work of the trade divides itself therefore into two parts: first the providing an adequate supply of water; and second, the disposing of this... more...