Thirty-five years ago I made a voyage to the Arctic Seas in what Chaucer calls   A little boteNo bigger than a mannë’s thought; it was a Phantom Ship that made some voyages to different parts of the world which were recorded in early numbers of Charles Dickens’s “Household Words.”  As preface to Richard Hakluyt’s records of the first endeavour of our bold Elizabethan mariners to find... more...

CHAPTER I A COLLISION IN THE FOG "Wow! Look at that one! That's a monster!" "That must be the ninth wave." "What do you mean by the ninth wave, Jack?" "Why, Arnold, don't you know that every third wave is bigger than the two preceding it and that every ninth wave is bigger than the preceding eight?" queried Jack Stanley. "No, can't say that I ever knew... more...

CHAPTER ONE THE SCRAP OF GREY PAPER As a rule, Spargo left the Watchman office at two o'clock. The paper had then gone to press. There was nothing for him, recently promoted to a sub-editorship, to do after he had passed the column for which he was responsible; as a matter of fact he could have gone home before the machines began their clatter. But he generally hung about, trifling, until two... more...

A CRIMEAN NIGHT Lieutenant Sutch was the first of General Feversham's guests to reach Broad Place. He arrived about five o'clock on an afternoon of sunshine in mid June, and the old red-brick house, lodged on a southern slope of the Surrey hills, was glowing from a dark forest depth of pines with the warmth of a rare jewel. Lieutenant Sutch limped across the hall, where the portraits of the... more...

I Facing the Facts While deafness is a serious misfortune, it is neither a sin, nor a disgrace, to be ashamed of. It is a handicap, to be sure, but one to be bravely and cheerfully faced, for it does not destroy the chances for happiness and success. It is cause for neither discouragement nor despair. It will demand patient devotion and courageous effort to overcome the disadvantage, but what mother is... more...

CHAPTER I HAWKENS' GUN STORE The tall, lanky Missourian leaning against the corner of a ramshackle saloon on Locust Street, St. Louis, Missouri—the St. Louis of the early forties—turned his whiskey-marked face toward his companion, a short and slender Mexican trader, sullenly listening to the latter's torrent of words, which was accompanied by many and excitable gesticulations. The... more...

CHAPTER I. ROSY, COLIN, AND FELIX.   "The highest not more  Than the height of a counsellor's bag."—WORDSWORTH. Rosy stood at the window. She drummed on the panes with her little fat fingers in a fidgety cross way; she pouted out her nice little mouth till it looked quite unlike itself; she frowned down with her eyebrows over her two bright eyes, making them seem like two small... more...

Wonderwings Poppypink sat up in bed and yawned. "Why is everybody getting up so early?" she asked. "Is it a holiday?" The older fairies were dressing themselves and brushing their long fine hair. "Wonderwings is coming to see us," they said. "Jump up, little Poppypink." "Who is Wonderwings?" she asked. "You will see when you are dressed. Hurry, or you will... more...

PRETTY AS A PICTURE There was something about Ferdinand Frog that made everybody smile. It may have been his amazingly wide mouth and his queer, bulging eyes, or perhaps it was his sprightly manner—for one never could tell when Mr. Frog would leap into the air, or turn a somersault backward. Indeed, some of his neighbors claimed that he himself didn't know what he was going to do next—he was... more...

NEW AND OLD. A very central place is Newmanham, both by local and commercial position—a big, black, busy town, waxing bigger and blacker and busier day by day. For more than a century that Queen of Trade has worn her iron crown right worthily; her pulse beats, now, sonorously with the clang of a myriad of steam-hammers; her veins swell almost to bursting with the ceaseless currents of molten... more...