TOM MAKES A PROMISE Tom Slade hoisted up his trousers, tightened his belt, and lounged against the railing outside the troop room, listening dutifully but rather sullenly to his scoutmaster. "All I want you to do, Tom," said Mr. Ellsworth, "is to have a little patience—just a little patience." "A little tiny one—about as big as Pee-wee," added Roy. "A little bigger than... more...

The description of the "ancien regime" in France, "a despotism tempered by epigrams," like most epigrammatic sentences, contains some truth, with much fiction. The society of the last half of the seventeenth, and the whole of the eighteenth centuries, was doubtless greatly influenced by the precise and terse mode in which the popular writers of that date expressed their thoughts. To a... more...

INTRODUCTION. MOTIVES FOR THE UNDERTAKING—ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF QUAKERS—GEORGE FOX, THE FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY-SHORT HISTORY OF HIS LIFE. From the year 1787, when I began to devote my labours to the abolition of the slave trade, I was thrown frequently into the company of the people, called Quakers, these people had been then long unanimous upon this subject. Indeed they had placed it among the... more...

EMMA GOLDMAN ANARCHIST REBEL The hanging of several anarchists in 1887 as a consequence of the Haymarket bombing in Chicago caused many Americans to sympathize with the gibbeted radicals. Youths swathed in bright idealism, men and women rooted in equalitarian democracy, workers trusting in the rectitude of their government—all doubted the guilt of the condemned prisoners and were deeply perturbed by... more...

A for Arab.This Arab is upset, I fear;Look at his pretty shield and spear.He's stuck two pistols in his sash,And, dear me, how his eyes do flash!At home he has a horse to ride;To "scour the desert" is his pride.His horse is of the purest breed;Some people call his horse a steed.Here is your little brother Boer,Of course, you've heard of him before;He has a naughty Uncle Paul,Who used... more...

CHAPTER I. TALKING OF MICHIGAN. My father was born in 1793, and my mother in 1802, in Putnam County, State of New York. Their names were John and Melinda Nowlin. Mother's maiden name was Light. My father owned a small farm of twenty-five acres, in the town of Kent, Putnam County, New York, about sixty miles from New York City. We had plenty of fruit, apples, pears, quinces and so forth, also a... more...

INTRODUCTION Towards the end of the summer of 1906 I received a letter from Mr. F. A. Mumby, of the Daily Graphic, asking me if I knew if Joseph Fletcher, the “Posh” of the “FitzGerald” letters, was still alive.  All about me were veterans of eighty, ay, and ninety! hale and garrulous as any longshoreman needs be.  But it had never occurred to me before that possibly the man who was Edward... more...

A SHACK ON THE PRAIRIE At sunset we came up out of the draw to the crest of the ridge. Perched on the high seat of the old spring wagon, we looked into a desolate land which reached to the horizon on every side. Prairie which had lain untouched since the Creation save for buffalo and roving bands of Indians, its brown grass scorched and crackling from the sun. No trees to break the endless monotony or... more...

First Dream. "Any fool can get into a hole."—Old Chinese proverb. "If left to you, for defence make spades."—Bridge Maxim. I felt lonely, and not a little sad, as I stood on the bank of the river near Duffer's Drift and watched the red dust haze, raised by the southward departing column in the distance, turn slowly into gold as it hung in the afternoon sunlight. It was just... more...

THE POLICE CAMP The velvety darkness of a southern night, with its sense of rich, luscious, breathing intensity, lay over that romantic spot in Southern Rhodesia where the grey walls of the Zimbabwe ruins, with a sublime, imperturbable indifference, continue to baffle the ingenuity and ravish the curiosity of all who would read their story. Scientists, archæologists, tourists come and go, but the... more...