THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN: Showing how he went farther than he intended, and came safe home again.   John Gilpin was a citizen Of credit and renown, A train-band captain eke was he, Of famous London town. John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, "Though wedded we have been These twice ten tedious years, yet we No holiday have seen. "To-morrow is our wedding-day, And we will then... more...

I.   We who live in comfortable country homes, secure from every invader, find it difficult to conceive the trials that beset the hardy pioneers who settled our Western country during the last century. In those days, and for many a year afterward, hostile Indians swarmed in every direction, wherever the white man had made a clearing, or started a home for himself in the wilderness. Sometimes the... more...

CHAPTER I SPEECH Importance of Speech. There never has been in the history of the world a time when the spoken word has been equaled in value and importance by any other means of communication. If one traces the development of mankind from what he considers its earliest stage he will find that the wandering family of savages depended entirely upon what its members said to one another. A little later... more...

Over Yonder. It was very, very hot. That is to say, it was as hot as it knows how to be in Johnstown, Guiana, which means a damp, sticky, stifling kind of heat. The sun made the muddy river look oily, and the party of three seated under the great fig-tree which shaded the boarding-house by the wharf seemed as if they were slowly melting away like so much of the sugar of which the wharves and warehouses... more...

SAKUNTALA or THE LOST RING. In ancient days, there was a mighty king of the Lunar dynasty by name Dushyanta. He was the king of Hastinapur. He once goes out a-hunting and in the pursuit of a deer comes near the hermitage of the sage Kanwa, the chief of the hermits, where some anchorites request him not to kill the deer. The king feels thirsty and was seeking water when he saw certain maidens of the... more...

CHAPTER I A CONFERENCE AT BONNYDALE "Well, Christy, how do you feel this morning?" asked Captain Passford, one bright morning in April, at Bonnydale on the Hudson, the residence of the former owner of the Bellevite, which he had presented to the government. "Quite well, father; I think I never felt any better in all my life," replied Lieutenant Passford, of the United States Navy,... more...

THE DANCE IN THE KITCHEN. Oh, that winter afternoon,Such a merry, merry tuneAs the jolly, fat tea-kettle chose its singing to begin!'Twas a lilting Scottish air,And it seemed, I do declare,As though bagpipe played by fairy was forever joining in. Then the bagpipe ceased to play,And another tune straightwaySang the kettle, louder, louder, till its voice grew very big;And the feet of laughing... more...

I HER FATHER THE FREE TRADER It was September 9, 189-. From sunrise to sunset through mist, sunshine, shower, and shadow we travelled, and the nearer we drew to our first destination, the wilder the country became, the more water-fowl we saw, and the more the river banks were marked with traces of big game. Here signs told us that three caribou had crossed the stream, there muddy water was still... more...

wenty years had left no trace inside Sam Kee's little shop on Mott Street. There were the same dusty jars of ginseng root and tigers' whiskers, the same little bronze Buddahs, the same gim-cracks mixed with fine jade. Edith Williams gave a little murmur of pleasure as the door shut behind them. "Mark," she said, "it hasn't changed! It doesn't look as if a thing had been... more...

CHAPTER I THE MAN IN SECTION THIRTEENBARBARA THURSTON awakened with a violent start."Wha—a-at is it?" she muttered, then opened her eyes wide. In the darkness of the Pullman berth she could see nothing at all save a faint perpendicular line of light at the edges of the curtains that enclosed the section. "I—I wonder what made me wake up so suddenly?" Barbara put out a groping hand.... more...