CHAPTER I CALICO PATCHWORK The gorgeous sunshine of a perfect June morning invited to the great outdoors. Exquisite perfume from myriad blossoms tempted lovers of nature to get away from cramped, man-made buildings, out under the blue roof of heaven, and revel in the lavish splendor of the day. This call of the Junetide came loudly and insistently to a little girl as she sat in the sitting-room of a... more...

THE ORATORIO. The oratorio in its modern form is a musical setting of a sacred story or text in a style more or less dramatic. Its various parts are assigned to the four solo voices and to single or double chorus, with accompaniment of full orchestra, sometimes amplified by the organ. Like the opera, it has its recitative, linking together and leading up to the various numbers. The origin of the word... more...

CHAPTER I. Rocks-naked, hard, red-brown rocks all round; not a bush, not a blade, not a clinging moss such as elsewhere nature has lightly flung on the rocky surface of the heights, as if a breath of her creative life had softly touched the barren stone. Nothing but smooth granite, and above it a sky as bare of cloud as the rocks are of shrubs and herbs. And yet in every cave of the mountain wall there... more...

The launch carrying the mail, supplies and replacements eased slowly in toward the base, keeping the bulk of the Moon between itself and Earth. Captain Ebor, seated at the controls, guided the ship to the rocky uneven ground with the easy carelessness of long practice, then cut the drive, got to his walking tentacles, and stretched. Donning his spacesuit, he left the ship to go over to the dome and... more...

MILLIE AND THE "KAYSER." Millie is a "daily help." Who it is that she helps—whether herself or her employer—I am not in a position to say, for I am only temporarily a lodger in the house where Millie helps, and she doesn't help me much. But to-day I have made her hear and understand one whole sentence. It is the first time during the six days that we have known each other that... more...

THE MAN OF SONGS. "Thou wanderest in the land of dreams,  O man of many songs!To thee what is, but looks and seems;  No realm to thee belongs!" "Seest thou those mountains, faint and far,  O spirit caged and tame?""Blue clouds like distant hills they are,  And like is not the same." "Nay, nay; I know each mountain well,  Each cliff, and peak, and dome!In that... more...

I One Sunday in March they had been marooned at the club, Steingall the painter and Quinny the illustrator, and, having lunched late, had bored themselves separately to their limits over the periodicals until, preferring to bore each other, they had gravitated together in easy arm-chairs before the big Renaissance fireplace. Steingall, sunk in his collar, from behind the black-rimmed spectacles, which,... more...

ANCESTORS To arrive at a full understanding of the complex and unusual character of Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson, which perhaps played as large a part as her beauty and intellectual charm in drawing to her the affections of one of the greatest romance writers of our day, one must go back and seek out all the uncommon influences that combined to produce it—a long line of sturdy ancestors, running back... more...

Altamont cast a quick, routine, glance at the instrument panels and then looked down through the transparent nose of the helicopter at the yellow-brown river five hundred feet below. Next he scraped the last morsel from his plate and ate it. "What did you make this out of, Jim?" he asked. "I hope you kept notes, while you were concocting it. It's good." "The two smoked pork... more...

Liewen Konar smiled wryly as he put a battered object on the bench. "Well, here's another piece recovered. Not worth much, I'd say, but here it is." Obviously, it had once been a precisely fabricated piece of equipment. But its identity was almost lost. A hole was torn in the side of the metal box. Knobs were broken away from their shafts. The engraved legends were scored and worn to... more...