CHAPTER I THE STRANGER AT THE BROCK HOUSE The steamer "Hatty" which plied between Jacksonville and Enterprise was late, and the people who had come down from the Brock House to the landing had waited half an hour before a puff of smoke in the distance told that she was coming. There had been many conjectures as to the cause of the delay, for she was usually on time, and those who had friends on... more...

I have often wondered if the world ever thinks of what becomes of the children of great criminals who expiate their crime on the scaffold. Are they taken away and brought up somewhere in ignorance of who or what they are? Does some kind relative step forward always bring them up under another name? There is great criminal trial, and we hear that the man condemned to death leaves two daughters and a... more...

NORMAN DUNCAN An Appreciation byWilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. As our thoughts fly back to the days when the writer of these stories was a guest aboard our little hospital vessel, we remember realizing how vast was the gulf which seemed to lie between him and the circumstances of our sea life in the Northland. Nowhere else in the world, perhaps, do the cold facts of life call for a more unrelieved material... more...

LECTURE I COPERNICUS AND THE MOTION OF THE EARTH The ordinary run of men live among phenomena of which they know nothing and care less. They see bodies fall to the earth, they hear sounds, they kindle fires, they see the heavens roll above them, but of the causes and inner working of the whole they are ignorant, and with their ignorance they are content. "Understand the structure of a... more...

Chapter 1 Small feckless clouds were hurried across the vast untroubled sky—shepherdless, futile, imponderable—and were torn to fragments on the fangs of the mountains, so ending their ephemeral adventures with nothing of their fugitive existence left but a few tears. It was cold in the Callow—a spinney of silver birches and larches that topped a round hill. A purple mist hinted of buds in the... more...

A monkey and a crab once met when going round a mountain. The monkey had picked up a persimmon-seed, and the crab had a piece of toasted rice-cake. The monkey seeing this, and wishing to get something that could be turned to good account at once, said: "Pray, exchange that rice-cake for this persimmon-seed." The crab, without a word, gave up his cake, and took the persimmon-seed and planted it.... more...

ADMONITIONSto theDISSIPATED.   Excess to mankind oft’times brings,Remorse with all its bitter stings;When cares oppress us in this life.At times we drink to banish strife;But when its feeble aid is o’er,We are more wretched then before.Oft poverty the man disgrace,And shows a drunkard in his face;Suppose he is a man of wealth,Excess of liquor injures health;Not only health but sad to name,Such... more...

The summer of 1814 was a troubled one for the people living in northern New York. English troops were concentrating at points just across the Canadian border, and there were rumors that they would soon invade the territory of the States. The farmers were being hastily drilled into militia companies—train-bands, as they were called; the women were anxious and frightened; the boys shared the general... more...

PRIZE MONEY The old man stood by the window, gazing at the frozen fields beyond. The sign of the Cauliflower was stiff with snow, and the breath of a pair of waiting horses in a wagon beneath ascended in clouds of steam. "Amusements" he said slowly, as he came back with a shiver and, resuming his seat by the tap-room fire, looked at the wayfarer who had been idly questioning him. "Claybury... more...

MARCH, APRIL, AND MAY, 1864. On the 18th day of March, 1864, at Nashville, Tennessee, I relieved Lieutenant-General Grant in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, embracing the Departments of the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Arkansas, commanded respectively by Major-Generals Schofield, Thomas, McPherson, and Steele. General Grant was in the act of starting East to assume command of... more...