MAN AND WIVES. A TRAVESTY. BY MOSE SKINNER. CHAPTER FIRST. CROQUET. croquet party has assembled in Mrs. TIMOTHY LADLE'S front yard, located in one of the most romantic spots in that sylvan retreat, the State of Indiana. "Who's going to play," did you say? Come with me, and I'll introduce you. This austere female, with such inflexible rigidity of form, such harrowing cork-screw... more...

It must be a spirit much unlike my own, which can keep itself in health and vigor without sometimes stealing from the sultry sunshine of the world, to plunge into the cool bath of solitude. At intervals, and not infrequent ones, the forest and the ocean summon me—one with the roar of its waves, the other with the murmur of its boughs—forth from the haunts of men. But I must wander many a... more...

I. UNWELCOME NEWS. It was the prettiest homestead in all the township, everybody said, and it had the prettiest name. It stood a mile or so beyond Pendlepoint on the farther side of the river, from which it was separated by a broad meadow, where in the summer time the sleek kine stood udder-deep in cowslips and clover. It was a long, low, comfortable-looking house, hidden by lovely creeping plants, and... more...

I HOW DON QUIXOTE WAS KNIGHTED Some three or four hundred years ago, there lived in sunny Spain an old gentleman named Quixada, who owned a house and a small property near a village in La Mancha. With him lived his niece, a housekeeper, and a man who looked after Quixada's farm and his one old white horse, which, though its master imagined it to be an animal of great strength and beauty, was... more...

The Mermaid of Druid Lake If Edwin Horton had not had a sleepless time that hot June night it probably would never have happened. As it was, after tossing and pitching on an uncomfortably warm mattress for several hours, he had dressed himself and left his Bolton-avenue home for a stroll in Druid Hill Park just as the dawn made itself evident. That was the beginning of the adventure. Not a soul was in... more...

CHAPTER I. It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The last gust had been preceded by an ominous roaring down the whole mountain-side, which continued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsed into silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as of stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the darkness seemed to increase in proportion and grow... more...

ALL UP IN THE AIR It all began because Tess Kenway became suddenly and deeply interested in aeroplanes, airships and "all sort of flying things," as Dot, the smallest Corner House girl, declared. Perhaps one should modify that "suddenly"; for Tess had begun to think about flying—as a profession—as long ago as the winter before (and that was really a long time for a little girl of... more...

CHAPTER I. "Eighty pounds a year!" My reader can imagine that this was no great fortune. I had little or nothing to spend in kid gloves or cigars; indeed, to speak plain, prosaic English, I went without a good dinner far oftener than I had one. Yet, withal, I was passing rich on eighty pounds a year. My father, Captain Trevelyan, a brave and deserving officer, died when I was a child. My... more...

CHAPTER I PER ARDUA AD ASTRA In prehistoric times the first man to make for himself a stone hatchet probably became the greatest warrior of his particular region. He may not have been as strong physically as his neighbor, but with the aid of so marvellous an invention as a stone hatchet he undoubtedly conquered his enemies and became a great prehistoric potentate, until some other great man made a... more...

CHAPTER I. A NEW VENTURE IN SANDY BEACH. "It isn't to be a barn; that's one thing certain. Who ever saw a barn with skylights on it?" Peggy Prescott, in a pretty, fluffy morning dress of pale green, which set off her blonde beauty to perfection, laid down her racket, and, leaving the tennis-court, joined her brother Roy at the picket fence. The lad, bronzed and toughened by his trip... more...