CHAPTER ONE: OMAS, ALICE, AND LINNA I don't suppose there is any use in trying to find out when the game of "Jack Stones" was first played. No one can tell. It certainly is a good many hundred years old. All boys and girls know how to play it. There is the little rubber ball, which you toss in the air, catch up one of the odd iron prongs, without touching another, and while the ball is... more...

I PLAN A VOYAGE By the bequest of an elder brother, I was left enough money to see me through a small college in Ohio, and to secure me four years in a medical school in the East. Why I chose medicine I hardly know. Possibly the career of a surgeon attracted the adventurous element in me. Perhaps, coming of a family of doctors, I merely followed the line of least resistance. It may be, indirectly but... more...

A GREAT TRADITION A few years ago I was away north of Edmonton on the trail of Alexander Mackenzie, fur trader and explorer, who a century and a quarter before had made the amazing journey from the prairies over the mountains to the Pacific Coast. We looked with something like awe and wonder at the site of the old fort near the famous Peace River Crossing, from which, after wintering there in 1792, he... more...

THE NEURASTHENIC DURING HIS INFANCY. The neurasthenic is born and not made to order, but it is only by assiduous cultivation that he can hope to become a finished product. To elucidate the fact presented by the latter half of the preceding sentence is the purpose of this little book. In telling a story it is always best to begin at the beginning. I shall start by saying that I was born poor and without... more...

CHAPTER I. A GOOD BEGINNING. A little patch of ground enclosed by a fence, a few adjacent trees, Nat with his hoe in hand, his father giving directions, on one of the brightest May mornings that was ever greeted by the carol of birds, are the scenes that open to our view. "There, Nat, if you plant and hoe your squashes with care, you will raise a nice parcel of them on this piece of ground. It is... more...

CHAPTER I. THE GOVERNOR EXPLAINS. At the request of a person who has claims on me that I must not disown, I consent to look back through a long interval of years and to describe events which took place within the walls of an English prison during the earlier period of my appointment as Governor. Viewing my task by the light which later experience casts on it, I think I shall act wisely by exercising... more...

Chapter I. Preparations. Holland is one of the most remarkable countries on the globe. The peculiarities which make it remarkable arise from the fact that it is almost perfectly level throughout, and it lies so low. A very large portion of it, in fact, lies below the level of the sea, the waters being kept out, as every body knows, by immense dikes that have stood for ages. These dikes are so immense,... more...

CHAPTER I. THE APPARATUS. To a proper comprehension of the succeeding chapters, it is necessary first of all to be familiar with the apparatus employed in carrying out electro-balneological treatment, and I therefore proceed to give a description of this. It may conveniently be divided as follows, viz. a. The tub; b. The electrodes and connections; c. The water; d. Chemicals; e. The batteries. (a) The... more...

I A MASTER OF COBWEBS I Alixe Van Kuyp sat in the first-tier box presented to her husband with the accustomed heavy courtesy of the Société Harmonique. She went early to the hall that she might hear the entire music-making of the evening—Van Kuyp's tone-poem, Sordello, was on the programme between a Weber overture and a Beethoven symphony, an unusual honour for a young American composer. If... more...

On the Pier. It was a gloomy evening. A small group of fishermen were standing—at the end of a rough wooden pier projecting out into the water and forming the southern side of the mouth of a small river. A thick mist, which drove in across the German Ocean, obscured the sky, and prevented any object being seen beyond a few hundred fathoms from the shore, on which the dark leaden-coloured waves broke... more...