FIRST CONVERSATION. The first time I saw Brother Lawrence, was upon the 3d of August, 1666. He told me that GOD had done him a singular favor, in his conversion at the age of eighteen. That in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and... more...

INTRODUCTION "The Prairie" was the third in order of Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. Its first appearance was in the year 1827. The idea of the story had suggested itself to him, we are told, before he had finished its immediate forerunner, "The Last of the Mohicans." He chose entirely new scenes for it, "resolved to cross the Mississippi and wander over the desolate... more...

The Alarm. Whitewing was a Red Indian of the North American prairies. Though not a chief of the highest standing, he was a very great man in the estimation of his tribe, for, besides being possessed of qualities which are highly esteemed among all savages—such as courage, strength, agility, and the like—he was a deep thinker, and held speculative views in regard to the Great Manitou (God), as well... more...

Friday the Eighth of March “But the thing I can’t understand, Dinky-Dunk, is how you ever could.” “Could what?” my husband asked in an aerated tone of voice. I had to gulp before I got it out. “Could kiss a woman like that,” I managed to explain. Duncan Argyll McKail looked at me with a much cooler eye than I had expected. If he saw my shudder, he paid no attention to it. “On much the... more...

Bulletin No. 6 of Missouri Agricultural College Farm is devoted to an account of experiments intended to demonstrate the relation of dew to soil moisture. Prof. Sanborn has prosecuted his work with that patience and faithfulness characteristic of him, and the result is of a most interesting and useful nature. The Professor begins by saying that many works on physics, directly or by implication, assert... more...

The Prairie Mother Sunday the Fifteenth I opened my eyes and saw a pea-green world all around me. Then I heard the doctor say: “Give ’er another whiff or two.” His voice sounded far-away, as though he were speaking through the Simplon Tunnel, and not merely through his teeth, within twelve inches of my nose. I took my whiff or two. I gulped at that chloroform like a thirsty Bedouin at a... more...

PREFACE. A quarter of a century's experience in frontier life, a great portion of which has been occupied in exploring the interior of our continent, and in long marches where I have been thrown exclusively upon my own resources, far beyond the bounds of the populated districts, and where the traveler must vary his expedients to surmount the numerous obstacles which the nature of the country... more...

Thursday the Nineteenth Splash!... That's me, Matilda Anne! That's me falling plump into the pool of matrimony before I've had time to fall in love! And oh, Matilda Anne, Matilda Anne, I've got to talk to you! You may be six thousand miles away, but still you've got to be my safety-valve. I'd blow up and explode if I didn't express myself to some one. For it's so... more...

Honovrable Sir, Although it bee true (which a worthy Diuine obſerueth) that formall Hypocrites are heartned and hardned in their lewd courſes & falſe conceits of happineſſe, when they heare more infamous Sinners than themſelues, gloriouſly and flatteringly commended at their Deaths; yet we need not feare any ſuch bad effect by the... more...

                          ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM                              to his friend                          THOMAS MORE, health: As I was coming awhile since out of Italy for England, that I might not waste all that time I was to sit on horseback in foolish and illiterate fables, I chose rather one while to revolve... more...