CHAPTER I "Well, now we've done all we can, and all I mean to do," said Alice Hooper, with a pettish accent of fatigue. "Everything's perfectly comfortable, and if she doesn't like it, we can't help it. I don't know why we make such a fuss." The speaker threw herself with a gesture of fatigue into a dilapidated basket-chair that offered itself. It was a spring... more...

he legal status of the Negro in the United States is difficult to define or describe, because on paper he is an American citizen, entitled to the rights of an American citizen, but in practice he does not get what he is entitled to or anything like it in certain parts of the Republic. His life is safe-guarded by written law, and so is his liberty and his activities in pursuit of happiness and to better... more...

BILTMORE OSWALD The Diary of A Hapless Recruit Feb. 23d. "And what," asked the enlisting officer, regarding me as if I had insulted him, his family and his live stock, "leads you to believe that you are remotely qualified to join the Navy?" At this I almost dropped my cane, which in the stress of my patriotic preoccupation I had forgotten to leave home. "Nothing," I replied,... more...

CHAPTER I THE PLANS This is not a fairy tale, although you will find some old friends here. There is, for example, a witch, a horrid old creature who tricks the best and wisest of us: Circumstance is one of her many names, and a horde of grisly goblins follow in her train. For crabbed beldame an aunt, who meant well but was rich and used to having her own way, will do fairly well. Good fairies there... more...

FROM DANE KEMPTON TO HERBERT WACE London,        3 a Queen's Road, Chelsea, S.W.August 14, 19—.     Yesterday I wrote formally, rising to the occasion like the conventional happy father rather than the man who believes in the miracle and lives for it. Yesterday I stinted myself. I took you in my arms, glad of what is and stately with respect for the fulness of your manhood. It is... more...

CHARIVARIA. Bohemia has decided to have a Coalition Government. Several London morning papers are prepared to offer them one in good going condition, providing they pay cost of transit. According to a contemporary, "rabbits are worth less when they are skinned by the shopkeeper." So is the customer. "It is of greater advantage to know the Welsh language," says Professor Trow, "than... more...

Part 1 One Wednesday afternoon in late September, Ann Veronica Stanley came down from London in a state of solemn excitement and quite resolved to have things out with her father that very evening. She had trembled on the verge of such a resolution before, but this time quite definitely she made it. A crisis had been reached, and she was almost glad it had been reached. She made up her mind in the... more...

INTRODUCTION The humorous ghost is distinctly a modern character. In early literature wraiths took themselves very seriously, and insisted on a proper show of respectful fear on the part of those whom they honored by haunting. A mortal was expected to rise when a ghost entered the room, and in case he was slow about it, his spine gave notice of what etiquette demanded. In the event of outdoor... more...

CHAPTER I THE EYE OF THE FLEET The fleet of boats and canoes bearing supplies for the far east turned from the Mississippi into the wide mouth of the Ohio, and it seemed, for a time, that they had come into a larger river instead of a tributary. The splendid stream, called by the Indians "The Beautiful River," flowed silently, a huge flood between high banks, and there was not one among the... more...

Souvenirs. Land of the nopal and maguey—home of Moctezuma and Malinché!—I cannot wring thy memories from my heart! Years may roll on, hand wax weak, and heart grow old, but never till both are cold can I forget thee! I would not; for thee would I remember. Not for all the world would I bathe my soul in the waters of Lethe. Blessed be memory for thy sake! Bright land of Anahuac! my spirit mounts... more...