Because there were few adults in the crowd, and Colonel "Biff" Hawton stood over six feet tall, he could see every detail of the demonstration. The children—and most of the parents—gaped in wide-eyed wonder. Biff Hawton was too sophisticated to be awed. He stayed on because he wanted to find out what the trick was that made the gadget work. "It's all explained right here in your... more...

CHAPTER I Something about my Home and Track’s End: with how I leave the one and get acquainted with Pike at the other. When I left home to shift for myself I was eighteen years old, and, I suppose, no weakling; though it seems to me now that I was a mere boy. I liked school well enough, but rather preferred horses; and a pen seems to me a small thing for a grown man, which I am now, to be fooling... more...

Tractatus de Hermaphroditis: OR, A TREATISE OF HERMAPHRODITES. he Secrets of Nature have in all Ages been particularly examin'd by Anatomists and others, and this of Hermaphrodites is so very wonderful, that I am perfectly assur'd my present Enquiry will be entirely acceptable to all Lovers of curious Discoveries; and as it is my immediate Business to trace every Particular for an ample... more...

THE TELEGRAM. 'BREVOORT HOUSE, NEW YORK, Oct. 6th, 18—. 'To Mr. Frank Tracy, Tracy Park, Shannondale. 'I arrived in the Scotia this morning, and shall take the train for Shannondale at 3 p.m. Send someone to the station to meet us. 'ARTHUR TRACEY.' This was the telegram which the clerk in the Shannonville office wrote out one October morning, and despatched to the Hon. Frank... more...

PREFACE. The following pages were written to beguile the tediousness of a long voyage from Hong Kong to England, during the spring and summer of 1844. When I state, that the whole was written with the paper on my knee, for want of a desk, amid continual interruptions from three young children lacking amusement during their long confinement on ship-board, and with a perpetual liability to be pitched to... more...

The Ciriimian ship was passing in hyperdrive through a classic three-body system, comprising in this case a fiercely white sun circled by a fainter companion and a single planet that swung in precise balance, when the Canthorian Zid broke out of its cage in the specimen hold. Of the ship's social quartet, Chafis One and Two were asleep at the moment, dreaming wistful dreams of conical Ciriimian... more...

TRADITIONAL NURSERY SONGS. A diller, a dollar,A ten o'clock scholar,What makes you come so soon?You used to come at ten o'clock,And now you come at noon. A long tailed pig, or a short tailed pig,Or a pig without a tail,A sow pig, or a boar pig,Or a pig with a curly tail. As I was going up Pippen hill,Pippen hill was dirty;There I met a pretty Miss,And she dropt me a curtsey. Little Miss,... more...

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES. No method has yet been discovered for preserving the recollection of human actions and events precisely as they have occurred, whole and unimpaired, in all their truth and reality. Time is an able teacher of causes and qualities, but he setteth little store by names and persons, or the mould and fashion of their deeds. The pyramids have outlived the very names of... more...

THE FAIRIES' CHAPEL. Farewell, rewards and fairies!Good housewives now may say;For now foule sluts in dairies,Doe fare as well as they:And though they sweepe their hearths no lessThan mayds were wont to doe,Yet who of late, for cleaneliness,Finds sixe-pence in her shoe?" —Percy's Reliques. The ancient mansion of Healey Hall was a cumbrous inconvenient dwelling of timber; but the spirit... more...

INTRODUCTION. I was born within twelve miles of a principal tribe of Indians, within two miles of a small band, and within six miles of two other small bands, of that tribe. They were a remnant of the Pawkunnawkuts, who, at the first settlement of the country, were a very numerous, powerful, and warlike nation, but at the time of my birth had dwindled in numbers to about five hundred souls, and were... more...