THE EARTHQUAKE "Tom, we're having a problem with the gyro-stabilizer," said Mark Faber, gray-haired president of the Faber Electronics Company. "Hope you can find out what's wrong." The eighteen-year-old inventor accepted the challenge with a smile. "I'll be glad to try, sir," he replied. Bud Barclay, a dark-haired young flier and Tom Swift Jr.'s closest... more...

His face red with haste, and his blue eyes glittering, Dan Holcomb burst into the laboratory. "Just look at this, Lucile!" he cried, flinging his hat halfway across the room, and almost dancing in his joy. "Lord! Look at this, will you!" Lucile Travers glanced up from her Bunsen burner, and stared in surprise at Dan's six-foot bulk. She was used to her lover's flaming... more...

TO PRECEPTORS. With learning may laughter be found; "'Tis good to be merry and wise;" To gayly get over the ground, As higher and higher we rise. Some children their letters may learn, While others will surely do more, As the subjects suggestively turn To matters not thought of before. Descriptions and pictures combined Are here made attractive and clear; So suited that children may find... more...

Chapter First. Probabilities of an Ordinance for Children. 'Tis aye a solemn thing to meTo look upon a babe that sleeps,Wearing in its spirit-deepsThe unrevealed mysteryOf its Adam's taint and woe.—Miss Barrett. Heaven lies about us in our infancy.—Wordsworth. It is generally believed that, of those who have gone to heaven from this world, by far the larger part have been infants and... more...

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I begin a life without a similitude with a simile—Start off with four horses—And, finally, I make my first appearance on any stage, under the protection of the “Crown.” In the volume I am going to write, it is my intention to adhere rigidly to the truth—this will be bonâ fide an autobiography—and, as the public like novelty, an autobiography without an iota of fiction in the whole of it,... more...

PREFACE. This volume is an historical fiction, but the plan of it was suggested by biography, and is made to include the most interesting and picturesque episodes in the home side of the life of Benjamin Franklin, so as to form a connected narrative or picture of his public life. I have written no book with a deeper sympathy with my subject, for, although fiction, the story very truthfully shows that... more...

THE OLD HOMESTEAD The late afternoon sun shone full upon a boy who was perched on the top of an old rail fence forming the dividing line between the farm that spread out before him and the one over which he had just passed. It was early March. The keen wind as it whirled past him, whipping the branches of the tree together and carrying away clouds of dried leaves from behind the fence rows, penetrated... more...

The following paper is written in a female hand, and was no doubt communicated to my much-regretted friend by the lady whose early history it serves to illustrate, the Countess D——. She is no more—she long since died, a childless and a widowed wife, and, as her letter sadly predicts, none survive to whom the publication of this narrative can prove 'injurious, or even painful.' Strange!... more...

CHAPTER I IS THERE MONEY IN THE POULTRY BUSINESS? The chicken business is big. No one knows how big it is and no one can find out. The reason it is hard to find out is because so many people are engaged in it and because the chicken crop is sold, not once a year, but a hundred times a year. Statistics are guesses. True statistics are the sum of little guesses, but often figures published as statistics... more...