A LITTLE MATTER OF REAL ESTATE Four weeks of teaching in a lower East Side school had deprived Constance Bailey of many of the "Ideals in Education" which, during four years at college, she had trustingly acquired. But, despite many discouragements, despite an unintelligible dialect and an autocratic "Course of Study," she clung to an ambition to establish harmony in her kingdom and to... more...

PRELUDE The works of great artists are silent books of eternal truths. And thus it is indelibly written in the face of Balzac, as Rodin has graven it, that the beauty of the creative gesture is wild, unwilling and painful. He has shown that great creative gifts do not mean fulness and giving out of abundance. On the contrary the expression is that of one who seeks help and strives to emancipate... more...

The thoughtful student, in scanning the religious history of the race, has one fact continually forced upon his notice, viz., that there is an invariable tendency to deify whomsoever shows himself superior to the weakness of our common humanity. Look where we will, we find the saint-like man exalted into a divine personage and worshipped for a god. Though perhaps misunderstood, reviled and even... more...

CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY. The little girl came into her papa's study, as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not let him. So he began: “Well, once there was a little pig—” She put her hand over his mouth and stopped him at the word. She said she had heard little pig-stories till she was... more...

CHAPTER I. THE FIVE COUSINS. Aunt Faith sat alone on the piazza, and sad thoughts crowded into her heart. It was her birthday,—the first day of June,—and she could look back over more than half a century, with that mournful retrospect which birthdays are apt to bring. Aunt Faith had seen trouble, and had met affliction face to face. When she was still a bride, her husband died suddenly and left her... more...

Up to the present time but very little has been known of the existence of the peculiarly American family Procyonidæ in any deposits older than the very latest Quaternary. Leidy has described and figured an isolated last upper tooth, from the Loup Fork deposits of Nebraska, under the name of Leptarctus primus, which has been referred to this family. The Museum Expedition of last year into this region... more...

SIMON THE SOLITARY PASSENGER The train had come a long journey and the afternoon was wearing on. The passenger in the last third class compartment but one, looking out of the window sombrely and intently, saw nothing now but desolate brown hills and a winding lonely river, very northern looking under the autumnal sky. He was alone in the carriage, and if any one had happened to study his movements... more...

The magic little word "Reno" makes a smile creep over the face of anyone who hears it mentioned, as a rule in recognition of the one thing for which it is known. I have smiled myself with the rest of the world in the past; in the future my smile will have a different meaning. I have lived in Reno. I have felt the pulse of its secret soul, and have learned to understand its deeper meaning, and... more...

    Morning and eveningMaids heard the goblins cry:"Come buy our orchard fruits,Come buy, come buy:Apples and quinces,Lemons and oranges,Plump unpecked cherries,Melons and raspberries,Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,Swart-headed mulberries,Wild free-born cranberries,Crab-apples, dewberries,Pine-apples, blackberries,Apricots, strawberries;--All ripe togetherIn summer weather,--Morns that pass by,Fair... more...

CHAPTER I STUDENTS “They’ve got a splendid broadcasting station at the Tech, Bill.” “I know it; hence my general exuberance. And if we don’t get at it once in a while, it’ll be because we can’t break in.” “What do you want to shout into it first off?” “Why, I thought you knew, Gus. I’ve got it all fixed, date and time, for Professor Gray and Mr. Hooper to listen in. They’re... more...