THE HISTORY OF TOM THUMB In the days of King Arthur, Merlin, the famous enchanter, was out on a journey, and stopped one day at the cottage of an honest ploughman to ask for refreshment. The ploughman's wife brought him some milk in a wooden bowl, and some brown bread on a wooden platter. Merlin could not help observing that, although everything within the cottage was particularly neat and in good... more...

The Young Man Who Was a Favourite Son Which would you say is the harder to bear, adversity or prosperity? I am not sure. If I were a betting man I would not know on which horse to put my money. The Bible says, "The destruction of the poor is their poverty." The narrowness and the meagreness of their lives, the lack of access to the highest interests seems to drive them oftentimes into the... more...

errence O'Mara lay flat on his back trying to keep his big body as still as possible. Despite the fact that he was stripped to his regulation shorts, a large pool of sweat had formed on the cot underneath him. The only movement he permitted himself was an occasional pursing of his lips as he dragged on a cigarette and sent a swirl of smoke upward through the heavy humid air. Then he would just lie... more...

PREFATORY NOTE. The life and writings of Pope have been discussed in a literature more voluminous than that which exists in the case of almost any other English man of letters. No biographer, however, has produced a definitive or exhaustive work. It seems therefore desirable to indicate the main authorities upon which such a biographer would have to rely, and which have been consulted for the purpose... more...

I am heartily interested in the Girl Scouts of America. The fact is, I think I was always a Girl Scout myself (although the name was unknown); yes, from the very beginning. Even my first youthful story was “scouty” in tone, if I may invent a word. Then for a few years afterward, when I was “scoutingly” busy educating little street Arabs in San Francisco, I wrote books, too, for and about... more...

CHAPTER I. No subject more pleasing than that of the removal of evils—Evils have existed almost from the beginning of the world—but there is a power in our nature to counteract them—this power increased by Christianity—of the evils removed by Christianity one of the greatest is the Slave-trade—The joy we ought to feel on its abolition from a contemplation of the nature of it—and of the... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION TO THE ART OF DIVINATION FROM TEA-LEAVES It seems highly probable that at no previous period of the world's history have there been so many persons as there are at the present moment anxious to ascertain in advance, if that be humanly possible, a knowledge of at least 'what a day may bring forth.' The incidence of the greatest of all wars, which has resulted in... more...

CHAPTER I.KIT WATSON. There was great excitement in Smyrna, especially among the boys. Barlow's Great American Circus in its triumphal progress from State to State was close at hand, and immense yellow posters announcing its arrival were liberally displayed on fences and barns, while smaller bills were put up in the post office, the hotel, and the principal stores, and distributed from house to... more...

CHAPTER I AT THE STAGE DOOR Courtlandt sat perfectly straight; his ample shoulders did not touch the back of his chair; and his arms were folded tightly across his chest. The characteristic of his attitude was tenseness. The nostrils were well defined, as in one who sets the upper jaw hard upon the nether. His brown eyes—their gaze directed toward the stage whence came the voice of the prima... more...

The Second Greatest Commandment A man was out shoveling the excess gravel off his driveway and into the graveled road that ran by his house. A neighbor happened to be walking by just as the man tossed a shovel full down the road the opposite way the man used to drive in and out. "I see you aren't messing up the part of the road you use," sneered the neighbor. A few minutes later another... more...