CHAPTER XXXVI. AS soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our pile of fox-fire, and went to work.  We cleared everything out of the way, about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log.  Tom said we was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it, and when we got through there... more...

Chapter 1 Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo... His father told him that story: his father looked at him through a glass: he had a hairy face. He was baby tuckoo. The moocow came down the road where Betty Byrne lived: she sold lemon platt. O, the wild... more...

CHAPTER IWHICH TELLS OF A VERY COMMONPLACE INCIDENT No! No! she was not going to gush!—Not even though there was nothing in the room at this moment to stand up afterward before her as dumb witness to a moment's possible weakness. Less than nothing in fact: space might have spoken and recalled that moment . . . infinite nothingness might at some future time have brought back the memory of it . .... more...

Preface THIS volume discloses the mental operations of perhaps the most thoroughly practical politician of the day—George Washington Plunkitt, Tammany leader of the Fifteenth Assembly District, Sachem of the Tammany Society and Chairman of the Elections Committee of Tammany Hall, who has held the offices of State Senator, Assemblyman', Police Magistrate, County Supervisor and Alderman, and who... more...

Chapter IIntroductory By definition the renaissance was primarily a literary and scholarly movement derived from the literature of classical antiquity. Thus the historical, philosophical, pedagogical, and dramatic literatures of the renaissance cannot be accurately understood except in the light of the Greek and Roman authors whose writings inspired them. To this general rule the literary criticism of... more...

CHAPTER I. A MAN OF HIS DAY As the Milvains sat down to breakfast the clock of Wattleborough parish church struck eight; it was two miles away, but the strokes were borne very distinctly on the west wind this autumn morning. Jasper, listening before he cracked an egg, remarked with cheerfulness: 'There's a man being hanged in London at this moment.' 'Surely it isn't necessary... more...

LETTER I MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. SAT. MIDNIGHT. No rest, says a text that I once heard preached upon, to the wicked—and I cannot close my eyes (yet only wanted to compound for half an hour in an elbow-chair)—so must scribble on. I parted with the Captain after another strong debate with him in relation to what is to be the fate of this lady. As the fellow has an excellent head, and... more...

LESSON XLVI NEW WORDS.sobathsickpleasetubwrapshawlsis'terNow, Ned, please do not put my kitty into the bath tub. Yes, sister, I must give her a bath. Here is the bath tub with some nice warm water. But, Ned, kitty will get sick if you put her into the water. She will take cold. No, I will wrap her well in the big shawl, and then she can not take cold. So Ned gave kitty a bath, and then put her... more...

Chapter 21 A Section in My Biography IN due course I got my license. I was a pilot now, full fledged. I dropped into casual employments; no misfortunes resulting, intermittent work gave place to steady and protracted engagements. Time drifted smoothly and prosperously on, and I supposed—and hoped—that I was going to follow the river the rest of my days, and die at the wheel when my mission was... more...

PROLOGUE. The sun was going down on the Black Spur Range. The red light it had kindled there was still eating its way along the serried crest, showing through gaps in the ranks of pines, etching out the interstices of broken boughs, fading away and then flashing suddenly out again like sparks in burnt-up paper. Then the night wind swept down the whole mountain side, and began its usual struggle with... more...