Magister Nicholas Udal, the Lady Mary's pedagogue, was very hungry and very cold. He stood undecided in the mud of a lane in the Austin Friars. The quickset hedges on either side were only waist high and did not shelter him. The little houses all round him of white daub with grey corner beams had been part of the old friars' stables and offices. All that neighbourhood was a maze of dwellings... more...

A DRAMA IN ONE ACT Teja, King of the Goths.Balthilda, Queen.Amalaberga, her mother.Agila,Bishop.Euric}Lords in the former kingdom of the Goths.TheodemirAthanaricIldibad, spearbearer of the King.Haribalt, a warrior.Two Camp Watchers.Teja The scene represents the King's tent. The curtains are open in the background and permit a view through the camp of the Gothic warriors, over toward Vesuvius, and... more...

THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL. Is it a petty or a profound trouble? I knew not; it is profound for your sons-in-law or daughters-in-law, but exceedingly petty for you. "Petty! You must be joking; why, a child costs terribly dear!" exclaims a ten-times-too-happy husband, at the baptism of his eleventh, called the little last newcomer,—a phrase with which women beguile their families. "What... more...

BRIEF FOREWORD With sincere pleasure the author would acknowledge the uniform courtesy of editors and publishers in permitting him to reprint many of the articles comprised in this volume, from the various periodicals in which they first appeared. He also desires to express his special indebtedness to Mr. Charles E. Aiken, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, whose contributions to the ornithology of the... more...

My Birth, Parentage, and Family Pretensions—Unfortunately I prove to be a Detrimental or Younger Son, which is remedied by a trifling accident—I hardly receive the first elements of science from my Father, when the elements conspire against me, and I am left an Orphan. Gentle reader, I was born upon the water—not upon the salt and angry ocean, but upon the fresh and rapid-flowing river. It was in... more...

A STRANGER AND A PROMISE The rabbit bounded away and was lost in the underbrush. Steve stood looking disgustedly after him, a limp figure, one shoulder dropping until the old knit suspender fell at his side, and a sullen, discouraged look settling in his brown eyes. “I ain’ no hunter noways. Peers lack I don’t even know ’nough to ketch a rabbit,” he said with scorn. “Whar’s that lazy Tige... more...

THE COLE LECTURES The late Colonel E. W. Cole of Nashville, Tennessee, donated to Vanderbilt University the sum of five thousand dollars, afterwards increased by Mrs. E. W. Cole to ten thousand, the design and conditions of which gift are stated as follows: "The Object of this fund is to establish a foundation for a perpetual Lectureship in connection with the School of Religion of the University,... more...

January 1st, 1662-63. Lay with my wife at my Lord's lodgings, where I have been these two nights, till 10 o'clock with great pleasure talking, then I rose and to White Hall, where I spent a little time walking among the courtiers, which I perceive I shall be able to do with great confidence, being now beginning to be pretty well known among them. Then to my wife again, and found Mrs. Sarah... more...

CHAPTER I A LIBERTY POLE Anna and Rebecca Weston, carrying a big basket between them, ran along the path that led from their home to the Machias River. It was a pleasant May morning in 1775, and the air was filled with the fragrance of the freshly cut pine logs that had been poled down the river in big rafts to be cut into planks and boards at the big sawmills. The river, unusually full with the spring... more...

THE PIONEER NATION. It is now an established fact of history that the Norse rovers had found and made a few expeditions to North America long before Columbus. For the historian nowadays to look upon that Norse discovery as a myth, or less than a certainty, is to confess that he has never read the Sagas. The Norsemen came, and even camped in the New World, before the year 1000; but they only camped.... more...