CHAPTER 1 "Bong-g-g! Bong-g-g! Bong-g-g!—" With a hollow booming sound reminiscent of old eighteenth-and nineteenth-century clock towers, the electronic time tone rang out from the Tower of Galileo, chiming the hour of nine. As the notes reverberated over the vast expanse of Space Academy, U.S.A., the lights in the windows of the cadet dormitories began to wink out and the slidewalks that... more...

THE SEWING SOCIETY. I am thinking of a little brown house, somewhere in the wilds of New England. I wish I could make my readers see it as it was, one June afternoon some years ago. Not for anything very remarkable about it; there are thousands of such houses scattered among our hills and valleys; nevertheless one understands any life story the better for knowing amid what sort of scenes it was... more...

THE YOUNG LORD. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust do corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”—St. Matt. vi. 19, 20, 21. “How can we reward the... more...

Padre, when you died, you left a message for me. You asked me to go on writing, if I were in trouble, just as I used to write when you were on earth. I used to "confess," and you used to advise. Also you used to scold. How you used to scold! I am going to do now what you asked, in that message. I shall never forget how you packed me off to school at Brighton, and Brian to Westward Ho! the year... more...

CHAPTER I SHOWS MRS. THESIGER IN HER HOME The Geneva express jerked itself out of the Gare de Lyons. For a few minutes the lights of outer Paris twinkled past its windows and then with a spring it reached the open night. The jolts and lurches merged into one regular purposeful throb, the shrieks of the wheels, the clatter of the coaches, into one continuous hum. And already in the upper berth of her... more...

CHAPTER I TELLS HOW THE PENNINGTONS LOST PENNINGTON I am writing this story at the wish of many friends, who tell me it is my duty so to do. Certain stories have been afloat, which are anything but true, and it has been urged upon me again and again to set down in plain terms the true history of events which have set people's tongues wagging. I must confess that, in spite of the pleasure I have in... more...

PART I "Well, Mrs. Warren, I cannot see that you have any particular cause for uneasiness, nor do I understand why I, whose time is of some value, should interfere in the matter. I really have other things to engage me." So spoke Sherlock Holmes and turned back to the great scrapbook in which he was arranging and indexing some of his recent material. But the landlady had the pertinacity and... more...

PROUD SIGNILD. Proud Signild’s bold brothers have taken her hand,They’ve wedded her into a far distant land. They’ve wedded her far from her own native land,To her father’s foul murderer gave they her hand. And so for eight winters the matter it stood,Their face for eight winters she never once view’d. Proud Signild she brews, and the ruddy wine blends;To her brothers so courteous a bidding... more...

"Let us now praise famous men"—Men of little showing—For their work continueth,And their work continueth,Greater than their knowing. Western wind and open surgeTore us from our mothers;Flung us on a naked shore(Twelve bleak houses by the shore!Seven summers by the shore!)'Mid two hundred brothers. There we met with famous menSet in office o'er us.And they beat on us with... more...

INTRODUCTION.  North American thrushes (Turdidæ) constitute a small but interesting group of birds, most of which are of retiring habits but noted as songsters. They consist of the birds commonly known as thrushes, robins, bluebirds, Townsend's solitaire, and the wheatears. The red-winged thrush of Europe (Turdus musicus) is accidental in Greenland, and the wheatears (Saxicola œnanthe subspp.)... more...