A Chance Shot Reddy and I were alone at the Lake beds. He sat outside the cabin, braiding a leather hat-band—eight strands, and the "repeat" figure—an art that I never could master. I sat inside, with a one-pound package of smoking tobacco beside me, and newspapers within reach, rolling the day's supply of cigarettes. Reddy stopped his story long enough to say: "Don't use... more...

The Gold-Miners of Minturne Creek. The “Susan Jane.” “Sail-ho on the weather-bow!” “What do you make it?” “Looks like a ship’s mast, with the yard attached, and a man a-holding on to it and hailing us for help—leastways, that’s what it seems to me!” “Jerusalem! On the weather-bow, you say? Can we forereach him on this tack?” “I reckon we can jist about do it, boss, if you... more...

TWO BROTHERS When Colonel Wyatt died, all Weymouth agreed that it was a most unfortunate thing for his sons Julian and Frank. The loss of a father is always a misfortune to lads, but it was more than usually so in this case. They had lost their mother years before, and Colonel Wyatt's sister had since kept house for him. As a housekeeper she was an efficient substitute, as a mother to the boys she... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION The Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln marks the beginning of the end of a long chapter in human history. Among the earliest forms of private property was the ownership of slaves. Slavery as an institution had persisted throughout the ages, always under protest, always provoking opposition, insurrection, social and civil war, and ever bearing within itself the seeds... more...

THE ALMS-HOUSE. For the purpose of preventing an inconvenient rush of literary tuft-hunters and sight-seers thither next summer, a fictitious name must be bestowed upon the town of the Ritualistic church. Let it stand in these pages as Bumsteadville. Possibly it was not known to the Romans, the Saxons, nor the Normans by that name, if by any name at all; but a name more or less weird and full of damp... more...

CHAPTER I. MY FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES The odds and ends of humanity, so plentiful in London's great city, have for many years largely constituted my circle of friends and acquaintances. They are strange people, for each of them is, or was, possessed of some dominating vice, passion, whim or weakness which made him incapable of fulfilling the ordinary duties of respectable citizenship. They had... more...

CHAPTER I THE COWARD Spring had come. Despite the many wet and gusty days which April had thrust in rude challenge upon reluctant May, in the glory of the triumphant sun which flooded the concave blue of heaven and the myriad shaded green of earth, the whole world knew to-day, the whole world proclaimed that spring had come. The yearly miracle had been performed. The leaves of the maple trees lining... more...

CHARIVARIA. The Cambridge University Boat Club has decided to spend £8,000 in improving the Cam. There is talk of making it into a river. Says a writer in a contemporary, "Don't live in a houseboat during a flood." And yet Noah always declared that he owed his life to having done so. The gentlemen who formed M. Ribot's Cabinet are objecting to being described as "The One-Day... more...

CHAPTER I. MORNING DISPUTE AND EVENING CONTENTION. "My sweet friend," said Judge Frank, in a tone of vexation, "it is not worth while reading aloud to you if you keep yawning incessantly, and looking about, first to the right and then to the left;" and with these words he laid down a treatise of Jeremy Bentham, which he had been reading, and rose from his seat. "Ah, forgive me, dear... more...

Four of the five ensuing Plays belong to a peculiar class of our early dramatic performances never yet especially noticed, nor sufficiently illustrated. Many specimens have of late years been printed, and reprinted, of Miracle-plays, of Moral-plays, and of productions written in the most matured period of our dramatic literature; but little or nothing has been done to afford information respecting a... more...