CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS—GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING, NUTRITION, MANAGEMENT, &c. The principal domestic animals reared for economical purposes in the United States, are Horned or neat cattle, the Horse, the Mule, Sheep, and Swine. A few Asses are bred, but for no other object than to keep up the supply of jacks for propagating mules. We have also goats, rabbits, and the house domestics,... more...

The old sawmill on Headlong Creek at the water-gap of Chilhowee Mountain was silent and still one day, its habit of industry suggested only in the ample expanse of sawdust spread thickly over a level open space in the woods hard by, to serve as footing for the "bran dance" that had been so long heralded and that was destined to end so strangely. A barbecue had added its attractions, unrivalled... more...

CHAPTER I—LIFE AND DEATH OF MRS. WEIR The Lord Justice-Clerk was a stranger in that part of the country; but his lady wife was known there from a child, as her race had been before her.  The old “riding Rutherfords of Hermiston,” of whom she was the last descendant, had been famous men of yore, ill neighbours, ill subjects, and ill husbands to their wives though not their properties.  Tales of... more...

CHAPTER I 'Tak your hat, Louie! Yo're allus leavin summat behind yer.' 'David, yo go for 't,' said the child addressed to a boy by her side, nodding her head insolently towards the speaker, a tall and bony woman, who stood on the steps the children had just descended, holding out a battered hat. 'Yo're a careless thing, Louie,' said the boy, but he went back... more...

FOREWORD The struggle for the North Pole began nearly one hundred years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock, being inaugurated (1527) by that king of many distinctions, Henry VIII of England. In 1588 John Davis rounded Cape Farewell, the southern end of Greenland, and followed the coast for eight hundred miles to Sanderson Hope. He discovered the strait which bears his name, and... more...

MY FIRST ALPHABETA aB bArkBabyC cD dCatDogE eF fEarFanG gH hGateHouseI iK kInnKeyL lM mLoafManN nO oNutOwlP pQ qPanQueenR rS sRatSeaT tU uTartUrnV vW wVineWallY yZ zYewZebraOnce on a time there was a Little Old Woman who lived in a Shoe. This shoe stood near a great forest, and was so large that it served as a house for the Old Lady and all her children, of which she had so many that she did not know... more...

PROEM. Not here in our London Ghetto the gates and gaberdines of the olden Ghetto of the Eternal City; yet no lack of signs external by which one may know it, and those who dwell therein. Its narrow streets have no specialty of architecture; its dirt is not picturesque. It is no longer the stage for the high-buskined tragedy of massacre and martyrdom; only for the obscurer, deeper tragedy that evolves... more...

CHAPTER XIV. An interview between parson Adams and parson Trulliber. Parson Adams came to the house of parson Trulliber, whom he found stript into his waistcoat, with an apron on, and a pail in his hand, just come from serving his hogs; for Mr Trulliber was a parson on Sundays, but all the other six might more properly be called a farmer. He occupied a small piece of land of his own, besides which he... more...

CHAPTER I VICKY VAN Victoria Van Allen was the name she signed to her letters and to her cheques, but Vicky Van, as her friends called her, was signed all over her captivating personality, from the top of her dainty, tossing head to the tips of her dainty, dancing feet. I liked her from the first, and if her "small and earlies" were said to be so called because they were timed by the small and... more...

The Camp of the Young Yagers. Near the confluence of the two great rivers of Southern Africa—the Yellow and Orange—behold the camp of the “young yagers!” It stands upon the southern bank of the latter stream, in a grove of Babylonian willows, whose silvery foliage, drooping gracefully to the water’s edge, fringes both shores of the noble river as far as the eye can reach. A... more...