THE OLD BACHELOR'S STORY. In the city block where I live, there are just twenty-four houses on the other side of the street, and twenty-four on this side, six lamp posts, and eight ailanthus trees in green boxes. Oh, dear me, what a tiresome row! That's what I thought when I first came to lodge here; for, as I am an old bachelor, I don't want a whole house to myself; but now, when I sit at my window and look out at the street, I find no end of... more...

THE EAGLE AND THE MOLE Avoid the reeking herd,Shun the polluted flock,Live like that stoic bird,The eagle of the rock. The huddled warmth of crowdsBegets and fosters hate;He keeps, above the clouds,His cliff inviolate. When flocks are folded warm,And herds to shelter run,He sails above the storm,He stares into the sun. If in the eagle's trackYour sinews cannot leap,Avoid the lathered pack,Turn from the steaming sheep. If you would keep your... more...

The printed story of Niagara dates back only three centuries; and during the first three decades of even that period the references to this wonderful handiwork of Nature—which was located in a then unexplored region of a New World, a Continent then inhabited only by warring tribes of superstitious Savages—are few and far between. Three facts relating to this locality—and three only—seem to be proven as ante-dating the... more...

We had the driver let us off in the central district and took a copter-taxi back to Homefield. There's no disgrace about it, of course; we just didn't feel like having all the neighbors see the big skycar with Lydna Project painted on its side, and then having them drop in casually to express what they would call interest and we would know to be curiosity. There are people who boast that their sons and daughters have been picked for Lydna. What... more...

A Motor Trip in San Diego's Back Country. Come, you men and women automobilists, get off the paved streets of Los Angeles and betake yourselves to the back country of San Diego county, where you can enjoy automobile life to the utmost during the summer. There drink in the pure air of the mountains, perfumed with the breath of pines and cedars, the wild lilacs, the sweet-pea vines, and a thousand aromatic shrubs and plants that render every... more...

The Indians were formerly lords of the soil we now occupy, and obtained a subsistence principally by hunting and fishing. They generally lived in villages, containing from fifty to five hundred families. Their houses, called wigwams, were usually constructed of poles, one end being driven into the ground, and the other bent over so as to meet another fastened in like manner; both being joined together at the top, and covered with the bark of... more...

CHAPTER FIRST. Go call a coach, and let a coach be called,And let the man who calleth be the caller;And in his calling let him nothing call,But Coach! Coach! Coach! O for a coach, ye gods!Chrononhotonthologos. It was early on a fine summer's day, near the end of the eighteenth century, when a young man, of genteel appearance, journeying towards the north-east of Scotland, provided himself with a ticket in one of those public carriages which... more...

CHAPTER I A FINANCIER DIES Gabriel Warden—capitalist, railroad director, owner of mines and timber lands, at twenty a cow-puncher, at forty-eight one of the predominant men of the Northwest Coast—paced with quick, uneven steps the great wicker-furnished living room of his home just above Seattle on Puget Sound. Twice within ten minutes he had used the telephone in the hall to ask the same question and, apparently to receive the same... more...

THE HOMECOMING OF DIEUDONNÉ LANE "Eejit! My son John! Whip ary man in Jackson County! Whoop! Come along! Who'll fight old Eph Adamson?" The populace of Spring Valley, largely assembled in the shade of the awnings which served as shelter against an ardent June sun, remained cold to the foregoing challenge. It had been repeated more than once by a stout, middle-aged man in shirt sleeves and a bent straw hat, who still turned a truculent... more...

PART 1. A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,And the young winds fed it with silver dew,And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.And closed them beneath the kisses of Night. And the Spring arose on the garden fair, _5Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breastRose from the dreams of its wintry rest. But none ever trembled and panted with blissIn the garden, the field, or the wilderness, _10Like a... more...