Unless one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow. Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the unemployed. The poor should be practical and prosaic. It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. These are the great truths of modern life which Hughie […]
One autumn I went to stay for the hunting season with some friends in a chateau in Picardy. My friends were fond of practical joking, as all my friends are. I do not care to know any other sort of people. When I arrived, they gave me a princely reception, which at once aroused distrust […]
The little girl came into her papa’s study, as she always did Saturday morning before breakfast, and asked for a story. He tried to beg off that morning, for he was very busy, but she would not let him. So he began: “Well, once there was a little pig–“ She put her hand over his […]
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. […]
Dusk shrouded the landscape in dense shadows as the moon peeped through the cloud cover on October 31st in the Pacific Northwest. It was a night rife with the mysterious. “Halloween!” shouted young children, moving stealthily, like criminals, down the sidewalks of the rural conclave of Mercer, Washington. In each little hand was clutched a goodie […]
Drayla, aged 6, carefully made her way down the steep concrete steps leading to the backyard of the home that her parents had just purchased. Arriving safely at the base of the flight, she looked out curiously at the dense verdant woods fronting the property. At her approach, flocks of starlings fluttered into the azure […]
BANG! BANG! BANG! Molly was distracted from the pot of chili she always seemed to be preparing by the clamorous clatter at her kitchen door. Licking the spoon with which she had been stirring the concoction, she replaced it on the spoon rest and stepped to the door. Opening it wide, she was unsurprised to […]
Here it was, almost nine o’clock already, thought Otto, an old man living on a pension in Edgewood, Washington, a small hamlet south and east of Seattle. Observing that it was inky black outside at this time of night, Otto flipped on the back porch light and waited for “them” to arrive. He shuffled to […]