A Little Girl in Old Chicago

The picnic was a grand event, a new sort of entertainment. Some distance to the southeast was the nearest real woods about us. Here and there would be a belt of scrubby pines, g...

We went on just the same for a week or two, friendly, pleasant, but some influence I could not shake off drew me nearer. Even now I suppose Dan was a fascinating man, since girl...

I was all alone that August afternoon. It was hot out on the porch and I took my sewing inside. I liked to sew when anything perplexed me. There seems a quiet kind of diversion...

Those years abroad had been very precious years to me in spite of the great disappointment of not returning home at the promised time. I found Mr. Le Moyne a charming gentleman,...

Of course we kept our guest all night. It was midnight when Dan came home, and I pretended to be asleep. But he was quite cheerful the next morning. Chicago people were generall...

It was truly a gay summer for the grown-ups. There were rowing parties on the lake, and picnics came quite in vogue. Dan Hayne was doing a little of everything, buying and selli...

How eagerly we devoured the paper when the new President was inaugurated. The Whig party had a ball at the Tremont Hotel, and the young ladies who went held their heads very hig...

I was so lonely after Norman went away. I suppose it had been almost like having a brother. Mrs. Hayne and I went to see him start, and there was quite a crowd of friends. The s...

Spring came at last, though some of us almost longed for the frozen paths when we sank inches deep in the mud. We really were a city now and had a mayor about whom there was sti...

I was having a happy girl's life with friends and pleasures. Nanette Piaget had a lover, a young French Canadian, who became enamored of prairies, and saw boundless possibilitie...

Poor father! My heart ached sorely for him. He suffered with his hip, and his leg was useless. He was still kept bandaged, and we hoped presently some improvement would happen t...

Mrs. Hayne did not feel comfortable over Homer's engagement. It was a full fortnight before she could make a formal call on Mrs. Piaget. She had been there on errands, and Sophi...

"The man certainly was a fool," said my father that evening as he sat smoking his pipe. He had taken part in a political quarrel the evening before, and so did not go down to th...

That autumn a theatre was opened on the west side of Dearborn Street, over a general store, a plain, wooden building. The second floor was seated and a stage erected with rather...

I thought when I was out in the street I would go and see Mother Hayne. I would like to know how this matter of the house seemed to a woman who had been a wife many years. Yet h...

Another friend went out of my small circle in the spring, Mrs. Chadwick. Her husband had established a business in Buffalo, and they moved thither. I did not realize then the va...

It is one of the compensations of Providence that after the storm and stress of active life is through, one can go back to the beautiful world of memory and live over the earlie...

The workmen were just leaving off when we reached the place that was to be home for the Little Girl, and where she was to spend many happy days. To-morrow they were to raise the...

It seemed suddenly as if Chicago took a great leap. Perhaps the whole country was more prosperous. But everybody was full of business, and immigrants were pouring in at the rate...

That two years abroad was like a happy dream, the romance of our lives. Everything was queer to my travellers at first. Ruth made amusing attempts at French, of which she did kn...