Beginners Luck

“She’ll be here in a minute.... Because I keep forgetting things: today I forgot to say anything to my people all the way back to Puye. I didn’t go to sleep exactly: I just forg...

At the door of the Gymnasium, Blake halted suddenly, peered around the room, and swore under his breath. Hearing his own whispering voice was a comfort to him, but it did not di...

“And over there is Camel Rock,” Gin shouted, trying to reach the far corners of the bus with her voice. Just then the driver went into low and made it more difficult. She sat as...

Gin dropped her suitcase to the porch with a loud sigh, fished in the rusty mailbox to no avail, and fumbled with her key at the lock. The door swung open at her touch. She star...

The car couldn’t quite make the hill. Blake shifted gears carelessly, so that they made a terrifying noise and his teeth hurt. Then he settled down again behind the wheel and re...

They all woke at once, perhaps because a bird screamed as it flew over them. Teddy sat up so swiftly that he almost toppled off the edge. He stared wildly about him, trying to r...

It was six o’clock in the evening. Blake stopped with his arms full of all the wood he had picked up, rabbit-brush roots and twigs and a few bigger branches hacked unscientifica...

He stepped off the train at Lamy expecting nothing at all. He had no idea of the city he was entering: what it looked like, how one passed the time, what people one would know—i...

The unexpected boon of a full afternoon holiday during Fiesta left Gin somewhat embarrassed. She had nothing to do. The afternoon could have been spent sleeping, for she had had...

Walking goes in two-four time, but riding either on horse or in an automobile makes a rhythm like a waltz. For half an hour Blake had been thinking up waltzes and trying to hum...

Again evening had overtaken Santa Fé before anything happened. Every morning Blake woke with a furious desire to get out of the house and down to town, so that he would not miss...

Before they had come to the gap that cuts a sharp high line of hills and marks the half-way point to Albuquerque, the sun came up. It was gloriously melodramatic over the little...

Teddy woke up very early in the morning. The sun had come up and had lost its colour: it hung above the flat line of earth like a colourless lantern, a lamp made of gold but wit...

The Madden boy was worried about his laundry. It was a week late, he couldn’t remember who was doing it for him, and besides he was having one of those moods that made him worry...

Mary and the camp-chair sank down together for two inches. Then the chair squeaked and stopped giving in: it stayed where it was in space, poised above the throng of Santo Domin...

“Teddy! Teddy!” The call had sounded so often that to Teddy himself his name had undergone that strange transformation where it had become a senseless word, without end or meani...

Mac drove away and the store was open for business, with the boys hanging about curiously, fingering the stock and getting into Bush’s way as he waited on customers. The big coo...

The screen-door slammed once, and Girt looked up hopefully, but decided it was a breeze. She should have known better, for there had been no breeze in Santa Fé for a week. But s...

On the back seat Blake crouched next to Gin and tried to think. He looked out at the road, the same old road repeating itself, and tried to know what to do. The wind blowing by...