Caleb Wright: A Story of the West

"Well, at last she said she thought it might be better for me to go alone, so both of us could have a fair chance to think it over, an' I said that I wouldn't presume to doubt t...

"Seemed miraculous to me, first time I see it," said Caleb. "I'd have been skeered if Mis' Somerton hadn't said 'twas all right, for no magic stories I ever read held a candle t...

"That depends. Weefer is about as smart as they make 'em, so I don't think he'd be fool enough to swindle any one--not, at least, so that the law could take hold of him. Did he...

The subject of conversation was changed by an irruption of farmers and citizens, who wished to talk more about the new railroad, and who rightly thought that the place where the...

"Why, with her fine furniture an' fixin's. If that best room o' hern was mine, I'd be 'feared to use it, an' I'd expect the house to be struck by lightnin' to punish me for my w...

"I'm puzzled--that's all, yet 'tis not a little," Philip replied. "I don't think I'm a fool about business. Even Caleb here, who is too true a friend to flatter, says I've done...

"Back yesterday. Good as new. English business well started. Cyclone in New York papers this morning. Please don't abuse the Maker of it. Look out for His children. Lightning do...

So it came to pass that within ten minutes Philip was furnishing his new home with the contents of the old. The possible contents of a New York flat for two are small, at best;...

"'Not a bit of it!' said your uncle. 'Tell you what I'll do; I'll lay that silk away, an' not show it to anybody till your husban' brings me in his pork an' we have our settleme...

So he was, even to a gray hat, with the Stars and Bars on its front, and a long gray plume at its side, and the magnificent Southern swagger with which he bore the colors was--a...

Philip frowned and refused, but Caleb snatched his hand in a vise-like grasp and fairly dragged him from his seat. Half angry, half defiant, yet full of the spirit of any man wh...

"'Then he took me to a tailor shop about forty times as big as your store, and picked out a suit of clothes for me, and a hat and shirt, and the whole business. 'Twas the Hawk H...

"Pretty soft walkin', ma'am," said the landlord, after eying Grace's daintily shod feet. "Better let me borrow you my wife's gum shoes; she ain't likely to go out of the house t...

From music lessons to dress-making is a far cry, but the fame of the purple and "Scare-Cow" dress had pervaded the county, and all the girls wanted dresses like it, which was so...

For some reason--perhaps excitement over the bath-house, or surprise at the uniforming of his Grand Army command, or the heat, or the debilitating effect of old wounds--Philip p...

Besides the wind, and dust, and insects, and reptiles, there was the sun, for Jethro Somerton had never planted a tree near his house. Tree-roots had a way of weakening foundati...

Apparently the young engineer was amusing himself, for they found him hammering a brick into small bits and examining the fractured surfaces. As Philip and Caleb joined him, he...

_Chapter_ _Page_ _I._ _Their Fortune_ 11 _II._ _Taking Possession_ 25 _III._ _Introduced_ 40 _IV._ _Home-making_ 54 _V._ _Business Ways_ 71 _VI._ _The Unexpected_ 94 _VII._ _An...

"It's the smell of boilin' fat, from the lard-kettles. It's powerful pervadin' of ev'rythin', specially woollen clothes, an' men's hair, when the pork-house windows an' doors ar...

"Ye--es, as far as you've gone, but I wouldn't have known there was such a person as Mary--bless her!--if you hadn't sent me East, an' your wife--bless her too--hadn't given me...