Category: Short Stories

In a Little Town

The other one is the treatment of little towns as if they were essentially different from big towns. Cities are not "Ninevehs" and "Babylons" any more than little towns are Arcadias or Utopias. In fact we are now unearthing plentiful evidence of what might have been safely ass...

Chapters

13. Chapter 13

It was a ghastly morning when Kittredge showed Rudd a telegram saying that his eldest son, Thomas, had thrown himself in front of a train because of the discovery that his accou...

16. Chapter 16

But, in spite of the rules, a visitor had come to "Mrs. Emerton's" room--a very, very young man. His only name as yet was "the Baby." She dared not give the young man his father...

3. Chapter 3

Finally the long repose repaired her worn-out sinews and she grew well enough to move about the house. She prospered on the medicine of a new hope that she should soon be well e...

15. Chapter 15

They came to a fence. She could not climb, she was trembling so. Crosson had to help her over. She ran on, and as he sprawled after, he nearly discharged the gun.

10. Chapter 10

She got to her feet, and her urgency was ferocious. "Then you get right in this minute and go up to the old place--the little old house opposite the pond. Go as fast as you can....

18. Chapter 18

Papa sat fuming all evening. He would not go to bed till Prue came home to the ultimatum he was preparing for her. From above came the tick-tock-tock of Ollie's typewriter. It g...

9. Chapter 9

This place was to them what old slippers are to tired feet. Here they put off the manners and the dignities their servants expected of them, and lapsed into shabby clothes and c...

14. Chapter 14

Fergimme, O Gawd, if it makes Thou mad fer to be prayed to by a sneakin' boiglar, but help me t'roo dis one job and I'll go straight from now on, so help me. Don't let dis guy f...

19. Chapter 19

Prue and Idalene and Bertha he would have sentenced to deportation if he had had the jurisdiction. He could at least send them home. He threatened his wife with dire punishments...

11. Chapter 11

They loved her and were afraid of him. Yet what had she done for them? She had conceived them, borne them, nourished them for a year at most. Thereafter their food, their shelte...

17. Chapter 17

Young Horace Pepperall used to say that that was the reason the world didn't improve much. People got good on Sunday, and then it had to go and be Monday. He had an idea that if...

12. Chapter 12

The groomy bridegroom and the unbridy bride spent together all the time that Rudd could spare from the store. He bought for her a little frame house with a porch about as big as...

2. Chapter 2

Eddie was incapable of such vigilant hostility toward everybody. The factory almost immediately ceased to pay expenses. Eddie was prompt to meet debts, but lenient as a collecto...

20. Chapter 20

Horace retreated in disorder and reported to Prue. Prue called upon Jake herself, smilingly told him that all he needed to do was to crowd his tables together round a clear spac...

4. Chapter 4

If she had not been a member of that stanch American womanhood to which the glory of the country and its progress are really due, she might have startled her husband into realiz...

21. Chapter 21

But even Tudie, in her jealous dread, had no word to say against the imminent Em. Everybody spoke so well of her that Orson had a mingled expectation of seeing an Aphrodite and...

1. Chapter 1

The other one is the treatment of little towns as if they were essentially different from big towns. Cities are not "Ninevehs" and "Babylons" any more than little towns are Arca...

8. Chapter 8

"And the streets are lighted by electricity! And paved with brick!" the President said. "Splendid! Splendid! There must be very enterprising citizens in Gatesville--I mean Wakef...

6. Chapter 6

Across Litton's field of view passed a figure that caught his eye. Absently he followed it as it enlarged with approach. He realized that it was Prof. Martha Binley, Ph.D., who...

5. Chapter 5

"For it was a powerful mind! Mr. Grout has carried that store of his from a little shop to a big institution; he has kept it afloat in a dull town through hard times. He has kep...

7. Chapter 7

Wakefield has long been guilty of trying to add a cubit to its stature by taking thought. Established, like thousands of other pools left in the prairies by that tidal wave of h...

22. Chapter 22

The soda-water fountains became battle-fields of backbiting and mockery. The feuds were as bitter, if not as deadly, as those that flourished around the fountains in medieval It...