Perfection City

“This road isn’t called Perfection Road, is it?” she asked jerkily, as she held tight hold of the edge of the waggon to prevent herself from being pitched head foremost off the...

Mrs. Weston was tired and sat down in her rocking-chair to rest. Her day’s work was fairly over. The breakfast had been ready punctually at half past five, and it was well-cooke...

The very next morning just as she was washing her potatoes for dinner, another visitor called upon Olive, a visitor of whose sex she was for a moment or two in doubt. The visito...

The Academy at Perfection City was not a pretentious building in anything but in name. It was a plain wooden house, almost square, having a window on three sides and a door on t...

Punctual to the minute, there was Madame with her bag of corn on her left arm, following Brother Huntley and his plough-horses to the field, in the damp white fog of sunrise. Ba...

It was the custom of the Pioneers to send once a week to Union Mills in order to do their necessary marketing and to get the post, which came there twice a week from Kansas City...

Willette, the only child of the Wright and Winkle pair, was a young person of considerable character, which had undergone little of the attempted modification which we call educ...

When Olive got home, she was at first pleased to see that her husband had not come in, therefore he had not been made uneasy about her absence. Napoleon Pompey had caught Rebel...

Summer came on apace. The field had been duly run over in both directions with the shovel-plough, so as to leave between the cross-ploughing little “hills” of earth, out of whic...

A day or two after Ezra had laid his commands upon his wife, as we saw in the last chapter, he came home in the evening to find her in floods of tears. Her eyelids were all red...

The spring whence the Westons drew their water was about a quarter of a mile from the house across an angle of the corn field. A little foot-path winding in and out among the hi...

The summer had been a particularly dry one, and since the beginning of July not a drop of rain had fallen. The water-melons revelled in the heat, and Olive revelled in the water...

Madame had worked hard with the rest in beating back the fire, and now that she saw that their united efforts had been successful and that Perfection City was safe, she, in comp...

The day after the fire was an idle one at Perfection City. No one felt able to work, Ezra least of all. He lay upon the floor of the kitchen with a wet handkerchief on his head,...

Olive was early astir the next morning, in order to see her husband off and also to provide him with food in ample abundance to last him for the trip. He carried a plentiful sto...

Olive spent a few quiet hours at home along with Diana, and then took supper in company with Napoleon Pompey, whose manners at table were now all that could be desired. Indeed,...

When Brother Wright early next morning discovered the loss of the brown mare, he was thrown into a state of the most unphilosophic rage. He had not a moment’s doubt as to what h...

Union Mills was full of people, mostly men, and Phillipps’ Store, which was the only shop in the place, as well as being the Post-Office, was crowded to suffocation. Those who c...

There was dire dismay at Perfection City when the flight of Olive became known. Napoleon Pompey informed Madame of it the same evening, but, for reasons best known to herself, s...

When Madame saw the white covers of the returning waggons creeping across the prairie she set out to meet Ezra in order to deliver her message to him. Her manner was as quiet an...

A long weary fortnight had passed since the day when Ezra came home to find his wife gone. Life went on at Perfection City much the same as before, although to him it seemed as...

And where was Olive all this time? She and Cotterell rode out of Union Mills together, as we have seen, and as was seen by nearly all the men who had assembled there that mornin...

Madame left Perfection City alone and unattended. No one knew that she was going, and no one knew whither she went. Her spirit, however, still hovered over the city of her found...