Shavings: A Novel

Of course Mrs. Armstrong still insisted that, knowing, as she did, Mr. Winslow's prejudice against occupying the position of landlord, she could not think of accepting his offer...

Upon a late September day forty-nine years and some months before that upon which Gabe Bearse came to Jed Winslow's windmill shop in Orham with the news of Leander Babbitt's enl...

Before the end of another week Charles Phillips came to Orham. It was Ruth who told Jed the news. She came into the windmill shop and, standing beside the bench where he was at...

The next morning found Jed heavy-eyed and without appetite, going through the form of preparing breakfast. All night, with the exception of an hour or two, he had tossed on his...

It was nearly noon when Jed, entering the front shop in answer to the bell, found there the couple the sight of which caused his heart to sink. Here they were, the house hunters...

The "Araminta," which was the name of Captain Perez's power dory--a name, so the captain invariably explained, "wished onto her" before he bought her--chugged along steadily if...

For nearly an hour he sat there, scarcely changing his position, and only varying his musical program by whistling hymns instead of singing them. Once, hearing a step in the yar...

Jed came forward, the roll of bills in his hand. He seemed quite oblivious of the Babbitt stare, or, for that matter, of the complete silence which had so suddenly fallen upon t...

The clock in the steeple of the Methodist church boomed eleven times and still the lights shone from the sitting-room windows of the little Winslow house and from those of Jed's...

But the person who had entered the outer shop saved Mr. Bearse the trouble. He, too, disregarded the "Private" sign on the door of the inner room. Before Gabriel could reach it...

Captain Sam entered the windmill shop about two o'clock one windy afternoon in the first week of March. He was wearing a heavy fur overcoat and a motoring cap. He pulled off the...

And so, in as sudden a fashion as he had granted the "month's trial," did Jed grant the permanent tenure of his property. The question of rent, which might easily have been, wit...

Mr. Gabe Bearse lost another opportunity the next morning. The late bird misses the early worm and, as Gabriel was still slumbering peacefully at six A. M., he missed seeing Rut...

The pity which Jed felt for Phineas Babbitt caused him to keep silent concerning his Thanksgiving evening interview with the hardware dealer. At first he was inclined to tell Ma...

A child spends time and thought and energy upon the building of a house of blocks. By the time it is nearing completion it has become to him a very real edifice. Therefore, when...

October passed and November came. The very last of the summer cottages were closed. Orham settled down for its regular winter hibernation. This year it was a bit less of a nap t...

That night came a sudden shift in the weather and when morning broke the sky was gray and overcast and the wind blew raw and penetrating from the northeast. Jed, at work in his...

"Yes," he said, with an elaborate wink in the direction of his guests, "it's a pretty good dinner, considerin' everything. Of course 'tain't what a feller used to get down at Sa...

Mr. Gabriel Bearse was happy. The prominence given to this statement is not meant to imply that Gabriel was, as a general rule, unhappy. Quite the contrary; Mr. Bearse's disposi...

"Why, of course I don't. What ARE you talking about? Didn't do it for Charlie? Didn't say that he was a thief and give your father his own money, do you mean? Do you mean he did...

The Smalley residence, where Mrs. Luretta Smalley, relict of the late Zenas T., accommodated a few "paying guests," was nearly a mile from the windmill shop and on the Orham "lo...

After this, having broken the ice, Jed, as Captain Sam Hunniwell might have expressed it, "kept the channel clear." When he stopped at the kitchen door of his tenants' house he...

It had been a chill morning in early spring when Charlie Phillips went to Boston to enlist. Now it was a balmy evening in August and Jed sat upon a bench by his kitchen door loo...