'Smiles': A Rose of the Cumberlands

You cannot, by a bridge of sighs, attain the future's golden years, But try a bridge of rainbow hopes erected on substantial piers Of honest work, and you will find it leads you...

During the days which must pass before she became Donald's in the full trinity of body, mind and soul, his family kept her at Manchester-by-the-Sea and each hour bound her more...

If you had been able to look inside of my heart when I opened your present and read your letter, you would have beheld as many different lights and shadows there as you can see...

More than once Rose caught herself wondering if, after that day was done, she would ever be able to smile again. In obedience to the doctor's prescription for Big Jerry, which i...

The May day, the day of fulfilment for Smiles' dreams and the fruition of her work, had come. Her healthy, mountain-bred body had enabled her to keep well and strong; she had go...

There was a sudden severance of all old ties, save that of memory, an abrupt entrance into a new existence, so utterly different from the one that she had known that it could sc...

Despite the enthralling interest of her new work and surroundings, it seemed to Rose, during the year after she gained entrance to the temple of her desire, that her life was st...

True to his written statement, Philip had come to Donald's apartment as fast as a taxicab could bring him, after he had heard his old friend's voice over the wire. Now the two m...

As Donald stopped, uncertain, there came the sound of measured, heavy footfalls on the beaten dirt path outside the cabin. The girl's face lighted up joyfully; she hopped to the...

Early evening it was, several days later, evening of a sultry, stifling day, which had escaped the bounds of longitude and invaded even the North Shore. The open ocean, itself,...

Despite Smiles' ingenuous proffer of a sister's affection, Donald was troubled with an unreasonable dissatisfaction over the course which the events of the morning had taken, an...

"Don't let any such idea worry you, Mr. Webb. Where she came from is nothing to me, and, indeed, after to-morrow I shall probably never see her again. I've got to admit, though,...

Ethel saw him coming, and ran part way down the steps to meet him. With her arms around his neck, she half-sobbed out the words in a choked voice, "Oh, Don. Do you know what has...

If, half an hour previous, Donald had been told that, during the first evening of his long anticipated visit to his forest of enchantment, he was to play the part of patient in...

The noonday meal was a rather quiet, constrained affair. None of the three was in a talkative mood, Donald was still distrait, Big Jerry obviously in physical and mental distres...

It was not long before Donald realized that, whatever had been Judd's primary purpose, he was now fighting to kill, and he sought desperately to drive home a blow which would kn...

The doctor's father lighted his after-dinner cigar, and leaned back with the indolent satisfaction which a man ripe in useful years may feel when surrounded by his family. Since...

The man came to a stop, a look of humiliation and deep self-disgust on his bronzed face. With methodical care he leaned his rifle against the seamed trunk of a forest patriarch...

The call of the Jungle Folk, "Good hunting," was not fulfilled during Donald's day in the forest. Game there was aplenty, but he made clumsy work of following the fresh tracks i...

It was mid-winter. The twilight sky--cold and pale, more green than blue--brought the thought of new-made ice. Stripped long since of their verdure, the wooded Cumberlands lay,...

In happy ignorance of the fact that the order had been given merely to get her outside, Smiles stumbled to the door with blind thankfulness, and, as soon as she had closed it be...

Baby Don put an end to the moment of strained silence which succeeded. He laid hold of two of Smiles' fingers and began to pull at her, while saying insistently, "Come down to t...

The spell of the high, forest-clad hills, and the new-born night was upon his spirit. Pleasant anticipations filled his heart, and left no room for painful recollection as he ha...

It was snowing when she stepped outside,--a soft, white curtain of closely woven flakes rapidly dimming the early evening glow and bringing nightshades on apace. The wind, too,...

The words, spoken in a harsh voice, fell gratingly on Donald's ears, and brought to an abrupt end the happy thoughts with which his mind was occupied. He stopped, forcing the gr...

"I don't know. He was here when you came, but I saw him going up the mountain into the woods. But I'll answer for him; I'll take that chance, doctor. She is nearly as dear to me...

How long it may have been before the man, eager as he was to hear the full explanation of the seeming miracle through which his happiness had been made possible, was ready to ur...

"Doctor Mac," began Smiles timidly, at length. "I'm sorry for what I said to you this afternoon, and I want to take it back. I guess when you're angry you don't see things as th...

Even her primitive dress, her unbound hair, her crude forms of speech and soft, drawling intonation--such as the throaty, unvarying pronunciation of "the" as though it were "the...

For a little while Donald lay awake under the eaves in his loft room, but his sleeplessness was the result neither of worry or nervous tension. His mind, indeed, was unusually c...

Day after day, until should come that longed-for, yet dreaded test, Rose studied with a diligence that delighted the private tutor whom Donald, through Miss Merriman, had secure...

There was a perceptible pause in the girl's dish-drying, and the simple mountain ballad that she was happily humming broke off in the middle of a minor cadence. The man regarded...

Although this is theoretically only my semi-weekly report, made in accordance with your instructions, I feel in the letter-writing mood, for a wonder, so I _may_ overstep profes...

Life is so largely a thing of intermingling currents, of interwoven threads, of reacting forces, that it is well-nigh impossible understandingly to portray the life story of one...

Supper was over. With kindly hands night had laid her deep purple mantle over the new-made mound back of the cabin, hiding it from the grieving gaze of the three who sat before...