Category: Short Stories

The Bellman Book of Fiction, 1906-1919

THE kindly reception given to The Bellman Book of Verse is mainly responsible for the publication of this collection of short stories, originally printed in The Bellman, and should it find favor equal to that of its predecessor, it is probable that other volumes of like charac...

Chapters

4. Part 4

I nodded, and drew up a chair beside him, and opened the volume to glance again across its pages and to dip here and there into that splendid chronicle of the hunt for the great...

7. Part 7

The fellows laughed at Billsky; but they liked him; and maybe they began to wonder. Anyway, Billsky stayed in Sageville a week, selling his pony and getting an outfit together....

8. Part 8

“At least she said so; though Heaven knows that the pompous fool, for all his fine linen, weren’t a patch on what I was at twenty-one. Anyway, he comed courting her, for ’twas n...

6. Part 6

“You, Seth, have more influence with the people than any one man in this county. You’re connected by family to every big clan in Breathitt. When you say peace, they keep the pea...

5. Part 5

“Thus, when we sailed southward over smooth and smiling seas, I fell victim to unrest that harassed me. I rose and looked abroad each day with eyes that searched eagerly for a t...

11. Part 11

The breeze Trawnbeigh had referred to developed in the violent Mexican way, while I was enjoying the bath tub, into an unmistakable norther. Water fell on the roof like so much...

16. Part 16

Throughout the meal he studied Widmer cautiously. Thin mouth, cold eyes, an outward politeness itself threatening by the suggestion of what lay behind it. He had known the man’s...

9. Part 9

“Then I came out to Taku, and I met Lulukuila. She was beautiful beyond anything I had ever dreamed. She made other women look clumsy beside her. She stayed overnight at my uncl...

14. Part 14

Lemmy was certain that when a ’Dopter threw off his disguise he was a dragon of the very worst kind. It was Simple Simon to believe when they talked about this and that you coul...

15. Part 15

I learned the amount, and it went forward on the next boat by money order to Kala Singh, care Sikh Temple, Shanghai. Then followed for Prem Singh a protracted period of pleasant...

3. Part 3

His lips touched my hand. A motor horn sounded sharply. He caught up the antiques and his overcoat; there came a rush of cold air, a door slammed and the motor rolled off. Then...

10. Part 10

As she turned away he prayed fervently that, even though the pillaging hordes might, in their fury against the inhabitants, devastate the city, the fact that they claimed the sa...

1. Part 1

THE kindly reception given to The Bellman Book of Verse is mainly responsible for the publication of this collection of short stories, originally printed in The Bellman, and sho...

2. Part 2

I reminded him that the vice president was Cary Penwick, a cousin of my own, the fear and fascination of childhood’s idolatry. Prince said rather gloomily that he had never hear...

13. Part 13

It was quite dark when he reached Bainbridge. He knew well the aspect of the open common, because he had passed through it a dozen years before, and the place is unforgettable....

12. Part 12

“And now listen to me. You must not feel any foolish sentimentalism about any fancied resemblance of these vermin to human beings. Shoot, and shoot to kill. Not only is it our d...

17. Part 17

“What’s up?” Without waiting for an answer, Mr. Jope ran the barber before him up the beach to the doorway, the parson following. “What’s up?” he demanded again, as he drew breath.