Bestsellers, American, 1895-1923

The Blue Flower

Sometimes short stories are brought together like parcels in a basket. Sometimes they grow together like blossoms on a bush. Then, of course, they really belong to one another, because they have the same life in them.

Chapters

2. Chapter 2

“Once I saw it when I was a boy, no older than you. Our house looked out toward the hills, far away and at sunset softly blue against the eastern sky. It was the day that we lai...

11. Chapter 11

Hour after hour that sweet childish voice rang through the halls and chambers of the splendid, helpless house, now rising in shrill calls of distress and senseless laughter, now...

3. Chapter 3

Then because of the love that Sir Lancelot bore to Martimor he gave him his own armour, and the good spear wherewith he had unhorsed many knights, and the sword that he took fro...

8. Chapter 8

How could he stay here in the darkness to minister to a dying stranger? What claim had this unknown fragment of human life upon his compassion or his service? If he lingered but...

6. Chapter 6

About noon he came down from his room and went to the piano, where Dorothy was sitting. They talked together in low tones. Then she stood up, with pale face and wide-open eyes....

5. Chapter 5

But the Indian summer of peace was brief. It was hardly a week before Keene’s old moods returned, darker and stranger than ever. The girl’s unconcealable bewilderment, her sense...

9. Chapter 9

There was a handful of clay in the bank of a river. It was only common clay, coarse and heavy; but it had high thoughts of its own value, and wonderful dreams of the great place...

1. Chapter 1

Sometimes short stories are brought together like parcels in a basket. Sometimes they grow together like blossoms on a bush. Then, of course, they really belong to one another,...

7. Chapter 7

“Well,” said Luke to himself, “this is just a little queer. Woods was my name for a while, when I lived here, but now, I suppose, I’m Luke Dubois again. Dashed if I can understa...

10. Chapter 10

“Yes,” said the stranger; “it is all written here. I promise that you shall enjoy it all. But you do not need to believe in my promise. I am not in the habit of requiring faith...

4. Chapter 4

Presently I came into a region where the trees were larger and the travelling was easier. It was not a primeval forest, but a second growth of chestnuts and poplars and maples....

12. Chapter 12

The youth obeyed; two of the foresters sprang to help him; and while the soft fir-wood yielded to the stroke of the axes, and the snow flew from the bending branches, Winfried t...