The Golden Road

After a great deal of pleading, bringing to bear everything with which I was acquainted in the art of persuasion, I had succeeded in inducing Jean Francois to leave his happy ca...

Monsieur l'Abbe Picot, in whose heart there dwelt a queer mixture out of which to make a priest, was talking with a letter, written in a strange foreign hand, as it lay upon his...

When our grandfathers were snub-nosed little boys, quaintly dressed in the toggery of near a century ago, every town in the South boasted of its college. It was long before the...

Would it make you happy to know that you possessed, as your heart's own, a long, white, alluring road? A joyous, lovable, intimate road which leads over the hills through a thou...

Jean Francois was right when he called himself poet. Not that he was a maker of verse, for, if it were so, no one had ever seen a single rhyme. But that was his which was far be...

At the close of a glad day in early June, Nance and I stood watching a horse and van, driven by a stranger of captivating appearance, turn from the down-river turnpike and halt...

It is time you knew old Doctor Felix Longstreet, Nance Gwyn's Waltonian grandfather. For short, she frequently designated him as "The G. F." His chief happiness lay in the hours...

Thus it was the days flew by on romantic wings, each seemingly more filled with adventurous happiness than the last. Up with the promising rosy dawn, a mouthful of oats for the...

Less than a month following the events clustered about the rise and fall of the unfortunate circus, a certain tow-headed, freckled-faced boy, whom I knew once upon a time, long...

Columbine had been hauled to the side of the road and Rogue was allowed to nibble blue-grass at her pleasure. A fire had been kindled, and Jean Francois was broiling bacon spear...

The morning road--jocund, robust, strong, and bright--dropped slowly over the long hill, crossed a merry little river through a covered bridge, turned to the right, ran sinuousl...

The snow had fallen all day in great, heavy, wet flakes until the trees, as if by the magic of Aladdin's lamp, were opulent crystal palaces, while the fence posts were white-cow...

It was eleven o'clock, or after, when I sat beside a roaring fire of recently renewed backlogs debating whether I should sleep upon the couch pulled close beside the fireplace,...

Monsieur l'Abbe Jacques Picot, in the old home of many pillars, sat in the library at his desk writing his memoirs. He was dressed with unusual neatness in the garb of a French...

The next morning at half an hour after sunrise they passed the country church where the gentle parson preached and prayed, and took the rough and picturesque road down the hill...

None of the folk of Oldmeadow saw much of me during the years I spent preparing myself to take care of their colics, rheumatism, and occasionally, I assure you, only when it was...

For once the morning road was disturbed. Its happiness was feigned. The sun lay just as warm upon the field as the week before. The air was quite as soft, as scented, as full of...

In the dusk, near a little river which came tumbling down from the mountainside, they stopped and prepared their camp for the night. Rogue was unharnessed, led to water, and tur...

In the old days, you will remember, the Beau Brummel of a Southern steamboat was the captain. He was the pink of courtesy and gallantry, with all the pride of the gentleman of h...

I shall not bore you with the details of my work in once more establishing confidence. And, at that, it was a sort of shaky, at-arms-length confidence. One morning, a few days a...

As Monsieur l'Abbe Picot's illness grew and he became largely unconscious as to what was going on about him, the more closely Nance confined herself to nursing. Because of many...

"When I found them," he began, "the Priest was seated upon a stool. His head was bowed, about his neck was the rosary, the crucifix of which he held in his hand. Upon his face w...

Two days later we were seated in the firelight near the bed of Monsieur Picot. He had rallied some, though I was unable to say whether or not it was merely temporarily. The larg...

"Jean Francois," Nance was pleased to say very earnestly, "the river and the hills have belonged to us for so very long--I wonder when we will own the old-fashioned home of the...

For a very long time I was quite at a loss to determine whether it was the red of her hair or the lips of her large and interesting mouth which caused me to love Nance Gwyn. Eve...