What Might Have Been Expected

On a wooden bench under a great catalpa-tree, in the front yard of a comfortable country-house in Virginia, sat Harry and Kate Loudon worrying their minds. It was all about old...

"Lor' bless you, no, honey! But you see there wasn't hardly any coals left, and I was tryin' to keep the fire alive till somebody would come along and gather me up some wood."

When they reached home, Harry and Kate put together what little money they had, and found that they could buy food enough to last Aunt Matilda for several days. This Harry procu...

Kate hurried through the woods, for she was afraid she would not reach home until after dark, and indeed it was then quite like twilight in the shade of the great trees around h...

When Harry left Kate, he quietly walked by the side of Crooked Creek, keeping his eyes fixed on the tracks of the strange animal, and his thumb on the hammer of the right-hand b...

There was no doubt about it, something _was_ moving. There was a rise in the ground a short distance in front of the turkey-blind, and a little patch of dark sky was visible bet...

When Harry and Kate held council that afternoon, their affairs looked a little discouraging. Kate's sumac was weighed, and it was only seven pounds! Seven whole cents, if they t...

"I want you to understand, Harry," said Mr. Loudon, one day, "that I do not disapprove of what you and Kate are doing for old Aunt Matilda. On the contrary, I feel proud of you...

And his idea was a very good one. He saw clearly enough that money could be made by hauling wood, and he was also quite certain that it would never do for him to take his time,...

During the winter Harry had frequently gone over on horseback to attend to the payments for his wood; and now that the roads were in fit condition for carriage travel, he was gl...

Rob was a big puppy, in the first place, and then he grew up to be a tall, long-legged dog, who was not only very fond of Harry and Kate, but of almost everybody else. In time h...

"Rob's all very well," remarked Tony Kirk; "but it won't do to have a feller like that in the woods, a fright'nin' the children. I'd like to know who he is."

After posting one of his men on each side of the house, which stood on the edge of a field, without any fence around it, Tony Kirk stepped up to the front door and knocked. The...

This wholesale appropriation of horses caused, of course, a great commotion in the vicinity of Akeville, and half the male population turned out the next day in search of George...

"If there had been the slightest danger," he said, "of course I would not have allowed him to go. But I was glad he wanted to go. A youngster of his age ought to have a disposit...

After the selection of the Directors, all of whom accepted their appointments with great readiness, although, with the exception of Tom Selden, none of them had known anything a...

During all this work of soliciting subscriptions, ordering instruments and batteries, and leasing stations, Kate had kept pretty much in the background. True, she had not been i...

When Kate and her father reached Aunt Judy's cabin, the boys had not yet arrived, but they were anxiously expected by about a dozen colored people of various ages and sizes, and...

The next day was a day of hard work for the Board of Managers. Mr. Lyons, who took the greatest interest in the enterprise, got another operator to take his place at the Heterto...

Now that the telegraphic line was built, and in good working order, it became immediately necessary to appoint another operator, for it was quite evident that Harry could not wo...

"I believe," said he, "that Mr. Darby would take these bonds at the store for groceries and things, and we might pay him interest, besides redeeming the bonds when they came due."

About a week after the meeting of the Board in the Davis corn-house, old Miles, the mail-rider, came galloping up to Mr. Loudon's front gate. The family were at breakfast, but H...

"Now, then," said Harry, "here's the boat and a good pole, and you've nothing to do, Harvey, but just to get in and push yourself over to your station as fast as you can."

When Harry jumped from the tree, he came down on his feet, in water not quite up to his waist, and then he pushed in toward land as fast as he could go. In a few minutes, he sto...

The next morning, Harry was up quite early, and after having eaten a very plain breakfast, which Aunt Judy prepared for him, he ran down to the creek to see what chance there wa...

The summer vacation was now over, and the Board of Managers of the telegraph company, as well as the other boys of the vicinity, were obliged to go to school again and study som...

The mica-mine management appeared to be thoroughly in earnest about this extension of the telegraph line. As soon as the assent of the Board of Managers to the scheme had been c...

About a week after the dissolution of the Crooked Creek Company, Harry was riding over from Hetertown, and had nearly reached the creek on his way home, when he met George Purvis.

"That sounds very well," said Harry; "but we haven't so much money, after all. The interest on what we have won't begin to support Aunt Matilda, and we really ought not to break...

A short distance beyond the place where Kate had been left, there was a small by-path; and when, still carefully carrying her gun, she reached this path, Kate stopped. Here woul...

On a very pleasant afternoon that fall, a man came down Crooked Creek in a small flat-bottomed boat. He rowed leisurely, as if he had been rowing a long distance and felt a litt...

One afternoon, about the end of October, Aunt Matilda was sitting in her big straight-backed chair, on one side of her fireplace. There was a wood fire blazing on the hearth, fo...

"You really ought to have Aunt Matilda's roof mended. There are several holes in it. I think her house ought to be made tight and warm before winter; don't you?"