Our Annual Handicap is the blue-ribbon event of the year so far as most of us are concerned. The star players turn up their noses at it a bit, but that is only because they realise that they have a mighty slim chance to carry off the cup. The high-handicap men usually eliminate the crack performers, which is the way it should be. What's the good of a handicap event if a scratch man is to win it every year?
Sixty-four members qualify and are paired off into individual matches, which are played on handicaps, the losers dropping out. The man who "comes through" in the top half of the drawing meets the survivor of the lower half in the final match for the cup, which is always a very handsome and valuable trophy, calculated to rouse all the cupidity in a cup hunter's nature.
When the pairings were posted on the bulletin board Kitts was in the upper half and Windy in the lower one. Kitts had a handicap of 8 strokes, and was really entitled to 12, but Cupid wouldn't listen to his wails of anguish. Windy was a 12 man, and nobody figured the two renegades as dangerous until the sixty-four entrants had narrowed down to eight survivors. Kitts had won his matches by close margins, but Windy had simply smothered his opponents by lopsided scores, and there they were, in the running and too close to the finals for comfort.
We began to sit up and take notice. Cupid read the riot act to Dawson, who was Windy's next opponent, and also had a talk with Aubrey, who was to meet Kitts. "Wilkins and Kitts must be stopped!" raved Cupid. "We don't want 'em to get as far as the semi-finals, and it's up to you chaps to play your heads off and beat these rotters!"
Dawson and Aubrey saw their duty to the club, but that was as far as they got with it. Windy talked from one end of his match to the other and made Dawson so nervous that any one could have beaten him, and Kitts pulled the book of rules on Aubrey and literally read him out of the contest.
After this the interest in the tournament grew almost painful. Overholzer and Watts were the other semifinalists, and we told them plainly that they might as well resign from the club if they did not win their matches. Overholzer spent a solid week practicing on his approach shots, and Watts carried his putter home with him nights, but it wasn't the slightest use. Windy tossed an 83 at Overholzer, along with a lot of noisy conversation, and an 83 will beat Overholzer every time he starts. Poor Watts went off his drive entirely and gave such a pitiful exhibition that Kitts didn't need the rule book at all.
And there we were, down to the finals for the beautiful handicap cup, sixty-two good men and true eliminated, and a pair of bounders lined up against each other for the trophy!
"This," said Cupid Cutts, "is a most unfortunate situation. I can't root for a sure-thing gambler and daylight highwayman like Wilkins, and as for the other fellow I hope he falls into a bunker and breaks both his hind legs off short! Think of one of those fellows carrying home that lovely cup! Ain't it enough to make you sick?"
It made us all sick, nevertheless quite a respectable gallery assembled to watch Wilkins and Kitts play their match.
"Looks like we're goin' to have a crowd for the main event!" said Windy, who had put in the entire morning practicing tee shots. "In that case I'll buy everybody a little drink, or sign a lunch card—whatever's customary. Don't be bashful, boys. Might as well drink with the winner before as well as after, you know!"
At this point Adolphus came in from the locker room and there was an embarrassed silence, broken at last by Windy. "Somebody introduce me to my victim," said he. "We've never met."
"You don't tell me!" exclaimed Cupid. "Of all the men in this club, I'd think you fellows ought to know each other! Kitts, this is Wilkins—shake hands and get together!"
Among the other reasons for not liking him, Adolphus had a face. I'm aware that a man cannot help his face, but he can make it easier to look at by wearing a pleasant expression now and then. Kitts seldom used his face to smile with. As he turned to shake hands with Windy I noticed that his left hip pocket bulged a trifle, and I knew that Adolphus was taking no chances. That's where he carries the book of rules.
"How do," said Kitts, looking hard at Windy. "I'm ready if you are, sir."
"Oh, don't be in such a hurry!" said Wilkins. "We've got a lot of drinks comin' here. Sit down and have one."
"Thank you, I never drink," replied Adolphus.
"Well, then, have a sandwich. Might as well load up; you've got a hard afternoon ahead of you."
"Thanks, I've had my lunch."
"Then let's talk a little," urged Windy. "Let's get acquainted. This is the first time I ever had a whack at a cup, and I don't know how to act. I play golf by main strength and awkwardness, but I get there just the same. They tell me you're a great man for rules."
Windy paused, but Kitts didn't say anything, and Cupid stepped on my foot under the table.
"Now, I don't go very strong on the rules," continued Windy wheedlingly. "I like to play a sporty game—count all my shots, of course—but damn this technical stuff is whatIsay. For instance, if you should accidentally tap your ball when you was addressin' it, and it should turn over, I wouldn't call a stroke on you. I'd be ashamed to do it. If I win, I want to win on myplayin'and not on any technicalities. Ain't that the way you feel about it, hey?"
Kitts looked uncomfortable, but he wouldn't return a straight answer to the question. He said something about hoping the best man would win, and went out to get his clubs.
"Cheerful kind of a party, ain't he?" said Windy. "I've told him where I stand.Iain't goin' to claim anything on him if his foot slips, and he oughtn't to claim anything onme. If he's a real sport, he won't. What do you boys think?"
We thought a great deal, but nobody offered any advice.
"Well," said Windy, getting up and stretching, "he's got to start me 2 up, on handicap, and I'm drivin' like a fool. I should worry about his technicalities!"
Our No. 1 hole is somewhere around 450 yards, and the average player is very well satisfied if he fetches the putting green on his third shot. It is uphill all the way, with a bunker to catch a topped drive, rough to the right and left to punish pulls and slices, and sand pits guarding the green. Windy drove first, talking all the time he was on the tee.
"Hope the gallery doesn't make you nervous, Kitts.Ialways drive best when people are watchin' me, but then I've got plenty of nerve, they say. You may not like my stance, but watch this one sail! And when I address the ball I address it in a few brief, burnin' words, like this: 'Take a ride, you little white devil, take a ride!'" Whis-sh! Click! And the little white devil certainly took a ride—long, low, and straight up the middle of the course—the ideal ball, with just enough hook on it to make it run well after it struck the ground. "Two hundred and sixty yards if it's an inch!" said Windy, grinning at Kitts. "Lay your pill beside that one—if you think you can!"
"You're a 12-handicap man—and you drive like that!" said Kitts, which was, of course, a neat slap at Cupid, who was within earshot.
"Cutts is a friend of mine," bragged Windy. "That's why I'm a 12 man. I really play to a 6."
Kitts saw that he wasn't going to get any goats with conversational leads, so he shut up and teed his ball. He was one of those deliberate players who must make just so many motions before they pull off their shots. First he took his stance and his practice swings; then he moved up on the ball and addressed it; then he waggled his club back and forth over it, looking up the course after every waggle, as if picking out a nice spot; then, when he had annoyed everybody, and Windy most of all, he sent a perfectly atrocious slice into the rough beyond the bunker.
"Humph!" grunted Wilkins. "A lot of preparation for such a rotten shot! Looks like I'm 3 up and 17 to go. Probably won't be much of a contest——"
"Do you expect to win it with your mouth?" snapped Kitts, and Windy winked at the rest of us.
"His goat is loose already!" said he in a stage whisper. "He can't stand the gaff!"
Adolphus got out of the tall grass on his third shot, but dropped his fourth into a deep sand pit short of the green.
"With a lot of luck," said Windy, reaching for his brassy, "you may get an 8—but I doubt it. Pretty soft for me, pretty soft!" And with the sole of his club he patted the turf behind his ball, smoothing it down—three gentle little pats. "Pret-ty soft!" murmured Windy, and sent the ball whistling straight on to the green for a sure 4. Then he turned to Kitts. "D'you give up?" said he. "Might just as well; you haven't got a burglar's chance!"
"I claim the hole," said Adolphus calmly, fishing out the book of rules.
"You—what?"
"Rule No. 10," said Kitts, beginning to read. "'In playing through the green, irregularities of surface which could in any way affect the player's stroke shall not be removed nor pressed down by the player——' You patted the grass behind your ball and improved the lie by smoothing it down. I claim the hole."
Windy went about the colour of a nice ripe Satsuma plum. His neck swelled so much that his ears moved outward. "You don't mean to say that you're goin' to call a thing like that on me when you're already licked for the hole?" He spoke slowly, as if he found it hard to believe that the situation was real.
"I claim it," repeated Adolphus monotonously. "You can appeal to Mr. Cutts, as chairman of the greens committee."
"Hey, Fatty! All I did was pat the grass a few times with my club, and this—thisgentlemanhere says he claims the hole."
"You violated the rule," shortly answered Cupid, who may be fat but does not like to be reminded of it so publicly.
"And you're goin' to let him get away with that?" demanded Windy. "I'm on the green in two, and he's neck-deep in the sand on his fourth——"
"Makes no difference," said Cupid, turning away. "You ought to know the rules by now. Kitts wins the hole."
Well, Windy finally accepted the situation, but he was in a savage frame of mind—so savage that he walked all the way to the second tee without opening his mouth. There he stepped aside, with a low bow to Kitts.
"Yourhonour, I believe," said he with nasty emphasis.
No. 2 is a short hole—a drive and a pitch. Windy got a good ball, and it rolled almost to the edge of the green. Kitts's drive was short but straight, and he pitched his second to the green, some thirty feet from the pin, and the advantage seemed to be with Windy until it was discovered that his ball was lying in a cuppy depression of the turf.
"That's lovely, ain't it?" growled Windy. "A fine drive—and look at this for a lie! I was goin' to use a putter, but a putter won't get the ball out of there. Hey, Fatty, had I better use a niblick here?"
"I claim the hole," said Kitts, reaching for the book.
"But I haven't done anything!" howled Windy. "How can you claim the hole when I haven't played the shot?"
"You asked advice," said Kitts, reading. "'A player may not ask for nor willingly receive advice from any one except his own caddie, his partner, or his partner's caddie.' This is not a foursome, so you have no partner. Advice is defined as any suggestion which could influence a player in determining the line of play, in the choice of a club, or in the method of making a stroke. You asked whether you should use a niblick—and you lose the hole."
Windy, knocked speechless for once in his life, looked over at Cupid, and Cupid nodded his head.
"The match is now all square," said Kitts as he started for the third tee.
"And squared by a couple of petty larceny protests!" said Windy. "Hey, Mister Bookworm, wait a minute! I want to tell you something for your own good!"
"Oh, play golf!" said Kitts, over his shoulder.
Windy strode after him and took him by the arm. It wasn't a gentle grasp either.
"That's exactly what I want to say.Youplay golf, Mr. Kitts! Play it with your clubs, and forget that book in your hip pocket. If you pull it on me again, I'll—I'll——"
Adolphus tried to smile, but it was a sickly effort.
"You can't intimidate me," said he.
"Maybe not," said Windy, quite earnestly, "but I can lick you within an inch of your life—and I will. Is there anything in the book about that? If you read me out of this cup, you better make arrangements to have it sent direct to the hospital. It'll make a nice flower holder—if you've got any friends that think enough of you to send flowers!"
"You gentlemen are witnesses to these threats," said Kitts, appealing to the gallery.
"We didn't hear a word," said Cupid. "Not a word. Go on and play your match and stop squabbling. You act like a couple of fishwives!"
The contestants walked off in the direction of the tee, with Windy still rubbing it in.
"A word to the wise. Keep that damn' book in your pocket, if you don't want to eat it—cover and all!"
"Suppose they do mix it?" said Cupid, mopping his brow. "Sweet little golfing scandal, eh? Can't you see the headlines in the newspapers? 'Country Club finalists in fist fight on links!' And some of these roughneck humourists will congratulate us on golf becoming one of the vital, red-blooded sports! Oh, lovely!"
"Bah!" said I. "There will be no fight. No man will fight who smiles like a coyote when he is getting a call down."
"But a coyote will fight if you put it up to him, don't make any mistake about that. And Kitts will spring the book on Windy again, I feel it in my bones, and if he does—choose your partners for the one-step! Oh, why did we ever let these rotters into the club?"
I see no reason for inflicting upon you a detailed description of the next fifteen holes of golfing frightfulness. Golf is a game which requires mental calm, and the contestants were entirely out of calmness after the second hole and could not concentrate on their shots.
Windy began driving all over the shop, hooking and slicing tremendously, and Kitts manhandled his irons in a manner fit to make a hardened professional weep. Neither of them could have holed a five-foot putt in a washtub, and they staggered along side by side, silent and nervous and savage, and if Windy managed to win a hole Kitts would be sure to take the next one and square the match. But he didn't take any holes with the book. When Windy broke a rule—which he did every little while—Kitts would sneer and pretend to look the other way. He tried to convey the impression that it was pity and contempt that made him blind to Windy's lapses, but he didn't fool me for a minute. It was fear of consequences.
And so they came to the last hole, all square, and also all in.
Our eighteenth has a vicious reputation among those golfing unfortunates who slice their tee shots. The drive must carry a steep hill, the right slope of which pitches away to a deep, narrow ravine—a ravine scarred and marred by thousands of niblick shots, but otherwise as disgusted Nature left it. We call it Hell's Half Acre, though the first part of the name would be quite sufficient.
The only improvements that have ever been made in this sinister locality have been made by golf clubs, despairingly wielded. Hell's Half Acre is full of stunted trees with roots half out of the ground, and thick brush and matted weeds, and squarely in the middle of this desolation is a deep sink, or pit, known as the Devil's Kitchen. Hell's Half Acre is bad enough, believe one who knows, but the Devil's Kitchen is the last hard word in hazards, and it is a crime to allow such a plague spot within a mile of a golf course.
At a respectful distance we watched the renegades drive from the eighteenth tee. Kitts had the honour—if there is any honour in winning a four hole in eight strokes—and messed about over his ball even longer than usual. His drive developed a lovely curve to the right, and went skipping and bounding down the hill toward the ravine.
"And that'll be in the Kitchen unless something stops it!" said Cupid with a sigh of relief. "I was afraid the blighters might halve this one and need extra holes!"
Now with Adolphus in the Devil's Kitchen all Windy needed was a straight ball over the brow of the hill—in fact, a ball anywhere on the course would be almost certain to win the hole and the match—but when he walked out on the tee it was plain to be seen that he had lost confidence in his wooden club. Any golfer knows what it means to lose confidence in his wood, and Windy had reason to doubt his driver. His tee shots had been fearfully off direction, and here was one thathadto go straight.
He teed his ball, swung his club a couple of times, and shook his head. Then he yelled at his caddie.
"Oh, boy! Bring me my cleek!"
Now, a cleek is a wonderful club if a man knows how to use one, but it produces a low tee shot, as a general thing. It produced one for Windy—a screamer, flying with the speed of a rifle bullet. I thought at first that it was barely going to clear the top of the hill, but I misjudged it. Three feet higher and the ball would have been over, but it struck the ground and kicked abruptly to the right, disappearing in the direction of the Devil's Kitchen. We heard a crashing noise. It was Windy splintering his cleek shaft over the tee box.
"Both down!" ejaculated Cupid. "Suffering St. Andrew, what a finish!"
We arrived on the rim of the Kitchen and peered into that wild amphitheatre. Kitts had already found his ball, and was staring at it with an expression of dumb anguish on his face. It was lying underneath a tangle of sturdy oak roots, as safely protected as if an octopus was trying to hatch something out of it.
Windy was combing the weeds which grew on the abrupt sides of the pit, too full of his own trouble to pay any attention to his opponent.
"If it's a lost ball——" said Cupid.
But it wasn't. Windy found it, half-way up the left slope, hidden in the weeds, and not a particularly bad lie except for the fact that nothing human could have taken a stance on that declivity. Having found his ball, Windy took a look at Kitts's lie and then, for the first and only time in his golfing career, Wilkins recognised the rules of the game. "You're away, sir," said he to Kitts. "Play!"
Adolphus took his niblick and attacked the octopus. His first three strokes did not even jar the ball, but they damaged the oak roots beyond repair. On his eighth attempt the ball popped out of its nest, and the next shot was a very pretty one, sailing up and out to the fair green, but there was no applause from the gallery.
"Countin' the drive," said Windy, "that makes ten, eh?"
A man may play nine strokes in a hazard, but he hates to admit it. Adolphus grunted and withdrew to the other side of the pit, from which point he watched Windy morosely. With victory in sight the latter became cheerful again; conversation bubbled out of him.
"Boy, slip me the niblick and get up yonder on the edge of the ravine where you can watch this ball. I'm goin' to knock it a mile out of here. Ten shots he's had. If it was me, I'd give up. How am I to get a footin' on this infernal side hill? Spikes won't hold in that stuff. Wish I was a goat. Aha! The very thing!"
Suddenly he delivered a powerful blow at the slope some distance below his ball and three or four feet to the left of it. Cupid gasped and opened his mouth to say something, but I nudged him and he subsided, clucking like a nervous hen.
"What's the idea?" demanded Kitts.
"To make little boys ask questions," was the calm reply. "I climbed the Alps once. Had to dig holes for my feet. Guess I haven't forgotten how, but diggin' with a blasted niblick is hard work."
"Oh!" said Kitts.
Windy continued to hack at the wall, the gallery looking on in tense silence. Nobody would have offered a suggestion; we all felt that it was their own affair, and on the knees of the gods, as the saying is. When Windy had hacked out a place for his right foot he cut another one for his left. The weeds were tough and the soil was hard, and he grunted as he worked.
"Yep—that Alps trip—taught me something. Comes in—handy now. Pretty nifty—job, hey?"
I suppose a mountain climber would have called it a nifty job. Cupid began to mutter.
"Be quiet!" said I. "Let's see if Kitts has nerve enough to call it on him!"
With the shaft of his niblick in his teeth, Windy swarmed up the side of the wall, found the footholds and planted himself solidly. Grasping a bush above his head with his left hand, he measured the distance with his eye, steadied himself and swung the niblick with his powerful right arm. It was a wonderful shot, even if Windy Wilkins did make it; the ball went soaring skyward, far beyond all trouble.
"Some—out!" he panted, looking over his shoulder at Kitts. "I guess that'll clinch the match!"
For just a second Adolphus hesitated; then he must have thought of the cup. "I rather think it will," said he. "You're nicely out, Wilkins—in forty-seven strokes."
"Forty-seven devils!" shouted Windy. "I'm outin two!"
"In a hazard," quoted Kitts, "the club shall not touch the ground, nor shall anything be touched or moved before the player strikes at the ball." At this point Adolphus made a serious mistake; he reached for the book. "Under the rule," he continued, "I could claim the hole on you, but I won't do that. I'll only count the strokes you took in chopping a stance for yourself——"
That was where Windy dropped the niblick and jumped at him, and Cupid was correct about the coyote. Put him in a hole where he can't get out, attack him hard enough, and hewillfight.
Adolphus dropped the book and nailed Windy on the chin with a right upper cut that jarred the whole Wilkins family.
"Keep out of it, everybody!" yelled Cupid with a sudden flash of inspiration. "It's an elimination contest! More power to both of 'em—and may they both lose!"
Inside of two seconds the whole floor of the Devil's Kitchen was littered up with fists and elbows and boots and knees. They fought into clinches and battered their way out of them; they tripped over roots and scrambled to their feet again; they tossed all rules to the winds except the rule of self-preservation. The air was full of heartfelt grunts and sounds as of some one beating a rag carpet, and the language which floated to us was—well, elemental, to say the least. And through it all the gallery looked down in decent silence; there was no favourite for whom any one cared to cheer.
When Windy came toiling up out of the pit alone, but one remark was addressed to him.
"Aren't you going to play it out?" asked Cupid.
"Huh?" said Windy, pausing. His coat was torn off his back, his soiled white trousers were out at the knees, his nose was bleeding freely, and his mouth was lopsided.
"Aren't you going to finish the match? You've only played 46. Kitts made a mistake in the count."
"Finish—hell!" snarled Windy. "You roosted up here like a lot of buzzards and let me chop myself out of the contest! I feel like finishin' the lot of you, and I'm through with any club that'll let a swine like Kitts be a member!"
Oddly enough, this last statement was substantially the same as the one Adolphus made when he recovered consciousness.
The wily Cupid, concealing from each the intentions of the other, and becoming a bearer of pens, ink, and paper, managed to secure both their resignations before they left the clubhouse that evening, and peace now reigns at the Country Club.
We have been given to understand that in the future the committee on membership will require gilt-edged certificates of character and that no rough diamonds need apply.
Nobody won the handicap cup, and nobody knows what to do with it, though there is some talk of having it engraved as follows:
"Elimination Trophy—won by W. W. Wilkins, knockout, one round."
THE MAN OF THE FORESTTHE DESERT OF WHEATTHE U. P. TRAILWILDFIRETHE BORDER LEGIONTHE RAINBOW TRAILTHE HERITAGE OF THE DESERTRIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGETHE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARSTHE LAST OF THE PLAINSMENTHE LONE STAR RANGERDESERT GOLDBETTY ZANELAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTSThe life story of "Buffalo Bill" by his sister Helen CodyWetmore, with Foreword and conclusion by Zane Grey.
THE MAN OF THE FORESTTHE DESERT OF WHEATTHE U. P. TRAILWILDFIRETHE BORDER LEGIONTHE RAINBOW TRAILTHE HERITAGE OF THE DESERTRIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGETHE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARSTHE LAST OF THE PLAINSMENTHE LONE STAR RANGERDESERT GOLDBETTY ZANELAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTSThe life story of "Buffalo Bill" by his sister Helen CodyWetmore, with Foreword and conclusion by Zane Grey.
KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLETHE YOUNG LION HUNTERTHE YOUNG FORESTERTHE YOUNG PITCHERTHE SHORT STOPTHE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES
KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLETHE YOUNG LION HUNTERTHE YOUNG FORESTERTHE YOUNG PITCHERTHE SHORT STOPTHE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES
Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and onward.
This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery.
"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality.
Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment.
The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and humor.
A brilliant story of married life. A romance of fine purpose and stirring appeal.
The story of a great love which cannot be pictured—an interlude—amazing, romantic.
This book is exactly what its title indicates, a collection of love affairs—sparkling with humor, tenderness and sweetness.
K. LeMoyne, famous surgeon, goes to live in a little town where beautiful Sidney Page lives. She is in training to become a nurse. The joys and troubles of their young love are told with keen and sympathetic appreciation.
An absorbing detective story woven around the mysterious death of the "Man in Lower Ten."
A young artist, whose wife had recently divorced him, finds that his aunt is soon to visit him. The aunt, who contributes to the family income, knows nothing of the domestic upheaval. How the young man met the situation is entertainingly told.
The occupants of "Sunnyside" find the dead body of Arnold Armstrong on the circular staircase. Following the murder a bank failure is announced. Around these two events is woven a plot o£ absorbing interest.
Harmony Wells, studying in Vienna to be a great violinist, suddenly realizes that her money is almost gone. She meets a young ambitious doctor who offers her chivalry and sympathy, and together with world-worn Dr. Anna and Jimmie, the waif, they share their love and slender means.
No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the time when the reader was Seventeen.
This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous, tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a finished, exquisite work.
Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness that have ever been written.
Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a fine girl turns Bibbs' life from failure to success.
A story of love and politics,—more especially a picture of a country editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love interest.
The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement, drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister.
The California Redwoods furnish the background for this beautiful story of sisterly devotion and sacrifice.
A collection of delightful stories, including "Bridging the Years" and "The Tide-Marsh." This story is now shown in moving pictures.
The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight for happiness and love.
The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions.
An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come with a second marriage.
A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of a normal girl, obscure and lonely, for the happiness of life.
Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself through sheer determination to the better things for which her soul hungered?
A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background of every girl's life, and some dreams which came true.
A very humorous story. The hero, an independent and vigorous thinker, sees life, and tells about it in a very unconventional way.
Twenty skits, presenting people with their foibles. Sympathy with human nature and an abounding sense of humor are the requisites for "side-stepping with Shorty."
Shorty McCabe reappears with his figures of speech revamped right up to the minute. He aids in the right distribution of a "conscience fund," and gives joy to all concerned.
These further chronicles of Shorty McCabe tell of his studio for physical culture, and of his experiences both on the East side and at swell yachting parties.
A red-headed office boy, overflowing with wit and wisdom peculiar to the youths reared on the sidewalks of New York, tells the story of his experiences.
Torchy is just as deliriously funny in these stories as he was in the previous book.
Torchy falls desperately in love with "the only girl that ever was," but that young society woman's aunt tries to keep the young people apart, which brings about many hilariously funny situations.
Torchy rises from the position of office boy to that of secretary for the Corrugated Iron Company. The story is full of humor and infectious American slang.
Torchy goes on a treasure search expedition to the Florida West Coast, in company with a group of friends of the Corrugated Trust and with his friend's aunt, on which trip Torchy wins the aunt's permission to place an engagement ring on Vee's finger.
The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to fill in the hearts of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he is left.
A compelling romance of love and marriage.
Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his relatives, sends them each a check for $100,000, and then as plain John Smith comes among them to watch the result of his experiment.
A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star Ranch.
The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the service of blind soldiers.
Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of the best writing Mrs. Porter has done.
In these stories we find the concentrated charm and tenderness of all her other books.
Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's wonderful talent for warm and vivid character drawing.
The scene of this splendid story is laid in India and tells of the lamp of love that continues to shine through all sorts of tribulations to final happiness.
The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul.
A hero who worked to win even when there was only "a hundredth chance."
The story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith.
Tales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the false.
A very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other long stories of equal interest.