“This is my section,” said Dr. Elizabeth Black; and the three women who were convoying her down the aisle crowded around her for a last good-bye. There was an excited flurry of talk as they hoped her journey would be pleasant and wished they were going too; and she heartily wished they were; and they […]

“Since I breathed,A houseless head, beneath the sun and stars,The soul of the wood has stricken through my blood.”–THE FORESTERS. Everybody who has ever seen him knows him only as “Posey”–a name for which he is indebted solely to the accident of birth. For in that Indiana county where he first saw the light, and […]

“I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.”–WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY. Mariposa, in the days when I first knew it, was still a wreck of the gold fever. The merest skeleton of its former self, it lay there in the gulch between the chaparral-covered foothills and hugged its memories of the days when it was […]

“Little Ah SidWas a Chinee Kid,A cute little cuss, you ‘d declare,With eyes full of funAnd a nose that begunRight up at the roots of his hair.”–M. C. SPEER. This Chinee Kid was not Ah Sid, but another one whose name was Ah Wing. He was a Chinee Kid only so far as he was […]

Perhaps it was a mere matter of nerves, but it seemed to me that morning that it was the cliffs of the Valley. Those mighty, overshadowing, everlasting walls and towers of the Yosemite seem to be endowed with the power to produce numberless changes of feeling. Sometimes you gaze at them, and they lift up […]

The day was hot, and the wind was high, and the alkali dust from the sagebrush plains sifted into the car, and whitened the stuffy upholstering, and burrowed into the nerves of the passengers. Everybody longed for the coming of night, and the relief of the climb up the cool heights of the Sierras. I […]

“Sympathy with his kind and well-doing for itswelfare, direct or indirect, are the essential conditions ofthe existence and development of the more complexsocial organism; and no mortal can transcend theseconditions with any success.”–HENRY MAUDSLEY. Our party was going from the Yosemite Valley to Lake Tenaiya–that beautiful bit of shining, liquid sapphire ringed by its mighty […]

Delay not thy coming, my love, my own!Though patient I wait thee, my love unknown,Yet long I thy figure to see, and knowWhat form thou wilt have, and what face be thine,And when thou wilt clasp me, dear love of mine;For all that is left me is thy cold breath,And wond’ring I wait thee, my […]

“And I ‘m free to say that the grand resultsof my explorations showThat somehow paint gets redder the fartherout West I go!”–EUGENE FIELD. One summer night I was on a train that was speeding eastward across southern New Mexico. It was one of the white nights of that region, when the full moon, shining like […]

Mrs. Harrison Winthrop Coolidge had long been the recognized leader of Santa Fe society. Her husband, who had twice been Governor of New Mexico (this was long before the Territory had put on the garment of Statehood), was the best known and most esteemed man in the Southwest. He was rich, energetic, capable, and popular, […]

Green and peaceful, the long, low undulations of the prairie sea of southern Kansas spread away to the horizon in lines as graceful and pleasing as those of a reclining Venus. Here and there against a hillside the emerald waves broke in a bright foam of many-colored flowers. In all that vast extent over which […]

“Colonel Kate,” as both the Select and the Unassorted of Santa Fe society were accustomed to speak of Mrs. Harrison Winthrop Coolidge, had long ago proved her right to do whatever she chose, by always accomplishing whatever she attempted. She had done so many startling things, and always with such dashing success, since Governor Coolidge […]

Baby, my babe,What waits you yonder,Out in the world?Dear little feet,There must they wander,Out in the world?Soft little hands,What shall they do there,Out in the world?Baby, my babe,What fate must you dare,Out in the world? All around Apache Teju for miles and miles lies the gray, cactus-dotted, heat-devoured plain, weird and fascinating, with its placid, […]

Nick Ellhorn awoke and looked around the room with curiosity and interest, but without surprise. He had no recollection of having entered it the night before, and he was lying across the bed fully clothed. But he had long ago ceased to feel surprise over a matter of that sort. His next movement was to […]