One September afternoon in the year of grace 1840 Avery and Janet Sparhallow were picking apples in their Uncle Daniel Sparhallow’s big orchard. It was an afternoon of mellow sunshine; about them, beyond the orchard, were old harvest fields, mellowly bright and serene, and beyond the fields the sapphire curve of the St. Lawrence Gulf […]

Thrush Hill, Oct. 5, 18–. It is all settled at last, and in another week I shall have left Thrush Hill. I am a little bit sorry and a great bit glad. I am going to Montreal to spend the winter with Alicia. Alicia–it used to be plain Alice when she lived at Thrush Hill […]

Jedediah was not a name that savoured of romance. His last name was Crane, which is little better. And it would be no use to call this story “Mattie Adams’s Romance” because Mattie Adams is not a romantic name either. But names have really nothing to do with romance. The most exciting and tragic affair […]

“I wisht ye’d git married, Roger,” said Catherine Ames. “I’m gitting too old to work–seventy last April–and who’s going to look after ye when I’m gone. Git married, b’y–git married.” Roger Temple winced. His aunt’s harsh, disagreeable voice always jarred horribly on his sensitive nerves. He was fond of her after a fashion, but always […]

Prissy Baker was in Oscar Miller’s store New Year’s morning, buying matches–for New Year’s was not kept as a business holiday in Quincy–when her uncle, Richard Baker, came in. He did not look at Prissy, nor did she wish him a happy New Year; she would not have dared. Uncle Richard had not been on […]

Uncle Jesse! The name calls up the vision of him as I saw him so often in those two enchanted summers at Golden Gate; as I saw him the first time, when he stood in the open doorway of the little low-eaved cottage on the harbour shore, welcoming us to our new domicile with the […]

Everybody in the Marshall household was excited on the evening of the concert at the Harbour Light Hotel–everybody, even to Little Joyce, who couldn’t go to the concert because there wasn’t anybody else to stay with Denise. Perhaps Denise was the most excited of them all–Denise, who was slowly dying of consumption in the Marshall […]

When the telegram came from William George, Grandma Sheldon was all alone with Cyrus and Louise. And Cyrus and Louise, aged respectively twelve and eleven, were not very much good, Grandma thought, when it came to advising what was to be done. Grandma was “all in a flutter, dear, oh dear,” as she said. The […]

Just before the letter was brought to me that evening I was watching the red November sunset from the library window. It was a stormy, unrestful sunset, gleaming angrily through the dark fir boughs that were now and again tossed suddenly and distressfully in a fitful gust of wind. Below, in the garden, it was […]

She always sat in a corner of the west veranda at the hotel, knitting something white and fluffy, or pink and fluffy, or pale blue and fluffy–always fluffy, at least, and always dainty. Shawls and scarfs and hoods the things were, I believe. When she finished one she gave it to some girl and began […]

When I heard that Peter Austin was in Vancouver I hunted him up. I had met Peter ten years before when I had gone east to visit my father’s people and had spent a few weeks with an uncle in Croyden. The Austins lived across the street from Uncle Tom, and Peter and I had […]

It was the first of April, and Julius Barrett, aged fourteen, perched on his father’s gatepost, watched ruefully the low descending sun, and counted that day lost. He had not succeeded in “fooling” a single person, although he had tried repeatedly. One and all, old and young, of his intended victims had been too wary […]

The boat got into Broughton half an hour after the train had gone. We had been delayed by some small accident to the machinery; hence that lost half-hour, which meant a night’s sojourn for me in Broughton. I am ashamed of the things I thought and said. When I think that fate might have taken […]

When Robert Turner came to the green, ferny triangle where the station road forked to the right and left under the birches, he hesitated as to which direction he would take. The left led out to the old Turner homestead, where he had spent his boyhood and where his cousin still lived; the right led […]

“I expected as much,” said Timothy Robinson. His tone brought the blood into Ellis Duncan’s face. The lad opened his lips quickly, as if for an angry retort, but as quickly closed them again with a set firmness oddly like Timothy Robinson’s own. “When I heard that lazy, worthless father of yours was dead, I […]

When the vegetable-man knocked, Jessamine went to the door wearily. She felt quite well acquainted with him. He had been coming all the spring, and his cheery greeting always left a pleasant afterglow behind him. But it was not the vegetable-man after all–at least, not the right one. This one was considerably younger. He was […]

Miss Sally peered sharply at Willard Stanley, first through her gold-rimmed glasses and then over them. Willard continued to look very innocent. Joyce got up abruptly and went out of the room. “So you have bought that queer little house with the absurd name?” said Miss Sally. “You surely don’t call Eden an absurd name,” […]

“Of course Santa Claus will come,” said Jimmy Martin confidently. Jimmy was ten, and at ten it is easy to be confident. “Why, he’s got to come because it is Christmas Eve, and he always has come. You know that, twins.” Yes, the twins knew it and, cheered by Jimmy’s superior wisdom, their doubts passed […]

“If it were to clear up I wouldn’t know how to behave, it would seem so unnatural,” said Kate. “Do you, by any chance, remember what the sun looks like, Phil?” “Does the sun ever shine in Saskatchewan anyhow?” I asked with assumed sarcasm, just to make Kate’s big, bonny black eyes flash. They did […]

Tommy Puffer, sauntering up the street, stopped to look at Miss Octavia’s geraniums. Tommy never could help stopping to look at Miss Octavia’s flowers, much as he hated Miss Octavia. Today they were certainly worth looking at. Miss Octavia had set them all out on her verandah–rows upon rows of them, overflowing down the steps […]