Girls are great idealists. No one familiar with the working of the girl mind can fail to recognize how quickly they respond to ideals. They dream dreams, not of success, but of happiness. They look up rather than out. But they are vague and uncertain, full of wistful yearnings that lead nowhere. Given a cause […]

I Now the day of the birth of our Lord dawned that year grey and dreary, and a Saturday. But, despite the weather, in the town at the foot of the hill there was rejoicing, as befitted so great a festival. The day before a fat steer had been driven to the public square and […]

I It is doubtful if Aggie and I would have known anything about Tish’s plan had Aggie not seen the advertisement in the newspaper. She came to my house at once in violent excitement and with her bonnet over her ear, and gave me the newspaper clipping to read. It said: “WANTED: A small donkey. […]

From the very beginning of the war Tish was determined to go to France. But she is a truthful woman, and her age kept her from being accepted. She refused, however, to believe that this was the reason, and blamed her rejection on Aggie and myself. “Age fiddlesticks!” she said, knitting violently. “The plain truth […]

I There are certain people who will never understand this story, people who live their lives by rule of thumb. Little lives they are, too, measured by the letter and not the spirit. Quite simple too. Right is right and wrong is wrong. That shadowy No Man’s Land between the trenches of virtue and sin, […]

I The Probationer’s name was really Nella Jane Brown, but she was entered in the training school as N. Jane Brown. However, she meant when she was accepted to be plain Jane Brown. Not, of course, that she could ever be really plain. People on the outside of hospitals have a curious theory about nurses, […]

I Having retired to a hospital to sulk, Jane remained there. The family came and sat by her bed uncomfortably and smoked, and finally retreated with defeat written large all over it, leaving Jane to the continued possession of Room 33, a pink kimono with slippers to match, a hand-embroidered face pillow with a rose-coloured […]

I Now, had Billy Grant really died there would be no story. The story is to relate how he nearly died; and how, approaching that bourne to which no traveller may take with him anything but his sins–and this with Billy Grant meant considerable luggage–he cast about for some way to prevent the Lindley Grants […]

I The great God endows His children variously. To some He gives intellect–and they move the earth. To some He allots heart–and the beating pulse of humanity is theirs. But to some He gives only a soul, without intelligence–and these, who never grow up, but remain always His children, are God’s fools, kindly, elemental, simple, […]

HOW TISH BROKE THE LAW AND SOME RECORDS I So many unkind things have been said of the affair at Morris Valley that I think it best to publish a straightforward account of everything. The ill nature of the cartoon, for instance, which showed Tish in a pair of khaki trousers on her back under […]

I Aggie has always been in the habit of observing the anniversary of Mr. Wiggins’s death. Aggie has the anniversary habit, anyhow, and her life is a succession: of small feast-days, on which she wears mental crape or wedding garments–depending on the occasion. Tish and I always remember these occasions appropriately, sending flowers on the […]

THE ADVENTURE OF THE RED-HEADED DETECTIVE, THE LADY CHAUFFEUR, AND THE MAN WHO COULD NOT TELL THE TRUTH I It is easy enough, of course, to look back on our Canadian experience and see where we went wrong. What I particularly resent is the attitude of Charlie Sands. I am writing this for his benefit. […]

I I suppose there is something in all of us that harks back to the soil. When you come to think of it, what are picnics but outcroppings of instinct? No one really enjoys them or expects to enjoy them, but with the first warm days some prehistoric instinct takes us out into the woods, […]

I understand that Mr. Irvin Cobb is going to write a sister article to this, and naturally he will be as funny as only he can be. It is always allowable, too, to be humorous about women. They don’t mind, because they are accustomed to it. But I simply dare not risk my popularity by […]