短篇小说

Breakfast in Coralio was at eleven. Therefore the people did not go to market early. The little wooden market-house stood on a patch of short-trimmed grass, under the vivid green foliage of a bread-fruit tree.

Calliope Catesby was in his humours again. Ennui was upon him. This goodly promontory, the earth--particularly that portion of it known as Quicksand--was to him no more than a pestilent congregation of vapours.

A trestle burned down on the International Railroad. The south- bound from San Antonio was cut off for the next forty-eight hours. On that train was Tonia Weaver's Easter hat.

Miss Posie Carrington had earned her success. She began life handicapped by the family name of "Boggs," in the small town known as Cranberry Corners.

Me and old Mack Lonsbury, we got out of that Little Hide-and-Seek gold mine affair with about $40,000 apiece. I say "old" Mack; but he wasn't old. Forty-one, I should say; but he always seemed old.

We are to consider the shade known as purple. It is a color justly in repute among the sons and daughters of man. Emperors claim it for their especial dye.

For a ~real~, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town near a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab of wood stands at its head. Some one has burned upon the headstone with a hot iron this inscription:

So the king fell into a furious rage, so that none durst go near him for fear, and he gave out that since the Princess Ostla had disobeyed him there would be a great tourney, and to the knight who should prove himself of the greatest valor he would give the hand of the princess.

Said Mr. Kipling, "The cities are full of pride, challenging each to each." Even so.

The other day a poet friend of mine, who has lived in close communion with nature all his life, wrote a poem and took it to an editor.