A Patron of Art / Eleanor H. Porter

Mrs. Livingstone adored art--Art with a capital A, not the kind whose sign-manual is a milking-stool or a beribboned picture frame. The family had lived for some time in a shabby-genteel house on Beacon Hill, ever since, indeed, Mrs. Livingstone had insisted on her husband's leaving the town of his birth and moving to Boston--the center of Art (according to Mrs. Livingstone).

The Elephant's Board and Keep / Eleanor H. Porter

On twelve hundred dollars a year the Wheelers had contrived to live thus far with some comforts and a few luxuries--they had been married two years. Genial, fun-loving, and hospitable, they had even entertained occasionally; but Brainerd was a modest town, and its Four Hundred was not given to lavish display.

The Indivisible Five / Eleanor H. Porter

At the ages of fifty-four and fifty, respectively, Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth found themselves possessed of a roomy, old-fashioned farmhouse near a thriving city, together with large holdings of lands, mortgages, and bank stock. At the same time they awoke to an unpleasant realization that many of their fellow creatures were not so fortunate.

The Letter / Eleanor H. Porter

Monday noon the postman gave the letter to twelve-year-old Emily, and Emily in turn handed it to her young brother. Between the gate and the door, however, Teddy encountered Rover, and Rover wanted to play. It ended in the letter disappearing around the corner of the house, being fast held in the jaws of a small black-and-tan dog.

The Daltons and the Legacy / Eleanor H. Porter

The legacy amounted to ten thousand dollars; and coming as it did from a little known, scarcely remembered relative it seemed even more unreal than the man who had bequeathed it. Not until lawyers' visits and numerous official-looking papers had convinced the Daltons beyond the smallest doubt did the family believe their good fortune genuine; then, with the conviction, came all the overwhelming ambitions and unsatisfied longings of past years.

"There, now we can leave the farm," exulted Mrs. Dalton.

The Glory and the Sacrifice / Eleanor H. Porter

The Honorable Peter Wentworth was not a church-going man, and when he appeared at the prayer-meeting on that memorable Friday evening there was at once a most irreligious interest manifested by every one present, even to the tired little minister himself. The object of their amazed glances fortunately did not keep the good people long in suspense. After a timid prayer--slightly incoherent, but abounding in petitions for single-mindedness and worshipful reverence--from the minister's wife, the Honorable Peter Wentworth rose to his feet and loudly cleared his throat:

When Mother Fell Ill / Eleanor H. Porter

Tom was eighteen, and was spending the long summer days behind the village-store counter--Tom hoped to go to college in the fall.

Carrie was fifteen; the long days found her oftenest down by the brook, reading--Carrie was a bit romantic, and the book was usually poetry.

Robert and Rosamond, the twins--known to all their world as "Rob" and "Rose"--were eight; existence for them meant play, food, and sleep. To be sure, there were books and school; but those were in the remote past or dim future together with winter, mittens, and fires. It was summer, now--summer, and the two filled the hours with rollicking games and gleeful shouts--and incidentally their mother's workbasket with numerous torn pinafores and trousers.

The Saving of Dad / Eleanor H. Porter

On the boundary fence sat James, known as "Jim"; on the stunted grass of the neighboring back yard lay Robert, known as "Bob." In age, size, and frank-faced open-heartedness the boys seemed alike; but there were a presence of care and an absence of holes in Jim's shirt and knee-breeches that were quite wanting in those of the boy on the ground. Jim was the son of James Barlow, lately come into the possession of the corner grocery. Bob was the son of "Handy Mike," who worked out by the day, doing "odd jobs" for the neighboring housewives.

The Lady in Black / Eleanor H. Porter

The house was very still. In the little room over the porch the Lady in Black sat alone. Near her a child's white dress lay across a chair, and on the floor at her feet a tiny pair of shoes, stubbed at the toes, lay where an apparently hasty hand had thrown them. A doll, head downward, hung over a chair-back, and a toy soldier with drawn sword dominated the little stand by the bed. And everywhere was silence--the peculiar silence that comes only to a room where the clock has ceased to tick.

That Angel Boy / Eleanor H. Porter

"I am so glad you consented to stay over until Monday, auntie, for now you can hear our famous boy choir," Ethel had said at the breakfast table that Sunday morning.

"Humph! I've heard of 'em," Ann Wetherby had returned crisply, "but I never took much stock in 'em. A choir--made o' boys--just as if music could come from yellin', hootin' boys!"

A Mushroom of Collingsville / Eleanor H. Porter

There were three men in the hotel office that Monday evening: Jared Parker, the proprietor; Seth Wilber, town authority on all things past and present; and John Fletcher, known in Collingsville as "The Squire"--possibly because of his smattering of Blackstone; probably because of his silk hat and five-thousand-dollar bank account. Each of the three men eyed with unabashed curiosity the stranger in the doorway.

The Apple of Her Eye / Eleanor H. Porter

It rained. It had rained all day. To Helen Raymond, spatting along the wet slipperiness of the drenched pavements, it seemed as if it had always rained, and always would rain.

Helen was tired, blue, and ashamed--ashamed because she was blue; blue because she was tired; and tired because--wearily her mind reviewed her day.

Angelus / Eleanor H. Porter

To Hephzibah the world was a place of weary days and unrestful nights, and life was a thing of dishes that were never quite washed and of bread that was never quite baked--leaving something always to be done.

The sun rose and the sun set, and Hephzibah came to envy the sun. To her mind, his work extended from the first level ray shot into her room in the morning to the last rose-flush at night; while as for herself, there were the supper dishes and the mending-basket yet waiting. To be sure, she knew, if she stopped to think, that her sunset must be a sunrise somewhere else; but Hephzibah never stopped to think; she would have said, had you asked her, that she had no time.

A Matter of System / Eleanor H. Porter

At the office of Hawkins & Hawkins, system was everything. Even the trotter-boy was reduced to an orbit that ignored craps and marbles, and the stenographer went about her work like a well-oiled bit of machinery. It is not strange, then, that Jasper Hawkins, senior member of the firm, was particularly incensed at the confusion that Christmas always brought to his home.

A Four-Footed Faith and a Two / Eleanor H. Porter

On Monday Rathburn took the dog far up the trail. Stub was no blue-ribbon, petted dog of records and pedigree; he was a vicious-looking little yellow cur of mixed ancestry and bad habits--that is, he had been all this when Rathburn found him six months before and championed his cause in a quarrel with a crowd of roughs in Mike Swaney's saloon. Since then he had developed into a well-behaved little beast with a pair of wistful eyes that looked unutterable love, and a tail that beat the ground, the floor, or the air in joyous welcome whenever Rathburn came in sight. He was part collie, sharp-nosed and prick-eared, and his undersized little body still bore the marks of the precarious existence that had been his before Rathburn had befriended him.

Crumbs / Eleanor H. Porter

The Story of a Discontented Woman

The floor was untidy, the sink full of dirty dishes, and the stove a variegated thing of gray and dull red. At the table, head bowed on outstretched arms, was Kate Merton, twenty-one, discouraged, and sole mistress of the kitchen in which she sat. The pleasant-faced, slender little woman in the doorway paused irresolutely on the threshold, then walked with a brisk step into the room. "Is the water hot?" she asked cheerily. The girl at the table came instantly to her feet.

The Folly of Wisdom / Eleanor H. Porter

Until his fiftieth year Jason Hartsorn knew nothing whatever about the position of his liver, kidneys, lungs, heart, spleen, and stomach except that they must be somewhere inside of him; then he attended the auction of old Doctor Hemenway's household effects and bid off for twenty-five cents a dilapidated clothes basket, filled with books and pamphlets. Jason's education as to his anatomy began almost at once then, for on the way home he fished out a coverless volume from the basket and became lost in awed wonder over a pictured human form covered from scalp to the toes with scarlet, vine-like tracings.

A Delayed Heritage / Eleanor H. Porter

When Hester was two years old a wheezy hand-organ would set her eyes to sparkling and her cheeks to dimpling, and when she was twenty the "Maiden's Prayer," played by a school-girl, would fill her soul with ecstasy.

To Hester, all the world seemed full of melody. Even the clouds in the sky sailed slowly along in time to a stately march in her brain, or danced to the tune of a merry schottische that sounded for her ears alone. And when she saw the sunset from the hill behind her home, there was always music then--low and tender if the colors were soft and pale-tinted, grand and awful if the wind blew shreds and tatters of storm-clouds across a purpling sky. All this was within Hester; but without--

When Polly Ann Played Santa Claus / Eleanor H. Porter

The Great Idea and What Came of It

Margaret Brackett turned her head petulantly from side to side on the

pillow. "I'm sure I don't see why this had to come to me now," she

moaned.

Polly Ann Brackett, who had been hastily summoned to care for her

stricken relative, patted the pillow hopefully.

"Sho! now, Aunt Margaret, don't take on so. Just lie still and rest.

You 're all beat out. That's what's the matter."

Millionaire Mike's Thanksgiving / Eleanor H. Porter

He was not Mike at first; he was only the Millionaire--a young

millionaire who sat in a wheel chair on the pier waiting for the boat.

He had turned his coat-collar up to shut out the wind, and his hatbrim

down to shut out the sun. For the time being he was alone. He had

sent his attendant back for a forgotten book.