The Night Ward
Louisa May Alcott
Being fond of the night side of nature, I was soon promoted to the post of night nurse, with every facility for indulging in my favorite pastime of “owling.”
(more…)The Kidnapped Plumber: A Tale Of The New Time
Stephen Leacock
“Personally,” said Thornton, speaking for the first time, “I never care to take a case that involves cellar work.”
(more…)His Job
Grace Sartwell Mason
Against an autumn sunset the steel skeleton of a twenty-story office building in process of construction stood out black and bizarre. It flung up its beams and girders like stern and yet airy music, orderly, miraculously strong, and delicately powerful. From the lower stories, where masons made their music of trowel and hammer, to the top, where steam-riveters rapped out their chorus like giant locusts in a summer field, the great building lived and breathed as if all those human energies that went to its making flowed warm through its steel veins.
(more…)Preventing A Scandal
Bill Nye
Boys should never be afraid or ashamed to do little odd jobs by which to acquire money. Too many boys are afraid, or at least seem to be embarrassed when asked to do chores, and thus earn small sums of money. In order to appreciate wealth we must earn it ourselves. That is the reason I labor. I do not need to labor. My parents are still living, and they certainly would not see me suffer for the necessities of life. But life in that way would not have the keen relish that it would if I earned the money myself.
(more…)The Plumber
Charles Dudley Warner
Speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no class of men whose society is to be more desired for this quality than that of plumbers!
(more…)On Cyclones
Bill Nye
I desire to state that my position as United States cyclonist for this judicial district is now vacant. I resigned on the 9th day of September, A.D. 1884.
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