At home I found Eleanore asleep. For a time I sat at my desk and made some notes for my writing. I read and smoked for a little, then undressed and went to bed. But still I lay there wide awake--thinking of this home of mine and of where I might be in a few months more, in this year that no man can see beyond. For all the changes in the world seemed gathering in a cyclone now.

I was nearly asleep when I was roused by a thick voice from the harbor.

Low in the distance, deep but now rising blast on blast, its waves of sound beat into the city--into millions of ears of sleepers and watchers, the well, the sick and the dying, the dead, the lovers, the schemers, the dreamers, the toilers, the spenders and wasters. I shut my eyes and saw the huge liner on which Joe was sailing moving slowly out of its slip. Down at its bottom men shoveling coal to the clang of its gong. On the decks above them, hundreds of cabins and suites de luxe--most of them dark and empty now. Bellowing impatiently as it swept out into the stream, it seemed to be saying:

"Make way for me. Make way, all you little men. Make way, all you habits and all you inst.i.tutions, all you little creeds and G.o.ds. For I am the start of the voyage--over the ocean to heathen lands! And I am always starting out and always bearing you along! For I am your molder, I am strong--I am a surprise, I am a shock--I am a dazzling pa.s.sion of hope--I am a grim executioner! I am reality--I am life! I am the book that has no end."

JOHN FOX, JR'S.

STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.

THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.

Ill.u.s.trated by F. C. Yohn.

The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the _foot-prints of a girl_. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a madder chase than "the trail of the lonesome pine."

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME

Ill.u.s.trated by F. C. Yohn.

This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come." It is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often springs the flower of civilization.

"Chad," the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he came--he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery--a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in the mountains.

A KNIGHT OF THE c.u.mBERLAND.

Ill.u.s.trated by F. C. Yohn.

The scenes are laid along the waters of the c.u.mberland, the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two impetuous young Southerners fall under the spell of "The Blight's"

charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making of the mountaineers.

Included in this volume is "h.e.l.l fer-Sartain" and other stories, some of Mr. Fox's most entertaining c.u.mberland valley narratives.

STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list

LADDIE.

Ill.u.s.trated by Herman Pfeifer.

This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie, the older brother whom Little Sister adores, and the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood and about whose family there hangs a mystery. There is a wedding midway in the book and a double wedding at the close.

THE HARVESTER. Ill.u.s.trated by W. L. Jacobs.

"The Harvester," David Langston, is a man of the woods and fields, who draws his living from the prodigal hand of Mother Nature herself. If the book had nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable. But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," and the Harvester's whole being realizes that this is the highest point of life which has come to him--there begins a romance of the rarest idyllic quality.

FRECKLES, Decorations by E. Stetson Crawford.

Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succ.u.mbs to the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment.

A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Ill.u.s.trated by Wladyslaw T. Brenda.

The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.

AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Ill.u.s.trations in colors by Oliver Kemp.

The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love.

The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.

MYRTLE REED'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

LAVENDER AND OLD LACE.

A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance finds a modern parallel. The story centers round the coming of love to the young people on the staff of a newspaper--and it is one of the prettiest, sweetest and quaintest of old fashioned love stories, * * * a rare book, exquisite in spirit and conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor and spontaneity.

A SPINNER IN THE SUN.

Miss Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays a quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos which give a touch of active realism to all her writings. In "A Spinner in the Sun"

she tells an old-fashioned love story, of a veiled lady who lives in solitude and whose features her neighbors have never seen. There is a mystery at the heart of the book that throws over it the glamour of romance.