Diana's Short Stories

I suppose I wished to impress this plumber with my imperturbable calm. Upset as I was, I must have realized the impossibility of impressing the boy. Swaggering a little in my bath robe, I had said something jocular, I do not remember just what, about the rapid accretion of wealth by plumbers. He lit his pipe. 'Did you ever,' said he, 'know a plumber who had grown rich?'   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

"Good work!" he applauded. "The old bus hardly swerved. Keep her as she's pointed now. We can't change her course, much less take off until we hit one of those inlets along the Connecticut shore, and smoother water. Brace yourself now  I'm going to slide out of this seat." Dorothy was lifted quickly. Then she dropped back into the pilot's seat to find herself fighting the tenacious pull of heavy seas, straining her leg muscles to keep the plane from floundering.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

I had resorted to a positive statement which I stoutly maintained. I could not see why those girls should doubt my word, even if the statement was startling. Of course it was unusual  that was why I had cited it. I have a fellow feeling for the Vassar student who, when asked by the resident woman physician what her paternal grandfather died of, and not knowing, but wishing not to seem ignorant, said, “I--I think he died in infancy.”   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

At present, it seems reasonable to anticipate, replacing and enormously larger and more important than the classes of common workmen and mechanics of today, a large fairly homogeneous body big men and little men, indeed, but with no dividing lines of more or less expert mechanics and engineers, with a certain common minimum of education and intelligence, and probably a common class consciousness a new body, a new force, in the world's history.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

What the lowest class of women need is active brains to plan and think for them. There are plenty of these active brains at the West End, tingling with neuralgia, hot with idleness, dizzy with waltzing. Offer a government testimonial to the first girl of rank who will carry her brains to a market, and you will see what a throng of aspirants we shall have; letting it be understood, mind you, that the public feeling sustains the government testimonial.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

 What I want to get at the bottom of is this instinct that drives us to work apparently for work's own sake.  What is this strange thing that gets upon our back and spurs us?” A servant entered at that moment with a cablegram from the manager of one of his Austrian mines, and he had to leave me for his study.  But, walking home, I fell to pondering on his words.  Why this endless work?   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Milady's hairdress reached even more preposterous extremes in the many tiered and bejewelled “fontanges” of Louis XIV's court (an exaggeration he disapproved in vain) about 1700. After a period of some moderation the style reappeared in the yard high “heads” dictated to fashion by Marie Antoinette before she lost hers.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

When the East India Directors recalled Lord Ellenborough, and replaced him by Sir Henry Harding, the impression upon the public mind was, as was natural it should be, that the course of policy adopted by the former, was such as met not their approval, and should not be persisted in by his successor. To supersede one man by another, that he might perform the very same acts in the same way, would be something too ludicrous and absurd.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

his department represents only a small surgical specialty, but one which even at that period was given over to specialists, who were called dentatores. Guy de Chauliac's review of the dentistry of his time and the state of the specialty, as pictured by John of Arcoli, is likely to be particularly interesting, because if there is any department of medical practice that we are sure is comparatively recent in origin, it is dentistry.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Wartime conditions abroad and the great distance to the Pacific Coast, not to speak of difficulties of physical transportation, called for a singularly capable executive, such as John E. D. Trask has proved himself to be, and the world should gratefully acknowledge a big piece of work well done. I do not believe the art exhibition needs any apologies. Its general character is such as fully to satisfy the standards of former international expositions.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

 Only that morning he had received a perfumed note, calling his attention to what the writer described as a very noble deed of his, and requesting him to call that evening and receive the writer's thanks. Had he known that Miss Pemberton, several weeks after their visit to the Sound, had driven out again to the hotel and made some inquiries among the servants, he might have understood better the meaning of this missive.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

For Durga dei had been beautiful a year ago when sunsetting had sent the master coppersmith to tell her so, and praise the order of a well kept house. Now the shadow creeping inch by inch along the sunlit dust, and up the sunlit mud wall, brought her no emotion save the mechanical hope that the lentils would be properly cooked by supper time.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

That was the theory, anyway. Of course, there were rival Tribalists in every single management consulting firm in the world working against us. Management consultants have always worked on old boys' networks, after all -- it was a very short step from interning your frat buddy to interning your Tribesman.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Walking between his two conductors, who held his arms in theirs, he went on, as in a dream, until they came again into the high road, and into the midst of a little group of people. The men who had turned back were among the group; and its central figures were Mr. Jasper and Mr. Crisparkle. Neville's conductors took him up to the Minor Canon, and there released him, as an act of deference to that gentleman.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

A woman to be properly qualified must have a good education, and must have graduated from the printer's case. A great many young women who know nothing about the compositor's trade think they can be good proof readers, but they may have a good collegiate education, and if they are not familiar with the practical details of printing, as they can be learned in a printing establishment, they will never amount to much as proof readers.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Something had happened. He must have been looking at that procession for a long time, he realized, and pulling himself together, he bounded to his feet and was off in a long striding race through the moor towards the pit, his heart telling him that something had happened which was out of the ordinary kind of accident that regularly happened at a coal mine.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

In 1897 Mr. Arthur Stillwell, at that time president of the Kansas City, Pittsburg & Gould Railroad, gave me charge of his magnificent $20,000 private car. I had charge of the car under the new management until 1907, since which time I have been employed as chef of the subsidiary companies of the United States Steel Corporation in Chicago.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Some of the families in the Giralda rather liked the new cashier; these were they who had children. The little children chatted and laughed with her across her desk when they came down as forerunners to give the order for the family dinner. If it were only lunch time, when few people were in the restaurant, they went behind the desk and embraced the cashier and had a romp with her.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

If the idlers of the streets chalked caricature on the walls, we can not be surprised to discover that Pompeian artists delighted in the comic and burlesque. Comic scenes from the plays of Terence and Plautus, with the names of the characters written over them, have been found, as well as a large number of burlesque scenes, in which dwarfs, deformed people, Pigmies, beasts, and birds are engaged in the ordinary labors of men.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

It is disappointing that no single specimen of the rich Mediæval style of bookbinding exists of English workmanship. Such bindings were undoubtedly made here, and numerous drawings of them are to be seen in contemporary manuscript. It is certain that the intrinsic value of these covers attracted the attention of some of our sovereigns, especially the early Tudors, and whenever they were of any value at all, the crucible accounts for their disappearance.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Thus it is doubly difficult to write of this period calmly, so intense was the feeling, so mighty the human passions that swayed and blinded men. Amid it all, two figures ever stand to typify that day to coming ages,—the one, a gray haired gentleman, whose fathers had quit themselves like men, whose sons lay in nameless graves; who bowed to the evil of slavery because its abolition threatened untold ill to all.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Nevertheless, having little confidence in his own lights, he consulted a celebrated chemist, Vauquelin, from whom he naively inquired how to mix a two sided cosmetic which should produce effects appropriate to the diversified nature of the human epidermis. Truly scientific men  men who are really great in the sense that they never attain in their lifetime the renown which their immense and unrecognized labors deserve  are nearly always kind, and willing to serve the poor in spirit.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

What could be more intolerable and foolish than my position, Uncle, when I find myself the only nonentity among a crowd of her guests, all celebrated authors and artists? Personally I am nothing, nobody. I pulled through my third year at college by the skin of my teeth, as they say. I have neither money nor brains, and on my passport you may read that I am simply a citizen of Kiev.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Eloi was a workman in Limoges, as a youth, under the famous Abho, in the sixth century; there he learned the craft of a goldsmith. He was such a splendid artisan that he soon received commissions for extensive works on his own account. King Clothaire II. ordered from him a golden throne, and supplied the gold which was to be used.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

The bunkum entertainer is a parasite, a cartoonist, and mimic, a smooth tongued, unscrupulous rascal, who deserves  the conscientious entertainer (who never tries bunkum because he is too stupid and wool headed) so has it  to be banished to a desert island and served to cannibals as minced donkey flesh “à la bunkum.”    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

"--Like to make a proposal to our mutual advanceage  " "--You wouldn't find an actor there playing a lead role one season and then not be able to get any parts except summer stock and odd bits for the next two years. All right, so the show I had the lead in folded after two weeks, but the critics all raved about my performance. It was the play that stank!"   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

And we should keep our garden up to date. When delphiniums went out of season, we should rub them out and give you chrysanthemums; and if an untimely storm uprooted the chrysanthemums, in an hour or two we should have a wonderful show of dahlias to take their place. And we should still have the floor space free for a sundial, or if you insist on exercise for the last hoop and the stick of a full sized croquet lawn.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

And of course when Mrs. Fox heard that, she looked on the floor of the little porch; and, sure enough, there was the big iron key almost hidden from sight in a little, tiny crack. Wasn't that lucky? Well, I guess it was, and in a jiffy and a half she unlocked the iron door and set Daddy Fox free.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

You should have seen the giant stare. "Truly, friend, you have a goodly appetite," he said. "You have eaten all the meat that I have in my larder; and if you dine with us to morrow, I must insist that you catch your own dinner of fish. I cannot undertake to provide food for such an appetite!"   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

“Come on, there, you mangy, turtle backed, snake headed, bench legged ton and a half of soap grease!” shouted the dogman, with a new note in his voice and a new hand on the leash. The dog scrambled after them, with an angry whine at such unusual language from his guardian. At the foot of Twenty third Street the dogman led the way through swinging doors.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

“We want to start a club for playing baseball, like the big clubs they have in Brooklyn and New York.” “How shall we do it?” asked Henry Scott. “We must first appoint a captain of the club, who will have power to assign the members to their different positions. Of course you will want one that understands about these matters.”   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

"He was an alderman,' she was goin' on, but old Mis' Winslow cuts in on her:-- "'It don't matter what he was when he was man grown,' s'she. It's when they're little bits o' ones,' she says. "'Little!' says Grandma Holly. 'Is it little you mean? Well, my Amy's two little feet use' to be swallowed up in my hand  so,' she says, shuttin' her hand over to show us.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

After a brief wait, long enough to allow transfer of baggage, we leave, from the same station, for the fifteen miles' ride to Tahoe Tavern on the very edge of the Lake. This ride is itself romantic and beautiful. On the day trains observation cars are provided, and the hour is one of delightful, restful and enchanting scenes.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

He was an ugly grey dog with long silken soft ears and a bushy tail. He was born in a splendid stable that belonged to a rich man. This rich man lived on a large estate in which were fields and meadows. And in these fields grew sugarcane, in great quantities, great, round, smooth canes that contained the sweet sugar.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Snowflower had no relation in the world but a very old grandmother, called Dame Frostyface. People did not like her quite so well as her granddaughter, for she was cross enough at times, though always kind to Snowflower. They lived together in a little cottage built of peat and thatched with reeds, on the edge of a great forest.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

But when she had once begun she did not know how to leave off, and kept going deeper and deeper amongst the trees looking for some still more beautiful flower. The Wolf, however, ran straight to the house of the old grandmother, and knocked at the door. "Who's there?" asked the old lady.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

"How you can possibly allow yourself to speak to me in such a manner, I cannot imagine.  It is very evident that you are no Beauchamp." The scorn expressed in her grandmother's tones acted in the same way as a touch of the whip about the ears of a thoroughbred mare.  She started, and tears of wounded pride welled up in her flashing hazel eyes, but they were quickly forced back.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

There was danger that anything which was of a nature to keep on burning might catch fire at him, and when well lit might find that the creating heat had gone out, or had withdrawn itself. She knew herself, by instinct, faithful to the core, and if once she consented to love the man, she would have to go on doing it. And she not only tried not to love the butterfly, but had tried her loyal hardest to love the bulldog.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

In their view, we were as poetical as Arcadians, besides being as practical as the hardest fisted husbandmen in Massachusetts. We did not, it is true, spend much time in piping to our sheep, or warbling our innocent loves to the sisterhood.  But they gave us credit for imbuing the ordinary rustic occupations with a kind of religious poetry, insomuch that our very cow yards and pig sties were as delightfully fragrant as a flower garden.     This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

“Listen to this.... I wish I could help you. Life is a queer deal. ... Shefford, I've got to trust you. Over here in the wild cañon country there's a village of Mormons' sealed wives. It's in Arizona, perhaps twenty miles from here, and near the Utah line. When the United States government began to persecute, or prosecute, the Mormons for polygamy, the Mormons over here in Stonebridge took their sealed wives and moved them out of Utah, just across the line.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

“To obtain a just idea of the dog's real worth, we must take note of the value which savage races attach to him. In Australia, women have been known to give the breast to puppies. I hasten to add that this has never been seen in France, because the women here are not savages. “Men in general are very fond of hunting; there are some men indeed who cannot exist without it; hunting is the first instinct of the dog.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

“It's ag'in the law, stranger, f'r any galoot f'm off'n a boat fer to go an' git hisself killed on the levee in Arkansas City by a packin'-case or any other murderous weepin in the hands o' roustabouts or anybody else. 'Pears to me you must be a stranger in these parts. Ever been into a town of any size afore?”   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

I was born in Maryland in the year 1766. My parents were slaves. Both my father and mother were religious people, and belonged to the Methodist Society. It was my father's practice to read in the Bible aloud to his children every sabbath morning. At these seasons, when I was but five years old, I often felt the overshadowing of the Lord's Spirit, without at all understanding what it meant.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

He liked well enough the notion of keeping the readers of the   Echo  in mind of him; if he failed to capture New York, Midland would always be a good point to fall back upon. He expected his novel to succeed, and then he should be independent. But till then, the five dollars a week which the Hanks Brothers proposed to pay him for his letters would be very convenient, though the sum was despicable in itself.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

It would be easy to expand this list into an essay on the vanity of human wishes. It would not be hard to add thereto a formidable catalogue of serious mistakes made both in England and New Zealand by those responsible for the Colony's affairs mistakes, some of which, at least, seem now to argue an almost inconceivable lack of knowledge and foresight.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

“Oh dear!” exclaimed Polly as she sat over in the corner by the window helping her mother pull out basting threads from a coat she had just finished, and giving an impatient twitch to the sleeve, “I do wish we could ever have any light  just as much as we want!” “You don't need any light to see these threads,” said Mrs. Pepper, winding up hers carefully, as she spoke, on an old spool.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Then together they all skated away through the thickening windy twilight, and over the ashy gray plain of ice, towards where Katy's fire glowed like a red spark on the distant shore. It was a weary but not at all disheartened party that lounged in the open door of the tent that night, while a big fire blazed in front, and supper was cooking.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

I remembered having read in the Thousand and One Nights that lovers fall ill with unsatisfied longing, and that their cure depends entirely on the possession of the beloved one. Snatches of Swedish folk songs came into my mind, about young maidens who, in despair of ever being united to the object of their affections, waste away, and bid their mothers prepare their deathbeds for them.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

Tatting differs entirely from crochet, and is composed of stitches forming  knots. It is intended as an imitation of point lace, and is especially used for trimming under linen, on account of its strength. To make the stitches or knots a small instrument is used, called a shuttle. This shuttle consists of two oval pieces, flat on one side and convex on the other, and is made of wood or ivory.    This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

After that, his own papa, if he had lived, would have been an earl, but, since they all had died and only Cedric was left, it appeared that HE was to be an earl after his grandpapa's death and for the present he was Lord Fauntleroy. He turned quite pale when he was first told of it. “Oh! Dearest!” he said, “I should rather not be an earl. None of the boys are earls. Can't I NOT be one?”   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com

I gave him my card. He looked at it and said, "When I was last in Victoria I used to follow with much interest a curious walk across Australia, from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Melbourne done by a namesake. Any relation?" Here then at the most inland of the customs stations in China, 1500 miles from the sea, I met my fellow countryman who was born near my home and whose father was a well known Mayor of Ballarat City.   This short story is sponsored by our friends at 5amily.com