Short Stories of Various Types

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Transcriber's Note:

      This text contains both footnotes and endnotes.

      The three footnotes are marked with an upper case letter
      (i.e., [A]).

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Merrill's English Texts

SHORT STORIES OF VARIOUS TYPES

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by

LAURA F. FRECK,
Head of the English Department in the High School, Jamestown, New York







[Illustration: JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE]



Charles E. Merrill Company
New York and Chicago




Merrill's English Texts


This series of books includes in complete editions those masterpieces
of English Literature that are best adapted for the use of schools and
colleges. The editors of the several volumes are chosen for their
special qualifications in connection with the texts issued under their
individual supervision, but familiarity with the practical needs of the
classroom, no less than sound scholarship, characterizes the editing of
every book in the series.

In connection with each text, the editor has provided a critical and
historical introduction, including a sketch of the life of the author
and his relation to the thought of his time, critical opinions of the
work in question chosen from the great body of English criticism, and,
where possible, a portrait of the author. Ample explanatory notes of
such passages in the text as call for special attention are supplied,
but irrelevant annotation and explanations of the obvious are rigidly
excluded.

CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY



Copyright, 1920
by Charles E. Merrill Co.




TO THE TEACHER


These stories have been chosen from authors of varied style and
nationalities for use in high schools. The editor has had especially in
mind students of the first year of the high school or the last year of
the junior high school. The plots are of various types and appeal to
the particular interests and awakening experiences of young readers.
For instance, there will be found among these tales the detective story
by the inimitable Conan Doyle; the true story of adventure, with an
animal for the central figure, by Katherine Mayo; the fanciful story by
the great stylist Hawthorne; tales of humor or pathos; of simple human
love; of character; of nature; of realism; and of idealism. The
settings give glimpses of the far West, the middle West, the East, of
several foreign countries, of great cities, of little villages, and of
the open country.

Each story should be read for the first time at a single sitting so
that the pupil's mind may receive the single dramatic effect in its
unity of impression as the author desired, and more especially that the
pupil may enjoy the story first of all as a story, not as a lesson. The
pupil of this age, however, will not arrive at the other desirable
points to be gained unless he then studies each story with the help of
the study questions, of the related biographical sketch, and of the
introductory notes, as the teacher feels they are needed for the closer
study of the particular story.

The stories may be studied happily in connection with the student's
composition work. For example, when he has read an adventure story and
his mind is stirred by it, why not assign for his next composition, a
story of an adventure in which he has been interested or has figured?
The mechanics of composition, moreover, are more interestingly learned
in connection with an admired author's work.

It is to be hoped that the students may be led to read other stories by
the same and by different authors. A supplementary list of short
stories has been added to the book for this purpose.


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgment for permission to use the stories printed in this book
is gratefully made to Doubleday, Page and Company for "The Gift of the
Magi" from _Stories of the Four Million_ by O. Henry; to Hamlin Garland
for "A Camping Trip" from _Boy Life on the Prairie_, published by
Harper and Brothers; to Henry Holt and Company for "A Thread without a
Knot" from _The Real Motive_, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher; to Charles
Scribner's Sons for "Friends" from _Little Aliens_ by Myra Kelly, and
for the story, "American, Sir," by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews; to
Booth Tarkington for "A Reward of Merit" from _Penrod and Sam_. The
stories by Katherine Mayo, Bret Harte, and Nathaniel Hawthorne are used
by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin
Company, the authorized publishers.

Special acknowledgment should be made to Mr.