| ALEXANDER’S BRIDGE by Willa Cather |
| CHAPTER I |
| CHAPTER II |
| CHAPTER III |
| CHAPTER IV |
| CHAPTER V |
| CHAPTER VI |
| CHAPTER VII |
| CHAPTER VIII |
| CHAPTER IX |
| CHAPTER X |
| EPILOGUE |
| THE BARREL ORGAN by Alfred Noyes |
Late one brilliant April afternoon Professor Lucius Wilson stood at the head ofChestnut Street, looking about him with the pleased air of a man of taste whodoes not very often get to Boston. He had lived there as a student, but fortwenty years and more, since he had been Professor of Philosophy in a Westernuniversity, he had seldom come East except to take a steamer for some foreignport. Wilson was standing quite still, contemplating with a whimsical smile theslanting street, with its worn paving, its irregular, gravely colored houses,and the row of naked trees on which the thin sunlight was still shining. Thegleam of the river at the foot of the hill made him blink a little, not so muchbecause it was too bright as because he found it so pleasant. The fewpassers-by glanced at him unconcernedly, and even the children who hurriedalong with their school-bags under their arms seemed to find it perfectlynatural that a tall brown gentleman should be standing there, looking upthrough his glasses at the gray housetops.
The sun sank rapidly; the silvery light had faded from the bare boughs and thewatery twilight was setting in when Wilson at last walked down the hill,descending into cooler and cooler depths of grayish shadow. His nostril, longunused to it, was quick to detect the smell of wood smoke in the air, blendedwith the odor of moist spring earth and the saltiness that came up the riverwith the tide. He crossed Charles Street between jangling street cars andshelving lumber drays, and after a moment of uncertainty wound into BrimmerStreet. The street was quiet, deserted, and hung with a thin bluish haze. Hehad already fixed his sharp eye upon the house which he reasoned should be hisobjective point, when he noticed a woman approaching rapidly from the oppositedirection. Always an interested observer of women, Wilson would have slackenedhis pace anywhere to follow this one with his impersonal, appreciative glance.She was a person of distinction he saw at once, and, moreover, very handsome.She was tall, carried her beautiful head proudly, and moved with ease andcertainty. One immediately took for granted the costly privileges and finespaces that must lie in the background from which such a figure could emergewith this rapid and elegant gait.