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Excerpt: ...had not understood her at that big brick orphan home. No wonder she had hated it. Little as she was, she was too big for it. She was in a mood to torment herself that night and she lay awake to listen for that dread voice from across the woods. She lay on her left side so they would have good luck next day. She was greatly overwrought and when at last she did hear the sound, loud and heartless with its sudden beginning and sudden end, it startled and terrorized her as if it were indeed that gloomy, windowless equipage of the State Orphan Home, coming to take her away. She pushed her little fingers into her ears so that she could not hear it. . . . CHAPTER XX AN OFFICIAL REBUKE As for Pee-wee, his trouble was quite of another character. The dubious outlook for their great enterprise did not submerge his buoyant spirit. He had been the genius of many colossal enterprises, most of them falling short of his glowing predictions, and his ingenious mind passed from one thing to another with no lingering regrets. He usually invested so much enthusiasm in organization that he had none left for maintenance. He did not stick at anything long enough to be disappointed in it; there were too many other worlds to be conquered. His heart was no longer in the refreshment parlor and he was already finding solace in becoming his own solitary customer, by eating the taffy which he could not sell. There had been so few things in Pepsy\'s poor little life that she had put her whole intense little heart and soul in this and was resolved that this hero from the great world of Bridgeboro should buy the tents which in plain fact he had already forgotten about. So it happened that while Pepsy was lying on her left side (one of Licorice Stick\'s prescriptions) to insure good luck for the morrow, Pee-wee was dangling his legs from the counter eating a doughnut. What concerned him now was this mystery of the speeding cyclists. That was the big thing in his young life. He believed...

Roy Blakeley, Lost, Strayed or Stolen By Percy Keese Fitzhugh

PREFACE. Several persons have asked me when Tom Slade was ever going to grow up and cease to be a Scout. The answer is that he is already grown up and that he is never going to cease to be a Scout. Once a Scout, always a Scout. To hear some people talk one would think that scouting is like the measles; that you get over it and never have it any more. Scouting is not a thing to play with, like a tin steam-engine, and then to throw aside. If you once get caught in the net of scouting, you will never disentangle yourself. A fellow may grow up and put on long trousers and go and call on a girl and all that sort of thing, but if he was a Scout, he will continue to be a Scout, and it will stick out all over him. You\'ll find him back in the troop as assistant or scoutmaster or something or other. I think Tom Slade is a very good example. He left the troop to go and work on a transport; he got into the motorcycle messenger service; he became one of the greatest daredevils of the air; he came home quite "grown up" as you would say, and knuckled down to be a big business man. Then, when it came to a show down, what did he do? He found out that he was just a plain Scout, shouldered his axe, and went off and did a big scout job all alone. So there you are. I am sorry for those who would have him too old for scouting, and who seem to think that a fellow can lay aside all he has learned in the woods and in the handbook, the same as he can lay aside his short trousers. It isn\'t as easy as all that. Did you suppose that Tom Slade was going to get acquainted with nature, with the woods and streams and trees, and make them his friends, and then repudiate these friends? Do you think that a Scout is a quitter? Tom Slade was always a queer sort of duck, and goodness only knows what he will do next. He may go to the North Pole for all I know. But one thing you may be sure of; he is still a Scout of the Scouts, and if you think he is too old to be a Scout, then how about Buffalo Bill? The fact is that Tom is just beginning to reap the real harvest of scouting. The best is yet to come, as Pee-wee Harris usually observes, just before dessert is served at dinner. If it is any satisfaction to you to know it, Tom is more of a Scout than at any time in his career, and there is a better chance of his being struck by lightening than his drifting away from the troop whose adventures you have followed with his. It is true that Tom has grown faster than his companions and found it necessary to go to work while they are still at school. And this very circumstance will enable us to see what scouting has done for him. Indeed if I could not show you that, then all of those eight stores of his adventures would have been told to little purpose. The chief matter of interest about a trail is where it leads to. It may be an easy trail or a hard trail, but the question is, where does it go to? It would be a fine piece of business, I think, to leave Tom sitting on a rock near the end of the trail without giving you so much as a glimpse of what is at the end of it....

The night was bleak and cold. All through the melancholy, cheerless day, the first chill of autumn had been in the air. Toward evening the clouds had parted, showing a steel-colored sky in which the sun went down a great red ball, tinting the foliage across the river with a glow of crimson. A sun full of rich light but no heat. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Winnifred Burton sat all alone in the pleasant sitting-room, curled up in an easy-chair so large that her little figure was almost lost in its great depths. The fire in the open grate burned brightly, sending out little tongues of flame which made dancing shadows on the walls and ceiling, and flashed ever and anon on the bright hair and face and dress of the little girl sitting so quiet before it.

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Percy Keese Fitzhugh was a very popular 20th century American author who wrote over 100 kids books, many of which are still read by young readers today.