Soon Tommy’s parents, who had recently separated, would arrive for a conference on his failing schoolwork and disruptive behavior. Neither parent knew that I had summoned the other.Tommy, an only child, had always been happy, cooperative, and an excellent student. How could I convince his father and mother that his recent failing grades represented…
In the village a woman was giving birth to her child and as it was a difficult birth the relatives waited for many hours. So they sent for the Hodja. He came, listened to their story and went away. He returned in a few moments with a toy that made a squeaking sound. They…
Kino, a young pearl diver in La Paz, enjoys his simple life until the day his son, Coyotito, is stung by a scorpion. The wealthy town doctor will not treat the baby because Kino cannot pay the doctor’s fee, so Kino and his wife, Juana, are left only to hope their child is saved….
The life of the Morel family is unhappy, tense, and uneasy. The Morels live in a mining town in the countryside. Walter Morel is a miner, and he and his wife, Gertrude, have two children, William and Annie, and are expecting their third child. When their third child, Paul, is born, Mrs. Morel does…
A child was standing on a street-corner. He leaned with one shoulder against a high board-fence and swayed the other to and fro, the while kicking carelessly at the gravel. Sunshine beat upon the cobbles, and a lazy summer wind raised yellow dust which trailed in clouds down the avenue. Clattering trucks moved with…
It is 1801 and Thrushcross Grange has a new tenant, Mr. Lockwood. He visits his landlord, Mr. Heathcliff, who lives at Wuthering Heights, the neighboring property. Mr. Heathcliff is out, and his young relatives, Mrs. Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw, are very disagreeable. It starts to snow, but no one is willing to help Mr….
Sherlock Holmes was a man who seldom took exercise for exercise’s sake. Few men were capable of greater muscular effort, and he was undoubtedly one of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen; but he looked upon aimless bodily exertion as a waste of energy, and he seldom bestirred himself…
Before Silas Marner had settled in the village of Raveloe, he had lived in Lantern Yard. Silas had left Lantern Yard because he had been falsely accused of stealing – and because his friend, William Dane, had betrayed his trust by accusing him and marrying Silas’s fiancee, Sarah. When Silas settles in Raveloe, he…
My mother was twice married. She never spoke of her first husband, and it is only from other people that I have learnt what little I know about him. I believe she was scarcely seventeen when she was married to him: and he was barely one-and-twenty. He rented a small farm up in Cumberland,…
