Project Gutenberg's Stories by American Authors, Volume 9, by Various

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Title: Stories by American Authors, Volume 9

Author: Various

Release Date: February 6, 2010 [EBook #31194]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Stories by American Authors

VOLUME IX

_MARSE CHAN_
BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE

_MR. BIXBY'S CHRISTMAS VISITOR_
BY CHARLES S. GAGE

_ELI_
BY C. H. WHITE

_YOUNG STRONG OF "THE CLARION"_
BY MILICENT WASHBURN SHINN

_HOW OLD WIGGINS WORE SHIP_
BY CAPTAIN ROLAND T. COFFIN

"----_MAS HAS COME_"
BY LEONARD KIP

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1896

COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

_The Stories in this Volume are protected by copyright, and are
printed here by authority of the authors or their representatives._

[Illustration: Thos. N. Page]

MARSE CHAN.

A TALE OF OLD VIRGINIA.

BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE.

_Century Magazine April, 1884._

One afternoon, in the autumn of 1872, I was riding leisurely down
the sandy road that winds along the top of the water-shed between
two of the smaller rivers of eastern Virginia. The road I was
travelling, following "the ridge" for miles, had just struck me as
most significant of the character of the race whose only avenue of
communication with the outside world it had formerly been. Their once
splendid mansions, now fast falling to decay, appeared to view from
time to time, set back far from the road, in proud seclusion among
groves of oak and hickory now scarlet and gold with the early frost.
Distance was nothing to this people; time was of no consequence to
them. They desired but a level path in life, and that they had,
though the way was longer and the outer world strode by them as they
dreamed.

I was aroused from my reflections by hearing some one ahead of me
calling, "Heah!--heah-whoo-oop, heah!"

Turning the curve in the road, I saw just before me a negro standing,
with a hoe and a watering-pot in his hand