The Best Short Stories of and the Yearbook of the American Short Story Volume 1919 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... rattle of the loosened gravel as it slid from under the stone. Deems Lennon and his wife were awakened by a heavy crash. " What can it be? " he asked his wife, and then left the bed and ran up to Martha's room. She was gone. Instantly they were both fully awake. " It's Jim's grave she's gone to," ventured Deems. " Remember the way she said ' Oh ' that time I told how the rain loosened the stone? Come on, we 'll go see." In the dark when they were near the spot where the stone used to stand, they heard a moaning. They approached and found Martha caught under the stone, her body crushed, her dying breath coming slowly and heavily, carrying her words, " Let me go Jim, let me go " TO THE BITTER END1 By RICHARD MATTHEWS HALLET From The Saturday Evening Post THE feud between Hat Tyler and Mrs. Elmer Higgins sprang out of a chance laugh of Elmer's when he was making his first trip as cadet. Hat Tyler was a sea captain, and of a formidable type. She was master of the Susie P. Oliver, and her husband, Tyler, was mate. They were bound for New York with a load of paving stones when they collided with the coasting steamer Alfred de Vigny, in which Elmer was serving his apprenticeship as a cadet officer. The old cadet had just come up on the bridge from taking a sounding--he even had a specimen of the bottom in his hand, he said later, sand with black specks and broken shell--when something queer attracted his attention half a point on the starboard bow. It was a thick foggy night, ships bellowing all round, and a weird-looking tow coming up astern with a string of lights one over another like a lot of Chinese lanterns. It was probably these lights that had drawn the mate's attention away from the ship's bows. At all events he was standing with a...