Baumgartner Aims at Sarah in Marriage Pact for Meadow
In a Pennsylvania town the elderly Baumgartner longs to seize a meadow between his land and the railroad. He schemes through his son Sephenijah to win Sarah Pressel by courtship then marriage. Seffy, shy and dutiful, is enthralled by Sally, who leaps with life and temper, and a first kiss signals a changing turn.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Old Baumgartner
Baumgartner
Sarah Pressel
Lely
Sarah
Leffy
Cmtor
Seffy
Imself
Rally
Sally
Jeffy
Elysium
Sam
Rustic lovers clash as Sam foils escape from Sally and Seffy
In a tense parlor scene Sam pushes Seffy toward risk with testy jealousy while Sally plays to the crowd. Seffy and Sally confess deep feeling but Sam bars their union, leaving a field of pasture and a bruised boast behind as dawn nears.
Borrowed richness in the art of quotation and writing
The excerpt discusses mastering apt quotation and cultivating reader vanity as a way to sound learned. It urges using well chosen quotes to enrich prose, warns against overreliance on others, and cites classic sayings about reading and imitation to illustrate style improvement.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Bartlett
Gardeners of Literature
Borrowed Wit and Quotation in Essay Craft
A meditation on using others words to strengthen writing. The author argues borrowing boosts wit and style while warning against overreliance or revealing lack of original thought. It cites Shakespeare, Milton, Emerson, and the notion that a writer gains depth by quoting and remixing known ideas.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
John Milton
Emerson
Shakespeare
James Pott & Co
A Peculiar Morning Ride and a Ghostly Whistle
In a six acre field a man rides the plow around while singing. Leffy and Seffy cross paths with a wary old man who asks about a mysterious “sing” that seems to occur, and Seffy admits something always happens.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Leffy
Seffy
Betz
Milking machine experiment ends in crash for Pennsylvania boy
A young inventor in Pennsylvania builds a homemade milking machine and tests it on the family cow. The device provokes the cow and leads to a dirty, disheveled return home as the boy explains the contraption upset the calf and the animal.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Pennsylvania
Cherry
Jud
Not a Reformer Senate exchange reveals politics as capital
Senator Sorghum argues that showing opponents' errors would earn him no credit since they would adopt his suggestions and credit would go to others. He views the opposition's mistakes as part of his political capital.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Senator Sorghum
Old Lim Jacklin on Women Reformers and Love Powders
In this dialogue from Opie Read, Limuel Jacklin and his wife discuss women reformers, marriage, and gender roles. He lampoons era writers who pen about women, notes Patsy Page as a reformer, and argues that true virtue lies in loving mothers while men falter in speech and action.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Lim Jacklin
Opie Read
Samson
Patsy Page
Patsy
Zeb Collins
Satan
Mrs. Jacklin
Patsy Stripe
Nature
Also Mentioned on This Page
John Luther Long
Don Wilson
Ture
Sef
Sephenijah P
Loomis