Stories by
American Authors
VOLUME IX
| MARSE CHAN | YOUNG STRONG OF “THE CLARION” | |
| BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE | BY MILICENT WASHBURN SHINN | |
| MR. BIXBY’S CHRISTMAS VISITOR | HOW OLD WIGGINS WORE SHIP | |
| BY CHARLES S. GAGE | BY CAPTAIN ROLAND T. COFFIN | |
| ELI | “——MAS HAS COME” | |
| BY C. H. WHITE | BY LEONARD KIP |
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1896
Copyright, 1885, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
copyright, and are printed here by authority of the authors or their representatives.
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 thesandy road that winds along the top of the water-shed between two ofthe smaller rivers of eastern Virginia. The road I was travelling,following “the ridge” for miles, had just struck me as mostsignificant of the character of the race whose only avenue ofcommunication with the outside world it had formerly been. Their oncesplendid mansions, now fast falling to decay, appeared to view fromtime to time, set back far from the road, in proud seclusion amonggroves of oak and hickory now scarlet and gold with the early frost.Distance was nothing to this people; time was of no consequence to[Pg 6]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 theydreamed.
I was aroused from my reflections by hearing some one ahead of mecalling, “Heah!—h