Sewell Ford

Sewell Ford (1868-1946) was an American prolific author who wrote Horses Nine: Stories of Harness and Saddle (1903), Shorty McCabe (1906), Cherub Divine (1907), Side-Stepping with Shorty (1908), Torchy (1911), Trying Out Torchy (1912), Odd Numbers (1912), On With Torchy (1914), Torchy, Private Sec. (1915), Shorty McCabe on the Job (1915), Wilt Thou Torchy (1917), The House of Torchy (1918), Torchy and Vee (1919) and Torchy as a Pa (1921).

Some of these stories were written while the Great War was still on. So the setting and local coloring and atmosphere and all that sort of thing, such as it is, came from those strenuous days when we heroic civilians read the war extras with stern, unflinching eye, bought as many Liberty bonds as we were told we should, and subscribed to various drives as cheerfully as we might. Have you forgotten your reactions of a few short months ago? Perhaps then, these may revive your memory of some of them. You may note with disappointment that Torchy got no nearer to the front-line trenches than Bridgeport, Conn. That is a sentiment the writer shares with you. But the blame lies with an overcautious government which hesitated, perhaps from super-humane reasons, from turning loose on a tottering empire a middle-aged semi-literary person who was known to handle a typewriter with such reckless abandon. And where he could not go himself he refused to send another. So Torchy remained on this side, and whether or not his stay was a total loss is for you to decide.

I forget just what it was Vee was rummagin' for in the drawer of her writin' desk. Might have been last month's milk bill, or a stray hair net, or the plans and speci-fications for buildin' a spiced layer cake with only two eggs. Anyway, right in the middle of the hunt she cuts loose with the staccato stuff, indicatin' surprise, remorse, sudden grief and other emotions. "Eh?" says I. "Is it a woman-eatin' mouse, or did you grab a hatpin by the business end?" "Silly " says she. "Look what I ran across, Torchy." And she flips an engraved card at me. I picks it on the fly, reads the neat script on it, and then hunches my shoulders. "Well, well " says I. "At home after September 15, 309 West Hundred and Umpty Umpt street. How interestin' But who is this Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton Porter Blake, anyway?

Torchy, Private Sec. by Sewell Ford

The Paladins of Edwin the Great by Clements R. Markham

Excerpt: ...when to be silent,

The Essays of Montaigne, Volume 14 by Michel de Montaigne

Coniston -- Complete by Winston Churchill

Wakulla: a story of adventure in Florida by Kirk Munroe

A Manual of Elementary Geology by Charles Lyell

Mrs. Falchion, Volume 1. by Gilbert Parker

The Smuggler Chief by Gustave Aimard

Green Eyes by Roy J. Snell

Diary of a U-Boat Commander by Anonymous