Short Fiction Tarkington, Booth: Nine Tales. v1. 29 March 2012

[GrannyGrump]

Nine short stories. The first six are light and humorous; the last three take a much more serious look at their subjects.

MARY SMITH
A university student falls in love with the girl of his dreams while traveling home for summer break.

THE FAIRY CORONET
17-year-old William Baxter (known to readers of "Seventeen") and his friend Johnnie, moping after the departure of their beloved, "Miss Pratt", become enthralled by an actress.

TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION
A delightful send-up of adventure/romance novels -- and their authors.

THE SPRING CONCERT
Lucius Allen plays cupid to a young man who believes he has a "hereditary" drinking problem. A charming little tale.

MARJORIE JONES' PICNIC
A Penrod story - the gang's adventures on a visit to a farm. (Warning - this includes an unfortunate segment laced with racial pejoratives)

PENROD -- ZOOLOGIST
"For a boy, summer-time is the period of highest scientific interest; it is the bug season." Penrod and Sam set out to create snakes from horse-tail hairs.

THE SECOND NAME
A look at the adverse effects of industrialization and growth on a small mid-western city and its inhabitants.

BRUDIE'S PICKLE
A middle-class German-American youth courts an upper-class girl, and meets the prejudices and snobberies between different social strata -- in both directions.

CAPTAIN SCHLOTTERWERZ
First- and second-generation German-Americans try to cope with living in an unfriendly America during World War I.

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I particularly liked the first, third, and fourth stories.

Text is based on rather poor OCR scans; please report any errors I missed -- it would be a kindness.

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