Published in 1909, this classic romance is set in Ithaca, New York. Living in a squatters shanty, shunned by the upstanding folk of Ithaca, Tessibel is nonetheless shocked when her father, a fisherman, is accused of murder. Barefoot, beautiful, and innocent, Tess sets out to clear his name. Along the way, she meet a Cornell man. Tess lives in a rotting shanty surrounded by fish bones. Her education is minimal. Her best friend is a toad. How can she compare with the brainy beauties he squires around? There is a sequel, The Secrets of the Storm Country. The book has been made into a movie starring Mary Pickford. Original version illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.

When a husband is stricken with grief over his wife's death, he kidnaps the twin children of the man he believes responsible. From the Valley of the Missing by Grace Miller White is a suspenseful and chilling story about the power of resentment and two children's drive to survive. Excerpt: Git git up! He stuttered; and for some minutes the boat moved silently, save for the swish of the water and the patter of the mules' feet on the narrow path by the river.

The lazy warmth of a May afternoon, the spring following Orn Skinner's release from Auburn Prison, was reflected in the attitudes of three men lounging on the shore in front of "Satisfied" Longman's shack. At their feet, the waters of Cayuga Lake dimpled under the rays of the western sun. Like a strip of burnished silver, the inlet wound its way through the swamp from the elevators and railroad stations near the foot of south hill. Across the lake rose the precipitous slopes of East Hill, tapestried in green, etched here and there by stretches of winding white road, and crowned by the buildings on the campus of Cornell University. Stretched from the foot of State Street on either side of the Lehigh Valley track lay the Silent City, its northern end spreading several miles up the west shore of the Lake. Its inhabitants were canalers, fishermen and hunters, uneducated, rough and superstitious. They built their little huts in the simplest manner out of packing boxes and rough lumber and roofed them with pieces of tin and sheet iron. Squatters they were appropriately named, because they paid no attention to land titles, but stuck their shacks wherever fancy indicated or convenience dictated.

Amusing WWI patriotic & class struggle, ethnic plot. Novel starts in 1917 at McKinney's Point on the east shore of Lake Cayauga near Rogues' Harbor. Senator Roderick Kingsland had a secret fear of visiting this place while remembering a crime seventeen years old. Setting crooked things straight is neither simple nore easy. The declaration of war would bring his son home from Germany, the country where the motherless young man had spent much time with relatives.

Excerpt from The Shadow of the Sheltering Pines: A New Romance of the Storm Country Another Winter had lifted its icy fingers from the Storm Country and Lake Cayuga, and arr early spring had brought from the south the red breasted robins and thousands of other birds to build their homes in the Forest City, as Ithaca, New York, is called. No wonder the name had been given to the quiet town of people, for to the south, the cast, the west, and even to the north Where the lake cut sharply around a corner, broad forests stretched their lengths and heights of leaf and bough on miniature mountains.

Excerpt from Storm Country Polly Shut the door! He shouted at her. Where's your manners, Polly Hopkins? Can't you see the rain's coming in after you?