The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Conquest of Canaan, by Booth Tarkington

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Title: The Conquest of Canaan

Author: Booth Tarkington

Posting Date: October 9, 2008 [EBook #483]
Release Date: April, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN ***

Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines

THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN

BY

BOOTH TARKINGTON

To
L.F.T.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. ENTER CHORUS
II. A RESCUE
III. OLD HOPES
IV. THE DISASTER
V. BEAVER BEACH
VI. "YE'LL TAK' THE HIGH ROAD AND I'LL TAK' THE LOW ROAD"
VII. GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME
VIII. A BAD PENNY TURNS UP
IX. OUTER DARKNESS
X. THE TRYST
XI. WHEN HALF-GODS GO
XII. TO REMAIN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE IS NOT ALWAYS A VICTORY
XIII. THE WATCHER AND THE WARDEN
XIV. WHITE ROSES IN A LAW-OFFICE
XV. HAPPY FEAR GIVES HIMSELF UP
XVI. THE TWO CANAANS
XVII. MR. SHEEHAN'S HINTS
XVIII. IN THE HEAT OF THE DAY
XIX. ESKEW ARP
XX. THREE ARE ENLISTED
XXI. NORBERT WAITS FOR JOE
XXII. MR. SHEEHAN SPEAKS
XXIII. JOE WALKS ACROSS THE COURT-HOUSE YARD
XXIV. MARTIN PIKE KEEPS AN ENGAGEMENT
XXV. THE JURY COMES IN
XXVI. "ANCIENT OF DAYS"

THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN

I

ENTER CHORUS

A dry snow had fallen steadily throughout the still night, so that when
a cold, upper wind cleared the sky gloriously in the morning the
incongruous Indiana town shone in a white harmony--roof, ledge, and
earth as evenly covered as by moonlight. There was no thaw; only where
the line of factories followed the big bend of the frozen river, their
distant chimneys like exclamation points on a blank page, was there a
first threat against the supreme whiteness. The wind passed quickly
and on high; the shouting of the school-children had ceased at nine
o'clock with pitiful suddenness; no sleigh-bells laughed out on the
air; and the muffling of the thoroughfares wrought an unaccustomed
peace like that of Sunday. This was the phenomenon which afforded the
opening of the morning debate of the sages in the wide windo