s, and, what is more, it lifts and chastens or
explains. It may be said with assurance that _Short Sixes_ marks one
of the high places which have been attained by the American short
story."[6]

Among Bunner's best stories are: _Love in Old Cloathes_ (September,
1883, _Century), A Successful Failure_ (July, 1887, _Puck_), _The
Love-Letters of Smith_ (July 23, 1890, _Puck_) _The Nice People_ (July
30, 1890, _Puck_), _The Nine Cent-Girls_ (August 13, 1890, _Puck_),
_The Two Churches of 'Quawket_ (August 27, 1890, _Puck_), _A Round-Up_
(September 10, 1890, _Puck_), _A Sisterly Scheme_ (September 24, 1890,
_Puck_), _Our Aromatic Uncle_ (August, 1895, _Scribner's_), _The
Time-Table Test_ (in _The Suburban Sage_, 1896). He collaborated with
Prof. Brander Matthews in several stories, notably in _The Documents
in the Case_ (Sept., 1879, _Scribner's Monthly_). His best collections
are: _Short Sixes: _Stories to be Read While the Candle Burns_ (1891),
_More Short Sixes _(1894), and _Love in Old Cloathes, and Other
Stories_ (1896).

After Poe and Hawthorne almost the first author in America to make a
vertiginous impression by his short stories was Bret Harte. The wide
and sudden popularity he attained by the publication of his two short
stories, _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ (1868) and _The Outcasts of Poker
Flat_ (1869), has already been noted.[7] But one story just before
Harte that astonished the fiction audience with its power and art was
Harriet Prescott Spofford's (1835- ) _The Amber Gods_ (January and
February, 1860, Atlantic), with its startling ending, "I must have
died at ten minutes past one." After Harte the next story to make a
great sensation was Thomas Bailey Aldrich's _Marjorie Daw_ (April,
1873, _Atlantic_), a story with a surprise at the end, as had been his
_A Struggle for Life_ (July, 1867, _Atlantic_), although it was only
_Marjorie Daw_ that attracted much attention at the time. Then came
George Washington Cable's (1844- ) _"Posson Jone',"_ (April 1, 1876,
_Appleton's Journal_) and a little later Charles Egbert Craddock's
(1850- ) _The Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove_ (May, 1878,
_Atlantic_) and _The Star in the Valley_ (November, 1878, _Atlantic_).
But the work of Cable and Craddock, though of sterling worth, won its
way gradually. Even Edward Everett Hale's (1822-1909) _My Double; and
How He Undid Me_ (September, 1859, _Atlantic_) and _The Man Without a
Country_ (December, 1863, _Atlantic_) had fallen compar