The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1921-07-26
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WHAT GRANDPAP READ

American classics are the dryest reading in
the world. To force boy to spend bright, sun
shiny days perusing Emerson. or Jonathan Ed
wards or Nathanial Hawthorne, or the early poets
with a few notable exceptions would be nact
of cruelty calling for interference by the humane
officer And, noting the tediousness, verbosty,
pedantry and strained morality of the books which
have been handed down from fifty years or more
ago, the boy naturally assumes that grandpap had
a dull time of it.
But there is where he is mistaken. The books
that grandpap actually actually read are not pre-
served in expurgated Libraries nor included in Dr.
Elliot's five foot shelf. The old gentleman had
lively stuff to while away the hours.
If he liked adventure, he had a wonderful field
opened to him by concern which did business as
"Beade and Adams Beadles Dime Series
contained book length stories, in pamphlet form,
for ten cents each, postage prepaid The half
dime series contained briefer stories, adapted to
shorter purses.
And they were redbooded tales, too, and
some of them by authors who enjoyed wide fame
There long list of romances by Capt. Mayne
Reid, including such thrilling titles as the Scalp
Hunters" The Hcadess Horseman," The
War Trail. Cooper's novels were on the list A
French writer, under the name of Gustavc Armand
enlightened the reader on the dangers Of western
life, while Ned Buntlne' brought the sea, with
all It's pirates, to the humbles home Then, in
another series, we're the tales CT Emerson Ben
nett, one of the most prolific of American writers,
whose plainsmen, detectives, highwaymcn and ad-
venturers romped over the frontiers with an abandon
which modern writers seem unable 10 command
But for genuine interest, nothing has even beaten
William H. Thomes. His masterpiece was "A
Gold Hunters Adventures in Australia, with its
sequel, The Bushrangers," which presented
new and fascinating field, flowing with gore, and
glistenng with gold nuggets
There plenty more of the same sort The
Saturday Night, and Street & Smiths New
York Weekly, at one time, almost monopolized
the serial story trade and fed their eager readers
with mystery, detection, murder, robbery, adven-
ture with Indians pirates, bandits and burglars,
in weekly instalmcns, on scale which makes
the modern penny dreadful look like Sunday
School prattlc. Perhaps some reader can recall
Nick Whites, the Nor west Trappcr."
Grandma too, had resources equal, at least,
to those of her more sophisticated descendants
There the Seaside Library" for example,
with its cheap and priceless treasures to stir her
maiden heart. How she wept over the Children
of The Abbey, and grew melancholy in the con-
temptation of East Lynne" and went into rap
lures over, the romances Of Mrs. f. D. f. N.
Southworth and May Agnes Fleming and Bertha
M. Clay, and Mary j. Holmes And, if she did
not live too far back in antiquity; she grew high
proved and mystic and morbid over st Elmo
and "Beulah' and those ether amazing produc-
lions by Mrs. Wilson. She read The Lamplight-
er." and, if she happened to live on the wrong