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- Surrounded by a group of children, poet James Whitcomb Riley narrates the story of Little Orphant Annie, who loses her mother at an early age and is sent to an orphanage. Annie charms the other children with her stories of goblins and elves until her uncle comes to claim her. He and her aunt force Annie into a life of drudgery, treating her so cruelly that Big Dave, a neighboring farmer, takes her from them and places her in the charge of the kindly Squire Goode and his wife. Big Dave, who intends to marry Annie, is called away to fight in World War I. When Annie hears the news that he has been killed, she pretends to be gravely ill but wakes up to learn that it has all been a dream.
- I.M. Mann, millionaire president of a large corporation, is known as "the man with the iron heart." James Boyd, cashier for Mann's corporation, is delayed one morning because of a dying mother, and is discharged. Then Boyd goes to Union headquarters with his story. The thousands of workmen employed by Mann finally reach the limit of endurance, and at a union meeting, resolve to demand increased wages, a cessation of child labor and other benefits, or strike. He refuses to hear a committee of workmen and says, "I'll close up the factories and let you starve." Boyd resolves to plead with Mrs. Mann for the workmen. He tells the wife, "Your husband holds the destiny of 50,000 people in his hands." Mann arrives at his palatial home at this moment. He is infuriated at the sight of Boyd. He strikes him and orders him thrown from the house. And then it is that Conscience appears to "the man with the iron heart." "Out of my heart forever, Conscience," exclaims Mann, but he is unable to stifle Conscience. Mrs. Mann leaves her stone-hearted husband, telling him that she will return when he resolves to grant the favors asked for by his workmen. Mann orders a strike breaker to fill his factories with non-union men by noon of tomorrow. At noon the following day, the union men march from the factories. They encounter the mob of strike breakers and a terrible conflict ensues in which the police are summoned, who with difficulty quell the rioters. Mann returns to his home and as he enters the threshold, he is shot by one of the rioters. Placed in his bed, Conscience appears before him in his delirium and also Death. He overcomes Death, but is unable to repulse Conscience. Conscience shows "the man with the iron heart" the scenes of suffering which he has caused, of his discharged cashier caring for the dying mother, the death of a little child, and of his wife pleading for leniency to the workmen. Overcome by Conscience, Mann is no longer known as "the man with the iron heart." He summons his wife to his bedside. He grants the request of his workmen and his reformation is complete.
- Part One. The first reel opens with the departure of the ship Pharaon from Marseilles, with Dantes and Danglars, the man who later incomes his deadly rival, as supercargo. During the voyage the captain dies. At the moment of his death he gives the charge of the ship to Dantes, and also entrusts to him the secret message to Napoleon, with the imperial ring which will admit him to private audience with the illustrious exile. Dantes succeeds in his mission to Napoleon, and sails back to France with a communication from Napoleon to Noirtier, who dispatched the original missive. On arrival at Marseilles, Danglars tries to get the command of the Pharaon away from Dantes, but Morrel, the ship owner, is well satisfied with Dantes, and gives him his captain's papers. Dantes, after an affectionate reunion with his old father, visits his sweetheart, Mercedes. Fernand, a fiery young fisherman, who has been trying to win her for himself, is much incensed at Dantes' return. He discovers Danglars' enmity for Dantes, and conspires with him and several habitues of the Reserve Inn to bring trumped up charges against Dantes. Their nefarious scheme succeeds so well that Dantes is torn from a jolly prenuptial feast by the magistrate's guards and hustled from the distracted Mercedes' side to a dungeon in the Chateau D'If, in Marseilles harbor. Part Two. The second reel depicts the awful years spent in the dungeon by Dantes. He grows grizzled, ragged and unkempt in the solitude. He manages finally to get into communication, through a secret passage, with a fellow prisoner, an old Abbe, who is being persecuted by political and religious enemies. The Abbe is an eccentric person, whose one thought in life is the recovery of immense buried riches, the key to the finding of which he holds in the form of an old chart. Finally the Abbe comes to die, and entrusts the chart to Dantes. After the discovery of the Abbe's corpse by the guards, and while the latter have gone out to fetch shots with which to weight the sack in which they have wrapped the Abbe preparatory to casting him into the sea, Dantes manages to drag the corpse into his own cell and substitute himself for the remains. He is cast from the parapet of the castle in the sack which is supposed to contain the dead body. He has supplied himself with a knife beforehand, and as the sack sinks Dantes rips it open and swims to an isolated rock, from the top of which he shouts, in his exultation over the escape: "The World is Mine!" Part Three. The third reel opens with the rescue of Dantes from the rock by a smuggler's schooner. During the cruise of the schooner, Dantes induces the captain to put him ashore on the isle of Monte Cristo, the spot named in the Abbe's chart as the depository of the hidden treasure. He discovers the exact cave and unearths the treasure. He makes his way to the mainland and lives in luxury among the Arabs, falling in love with the beautiful slave girl, Haidee. Captain Albert, of the French army, gets into difficulties during an attack upon his troops by the Arabs and Dantes, by his daring, saves his life. Albert, on taking his departure from Dantes' tent, thanks him profusely and invites him in Paris. Dantes, who has seen something familiar in the captain's face, starts when he reads his card, but promises, without comment, to attend the reception at Albert's. Dantes, in disguise, and known as the Count of Monte Cristo, visits Paris with Haidee. There he comes face to face with his old sweetheart, Mercedes, who has married his enemy, Fernand. Mercedes informs him that the young captain, Albert, is his own son. The final scene is a desperate duel between Dantes and Fernand, in which Fernand is killed.
- Jan, the hunter, is in love with Marie, a French-Canadian girl. The same charmer has captivated Otto, the driver of the Wilderness Mail, a vengeful and selfish individual. Mane has a half-sister, Joan, a decided contrast to her, a sweet lovable girl not ordinarily bold or aggressive, but when aroused firm to a finish. She resents the way her sister meets these two suitors, the one following the other, as quite unworthy of a modest woman and hotly tells her so. First comes good-natured Jan, who presents Marie with the pelt of a beautiful red-fox. He is hardly out of sight in the woods when the mail driver comes, and she greets him even more effusively with kisses. He also gives her a present. Joan, outraged by her demonstration, speaks to Marie sharply, and Otto tries to conciliate her, but she in shame and mortification, runs to the woods. Otto soon drives his dog team along down the snowy trail and meets Joan, roughly parleys with her and tries to kiss her. She struggles and screams. A little distance away in the woods, Jan is talking with some woodsmen. He hears Joan's cries and rushes to the rescue. Otto is so sorely worsted, he can hardly stand alone, but is helped to his feet by the two woodsmen as Jan takes the girl away. The news of Jan's victory has reached the settlement, and the next morning he is given a commission to get a letter through to Fort Hope before the Wilderness Mail reaches there, carrying advices that would rob a good man of his fortune. With a fresh dog team, and a big reward in view, Jan forges ahead, and overtakes the phlegmatic Otto idly dull from his beating. In crossing a frozen lake, Jan falls through. Otto passes on with a deaf ear to all his calls for help, sure that his enemy will perish miserably. Happily, Jan's dogs are more humane, and tugging at their lines move him to safety on firm ice. An outlaw lies in wait to rob the Wilderness Mail. He is about to shoot the advancing man when he discovers his mistake, for Jan is again ahead. He lets Jan pass by, but when Otto comes upon the scene, he kills him. Then he climbs a tree over the scene of the murder, and by dropping into the tracks of Jan, cunningly conceals his own trail. Soon two Northwest mounted police put in an appearance, find the body of Otto, and observing the trail of Jan, conclude he is the murderer. Jan, unconscious of the crime that has been committed, rushes on his way, delivers the packet entrusted to him, so that the good news gets there first, justice is done and the man's property is saved. He then recuperates after his long journey, takes the back trail home when he is met by the mounted police, who arrest him, accusing him of the murder of Otto. He denies the charge strenuously and rankling under the injustice of it, makes a stout resistance, but is eventually overcome and carried back to Fort Hope, bound as a prisoner. The news soon reaches the settlement and the lone cabin of the two sisters, Marie and Joan. The former immediately writes a bitter note to Jan, upbraiding him wrathfully as the murderer of the only man she ever loved. Joan is so firmly convinced of the innocence of Jan that she concludes to go to him, making a long journey over the lonely trail to Fort Hope. When she is admitted to the prisoner, he describes his trip in detail, how Otto left him to drown, and later tried to shoot him, but that he had gone on ahead unmindful of it. This reassures Joan more than ever that Jan is innocent. Thereupon she determines an investigation upon her own account, returns to the scene of the crime and, by studying the situation carefully, observes how the murderer climbed the tree, traversed the long branch, and dropped into the trail of the man ahead. She then follows the side trail which leads to the lonely cabin of the outlaw. Joan draws her revolver, enters the cabin and finds the outlaw befuddled in liquor, mussing over the plundered mail. She tries to arrest him, but drunk as he is, he makes resistance and endeavors to grapple with her. She shoots him in the arm, then binds his hands behind him and drives him before her back to the headquarters of the police where she delivers him as the real murderer. Hers was the most unusual and daring deed, and was highly commended by the authorities. Jan is released upon the confession of the outlaw, and the last scene shows Jan and Joan entering their own cabin in the dimming light, presumably after the service in the little church in the clearing where their wedding had been celebrated.
- Two women unknown to each other, in the early history of the nation, decide to make of their babies "hidden children," in accordance with the Indian custom of giving children to foster-parents until maturity. A girl and a boy thus "hidden," when informed of the truth, returned to their people and were expected by marrying to bring a fresh spirit into the tribe. Marie Loskiel, hard beset by the St. Regis Indians, gives her child, Euan, before she dies, to Guy Johnson, an English Colonial officer. He and Mayaro, a Sagamore of the Mohicans, who is Johnson's chief scout, take charge of the child. Jeanne de Contrecoeur, wife of the commandant of the French garrison at Lake George, amuses the officers and their wives by her gift of clairvoyance. She implores her husband not to go out to battle with the Indians, as she has a premonition that he will be killed, and that the child to be born will never know a father. But duty calls Capt. de Contrecoeur, and he is slain by the Iroquois. Jeanne herself is captured by them, and taken to the stronghold of the Six Nations at Catherinestown. The Erie sorcerer Amochol is about to sacrifice Jeanne's new-born daughter, Lois, to the Moon Witch, but she makes of Lois a "hidden child," sending her to a colonist named Calvert. Jeanne is about to be killed by Amochol when she correctly interprets a dream for him, and she becomes the White Sorceress of the Iroquois. Each year Jeanne sends secretly to little Lois a pair of moccasins, embroidered with a symbol indicating that she is a hidden child. Calvert cannot read the inscription, but when he dies he tells Lois of her origin, and it becomes the girl's one thought to find the trail to Catherinestown where her mother is held captive. Euan Loskiel, grown to manhood, is given a commission in Morgan's rifles as Lieutenant and Chief of Indian Scouts. General Sullivan wishes to crush the tribes of the Six Nations in the "Long House" of the Iroquois Confederacy, and the only man who can lead him to Catherinestown is Mayaro the Sagamore, whom Euan brings to the General, and the Sagamore becomes the trusted messenger of the northern Colonial army. Lois disguises herself as a camp-follower in rags to follow Euan, Mayaro and Lieut. Boyd to Catherinestown. Mayaro saves her from the insults of a drunken officer, and though she has thus far distrusted all men, she has complete faith in the Sagamore. He reads the message of the moccasins, discovering that she is a hidden child, and protects her from all the mischances of the journey. Euan Loskiel falls in love with this strange girl in rags, but it is with difficulty that he wins her confidence, since, wandering alone since Calvert's death, she has seen nothing but the baser side of men's natures. Finally, however, her fears are stilled by Euan's nobility of character, and she, Euan and Mayaro, become close friends, the red man and Euan going through the sacred ceremonial of the blood brotherhood. Lois at last confesses her love for Euan, but will not permit his caresses until she has found her mother. She undertakes the perilous journey into the heart of the Iroquois empire, following the army secretly, since they will not consent to her accompanying them on such a dangerous mission. Mayaro, who shares the secret, blazes the trail so that she may find the way. When she overtakes them, the Indians insist that the ceremony of the White Bridal be performed over these two sacred "hidden children," Lois and Euan. They reach Catherinestown in time to witness the Feast of the Dreams. Amochol is about to put the White Sorceress of the Iroquois (Jeanne de Contrecoeur) to death for interpreting ill fortune. Her prediction comes true when the warriors of the Six Nations defeated by Sullivan's men return. The executioner is about to strike her when his arm is transfixed by a shaft from Mayaro's bow. The priests take Jeanne prisoner, but Euan and Mayaro, following them to the Vale Yndaia, kill them and rescue her, and Mayaro slays Amochol in hand-to-hand combat. Lois is at last folded in the arms of the mother who has watched and waited for her all these years, and then Jeanne de Contrecoeur, having been reunited with her "hidden child," puts her hand in that of the gallant scout, Euan Loskiel, and their White Bridal is completed.
- When Amos Divine is retired with a meager pension, his spoiled wife Christina castigates him, but their optimistic daughter Mary Beth, who longs for a musical career, helps them economize. Meanwhile, composer Richard Warner arrives from Vermont, but his hopes of selling his ballads are dashed by publishers who want cheap, trashy melodies. Mary decides to rent the attic room, and Richard, hearing her play, takes it. After Richard accidentally starts a fire while raptly composing, Mary begins to fall in love. Penniless, Richard starts to asphyxiate himself, but Mary brings him biscuits and encourages him to persevere. After Mary finds Richard's song, "The Rainbow Girl," dedicated to his "Loved One," he explains that he cannot marry his sweetheart until he has made good. Mary jealously says that she too has a sweetheart, "Snookums," but they have quarreled. After Mary secretly sells Richard's song to a publisher, Richard, seeing her cry, sends flowers from "Snookums" to effect a reconciliation. When Mary reveals that there is no "Snookums," Richard confesses that Mary is his "rainbow girl," and they embrace.
- Etienne Cloquet, a young woodsman, is in love with Marie, the pretty daughter of Paul Le Groux, a salmon fisher. Etienne has such a sunny disposition that he has become generally known as "Etienne of the Glad Heart." Notwithstanding his sunny disposition, he has a fierce temper when aroused, so that those who know him realize that it will not do to press him too far. The plans for the marriage of the young couple have all been arranged, and Etienne goes to the lumber camp to put in a final winter with the expectation that he will have enough money saved in the spring so that he and Marie can marry. Olaf, a young trapper, is a handsome fellow, but unscrupulous. He chances on to the cabin of Paul, and becomes a boarder with the family. Naturally, he is attracted by Marie, and realizing her engagement to Etienne. plans to gain her affections. One of Etienne's accomplishments is the playing of the guitar, and it has been his custom to carry this instrument with him when he visited his sweetheart. They discover that Olaf is even a superior performer on the guitar, and Marie begins to show an interest in him as a result of his pleasant ways and musical skill. During Etienne's absence in the lumber camp Olaf makes progress in the winning of Marie, her parents being unsuspicious of the change in her affections. While Etienne is in the lumber camp he rescues an Indian named Peter from a terrible death, and Peter has become his faithful friend. Peter accompanies Etienne on his return from the lumber camp. Just about the time of Etienne's return, old Paul becomes suspicious of Marie, and discovers her in the act of sewing a tiny garment which confirms his suspicions that there is something wrong. Paul demands the attendance of Etienne, believing him to be the culprit, and wishing to bring him face to face with the disgraced girl. At the cabin door, they meet Olaf returning from a trapping trip. They face Marie and Paul commands that his daughter shall name her betrayer. Marie is overwhelmed with shame, and does not speak. Etienne, to whom the information is wholly new, at once grasps the situation, and springing upon Olaf, endeavors to kill him with his bare hands. Marie's mother intervenes and saves Olaf's life. The disgraced girl is driven from home, accompanied by Olaf, her betrayer. The home-like cabin of Paul becomes a place of sorrow. Etienne has lost his spirit, and one night he takes his beloved guitar into the woods and hides it. Peter, believing that Etienne will once more be happy, rescues the guitar and takes it to the cabin, unknown to Etienne. The love of the mother impels her to urge Etienne to undertake a search for Marie. She misses her only child, and her heart yearns for her. She has not had word of her for months, and does not know whether Marie be alive or dead. Etienne consults with his friend Peter, and it is finally decided that a search shall be made for the outcast girl. Peter finally locates the cabin in which Olaf and Marie are living. He accompanies Etienne to the place, and they find the couple inside. Olaf's heartless and brutal treatment of Marie enrages Etienne, but Peter restrains him. They watch the cabin in secret until Olaf goes for an inspection of his traps. Then they hurriedly enter the cabin, urge the overjoyed girl to escape under their protection and the three hasten away and embark in Peter's canoe for the return trip. They are going to take Marie back home. Olaf returns unexpectedly to the cabin a short time after their departure. He notes the absence of Marie and cannot understand it. His skill in woodcraft discloses the tracks of Marie and her two companions, and he follows the trail to the river. There he notes the marks which show that another canoe has been hauled up at the landing. Furious with rage, he springs into his canoe, and follows with all the haste and speed that his skill can supply. Down the winding river he follows the heavily loaded canoe containing the girl and her two friends. Etienne and Peter are also experts at the battle, but the added weight in their canoe renders their progress slower than that of their frantic pursuer. Olaf finally gets within range, and pulling his six-shooter, he empties it at the occupants of the canoe. They proceed uninjured, and throwing the now useless weapon away, he continues to paddle after them. The leading canoe is propelled to the shore, and Marie and Etienne disembark in haste. Olaf drifts past undecided as to what his next step shall be, but Peter, realizing what the friendship of Etienne means to him and what the despicable acts of Olaf in connection with Marie have meant to his friend, he dashes after Olaf, and upon arriving alongside, he launches himself like a catapult on the shoulders of the doomed Olaf, upsetting the canoe, and both floundering into the ice-cold stream. Peter returns alone. The anxious mother accepts the return of Marie with all of a mother's love. Gruff old Paul accepts the situation, while Etienne, with the sunshine once more in his heart, accepts his rescued guitar from the grinning Peter, and happy hearts beat once again.
- In the grounds of a sanitarium are gathered a number of mentally (but harmless) deranged patients. The most conspicuous is a tall tragedian. When he escapes from his keepers the superintendent concludes that he will naturally make his way to the theater in search of an engagement. The various managers are notified, and the first man that excites suspicion is Montgomery Irving, a poor actor of the antique type, who honestly and vociferously applies for a position. He does not understand why he is detained without a contract, and is about to pull the house down when the manager receives word that the real "dip" has been recaptured elsewhere.
- Opitsah (the sweetheart), a charming Indian maiden, while befriending the only white man, McGuire, who has ever acted decently to her, stops him from killing Jervis, her brutal assailant and eventually saves him from lynching. She loves McGuire, and lives with him, and keeps the secret of his mine, but he forgets all her devotion and leaves her to spend his fortune. He returns with his mother to the place where he struck it rich, and finds the faithful Opitsah and a little stranger. His mother urges an honorable marriage.
- Dick Carter, aged six, and an orphan, lives with his grandparents. The only resource of the family is the army pension of the old man. Just when the money is needed most, it is lost by the old veteran. The little boy, impressed by the magnitude of the job, writes a letter to Heaven for help, but, as he cannot reach the mall box, puts it into the slot of a hitching post. "The Noisy Six," the chief mischief makers of their college class, on a night raid, drag away the hitching post, and are much sobered when they intercept the letter of the orphan boy to Heaven. They return the post to its original location with a letter of reply enclosed. Then they follow the boy home and surreptitiously slip in the amount of money that was lost. The boy and old Carter are led to believe that the money has come straight from Heaven. "The Noisy Six" stopped their mischief-making for an errand of mercy, and impressed youth in the faith of the higher power.
- The fact that a picture producer has closely followed the text and spirit of a world's masterpiece in Chateaubriand's classic, "Atala," with an added charm in the reproduction of the illustrations of Gustavo Dore, one of the world's most imaginative artists, is sufficient to indicate this film is at once superb and distinctive. It would be impossible in the brief confines to give the full richness of this royal romance dealing with the fates of Atala and Chactas and the great warrior Outalissi who figure in the romantic days of St. Augustine, but the threads of the story have been tightened up and its period made more tense and vivid in this picture play. The heart-broken mother of Atala swears her daughter to virginal vows and the romance that follows the fair but unfortunate orphan is stirring and beautiful beyond the realms of conventional fiction.
- Huntington Morgan, a leading man "out of work," finds himself one day penniless and breakfast-less. This is his lucky day, however, and fortune leads him straight to a wallet containing several hundred dollars in greenbacks. The wallet was dropped by footpads, who had held up a wealthy real estate man named Aleshire. In the wallet is Aleshire's address. Aleshire, however, has recently rented his townhouse to a spinster, Miss Mahaffy, and has moved to a suburb. Overjoyed at his find, Morgan crosses the street toward a restaurant to stay the pangs of hunger. He is knocked down and rendered unconscious by a passing automobile. The owner of the car finds Aleshire's address in the wallet, concludes that the victim is the owner of the name, and forthwith transports him to the Aleshire townhouse. Miss Mahaffy is out. A maid, who has just been hired that day, allows the frightened car owner to deposit the injured actor in Miss Mahaffy's bed. Miss Mahaffy soon returns. Also Mr. Morgan awakes. He takes in the situation in a moment, and cleverly allows the flustered spinster to believe him to be Mr. Aleshire, whom she has never seen in person, having done business through his agent. The fun waxes fast and furious. Mr. Morgan's false pretenses are at last discovered, but he handles his discoverers so cleverly that he gets away with the roll of greenbacks after all.
- When Dr. Richard Crane brings home his girl-wife that has been presided over by his widowed sister, he assures the latter that she will still be mistress of the house, as his young wife knows little or nothing of domestic detail. It is not without concern that the elder woman, set in her ways, views the coming of the girlish stranger almost as an intruder. The bride enters the secret domain of the darkened old parlor, whisks off the covers from the beloved furniture that have guarded it for years against dust and use, and with one full sweep, robs the room of all its straight-laced arrangement. The climax comes, however, when the widow, on returning home, finds Claire, the young wife, and neighboring children she had lured to the house, romping about the beloved parlor. The outraged one, in her excitement, upsets the table that falls upon Claire's ankle, breaking a bone. Then Mrs. Sherman, the widow runs for the doctor. In rummaging for bandages in Claire's bureau drawer, she comes upon an infant's gown, sadly bungled in the cutting, pathetic in the awkward sewing, a furtive attempt made by Claire's unskilled but loving hands. Then memories flood upon the woman, softening her by the discovery, and when Claire is convalescing, the treasured scraps are brought from concealment and the reconciliation between the two women is complete. The whole story glows with heart interest.
- Carolyn Carter obeys the commands of her mother, who is socially ambitious, and marries John Fordyce, a wealthy, disreputable rounder. Carolyn soon discovers, as so many women have before her, that a loveless marriage for gold only causes sorrow. Matters go from bad to worse and finally Carolyn divorces Fordyce and goes away to live among the simple folk, between the mountains and the sea. There she meets Andres, a young shepherd, who is tending his flocks. Andres longs for an education and the beautiful stranger instructs him in book lore. Then it is that love enters the game and joins the hearts and hands of Andres, the shepherd, and Carolyn Carter, and finally she realizes her heart's desire of marriage for love and children.
- Anita, the belle of an inland hacienda, visits Pearl Harbor and is impressed with the desirability of gratifying her passion for pearls. A suitor for her hand learns of this and steals the votive offerings of the pearl fisheries at the cathedral shrine. Eventually the eyes of the ambitious, but thoughtless, young woman are opened to the impious seriousness of such an offense. She returns the jewels, and the young man is brought to reckoning for his recklessness.
- Lavinia is the favorite pupil in the high school of a small town. At the graduation exercises she is presented, by the school trustees, with a scholarship in Freshwater College, as a reward for her high standing as a student. Later she leaves alone for the city. At college she is thrown among girls who have come from wealthy homes and have enjoyed social advantages far above any which have come into her life. As a consequence, the simple, demure Lavinia is laughed at and snubbed. She retains her sweet nature through it all. One night there is a clandestine chafing dish party in the room of Betty, the ringleader of the "fashionable" set. All in the dormitory are invited except Lavinia. Thinking, in her simple-hearted way, that she has been overlooked by accident, she presents herself at the party and attempts to enter into the festivities with the others. She is received in an ironical manner, but the whole aspect of the situation is soon changed. During a pillow fight the lighted alcohol lamp is overturned and the room is ablaze in a moment, A panic ensues in which Lavinia proves herself a heroine, capping the climax of her daring, when it is discovered that one of the girls has been left unrescued, by climbing to the second story of the building by the waterspout and lowering the unfortunate to the ground in safety. In descending, the waterspout breaks away from the wall and Lavinia is precipitated to the ground, suffering terrible injury. The girls now realize the smallness of their own conduct and do everything to make amends to Lavinia. Her mother is brought to the city at their expense, and Lavinia is suitably rewarded.
- Hiram Hunt, a rube farmer of the very verdant variety, decides to buy an automobile. So he fills his pockets with greenbacks and visits town, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and his old chum and neighbor, Jacob Smith. The automobile agents soon learn of Hiram's presence and his desire, and they fairly mob him in their efforts to get his trade. The day's excitement finally ends disastrously for Hiram's pocket hook, and almost so for his life. He purchases the cheapest little old wheezy machine in town, and from the moment he starts off with it, his career is suggestive of a deliberate intention to murder his family and neighbor, and suicide away his own life. He finally runs the machine through a stout fence and into the side of a barn, where the whole works blow up; Jacob disappears skyward with the debris. Soon he falls from the sky, and is followed by various parts of the shattered auto. Hiram dolefully gathers up such parts of the machine as he can carry, and starts to walk home, a sadder but wiser rube.
- Carolyn Carter was the daughter of rich parents. Her mother was a typical worldly woman, a society leader, whose only aim in life was to dominate her social set and uphold her position in society. Little Carolyn was a warm-hearted child, whose sympathies were with children. In her early days she manifested this particularly, by her love of dolls, and her preference to play with them, dressing them and handling them as though they were really alive, and also, as she grew older, in making life pleasant for the little children in the neighborhood. As she grew in beauty, her inclination toward children seemed to increase. She had no sympathy with her mother's social ambitions, and as a consequence she felt lonely in the great big house with all its wealth of magnificent furnishings, pictures, etc., and she really had no person to whom she could look for sympathy and whose tastes were in accord with her. Mrs. Carter finally satisfies one of her great ambitions, which is to marry Carolyn to a wealthy roué Fordyce, and Carolyn finds her maidenly thoughts and ideals rudely shattered. Her home conditions become unbearable; she runs away from home and obtains a divorce. In the locality where she finds refuge from the frauds and shams of society, Carolyn becomes acquainted with a handsome shepherd, a magnificent specimen of manhood, but wholly without education. He has always been a student of nature, and his education has been of the heart instead of the mind. The natural affiliation of the two instinctively affectionate beings, culminates in a romance which presents one of the most beautiful pictures ever produced. It is filled with heart interest, and is one of the most remarkable exposures of the fallacies of society life ever produced. Of course, they are married and Carolyn realizes her great ambition, a little child blesses their union.
- Becoming dissatisfied with his quiet old country home, Henry Clark, who has achieved the degree of mining engineer, goes to a mining town, where he soon becomes infatuated with Mrs. Chris Hanson. Their clandestine meetings begin to pall the woman and they later advertise themselves by being together in a dance hall. Hanson, who has returned home unexpectedly, discovers that his wife has gone and traces her to the delectable place of the dance. Explanations are unsatisfactory and Hanson kills the young engineer. Probably through the "unwritten law," Hanson was not executed, but he was sent to the penitentiary for life and the unfaithful wife drifts out with the tide of oblivion. The news of her son's death prostrates Mrs. Clark and she lives with a desire to be avenged. Several years later Chris Hanson and others manage to escape from jail, and after shifting around from place to place for several days with hardly anything to eat or drink, Hanson, who had been able to evade his pursuers, falls exhausted at the feet of the gray-haired mother of the murdered boy. Observing from his dress that he is a fugitive, she covers him with the gun left her by her husband before he joined the posse in search of the escaped jailbirds. The wretched condition of the convict excites her pity and, bringing down her rifle, she goes into the house for food. This brings the man to a sense of gratitude and as he is eating he sobs out his story. It then dawns upon Mrs. Clark that the murderer of her son lies at her feet and she again raises her rifle, but again she lowers it. In answer to Mrs. Clark's question as to why she is unable to kill him, the fugitive replies, "Because I told you of my mother in far away Sweden, or perhaps you have a son of your own." The motherly instinct dominates and she aids the man to escape to his native land, Sweden, before her husband and posse return.
- The sunshine of Poverty Flat is Hope Anderson, an unsophisticated young girl, who disseminates joy and consolation among the neighbors, and in the darkest hours of her own discouragement she is happy. She lives with her decrepit father, a composer, who ekes out a scanty existence by teaching music. To the neighbors afflicted with poverty, she soothes and elevates their spirits by the songs coming from the harp her father has taught her to play. Although she is successful in ministrations to the poor, fate has decreed for Hope an abundance of trouble. One by one some of the strings of her harp break, and almost simultaneously with the severing of each, bitter disappointments and sorrow fall upon Hope. The breaking of the first string brings disappointment that she is unable to dispose of her father's latest composition; the second string snaps and with it comes the death of her father; then she loses her lover, whom she had saved from a drunkard's grave, and finally she becomes blind. The young man that had won her heart, Tom Franklin, through his former dissipated habits, is killed by the police. Hope still continues to be a messenger of peace and solace, and many a poverty-stricken home has found pleasure in listening to her songs. She contracts, in her ministrations to the sick, a malignant fever, from which she never recovers. As friends place in her dying hand the harp, the last cord snaps.
- Jorden Alden, a young American officer, is in love with Molly Brown, the daughter of a well-to-do New England farmer. Jorden is on a visit to the home of his loved one, when he receives a message from his general, instructing him to don the uniform of a British soldier, make his way through the British lines and report on the strength of their troops. Ho makes the change in uniforms and starts on his dangerous mission, leaving Molly broken-hearted. Before going Molly warns him to be most careful in returning, as British soldiers are constantly camping on their grounds. Molly agrees to warn Jorden, by a light signal. In case it is dangerous for him to return to the house. While Jorden is away the British quarter themselves in the Brown home. Molly is confined upstairs by force and is unable to warn her returning lover of his danger, as arranged. He is captured and is about to he shot, when Molly, who has, by a clever ruse, managed to escape, turns the tables on the British soldiers and Jorden is saved for the arms of his sweetheart.
- Robert Barker, the newly arrived missionary, bears gifts to King Lomba of the Bartosi tribe. The king accepts the gifts, but tells Barker, "The bones of our ancestors have told us that white men are traitors." Kahma, King Lomba's younger brother, is being educated at the mission. While hunting one day, he sees Grace, the daughter of the missionary, in line of fire and saves her life. The witch doctor decrees that Kahma be thrown into the jungle stockade. However, the wild animals do not harm him, and the king, after a sleepless night, liberates his brother. He finds the white man's Bible, which Kahma reads during the terrible night, and asks that his brother's friends be his friends.
- Five young men, hopeful and glorying in their strength, began buckling on the armor of the workaday world. The artist is for creative things; the doctor is aflame for science; the soldier observes the glories of the conquest; the hardy, wholesome farmer observes the advantages of useful life in supplying the world with substance; but, the financier tells how he will surpass them all in the accumulation of gold. With this engrossing incentive the picture follows his feverish ambition as he forgets his wife and family and soils the escutcheon of an honored name, with all joy in life subordinate to mere groveling after gold. He loses family and friends and grows more mean and miserly, until he finds himself in age, utterly alone, save for the valet he has schooled in his own mold. As he dreams alone by his fire he sees the group of early friends, and sees their success in the wider things of life. It so moves his conscience that he flings into the fire his only friend, money, and falls back dead. Then his miserly valet rushes in and wailing, snatches the charred remnants of a wasted life from the flames.
- Lillian Brown takes the story of "Little Red Riding Hood" to bed with her, intent upon reading it, but her mother finds her and turns out the light. When all is quiet, she takes out the book, turns on the light and reads the story to the end. She falls asleep and, impressed with her reading, dreams that she herself is the little heroine. Then all the incidents of the story are vividly revealed, including the adventures with the crafty and hungry wolf. Recoiling in terror from the dangerous situation, she rolls out of bed. Half awake, with the spell of the dream upon her, she imagines the wolf is still in her room. As she comes to herself she realizes that she has paid the penalty for naughtiness in disobeying her mother, and crawling back to bed, hides herself under the covers in childish contrition, and falls into peaceful slumber.
- Sammy, a good-natured, lazy, whimsical wandering minstrel has only one object in life, and that is to please himself with playing his flute. It gets him into manifold difficulties and it also extricates him from them, so that he is content to drift through life to the easy music of his own making. He becomes a stowaway in a ship, but escapes hard labor through his music. He joins an exploring expedition and captures the fancy of the queen of the jungle. His escape from her attentions is thrilling and amusing.