The Red Cross Girl

Short stories from a literary ancestor to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The title story is the quintessential Harding Davis romance of superior beings: Sister Anne isn't really a Red Cross girl but in fact a wealthy heiress with an English lordfor a suitor; Sam Ward is a reporter (like Davis), the best one in New York of course, wide-shouldered and 'almost illegally good-looking.'

'The Grand Cross of the Crescent' is a wonderfully satisfying feel-good story about a crusty old professor who fails the son of the college's leading patron and loses his job as a result. Through bribery, publicity and a game of cards with a Turkish prince the son gets the don his job back, a rise, and international acclaim to boot!

'The Invasion of England' happened in 1911 and began because 'some week-end guest of the East Cliff Hotel left a copy of “The Riddle of the Sands” in the coffee-room.' It failed because another invasion took place on the same night. An infectious student rag comedy.

In 'Blood Will Tell' the unlikely hero David Greene went 'to bed a timid, near-sighted, underpaid salesman without a relative in the world, except a married sister in Bordentown, and he awoke to find he was a direct descendant of “Neck or Nothing” Greene, a revolutionary hero, a friend of Washington.' All very well, until his fiancée expects him to act up to his heroic ancestry.

'The Sailorman' is another romance between a gilded couple, 'The Naked Man' a fun escaped convict story. On a boat trip across the Atlantic a doctor becomes acquainted with a swindler as pathetic as he is brazen in 'The Card-Sharp.'

At one point in 'The Mind Reader' a reporter gets good advice that the author himself may have had when he started out: 'if you are doomed to write only of what you see, then the best thing for you to do is to see as many things as possible.' He does better, he reads minds.

Last but not least 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' is a virtual rewrite of the classic yarn. After being inspired by a lecture from a war correspondent warning about German spies, a young man is determined to prove that 'a boy scout with badges on his sleeve for “stalking” and “path-finding,” not to boast of others for “gardening” and “cooking,” can outwit any spy.'

Contents    
The Red Cross girl -- The Grand Cross of the Crescent -- The invasion of England -- Blood will tell -- The sailorman -- The mind reader -- The naked man -- The boy who cried wolf -- The card-sharp.