Thomas Thompson

I once knew an unimportant man who lived in a village near Kilimanjaro, where he sewed uniforms for the officers. He was a splendid tailor but he did not want to settle for that, so he spent his other hours pushing back the brush and the wait-a-minute thorns—so called because when one snared...

The soft summer wind abruptly died and it became eerily still, almost an omen. James Fisher stood in the bow pulpit of the thirty-one-foot trimaran he had built with his own hands, and he called out mightily to the God who dominated all of his days and nights. "Dear Lord," he cried, his voice...

Duke was a wild Canada gander who once lived at Little Lakes, the author's home in Wisconsin. He had come down with a flock that settled among the trout ponds. There he found a mate, but Duchess was pinioned and could not fly. On bright, clear days when the migrant flocks lifted, Duke longed to...