Short stories around 14 minutes

A boy keeps meeting a rat who promises they will soon be married.

HEMPEL watched the hands of the clock make all the motions of the hour, and he fixed his mind on the women. But his wife alarmed him by laughing softly and long, and then abruptly kissing him, and...

A farmer had three sons and the oldest son's tree fell pointing north. The youngest son went where his tree pointed and found a pretty little song that cheered him up. The older brothers boasted...

Mikko, the only son of an old woodsman, went out to the woods after his father's death and found a little red Fox. The Fox hid his bushel measure in the woods and stuck various coins in the cracks...

I am not used to writing for print, but have been called 'Old John' since I was nineteen. I have ten children, six of whom are living. I am not a Chartist, and I never was, but a friend of mine...

On a certain Sunday, I formed one of the congregation assembled in the chapel of a large metropolitan Workhouse. There were several evil-looking young women, beetle-browed young men, aged people,...

My uncle lay with his eyes half closed, but I was lying with my eyes wide open, and I made up my mind to think about Sleep. Her Majesty Queen Victoria has fallen, Winking Charley has been...

He lived on the bank of a mighty river, which was always silently rolling on to a vast undiscovered ocean. He worked very hard to live, and had no prospect beyond this destiny. The Bigwig family...

The bore is a good-hearted man with an equable voice that never travels out of one key or rises above one pitch. Our bore was in Italy when he discovered a dreadful picture, and later took Blumb,...

Our honourable friend has been triumphantly returned to serve in the next Parliament. He has issued an address of congratulations to the Electors and has given bushels of votes. The member for...

We went to look at the school and found that the Railway had cut it up root and branch. We infer that neither he nor we can have loved Miss Frost. The School that was Our School before the Railroad...

Our Vestry is a deliberative assembly of the utmost dignity and importance. Two eminent volunteers assist in our deliberations. One of our first orators, MR. MAGG, adverted to this important public...