Cinderella and other stories by Richard Harding Davis

I want to get some classics and children's books read because there are so many that I have not read. I sort of have to bribe myself into reading them, because there are so many other books that I want to read. But, they are classics for a reason, so Try I will!

Cinderella

I thought that this whole book was Cinderella, and that it was THE Cinderella. It is not, however. I read it anyway and enjoyed it immensely. It was rather hilarious actually.
It was set in America, and there was a servant's ball. At this ball was a woman that although her name was Annie, was called Cinderella. She danced beautifully.
It was remniscent of Pygmalion in that there are two men that have decided to make a lady out of a servant type girl. I do love that we see the other side of it. Who's to say she wasn't perfectly happy in the life that she was already living? Who's to say that changing her life so dramatically will actually benefit HER instead of just being a whim that these two men take.
The humor in this story was fantastic, I loved it. I also like the story line alot. I like things that are a little bit different than what you'd expect.
I still want to read the real Cinderella, but I am very happy that I found this one.

Here are a few favorite quotes:

"She said he was an elegant or-gan-ist, putting the emphasis on the second syllable, which made Van Bibber think that she was speaking of some religious body to which he belonged. But the oragnist make his profession clear by explaining that the committee had just invited him to oblige the company with a solo on the piano, but that he had been hitting the champagne so hard that he doubted if he could tell the keys from the pedals, and he added that if they'd excuse him he would go to sleep, which he immediately did with his head on the shoulder of the lady recitationist, who tactfully tried not to notice that he was there."

"Van Bibber was consious that his friends were applauding him in dumb show from the balcony, and when his partner asked who they were, he repudiated them altogether, and said he could not imagine, but that he guessed from their bad manners they were professional entertainers hired for the evening."

Miss Delamar's Understudy

This however, was really strange. A group of men were sitting around talking about how much they loved adventure, and that they just couldn't see themselves tied down to a wife. They made some comparisons of love to petting a dogs head that was really quite funny.
So they were discussing that they would like to make a kind of trial run at marriage to see if they would like keeping the company of a woman before they actually considered getting married. So one of the gentlemen did an experiment on being married to the photo of a woman that he found to be the most beautiful woman in all the world.
He sat down to dinner and conversation with the photograph and then an evening discussing old stories, reading and chatting with the photograph.
Strange I tell you, rather strange.

The Editor's Story

Man, this one was rather strange too.
An editor runs across a poem that he recognizes and having been published in a paper already. The poem has been plagarized by the son of an upstanding powerful man. When the editor finally figures out who the plagarist is, he takes a report to confront the man in hopes to get a scandalized story out of it.
Instead they decide not to write the story, not to publish the plagarized poem and to just let the whole thing drop.
I failed to find "the REST of the story, and good day!"