Breakfast / John Steinbeck -- A day's wait / Ernest Hemingway -- April showers / Edith Wharton -- Rip van Winkle / Washington Irving -- The wives of the dead / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Nine needles / James Thurber -- A mystery of heroism / Stephen Crane -- A visit of charity / Eudora Welty -- The black ball / Ralph Ellison.