Quotes from Jim Murphy

I think my ancestors had to be enormously strong emotionally and very courageous.

I don't think many of us face the same sort of physical adventures our ancestors did, at least not on a daily basis.

'West To A Land Of Plenty' shows a family heading west, first on board a train, and then going into areas as yet untamed by rail by way of an ox-drawn wagon.

There are a number of things everyone can do to help protect whales.

Sometimes...I lose myself in looking back upon the ocean which I have passed, and now and then find myself surprised by a tear in reflecting upon the friends I have lost, and the scenes of distress that I have witnessed, and which I was unable to relieve. —Dr. Benjamin Rush

The fire was barely fifteen minutes old. What followed was a series of fatal errors that set the fire free and doomed the city to a fiery death.

a single tongue of flame shooting out the side of the O'Learys' barn. (Where the fire started)

Simply calling the Great Fire an accident did not satisfy some people, most notably the local newspapers. They demanded a culprit--

I ignored them, mostly because I had no idea what I should say and I didn't want to make the situation worse.

His concern focused on a series of illnesses that had struck his patients throughout the year—the mumps in January, jaw and mouth infections in February, scarlet fever in March, followed by influenza in July. "There was something in the heat and drought," the good doctor speculated, "which was uncommon, in their influence upon the human body.

I run a good, honest establishment, so I'm not worried," she said, looking very worried.

Instead, I've got the Hewitt boys down on paper. So that 100 years from now some reader I don't know can see how dumb they were!

And that I found cleaning very peaceful and relaxing. Mrs. Bock's lips twitched ever so slightly when I said that. Almost as if she wanted to give up a smile. "Well, Sarah Jane," she said, gesturing toward the mounds of laundry against a wall. "If it is peace and relaxation you want, we have piles of it here.

Somewhere along the way I told myself to be confident. Sell yourself, Sarah Jane. Like Mr. Walter Chalmers sells his bitters.

Wrote that last entry in a running scribble that looks like a foreign language backward. If anybody reads it in the future, they will surely need good, thick glasses.

Mr. Gaddis admitted the school wasn't much to look at before dropping the first match and lighting another. "But it's better than nothing." It is nothing! I screamed. Inside my head, of course. And I might even have said it out loud except I was too shocked to open my mouth. Johnnie Hatter's hole in the riverbank is probably better than this.

I was so nervous I didn't even sit down. I think because I wanted to be ready to run away if I had to.

The next time she scolded me, I said if I cleaned the table any more I would take the color out of the wood and Miss Kizer snapped back, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness and don't you forget it.

Mrs. Bock told me to take the trail out of town, then go right and the Huftalens' farm was "just up a piece." Even with snow on the ground, her directions were fairly easy to follow. In fact, the only trouble with had was that I went over a hill and there was Johnnie Hatter out a ways with a small, furry creature wriggling in his arms. Probably trying to kill dinner, I thought. Which made me hasten my step along, I can tell you.

I said something to Carl about the snow, but he wasn't much concerned. Maybe he figured if I got lost and died in the snow he could escape school a while longer.

At one point, Ida wondered if the board would get me a new school if this one burned down. "By accident, of course," she said quickly. Fire would solve a lot of that building's problems.

Sarah Jane, do you always have to be the teacher?" she asked and then immediately added, "I already know the answer so you don't have to answer that.

So our march was suddenly a swerving parade that looked as if we'd all been helping Mr. Bock with his still.

Dead animals were routinely tossed into this soup, where everything decayed and sent up noxious bubbles to foul the air.