Cheerful by Request — Edna Ferber

Duty, loneliness, and longing are recurring themes in this 1918 collection of a dozen short stories by the author of Show Boat. Includes “The Gay Old Dog.” “The Tough Guy,” “The Eldest,” “That's Marriage,” “The Woman Who Tried to Be Good,” “The Girl Who Went Right,” “The Hooker-Up-the-Back,” and “The Guiding Miss Gowd.”