MODERN PROSE AND POETRY FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

EDITED

WITH NOTES, STUDY HELPS, AND READING LISTS

BY

MARGARET ASHMUN, M.A.

Formerly Instructor in English in the University of Wisconsin

Editor of Prose Literature for Secondary Schools

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
All selections in this book are used by special permission of, and
arrangement with, the owners of the copyrights.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
U.S.A

Transcribers Note: Minor typos have been corrected.

PREFACE

It is pleasant to note, among teachers of literature in the high school, a growing (or perhaps one should say an established) conviction that the pupil's enjoyment of what he reads ought to be the chief consideration in the work. From such enjoyment, it is conceded, come the knowledge and the power that are the end of study. All profitable literature work in the secondary grades must be based upon the unforced attention and activity of the student.

An inevitable phase of this liberal attitude is a readiness to promote the study of modern authors. It is now the generally accepted view that many pieces of recent literature are more suitable for young people's reading than the old and conventionally approved classics. This is not to say that the really readable classics should be discarded, since they have their own place and their own value. Yet it is everywhere admitted that modern literature should be given its opportunity to appeal to high school students, and that at some stage in their course it should receive its due share of recognition. The mere fact that modern writers are, in point of material and style, less remote than the classic authors from the immediate interests of the students is sufficient to recommend them. Then, too, since young people are, in the nature of things, constantly brought into contact with some form of modern literature, they need to be provided with a standard of criticism and choice.

The present volume is an attempt to assemble, in a convenient manner, a number of selections from recent literature, such as high school students of average taste and ability may understand and enjoy. These selections are not all equally difficult. Some need to be read rapidly for their intrinsic interest; others deserve more analysis of form and content; still others demand careful intensive study. This diversity of method is almost a necessity in a full year's course in reading, in which rigidity and monotony ought above all things to be avoided.

Although convinced that the larger part of the reading work in the high school years should be devoted to the study of prose, the editor has here included what she believes to be a just proportion of poetry. The poems have been chosen with a view to the fact that they are varied in form and sentiment; and that they exhibit in no small degree the tendencies of modern poetic thought, with its love of nature and its humanitarian impulses.

An attempt has been made to present examples of the most usual and readable forms of prose composition—narration, the account of travel, the personal essay, and serious exposition. The authors of these selections possess without exception that distinction of style which entitles them to a high rank in literature and makes them inspiring models for the unskilled writer.

A word may be said as to the intention of the study helps and lists of readings. The object of this equipment is to conserve the energies of the teacher and direct the activities of the student. It is by no means expected that any one class will be able to make use of all the material provided; yet it is hoped that a considerable amount may prove available to every group that has access to the text.

The study questions serve to concentrate the reading of the students, in order to prevent that aimless wandering of eye and mind, which with many pupils passes for study. Doubtless something would in most instances be gained if these questions were supplemented by specific directions from the teacher.

Lists of theme subjects accompany the selections, so that the work in composition may be to a large extent correlated with that in literature.[1] The plan of utilizing the newly stimulated interests of the pupils for training in composition is not a new one; its value has been proved. Modern Prose and Poetry aims to make the most of such correlation, at the same time drawing upon the personal experience of the students, to the elimination of all that is perfunctory and formal. Typical outlines (suggestions for theme writing) are provided; these, however, cannot serve in all cases, and the teacher must help the pupils in planning their themes, or give them such training as will enable them to make outlines for themselves.

It will be noted that some suggestions are presented for the dramatization of simple passages of narration, and for original composition of dramatic fragments. In an age when the trend of popular interest is unquestionably toward the drama, such suggestions need no defense. The study of dramatic composition may be granted as much or as little attention as the teacher thinks wise. In any event, it will afford an opportunity for a discussion of the drama and will serve, in an elementary way, to train the pupil's judgment as to the difference between good and bad plays. Especially can this end be accomplished if some of the plays mentioned in the lists be read by the class or by individual students.

A few simple exercises in the writing of poetry have been inserted, in order to give the pupils encouragement and assistance in trying their skill in verse. It is not intended that this work shall be done for the excellence of its results, but rather for the development of the pupil's ingenuity and the increasing of his respect for the poet and the poetic art.

The collateral readings are appended for the use of those teachers who wish to carry on a course of outside reading in connection with the regular work of the class. These lists have been made somewhat extensive and varied, in order that they may fit the tastes and opportunities of many teachers and pupils. In some cases, the collateral work may be presented by the teacher, to elaborate a subject in which the class has become interested; or individual pupils may prepare themselves and speak to the class about what they have read; or all the pupils may read for pleasure alone, merely reporting the extent of their reading, for the teacher's approval. The outside reading should, it is needless to say, be treated as a privilege and not as a mechanical task. The possibilities of this work will be increased if the teacher familiarizes herself with the material in the collateral lists, so that she can adapt the home readings to the tastes of the class and of specific pupils. The miscellaneous lists given at the close of the book are intended to supplement the lists accompanying the selections, and to offer some assistance in the choice of books for a high school library.

M.A.

New York, February, 1914.

CONTENTS

MODERN PROSE AND POETRY FOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS

A DAY AT LAGUERRE'S

F. HOPKINSON SMITH

It is the most delightful of French inns, in the quaintest of French settlements. As you rush by in one of the innumerable trains that pass it daily, you may catch glimpses of tall trees trailing their branches in the still stream,—hardly a dozen yards wide,—of flocks of white ducks paddling together, and of queer punts drawn up on the shelving shore or tied to soggy, patched-up landing-stairs.

If the sun shines, you can see, now and then, between the trees, a figure kneeling at the water's edge, bending over a pile of clothes, washing,—her head bound with a red handkerchief.

If you are quick, the miniature river will open just before you round the curve, disclosing in the distance groups of willows, and a rickety foot-bridge perched up on poles to keep it dry. All this you see in a flash.

But you must stop at the old-fashioned station, within ten minutes of the Harlem River, cross the road, skirt an old garden bound with a fence and bursting with flowers, and so pass on through a bare field to the water's edge, before you catch sight of the cosy little houses lining the banks, with garden fences cutting into the water, the arbors covered with tangled vines, and the boats crossing back and forth.

I have a love for the out-of-the-way places of the earth when they bristle all over with the quaint and the old and the odd, and are mouldy with the picturesque. But here is an in-the-way place, all sunshine and shimmer, with never a fringe of mould upon it, and yet you lose your heart at a glance. It is as charming in its boat life as an old Holland canal; it is as delightful in its shore life as the Seine; and it is as picturesque and entrancing in its sylvan beauty as the most exquisite of English streams.

The thousands of workaday souls who pass this spot daily in their whirl out and in the great city may catch all these glimpses of shade and sunlight over the edges of their journals, and any one of them living near the city's centre, with a stout pair of legs in his knickerbockers and the breath of the morning in his heart, can reach it afoot any day before breakfast; and yet not one in a hundred knows that this ideal nook exists.

Even this small percentage would be apt to tell of the delights of Devonshire and of the charm of the upper Thames, with its tall rushes and low-thatched houses and quaint bridges, as if the picturesque ended there; forgetting that right here at home there wanders many a stream with its breast all silver that the trees courtesy to as it sings through meadows waist-high in lush grass,—as exquisite a picture as can be found this beautiful land over.

So, this being an old tramping-ground of mine, I have left the station with its noise and dust behind me this lovely morning in June, have stopped long enough to twist a bunch of sweet peas through the garden fence, and am standing on the bank waiting for some sign of life at Madame Laguerre's. I discover that there is no boat on my side of the stream. But that is of no moment. On the other side, within a biscuit's toss, so narrow is it, there are two boats; and on the landing-wharf, which is only a few planks wide, supporting a tumble-down flight of steps leading to a vine-covered terrace above, rest the oars.

I lay my traps down on the bank and begin at the top of my voice:—

"Madame Laguerre! Madame Laguerre! Send Lucette with the boat."

For a long time there is no response. A young girl drawing water a short distance below, hearing my cries, says she will come; and some children above, who know me, begin paddling over. I decline them all. Experience tells me it is better to wait for madame.

In a few minutes she pushes aside the leaves, peers through, and calls out:—

"Ah! it is that horrible painter. Go away! I have nothing for you. You are hungry again that you come?"

"Very, madame. Where is Lucette?"

"Lucette! Lucette! It is always Lucette. Lu-c-e-t-t-e!" This in a shrill key. "It is the painter. Come quick."

I have known Lucette for years, even when she was a barefooted little tangle-hair, peeping at me with her great brown eyes from beneath her ragged straw hat. She wears high-heeled slippers now, and sometimes on Sundays dainty silk stockings, and her hair is braided down her back, little French Marguérite that she is, and her hat is never ragged any more, nor her hair tangled. Her eyes, though, are still the same velvety, half-drooping eyes, always opening and shutting and never still.

As she springs into the boat and pulls towards me I note how round and trim she is, and before we have landed at Madame Laguerre's feet I have counted up Lucette's birthdays,—those that I know myself,—and find to my surprise that she must be eighteen. We have always been the best of friends, Lucette and I, ever since she looked over my shoulder years ago and watched me dot in the outlines of her boat, with her dog Mustif sitting demurely in the bow.

Madame, her mother, begins again:—

"Do you know that it is Saturday that you come again to bother? Now it will be a filet, of course, with mushrooms and tomato salad; and there are no mushrooms, and no tomatoes, and nothing. You are horrible. Then, when I get it ready, you say you will come at three. 'Yes, madame; at three,'—mimicking me,—'sure, very sure.' But it is four, five, o'clock—and then everything is burned up waiting. Ah! I know you."

This goes on always, and has for years. Presently she softens, for she is the most tender-hearted of women, and would do anything in the world to please me.

"But, then, you will be tired, and of course you must have something. I remember now there is a chicken. How will the chicken do? Oh, the chicken it is lovely, charmant. And some pease—fresh. Monsieur picked them himself this morning. And some Roquefort, with an olive. Ah! You leave it to me; but at three—no later—not one minute. Sacré! Vous êtes le diable!"

As we walk under the arbor and by the great trees, towards the cottage, Lucette following with the oars, I inquire after monsieur, and find that he is in the city, and very well and very busy, and will return at sundown. He has a shop of his own in the upper part where he makes passe-partouts. Here, at his home, madame maintains a simple restaurant for tramps like me.

These delightful people are old friends of mine, François Laguerre and his wife and their only child Lucette. They have lived here for nearly a quarter of a century. He is a straight, silver-haired old Frenchman of sixty, who left Paris, between two suns, nearly forty years ago, with a gendarme close at his heels, a red cockade under his coat, and an intense hatred in his heart for that "little nobody," Napoleon III.

If you met him on the boulevard you would look for the decoration on his lapel, remarking to yourself, "Some retired officer on half pay." If you met him at the railway station opposite, you would say, "A French professor returning to his school." Both of these surmises are partly wrong, and both partly right. Monsieur Laguerre has had a history. One can see by the deep lines in his forehead and by the firm set of his eyes and mouth that it has been an eventful one.

His wife is a few years his junior, short and stout, and thoroughly French down to the very toes of her felt slippers. She is devoted to François and Lucette, the best of cooks, and, in spite of her scoldings, good-nature itself. As soon as she hears me calling, there arise before her the visions of many delightful dinners prepared for me by her own hand and ready to the minute—all spoiled by my belated sketches. So she begins to scold before I am out of the boat or in it, for that matter.

Across the fence next to Laguerre's lives a confrère, a brother exile, Monsieur Marmosette, who also has a shop in the city, where he carves fine ivories. Monsieur Marmosette has only one son. He too is named François, after his father's old friend. Farther down on both sides of the narrow stream front the cottages of other friends, all Frenchmen; and near the propped-up bridge an Italian who knew Garibaldi burrows in a low, slanting cabin, which is covered with vines. I remember a dish of spaghetti under those vines, and a flask of Chianti from its cellar, all cobwebs and plaited straw, that left a taste of Venice in my mouth for days.

As there is only the great bridge above, which helps the country road across the little stream, and the little foot-bridge below, and as there is no path or road,—all the houses fronting the water,—the Bronx here is really the only highway, and so everybody must needs keep a boat. This is why the stream is crowded in the warm afternoons with all sorts of water craft loaded with whole families, even to the babies, taking the air, or crossing from bank to bank in their daily pursuits.

There is a quality which one never sees in Nature until she has been rough-handled by man and has outlived the usage. It is the picturesque. In the deep recesses of the primeval forest, along the mountain-slope, and away up the tumbling brook, Nature may be majestic, beautiful, and even sublime; but she is never picturesque. This quality comes only after the axe and the saw have let the sunlight into the dense tangle and have scattered the falling timber, or the round of the water-wheel has divided the rush of the brook. It is so here. Some hundred years ago, along this quiet, silvery stream were encamped the troops of the struggling colonies, and, later, the great estates of the survivors stretched on each side for miles. The willows that now fringe these banks were saplings then; and they and the great butternuts were only spared because their arching limbs shaded the cattle knee-deep along the shelving banks.

Then came the long interval that succeeds that deadly conversion of the once sweet farming lands, redolent with clover, into that barren waste—suburban property. The conflict that had lasted since the days when the pioneer's axe first rang through the stillness of the forest was nearly over; Nature saw her chance, took courage, and began that regeneration which is exclusively her own. The weeds ran riot; tall grasses shot up into the sunlight, concealing the once well-trimmed banks; and great tangles of underbrush and alders made lusty efforts to hide the traces of man's unceasing cruelty. Lastly came this little group of poor people from the Seine and the Marne and lent a helping hand, bringing with them something of their old life at home,—their boats, rude landings, patched-up water-stairs, fences, arbors, and vine-covered cottages,—unconsciously completing the picture and adding the one thing needful—a human touch. So Nature, having outlived the wrongs of a hundred years, has here with busy fingers so woven a web of weed, moss, trailing vine, and low-branching tree that there is seen a newer and more entrancing quality in her beauty, which, for want of a better term, we call the picturesque.

But madame is calling that the big boat must be bailed out; that if I am ever coming back to dinner it is absolutely necessary that I should go away. This boat is not of extraordinary size. It is called the big boat from the fact that it has one more seat than the one in which Lucette rowed me over; and not being much in use except on Sunday, is generally half full of water. Lucette insists on doing the bailing. She has very often performed this service, and I have always considered it as included in the curious scrawl of a bill which madame gravely presents at the end of each of my days here, beginning in small printed type with "François Laguerre, Restaurant Français," and ending with "Coffee 10 cents."

But this time I resist, remarking that she will hurt her hands and soil her shoes, and that it is all right as it is.

To this François the younger, who is leaning over the fence, agrees, telling Lucette to wait until he gets a pail.

Lucette catches his eye, colors a little, and says she will fetch it.

There is a break in the palings through which they both disappear, but I am half-way out on the stream, with my traps and umbrella on the seat in front and my coat and waistcoat tucked under the bow, before they return.

For half a mile down-stream there is barely a current. Then comes a break of a dozen yards just below the perched-up bridge, and the stream divides, one part rushing like a mill-race, and the other spreading itself softly around the roots of leaning willows, oozing through beds of water-plants, and creeping under masses of wild grapes and underbrush. Below this is a broad pasture fringed with another and larger growth of willows. Here the weeds are breast-high, and in early autumn they burst into purple asters, and white immortelles, and goldenrod, and flaming sumac.

If a painter had a lifetime to spare, and loved this sort of material,—the willows, hillsides, and winding stream,—he would grow old and weary before he could paint it all; and yet no two of his compositions need be alike. I have tied my boat under these same willows for ten years back, and I have not yet exhausted one corner of this neglected pasture.

There may be those who go a-fishing and enjoy it. The arranging and selecting of flies, the joining of rods, the prospective comfort in high water-boots, the creel with the leather strap,—every crease in it a reminder of some day without care or fret,—all this may bring the flush to the cheek and the eager kindling of the eye, and a certain sort of rest and happiness may come with it; but—they have never gone a-sketching! Hauled up on the wet bank in the long grass is your boat, with the frayed end of the painter tied around some willow that offers a helping root. Within a stone's throw, under a great branching of gnarled trees, is a nook where the curious sun, peeping at you through the interlaced leaves, will stencil Japanese shadows on your white umbrella. Then the trap is unstrapped, the stool opened, the easel put up, and you set your palette. The critical eye with which you look over your brush-case and the care with which you try each feather point upon your thumb-nail are but an index of your enjoyment.

Now you are ready. You loosen your cravat, hang your coat to some rustic peg in the creviced bark of the tree behind you, seize a bit of charcoal from your bag, sweep your eye around, and dash in a few guiding strokes. Above is a turquoise sky filled with soft white clouds; behind you the great trunks of the many-branched willows; and away off, under the hot sun, the yellow-green of the wasted pasture, dotted with patches of rock and weeds, and hemmed in by the low hills that slope to the curving stream.

It is high noon. There is a stillness in the air that impresses you, broken only by the low murmur of the brook behind and the ceaseless song of the grasshopper among the weeds in front. A tired bumblebee hums past, rolls lazily over a clover blossom at your feet, and has his midday luncheon. Under the maples near the river's bend stands a group of horses, their heads touching. In the brook below are the patient cattle, with patches of sunlight gilding and bronzing their backs and sides. Every now and then a breath of cool air starts out from some shaded retreat, plays around your forehead, and passes on. All nature rests. It is her noontime.

But you work on: an enthusiasm has taken possession of you; the paints mix too slowly; you use your thumb, smearing and blending with a bit of rag—anything for the effect. One moment you are glued to your seat, your eye riveted on your canvas, the next, you are up and backing away, taking it in as a whole, then pouncing down upon it quickly, belaboring it with your brush. Soon the trees take shape; the sky forms become definite; the meadow lies flat and loses itself in the fringe of willows.

When all of this begins to grow upon your once blank canvas, and some lucky pat matches the exact tone of blue-gray haze or shimmer of leaf, or some accidental blending of color delights you with its truth, a tingling goes down your backbone, and a rush surges through your veins that stirs you as nothing else in your whole life will ever do. The reaction comes the next day when, in the cold light of your studio, you see how far short you have come and how crude and false is your best touch compared with the glory of the landscape in your mind and heart. But the thrill that it gave you will linger forever.

But I hear a voice behind me calling out:—

"Monsieur, mamma says that dinner will be ready in half an hour. Please do not be late."

It is Lucette. She and François have come down in the other boat—the one with the little seat. They have moved so noiselessly that I have not even heard them. The sketch is nearly finished; and so, remembering the good madame, and the Roquefort, and the olives, and the many times I have kept her waiting, I wash my brushes at once, throw my traps into the boat, and pull back through the winding turn, François taking the mill-race, and in the swiftest part springing to the bank and towing Lucette, who sits in the stern, her white skirts tucked around her dainty feet.

"Sacré! He is here. C'est merveilleux! Why did you come?"

"Because you sent for me, madame, and I am hungry."

"Mon Dieu! He is hungry, and no chicken!"

It is true. The chicken was served that morning to another tramp for breakfast, and madame had forgotten all about it, and had ransacked the settlement for its mate. She was too honest a cook to chase another into the frying-pan.

But there was a filet with mushrooms, and a most surprising salad of chicory fresh from the garden, and the pease were certain, and the Roquefort and the olives beyond question. All this she tells me as I walk past the table covered with a snow-white cloth and spread under the grape-vines overlooking the stream, with the trees standing against the sky, their long shadows wrinkling down into the water.

I enter the summer kitchen built out into the garden, which also covers the old well, let down the bucket, and then, taking the clean crash towel from its hook, place the basin on the bench in the sunlight, and plunge my head into the cool water. Madame regards me curiously, her arms akimbo, re-hangs the towel, and asks:—

"Well, what about the wine? The same?"

"Yes; but I will get it myself."

The cellar is underneath the larger house. Outside is an old-fashioned, sloping double door. These doors are always open, and a cool smell of damp straw flavored with vinegar greets you from a leaky keg as you descend into its recesses. On the hard earthen floor rest eight or ten great casks. The walls are lined with bottles large and small, loaded on shelves to which little white cards are tacked giving the vintage and brand. In one corner, under the small window, you will find dozens of boxes of French delicacies—truffles, pease, mushrooms, pâté de foie gras, mustard, and the like, and behind them rows of olive oil and olives. I carefully draw out a bottle from the row on the last shelf nearest the corner, mount the steps, and place it on the table. Madame examines the cork, and puts down the bottle, remarking sententiously:—

"Château Lamonte, '62! Monsieur has told you."

There may be ways of dining more delicious than out in the open air under the vines in the cool of the afternoon, with Lucette, in her whitest of aprons, flitting about, and madame garnishing the dishes each in turn, and there may be better bottles of honest red wine to be found up and down this world of care than "Château Lamonte, '62," but I have not yet discovered them.

Lucette serves the coffee in a little cup, and leaves the Roquefort and the cigarettes on the table just as the sun is sinking behind the hill skirting the railroad. While I am blowing rings through the grape leaves over my head a quick noise is heard across the stream. Lucette runs past me through the garden, picking up her oars as she goes.

"Oui, mon père. I am coming."

It is monsieur from his day's work in the city.

"Who is here?" I hear him say as he mounts the terrace steps. "Oh, the painter—good!"

"Ah, mon ami. So you must see the willows once more. Have you not tired of them yet?" Then, seating himself, "I hope madame has taken good care of you. What, the '62? Ah, I remember I told you."

When it is quite dark he joins me under the leaves, bringing a second bottle a little better corked he thinks, and the talk drifts into his early life.

"What year was that, monsieur?" I asked.

"In 1849. I was a young fellow just grown. I had learned my trade in Rheims, and I had come down to Paris to make my bread. Two years later came the little affair of December 2. That 'nobody,' Louis, had dissolved the National Assembly and the Council of State, and had issued his address to the army. Paris was in a ferment. By the help of his soldiers and police he had silenced every voice in Paris except his own. He had suppressed all the journals, and locked up everybody who had opposed him. Victor Hugo was in exile, Louis Blanc in London, Changarnier and Cavaignac in prison. At the moment I was working in a little shop near the Porte St. Martin decorating lacquerwork. We workmen all belonged to a secret society which met nightly in a back room over a wine-shop near the Rue Royale. We had but one thought—how to upset the little devil at the Élysée. Among my comrades was a big fellow from my own city, one Cambier. He was the leader. On the ground floor of the shop was built a huge oven where the lacquer was baked. At night this was made hot with charcoal and allowed to cool off in the morning ready for the finished work of the previous day. It was Cambier's duty to attend to this oven.

"One night just after all but he and two others had left the shop a strange man was discovered in a closet where the men kept their working clothes. He was seized, brought to the light, and instantly recognized as a member of the secret police.

"At daylight the next morning I was aroused from my bed, and, looking up, saw Chapot, an inspector of police, standing over me. He had known me from a boy, and was a friend of my father's.

"'François, there is trouble at the shop. A police agent has been murdered. His body was found in the oven. Cambier is under arrest. I know what you have been doing, but I also know that in this you have had no hand. Here are one hundred francs. Leave Paris in an hour.'

"I put the money in my pocket, tied my clothes in a bundle, and that night was on my way to Havre, and the next week set sail for here."

"And what became of Cambier?" I asked.

"I have never heard from that day to this, so I think they must have snuffed him out."

Then he drifted into his early life here—the weary tramping of the streets day after day, the half-starving result, the language and people unknown. Suddenly, somewhere in the lower part of the city, he espied a card tacked outside of a window bearing this inscription, "Decorator wanted." A man inside was painting one of the old-fashioned iron tea-trays common in those days. Monsieur took off his hat, pointed to the card, then to himself, seized the brush, and before the man could protest had covered the bottom with morning-glories so pink and fresh that his troubles ended on the spot. The first week he earned six dollars; but then this was to be paid at the end of it. For these six days he subsisted on one meal a day. This he ate at a restaurant where at night he washed dishes and blacked the head waiter's boots. When Saturday came, and the money was counted out in his hand, he thrust it into his pocket, left the shop, and sat down on a doorstep outside to think.

"And, mon ami, what did I do first?"

"Got something to eat?"

"Never. I paid for a bath, had my hair cut and my face shaved, bought a shirt and collar, and then went back to the restaurant where I had washed dishes the night before, and the head waiter served me. After that it was easy; the next week it was ten dollars; then in a few years I had a place of my own; then came madame and Lucette—and here we are."

The twilight had faded into a velvet blue, sprinkled with stars. The lantern which madame had hung against the arbor shed a yellow light, throwing into clear relief the sharply cut features of monsieur. Up and down the silent stream drifted here and there a phantom boat, the gleam of its light following like a firefly. From some came no sound but the muffled plash of the oars. From others floated stray bits of song and laughter. Far up the stream I heard the distant whistle of the down train.

"It is mine, monsieur. Will you cross with me, and bring back the boat?"

Monsieur unhooked the lantern, and I followed through the garden and down the terrace steps.

At the water's edge was a bench holding two figures.

Monsieur turned his lantern, and the light fell upon the face of young François.

When the bow grated on the opposite bank I shook his hand, and said, in parting, pointing to the lovers,—

"The same old story, Monsieur?"

"Yes; and always new. You must come to the church."

NOTES

Harlem River:—Note that this river is in New York City, not in France as one might suppose from the name of the selection.

Devonshire:—A very attractive county of southwestern England.

filet:—A thick slice of meat or fish.

charmant:—The French word for charming.

Roquefort:—A kind of cheese.

Sacré! Vous êtes le diable:—Curses! You are the very deuce.

passe-partouts:—Engraved ornamental borders for pictures.

gendarme:—A policeman of France.

Napoleon III:—Emperor of the French, 1852-1870. He was elected president of the Republic in 1848; he seized full power in 1851; in 1852, he was proclaimed emperor. He was a nephew of the great Napoleon.

confrère:—A close associate.

Garibaldi:—Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian patriot (1807-1882).

Chianti:—A kind of Italian wine.

Bronx:—A small river in the northern part of New York City.

Restaurant Français:—French restaurant.

the painter:—A rope at the bow of a boat.

C'est merveilleux:—It's wonderful.

Mon Dieu:—Good heavens!

pâté de fois gras:—A delicacy made of fat goose livers.

Château Lamonte, '62:—A kind of wine; the date refers to the year in which it was bottled.

Oui, mon père:—Yes, father.

mon ami:—My friend.

the little affair of December 2:—On December 2, 1851, Louis Napoleon overawed the French legislature and assumed absolute power. Just a year later he had himself proclaimed Emperor.

Louis:—Napoleon III.

Victor Hugo:—French poet and novelist (1802-1885).

Louis Blanc:—French author and politician (1812-1882).

Changarnier:—Pronounced shan gär nyā'; Nicholas Changarnier, a French general (1793-1877).

Cavaignac:—Pronounced ka vay nyak'; Louis Eugene Cavaignac, a French general (1803-1857). He ran for the Presidency against Louis Napoleon.

Porte St. Martin:—The beginning of the Boulevard St. Martin, in Paris.

Rue Royale:—Rue is the French word for street.

Élysée:—A palace in Paris used as a residence by Napoleon III.

one hundred francs:—About twenty dollars.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

What does the title suggest to you? At what point do you change your idea as to the location of Laguerre's? Do you know of any picturesque places that are somewhat like the one described here? Could you describe one of them for the class? Why do people usually not appreciate the scenery near at hand? What do you think of the plan of "seeing America first"? What is meant here by "my traps"? Why is it better to wait for Madame? Why does Madame talk so crossly? What sort of person is she? See if you can tell accurately, from what follows in later pages, why Monsieur left Paris so hastily. How does the author give you an idea of François Laguerre's appearance? Why does the author stop to give us the two paragraphs beginning, "There is a quality," and "Then came a long interval"? How does he get back to his subject? Why does he not let Lucette bail the boat? Who does bail it at last? Why? Do you think that every artist enjoys his work as the writer seems to enjoy his? How does he make you feel the pleasure of it? Why is there more enjoyment in eating out of doors than in eating in the house? Why does the author sprinkle little French phrases through the piece? Is it a good plan to use foreign phrases in this way? What kind of man is Monsieur Laguerre? Review his story carefully. Why was the police agent murdered? Who killed him? Why has Monsieur Laguerre never found out what became of Cambier?

This selection deals with a number of different subjects: Why does it not seem "choppy"? How does the author manage to link the different parts together? How would you describe this piece to some one who had not read it? Mr. Smith is an artist who paints in water-colors: do you see how his painting influences his writing?

THEME SUBJECTS

Madame Laguerre
Old-fashioned Garden
The Ferry
Sketching
An Old Pasture
The Stream
Good Places to Sketch
Learning to Paint
An Old Man with a History
An Incident in French History
Getting Dinner under Difficulties
A Scene in the Kitchen
Washing at the Pump
The Flight of the Suspect
Crossing the Ocean
Penniless
The Foreigner
Looking for Work
A Dinner out of Doors
The French Family at Home
The Cellar
Some Pictures that I Like
A Restaurant
A Country Inn
What my Foreign Neighbors Eat
Landscapes
The Artist

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

The Stream:—Plan a description of some stream that you know well. Imagine yourself taking a trip up the stream in a boat. Tell something of the weather and the time of day. Speak briefly of the boat and its occupants. Describe the first picturesque spot: the trees and flowers; the buildings, if there are any; the reflections in the water; the people that you see. Go on from point to point, describing the particularly interesting places. Do not try to do too much. Vary your account by telling of the boats you meet. Perhaps there will be some brief dialogues that you can report, or some little adventures that you can relate. Close your theme by telling of your arrival at your destination, or of your turning about to go back down the stream.

An Old Man with a History:—Perhaps you can take this from real life; or perhaps you know some interesting old man whose early adventures you can imagine. Tell briefly how you happened to know the old man. Describe him. Speak of his manners, his way of speaking; his character as it appeared when you knew him. How did you learn his story? Imagine him relating it. Where was he when he told it? How did he act? Was he willing to tell the story, or did he have to be persuaded? Tell the story simply and directly, in his words, breaking it now and then by a comment or a question from the listener (or listeners). It might be well to explain occasionally how the old man seemed to feel, what expressions his face assumed, and what gestures he made. Go on thus to the end of the story. Is it necessary for you to make any remarks at the last, after the man has finished?

A Country Inn:—See the outline for a similar subject on page [229].

COLLATERAL READINGS

For information concerning Mr. Smith, consult:—

A History of Southern Literature, p. 375., Carl Holliday
American Authors and their Homes, pp. 187-194 F.W. Halsey

Bookman, 17:16 (Portrait); 24:9, September, 1906 (Portrait); 28:9, September, 1908 (Portrait). Arena, 38:678, December, 1907. Outlook, 93:689, November 27, 1909. Bookbuyer, 25:17-20, August, 1902.

QUITE SO

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

(In Marjorie Daw, and Other Stories)

I

Of course that was not his name. Even in the State of Maine, where it is still a custom to maim a child for life by christening him Arioch or Shadrach or Ephraim, nobody would dream of calling a boy "Quite So." It was merely a nickname which we gave him in camp; but it stuck to him with such bur-like tenacity, and is so inseparable from my memory of him, that I do not think I could write definitely of John Bladburn if I were to call him anything but "Quite So."

It was one night shortly after the first battle of Bull Run. The Army of the Potomac, shattered, stunned, and forlorn, was back in its old quarters behind the earth-works. The melancholy line of ambulances bearing our wounded to Washington was not done creeping over Long Bridge; the blue smocks and the gray still lay in windrows on the field of Manassas; and the gloom that weighed down our hearts was like the fog that stretched along the bosom of the Potomac, and infolded the valley of the Shenandoah. A drizzling rain had set in at twilight, and, growing bolder with the darkness, was beating a dismal tattoo on the tent,—the tent of Mess 6, Company A, —th Regiment, N.Y. Volunteers. Our mess, consisting originally of eight men, was reduced to four. Little Billy, as one of the boys grimly remarked, had concluded to remain at Manassas; Corporal Steele we had to leave at Fairfax Court-House, shot through the hip; Hunter and Suydam we had said good-by to that afternoon. "Tell Johnny Reb," says Hunter, lifting up the leather sidepiece of the ambulance, "that I'll be back again as soon as I get a new leg." But Suydam said nothing; he only unclosed his eyes languidly and smiled farewell to us.

The four of us who were left alive and unhurt that shameful July day sat gloomily smoking our brier-wood pipes, thinking our thoughts, and listening to the rain pattering against the canvas. That, and the occasional whine of a hungry cur, foraging on the outskirts of the camp for a stray bone, alone broke the silence, save when a vicious drop of rain detached itself meditatively from the ridge-pole of the tent, and fell upon the wick of our tallow candle, making it "cuss," as Ned Strong described it. The candle was in the midst of one of its most profane fits when Blakely, knocking the ashes from his pipe and addressing no one in particular, but giving breath, unconsciously as it were, to the result of his cogitations, observed that "it was considerable of a fizzle."

"The 'on to Richmond' business?"

"Yes."

"I wonder what they'll do about it over yonder," said Curtis, pointing over his right shoulder. By "over yonder" he meant the North in general and Massachusetts especially. Curtis was a Boston boy, and his sense of locality was so strong that, during all his wanderings in Virginia, I do not believe there was a moment, day or night, when he could not have made a bee-line for Faneuil Hall.

"Do about it?" cried Strong. "They'll make about two hundred thousand blue flannel trousers and send them along, each pair with a man in it,—all the short men in the long trousers, and all the tall men in the short ones," he added, ruefully contemplating his own leg-gear, which scarcely reached to his ankles.

"That's so," said Blakely. "Just now, when I was tackling the commissary for an extra candle, I saw a crowd of new fellows drawing blankets."

"I say there, drop that!" cried Strong. "All right, sir, didn't know it was you," he added hastily, seeing it was Lieutenant Haines who had thrown back the flap of the tent, and let in a gust of wind and rain that threatened the most serious bronchial consequences to our discontented tallow dip.

"You're to bunk in here," said the lieutenant, speaking to some one outside. The some one stepped in, and Haines vanished in the darkness.

When Strong had succeeded in restoring the candle to consciousness, the light fell upon a tall, shy-looking man of about thirty-five, with long, hay-colored beard and mustache, upon which the rain-drops stood in clusters, like the night-dew on patches of cobweb in a meadow. It was an honest face, with unworldly sort of blue eyes, that looked out from under the broad visor of the infantry cap. With a deferential glance towards us, the new-comer unstrapped his knapsack, spread his blanket over it, and sat down unobtrusively.

"Rather damp night out," remarked Blakely, whose strong hand was supposed to be conversation.

"Quite so," replied the stranger, not curtly, but pleasantly, and with an air as if he had said all there was to be said about it.

"Come from the North recently?" inquired Blakely, after a pause.

"Yes."

"From any place in particular?"

"Maine."

"People considerably stirred up down there?" continued Blakely, determined not to give up.

"Quite so."

Blakely threw a puzzled look over the tent, and seeing Ned Strong on the broad grin, frowned severely. Strong instantly assumed an abstracted air, and began humming softly,

"I wish I was in Dixie."

"The State of Maine," observed Blakely, with a certain defiance of manner not at all necessary in discussing a geographical question, "is a pleasant State."

"In summer," suggested the stranger.

"In summer, I mean," returned Blakely with animation, thinking he had broken the ice. "Cold as blazes in winter, though,—isn't it?"

The new recruit merely nodded.

Blakely eyed the man homicidally for a moment, and then, smiling one of those smiles of simulated gayety which the novelists inform us are more tragic than tears, turned upon him with withering irony.

"Trust you left the old folks pretty comfortable?"

"Dead."

"The old folks dead!"

"Quite so."

Blakely made a sudden dive for his blanket, tucked it around him with painful precision, and was heard no more.

Just then the bugle sounded "lights out,"—bugle answering bugle in far-off camps. When our not elaborate night-toilets were complete, Strong threw somebody else's old boot at the candle with infallible aim, and darkness took possession of the tent. Ned, who lay on my left, presently reached over to me, and whispered, "I say, our friend 'quite so' is a garrulous old boy! He'll talk himself to death some of these odd times, if he isn't careful. How he did run on!"

The next morning, when I opened my eyes, the new member of Mess 6 was sitting on his knapsack, combing his blond beard with a horn comb. He nodded pleasantly to me, and to each of the boys as they woke up, one by one. Blakely did not appear disposed to renew the animated conversation of the previous night; but while he was gone to make a requisition for what was in pure sarcasm called coffee, Curtis ventured to ask the man his name.

"Bladburn, John," was the reply.

"That's rather an unwieldy name for everyday use," put in Strong. "If it wouldn't hurt your feelings, I'd like to call you Quite So,—for short. Don't say no, if you don't like it. Is it agreeable?"

Bladburn gave a little laugh, all to himself, seemingly, and was about to say, "Quite so," when he caught at the words, blushed like a girl, and nodded a sunny assent to Strong. From that day until the end, the sobriquet clung to him.

The disaster at Bull Run was followed, as the reader knows, by a long period of masterly inactivity, so far as the Army of the Potomac was concerned. McDowell, a good soldier but unlucky, retired to Arlington Heights, and McClellan, who had distinguished himself in Western Virginia, took command of the forces in front of Washington, and bent his energies to reorganizing the demoralized troops. It was a dreary time to the people of the North, who looked fatuously from week to week for "the fall of Richmond"; and it was a dreary time to the denizens of that vast city of tents and forts which stretched in a semicircle before the beleaguered Capitol,—so tedious and soul-wearing a time that the hardships of forced marches and the horrors of battle became desirable things to them.

Roll-call morning and evening, guard-duty, dress-parades, an occasional reconnaissance, dominoes, wrestling-matches, and such rude games as could be carried on in camp made up the sum of our lives. The arrival of the mail with letters and papers from home was the event of the day. We noticed that Bladburn neither wrote nor received any letters. When the rest of the boys were scribbling away for dear life, with drumheads and knapsacks and cracker-boxes for writing-desks, he would sit serenely smoking his pipe, but looking out on us through rings of smoke with a face expressive of the tenderest interest.

"Look here, Quite So," Strong would say, "the mail-bag closes in half an hour. Ain't you going to write?"

"I believe not to-day," Bladburn would reply, as if he had written yesterday, or would write to-morrow: but he never wrote.

He had become a great favorite with us, and with all the officers of the regiment. He talked less than any man I ever knew, but there was nothing sinister or sullen in his reticence. It was sunshine,—warmth and brightness, but no voice. Unassuming and modest to the verge of shyness, he impressed every one as a man of singular pluck and nerve.

"Do you know," said Curtis to me one day, "that that fellow Quite So is clear grit, and when we come to close quarters with our Palmetto brethren over yonder, he'll do something devilish?"

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, nothing quite explainable; the exasperating coolness of the man, as much as anything. This morning the boys were teasing Muffin Fan"

That Latin grammar! He always had it about him, reading it or turning over its dog's-eared pages at odd intervals and in out-of-the-way places. Half a dozen times a day he would draw it out from the bosom of his blouse, which had taken the shape of the book just over the left breast, look at it as if to assure himself it was all right, and then put the thing back. At night the volume lay beneath his pillow. The first thing in the morning, before he was well awake, his hand would go groping instinctively under his knapsack in search of it.

A devastating curiosity seized upon us boys concerning that Latin grammar, for we had discovered the nature of the book. Strong wanted to steal it one night, but concluded not to. "In the first place," reflected Strong, "I haven't the heart to do it, and in the next place I haven't the moral courage. Quite So would placidly break every bone in my body." And I believe Strong was not far out of the way.

Sometimes I was vexed with myself for allowing this tall, simple-hearted country fellow to puzzle me so much. And yet, was he a simple-hearted country fellow? City bred he certainly was not; but his manner, in spite of his awkwardness, had an indescribable air of refinement. Now and then, too, he dropped a word or a phrase that showed his familiarity with unexpected lines of reading. "The other day," said Curtis, with the slightest elevation of eyebrow, "he had the cheek to correct my Latin for me." In short, Quite So was a daily problem to the members of Mess 6. Whenever he was absent, and Blakely and Curtis and Strong and I got together in the tent, we discussed him, evolving various theories to explain why he never wrote to anybody and why nobody ever wrote to him. Had the man committed some terrible crime, and fled to the army to hide his guilt? Blakely suggested that he must have murdered "the old folks." What did he mean by eternally conning that tattered Latin grammar? And was his name Bladburn, anyhow? Even his imperturbable amiability became suspicious. And then his frightful reticence! If he was the victim of any deep grief or crushing calamity, why didn't he seem unhappy? What business had he to be cheerful?

"It's my opinion," said Strong, "that he's a rival Wandering Jew; the original Jacobs, you know, was a dark fellow."

Blakely inferred from something Bladburn had said, or something he had not said,—which was more likely,—that he had been a schoolmaster at some period of his life.

"Schoolmaster be hanged!" was Strong's comment. "Can you fancy a schoolmaster going about conjugating baby verbs out of a dratted little spelling-book? No, Quite So has evidently been a—a—Blest if I can imagine what he's been!"

Whatever John Bladburn had been, he was a lonely man. Whenever I want a type of perfect human isolation, I shall think of him, as he was in those days, moving remote, self-contained, and alone in the midst of two hundred thousand men.

II

The Indian summer, with its infinite beauty and tenderness, came like a reproach that year to Virginia. The foliage, touched here and there with prismatic tints, drooped motionless in the golden haze. The delicate Virginia creeper was almost minded to put forth its scarlet buds again. No wonder the lovely phantom—this dusky Southern sister of the pale Northern June—lingered not long with us, but, filling the once peaceful glens and valleys with her pathos, stole away rebukefully before the savage enginery of man.

The preparations that had been going on for months in arsenals and foundries at the North were nearly completed. For weeks past the air had been filled with rumors of an advance; but the rumor of to-day refuted the rumor of yesterday, and the Grand Army did not move. Heintzelman's corps was constantly folding its tents, like the Arabs, and as silently stealing away; but somehow it was always in the same place the next morning. One day, at length, orders came down for our brigade to move.

"We're going to Richmond, boys!" shouted Strong, thrusting his head in at the tent; and we all cheered and waved our caps like mad. You see, Big Bethel and Bull Run and Ball's Bluff (the Bloody B's, as we used to call them,) hadn't taught us any better sense.

Rising abruptly from the plateau, to the left of our encampment, was a tall hill covered with a stunted growth of red-oak, persimmon, and chestnut. The night before we struck tents I climbed up to the crest to take a parting look at a spectacle which custom had not been able to rob of its enchantment. There, at my feet, and extending miles and miles away, lay the camps of the Grand Army, with its camp-fires reflected luridly against the sky. Thousands of lights were twinkling in every direction, some nestling in the valley, some like fire-flies beating their wings and palpitating among the trees, and others stretching in parallel lines and curves, like the street-lamps of a city. Somewhere, far off, a band was playing, at intervals it seemed; and now and then, nearer to, a silvery strain from a bugle shot sharply up through the night, and seemed to lose itself like a rocket among the stars,—the patient, untroubled stars. Suddenly a hand was laid upon my arm.

"I'd like to say a word to you," said Bladburn.

With a little start of surprise, I made room for him on the fallen tree where I was seated.

"I mayn't get another chance," he said. "You and the boys have been very kind to me, kinder than I deserve; but sometimes I've fancied that my not saying anything about myself had given you the idea that all was not right in my past. I want to say that I came down to Virginia with a clean record."

"We never really doubted it, Bladburn."

"If I didn't write home," he continued, "it was because I hadn't any home, neither kith nor kin. When I said the old folks were dead, I said it. Am I boring you? If I thought I was—"

"No, Bladburn. I have often wanted you to talk to me about yourself, not from idle curiosity, I trust, but because I liked you that rainy night when you came to camp, and have gone on liking you ever since. This isn't too much to say, when Heaven only knows how soon I may be past saying it or you listening to it."

"That's it," said Bladburn, hurriedly, "that's why I want to talk with you. I've a fancy that I shan't come out of our first battle."

The words gave me a queer start, for I had been trying several days to throw off a similar presentiment concerning him,—a foolish presentiment that grew out of a dream.

"In case anything of that kind turns up," he continued, "I'd like you to have my Latin grammar here,—you've seen me reading it. You might stick it away in a bookcase, for the sake of old times. It goes against me to think of it falling into rough hands or being kicked about camp and trampled under foot."

He was drumming softly with his fingers on the volume in the bosom of his blouse.

"I didn't intend to speak of this to a living soul," he went on, motioning me not to answer him; "but something took hold of me to-night and made me follow you up here. Perhaps, if I told you all, you would be the more willing to look after the little book in case it goes ill with me. When the war broke out I was teaching school down in Maine, in the same village where my father was schoolmaster before me. The old man when he died left me quite alone. I lived pretty much by myself, having no interests outside of the district school, which seemed in a manner my personal property. Eight years ago last spring a new pupil was brought to the school, a slight slip of a girl, with a sad kind of face and quiet ways. Perhaps it was because she wasn't very strong, and perhaps because she wasn't used over well by those who had charge of her, or perhaps it was because my life was lonely, that my heart warmed to the child. It all seems like a dream now, since that April morning when little Mary stood in front of my desk with her pretty eyes looking down bashfully and her soft hair falling over her face. One day I look up, and six years have gone by,—as they go by in dreams,—and among the scholars is a tall girl of sixteen, with serious, womanly eyes which I cannot trust myself to look upon. The old life has come to an end. The child has become a woman and can teach the master now. So help me Heaven, I didn't know that I loved her until that day!

"Long after the children had gone home I sat in the schoolroom with my face resting on my hands. There was her desk, the afternoon shadows falling across it. It never looked empty and cheerless before. I went and stood by the low chair, as I had stood hundreds of times. On the desk was a pile of books, ready to be taken away, and among the rest a small Latin grammar which we had studied together. What little despairs and triumphs and happy hours were associated with it! I took it up curiously, as if it were some gentle dead thing, and turned over the pages, and could hardly see them. Turning the pages, idly so, I came to a leaf on which something was written with ink, in the familiar girlish hand. It was only the words 'Dear John,' through which she had drawn two hasty pencil lines—I wish she hadn't drawn those lines!" added Bladburn, under his breath.

He was silent for a minute or two, looking off towards the camps, where the lights were fading out one by one.

"I had no right to go and love Mary. I was twice her age, an awkward, unsocial man, that would have blighted her youth. I was as wrong as wrong can be. But I never meant to tell her. I locked the grammar in my desk and the secret in my heart for a year. I couldn't bear to meet her in the village, and kept away from every place where she was likely to be. Then she came to me, and sat down at my feet penitently, just as she used to do when she was a child, and asked what she had done to anger me; and then, Heaven forgive me! I told her all, and asked her if she could say with her lips the words she had written, and she nestled in my arms all a-trembling like a bird, and said them over and over again.

"When Mary's family heard of our engagement, there was trouble. They looked higher for Mary than a middle-aged schoolmaster. No blame to them. They forbade me the house, her uncles; but we met in the village and at the neighbors' houses, and I was happy, knowing she loved me. Matters were in this state when the war came on. I had a strong call to look after the old flag, and I hung my head that day when the company raised in our village marched by the schoolhouse to the railroad station; but I couldn't tear myself away. About this time the minister's son, who had been away to college, came to the village. He met Mary here and there, and they became great friends. He was a likely fellow, near her own age, and it was natural they should like one another. Sometimes I winced at seeing him made free of the home from which I was shut out; then I would open the grammar at the leaf where 'Dear John' was written up in the corner, and my trouble was gone. Mary was sorrowful and pale these days, and I think her people were worrying her.

"It was one evening two or three days before we got the news of Bull Run. I had gone down to the burying-ground to trim the spruce hedge set round the old man's lot, and was just stepping into the enclosure, when I heard voices from the opposite side. One was Mary's, and the other I knew to be young Marston's, the minister's son. I didn't mean to listen, but what Mary was saying struck me dumb. We must never meet again, she was saying in a wild way. We must say good-by here, forever,—good-by, good-by! And I could hear her sobbing. Then, presently, she said, hurriedly, No, no; my hand, not my lips! Then it seemed he kissed her hands, and the two parted, one going towards the parsonage, and the other out by the gate near where I stood.

"I don't know how long I stood there, but the night-dews had wet me to the bone when I stole out of the graveyard and across the road to the schoolhouse. I unlocked the door, and took the Latin grammar from the desk and hid it in my bosom. There was not a sound or a light anywhere as I walked out of the village. And now," said Bladburn, rising suddenly from the tree-trunk, "if the little book ever falls in your way, won't you see that it comes to no harm, for my sake, and for the sake of the little woman who was true to me and didn't love me? Wherever she is to-night, God bless her!"

As we descended to camp with our arms resting on each other's shoulder, the watch-fires were burning low in the valleys and along the hillsides, and as far as the eye could reach, the silent tents lay bleaching in the moonlight.

III

We imagined that the throwing forward of our brigade was the initial movement of a general advance of the army: but that, as the reader will remember, did not take place until the following March. The Confederates had fallen back to Centreville without firing a shot, and the National troops were in possession of Lewinsville, Vienna, and Fairfax Court-House. Our new position was nearly identical with that which we had occupied on the night previous to the battle of Bull Run,—on the old turnpike road to Manassas, where the enemy was supposed to be in great force. With a field-glass we could see the Rebel pickets moving in a belt of woodland on our right, and morning and evening we heard the spiteful roll of their snare-drums.

Those pickets soon became a nuisance to us. Hardly a night passed but they fired upon our outposts, so far with no harmful result; but after a while it grew to be a serious matter. The Rebels would crawl out on all-fours from the wood into a field covered with underbrush, and lie there in the dark for hours, waiting for a shot. Then our men took to the rifle-pits,—pits ten or twelve feet long by four or five feet deep, with the loose earth banked up a few inches high on the exposed sides. All the pits bore names, more or less felicitous, by which they were known to their transient tenants. One was called "The Pepper-Box," another "Uncle Sam's Well," another "The Reb-Trap," and another, I am constrained to say, was named after a not to be mentioned tropical locality. Though this rude sort of nomenclature predominated, there was no lack of softer titles, such as "Fortress Matilda" and "Castle Mary," and one had, though unintentionally, a literary flavor to it, "Blair's Grave," which was not popularly considered as reflecting unpleasantly on Nat Blair, who had assisted in making the excavation.

Some of the regiment had discovered a field of late corn in the neighborhood, and used to boil a few ears every day, while it lasted, for the boys detailed on the night-picket. The corn-cobs were always scrupulously preserved and mounted on the parapets of the pits. Whenever a Rebel shot carried away one of these barbette guns, there was swearing in that particular trench. Strong, who was very sensitive to this kind of disaster, was complaining bitterly one morning, because he had lost three "pieces" the night before.

"There's Quite So, now," said Strong, "when a Minie-ball comes ping! and knocks one of his guns to flinders, he merely smiles, and doesn't at all see the degradation of the thing."

Poor Bladburn! As I watched him day by day going about his duties, in his shy, cheery way, with a smile for every one and not an extra word for anybody, it was hard to believe he was the same man who, that night before we broke camp by the Potomac, had poured out to me the story of his love and sorrow in words that burned in my memory.

While Strong was speaking, Blakely lifted aside the flap of the tent and looked in on us.

"Boys, Quite So was hurt last night," he said, with a white tremor to his lip.

"What!"

"Shot on picket."

"Why, he was in the pit next to mine," cried Strong.

"Badly hurt?"

"Badly hurt."

I knew he was; I need not have asked the question. He never meant to go back to New England!

Bladburn was lying on the stretcher in the hospital-tent. The surgeon had knelt down by him, and was carefully cutting away the bosom of his blouse. The Latin grammar, stained and torn, slipped, and fell to the floor. Bladburn gave me a quick glance. I picked up the book, and as I placed it in his hand, the icy fingers closed softly over mine. He was sinking fast. In a few minutes the surgeon finished his examination. When he rose to his feet there were tears on the weather-beaten cheeks. He was a rough outside, but a tender heart.

"My poor lad," he blurted out, "it's no use. If you've anything to say, say it now, for you've nearly done with this world."

Then Bladburn lifted his eyes slowly to the surgeon, and the old smile flitted over his face as he murmured,—

"Quite so."

NOTES

the first battle of Bull Run:—Fought July 21, 1861; known in the South as Manassas.

Long Bridge:—A bridge over which the Union soldiers crossed in fleeing to Washington after the battle of Bull Run.

Shenandoah:—A river and a valley in Virginia—the scene of many events in the Civil War.

Fairfax Court House:—Near Manassas Junction.

On to Richmond:—In 1861 the newspapers of the North were violently demanding an attack on Richmond.

Faneuil Hall:—An historic hall in Boston, in which important meetings were held before the Revolution.

McDowell:—Irving McDowell, who commanded the Union troops at Bull Run.

McClellan:—George B. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac.

Wandering Jew:—A legendary person said to have been condemned to wander over the earth, undying, till the Day of Judgment. The legend is probably founded on a passage in the Bible—John 21:20-23.

folding its tents:—A quotation from The Day is Done, by Longfellow. The lines are:—

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Big Bethel:—The Union troops were defeated here on June 10, 1861.

Ball's Bluff:—A place on the Potomac where the Union soldiers were beaten, October 21, 1861.

Centreville:—A small town, the Union base in the first Battle of Bull Run.

Lewinsville:—A small town, north of Centreville.

Vienna:—A village in the Bull Run district.

Blair's Grave:—Robert Blair, a Scotch writer, published (1743) a poem in blank verse called "The Grave."

barbette guns:—Guns elevated to fire over the top of a turret or parapet.

minie-ball:—A conical ball plugged with iron, named after its inventor, Captain Minié, of France.

QUESTIONS FOR STUDY

Read the piece through without stopping, so that you can get the story. Then go back to the beginning and study with the help of the following questions:—

Compare the first sentence with the first sentence of Tennessee's Partner. What do you think of the method? What is the use of the first paragraph in Quite So? Why the long paragraph giving the setting? Is this a good method in writing a story? What had become of "Little Billy"? Who was "Johnny Reb"? What do you think of bringing in humorous touches when one is dealing with things so serious as war and battles? What does "Drop that!" refer to? Why does Strong change his tone? Note what details the author has selected in order to give a clear picture of "Quite So" in a few words. How does the conversation reveal the stranger's character? What is shown by the fact that "Quite So" does not write any letters? What is the purpose of the episode of "Muffin Fan"? What devices does the author use, in order to bring out the mystery and the loneliness of "Quite So"? Note how the author emphasizes the passage of time. Why does Bladburn finally tell his story? How does it reveal his character? Was Mary right in what she did? Why are some sentences in the text printed in italics? Was Bladburn right in leaving his home village without explanation? Why did he do so? What do you get from the sentence, "He never meant to go back to New England"? What is the impression made by the last sentence? Do you like the story?

THEME SUBJECTS

A Mysterious Person
The New Girl at School
The Schoolmaster's Romance
A Sudden Departure
A Camp Scene
The G.A.R. on Memorial Day
The Militia in our Town
An Old Soldier
A Story of the Civil War
Some Relics of the Civil War
Watching the Cadets Drill
My Uncle's Experiences in the War
A Sham Battle
A Visit to an Old Battlefield
On Picket Duty
A Daughter of the Confederacy
"Stonewall" Jackson
Modern Ways of Preventing War
The Soldiers' Home
An Escape from a Military Prison
The Women's Relief Corps
Women in the Civil War

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

An Old Soldier:—Tell how you happen to know this old soldier. Where does he live? Do you see him often? What is he doing when you see him? Describe him as vividly as you can:—his general appearance; his clothes; his way of walking. Speak particularly of his face and its expression. If possible, let us hear him talk. Perhaps you can tell some of his war stories—in his own words.

A Mysterious Person:—Imagine a mysterious person appearing in a little town where everybody knows everybody else. Tell how he (or she) arrives. How does he look? What does he do? Explain clearly why he is particularly hard to account for. What do people say about him? Try to make each person's remarks fit his individual character. How do people try to find out about the stranger? Does he notice their curiosity? Do they ask him questions? If so, give some bits of their conversations with him. You might go on and make a story of some length out of this. Show whether the stranger really has any reason for concealing his identity. Does he get into any trouble? Does an accident reveal who he is and why he is in the town? Does some one find out by spying upon him? Or does he tell all about himself, when the right time comes?

Perhaps you can put the story into the form of a series of brief conversations about the stranger or with him.

An Incident of the Civil War:—Select some historical incident, or one that you have heard from an old soldier, and tell it simply and vividly in your own words.

COLLATERAL READINGS

For biographies and criticisms of Thomas B. Aldrich, see also: Outlook, 86:922, August 24, 1907; 84:735, November 24, 1906; 85:737, March 30, 1907. Bookman, 24:317, December, 1906 (Portrait); also 25:218 (Portrait). Current Literature, 42:49, January, 1907 (Portrait). Chautauquan, 65:168, January, 1912.

PAN IN WALL STREET

A.D. 1867

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

Just where the Treasury's marble front
Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations;
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
To throng for trade and last quotations;
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled
From Trinity's undaunted steeple,—

Even there I heard a strange, wild strain
Sound high above the modern clamor,
Above the cries of greed and gain,
The curbstone war, the auction's hammer;
And swift, on Music's misty ways,
It led, from all this strife for millions.
To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days
Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.

And as it stilled the multitude,
And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,
I saw the minstrel where he stood
At ease against a Doric pillar:
One hand a droning organ played,
The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned
Like those of old) to lips that made
The reeds give out that strain impassioned.

'Twas Pan himself had wandered here
A-strolling through this sordid city,
And piping to the civic ear
The prelude of some pastoral ditty!
The demigod had crossed the seas,—
From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,
And Syracusan times,—to these
Far shores and twenty centuries later.

A ragged cap was on his head;
But—hidden thus—there was no doubting
That, all with crispy locks o'erspread,
His gnarlèd horns were somewhere sprouting;
His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,
Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them,
And trousers, patched of divers hues,
Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.

He filled the quivering reeds with sound,
And o'er his mouth their changes shifted,
And with his goat's-eyes looked around
Where'er the passing current drifted;
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills
The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,
Even now the tradesmen from their tills,
With clerks and porters, crowded near him.

The bulls and bears together drew
From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley,
As erst, if pastorals be true,
Came beasts from every wooded valley;
And random passers stayed to list,—
A boxer Ægon, rough and merry,
A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst
With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.

A one-eyed Cyclops halted long
In tattered cloak of army pattern,
And Galatea joined the throng,—
A blowsy apple-vending slattern;
While old Silenus staggered out
From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,
And bade the piper, with a shout,
To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!

A newsboy and a peanut-girl
Like little Fauns began to caper;
His hair was all in tangled curl,
Her tawny legs were bare and taper;
And still the gathering larger grew,
And gave its pence and crowded nigher,
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew
His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.

O heart of Nature, beating still
With throbs her vernal passion taught her,—
Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,
Or by the Arethusan water!
New forms may fold the speech, new lands
Arise within these ocean-portals,
But Music waves eternal wands,—
Enchantress of the souls of mortals!

So thought I,—but among us trod
A man in blue, with legal baton,
And scoffed the vagrant demigod,
And pushed him from the step I sat on.
Doubting I mused upon the cry,
"Great Pan is dead!"—and all the people
Went on their ways:—and clear and high
The quarter sounded from the steeple.

NOTES

Wall Street:—An old street in New York faced by the Stock Exchange and the offices of the wealthiest bankers and brokers.

the Treasury:—The Sub-Treasury Building.

last quotations:—The latest information on stock values given out before the Stock Exchange closes.

Trinity:—The famous old church that stands at the head of Wall Street.

curbstone war:—The clamorous quoting, auctioning, and bidding of stock out on the street curb, where the "curb brokers"—brokers who do not have seats on the Stock Exchange—do business.

sweet-do-nothing:—A translation of an Italian expression, dolce far niente.

Sicilians:—Theocritus (3rd century before Christ), the Greek pastoral poet, wrote of the happy life of the shepherds and shepherdesses in Sicily.

Doric pillar:—A heavy marble pillar, such as was used in the architecture of the Dorians in Greece.

Pan's pipe:—Pan was the Greek god of shepherds, and patron of fishing and hunting. He is represented as having the head and body of a man, with the legs, horns, and tail of a goat. It was said that he invented the shepherd's pipe or flute, which he made from reeds plucked on the bank of a stream.

pastoral ditty:—A poem about shepherds and the happy outdoor life. The word pastoral comes from the Latin pastor, shepherd.

Syracusan times:—Syracuse was an important city in Sicily. See the note on Sicilians, above.

Trinacrian hills:—Trinacria is an old name for Sicily.

bulls and bears:—A bull, on the Stock Exchange, is one who operates in expectation of a rise in stocks; a bear is a person who sells stocks in expectation of a fall in the market.

Jauncey Court:—The Jauncey family were prominent in the early New York days. This court was probably named after them.

Ægon:—Usually spelled Ægaeon; another name for Briareus, a monster with a hundred arms.

Daphnis:—In Greek myth, a shepherd who loved music.

Nais:—In Greek myth, a happy young girl, a nymph.

Cyclops:—One of a race of giants having but one eye—in the middle of the forehead. These giants helped Vulcan at his forge under Aetna.

Galatea:—A sea-nymph beloved by the Cyclops Polyphemus.

Silenus:—The foster-father and companion of Bacchus, god of wine. In pictures and sculpture Silenus is usually represented as intoxicated.

Fauns:—Fabled beings, half goat and half man.

Arethusan water:—Arethusa, in Greek myth, was a wood-nymph, who was pursued by the river Alpheus. She was changed into a fountain, and ran under the sea to Sicily, where she rose near the city of Syracuse. Shelley has a poem on Arethusa.

baton:—A rod or wand; here, of course, a policeman's club.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

The author sees an organ-grinder playing his gay tunes in Wall Street, New York, among the buildings where enormous financial transactions are carried on. He (the author) imagines this wandering minstrel to be Pan himself, assuming a modern form. Read the notes carefully for what is said about Pan. Notice, in the poem, how skillfully the author brings out the contrast between the easy-going days of ancient Greece and the busy, rushing times of modern America. Of what value is the word serenely in the first stanza? What is the "curbstone war"? Do you think the old-fashioned Pan's pipe is common now? Could a man play an organ and a pipe at the same time? Why is the city spoken of as "sordid"? What is the "civic ear"? In the description of the player, how is the idea of his being Pan emphasized? How was it that the bulls and bears drew together? In plain words who were the people whom the author describes under Greek names? Show how aptly the mythological characters are fitted to modern persons. Read carefully what is said about the power of music, in the stanza beginning "O heart of Nature." Who was the man in blue? Why did he interfere? Why is the organ-grinder called a "vagrant demigod"? What was it that the author doubted? What is meant here by "Great Pan is dead"? Does the author mean more than the mere words seem to express? Do you think that people are any happier in these commercial times than they were in ancient Greece? After you have studied the poem and mastered all the references, read the poem through, thinking of its meaning and its lively measure.

Read Mrs. Browning's poem, A Musical Instrument, which is about Pan and his pipe of reeds.

COLLATERAL READINGS

THE HAND OF LINCOLN

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

Look on this cast, and know the hand
That bore a nation in its hold;
From this mute witness understand
What Lincoln was,—how large of mould

The man who sped the woodman's team,
And deepest sunk the ploughman's share,
And pushed the laden raft astream,
Of fate before him unaware.

This was the hand that knew to swing
The axe—since thus would Freedom train
Her son—and made the forest ring,
And drove the wedge, and toiled amain.

Firm hand, that loftier office took,
A conscious leader's will obeyed,
And, when men sought his word and look,
With steadfast might the gathering swayed.

No courtier's, toying with a sword,
Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute;
A chief's, uplifted to the Lord
When all the kings of earth were mute!

The hand of Anak, sinewed strong,
The fingers that on greatness clutch;
Yet, lo! the marks their lines along
Of one who strove and suffered much.

For here in knotted cord and vein
I trace the varying chart of years;
I know the troubled heart, the strain,
The weight of Atlas—and the tears.

Again I see the patient brow
That palm erewhile was wont to press;
And now 'tis furrowed deep, and now
Made smooth with hope and tenderness.

For something of a formless grace
This moulded outline plays about;
A pitying flame, beyond our trace,
Breathes like a spirit, in and out,—

The love that cast an aureole
Round one who, longer to endure,
Called mirth to ease his ceaseless dole,
Yet kept his nobler purpose sure.

Lo, as I gaze, the statured man,
Built up from yon large hand, appears;
A type that Nature wills to plan
But once in all a people's years.

What better than this voiceless cast
To tell of such a one as he,
Since through its living semblance passed
The thought that bade a race be free!

NOTES

this cast:—A cast of Lincoln's hand was made by Leonard W. Volk, in 1860, on the Sunday following the nomination of Lincoln for the Presidency. The original, in bronze, can be seen at the National Museum in Washington. Various copies have been made in plaster. An anecdote concerning one of these is told on page 107 of William Dean Howells's Literary Friends and Acquaintances; facing page 106 of the same book there is an interesting picture. In the Critic, volume 44, page 510, there is an article by Isabel Moore, entitled Hands that have Done Things; a picture of Lincoln's hand, in plaster, is given in the course of this article.

Anak:—The sons of Anak are spoken of in the Bible as a race of giants. See Numbers, 13:33; Deuteronomy, 9:2.

Atlas:—In Greek story, the giant who held the world on his shoulders.

the thought:—The Emancipation Proclamation.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Read the poem through from beginning to end. Then go back to the first and study it more carefully. Notice that there is no pause at the end of the first stanza. In the ninth line, mentally put in how after know. Explain what is said about Freedom's training her son. Loftier office: Loftier than what? Note that might is a noun. Mentally insert hand after courtier's. Can you tell from the hand of a person whether he has suffered or not? What does the author mean here by "the weight of Atlas"? What is a "formless grace"? Is the expression appropriate here? What characteristic of Lincoln is referred to in the line beginning "Called mirth"? Are great men so rare as the author seems to think? Why is the cast a good means of telling of "such a one as he"? Look carefully at one of Lincoln's portraits, and then read this poem aloud to yourself.

Compare this poem with the sonnet On the Life-Mask of Abraham Lincoln, page 210.

COLLATERAL READINGS

For portraits of E.C. Stedman, see Bookman, 34:592; Current Literature, 42:49.

JEAN VALJEAN

AUGUSTA STEVENSON

(Dramatized from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables)

Scene II

Time: Evening.

Place: Village of D——; dining room of the Bishop's house.

[The room is poorly furnished, but orderly. A door at the back opens on the street. At one side, a window overlooks the garden; at the other, curtains hang before an alcove. Mademoiselle, the Bishop's Sister, a sweet-faced lady, sits by the fire, knitting. Madame, his Housekeeper, is laying the table for supper.]

Mlle. Has the Bishop returned from the service?

Madame. Yes, Mademoiselle. He is in his room, reading. Shall I call him?

Mlle. No, do not disturb him—he will come in good time—when supper is ready.

Madame. Dear me—I forgot to get bread when I went out to-day.

Mlle. Go to the baker's, then; we will wait.

[Exit Madame. Pause.]

[Enter the Bishop. He is an old man, gentle and kindly.]

Bishop. I hope I have not kept you waiting, sister.

Mlle. No, brother, Madame has just gone out for bread. She forgot it this morning.

Bishop (having seated himself by the fire). The wind blows cold from the mountains to-night.

Mlle. (nodding). All day it has been growing colder.

Bishop. 'Twill bring great suffering to the poor.

Mlle. Who suffer too much already.

Bishop. I would I could help them more than I do!

Mlle. You give all you have, my brother. You keep nothing for yourself—you have only bare necessities.

Bishop. Well, I have sent in a bill for carriage hire in making pastoral visits.

Mlle. Carriage hire! I did not know you ever rode. Now I am glad to hear that. A bishop should go in state sometimes. I venture to say your bill is small.

Bishop. Three thousand francs.

Mlle. Three thousand francs! Why, I cannot believe it!

Bishop. Here is the bill.

Mlle. (reading bill). What is this!

So! that is your carriage hire! Ha, ha! I might have known it!

[They laugh together.]

[Enter Madame, excited, with bread.]

Madame. Such news as I have heard! The whole town is talking about it! We should have locks put on our doors at once!

Mlle. What is it, Madame? What have you heard?

Madame. They say there is a suspicious vagabond in the town. The inn-keeper refused to take him in. They say he is a released convict who once committed an awful crime.

[The Bishop is looking into the fire, paying no attention to Madame.]

Mlle. Do you hear what Madame is saying, brother?

Bishop. Only a little. Are we in danger, Madame?

Madame. There is a convict in town, your Reverence!

Bishop. Do you fear we shall be robbed?

Madame. I do, indeed!

Bishop. Of what?

Madame. There are the six silver plates and the silver soup-ladle and the two silver candlesticks.

Bishop. All of which we could do without.

Madame. Do without!

Mlle. 'Twould be a great loss, brother. We could not treat a guest as is our wont.

Bishop. Ah, there you have me, sister. I love to see the silver laid out for every guest who comes here. And I like the candles lighted, too; it makes a brighter welcome.

Mlle. A bishop's house should show some state.

Bishop. Aye—to every stranger! Henceforth, I should like every one of our six plates on the table whenever we have a guest here.

Mlle. All of them?

Madame. For one guest?

Bishop. Yes—we have no right to hide treasures. Each guest shall enjoy all that we have.

Madame. Then 'tis time we should look to the locks on the doors, if we would keep our silver. I'll go for the locksmith now—

Bishop. Stay! This house shall not be locked against any man! Would you have me lock out my brothers?

[A loud knock is heard at street door.]

Come in!

[Enter Jean Valjean, with his knapsack and cudgel. The women are frightened.]

Jean (roughly). See here! My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. I was set free four days ago, and I am looking for work. I hoped to find a lodging here, but no one will have me. It was the same way yesterday and the day before. To-night a good woman told me to knock at your door. I have knocked. Is this an inn?

Bishop. Madame, put on another plate.

Jean. Stop! You do not understand, I think. Here is my passport—see what it says: "Jean Valjean, discharged convict, has been nineteen years in the galleys; five years for theft; fourteen years for having attempted to escape. He is a very dangerous man." There! you know it all. I ask only for straw in your stable.

Bishop. Madame, you will put white sheets on the bed in the alcove.

[Exit Madame. The Bishop turns to Jean.]

We shall dine presently. Sit here by the fire, sir.

Jean. What! You will keep me? You call me "sir"! Oh! I am going to dine! I am to have a bed with sheets like the rest of the world—a bed! It is nineteen years since I have slept in a bed! I will pay anything you ask. You are a fine man. You are an innkeeper, are you not?

Bishop. I am a priest who lives here.

Jean. A priest! Ah, yes—I ask your pardon—I didn't notice your cap and gown.

Bishop. Be seated near the fire, sir.

[Jean deposits his knapsack, repeating to himself with delight.]

Jean. He calls me sir—sir. (Aloud.) You will require me to pay, will you not?

Bishop. No, keep your money. How much have you?

Jean. One hundred and nine francs.

Bishop. How long did it take you to earn it?

Jean. Nineteen years.

Bishop (sadly). Nineteen years—the best part of your life!

Jean. Aye, the best part—I am now forty-six. A beast of burden would have earned more.

Bishop. This lamp gives a very bad light, sister.

[Mlle. gets the two silver candlesticks from the mantel, lights them, and places them on the table.]

Jean. Ah, but you are good! You don't despise me. You light your candles for me,—you treat me as a guest,—and I've told you where I come from, who I am!

Bishop. This house does not demand of him who enters whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer—you are hungry—you are welcome.

Jean. I cannot understand it—

Bishop. This house is home to the man who needs a refuge. So, sir, this is your house now more than it is mine. Whatever is here is yours. What need have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me, I knew it.

Jean. What! You knew my name!

Bishop. Yes, your name is—Brother.

Jean. Stop! I cannot bear it—you are so good—

[He buries his face in his hands.]

[Enter Madame with dishes for the table; she continues passing in and out, preparing supper.]

Bishop. You have suffered much, sir—

Jean (nodding). The red shirt, the ball on the ankle, a plank to sleep on, heat, cold, toil, the whip, the double chain for nothing, the cell for one word—even when sick in bed, still the chain! Dogs, dogs are happier! Nineteen years! and now the yellow passport!

Bishop. Yes, you have suffered.

Jean (with violence). I hate this world of laws and courts! I hate the men who rule it! For nineteen years my soul has had only thoughts of hate. For nineteen years I've planned revenge. Do you hear? Revenge—revenge!

Bishop. It is not strange that you should feel so. And if you continue to harbor those thoughts, you are only deserving of pity. But listen, my brother; if, in spite of all you have passed through, your thoughts could be of peace and love, you would be better than any one of us.

[Pause. Jean reflects.]

Jean (speaking violently). No, no! I do not belong to your world of men. I am apart—a different creature from you all. The galleys made me different. I'll have nothing to do with any of you!

Madame. The supper, your Reverence.

[The Bishop glances at the table.]

Bishop. It strikes me there is something missing from this table.

[Madame hesitates.]

Mlle. Madame, do you not understand?

[Madame steps to a cupboard, gets the remaining silver plates, and places them on the table.]

Bishop (gayly, turning to Jean). To table then, my friend! To table!

[Jean remains for a moment, standing doggedly apart; then he steps over to the chair awaiting him, jerks it back, and sinks into it, without looking up.]

Scene III

Time: Daybreak the next morning.

Place: The Bishop's dining room.

[The room is dark, except for a faint light that comes in through window curtains. Jean Valjean creeps in from the alcove. He carries his knapsack and cudgel in one hand; in the other, his shoes. He opens the window overlooking the garden; the room becomes lighter. Jean steps to the mantel and lifts a silver candlestick.]

Jean (whispering). Two hundred francs—double what I have earned in nineteen years!

[He puts it in his knapsack; takes up the other candlestick; shudders, and sets it down again.]

No, no, he is good—he called me "sir"—

[He stands still, staring before him, his hand still gripping the candlestick. Suddenly he straightens up; speaks bitterly.]

Why not? 'Tis easy to give a bed and food! Why doesn't he keep men from the galleys? Nineteen years for a loaf of bread!

[Pauses a moment, then resolutely puts both candlesticks into his bag; steps to the cupboard and takes out the silver plates and the ladle, and slips them into the bag.]

All solid—I should gain at least one thousand francs. 'Tis due me—due me for all these years!

[Closes the bag. Pause.]

No, not the candles—I owe him that much—

[He puts the candlesticks on mantel; takes up cudgel, knapsack, and shoes; jumps out window and disappears. Pause.]

[Enter Madame. She shivers; discovers the open window.]

Madame. Why is that window open? I closed it last night myself. Oh! Could it be possible?

[Crosses and looks at open cupboard.]

It is gone!

[Enter the Bishop from his room.]

Bishop. Good morning, Madame!

Madame. Your Reverence! The silver is gone! Where is that man?

Bishop. In the alcove sleeping, I suppose.

[Madame runs to curtains of alcove and looks in. Enter Mademoiselle. Madame turns.]

He is gone!

Mlle. Gone?

Madame. Aye, gone—gone! He has stolen our silver, the beautiful plates and the ladle! I'll inform the police at once!

[Starts off. The Bishop stops her.]

Bishop. Wait!—Let me ask you this—was that silver ours?

Madame. Why—why not?

Bishop. Because it has always belonged to the poor. I have withheld it wrongfully.

Mlle. Its loss makes no difference to Madame or me.

Madame. Oh, no! But what is your Reverence to eat from now?

Bishop. Are there no pewter plates?

Madame. Pewter has an odor.

Bishop. Iron ones, then.

Madame. Iron has a taste.

Bishop. Well, then, wooden plates.

[A knock is heard at street door.]

Come in.

[Enter an Officer and two Soldiers, dragging in Jean Valjean.]

Officer. Your Reverence, we found your silver on this man.

Bishop. Why not? I gave it to him. I am glad to see you again, Jean. Why did you not take the candlesticks, too?

Jean (trembling). Your Reverence—

Bishop. I told you everything in this house was yours, my brother.

Officer. Ah, then what he said was true. But, of course, we did not believe him. We saw him creeping from your garden—

Bishop. It is all right, I assure you. This man is a friend of mine.

Officer. Then we can let him go?

Bishop. Certainly.

[Soldiers step back.]

Jean (trembling). I am free?

Officer. Yes! You can go. Do you not understand?

[Steps back.]

Bishop (to Jean). My friend, before you go away—here are your candlesticks (going to the mantel and bringing the candlesticks); take them.

[Jean takes the candlesticks, seeming not to know what he is doing.]

By the way, my friend, when you come again you need not come through the garden. The front door is closed only with a latch, day or night. (To the Officer and Soldiers.) Gentlemen, you may withdraw.

[Exit Officer and Soldiers.]

Jean (recoiling and holding out the candlesticks). No—no—I—I—

Bishop. Say no more; I understand. You felt that they were all owing to you from a world that had used you ill. Keep them, my friend, keep them. I would I had more to give you. It is small recompense for nineteen years.

[Jean stands bewildered, looking down at the candlesticks in his hands.]

They will add something to your hundred francs. But do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use the money in becoming an honest man.

Jean. I—promised—?

Bishop (not heeding). Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you: I withdraw it from thoughts of hatred and revenge—I give it to peace and hope and God.

[Jean stands as if stunned, staring at the Bishop, then turns and walks unsteadily from the room.]

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Jean Valjean, as a young man, was sent to the galleys for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's hungry children. From time to time, when he tried to escape, his sentence was increased, so that he spent nineteen years as a convict. Scene I of Miss Stevenson's dramatization shows Jean Valjean being turned away from the inn because he has been in prison.

What does the stage setting tell of the Bishop and his sister? Notice, as you read, why each of the items in the stage setting is mentioned. Why is Madame made to leave the room—how does her absence help the action of the play? What is the purpose of the conversation about the weather? About the carriage hire? Why is the Bishop not more excited at Madame's news? What is gained by the talk about the silver? Notice the dramatic value of the Bishop's speech beginning "Stay!" Why does Jean Valjean speak so roughly when he enters? Why does he not try to conceal the fact that he is a convict? Why does not the Bishop reply directly to Jean Valjean's question? What would be the action of Mademoiselle and Madame while Jean is speaking? What is Madame's action as she goes out? What is gained by the conversation between Jean and the Bishop? Why does the Bishop not reproach Jean for saying he will have revenge? Why is the silver mentioned so many times?

While you are reading the first part of Scene III, think how it should be played. Note how much the stage directions add to the clearness of the scene. How long should the pause be, before Madame enters? What is gained by the calmness of the Bishop? How can he say that the silver was not his? What does the Bishop mean when he says, "I gave it to him"? What are Mademoiselle and Madame doing while the conversation with the officers and Jean Valjean is going on? Is it a good plan to let them drop so completely out of the conversation? Why does the Bishop say that Jean has promised? Why does the scene close without Jean's replying to the Bishop? How do you think the Bishop's kindness has affected Jean Valjean's attitude toward life?

Note how the action and the conversation increase in intensity as the play proceeds: Is this a good method? Notice the use of contrast in speech and action. Note how the chief characters are emphasized. Can you discover the quality called "restraint," in this fragment of a play? How is it gained, and what is its value?

EXERCISES[8]

Select a short passage from some book that you like, and try to put it into dramatic form, using this selection as a kind of model. Do not attempt too much at once, but think out carefully the setting, the stage directions, and the dialogue for a brief fragment of a play.

Make a series of dramatic scenes from the same book, so that a connected story is worked out.

Read a part of some modern drama, such as The Piper, or The Blue Bird, or one of Mr. Howells's little farces, and notice how it makes use of setting and stage directions; how the conversation is broken up; how the situation is brought out in the dialogue; how each person is made to speak in his own character.

After you have done the reading suggested above, make another attempt at dramatizing a scene from a book, and see what improvement you can make upon the sort of thing you did at first.

It might be interesting for two or three persons to work on a bit of dramatization together, and then give the fragment of a play in simple fashion before the class. Or the whole class may work on the play, and then select some of their number to perform it.

COLLATERAL READINGS

A COMBAT ON THE SANDS

MARY JOHNSTON

(From To Have and to Hold, Chapters XXI and XXII)

A few minutes later saw me almost upon the party gathered about the grave. The grave had received that which it was to hold until the crack of doom, and was now being rapidly filled with sand. The crew of deep-dyed villains worked or stood or sat in silence, but all looked at the grave, and saw me not. As the last handful of sand made it level with the beach, I walked into their midst, and found myself face to face with the three candidates for the now vacant captaincy.

"Give you good-day, gentlemen," I cried. "Is it your captain that you bury or one of your crew, or is it only pezos and pieces of eight?

"The sun shining on so much bare steel hurts my eyes," I said. "Put up, gentlemen, put up! Cannot one rover attend the funeral of another without all this crowding and display of cutlery? If you will take the trouble to look around you, you will see that I have brought to the obsequies only myself."

One by one cutlass and sword were lowered, and those who had drawn them, falling somewhat back, spat and swore and laughed. The man in black and silver only smiled gently and sadly. "Did you drop from the blue?" he asked. "Or did you come up from the sea?"

"I came out of it," I said. "My ship went down in the storm yesterday. Your little cockboat yonder was more fortunate." I waved my hand toward that ship of three hundred tons, then twirled my mustaches and stood at gaze.

"Was your ship so large, then?" demanded Paradise, while a murmur of admiration, larded with oaths, ran around the circle.

"She was a very great galleon," I replied, with a sigh for the good ship that was gone.

A moment's silence, during which they all looked at me. "A galleon," then said Paradise softly.

"They that sailed her yesterday are to-day at the bottom of the sea," I continued. "Alackaday! so are one hundred thousand pezos of gold, three thousand bars of silver, ten frails of pearls, jewels uncounted, cloth of gold and cloth of silver. She was a very rich prize."

The circle sucked in their breath. "All at the bottom of the sea?" queried Red Gil, with gloating eyes fixed upon the smiling water. "Not one pezo left, not one little, little pearl?"

I shook my head and heaved a prodigious sigh. "The treasure is gone," I said, "and the men with whom I took it are gone. I am a captain with neither ship nor crew. I take you, my friends, for a ship and crew without a captain. The inference is obvious."

The ring gaped with wonder, then strange oaths arose. Red Gil broke into a bellow of angry laughter, while the Spaniard glared like a catamount about to spring. "So you would be our captain?" said Paradise, picking up another shell, and poising it upon a hand as fine and small as a woman's.

"Faith, you might go farther and fare worse," I answered, and began to hum a tune. When I had finished it, "I am Kirby," I said, and waited to see if that shot should go wide or through the hull.

For two minutes the dash of the surf and the cries of the wheeling sea fowl made the only sound in that part of the world; then from those half-clad rapscallions arose a shout of "Kirby!"—a shout in which the three leaders did not join. That one who looked a gentleman rose from the sand and made me a low bow. "Well met, noble captain," he cried in those his honey tones. "You will doubtless remember me who was with you that time at Maracaibo when you sunk the galleasses. Five years have passed since then, and yet I see you ten years younger and three inches taller."

"I touched once at the Lucayas, and found the spring de Leon sought," I said. "Sure the waters have a marvelous effect, and if they give not eternal youth at least renew that which we have lost."

"Truly a potent aqua vitæ," he remarked, still with thoughtful melancholy. "I see that it hath changed your eyes from black to gray."

"It hath that peculiar virtue," I said, "that it can make black seem white."

The man with the woman's mantle drawn about him now thrust himself from the rear to the front rank. "That's not Kirby!" he bawled. "He's no more Kirby than I am Kirby! Didn't I sail with Kirby from the Summer Isles to Cartagena and back again? He's a cheat, and I am a-going to cut his heart out!" He was making at me with a long knife, when I whipped out my rapier.

"Am I not Kirby, you dog?" I cried, and ran him through the shoulder.

He dropped, and his fellows surged forward with a yell. "Yet a little patience, my masters!" said Paradise in a raised voice and with genuine amusement in his eyes. "It is true that that Kirby with whom I and our friend there on the ground sailed was somewhat short and as swart as a raven, besides having a cut across his face that had taken away part of his lip and the top of his ear, and that this gentleman who announces himself as Kirby hath none of Kirby's marks. But we are fair and generous and open to conviction"—

"He'll have to convince my cutlass!" roared Red Gil.

I turned upon him. "If I do convince it, what then?" I demanded. "If I convince your sword, you of Spain, and yours, Sir Black and Silver?"

The Spaniard stared. "I was the best sword in Lima," he said stiffly. "I and my Toledo will not change our minds."

"Let him try to convince Paradise; he's got no reputation as a swordsman!" cried out the grave-digger with the broken head.

A roar of laughter followed this suggestion, and I gathered from it and from the oaths and allusions to this or that time and place that Paradise was not without reputation.

I turned to him. "If I fight you three, one by one, and win, am I Kirby?"

He regarded the shell with which he was toying with a thoughtful smile, held it up that the light might strike through its rose and pearl, then crushed it to dust between his fingers.

"Ay," he said with an oath. "If you win against the cutlass of Red Gil, the best blade of Lima, and the sword of Paradise, you may call yourself the devil an you please, and we will all subscribe to it."

I lifted my hand. "I am to have fair play?"

As one man that crew of desperate villains swore that the odds should be only three to one. By this the whole matter had presented itself to them as an entertainment more diverting than bullfight or bear-baiting. They that follow the sea, whether honest men or black-hearted knaves, have in their composition a certain childlikeness that makes them easily turned, easily led, and easily pleased. The wind of their passion shifts quickly from point to point, one moment blowing a hurricane, the next sinking to a happy-go-lucky summer breeze. I have seen a little thing convert a crew on the point of mutiny into a set of rollicking, good-natured souls who—until the wind veered again—would not hurt a fly. So with these. They spread themselves into a circle, squatting or kneeling or standing upon the white sand in the bright sunshine, their sinewy hands that should have been ingrained red clasped over their knees, or, arms akimbo, resting upon their hips, on their scoundrel faces a broad smile, and in their eyes that had looked on nameless horrors a pleasurable expectation as of spectators in a playhouse awaiting the entrance of the players.

"There is really no good reason why we should gratify your whim," said Paradise, still amused. "But it will serve to pass the time. We will fight you, one by one."

"And if I win?"

He laughed. "Then, on the honor of a gentleman, you are Kirby and our captain. If you lose, we will leave you where you stand for the gulls to bury."

"A bargain," I said, and drew my sword.

"I first!" roared Red Gil. "God's wounds! there will need no second!"

As he spoke he swung his cutlass and made an arc of blue flame. The weapon became in his hands a flail, terrible to look upon, making lightnings and whistling in the air, but in reality not so deadly as it seemed. The fury of his onslaught would have beaten down the guard of any mere swordsman, but that I was not. A man, knowing his weakness and insufficiency in many and many a thing, may yet know his strength in one or two and his modesty take no hurt. I was ever master of my sword, and it did the thing I would have it do. Moreover, as I fought I saw her as I had last seen her, standing against the bank of sand, her dark hair, half braided, drawn over her bosom and hanging to her knees. Her eyes haunted me, and my lips yet felt the touch of her hand. I fought well,—how well the lapsing of oaths and laughter into breathless silence bore witness.

The ruffian against whom I was pitted began to draw his breath in gasps. He was a scoundrel not fit to die, less fit to live, unworthy of a gentleman's steel. I presently ran him through with as little compunction and as great a desire to be quit of a dirty job as if he had been a mad dog. He fell, and a little later, while I was engaged with the Spaniard, his soul went to that hell which had long gaped for it. To those his companions his death was as slight a thing as would theirs have been to him. In the eyes of the two remaining would-be leaders he was a stumbling-block removed, and to the squatting, open-mouthed commonalty his taking off weighed not a feather against the solid entertainment I was affording them. I was now a better man than Red Gil,—that was all.

The Spaniard was a more formidable antagonist. The best blade of Lima was by no means to be despised: but Lima is a small place, and its blades can be numbered. The sword that for three years had been counted the best in all the Low Countries was its better. But I fought fasting and for the second time that morning, so maybe the odds were not so great. I wounded him slightly, and presently succeeded in disarming him. "Am I Kirby?" I demanded, with my point at his breast.

"Kirby, of course, señor," he answered with a sour smile, his eyes upon the gleaming blade.

I lowered my point and we bowed to each other, after which he sat down upon the sand and applied himself to stanching the bleeding from his wound. The pirate ring gave him no attention, but stared at me instead. I was now a better man than the Spaniard.

The man in black and silver rose and removed his doublet, folding it very carefully, inside out, that the sand might not injure the velvet, then drew his rapier, looked at it lovingly, made it bend until point and hilt well-nigh met, and faced me with a bow.

"You have fought twice, and must be weary," he said. "Will you not take breath before we engage, or will your long rest afterward suffice you?"

"I will rest aboard my ship," I made reply. "And as I am in a hurry to be gone we won't delay."

Our blades had no sooner crossed than I knew that in this last encounter I should need every whit of my skill, all my wit, audacity, and strength. I had met my equal, and he came to it fresh and I jaded. I clenched my teeth and prayed with all my heart; I set her face before me, and thought if I should fail her to what ghastly fate she might come, and I fought as I had never fought before. The sound of the surf became a roar in my ears, the sunshine an intolerable blaze of light; the blue above and around seemed suddenly beneath my feet as well. We were fighting high in the air, and had fought thus for ages. I knew that he made no thrust I did not parry, no feint I could not interpret. I knew that my eye was more quick to see, my brain to conceive, and my hand to execute than ever before; but it was as though I held that knowledge of some other, and I myself was far away, at Weyanoke, in the minister's garden, in the haunted wood, anywhere save on that barren islet. I heard him swear under his breath, and in the face I had set before me the eyes brightened. As if she had loved me I fought for her with all my powers of body and mind. He swore again, and my heart laughed within me. The sea now roared less loudly, and I felt the good earth beneath my feet. Slowly but surely I wore him out. His breath came short, the sweat stood upon his forehead, and still I deferred my attack. He made the thrust of a boy of fifteen, and I smiled as I put it by.

"Why don't you end it?" he breathed. "Finish and be hanged to you!"

For answer I sent his sword flying over the nearest hillock of sand. "Am I Kirby?" I said. He fell back against the heaped-up sand and leaned there, panting, with his hand to his side. "Kirby or devil," he replied. "Have it your own way."

I turned to the now highly excited rabble. "Shove the boats off, half a dozen of you!" I ordered. "Some of you others take up that carrion there and throw it into the sea. The gold upon it is for your pains. You there with the wounded shoulder you have no great hurt. I'll salve it with ten pieces of eight from the captain's own share, the next prize we take."

A shout of acclamation arose that scared the sea fowl. They who so short a time before had been ready to tear me limb from limb now with the greatest apparent delight hailed me as captain. How soon they might revert to their former mood was a question that I found not worth while to propound to myself.

By this the man in black and silver had recovered his breath and his equanimity. "Have you no commission with which to honor me, noble captain?" he asked in gently reproachful tones. "Have you forgot how often you were wont to employ me in those sweet days when your eyes were black?"

"By no means, Master Paradise," I said courteously. "I desire your company and that of the gentleman from Lima. You will go with me to bring up the rest of my party. The three gentlemen of the broken head, the bushy ruff, which I protest is vastly becoming, and the wounded shoulder will escort us."

"The rest of your party?" said Paradise softly.

"Ay," I answered nonchalantly. "They are down the beach and around the point warming themselves by a fire which this piled-up sand hides from you. Despite the sunshine it is a biting air. Let us be going! This island wearies me, and I am anxious to be on board ship and away."

"So small an escort scarce befits so great a captain," he said. "We will all attend you." One and all started forward.

I called to mind and gave utterance to all the oaths I had heard in the wars. "I entertain you for my subordinate whom I command, and not who commands me!" I cried, when my memory failed me. "As for you, you dogs, who would question your captain and his doings, stay where you are, if you would not be lessoned in earnest!"

Sheer audacity is at times the surest steed a man can bestride. Now at least it did me good service. With oaths and grunts of admiration the pirates stayed where they were, and went about their business of launching the boats and stripping the body of Red Gil, while the man in black and silver, the Spaniard, the two gravediggers, the knave with the wounded shoulder, and myself walked briskly up the beach.

With these five at my heels I strode up to the dying fire and to those who had sprung to their feet at our approach. "Sparrow," I said easily, "luck being with us as usual, I have fallen in with a party of rovers. I have told them who I am,—that Kirby, to wit, whom an injurious world calls the blackest pirate unhanged,—and I have recounted to them how the great galleon which I took some months ago went down yesterday with all on board, you and I with these others being the sole survivors. By dint of a little persuasion they have elected me their captain, and we will go on board directly and set sail for the Indies, a hunting ground which we never should have left. You need not look so blank; you shall be my mate and right hand still." I turned to the five who formed my escort. "This, gentlemen, is my mate, Jeremy Sparrow by name, who hath a taste for divinity that in no wise interferes with his taste for a galleon or a guarda costa. This man, Diccon Demon by name, was of my crew. The gentleman without a sword is my prisoner, taken by me from the last ship I sunk. How he, an Englishman, came to be upon a Spanish bark I have not found leisure to inquire. The lady is my prisoner, also."

"Sure by rights she should be gaoler and hold all men's hearts in ward," said Paradise, with a low bow to my unfortunate captive.

While he spoke a most remarkable transformation was going on. The minister's grave, rugged, and deeply lined face smoothed itself and shed ten years at least; in the eyes that I had seen wet with noble tears a laughing devil now lurked, while his strong mouth became a loose-lipped, devil-may-care one. His head with its aureole of bushy, grizzled hair set itself jauntily upon one side, and from it and from his face and his whole great frame breathed a wicked jollity quite indescribable.

"Odsbodikins, captain!" he cried. "Kirby's luck!—'twill pass into a saw! Adzooks! and so you're captain once more, and I'm mate once more, and we've a ship once more, and we're off once more

To sail the Spanish Main,
And give the Spaniard pain,
Heave ho, bully boy, heave ho!

By 'r lakin! I'm too dry to sing. It will take all the wine of Xeres in the next galleon to unparch my tongue!"

NOTES

the grave:—This refers to the latter part of chapter 21 of To Have and to Hold; the hero, Ralph Percy, who has been shipwrecked with his companions, discovers a group of pirates burying their dead captain.

pezos and pieces of eight:—peso is the Spanish word for dollar; pieces of eight are dollars also, each dollar containing eight reals.

the man in black and silver:—Paradise, an Englishman.

frails:—Baskets made of rushes.

Kirby:—A renowned pirate mentioned in chapter 21.

Maracaibo:—The city or the gulf of that name in Venezuela.

galleasses:—Heavy, low-built vessels having sails as well as oars.

Lucayas:—An old name for the Bahama Islands.

de Leon:—Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in 1513; he searched long for a fountain which would restore youth.

aqua vitæ:—Latin for water of life.

Summer Isles:—Another name for the Bermuda Islands.

Cartagena:—A city in Spain.

Lima:—A city in Peru.

Toledo:—A "Toledo blade"—a sword of the very finest temper, made in Toledo, Spain.

the Low Countries:—Holland and Belgium.

señor:—The Spanish word for sir.

Weyanoke:—The home of the hero, near Jamestown, Virginia.

Sparrow:—A minister, one of the hero's companions; see chapter 3 of To Have and to Hold.

guarda costa:—Coast guard.

Diccon:—Ralph Percy's servant.

the gentleman without a sword:—Lord Carnal, an enemy of Percy.

the lady:—She is really Percy's wife.

Odsbodikins; Adzooks:—Oaths much used two centuries ago.

By 'r lakin:—By our ladykin (little lady); an oath by the Virgin Mary.

Xeres:—The Spanish town after which sherry wine is named.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

This selection is easily understood. Ralph Percy, his wife, and several others (see notes) are cast on a desert shore after the sinking of their boat. Percy leaves his companions for a time and falls among pirates; he pretends to be a "sea-rover" himself. Why does he allude to the pirate ship as a "cockboat"? Why are the pirates impressed by his remarks? Why does Percy emphasize the riches of the sunken ship? Is what he says true? (See chapter 19 of To Have and to Hold.) If not, is he justified in telling a falsehood? Is he really Kirby? Is he fortunate in his assertion that he is? How does he explain his lack of resemblance to Kirby? What kind of person is the hero? Why does he wish to become the leader of the pirates? Is it possible that the pirate crew should change their attitude so suddenly? Is it a good plan in a story to make a hero tell of his own successes? Characterize the man in black and silver. How does the author make us feel the action and peril of the struggle? How does she make us feel the long duration of the fight with Paradise? Do you like the hero's behavior with the defeated pirates? Why is he so careful to repeat to the minister what he has told the pirates? Why does the minister appear to change his character?

Can you make this piece into a little play?

THEME SUBJECTS

The Real Pirates
Spanish Gold
A Fight for Life
A Famous Duel
Buried Treasure
Playing Pirates
Sea Stories that I Like
Captain Kidd
Ponce de Leon
The Search for Gold
Story-book Heroes
Along the Sea Shore
A Barren Island
The Rivals
Land Pirates
The Pirates in Peter Pan
A Struggle for Leadership
Our High School Play

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

Try to make a fragment of a play out of this selection. In this process, all the class may work together under the direction of the teacher, or each pupil may make his own attempt to dramatize the piece.

In writing the drama, tell first what the setting is. In doing so, you had better look up some modern play and see how the setting is explained to the reader or the actors. Now show the pirates at work, and give a few lines of their conversation; then have the hero come upon the scene. Indicate the speech of each person, and put in all necessary stage directions. Perhaps you will want to add more dialogue than there is here. Some of the onlookers may have something to say. Perhaps you will wish to leave something out. It might be well, while the fighting is going on, to bring in remarks from the combatants and the other pirates. You might look up the duel scene in Hamlet for this point. You can end your play with the departure of the group; or you can write a second scene, in which the hero's companions appear, including the lady. Considerable dialogue could be invented here, and a new episode added—a quarrel, a plan for organization, or a merry-making.

When your play is finished, you may possibly wish to have it acted before the class. A few turbans, sashes, and weapons will be sufficient to give an air of piracy to the group of players. Some grim black mustaches would complete the effect.

A Pirate Story:—Tell an old-fashioned "yarn" of adventure, in which a modest hero relates his own experiences. Give your imagination a good deal of liberty. Do not waste much time in getting started, but plunge very soon into the actual story. Let your hero tell how he fell among the pirates. Then go on with the conversation that ensued—the threats, the boasting, and the bravado. Make the hero report his struggles, or the tricks that he resorted to in order to outwit the sea-rovers. Perhaps he failed at first and got into still greater dangers. Follow out his adventures to the moment of his escape. Make your descriptions short and vivid; put in as much direct conversation as possible; keep the action brisk and spirited. Try to write a lively tale that would interest a group of younger boys.

COLLATERAL READINGS

For Portraits of Miss Johnston, see Bookman, 20:402; 28:193.

THE GRASSHOPPER

EDITH M. THOMAS

Shuttle of the sunburnt grass,
Fifer in the dun cuirass,
Fifing shrilly in the morn,
Shrilly still at eve unworn;
Now to rear, now in the van,
Gayest of the elfin clan:
Though I watch their rustling flight,
I can never guess aright
Where their lodging-places are;
'Mid some daisy's golden star,
Or beneath a roofing leaf,
Or in fringes of a sheaf,
Tenanted as soon as bound!
Loud thy reveille doth sound,
When the earth is laid asleep,
And her dreams are passing deep,
On mid-August afternoons;
And through all the harvest moons,
Nights brimmed up with honeyed peace,
Thy gainsaying doth not cease.
When the frost comes, thou art dead;
We along the stubble tread,
On blue, frozen morns, and note
No least murmur is afloat:
Wondrous still our fields are then,
Fifer of the elfin men!

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Why is the grasshopper called a "shuttle"? What does the word still mean here? Who are the "elfin clan"? By whom is the sheaf tenanted? What is a reveille? Does the grasshopper chirp at night? Why is its cry called "gainsaying"?

See how simple the meter (measure) is in this little poem. Ask your teacher to explain how it is represented by these characters:

ˉ˘ˉ˘ˉ˘ˉ
ˉ˘ˉ˘ˉ˘ˉ

Note which signs indicate the accented syllables. See whether or not the accent comes at the end of the line. The rhyme-scheme is called a couplet, because of the way in which two lines are linked together. This kind of rhyme is represented by aa, bb, cc, etc.

EXERCISES

Find some other poem that has the same meter and rhyme that this one has. Try to write a short poem of five or six couplets, using this meter and rhyme. You do not need to choose a highly poetic subject: Try something very simple.

Perhaps you can "get a start" from one of the lines given below:—

1. Glowing, darting dragon-fly.
2. Voyager on dusty wings (A Moth).
3. Buzzing through the fragrant air (A Bee).
4. Trembling lurker in the gloom (A Mouse).
5. Gay red-throated epicure (A humming-bird).
6. Stealthy vagrant of the night (An Owl).
7. Flashing through your crystal room (A Gold-fish).
8. Fairyland is all awake.
9. Once when all the woods were green.
10. In the forest is a pool.

COLLATERAL READINGS

MOLY

EDITH M. THOMAS

The root is hard to loose
From hold of earth by mortals, but Gods' power
Can all things do. 'Tis black, but bears a flower
As white as milk. (Chapman's Homer.)

Traveller, pluck a stem of moly,
If thou touch at Circe's isle,—
Hermes' moly, growing solely
To undo enchanter's wile.
When she proffers thee her chalice,—
Wine and spices mixed with malice,—
When she smites thee with her staff
To transform thee, do thou laugh!
Safe thou art if thou but bear
The least leaf of moly rare.
Close it grows beside her portal,
Springing from a stock immortal,—
Yes, and often has the Witch
Sought to tear it from its niche;
But to thwart her cruel will
The wise God renews it still.
Though it grows in soil perverse,
Heaven hath been its jealous nurse,
And a flower of snowy mark
Springs from root and sheathing dark;
Kingly safeguard, only herb
That can brutish passion curb!
Some do think its name should be
Shield-heart, White Integrity.

Traveller, pluck a stem of moly,
If thou touch at Circe's isle,—
Hermes' moly, growing solely
To undo enchanter's wile!

NOTES

Chapman's Homer:—George Chapman (1559?-1634) was an English poet. He translated Homer from the Greek into English verse.

moly:—An herb with a black root and a white flower, which Hermes gave to Odysseus in order to help him withstand the spell of the witch Circe.

Circe:—A witch who charmed her victims with a drink that she prepared for them, and then changed them into the animals they in character most resembled.

Hermes:—The messenger of the other Greek gods; he was crafty and eloquent.

The wise God:—Hermes, or Mercury.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Before you try to study this poem carefully, find out something of the story of Ulysses and Circe: when you have this information, the poem will become clear. Notice how the author applies the old Greek tale to the experiences of everyday life. This would be a good poem to memorize.

COLLATERAL READINGS

PICTURES

THE PROMISED LAND

MARY ANTIN

(From Chapter IX of The Promised Land)

During his three years of probation, my father had made a number of false starts in business. His history for that period is the history of thousands who come to America, like him, with pockets empty, hands untrained to the use of tools, minds cramped by centuries of repression in their native land. Dozens of these men pass under your eyes every day, my American friend, too absorbed in their honest affairs to notice the looks of suspicion which you cast at them, the repugnance with which you shrink from their touch. You see them shuffle from door to door with a basket of spools and buttons, or bending over the sizzling irons in a basement tailor shop, or rummaging in your ash can, or moving a pushcart from curb to curb, at the command of the burly policeman. "The Jew peddler!" you say, and dismiss him from your premises and from your thoughts, never dreaming that the sordid drama of his days may have a moral that concerns you. What if the creature with the untidy beard carries in his bosom his citizenship papers? What if the cross-legged tailor is supporting a boy in college who is one day going to mend your state constitution for you? What if the ragpicker's daughters are hastening over the ocean to teach your children in the public schools? Think, every time you pass the greasy alien on the street, that he was born thousands of years before the oldest native American; and he may have something to communicate to you, when you two shall have learned a common language. Remember that his very physiognomy is a cipher the key to which it behooves you to search for most diligently.

By the time we joined my father, he had surveyed many avenues of approach toward the coveted citadel of fortune. One of these, heretofore untried, he now proposed to essay, armed with new courage, and cheered on by the presence of his family. In partnership with an energetic little man who had an English chapter in his history, he prepared to set up a refreshment booth on Crescent Beach. But while he was completing arrangements at the beach, we remained in town, where we enjoyed the educational advantages of a thickly populated neighborhood; namely, Wall Street, in the West End of Boston.

Anybody who knows Boston knows that the West and North Ends are the wrong ends of that city. They form the tenement district, or, in the newer phrase, the slums of Boston. Anybody who is acquainted with the slums of any American metropolis knows that that is the quarter where poor immigrants foregather, to live, for the most part, as unkempt, half-washed, toiling, unaspiring foreigners; pitiful in the eyes of social missionaries, the despair of boards of health, the hope of ward politicians, the touchstone of American democracy. The well-versed metropolitan knows the slums as a sort of house of detention for poor aliens, where they live on probation till they can show a certificate of good citizenship.

He may know all this and yet not guess how Wall Street, in the West End, appears in the eyes of a little immigrant from Polotzk. What would the sophisticated sight-seer say about Union Place, off Wall Street, where my new home waited for me? He would say that it is no place at all, but a short box of an alley. Two rows of three-story tenements are its sides, a stingy strip of sky is its lid, a littered pavement is the floor, and a narrow mouth its exit.

But I saw a very different picture on my introduction to Union Place. I saw two imposing rows of brick buildings, loftier than any dwelling I had ever lived in. Brick was even on the ground for me to tread on, instead of common earth or boards. Many friendly windows stood open, filled with uncovered heads of women and children. I thought the people were interested in us, which was very neighborly. I looked up to the topmost row of windows, and my eyes were filled with the May blue of an American sky!

In our days of affluence in Russia we had been accustomed to upholstered parlors, embroidered linen, silver spoons and candlesticks, goblets of gold, kitchen shelves shining with copper and brass. We had feather-beds heaped halfway to the ceiling; we had clothes presses dusky with velvet and silk and fine woolen. The three small rooms into which my father now ushered us, up one flight of stairs, contained only the necessary beds, with lean mattresses; a few wooden chairs; a table or two; a mysterious iron structure, which later turned out to be a stove; a couple of unornamental kerosene lamps; and a scanty array of cooking-utensils and crockery. And yet we were all impressed with our new home and its furniture. It was not only because we had just passed through our seven lean years, cooking in earthern vessels, eating black bread on holidays and wearing cotton; it was chiefly because these wooden chairs and tin pans were American chairs and pans that they shone glorious in our eyes. And if there was anything lacking for comfort or decoration we expected it to be presently supplied—at least, we children did. Perhaps my mother alone, of us newcomers, appreciated the shabbiness of the little apartment, and realized that for her there was as yet no laying down of the burden of poverty.

Our initiation into American ways began with the first step on the new soil. My father found occasion to instruct or correct us even on the way from the pier to Wall Street, which journey we made crowded together in a rickety cab. He told us not to lean out of the windows, not to point, and explained the word "greenhorn." We did not want to be "greenhorns," and gave the strictest attention to my father's instructions. I do not know when my parents found opportunity to review together the history of Polotzk in the three years past, for we children had no patience with the subject; my mother's narrative was constantly interrupted by irrelevant questions, interjections, and explanations.

The first meal was an object lesson of much variety. My father produced several kinds of food, ready to eat, without any cooking, from little tin cans that had printing all over them. He attempted to introduce us to a queer, slippery kind of fruit, which he called "banana," but had to give it up for the time being. After the meal, he had better luck with a curious piece of furniture on runners, which he called "rocking-chair." There were five of us newcomers, and we found five different ways of getting into the American machine of perpetual motion, and as many ways of getting out of it. One born and bred to the use of a rocking-chair cannot imagine how ludicrous people can make themselves when attempting to use it for the first time. We laughed immoderately over our various experiments with the novelty, which was a wholesome way of letting off steam after the unusual excitement of the day.

In our flat we did not think of such a thing as storing the coal in the bathtub. There was no bathtub. So in the evening of the first day my father conducted us to the public baths. As we moved along in a little procession, I was delighted with the illumination of the streets. So many lamps, and they burned until morning, my father said, and so people did not need to carry lanterns. In America, then, everything was free, as we had heard in Russia. Light was free; the streets were as bright as a synagogue on a holy day. Music was free; we had been serenaded, to our gaping delight, by a brass band of many pieces, soon after our installation on Union Place.

Education was free. That subject my father had written about repeatedly, as comprising his chief hope for us children, the essence of American opportunity, the treasure that no thief could touch, not even misfortune or poverty. It was the one thing that he was able to promise us when he sent for us; surer, safer than bread or shelter. On our second day I was thrilled with the realization of what this freedom of education meant. A little girl from across the alley came and offered to conduct us to school. My father was out, but we five between us had a few words of English by this time. We knew the word school. We understood. This child, who had never seen us till yesterday, who could not pronounce our names, who was not much better dressed than we, was able to offer us the freedom of the schools of Boston! No application made, no questions asked, no examinations, rulings, exclusions; no machinations, no fees. The doors stood open for every one of us. The smallest child could show us the way.

This incident impressed me more than anything I had heard in advance of the freedom of education in America. It was a concrete proof—almost the thing itself. One had to experience it to understand it.

It was a great disappointment to be told by my father that we were not to enter upon our school career at once. It was too near the end of the term, he said, and we were going to move to Crescent Beach in a week or so. We had to wait until the opening of the schools in September. What a loss of precious time—from May till September!

Not that the time was really lost. Even the interval on Union Place was crowded with lessons and experiences. We had to visit the stores and be dressed from head to foot in American clothing; we had to learn the mysteries of the iron stove, the washboard, and the speaking-tube; we had to learn to trade with the fruit peddler through the window, and not to be afraid of the policeman; and, above all, we had to learn English.

The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a group by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen them from those early days till now, I should still have remembered them with gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of American teachers, I must begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and taught us our first steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the cookstove, the woman who showed her how to make the fire was an angel of deliverance. A fairy godmother to us children was she who led us to a wonderful country called "uptown," where in a dazzlingly beautiful palace called a "department store," we exchanged our hateful homemade European costumes, which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the children on the street, for real American machine-made garments, and issued forth glorified in each other's eyes.

With our despised immigrant clothing we shed also our impossible Hebrew names. A committee of our friends, several years ahead of us in American experience, put their heads together and concocted American names for us all. Those of our real names that had no pleasing American equivalents they ruthlessly discarded, content if they retained the initials. My mother, possessing a name that was not easily translatable, was punished with the undignified nickname of Annie. Fetchke, Joseph, and Deborah issued as Frieda, Joseph, and Dora, respectively. As for poor me, I was simply cheated. The name they gave me was hardly new. My Hebrew name being Maryashe in full, Mashke for short, Russianized into Marya (Mar-ya) my friends said that it would hold good in English as Mary; which was very disappointing, as I longed to possess a strange-sounding American name like the others.

I am forgetting the consolation I had, in this matter of names, from the use of my surname, which I have had no occasion to mention until now. I found on my arrival that my father was "Mr. Antin" on the slightest provocation, and not, as in Polotzk, on state occasions alone. And so I was "Mary Antin," and I felt very important to answer to such a dignified title. It was just like America that even plain people should wear their surnames on week days.

As a family we were so diligent under instruction, so adaptable, and so clever in hiding our deficiencies, that when we made the journey to Crescent Beach, in the wake of our small wagon-load of household goods, my father had very little occasion to admonish us on the way, and I am sure he was not ashamed of us. So much we had achieved toward our Americanization during the two weeks since our landing.

Crescent Beach is a name that is printed in very small type on the maps of the environs of Boston, but a life-size strip of sand curves from Winthrop to Lynn; and that is historic ground in the annals of my family. The place is now a popular resort for holiday crowds, and is famous under the name of Revere Beach. When the reunited Antins made their stand there, however, there were no boulevards, no stately bath-houses, no hotels, no gaudy amusement places, no illuminations, no showmen, no tawdry rabble. There was only the bright clean sweep of sand, the summer sea, and the summer sky. At high tide the whole Atlantic rushed in, tossing the seaweeds in his mane; at low tide he rushed out, growling and gnashing his granite teeth. Between tides a baby might play on the beach, digging with pebbles and shells, till it lay asleep on the sand. The whole sun shone by day, troops of stars by night, and the great moon in its season.

Into this grand cycle of the seaside day I came to live and learn and play. A few people came with me, as I have already intimated; but the main thing was that I came to live on the edge of the sea—I, who had spent my life inland, believing that the great waters of the world were spread out before me in the Dvina. My idea of the human world had grown enormously during the long journey; my idea of the earth had expanded with every day at sea, my idea of the world outside the earth now budded and swelled during my prolonged experience of the wide and unobstructed heavens.

Not that I got any inkling of the conception of a multiple world. I had had no lessons in cosmogony, and I had no spontaneous revelation of the true position of the earth in the universe. For me, as for my fathers, the sun set and rose, and I did not feel the earth rushing through space. But I lay stretched out in the sun, my eyes level with the sea, till I seemed to be absorbed bodily by the very materials of the world around me; till I could not feel my hand as separate from the warm sand in which it was buried. Or I crouched on the beach at full moon, wondering, wondering, between the two splendors of the sky and the sea. Or I ran out to meet the incoming storm, my face full in the wind, my being a-tingle with an awesome delight to the tips of my fog-matted locks flying behind; and stood clinging to some stake or upturned boat, shaken by the roar and rumble of the waves. So clinging, I pretended that I was in danger, and was deliciously frightened; I held on with both hands, and shook my head, exulting in the tumult around me, equally ready to laugh or sob. Or else I sat, on the stillest days, with my back to the sea, not looking at all, but just listening to the rustle of the waves on the sand; not thinking at all, but just breathing with the sea.

Thus courting the influence of sea and sky and variable weather, I was bound to have dreams, hints, imaginings. It was no more than this, perhaps: that the world as I knew it was not large enough to contain all that I saw and felt; that the thoughts that flashed through my mind, not half understood, unrelated to my utterable thoughts, concerned something for which I had as yet no name. Every imaginative growing child has these flashes of intuition, especially one that becomes intimate with some one aspect of nature. With me it was the growing time, that idle summer by the sea, and I grew all the faster because I had been so cramped before. My mind, too, had so recently been worked upon by the impressive experience of a change of country that I was more than commonly alive to impressions, which are the seeds of ideas.

Let no one suppose that I spent my time entirely, or even chiefly, in inspired solitude. By far the best part of my day was spent in play—frank, hearty, boisterous play, such as comes natural to American children. In Polotzk I had already begun to be considered too old for play, excepting set games or organized frolics. Here I found myself included with children who still played, and I willingly returned to childhood. There were plenty of playfellows. My father's energetic little partner had a little wife and a large family. He kept them in the little cottage next to ours; and that the shanty survived the tumultuous presence of that brood is a wonder to me to-day. The young Wilners included an assortment of boys, girls, and twins, of every possible variety of age, size, disposition, and sex. They swarmed in and out of the cottage all day long, wearing the door-sill hollow, and trampling the ground to powder. They swung out of windows like monkeys, slid up the roof like flies, and shot out of trees like fowls. Even a small person like me couldn't go anywhere without being run over by a Wilner; and I could never tell which Wilner it was because none of them ever stood still long enough to be identified; and also because I suspected that they were in the habit of interchanging conspicuous articles of clothing, which was very confusing.

You would suppose that the little mother must have been utterly lost, bewildered, trodden down in this horde of urchins; but you are mistaken. Mrs. Wilner was a positively majestic little person. She ruled her brood with the utmost coolness and strictness. She had even the biggest boy under her thumb, frequently under her palm. If they enjoyed the wildest freedom outdoors, indoors the young Wilners lived by the clock. And so at five o'clock in the evening, on seven days in the week, my father's partner's children could be seen in two long rows around the supper table. You could tell them apart on this occasion, because they all had their faces washed. And this is the time to count them: there are twelve little Wilners at table.

I managed to retain my identity in this multitude somehow, and while I was very much impressed with their numbers, I even dared to pick and choose my friends among the Wilners. One or two of the smaller boys I liked best of all, for a game of hide-and-seek or a frolic on the beach. We played in the water like ducks, never taking the trouble to get dry. One day I waded out with one of the boys, to see which of us dared go farthest. The tide was extremely low, and we had not wet our knees when we began to look back to see if familiar objects were still in sight. I thought we had been wading for hours, and still the water was so shallow and quiet. My companion was marching straight ahead, so I did the same. Suddenly a swell lifted us almost off our feet, and we clutched at each other simultaneously. There was a lesser swell, and little waves began to run, and a sigh went up from the sea. The tide was turning—perhaps a storm was on the way—and we were miles, dreadful miles from dry land.

Boy and girl turned without a word, four determined bare legs ploughing through the water, four scared eyes straining toward the land. Through an eternity of toil and fear they kept dumbly on, death at their heels, pride still in their hearts. At last they reach high-water mark—six hours before full tide.

Each has seen the other afraid, and each rejoices in the knowledge. But only the boy is sure of his tongue.

"You was scared, warn't you?" he taunts.

The girl understands so much, and is able to reply:

"You can schwimmen, I not."

"Betcher life I can schwimmen," the other mocks.

And the girl walks off, angry and hurt.

"An' I can walk on my hands," the tormentor calls after her. "Say, you greenhorn, why don'tcher look?"

The girl keeps straight on, vowing that she would never walk with that rude boy again, neither by land nor sea, not even though the waters should part at his bidding.

I am forgetting the more serious business which had brought us to Crescent Beach. While we children disported ourselves like mermaids and mermen in the surf, our respective fathers dispensed cold lemonade, hot peanuts, and pink popcorn, and piled up our respective fortunes, nickel by nickel, penny by penny. I was very proud of my connection with the public life of the beach. I admired greatly our shining soda fountain, the rows of sparkling glasses, the pyramids of oranges, the sausage chains, the neat white counter, and the bright array of tin spoons. It seemed to me that none of the other refreshment stands on the beach—there were a few—were half so attractive as ours. I thought my father looked very well in a long white apron and shirt sleeves. He dished out ice cream with enthusiasm, so I supposed he was getting rich. It never occurred to me to compare his present occupation with the position for which he had been originally destined; or if I thought about it, I was just as well content, for by this time I had by heart my father's saying, "America is not Polotzk." All occupations were respectable, all men were equal, in America.

If I admired the soda fountain and the sausage chains, I almost worshipped the partner, Mr. Wilner. I was content to stand for an hour at a time watching him make potato chips. In his cook's cap and apron, with a ladle in his hand and a smile on his face, he moved about with the greatest agility, whisking his raw materials out of nowhere, dipping into his bubbling kettle with a flourish, and bringing forth the finished product with a caper. Such potato chips were not to be had anywhere else on Crescent Beach. Thin as tissue paper, crisp as dry snow, and salt as the sea—such thirst-producing, lemonade-selling, nickel-bringing potato chips only Mr. Wilner could make. On holidays, when dozens of family parties came out by every train from town, he could hardly keep up with the demand for his potato chips. And with a waiting crowd around him our partner was at his best. He was as voluble as he was skilful, and as witty as he was voluble; at least so I guessed from the laughter that frequently drowned his voice. I could not understand his jokes, but if I could get near enough to watch his lips and his smile and his merry eyes, I was happy. That any one could talk so fast, and in English, was marvel enough, but that this prodigy should belong to our establishment was a fact to thrill me. I had never seen anything like Mr. Wilner, except a wedding jester; but then he spoke common Yiddish. So proud was I of the talent and good taste displayed at our stand that if my father beckoned to me in the crowd and sent me on an errand, I hoped the people noticed that I, too, was connected with the establishment.

And all this splendor and glory and distinction came to a sudden end. There was some trouble about a license—some fee or fine—there was a storm in the night that damaged the soda fountain and other fixtures—there was talk and consultation between the houses of Antin and Wilner—and the promising partnership was dissolved. No more would the merry partner gather the crowd on the beach; no more would the twelve young Wilners gambol like mermen and mermaids in the surf. And the less numerous tribe of Antin must also say farewell to the jolly seaside life; for men in such humble business as my father's carry their families, along with their other earthly goods, wherever they go, after the manner of the gypsies. We had driven a feeble stake into the sand. The jealous Atlantic, in conspiracy with the Sunday law, had torn it out. We must seek our luck elsewhere.

In Polotzk we had supposed that "America" was practically synonymous with "Boston." When we landed in Boston, the horizon was pushed back, and we annexed Crescent Beach. And now, espying other lands of promise, we took possession of the province of Chelsea, in the name of our necessity.

In Chelsea, as in Boston, we made our stand in the wrong end of the town. Arlington Street was inhabited by poor Jews, poor Negroes, and a sprinkling of poor Irish. The side streets leading from it were occupied by more poor Jews and Negroes. It was a proper locality for a man without capital to do business. My father rented a tenement with a store in the basement. He put in a few barrels of flour and of sugar, a few boxes of crackers, a few gallons of kerosene, an assortment of soap of the "save the coupon" brands; in the cellar a few barrels of potatoes, and a pyramid of kindling-wood; in the showcase, an alluring display of penny candy. He put out his sign, with a gilt-lettered warning of "Strictly Cash," and proceeded to give credit indiscriminately. That was the regular way to do business on Arlington Street. My father, in his three years' apprenticeship, had learned the tricks of many trades. He knew when and how to "bluff." The legend of "Strictly Cash" was a protection against notoriously irresponsible customers; while none of the "good" customers, who had a record for paying regularly on Saturday, hesitated to enter the store with empty purses.

If my father knew the tricks of the trade, my mother could be counted on to throw all her talent and tact into the business. Of course she had no English yet, but as she could perform the acts of weighing, measuring, and mental computation of fractions mechanically, she was able to give her whole attention to the dark mysteries of the language, as intercourse with her customers gave her opportunity. In this she made such rapid progress that she soon lost all sense of disadvantage, and conducted herself behind the counter very much as if she were back in her old store in Polotzk. It was far more cozy than Polotzk—at least, so it seemed to me; for behind the store was the kitchen, where, in the intervals of slack trade, she did her cooking and washing. Arlington Street customers were used to waiting while the storekeeper salted the soup or rescued a loaf from the oven.

Once more Fortune favored my family with a thin little smile, and my father, in reply to a friendly inquiry, would say, "One makes a living," with a shrug of the shoulders that added "but nothing to boast of." It was characteristic of my attitude toward bread-and-butter matters that this contented me, and I felt free to devote myself to the conquest of my new world. Looking back to those critical first years, I see myself always behaving like a child let loose in a garden to play and dig and chase the butterflies. Occasionally, indeed, I was stung by the wasp of family trouble; but I knew a healing ointment—my faith in America. My father had come to America to make a living. America, which was free and fair and kind, must presently yield him what he sought. I had come to America to see a new world, and I followed my own ends with the utmost assiduity; only, as I ran out to explore, I would look back to see if my house were in order behind me—if my family still kept its head above water.

In after years, when I passed as an American among Americans, if I was suddenly made aware of the past that lay forgotten,—if a letter from Russia, or a paragraph in the newspaper, or a conversation overheard in the street-car, suddenly reminded me of what I might have been,—I thought it miracle enough that I, Mashke, the granddaughter of Raphael the Russian, born to a humble destiny, should be at home in an American metropolis, be free to fashion my own life, and should dream my dreams in English phrases. But in the beginning my admiration was spent on more concrete embodiments of the splendors of America; such as fine houses, gay shops, electric engines and apparatus, public buildings, illuminations, and parades. My early letters to my Russian friends were filled with boastful descriptions of these glories of my new country. No native citizen of Chelsea took such pride and delight in its institutions as I did. It required no fife and drum corps, no Fourth of July procession, to set me tingling with patriotism. Even the common agents and instruments of municipal life, such as the letter carrier and the fire engines, I regarded with a measure of respect. I know what I thought of people who said that Chelsea was a very small, dull, unaspiring town, with no discernible excuse for a separate name or existence.

The apex of my civic pride and personal contentment was reached on the bright September morning when I entered the public school. That day I must always remember, even if I live to be so old that I cannot tell my name. To most people their first day at school is a memorable occasion. In my case the importance of the day was a hundred times magnified, on account of the years I had waited, the road I had come, and the conscious ambitions I entertained.

I am wearily aware that I am speaking in extreme figures, in superlatives. I wish I knew some other way to render the mental life of the immigrant child of reasoning age. I may have been ever so much an exception in acuteness of observation, powers of comparison, and abnormal self-consciousness; none the less were my thoughts and conduct typical of the attitude of the intelligent immigrant child toward American institutions. And what the child thinks and feels is a reflection of the hopes, desires, purposes of the parent who brought him overseas, no matter how precocious and independent the child may be. Your immigrant inspectors will tell you what poverty the foreigner brings in his baggage, what want in his pockets. Let the overgrown boy of twelve, reverently drawing his letters in the baby class, testify to the noble dreams and high ideals that may be hidden beneath the greasy caftan of the immigrant. Speaking for the Jews, at least, I know I am safe in inviting such an investigation.

Who were my companions on my first day at school? Whose hand was in mine, as I stood, overcome with awe, by the teacher's desk, and whispered my name as my father prompted? Was it Frieda's steady, capable hand? Was it her loyal heart that throbbed, beat for beat with mine, as it had done through all our childish adventures? Frieda's heart did throb that day, but not with my emotions. My heart pulsed with joy and pride and ambition; in her heart longing fought with abnegation. For I was led to the schoolroom, with its sunshine and its singing and the teacher's cheery smile; while she was led to the workshop, with its foul air, care-lined faces, and the foreman's stern command. Our going to school was the fulfilment of my father's best promises to us, and Frieda's share in it was to fashion and fit the calico frocks in which the baby sister and I made our first appearance in a public schoolroom.

I remember to this day the gray pattern of the calico, so affectionately did I regard it as it hung upon the wall—my consecration robe awaiting the beatific day. And Frieda, I am sure, remembers it, too, so longingly did she regard it as the crisp, starchy breadths of it slid between her fingers. But whatever were her longings, she said nothing of them; she bent over the sewing-machine humming an Old-World melody. In every straight, smooth seam, perhaps, she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of rebellion made her straighten up for an instant, the next instant she was bending to adjust a ruffle to the best advantage. And when the momentous day arrived, and the little sister and I stood up to be arrayed, it was Frieda herself who patted and smoothed my stiff new calico; who made me turn round and round, to see that I was perfect; who stooped to pull out a disfiguring basting-thread. If there was anything in her heart besides sisterly love and pride and good-will, as we parted that morning, it was a sense of loss and a woman's acquiescence in her fate; for we had been close friends, and now our ways would lie apart. Longing she felt, but no envy. She did not grudge me what she was denied. Until that morning we had been children together, but now, at the fiat of her destiny she became a woman, with all a woman's cares; whilst I, so little younger than she, was bidden to dance at the May festival of untroubled childhood.

I wish, for my comfort, that I could say that I had some notion of the difference in our lots, some sense of the injustice to her, of the indulgence to me. I wish I could even say that I gave serious thought to the matter. There had always been a distinction between us rather out of proportion to the difference in our years. Her good health and domestic instincts had made it natural for her to become my mother's right hand, in the years preceding the emigration, when there were no more servants or dependents. Then there was the family tradition that Mary was the quicker, the brighter of the two, and that hers could be no common lot. Frieda was relied upon for help, and her sister for glory. And when I failed as a milliner's apprentice, while Frieda made excellent progress at the dressmaker's, our fates, indeed, were sealed. It was understood, even before we reached Boston, that she would go to work and I to school. In view of the family prejudices, it was the inevitable course. No injustice was intended. My father sent us hand in hand to school, before he had ever thought of America. If, in America, he had been able to support his family unaided, it would have been the culmination of his best hopes to see all his children at school, with equal advantages at home. But when he had done his best, and was still unable to provide even bread and shelter for us all, he was compelled to make us children self-supporting as fast as it was practicable. There was no choosing possible; Frieda was the oldest, the strongest, the best prepared, and the only one who was of legal age to be put to work.

My father has nothing to answer for. He divided the world between his children in accordance with the laws of the country and the compulsion of his circumstances. I have no need of defending him. It is myself that I would like to defend, and I cannot. I remember that I accepted the arrangements made for my sister and me without much reflection, and everything that was planned for my advantage I took as a matter of course. I was no heartless monster, but a decidedly self-centered child. If my sister had seemed unhappy it would have troubled me; but I am ashamed to recall that I did not consider how little it was that contented her. I was so preoccupied with my own happiness that I did not half perceive the splendid devotion of her attitude towards me, the sweetness of her joy in my good luck. She not only stood by approvingly when I was helped to everything; she cheerfully waited on me herself. And I took everything from her hand as if it were my due.

The two of us stood a moment in the doorway of the tenement house on Arlington Street, that wonderful September morning when I first went to school. It was I that ran away, on winged feet of joy and expectation; it was she whose feet were bound in the tread-mill of daily toil. And I was so blind that I did not see that the glory lay on her, and not on me.

Father himself conducted us to school. He would not have delegated that mission to the President of the United States. He had awaited the day with impatience equal to mine, and the visions he saw as he hurried us over the sun-flecked pavements transcended all my dreams. Almost his first act on landing on American soil, three years before, had been his application for naturalization. He had taken the remaining steps in the process with eager promptness, and at the earliest moment allowed by the law, he became a citizen of the United States. It is true that he had left home in search of bread for his hungry family, but he went blessing the necessity that drove him to America. The boasted freedom of the New World meant to him far more than the right to reside, travel, and work wherever he pleased; it meant the freedom to speak his thoughts, to throw off the shackles of superstition, to test his own fate, unhindered by political or religious tyranny. He was only a young man when he landed—thirty-two; and most of his life he had been held in leading-strings. He was hungry for his untasted manhood.

Three years passed in sordid struggle and disappointment. He was not prepared to make a living even in America, where the day laborer eats wheat instead of rye. Apparently the American flag could not protect him against the pursuing Nemesis of his limitations; he must expiate the sins of his fathers who slept across the seas. He had been endowed at birth with a poor constitution, a nervous, restless temperament, and an abundance of hindering prejudices. In his boyhood his body was starved, that his mind might be stuffed with useless learning. In his youth this dearly gotten learning was sold, and the price was the bread and salt which he had not been trained to earn for himself. Under the wedding canopy he was bound for life to a girl whose features were still strange to him; and he was bidden to multiply himself, that sacred learning might be perpetuated in his sons, to the glory of the God of his fathers. All this while he had been led about as a creature without a will, a chattel, an instrument. In his maturity he awoke, and found himself poor in health, poor in purse, poor in useful knowledge, and hampered on all sides. At the first nod of opportunity he broke away from his prison, and strove to atone for his wasted youth by a life of useful labor; while at the same time he sought to lighten the gloom of his narrow scholarship by freely partaking of modern ideas. But his utmost endeavor still left him far from his goal. In business nothing prospered with him. Some fault of hand or mind or temperament led him to failure where other men found success. Wherever the blame for his disabilities be placed, he reaped their bitter fruit. "Give me bread!" he cried to America. "What will you do to earn it?" the challenge came back. And he found that he was master of no art, of no trade; that even his precious learning was of no avail, because he had only the most antiquated methods of communicating it.

So in his primary quest he had failed. There was left him the compensation of intellectual freedom. That he sought to realize in every possible way. He had very little opportunity to prosecute his education, which, in truth, had never been begun. His struggle for a bare living left him no time to take advantage of the public evening school; but he lost nothing of what was to be learned through reading, through attendance at public meetings, through exercising the rights of citizenship. Even here he was hindered by a natural inability to acquire the English language. In time, indeed, he learned to read, to follow a conversation or lecture; but he never learned to write correctly, and his pronunciation remains extremely foreign to this day.

If education, culture, the higher life were shining things to be worshipped from afar, he had still a means left whereby he could draw one step nearer to them. He could send his children to school, to learn all those things that he knew by fame to be desirable. The common school, at least, perhaps high school; for one or two, perhaps even college! His children should be students, should fill his house with books and intellectual company; and thus he would walk by proxy in the Elysian Fields of liberal learning. As for the children themselves, he knew no surer way to their advancement and happiness.

So it was with a heart full of longing and hope that my father led us to school on that first day. He took long strides in his eagerness, the rest of us running and hopping to keep up.

At last the four of us stood around the teacher's desk; and my father, in his impossible English, gave us over in her charge, with some broken word of his hopes for us that his swelling heart could no longer contain. I venture to say that Miss Nixon was struck by something uncommon in the group we made, something outside of Semitic features and the abashed manner of the alien. My little sister was as pretty as a doll, with her clear pink-and-white face, short golden curls, and eyes like blue violets when you caught them looking up. My brother might have been a girl, too, with his cherubic contours of face, rich red color, glossy black hair, and fine eyebrows. Whatever secret fears were in his heart, remembering his former teachers, who had taught with the rod, he stood up straight and uncringing before the American teacher, his cap respectfully doffed. Next to him stood a starved-looking girl with eyes ready to pop out, and short dark curls that would not have made much of a wig for a Jewish bride.

All three children carried themselves rather better than the common run of "green" pupils that were brought to Miss Nixon. But the figure that challenged attention to the group was the tall, straight father, with his earnest face and fine forehead, nervous hands eloquent in gesture, and a voice full of feeling. This foreigner, who brought his children to school as if it were an act of consecration, who regarded the teacher of the primer class with reverence, who spoke of visions, like a man inspired, in a common schoolroom, was not like other aliens, who brought their children in dull obedience to the law; was not like the native fathers, who brought their unmanageable boys, glad to be relieved of their care. I think Miss Nixon guessed what my father's best English could not convey. I think she divined that by the simple act of delivering our school certificates to her he took possession of America.

NOTES

The Promised Land:—The land of freedom and peace which the Jews have hoped to attain. See Exodus, 3:8; 6:8; Genesis, 12:5-7; Deuteronomy, 8:7-10; Hebrews, 11:9.

his three years of probation:—Mary Antin's father had spent three years in America before sending back to Russia for his family.

Polotzk:—Pronounced Pō'lotsk; a town in Russia on the Dwina River.

seven lean years:—A reference to the famine in Egypt predicted by Joseph, Pharaoh's Hebrew favorite. See Genesis, 40.

Dvina:—The Düna or Dwina River, in Russia.

originally destined:—Mr. Antin's parents had intended him to be a scholar and teacher.

Yiddish:—From the German word jüdisch, meaning Jewish; a mixed language made up of German, Hebrew, and Russian words. It is generally spoken by Jews.

Chelsea:—A suburb of Boston.

Nemesis:—In Greek mythology, a goddess of vengeance or punishment for sins and errors.

the sins of his fathers:—See Exodus, 20:5; Numbers, 14:18; Deuteronomy, 5:9.

Elysian fields:—In Greek thought, the home of the happy dead.

Semitic:—Jewish; from the name of Shem, the son of Noah.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

This selection gives the experience of a Jewish girl who came from Polotzk, Russia, to Boston. Read rather slowly, with the help of these questions: What is meant by "centuries of repression"? Is there no such repression in America? How is it true that the Jew peddler "was born thousands of years before the oldest native American"? What are the educational advantages of a thickly populated neighborhood? What is your idea of the slums? Why did the children expect every comfort to be supplied? How much is really free in America? Is education free? How does one secure an education in Russia? How are American machine-made garments superior to those made by hand in Russia? Was it a good thing to change the children's names? What effect does the sea have upon those who live near it? What effect has a great change of environment on a growing young person? What kind of person was Mrs. Wilner? What does Mr. Antin mean when he says, "America is not Polotzk"? Are all men equal in America? Read carefully the description of Mr. Wilner: How does the author make it vivid and lively? Why was Mary Antin's first day in school so important to her? Was it fair that Frieda should not go to school? Should an older child be sacrificed for a younger? Should a slow child always give way to a bright one? What do you think of the way in which Mary accepted the situation when Frieda had to go to work? Read carefully what Mary says about it. Is it easy to make a living in America? Why did Mr. Antin not succeed in business? What is meant by "the compensation of intellectual freedom"? What did Mr. Antin gain from his life in America? What sort of man was he? In reading the selection, what idea do you get of the Russian immigrant? Of what America means to the poor foreigner?

THEME SUBJECTS

The Foreigners in our Town
The "Greenhorn"
The Immigrant Family
The Peddler
Ellis Island
What America Means to the Foreigner
The Statue of Liberty
A Russian Woman
The New Girl at School
The Basement Store
A Large Family
Learning to Speak a New Language
What the Public School can Do
A Russian Brass Shop
The Factory Girl
My Childish Sports
The Refreshment Stand
On the Sea Shore
The Popcorn Man
A Home in the Tenements
Earning a Living
More about Mary Antin[9]
How Children Amuse Themselves
A Fragment of My Autobiography
An Autobiography that I Have Read

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

The Immigrant Family:—Have you ever seen a family that have just arrived in America from a foreign land? Tell where you saw them. How many persons were there? What were they doing? Describe each person, noting especially anything odd or picturesque in looks, dress, or behavior. Were they carrying anything? What expressions did they have on their faces? Did they seem pleased with their new surroundings? Was anyone trying to help them? Could they speak English? If possible, report a few fragments of their conversation. Did you have a chance to find out what they thought of America? Do you know what has become of them, and how they are getting along?

A Fragment of my Autobiography:—Did you, as a child, move into a strange town, or make a visit in a place entirely new to you? Tell rather briefly why you went and what preparations were made. Then give an account of your arrival. What was the first thing that impressed you? What did you do or say? What did the grown people say? Was there anything unusual about the food, or the furniture, or the dress of the people? Go on and relate your experiences, telling any incidents that you remember. Try to make your reader share the bewilderment and excitement you felt. Did anyone laugh at you, or make fun of you, or hurt your feelings? Were you glad or sorry that you had come? Finish your story by telling of your departure from the place, or of your gradually getting used to your new surroundings.

Try to recall some other experiences of your childhood. Write them out quite fully, giving space to your feelings as well as to the events.

COLLATERAL READINGS

Mary Antin: Outlook, 102:482, November 2, 1912; 104:473, June 28, 1913 (Portrait). Bookman, 35:419-421, June 1912.

WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME

WALT WHITMAN

Warble me now for joy of lilac-time (returning in reminiscence),
Sort me, O tongue and lips for Nature's sake, souvenirs of earliest summer,
Gather the welcome signs (as children with pebbles or stringing shells),
Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Blue-bird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above,
All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days, and the sugar-making,
The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building the nest of his mate,
The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts,
For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is this in it and from it?
Thou, soul, unloosen'd—the restlessness after I know not what;
Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!

O if one could but fly like a bird!
O to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
To glide with thee, O soul, o'er all, in all, as a ship o'er the waters;
Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew,
The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark-green heart-shaped leaves,
Wood-violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocence,
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere,
To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of lilac-time, returning in reminiscence.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

What is the meaning of "sort me"? Why jumble all these signs of summer together? Does one naturally think in an orderly way when recalling the details of spring or summer? Can you think of any important points that the author has left out? Is samples a poetic word? What is meant by the line "not for themselves alone," etc.? Note the sound-words in the poem: What is their value here? Read the lines slowly to yourself, or have some one read them aloud, and see how many of them suggest little pictures. Note the punctuation: Do you approve? Is this your idea of poetry? What is poetry? Would this be better if it were in the full form of verse? Can you see why the critics have disagreed over Whitman's poetry?

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER

WALT WHITMAN

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Why did the listener become tired of the lecturer who spoke with much applause? What did he learn from the stars when he was alone out of doors? Does he not think the study of astronomy worth while? What would be his feeling toward other scientific studies? What do you get out of this poem? What do you think of the way in which it is written?

VIGIL STRANGE I KEPT ON THE FIELD ONE NIGHT

WALT WHITMAN

Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;
When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look
I shall never forget,
One touch of your hand to mine, O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the ground,
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,
Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my way,
Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body, son of responding kisses (never again on earth responding),
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind,
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battle-field spreading,
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,
Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands,
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade—not a tear, not a word,

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

What is a vigil? Was Whitman ever in battle? Does he mean himself speaking? Was the boy really his son? Is the man's calmness a sign that he does not care? Why does he call the vigil "wondrous" and "sweet"? What does he think about the next life? Read the poem over slowly and thoughtfully to yourself, or aloud to some one: How does it make you feel?

Can you see any reason for calling Whitman a great poet? Has he broadened your idea of what poetry may be? Read, if possible, in John Burroughs's book on Whitman, pages 48-53.

EXERCISES

Re-read the Warble for Lilac-Time. Can you write of the signs of fall, in somewhat the same way? Choose the most beautiful and the most important characteristics that you can think of. Try to use color-words and sound-words so that they make your composition vivid and musical. Compare the Warble for Lilac-Time with the first lines of Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. With Lowell's How Spring Came in New England.

THEME SUBJECTS

A Walk in the Woods
A Spring Day
Sugar-Making
My Flower Garden
The Garden in Lilac Time
The Orchard in Spring
On a Farm in Early Summer
A Walk on a Summer Night
Waiting for Morning
The Stars
Walt Whitman and his Poetry

COLLATERAL READINGS

ODYSSEUS IN PHAEACIA

TRANSLATED BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER

Thus long-tried royal Odysseus slumbered here, heavy with sleep and toil; but Athene went to the land and town of the Phaeacians. This people once in ancient times lived in the open highlands, near that rude folk the Cyclops, who often plundered them, being in strength more powerful than they. Moving them thence, godlike Nausithoüs, their leader, established them at Scheria, far from toiling men. He ran a wall around the town, built houses there, made temples for the gods, and laid out farms; but Nausithoüs had met his doom and gone to the house of Hades, and Alcinoüs now was reigning, trained in wisdom by the gods. To this man's dwelling came the goddess, clear-eyed Athene, planning a safe return for brave Odysseus. She hastened to a chamber, richly wrought, in which a maid was sleeping, of form and beauty like the immortals, Nausicaä, daughter of generous Alcinoüs. Near by two damsels, dowered with beauty by the Graces, slept by the threshold, one on either hand. The shining doors were shut; but Athene, like a breath of air, moved to the maid's couch, stood by her head, and thus addressed her,—taking the likeness of the daughter of Dymas, the famous seaman, a maiden just Nausicaä's age, dear to her heart. Taking her guise, thus spoke clear-eyed Athene:—

"Nausicaä, how did your mother bear a child so heedless? Your gay clothes lie uncared for, though the wedding time is near, when you must wear fine clothes yourself and furnish them to those that may attend you. From things like these a good repute arises, and father and honored mother are made glad. Then let us go a-washing at the dawn of day, and I will go to help, that you may soon be ready; for really not much longer will you be a maid. Already you have for suitors the chief ones of the land throughout Phaeacia, where you too were born. Come, then, beg your good father early in the morning to harness the mules and cart, so as to carry the men's clothes, gowns, and bright-hued rugs. Yes, and for you yourself it is more decent so than setting forth on foot; the pools are far from the town."

Saying this, clear-eyed Athene passed away, off to Olympus, where they say the dwelling of the gods stands fast forever. Never with winds is it disturbed, nor by the rain made wet, nor does the snow come near; but everywhere the upper air spreads cloudless, and a bright radiance plays over all; and there the blessed gods are happy all their days. Thither now came the clear-eyed one, when she had spoken with the maid.

Soon bright-throned morning came, and waked fair-robed Nausicaä. She marveled at the dream, and hastened through the house to tell it to her parents, her dear father and her mother. She found them still in-doors: her mother sat by the hearth among the waiting-women, spinning sea-purple yarn; she met her father at the door, just going forth to join the famous princes at the council, to which the high Phaeacians summoned him. So standing close beside him, she said to her dear father:—

"Papa dear, could you not have the wagon harnessed for me,—the high one, with good wheels,—to take my nice clothes to the river to be washed, which now are lying dirty? Surely for you yourself it is but proper, when you are with the first men holding councils, that you should wear clean clothing. Five good sons too are here at home,—two married, and three merry young men still,—and they are always wanting to go to the dance wearing fresh clothes. And this is all a trouble on my mind."

Such were her words, for she was shy of naming the glad marriage to her father; but he understood it all, and answered thus:

"I do not grudge the mules, my child, nor anything beside. Go! Quickly shall the servants harness the wagon for you, the high one, with good wheels, fitted with rack above."

Saying this, he called to the servants, who gave heed. Out in the court they made the easy mule-cart ready; they brought the mules and yoked them to the wagon. The maid took from her room her pretty clothing, and stowed it in the polished wagon; her mother put in a chest food the maid liked, of every kind, put dainties in, and poured some wine into a goat-skin bottle,—the maid, meanwhile, had got into the wagon,—and gave her in a golden flask some liquid oil, that she might bathe and anoint herself, she and the waiting-women. Nausicaä took the whip and the bright reins, and cracked the whip to start. There was a clatter of the mules, and steadily they pulled, drawing the clothing and the maid,—yet not alone; beside her went the waiting-women too.

When now they came to the fair river's current, where the pools were always full,—for in abundance clear water bubbles from beneath to cleanse the foulest stains,—they turned the mules loose from the wagon, and let them stray along the eddying stream, to crop the honeyed pasturage. Then from the wagon they took the clothing in their arms, carried it into the dark water, and stamped it in the pits with rivalry in speed. And after they had washed and cleansed it of all stains, they spread it carefully along the shore, just where the waves washed up the pebbles on the beach. Then bathing and anointing with the oil, they presently took dinner on the river bank and waited for the clothes to dry in the sunshine. And when they were refreshed with food, the maids and she, they then began to play at ball, throwing their wimples off. White-armed Nausicaä led their sport; and as the huntress Artemis goes down a mountain, down long Taÿgetus or Erymanthus, exulting in the boars and the swift deer, while round her sport the woodland nymphs, daughters of ægis-bearing Zeus, and glad is Leto's heart, for all the rest her child o'ertops by head and brow, and easily marked is she, though all are fair; so did this virgin pure excel her women.

But when Nausicaä thought to turn toward home once more, to yoke the mules and fold up the clean clothes, then a new plan the goddess formed, clear-eyed Athene; for she would have Odysseus wake and see the bright-eyed maid, who might to the Phaeacian city show the way. Just then the princess tossed the ball to one of her women, and missing her it fell in the deep eddy. Thereat they screamed aloud. Royal Odysseus woke, and sitting up debated in his mind and heart:—

"Alas! To what men's land am I come now? Lawless and savage are they, with no regard for right, or are they kind to strangers and reverent toward the gods? It was as if there came to me the delicate voice of maids—nymphs, it may be, who haunt the craggy peaks of hills, the springs of streams and grassy marshes; or am I now, perhaps, near men of human speech? Suppose I make a trial for myself, and see."

So saying, royal Odysseus crept from the thicket, but with his strong hand broke a spray of leaves from the close wood, to be a covering round his body for his nakedness. He set off like a lion that is bred among the hills and trusts its strength; onward it goes, beaten with rain and wind; its two eyes glare; and now in search of oxen or of sheep it moves, or tracking the wild deer; its belly bids it make trial of the flocks, even by entering the guarded folds; so was Odysseus about to meet those fair-haired maids, for need constrained him. To them he seemed a loathsome sight, befouled with brine. They hurried off, one here, one there, over the stretching sands. Only the daughter of Alcinoüs stayed, for in her breast Athene had put courage and from her limbs took fear. Steadfast she stood to meet him. And now Odysseus doubted whether to make his suit by clasping the knees of the bright-eyed maid, or where he stood, aloof, in winning words to make that suit, and try if she would show the town and give him clothing. Reflecting thus, it seemed the better way to make his suit in winning words, aloof; for fear if he should clasp her knees, the maid might be offended. Forthwith he spoke, a winning and shrewd speech:—

"I am your suppliant, princess. Are you some god or mortal? If one of the gods who hold the open sky, to Artemis, daughter of mighty Zeus, in beauty, height, and bearing I find you likest. But if you are a mortal, living on the earth, most happy are your father and your honored mother, most happy your brothers also. Surely their hearts ever grow warm with pleasure over you, when watching such a blossom moving in the dance. And then exceeding happy he, beyond all others, who shall with gifts prevail and lead you home. For I never before saw such a being with these eyes—no man, no woman. I am amazed to see. At Delos once, by Apollo's altar, something like you I noticed, a young palm shoot springing up; for thither too I came, and a great troop was with me, upon a journey where I was to meet with bitter trials. And just as when I looked on that I marveled long within, since never before sprang such a stalk from earth; so, lady, I admire and marvel now at you, and greatly fear to touch your knees. Yet grievous woe is on me. Yesterday, after twenty days, I escaped from the wine-dark sea, and all that time the waves and boisterous winds bore me away from the island of Ogygia. Now some god cast me here, that probably here also I may meet with trouble; for I do not think trouble will cease, but much the gods will first accomplish. Then, princess, have compassion, for it is you to whom through many grievous toils I first am come; none else I know of all who own this city and this land. Show me the town, and give me a rag to throw around me, if you had perhaps on coming here some wrapper for your linen. And may the gods grant all that in your thoughts you long for: husband and home and true accord may they bestow; for a better and higher gift than this there cannot be, when with accordant aims man and wife have a home. Great grief it is to foes and joy to friends; but they themselves best know its meaning."

Then answered him white-armed Nausicaä: "Stranger, because you do not seem a common, senseless person,—and Olympian Zeus himself distributes fortune to mankind and gives to high and low even as he wills to each; and this he gave to you, and you must bear it therefore,—now you have reached our city and our land, you shall not lack for clothes nor anything besides which it is fit a hard-pressed suppliant should find. I will point out the town and tell its people's name. The Phaeacians own this city and this land, and I am the daughter of generous Alcinoüs, on whom the might and power of the Phaeacians rests."

She spoke, and called her fair-haired waiting-women: "My women, stay! Why do you run because you saw a man? You surely do not think him evil-minded, The man is not alive, and never will be born, who can come and offer harm to the Phaeacian land: for we are very dear to the immortals; and then we live apart, far on the surging sea, no other tribe of men has dealings with us. But this poor man has come here having lost his way, and we should give him aid; for in the charge of Zeus all strangers and beggars stand, and a small gift is welcome. Then give, my women, to the stranger food and drink, and let him bathe in the river where there is shelter from the breeze."

She spoke; the others stopped and called to one another, and down they brought Odysseus to the place of shelter, even as Nausicaä, daughter of generous Alcinoüs, had ordered. They placed a robe and tunic there for clothing, they gave him in the golden flask the liquid oil, and bade him bathe in the stream's currents.

The women went away.... And now, with water from the stream, royal Odysseus washed his skin clean of the salt which clung about his back and his broad shoulders, and wiped from his head the foam brought by the barren sea; and when he had thoroughly bathed and oiled himself and had put on the clothing which the chaste maiden gave, Athene, the daughter of Zeus, made him taller than before and stouter to behold, and she made the curling locks to fall around his head as on the hyacinth flower. As when a man lays gold on silver,—some skillful man whom Hephaestus and Pallas Athene have trained in every art, and he fashions graceful work; so did she cast a grace upon his head and shoulders. He walked apart along the shore, and there sat down, beaming with grace and beauty. The maid observed; then to her fair-haired waiting-women said:—

"Hearken, my white-armed women, while I speak. Not without purpose on the part of all the gods that hold Olympus is this man's meeting with the godlike Phaeacians. A while ago, he really seemed to me ill-looking, but now he is like the gods who hold the open sky. Ah, might a man like this be called my husband, having his home here, and content to stay! But give, my women, to the stranger food and drink."

She spoke, and very willingly they heeded and obeyed, and set beside Odysseus food and drink. Then long-tried Odysseus eagerly drank and ate, for he had long been fasting.

And now to other matters white-armed Nausicaä turned her thoughts. She folded the clothes and laid them in the beautiful wagon, she yoked the stout-hoofed mules, mounted herself, and calling to Odysseus thus she spoke and said:—

"Arise now, stranger, and hasten to the town, that I may set you on the road to my wise father's house, where you shall see, I promise you, the best of all Phaeacia. Only do this,—you seem to me not to lack understanding: while we are passing through the fields and farms, here with my women, behind the mules and cart, walk rapidly along, and I will lead the way. But as we near the town,—round which is a lofty rampart, a beautiful harbor on each side and a narrow road between,—there curved ships line the way; for every man has his own mooring-place. Beyond is the assembly near the beautiful grounds of Poseidon, constructed out of blocks of stone deeply imbedded. Further along, they make the black ships' tackling, cables and canvas, and shape out the oars; for the Phaeacians do not care for bow and quiver, only for masts and oars of ships and the trim ships themselves, with which it is their joy to cross the foaming sea. Now the rude talk of such as these I would avoid, that no one afterwards may give me blame. For very forward persons are about the place, and some coarse man might say, if he should meet us: 'What tall and handsome stranger is following Nausicaä? Where did she find him? A husband he will be, her very own. Some castaway, perhaps, she rescued from his vessel, some foreigner; for we have no neighbors here. Or at her prayer some long-entreated god has come straight down from heaven, and he will keep her his forever. So much the better, if she has gone herself and found a husband elsewhere! The people of our own land here, Phaeacians, she disdains, though she has many high-born suitors.' So they will talk, and for me it would prove a scandal. I should myself censure a girl who acted so, who, heedless of friends, while father and mother were alive, mingled with men before her public wedding. And, stranger, listen now to what I say, that you may soon obtain assistance and safe conduct from my father. Near our road you will see a stately grove of poplar trees, belonging to Athene; in it a fountain flows, and round it is a meadow. That is my father's park, his fruitful vineyard, as far from the town as one can call. There sit and wait a while, until we come to the town and reach my father's palace. But when you think we have already reached the palace, enter the city of the Phaeacians, and ask for the palace of my father, generous Alcinoüs. Easily is it known; a child, though young, could show the way; for the Phaeacians do not build their houses like the dwelling of Alcinoüs their prince. But when his house and court receive you, pass quickly through the hall until you find my mother. She sits in the firelight by the hearth, spinning sea-purple yarn, a marvel to behold, and resting against a pillar. Her handmaids sit behind her. Here too my father's seat rests on the self-same pillar, and here he sits and sips his wine like an immortal. Passing him by, stretch out your hands to our mother's knees, if you would see the day of your return in gladness and with speed, although you come from far. If she regards you kindly in her heart, then there is hope that you may see your friends and reach your stately house and native land."

Saying this, with her bright whip she struck the mules, and fast they left the river's streams; and well they trotted, well they plied their feet, and skillfully she reined them that those on foot might follow,—the waiting-women and Odysseus,—and moderately she used the lash. The sun was setting when they reached the famous grove, Athene's sacred ground where royal Odysseus sat him down. And thereupon he prayed to the daughter of mighty Zeus:—

"Hearken, thou child of ægis-bearing Zeus, unwearied one! O hear me now, although before thou didst not hear me, when I was wrecked, what time the great Land-shaker wrecked me. Grant that I come among the Phaeacians welcomed and pitied by them."

So spoke he in his prayer, and Pallas Athene heard, but did not yet appear to him in open presence; for she regarded still her father's brother, who stoutly strove with godlike Odysseus until he reached his land.

Here, then, long-tried royal Odysseus made his prayer; but to the town the strong mules bore the maid. And when she reached her father's famous palace, she stopped before the door-way, and round her stood her brothers, men like immortals, who from the cart unyoked the mules and carried the clothing in. The maid went to her chamber, where a fire was kindled for her by an old Apeirean woman, the chamber-servant Eurymedousa, whom long ago curved ships brought from Apeira; her they had chosen from the rest to be the gift of honor for Alcinoüs, because he was the lord of all Phaeacians, and people listened to his voice as if he were a god. She was the nurse of white-armed Nausicaä at the palace, and she it was who kindled her the fire and in her room prepared her supper.

And now Odysseus rose to go to the city; but Athene kindly drew thick clouds around Odysseus, for fear some bold Phaeacian meeting him might trouble him with talk and ask him who he was. And just as he was entering the pleasant town, the goddess, clear-eyed Athene, came to meet him, disguised as a young girl who bore a water-jar. She paused as she drew near, and royal Odysseus asked:—

"My child, could you not guide me to the house of one Alcinoüs, who is ruler of this people? For I am a toil-worn stranger come from far, out of a distant land. Therefore I know not one among the men who own this city and this land."

Then said to him the goddess, clear-eyed Athene: "Yes, good old stranger, I will show the house for which you ask, for it stands near my gentle father's. But follow in silence: I will lead the way. Cast not a glance at any man and ask no questions, for our people do not well endure a stranger, nor courteously receive a man who comes from elsewhere. Yet they themselves trust in swift ships and traverse the great deep, for the Earth-shaker permits them. Swift are their ships as wing or thought."

Saying this, Pallas Athene led the way in haste, and he walked after in the footsteps of the goddess. So the Phaeacians, famed for shipping, did not observe him walking through the town among them, because Athene, the fair-haired powerful goddess, did not allow it, but in the kindness of her heart drew a marvelous mist around him. And now Odysseus admired the harbors, the trim ships, the meeting-places of the lords themselves, and the long walls that were so high, fitted with palisades, a marvel to behold. Then as they neared the famous palace of the king, the goddess, clear-eyed Athene, thus began:—

"Here, good old stranger, is the house you bade me show. You will see heaven-descended kings sitting at table here. But enter, and have no misgivings in your heart; for the courageous man in all affairs better attains his end, come he from where he may. First you shall find the Queen within the hall. Arete is her name.... Alcinoüs took Arete for his wife, and he has honored her as no one else on earth is honored among the women who to-day keep houses for their husbands. Thus has she had a heartfelt honor, and she has it still, from her own children, from Alcinoüs himself, and from the people also, who gaze on her as on a god and greet her with welcomes when she walks about the town. For of sound judgment, woman as she is, she has no lack; and those whom she regards, though men, find troubles clear away. If she regards you kindly in her heart, then there is hope that you may see your friends and reach your high-roofed house and native land."

Saying this, clear-eyed Athene passed away, over the barren sea. She turned from pleasant Scheria, and came to Marathon and wide-wayed Athens and entered there the strong house of Erechtheus. Meanwhile Odysseus neared the lordly palace of Alcinoüs, and his heart was deeply stirred so that he paused before he crossed the brazen threshold; for a sheen as of the sun or moon played through the high-roofed house of generous Alcinoüs. On either hand ran walls of bronze from threshold to recess, and round about the ceiling was a cornice of dark metal. Doors made of gold closed in the solid building. The door-posts were of silver and stood on a bronze threshold, silver the lintel overhead, and gold the handle. On the two sides were gold and silver dogs; these had Hephaestus wrought with subtle craft to guard the house of generous Alcinoüs, creatures immortal, young forever. Within were seats planted against the wall on this side and on that, from threshold to recess, in long array; and over these were strewn light fine-spun robes, the work of women. Here the Phaeacian leaders used to sit, drinking and eating, holding constant cheer. And golden youths on massive pedestals stood and held flaming torches in their hands to light by night the palace for the feasters.

In the King's house are fifty serving maids, some grinding at the mill the yellow corn, some plying looms or twisting yarn, who as they sit are like the leaves of a tall poplar; and from the close-spun linen drops the liquid oil. And as Phaeacian men are skilled beyond all others in speeding a swift ship along the sea, so are their women practiced at the loom; for Athene has given them in large measure skill in fair works and noble minds.

Without the court and close beside its gate is a large garden, covering four acres; around it runs a hedge on either side. Here grow tall thrifty trees—pears, pomegranates, apples with shining fruit, sweet figs and thrifty olives. On them fruit never fails; it is not gone in winter or in summer, but lasts throughout the year; for constantly the west wind's breath brings some to bud and mellows others. Pear ripens upon pear, apple on apple, cluster on cluster, fig on fig. Here too the teeming vineyard has been planted, one part of which, the drying place, lying on level ground, is heating in the sun; elsewhere men gather grapes; and elsewhere still they tread them. In front, the grapes are green and shed their flower, but a second row are now just turning dark. And here trim garden-beds, along the outer line, spring up in every kind and all the year are gay. Near by, two fountains rise, one scattering its streams throughout the garden, one bounding by another course beneath the courtyard gate toward the high house; from this the towns-folk draw their water. Such at the palace of Alcinoüs were the gods' splendid gifts.

Here long-tried royal Odysseus stood and gazed. Then after he had gazed his heart's fill on all, he quickly crossed the threshold and came within the house.

NOTES

Phaeacia:—The land of the Phaeacians, on the Island of Scheria, or Corcyra, the modern Corfu.

Athene:—Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, skill, and science. She was interested in war, and protected warlike heroes.

Cyclops:—One of a race of uncouth giants, each of whom had but a single eye, which was in the middle of the forehead.

Nausithoüs:—The king of the Phaeacians at the time they entered Scheria.

Hades:—The realm of souls; not necessarily a place of punishment.

Artemis:—Another name for Diana, goddess of the moon.

Taÿgetus and Erymanthus:—Mountains in Greece.

Leto:—The mother of Artemis.

Delos:—An island in the Aegean Sea.

Ogygia:—The island of the goddess Calypso, who held Odysseus captive for seven years.

Hephaestus:—Another name for Vulcan, the god of the under-world. He was a skilled worker in metal.

Poseidon:—Neptune, god of the ocean.

Land-shaker:—Neptune.

Marathon:—A plain eighteen miles from Athens. It was here that the Greeks defeated the Persians in 490 b.c.

Erectheus:—The mythical founder of Attica; he was half man and half serpent.

THE PRONUNCIATION OF PROPER NAMES IN THIS SELECTION

[Transcriber's note: [+x) denotes a letter that has a dot above a macron above it.]

Al cin' o us (ăl sïn' [+o] ŭs)
Ap ei' ra (åp ī' ra)
Ap ei re' an (ăp ī rē' ăn)
A re' te (å rē' tē)
Ar' te mis (är' t[+e] mĭs)
A the' ne (å thē' nē)
Ca lyp' so (ka lĭp' sō)
Cir' ce (sûr' sē)
Cy' clops (sī' clŏps)
De' los (dē' lŏs)
Dy' mas (dī' mås)
E rech' theus ([+e] rĕk' thūs)
E ry man' thus (ār ĭ măn' thūs)
Eu rym e dou' sa (ū rĭm [+e] d[=oo]' så)
He phaes' tus (h[+e] fās' tŭs)
Le' to (lē' tō)
Mar' a thon (măr' å thŏn)
Nau sic' a ä (nô sĭk' [+a] å)
Nau sith' o us (nô sĭth' [+o] ŭs)
O dys' seus ([+o] dĭs' ūs)
O gyg' i a ([+o] jĭj' å)
Phae a' cia (f[+e] ā' shå)
Po sei' don (p[+o] sī' dŏn)
Scher' i a (skē' rĭ å)
Ta ÿg' e tus (tā ĭj' [+e] tŭs)

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Odysseus (Ulysses) has been cast ashore after a long battle with the sea, following his attempt to escape on a raft from Calypso's island. He has been saved by the intervention of the goddess Athene, who often protects distressed heroes. When Book VI opens, he is sleeping in a secluded nook under an olive tree. (For Odysseus's adventures on the sea, consult Book V of the Odyssey.) Is Athene's visit to Nausicaä an unusual sort of thing in Greek story? Does it appear that it was customary for princesses to do their own washing? Note here that I refers to the daughter of Dymas, since Athene is not speaking in her own character. From Nausicaä's conversation with her father and her preparations for departure, what can you judge of Greek family life? How does the author make us see vividly the activities of Nausicaä and her maids? Does the out-door scene appear true to life? This virgin pure refers to Nausicaä, who is being compared to Artemis (Diana), the goddess of the hunt. What plan has Athene for assisting Odysseus? From the hero's speech, what can you tell of his character? Can you find out what adjectives are usually applied to Odysseus in the Iliad and the Odyssey? Why does he here call Nausicaä "Princess"? What effect is his speech likely to have? What can you tell of Nausicaä from her reply? Give her reasons for not taking Odysseus with her to the town. Does she fail in hospitality? What do her reasons show of the life of Greek women? What do you judge of the prosperity of the Phaeacians? Why does Nausicaä tell Odysseus to seek the favor of her mother? Her father's brother means Neptune (the Sea)—brother of Zeus, Athene's father; Neptune is enraged at Odysseus and wishes to destroy him. Here then: At this point Book VII begins. From what is said of Arete, what can you tell of the influence of the Greek women? How does the author make you feel the richness of Alcinoüs's palace? How does it differ from modern houses? Corn means grain, not Indian corn, which, of course, had not yet been brought from the New World. Note the vivid description of the garden. How do you think Odysseus is received at the house of Alcinoüs? You can find out by reading the rest of Book VII of the Odyssey.

THEME SUBJECTS

One of Ulysses's Adventures
An Escape from the Sea
A Picnic on the Shore
The Character of Nausicaä
My Idea of a Princess
The Life of a Greek Woman
A Group of Girls
The Character of Odysseus
Shipwrecked
A Beautiful Building
Along the Shore
Among Strangers
A Garden
A Story from the Odyssey
Odysseus at the House of Alcinoüs
The Lady of the House
The Greek Warrior
The Stranger
Why I Wish to Study Greek

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

A Story from the Odyssey:—Read, in a translation of the Odyssey, a story of Odysseus, and tell it in your own words. The following stories are appropriate: The Departure from Calypso's Island, Book V; The Cyclops Polyphemus, Book IX; The Palace of Circe, Book X; The Land of the Dead, Book XI; Scylla and Charybdis, Book XII; The Swineherd, Book XIV; The Trial of the Bow, Book XXI; The Slaughter of the Suitors, Book XXII.

After you have chosen a story, read it through several times, to fix the details in your mind. Lay the book aside, and write the story simply, but as vividly as possible.

The Stranger:—Explain the circumstances under which the stranger appears. Are people startled at seeing him (or her)? Describe him. Is he bewildered? Does he ask directions? Does he ask help? Quote his words directly. How are his remarks received? Are people afraid of him? or do they make sport of him? or do they receive him kindly? Who aids him? Tell what he does and what becomes of him. Quote what is said of him after he is gone.

Perhaps you will like to tell the story of Ulysses's arrival among the Phaeacians, giving it a modern setting, and using modern names.

Odysseus at the House of Alcinoüs:—Without reading Book VII of the Odyssey, write what you imagine to be the conversation between Alcinoüs (or Arete) and Odysseus, when the shipwrecked hero enters the palace.

COLLATERAL READINGS

See the references for Moly on p. [84], and for Odysseus on p. [140].

ODYSSEUS

GEORGE CABOT LODGE

He strove with Gods and men in equal mood
Of great endurance: Not alone his hands
Wrought in wild seas and labored in strange lands,
And not alone his patient strength withstood
The clashing cliffs and Circe's perilous sands:
Eager of some imperishable good
He drave new pathways thro' the trackless flood
Foreguarded, fearless, free from Fate's commands.
How shall our faith discern the truth he sought?
We too must watch and wander till our eyes,
Turned skyward from the topmost tower of thought,
Haply shall find the star that marked his goal,
The watch-fire of transcendent liberties
Lighting the endless spaces of the soul.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Read the poem through. How did Ulysses strive with gods and men? Why can it be said that he did not labor alone? Look up the story of Circe and her palace.[10] What was the imperishable good that Ulysses sought? What does his experience have to do with our lives? What sort of freedom does the author speak of in the last few lines?

This verse-form is called the sonnet. How many lines has it? Make out a scheme of the rhymes: a b b a, etc. Notice the change of thought at the ninth line. Do all sonnets show this change?

EXERCISES

Read several other sonnets; for instance, the poem On the Life-Mask of Abraham Lincoln, on page [210], or On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, by John Keats, or The Grasshopper and the Cricket, by Leigh Hunt.

Notice how these other sonnets are constructed. Why are they considered good?

If possible, read part of what is said about the sonnet in English Verse, by R.M. Alden or in Forms of English Poetry, by C.F. Johnson, or in Melodies of English Verse, by Lewis Kennedy Morse; notice some of the examples given.

Look in the good magazines for examples of the sonnet.

COLLATERAL READINGS

See also references for the Odyssey, p. [137], and for Moly, p. [84].

A ROMANCE OF REAL LIFE

WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

(In Suburban Sketches)

It was long past the twilight hour, which has been already mentioned as so oppressive in suburban places, and it was even too late for visitors, when a resident, whom I shall briefly describe as a contributor to the magazines, was startled by a ring at his door. As any thoughtful person would have done upon the like occasion, he ran over his acquaintance in his mind, speculating whether it were such or such a one, and dismissing the whole list of improbabilities, before he laid down the book he was reading and answered the bell. When at last he did this, he was rewarded by the apparition of an utter stranger on his threshold,—a gaunt figure of forlorn and curious smartness towering far above him, that jerked him a nod of the head, and asked if Mr. Hapford lived there. The face which the lamplight revealed was remarkable for a harsh two days' growth of beard, and a single bloodshot eye; yet it was not otherwise a sinister countenance, and there was something in the strange presence that appealed and touched. The contributor, revolving the facts vaguely in his mind, was not sure, after all, that it was not the man's clothes rather than his expression that softened him toward the rugged visage: they were so tragically cheap; and the misery of helpless needle-women, and the poverty and ignorance of the purchaser, were so apparent in their shabby newness, of which they appeared still conscious enough to have led the way to the very window, in the Semitic quarter of the city, where they had lain ticketed, "This nobby suit for $15."

But the stranger's manner put both his face and his clothes out of mind, and claimed a deeper interest when, being answered that the person for whom he asked did not live there, he set his bristling lips hard together, and sighed heavily.

"They told me," he said, in a hopeless way, "that he lived on this street, and I've been to every other house. I'm very anxious to find him, Cap'n,"—the contributor, of course, had no claim to the title with which he was thus decorated,—"for I've a daughter living with him, and I want to see her; I've just got home from a two years' voyage, and"—there was a struggle of the Adam's-apple in the man's gaunt throat—"I find she's about all there is left of my family."

How complex is every human motive! This contributor had been lately thinking, whenever he turned the pages of some foolish traveller,—some empty prattler of Southern or Eastern lands, where all sensation was long ago exhausted, and the oxygen has perished from every sentiment, so has it been breathed and breathed again,—that nowadays the wise adventurer sat down beside his own register and waited for incidents to seek him out. It seemed to him that the cultivation of a patient and receptive spirit was the sole condition needed to insure the occurrence of all manner of surprising facts within the range of one's own personal knowledge; that not only the Greeks were at our doors, but the fairies and the genii, and all the people of romance, who had but to be hospitably treated in order to develop the deepest interest of fiction, and to become the characters of plots so ingenious that the most cunning invention were poor beside them. I myself am not so confident of this, and would rather trust Mr. Charles Reade, say, for my amusement than any chance combination of events. But I should be afraid to say how much his pride in the character of the stranger's sorrows, as proof of the correctness of his theory, prevailed with the contributor to ask him to come in and sit down; though I hope that some abstract impulse of humanity, some compassionate and unselfish care for the man's misfortunes as misfortunes, was not wholly wanting. Indeed, the helpless simplicity with which he had confided his case might have touched a harder heart. "Thank you," said the poor fellow, after a moment's hesitation. "I believe I will come in. I've been on foot all day, and after such a long voyage it makes a man dreadfully sore to walk about so much. Perhaps you can think of a Mr. Hapford living somewhere in the neighborhood."

He sat down, and, after a pondering silence, in which he had remained with his head fallen upon his breast, "My name is Jonathan Tinker," he said, with the unaffected air which had already impressed the contributor, and as if he felt that some form of introduction was necessary, "and the girl that I want to find is Julia Tinker." Then he added, resuming the eventful personal history which the listener exulted, while he regretted, to hear: "You see, I shipped first to Liverpool, and there I heard from my family; and then I shipped again for Hong-Kong, and after that I never heard a word: I seemed to miss the letters everywhere. This morning, at four o'clock, I left my ship as soon as she had hauled into the dock, and hurried up home. The house was shut, and not a soul in it; and I didn't know what to do, and I sat down on the doorstep to wait till the neighbors woke up, to ask them what had become of my family. And the first one come out he told me my wife had been dead a year and a half, and the baby I'd never seen, with her; and one of my boys was dead; and he didn't know where the rest of the children was, but he'd heard two of the little ones was with a family in the city."

The man mentioned these things with the half-apologetical air observable in a certain kind of Americans when some accident obliges them to confess the infirmity of the natural feelings. They do not ask your sympathy, and you offer it quite at your own risk, with a chance of having it thrown back upon your hands. The contributor assumed the risk so far as to say, "Pretty rough!" when the stranger paused; and perhaps these homely words were best suited to reach the homely heart. The man's quivering lips closed hard again, a kind of spasm passed over his dark face, and then two very small drops of brine shone upon his weather-worn cheeks. This demonstration, into which he had been surprised, seemed to stand for the passion of tears into which the emotional races fall at such times. He opened his lips with a kind of dry click, and went on:—

"I hunted about the whole forenoon in the city, and at last I found the children. I'd been gone so long they didn't know me, and somehow I thought the people they were with weren't over-glad I'd turned up. Finally the oldest child told me that Julia was living with a Mr. Hapford on this street, and I started out here to-night to look her up. If I can find her, I'm all right. I can get the family together, then, and start new."

"It seems rather odd," mused the listener aloud, "that the neighbors let them break up so, and that they should all scatter as they did."

"Well, it ain't so curious as it seems, Cap'n. There was money for them at the owners', all the time; I'd left part of my wages when I sailed; but they didn't know how to get at it, and what could a parcel of children do? Julia's a good girl, and when I find her I'm all right."

The writer could only repeat that there was no Mr. Hapford living on that street, and never had been, so far as he knew. Yet there might be such a person in the neighborhood: and they would go out together and ask at some of the houses about. But the stranger must first take a glass of wine; for he looked used up.

The sailor awkwardly but civilly enough protested that he did not want to give so much trouble, but took the glass, and, as he put it to his lips, said formally, as if it were a toast or a kind of grace, "I hope I may have the opportunity of returning the compliment." The contributor thanked him; though, as he thought of all the circumstances of the case, and considered the cost at which the stranger had come to enjoy his politeness, he felt little eagerness to secure the return of the compliment at the same price, and added, with the consequence of another set phrase, "Not at all." But the thought had made him the more anxious to befriend the luckless soul fortune had cast in his way; and so the two sallied out together, and rang doorbells wherever lights were still seen burning in the windows, and asked the astonished people who answered their summons whether any Mr. Hapford were known to live in the neighborhood.

And although the search for this gentleman proved vain, the contributor could not feel that an expedition which set familiar objects in such novel lights was altogether a failure. He entered so intimately into the cares and anxieties of his protégé that at times he felt himself in some inexplicable sort a shipmate of Jonathan Tinker, and almost personally a partner of his calamities. The estrangement of all things which takes place, within doors and without, about midnight may have helped to cast this doubt upon his identity;—he seemed to be visiting now for the first time the streets and neighborhoods nearest his own, and his feet stumbled over the accustomed walks. In his quality of houseless wanderer, and—so far as appeared to others—possibly worthless vagabond, he also got a new and instructive effect upon the faces which, in his real character, he knew so well by their looks of neighborly greeting; and it is his belief that the first hospitable prompting of the human heart is to shut the door in the eyes of homeless strangers who present themselves after eleven o'clock. By that time the servants are all abed, and the gentleman of the house answers the bell, and looks out with a loath and bewildered face, which gradually changes to one of suspicion, and of wonder as to what those fellows can possibly want of him, till at last the prevailing expression is one of contrite desire to atone for the first reluctance by any sort of service. The contributor professes to have observed these changing phases in the visages of those whom he that night called from their dreams, or arrested in the act of going to bed; and he drew the conclusion—very proper for his imaginable connection with the garroting and other adventurous brotherhoods—that the most flattering moment for knocking on the head people who answer a late ring at night is either in their first selfish bewilderment, or their final self-abandonment to their better impulses. It does not seem to have occurred to him that he would himself have been a much more favorable subject for the predatory arts than any of his neighbors, if his shipmate, the unknown companion of his researches for Mr. Hapford, had been at all so minded. But the faith of the gaunt giant upon which he reposed was good, and the contributor continued to wander about with him in perfect safety. Not a soul among those they asked had ever heard of a Mr. Hapford,—far less of a Julia Tinker living with him. But they all listened to the contributor's explanation with interest and eventual sympathy; and in truth,—briefly told, with a word now and then thrown in by Jonathan Tinker, who kept at the bottom of the steps, showing like a gloomy spectre in the night, or, in his grotesque length and gauntness, like the other's shadow cast there by the lamplight,—it was a story which could hardly fail to awaken pity.

At last, after ringing several bells where there were no lights, in the mere wantonness of good-will, and going away before they could be answered (it would be entertaining to know what dreams they caused the sleepers within), there seemed to be nothing for it but to give up the search till morning, and go to the main street and wait for the last horse-car to the city.

There, seated upon the curbstone, Jonathan Tinker, being plied with a few leading questions, told in hints and scraps the story of his hard life, which was at present that of a second mate, and had been that of a cabin-boy and of a seaman before the mast. The second mate's place he held to be the hardest aboard ship. You got only a few dollars more than the men, and you did not rank with the officers; you took your meals alone, and in everything you belonged by yourself. The men did not respect you, and sometimes the captain abused you awfully before the passengers. The hardest captain that Jonathan Tinker ever sailed with was Captain Gooding of the Cape. It had got to be so that no man could ship second mate under Captain Gooding; and Jonathan Tinker was with him only one voyage. When he had been home awhile, he saw an advertisement for a second mate, and he went round to the owners'. They had kept it secret who the captain was; but there was Captain Gooding in the owners' office. "Why, here's the man, now, that I want for a second mate," said he, when Jonathan Tinker entered; "he knows me."—"Captain Gooding, I know you 'most too well to want to sail under you," answered Jonathan. "I might go if I hadn't been with you one voyage too many already."

"And then the men!" said Jonathan, "the men coming aboard drunk, and having to be pounded sober! And the hardest of the fight falls on the second mate! Why, there isn't an inch of me that hasn't been cut over or smashed into a jell. I've had three ribs broken; I've got a scar from a knife on my cheek; and I've been stabbed bad enough, half a dozen times, to lay me up."

Here he gave a sort of desperate laugh, as if the notion of so much misery and such various mutilation were too grotesque not to be amusing. "Well, what can you do?" he went on. "If you don't strike, the men think you're afraid of them; and so you have to begin hard and go on hard. I always tell a man, 'Now, my man, I always begin with a man the way I mean to keep on. You do your duty and you're all right. But if you don't'—Well, the men ain't Americans any more,—Dutch, Spaniards, Chinese, Portuguee, and it ain't like abusing a white man."

Jonathan Tinker was plainly part of the horrible tyranny which we all know exists on shipboard; and his listener respected him the more that, though he had heart enough to be ashamed of it, he was too honest not to own it.

Why did he still follow the sea? Because he did not know what else to do. When he was younger, he used to love it, but now he hated it. Yet there was not a prettier life in the world if you got to be captain. He used to hope for that once, but not now; though he thought he could navigate a ship. Only let him get his family together again, and he would—yes, he would—try to do something ashore.

No car had yet come in sight, and so the contributor suggested that they should walk to the car-office, and look in the "Directory," which is kept there, for the name of Hapford, in search of whom it had already been arranged that they should renew their acquaintance on the morrow. Jonathan Tinker, when they had reached the office, heard with constitutional phlegm that the name of the Hapford for whom he inquired was not in the "Directory." "Never mind," said the other; "come round to my house in the morning. We'll find him yet." So they parted with a shake of the hand, the second mate saying that he believed he should go down to the vessel and sleep aboard,—if he could sleep,—and murmuring at the last moment the hope of returning the compliment, while the other walked homeward, weary as to the flesh, but, in spite of his sympathy for Jonathan Tinker, very elate in spirit. The truth is,—and however disgraceful to human nature, let the truth still be told,—he had recurred to his primal satisfaction in the man as calamity capable of being used for such and such literary ends, and, while he pitied him, rejoiced in him as an episode of real life quite as striking and complete as anything in fiction. It was literature made to his hand. Nothing could be better, he mused; and once more he passed the details of the story in review, and beheld all those pictures which the poor fellow's artless words had so vividly conjured up: he saw him leaping ashore in the gray summer dawn as soon as the ship hauled into the dock, and making his way, with his vague sea-legs unaccustomed to the pavements, up through the silent and empty city streets; he imagined the tumult of fear and hope which the sight of the man's home must have caused in him, and the benumbing shock of finding it blind and deaf to all his appeals; he saw him sitting down upon what had been his own threshold, and waiting in a sort of bewildered patience till the neighbors should be awake, while the noises of the streets gradually arose, and the wheels began to rattle over the stones, and the milk-man and the ice-man came and went, and the waiting figure began to be stared at, and to challenge the curiosity of the passing policeman; he fancied the opening of the neighbor's door, and the slow, cold understanding of the case; the manner, whatever it was, in which the sailor was told that one year before his wife had died, with her babe, and that his children were scattered, none knew where. As the contributor dwelt pityingly upon these things, but at the same time estimated their aesthetic value one by one, he drew near the head of his street, and found himself a few paces behind a boy slouching onward through the night, to whom he called out, adventurously, and with no real hope of information,—

"Do you happen to know anybody on this street by the name of Hapford?"

"Why, no, not in this town," said the boy; but he added that there was a street of the same name in a neighboring suburb, and that there was a Hapford living on it.

"By Jove!" thought the contributor, "this is more like literature than ever"; and he hardly knew whether to be more provoked at his own stupidity in not thinking of a street of the same name in the next village, or delighted at the element of fatality which the fact introduced into the story; for Tinker, according to his own account, must have landed from the cars a few rods from the very door he was seeking, and so walked farther and farther from it every moment. He thought the case so curious, that he laid it briefly before the boy, who, however he might have been inwardly affected, was sufficiently true to the national traditions not to make the smallest conceivable outward sign of concern in it.

At home, however, the contributor related his adventures and the story of Tinker's life, adding the fact that he had just found out where Mr. Hapford lived. "It was the only touch wanting," said he; "the whole thing is now perfect."

"It's too perfect," was answered from a sad enthusiasm. "Don't speak of it! I can't take it in."

"But the question is," said the contributor, penitently taking himself to task for forgetting the hero of these excellent misfortunes in his delight at their perfection, "how am I to sleep to-night, thinking of that poor soul's suspense and uncertainty? Never mind,—I'll be up early, and run over and make sure that it is Tinker's Hapford, before he gets out here, and have a pleasant surprise for him. Would it not be a justifiable coup de théâtre to fetch his daughter here, and let her answer his ring at the door when he comes in the morning?"

This plan was discouraged. "No, no; let them meet in their own way. Just take him to Hapford's house and leave him."

"Very well. But he's too good a character to lose sight of. He's got to come back here and tell us what he intends to do."

The birds, next morning, not having had the second mate on their minds either as an unhappy man or a most fortunate episode, but having slept long and soundly, were singing in a very sprightly way in the wayside trees; and the sweetness of their notes made the contributor's heart light as he climbed the hill and rang at Mr. Hapford's door.

The door was opened by a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, whom he knew at a glance for the second mate's daughter, but of whom, for form's sake, he asked if there were a girl named Julia Tinker living there.

"My name's Julia Tinker," answered the maid, who had rather a disappointing face.

"Well," said the contributor, "your father's got back from his Hong-Kong voyage."

"Hong-Kong voyage?" echoed the girl, with a stare of helpless inquiry, but no other visible emotion.

"Yes. He had never heard of your mother's death. He came home yesterday morning, and was looking for you all day."

Julia Tinker remained open-mouthed but mute; and the other was puzzled at the want of feeling shown, which he could not account for even as a national trait. "Perhaps there's some mistake," he said.

"There must be," answered Julia: "my father hasn't been to sea for a good many years. My father," she added, with a diffidence indescribably mingled with a sense of distinction,—"my father 's in State's Prison. What kind of looking man was this?"

The contributor mechanically described him.

Julia Tinker broke into a loud, hoarse laugh. "Yes, it's him, sure enough." And then, as if the joke were too good to keep: "Mis' Hapford, Mis' Hapford, father's got out. Do come here!" she called into a back room.

When Mrs. Hapford appeared, Julia fell back, and, having deftly caught a fly on the doorpost, occupied herself in plucking it to pieces, while she listened to the conversation of the others.

"It's all true enough," said Mrs. Hapford, when the writer had recounted the moving story of Jonathan Tinker, "so far as the death of his wife and baby goes. But he hasn't been to sea for a good many years, and he must have just come out of State's Prison, where he was put for bigamy. There's always two sides to a story, you know; but they say it broke his first wife's heart, and she died. His friends don't want him to find his children, and this girl especially."

"He's found his children in the city," said the contributor gloomily, being at a loss what to do or say, in view of the wreck of his romance.

"Oh, he's found 'em, has he?" cried Julia, with heightened amusement. "Then he'll have me next, if I don't pack and go."

"I'm very, very sorry," said the contributor, secretly resolved never to do another good deed, no matter how temptingly the opportunity presented itself. "But you may depend he won't find out from me where you are. Of course I had no earthly reason for supposing his story was not true."

"Of course," said kind-hearted Mrs. Hapford, mingling a drop of honey with the gall in the contributor's soul, "you only did your duty."

And indeed, as he turned away, he did not feel altogether without compensation. However Jonathan Tinker had fallen in his esteem as a man, he had even risen as literature. The episode which had appeared so perfect in its pathetic phases did not seem less finished as a farce; and this person, to whom all things of every-day life presented themselves in periods more or less rounded, and capable of use as facts or illustrations, could not but rejoice in these new incidents, as dramatically fashioned as the rest. It occurred to him that, wrought into a story, even better use might be made of the facts now than before, for they had developed questions of character and of human nature which could not fail to interest. The more he pondered upon his acquaintance with Jonathan Tinker, the more fascinating the erring mariner became, in his complex truth and falsehood, his delicately blended shades of artifice and naïveté. He must, it was felt, have believed to a certain point in his own inventions: nay, starting with that groundwork of truth,—the fact that his wife was really dead, and that he had not seen his family for two years,—why should he not place implicit faith in all the fictions reared upon it? It was probable that he felt a real sorrow for her loss, and that he found a fantastic consolation in depicting the circumstances of her death so that they should look like his inevitable misfortunes rather than his faults. He might well have repented his offence during those two years of prison; and why should he not now cast their dreariness and shame out of his memory, and replace them with the freedom and adventure of a two years' voyage to China,—so probable, in all respects, that the fact should appear an impossible nightmare? In the experiences of his life he had abundant material to furnish forth the facts of such a voyage, and in the weariness and lassitude that should follow a day's walking equally after a two years' voyage and two years' imprisonment, he had as much physical proof in favor of one hypothesis as the other. It was doubtless true, also, as he said, that he had gone to his house at dawn, and sat down on the threshold of his ruined home; and perhaps he felt the desire he had expressed to see his daughter, with a purpose of beginning life anew; and it may have cost him a veritable pang when he found that his little ones did not know him. All the sentiments of the situation were such as might persuade a lively fancy of the truth of its own inventions; and as he heard these continually repeated by the contributor in their search for Mr. Hapford, they must have acquired an objective force and repute scarcely to be resisted. At the same time, there were touches of nature throughout Jonathan Tinker's narrative which could not fail to take the faith of another. The contributor, in reviewing it, thought it particularly charming that his mariner had not overdrawn himself, or attempted to paint his character otherwise than as it probably was; that he had shown his ideas and practices of life to be those of a second mate, nor more nor less, without the gloss of regret or the pretences to refinement that might be pleasing to the supposed philanthropist with whom he had fallen in. Captain Gooding was of course a true portrait; and there was nothing in Jonathan Tinker's statement of the relations of a second mate to his superiors and his inferiors which did not agree perfectly with what the contributor had just read in "Two Years before the Mast,"—a book which had possibly cast its glamour upon the adventure. He admired also the just and perfectly characteristic air of grief in the bereaved husband and father,—those occasional escapes from the sense of loss into a brief hilarity and forgetfulness, and those relapses into the hovering gloom, which every one has observed in this poor, crazy human nature when oppressed by sorrow, and which it would have been hard to simulate. But, above all, he exulted in that supreme stroke of the imagination given by the second mate when, at parting, he said he believed he would go down and sleep on board the vessel. In view of this, the State's Prison theory almost appeared a malign and foolish scandal.

Yet even if this theory were correct, was the second mate wholly answerable for beginning his life again with the imposture he had practised? The contributor had either so fallen in love with the literary advantages of his forlorn deceiver that he would see no moral obliquity in him, or he had touched a subtler verity at last in pondering the affair. It seemed now no longer a farce, but had a pathos which, though very different from that of its first aspect, was hardly less tragical. Knowing with what coldness, or at the best, uncandor, he (representing Society in its attitude toward convicted Error) would have met the fact had it been owned to him at first, he had not virtue enough to condemn the illusory stranger, who must have been helpless to make at once evident any repentance he felt or good purpose he cherished. Was it not one of the saddest consequences of the man's past,—a dark necessity of misdoing,—that, even with the best will in the world to retrieve himself, his first endeavor must involve a wrong? Might he not, indeed, be considered a martyr, in some sort, to his own admirable impulses? I can see clearly enough where the contributor was astray in this reasoning, but I can also understand how one accustomed to value realities only as they resembled fables should be won with such pensive sophistry; and I can certainly sympathize with his feeling that the mariner's failure to reappear according to appointment added its final and most agreeable charm to the whole affair, and completed the mystery from which the man emerged and which swallowed him up again.

NOTES

Mr. Charles Reade:—An English novelist (1814-1884).

protégé (French):—A person under the care of another. The form given here is masculine; the feminine is protégée.

coup de théâtre:—(French) A very striking scene, such as might appear on the stage.

Two Years before the Mast:—A sea story written by R.H. Dana, about 1840.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

What is a romance? The phrase already mentioned refers to earlier parts of the book Suburban Sketches, from which this story is taken. What effect does the author gain by the ring at the door-bell? How does he give you a quick and vivid idea of the visitor? What significance do the man's clothes have in the story? By means of what devices does the author interest you in the stranger? Do adventures really happen in everyday life? Why does the author speak of one's own "register"? Mr. Howells has written a number of novels in which he pictures ordinary people, and shows the romance of commonplace events. Why does the listener "exult"? How does the man's story affect you? What is gained by having it told in his own words? Is Jonathan Tinker's toast a happy one? What does the contributor mean by saying that he would have been a good subject for "the predatory arts"? The last horse-car: To Boston; the scene is probably laid in Cambridge where Mr. Howells lived for some years. In what way does the sailor's language emphasize the pathetic quality of his story? How was the man "literature made to the author's hand"? What are the "national traditions" mentioned in connection with the boy? Why was the story regarded as "too perfect" when it was related at home? In what way was Julia Tinker's face "disappointing"? How does the author feel when he hears the facts in the case? Why does he resolve never to do a good deed again? The author gives two reasons why Jonathan Tinker did not tell the truth: what seems to you the real reason? Characterize Tinker in your own words. Is the ending of the selection satisfactory? Did you think that Tinker would come back? Can you make a little drama of this story?

THEME SUBJECTS

An Old Sailor
People who do not Tell the Truth
The Forsaken House
Asking Directions
A Tramp
The Lost Address
An Evening at Home
A Sketch of Julia Tinker
The Surprise
A Long-lost Relative
What Becomes of the Ex-Convicts?
The Jail
A Stranger in Town
A Late Visitor
What I Think of Jonathan Tinker
The Disadvantages of a Lively Imagination
Unwelcome
If Jonathan Tinker had Told the Truth
The Lie
A Call at a Stranger's House
An Unfortunate Man
A Walk in Dark Streets
The Sea Captain
Watching the Sailors

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

A Late Visitor:—Try to write this in the form of a dialogue or little play. The host is reading or conversing in the family sitting-room, when the doorbell rings. There is a conversation at the door, and then the caller is brought in. Perhaps the stranger has some evil design. Perhaps he (or she) is lost, or in great need. Perhaps he turns out to be in some way connected with the family. Think out the plan of the dialogue pretty thoroughly before you begin to write. It is possible that you will want to add a second act in which the results of the first are shown. Plan your stage directions with the help of some other drama, as, for instance, that given on page [52].

The Lie:[13]—This also may be written in the form of a slight dramatic composition. There might be a few brief scenes, according to the following plan:—

Scene 1: The lie is told.
Scene 2: It makes trouble.
Scene 3: It is found out.
Scene 4: Complications are untangled, and the lie is atoned for.
(Perhaps this scene can be combined with the preceding.)

A Long-lost Relative:—This may be taken from a real or an imaginary circumstance. Tell of the first news that the relative is coming. Where has he (or she) been during the past years? Speak of the period before the relative arrives: the conjectures as to his appearance; the preparations made; the conversation regarding him. Tell of his arrival. Is his appearance such as has been expected? Describe him rather fully. What does he say and do? Does he make himself agreeable? Are his ideas in any way peculiar? Do the neighbors like him? Give some of the incidents of his visit. Tell about his departure. Are the family glad or sorry to have him go? What is said about him after he has gone? What has been heard of him since?

COLLATERAL READINGS

Bookman, 17:342 (Portrait); 35:114, April, 1912; Current Literature, 42:49, January, 1907 (Portrait).

THE WILD RIDE

LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY

I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.

Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle,
Weather-worn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.

The trail is through dolour and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:
What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.

Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sun-beam:
Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.

A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle,
A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty:

(I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.)

We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All's well with Thy troopers that follow.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

This poem is somewhat like the Road-Hymn for the Start, on page [184]. It is about those people who go forward eagerly into the work of the world, without fearing, and without shrinking from difficulties. Read it through completely, trying to get its meaning. Regard the lines in italic as a kind of chorus, and study the meaning of the other stanzas first. Who are the galloping legions? A stirrup-cup was a draught of wine, taken just before a rider began his journey; it was usually drunk to some one's health. Is dolour a common word? Is it good here? Try to put into your own words the ideas in the "land of no name," and "the infinite dark," remembering what is said above about the general meaning of the poem. What picture and what idea do you get from "like sparks from the anvil"? Now go back to the lines in italic, and look for their meaning.

What do you notice about the length of the words in this poem? Why has the author used this kind of words? Notice carefully how the sound and the sense are made harmonious. Look for the rhyme. How does the poem differ from most short poems?

Bead the verses aloud, trying to make your reading suggest "the hoofs of invisible horses."

OTHER POEMS TO READ

CHRISTMAS IN THE WOODS

DALLAS LORE SHARP

(In The Lay of the Land)

On the night before this particular Christmas every creature of the woods that could stir was up and stirring; for over the old snow was falling swiftly, silently, a soft, fresh covering that might mean a hungry Christmas unless the dinner were had before morning.

But when the morning dawned, a cheery Christmas sun broke across the great gum swamp, lighting the snowy boles and soft-piled limbs of the giant trees with indescribable glory, and pouring, a golden flood, into the deep spongy bottoms below. It would be a perfect Christmas in the woods, clear, mild, stirless, with silent footing for me, and everywhere the telltale snow.

And everywhere the Christmas spirit, too. As I paused among the pointed cedars of the pasture, looking down into the cripple at the head of the swamp, a clear wild whistle rang in the thicket, followed by a flash through the alders like a tongue of fire, as a cardinal grosbeak shot down to the tangle of greenbrier and magnolia under the slope. It was a fleck of flaming summer. As warm as summer, too, the staghorn sumac burned on the crest of the ridge against the group of holly trees,—trees as fresh as April, and all aglow with berries. The woods were decorated for the holy day. The gentleness of the soft new snow touched everything; cheer and good-will lighted the unclouded sky and warmed the thick depths of the evergreens, and blazed in the crimson-berried bushes of the ilex and alder. The Christmas woods were glad.

Nor was the gladness all show, mere decoration. There was real cheer in abundance; for I was back in the old home woods, back along the Cohansey, back where you can pick persimmons off the trees at Christmas. There are persons who say the Lord might have made a better berry than the strawberry, but He didn't. Perhaps He didn't make the strawberry at all. But He did make the Cohansey Creek persimmon, and He made it as good as He could. Nowhere else under the sun can you find such persimmons as these along the creek, such richness of flavor, such gummy, candied quality, woodsy, wild, crude,—especially the fruit of two particular trees on the west bank, near Lupton's Pond. But they never come to this perfection, never quite lose their pucker, until midwinter,—as if they had been intended for the Christmas table of the woods.