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Short stories and selections for use in the secondary schools

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Title: Short stories and selections for use in the secondary schools

Editor: Emilie K. Baker


        
Release date: January 1, 2005 [eBook #7283]
                Most recently updated: March 22, 2015

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS FOR USE IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS ***




Produced by V-M Ísterman, Charles Franks and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team










SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS

FOR USE IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS

COMPILED AND ANNOTATED, WITH QUESTIONS FOR STUDY
BY
EMILIE KIP BAKER




[Illustration: Walter Scott's Library at Abbotsford]




TABLE OF CONTENTS

A LEAF IN THE STORM, _by_ Louise de la Ramee,
_from_ A Leaf in the Storm and Other Stories

CATS, _by_ Maurice Hewlett,
_from_ Earthwork out of Tuscany

AN ADVENTURE, _by_ Honore de Balzac,
_from_ A Passion in the Desert

FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MUSIC, _by_ Axel Munthe,
_from_ Vagaries

OUT OF DOORS, _by_ Richard Jefferies,
_from_ Saint Guido

THE TABOO, _by_ Herman Melville,
_from_ Typee

SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT, _by_ George Sand,
_from_ The Story of My Life (adapted)

IN BRITTANY, _by_ Louisa Alcott,
_from_ Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag

THE ADIRONDACKS, _by_ John Burroughs,
_from_ Wake Robin

AN ASCENT OF KILAUEA, _by_ Lady Brassey,
_from_ Around the World in the Yacht Sunbeam

THE FETISH, _by_ George Eliot,
_from_ The Mill on the Floss

SALMON FISHING IN IRELAND, _by_ James A. Froude,
_from_ A Fortnight in Kerry

ACROSS RUNNING WATER, _by_ Fiona Macleod,
_from_ Sea Magic and Running Water

THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS, _by_ Nathaniel Hawthorne,
_from_ Grandfather's Chair

THE WHITE TRAIL, _by_ Stewart Edward White,
_from_ The Silent Places

A DISSERTATION ON ROAST PIG, _by_ Charles Lamb,
_from_ Essays of Elia

THE LAST CLASS, _by_ Alphonse Daudet,
_from_ Monday Tales

AN ARAB FISHERMAN, _by_ Albert Edwards,
_from_ The Barbary Coast

THE ARCHERY CONTEST, _by_ Walter Scott,
_from_ Ivanhoe

BABY SYLVESTER, _by_ Bret Harte,
_from_ Bret Harte's Writings

THE ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG, _by_ Abraham Lincoln,
_from_ Lincoln's Speeches

THE SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS, _by_ Abraham Lincoln,
_from_ Lincoln's Speeches

AN APPRECIATION OF LINCOLN, _by_ John Hay,
_from_ Life of Lincoln

THE ELEPHANTS THAT STRUCK, _by_ Samuel White Baker,
_from_ Eight Years in Ceylon

THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, _by_ Bret Harte

THE STORY OF MUHAMMAD DIN, _by_ Rudyard Kipling,
_from_ Plain Tales from the Hills

A CHILD, _by_ John Galsworthy,
_from_ Commentary

TOO DEAR FOR THE WHISTLE, _by_ Benjamin Franklin,
_from_ The Autobiography

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT, _by_ Robert Louis Stevenson,
_from_ The New Arabian Nights

A BAD FIVE MINUTES IN THE ALPS, _by_ Leslie Stephen,
_from_ Freethinking and Plainspeaking (adapted)

THE GOLD TRAIL, _by_ Stewart Edward White,
_from_ Gold

TWENTY YEARS OF ARCTIC STRUGGLE, _by_ J. Kennedy McLean,
_from_ Heroes of the Farthest North and South (adapted)

THE SPEECH IN MANCHESTER, _by_ Henry Ward Beecher,
_from_ Addresses and Sermons

A GREEN DONKEY DRIVER, _by_ Robert Louis Stevenson,
_from_ Travels with a Donkey

A NIGHT IN THE PINES, _by_ Robert Louis Stevenson,
_from_ Travels with a Donkey

LIFE IN OLD NEW YORK, _by_ Washington Irving,
_from_ Knickerbocker's History of New York

THE BAZAAR IN MOROCCO, _by_ Pierre Loti,
_from_ Into Morocco

A BATTLE OF THE ANTS, _by_ Henry D. Thoreau,
_from_ Walden (adapted)

AN AFRICAN PET, _by_ Paul B. du Chaillu,
_from_ The African Forest and Jungle

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE, _by_ Lloyd Morgan,
_from_ Animal Sketches (adapted)

BUCK'S TRIAL OF STRENGTH, _by_ Jack London,
_from_ The Call of the Wild

ON THE SOLANDER WHALING GROUND, _by_ Frank Bullen,
_from_ Idylls of the Sea

AN EPISODE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, _by_ Charles Dickens,
_from_ A Tale of Two Cities

THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL, _by_ Pierre Loti,
_from_ Into Morocco (adapted)

WALT WHITMAN, _by_ John Burroughs,
_from_ Whitman--A Study (adapted)

HEROISM IN HOUSEKEEPING, _by_ Jane Welsh Carlyle,
_from_ Letters

A YOUTHFUL ACTOR, _by_ Thomas Bailey Aldrich,
_from_ The Story of a Bad Boy

WAR, _by_ Thomas Carlyle, _from_ Sartor Resartus

COON-HUNTING, _by_ Ernest Ingersoll,
_from_ Wild Neighbors (adapted)

SIGHT IN SAVAGES, _by_ W. H. Hudson,
_from_ Idle Days in Patagonia

THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER, _by_ Washington Irving,
_from_ The Sketch Book




INTRODUCTION


The testimony of librarians as to the kind of books people are reading
nowadays is somewhat discouraging to the book-lover who has been brought
up in the old traditions. We are told that Scott and Thackeray and
George Eliot cannot compete with the year's "best sellers," and that the
old classics are read only by the few who have a cultivated taste and a
trained intelligence.

The interest of novelty, the dislike of mental effort, the temptation to
read merely for a mild sensation,--all these undoubtedly tend to keep
down the level of literary taste. To many readers of good average
ability, neither the esthetic nor the purely intellectual makes a strong
appeal. Even minds of fine quality often find a welcome diversion in
trivial reading. In fact, to expect every one and at all times to have
his mind keyed up to the higher levels is neither sincere nor
reasonable. And yet, making due allowance for intellectual limitations,
for the busy and distracting conditions of modern life, and for the real
need of light reading at times when recreation is of more value than
instruction, it would seem that a fair proportion of our reading could
and should be on a higher plane.

To put it on this high plane is one of the fixed objects of the school.
For this end the schools have given English an important place, have
broadened the list of recommended books year by year, and have sought to
improve the method of teaching literature. Especially have they hoped to
create in the pupil the habit of reading good books and of discovering
new material on his own initiative. Thus far their success has fallen
much below their hopes, as the testimony of librarians, adduced above,
plainly indicates.

There is one significant fact which both librarians and teachers have
observed. The average reader, child or adult, seldom knows how or where
to find things to read. He is lost in a library, whether among the
book-shelves or at a card-catalogue. He is like a traveler who is
ignorant of the geography of the country and cannot use the compass. And
worse still, he has not the explorer's instinct. If he possessed this,
he would somehow find his way himself,--a thing which occasionally
happens when the reader has more than usual ability. Between the covers
of those books, turning to him their uncommunicative backs, behind those
labels--to him so unexpressive--there may be passages, whole chapters or
more, that would give him entertainment, if he only knew!

To introduce him to an author may be to give him a new friend.
Introductions need not imply long and intimate companionship. This
author may hold him for half an hour, and never again; that one may
claim his attention for a day; and another may come to rank as one of
his old friends. In each case the acquaintance may depend upon the fact
of an introduction, and not upon the reader's own initiative in
discovery. More than the acquaintances thus made, is the sense of
at-homeness among books which they gradually bring about. We all know
that feeling of the unreality of a book of which we have merely heard
the title, and how soon we forget it. A book that we have seen and
handled, however, and especially one which we have read or from which we
have seen a passage quoted in another volume, is somehow real,--an
entity. Through continued experiences of this sort we come to feel
really acquainted with books, to know where to find the things we are
looking for, to judge and appreciate,--in brief, to feel at home among
them.

It is as a series of such introductions to the larger world of
literature that this volume has been compiled. Some of the selections
are from books whose titles are already familiar to high school
students; many others are from sources that few pupils will know. All of
them, it is confidently believed, are within the interest and
comprehension of boys and girls of high school age. The notes and
questions at the end of each selection will, it is hoped, be of some
help to the students in getting at the author's meaning, and in
suggesting interesting topics for discussion. If, after finishing the
Short Stories and Selections, a few more students will have formed the
habit of good reading and will feel, not merely willing, but eager, to
enlarge their acquaintance among good books, this volume has
accomplished its purpose.

EMILIE K. BAKER




SHORT STORIES AND SELECTIONS




A LEAF IN THE STORM


Bernadou clung to his home with a dogged devotion. He would not go from
it to fight unless compelled, but for it he would have fought like a
lion. His love for his country was only an indefinite shadowy existence
that was not clear to him; he could not save a land that he had never
seen, a capital that was only to him as an empty name; nor could he
comprehend the danger that his nation ran; nor could he desire to go
forth and spend his lifeblood in defence of things unknown to him. He
was only a peasant, and he could not read nor greatly understand. But
affection for his birthplace was a passion with him,--mute indeed, but
deep-seated as an oak. For his birthplace he would have struggled as a
man can struggle only when supreme love as well as duty nerves his arm.
Neither he nor Reine Allix could see that a man's duty might lie from
home, but in that home both were alike ready to dare anything and to
suffer everything. It was a narrow form of patriotism, yet it had
nobleness, endurance, and patience in it; in song it has been oftentimes
deified as heroism, but in modern warfare it is punished as the blackest
crime.

So Bernadou tarried in his cottage till he should be called, keeping
watch by night over the safety of his village and by day doing all he
could to aid the deserted wives and mothers of the place by tilling
their ground for them and by tending such poor cattle as were left in
their desolate fields. He and Margot and Reine Allix, between them, fed
many mouths that would otherwise have been closed in death by famine,
and denied themselves all except the barest and most meagre subsistence,
that they might give away the little they possessed.

And all this while the war went on, but seemed far from them, so seldom
did any tidings of it pierce the seclusion in which they dwelt. By and
by, as the autumn went on, they learned a little more. Fugitives coming
to the smithy for a horse's shoe; women fleeing to their old village
homes from their light, gay life in the city; mandates from the
government of defence sent to every hamlet in the country; stray
news-sheets brought in by carriers or hawkers and hucksters,--all these
by degrees told them of the peril of their country,--vaguely, indeed,
and seldom truthfully, but so that by mutilated rumors they came at last
to know the awful facts of the fate of Sedan, the fall of the Empire,
the siege of Paris. It did not alter their daily lives: it was still too
far off and too impalpable. But a foreboding, a dread, an unspeakable
woe settled down on them. Already their lands and cattle had been
harassed to yield provision for the army and large towns; already their
best horses had been taken for the siege-trains and the forage-wagons;
already their ploughshares were perforce idle, and their children cried
because of the scarcity of nourishment; already the iron of war had
entered into their souls.

The little street at evening was mournful and very silent: the few who
talked spoke in whispers, lest a spy should hear them, and the young
ones had no strength to play: they wanted food.

Bernadou, now that all means of defence was gone from him, and the only
thing left to him to deal with was his own life, had become quiet and
silent and passionless, as was his habit. He would have fought like a
mastiff for his home, but this they had forbidden him to do, and he was
passive and without hope. He closed his door, and sat down with his hand
in that of Reine Allix and his arm around his wife. "There is nothing to
do but wait" he said sadly. The day seemed very long in coming.

The firing (which had come nearer each day) ceased for a while; then its
roll commenced afresh, and grew still nearer to the village. Then again
all was still.

At noon a shepherd staggered into the place, pale, bleeding, bruised,
covered with mire. The Prussians, he told them, had forced him to be
their guide, had knotted him tight to a trooper's saddle, and had
dragged him with them until he was half dead with fatigue and pain. At
night he had broken from them and had fled: they were close at hand, he
said, and had burned the town from end to end because a man had fired at
them from a house-top. That was all he knew. Bernadou, who had gone out
to hear his news, returned into the house and sat down and hid his face
within his hands.

It grew dark. The autumn day died. The sullen clouds dropped scattered
rain. The red leaves were blown in millions by the wind. The little
houses on either side the road were dark, for the dwellers in them dared
not show any light that might be a star to allure to them the footsteps
of their foes. Bernadou sat with his arms on the table, and his head
resting on them. Margot nursed her son: Reine Allix prayed.

Suddenly in the street without there was the sound of many feet of
horses and of men, the shouting of angry voices, the splashing of quick
steps in the watery ways, the screams of women, the flash of steel
through the gloom. Bernadou sprang to his feet, his face pale, his blue
eyes dark as night. "They are come!" he said under his breath. It was
not fear that he felt, nor horror: it was rather a passion of love for
his birthplace and his nation,--a passion of longing to struggle and to
die for both. And he had no weapon!

He drew his house-door open with a steady hand, and stood on his own
threshold and faced these, his enemies. The street was full of
them,--some mounted, some on foots crowds of them swarmed in the woods
on the roads. They had settled on the village as vultures on a dead
lamb's body. It was a little, lowly place: it might well have been left
in peace. It had had no more share in the war than a child still unborn,
but it came in the victor's way, and his mailed heel crushed it as he
passed. They had heard that arms were hidden and francs-tireurs
sheltered there, and they had swooped down on it and held it hard and
fast. Some were told off to search the chapel; some to ransack the
dwellings; some to seize such food and bring such cattle as there might
be left; some to seek out the devious paths that crossed and recrossed
the field; and yet there still remained in the little street hundreds of
armed men, force enough to awe a citadel or storm a breach.

The people did not attempt to resist. They stood passive, dry-eyed in
misery, looking on whilst the little treasures of their household lives
were swept away forever, and ignorant what fate by fire or iron might be
their portion ere the night was done. They saw the corn that was their
winter store to save their offspring from famine poured out like
ditch-water. They saw oats and wheat flung down to be trodden into a
slough of mud and filth. They saw the walnut presses in their kitchens
broken open, and their old heirlooms of silver, centuries old, borne
away as booty. They saw the oak cupboard in their wives' bedchambers
ransacked, and the homespun linen and the quaint bits of plate that had
formed their nuptial dowers cast aside in derision or trampled into a
battered heap. They saw the pet lamb of their infants, the silver
earrings of their brides, the brave tankards they had drunk their
marriage wine in, the tame bird that flew to their whistle, all seized
for food or spoil. They saw all this, and had to stand by with mute
tongues and passive hands, lest any glance of wrath or gesture of
revenge should bring the leaden bullets in their children's throats or
the yellow flame amidst their homesteads. Greater agony the world cannot
hold.

--LOUISE DE LA RAMEE (Ouida).

[Footnote: This extract is taken from a story by the same title. The
chief characters are the peasant Bernadou, his wife Margot, and his old
grandmother Reine Allix. The scene is laid during the Franco-Prussian
War of 1870. The great defeat of the French at Sedan, and the surrender
of Paris from starvation after a long siege brought the war to an end.
The victorious Prussians took from France an indemnity of five billion
francs ($1,000,000,000), and two of their richest provinces, Alsace and
Lorraine.

What words in the first sentence show that it is not the beginning of
the story? Note the repeated use of antithesis (contrast) in the first
paragraph. By what details do you learn the state of the country? How
did the war affect even the people remote from the battlefields? How are
the terror and suffering of the people indicated? Notice the
effectiveness of the author's use of details. Have you read any prose or
poetry in which war is made to seem glorious? How does it seem here?
Does the author make the scene of the arrival of the Prussians vivid?
How is this done? Note the dramatic contrast between the arrival of the
Prussians and the actions of the peasants. How has the author drawn the
character of Bernadou? By what details does the author give special
poignancy to the pathos of her account? What is the significance of the
title "A Leaf in the Storm"?]




CATS


There was once a man in Italy--so the story runs--who said that animals
were sacred because God had made them. People didn't believe him for a
long time; they came, you see, of a race which had found it amusing to
kill such things, and killed a great many of them too, until it struck
them one fine day that killing men was better sport still, and watching
men kill each other the best sport of all because it was the least
trouble. Animals said they, why, how can they be sacred; things that you
call beef and mutton when they have left off being oxen and sheep, and
sell for so much a pound? They scoffed at this mad neighbour, looked at
each other waggishly and shrugged their shoulders as he passed along the
street. Well! then, all of a sudden, as you may say, one morning he
walked into the town--Gubbio it was--with a wolf pacing at his heels--a
certain wolf which had been the terror of the country-side and eaten I
don't know how many children and goats. He walked up the main street
till he got to the open Piazza in front of the great church. And the
long grey wolf padded beside him with a limp tongue lolling out between
the ragged palings which stood him for teeth. In the middle of the
Piazza was a fountain, and above the fountain a tall stone crucifix. Our
friend mounted the steps of the cross in the alert way he had (like a
little bird, the story says) and the wolf, after lapping apologetically
in the basin, followed him up three steps at a time. Then with one arm
around the shaft to steady himself, he made a fine sermon to the
neighbours crowding in the Square, and the wolf stood with his fore-paws
on the edge of the fountain and helped him. The sermon was all about
wolves (naturally) and the best way of treating them. I fancy the people
came to agree with it in time; anyhow when the man died they made a
saint of him and built three churches, one over another, to contain his
body. And I believe it is entirely his fault that there are a
hundred-and-three cats in the convent-garden of San Lorenzo in Florence.
For what are you to do? Animals are sacred, says Saint Francis. Animals
are sacred, but cats have kittens; and so it comes about that the people
who agree with Saint Francis have to suffer for the people who don't.

The Canons of San Lorenzo agree with Saint Francis, and it seems to me
that they must suffer a good deal. The convent is large; it has a great
mildewed cloister with a covered-in walk all around it built on arches.
In the middle is a green garth [Footnote: Garth: an inclosure, a yard.]
with cypresses and yews dotted about; and when you look up you see the
blue sky cut square, and the hot tiles of a huge dome staring up into
it. Round the cloister walk are discreet brown doors, and by the side of
each door a brass plate tells you the name and titles of the Canon who
lives behind it. It is on the principle of Dean's yard at Westminster;
only here there are more Canons--and more cats.

The Canons live under the cloister; the cats live on the green garth,
and sometimes die there. I did not see much of the Canons; but the cats
seemed to me very sad--depressed, nostalgic even, might describe them,
if there had not been something more languid, something faded and
spiritless about their habit. It was not that they quarrelled. I heard
none of those long-drawn wails, gloomy yet mellow soliloquies, with
which our cats usher in the crescent moon or hymn her when she swims at
the full: there lacked even that comely resignation we may see on any
sunny window-ledge at home;--the rounded back and neatly ordered tail,
the immaculate fore-paws peering sedately below the snowy chest, the
squeezed-up eyes which so resolutely shut off a bleak and (so to say)
unenlightened world. That is pensiveness, sedate chastened melancholy;
but it is soothing, it speaks a philosophy, and a certain balancing of
pleasures and pains. In San Lorenzo cloister, when I looked in one hot
noon seeking a refuge from the glare and white dust of the city, I was
conscious of a something sinister that forbade such an even existence
for the smoothest tempered cat. There were too many of them for
companionship and perhaps too few for the humour of the thing to strike
them: in and out the chilly shades they stalked gloomily, hither and
thither like lank and unquiet ghosts of starved cats. They were of all
colours--gay orange-tawny, tortoise shell with the becoming white patch
over one eye, delicate tints of grey and fawn and lavender, brindle,
glossy sable; and yet the gloom and dampness of the place seemed to
mildew them all so that their brightness was glaring and their softest
gradations took on a shade as of rusty mourning. No cat could be
expected to do herself justice.

To and fro they paced, balancing sometimes with hysterical precision
[Footnote: Hysterical precision. What does this mean?] on the ledge of
the parapet, passing each other at whisker's length, but cutting each
other dead. [Footnote: Cutting each other dead. Have you ever thought of
the quaint absurdity of this figurative expression?] Not a cat had a
look or a sniff for his fellow; not a cat so much as guessed at
another's existence. Among those hundred-and-three restless Spirits
there was not a cat that did not affect to believe that a
hundred-and-two were away! It was horrible, the inhumanity of it. Here
were these shreds and waifs, these "unnecessary litters" of Florentine
households, herded together in the only asylum (short of the Arno
[Footnote: Arno: the river that flows through Florence.]) open to them,
driven in like dead leaves in November, flitting dismally round and
round for a span, and watching each other die without a mew or a lick!
Saint Francis was not the wise man I had thought him. [Footnote: St.
Francis not the wise man, etc. Why not?]

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon. I had watched these beasts at
their feverish exercises for nearly an hour before I perceived that they
were gradually hemming me in. They seemed to be forming up, in ranks, on
the garth. Only a ditch separated us--I was in the cloister-walk, a
hundred-and-three gaunt, expectant, desperate cats facing me. Their
famished pale eyes pierced me through and through; and
two-hundred-and-two hungry eyes (four cats supported life on one apiece)
is more than I can stand, though I am a married man with a family. These
brutes thought I was going to feed them! I was preparing weakly for
flight when I heard steps in the gateway; a woman came in with a black
bag. She must be going to deposit a cat on Jean-Jacques [Footnote: Jean
Jacques Rousseau: a French philosophical writer of the last part of the
eighteenth century. His chief works are "Emile," "Social Contract,"
"Confessions."] ingenious plan of avoiding domestic trouble; it was
surely impossible she wanted to borrow one! Neither: she came
confidently in, beaming on our mad fellowship with a pleasant smile of
preparation. The cats knew her better than I did. Their suspense was
really shocking to witness. While she was rolling her sleeves up and
tying on her apron--she was poor, evidently, but very neat and wholesome
in her black dress and the decent cap which crowned her hair--while she
unpacked the contents of the bag--two newspaper parcels full of rather
distressing viands, scissors, and a pair of gloves which had done duty
more than once,--while all these preparations were soberly fulfilling,
the agitation of the hundred-and-three was desperate indeed. The air
grew thick, it quivered with the lashing of tails; hoarse mews echoed
along the stone walls, paws were raised and let fall with the rhythmical
patter of raindrops. A furtive beast played the thief: he was one of the
one-eyed fraternity, red with mange. Somehow he slipped in between us;
we discovered him crouched by the newspaper raking over the contents.
This was no time for ceremony; he got a prompt cuff over the head and
slunk away shivering and shaking his ears. And then the distribution
began. Now, your cat, at the best of times, is squeamish about his food;
he stands no tricks. He is a slow eater, though he can secure his dinner
with the best of us. A vicious snatch, like a snake, and he has it. Then
he spreads himself out to dispose of the prey--feet tucked well in, head
low, tail laid close along, eyes shut fast. That is how a cat of
breeding loves to dine. Alas! many a day of intolerable prowling, many a
black vigil, had taken the polish off the hundred-and-three. As a matter
of fact they behaved abominably; they leaped at the scraps, they clawed
at them in the air, they bolted them whole with staring eyes and
portentous gulpings, they growled all the while with the smothered
ferocity of thunder in the hills. No waiting of turns, no licking of
lips and moustaches to get the lingering flavors, no dalliance. They
were as restless and suspicious here as everywhere; their feast was the
horrid hasty orgy of ghouls in a church-yard. But an even distribution
was made: I don't think any one got more than his share. Of course there
were underhand attempts in plenty and, at least once, open violence--a
sudden rush from opposite sides, a growling and spitting like sparks
from a smithy; and then, with ears laid flat, two ill-favoured beasts
clawed blindly at each other, and a sly and tigerish brindle made away
with the morsel. My woman took the thing very coolly I thought, served
them all alike, and didn't resent (as I should have done) the
unfortunate want of delicacy there was about these vagrants. A cat that
takes your food and growls at you for the favor, a cat that would eat
you if he dared, is a pretty revelation. _Ca donne furieusement a
penser._ [Footnote: Ca donne furieusement a penser: "That makes one
think very hard."] It gives you a suspicion of just how far the polish
we most of us smirk over will go. My cats at San Lorenzo knew some few
moments of peace between two and three in the afternoon. That would have
been the time to get up a testimonial to the kind soul who fed them. Try
them at five and they would ignore you. But try them next morning!

My knowledge of the Italian tongue, in those days, was severely limited
to the necessaries of existence; to try me on a fancy subject, like
cats, was to strike me dumb. But at this stage of our intercourse
(hitherto confined to smiles and eye-service) it became so evident my
companion had something to say that I must perforce take my hat off and
stand attentive. She pointed to the middle of the garth, and there,
under the boughs of a shrub, I saw the hundred-and-fourth cat, sorriest
of them all. It was a newcomer she told me, and shy. Shy it certainly
was, poor wretch; it glowered upon me from under the branches like a bad
conscience. Shyness could not hide hunger--I never saw hungrier eyes
than hers--but it could hold it in check: the silkiest speech could not
tempt her out, and when we threw pieces she only winced! What was to be
done next was my work. Plain duty called me to scale the ditch with some
of those dripping, slippery, nameless cates [Footnote: Cates: viands;
things to eat. Why "slippery"? Nameless. What are they called in the
third sentence from the end of the paragraph?] in my fingers and to
approach the stranger where she lurked bodeful under her tree. My
passage toward her lay over the rank vegetation of the garth, in whose
coarse herbage here and there I stumbled upon a limp white form
stretched out--a waif the less in the world! I don't say it was a happy
passage for me: it was made to the visible consternation of her I wished
to befriend. Her piteous yellow eyes searched mine for sympathy; she
wanted to tell me something and I wouldn't understand! As I neared her
she shivered and mewed twice. Then she limped painfully off--poor soul,
she had but three feet!--to another tree, leaving behind her,
unwillingly enough, a much-licked dead kitten. That was what she wanted
to tell, then. As I was there, I deposited the garbage by the side of
the little corpse, knowing she would resume her watch, and retired. My
friend who had put up her parcels was prepared to go. She thanked me
with a smile as she went out, looking carefully round lest she had
missed out some other night-birds.

One of the Canons had come out of his door and was leaning against the
lintel, thoughtfully rubbing his chin. He was a spare dry man who seemed
to have measured life and found it childish business. He jerked his head
toward the gateway as he glanced at me. "That is a good woman," he said
in French, "she lendeth unto the Lord.... Yes," he went on, nodding his
head slowly backwards and forwards, "lends Him something every day." The
cats were sitting in the shady cloister-garth licking their whiskers:
one was actually cleaning his paw. I went out into the sun thinking of
Saint Francis and his wolf.

[Footnote: St. Francis was born in 1182 in the little town of Assissi,
Italy. He came of a rich and noble family, and was taken into business
partnership with his father, a wealthy merchant, at the age of fourteen.
In his twenty-fourth year he suddenly abandoned his friends and work,
and took up a life of penance and utter poverty. His austerities, his
sincerity, and his simple eloquence attracted much attention, and he
soon had many followers. Later on he founded the Franciscan Order of
monks, and did much missionary work by traveling in the East. He died at
Assissi in 1226.]

--MAURICE HEWLETT.

[Footnote: What reference in the first sentence to the sports in the
arena of Rome?

Notice how many times the author refers to the number of cats. Why?

Is the description of the scene objective or subjective? Cf. "A Leaf in
the Storm."

Notice the suggestiveness of the adjectives as in the reference to
"Discrete brown doors" on page 7.

How do these cats differ from cats as you know them? What qualities have
they that you recognize? Where does the author indicate that he is about
to begin a story? Does the author win your sympathy for the cats? How?
In what does the humor of the story lie? What is the climax of the
story? What do you think of the priest and his comment? Does the whole
sketch interest you because it describes a strange scene, or because it
raises the question of the humanity of keeping alive one hundred and
three cats?]




AN ADVENTURE


During the expedition to Upper Egypt under General Desaix, a Provencal
[Footnote: Provencal. Provence was an ancient government of southeastern
France. It became part of the crown lands in 1481 under Louis XI. The
term Provencals is used loosely to include dwellers in the south of
France.] soldier, who had fallen into the clutches of the Maugrabins,
was marched by these marauders, these tireless Arabs, into the deserts
lying beyond the cataracts of the Nile.

So as to put a sufficient distance between themselves and the French
army, to insure their greater safety, the Maugrabins [Footnote:
Maugrabins: a savage tribe of northern Africa.] made forced marches and
rested only during the night. They then encamped around a well shaded by
palm-trees, under which they had previously concealed a store of
provisions. Never dreaming that their prisoner would think of escaping,
they satisfied themselves by merely tying his hands, then lay down to
sleep, after having regaled themselves with a few dates and given
provender to their horses.

When the courageous Provencal noted that they slept soundly and could no
longer watch his movements, he made use of his teeth to steal a
scimitar, [Footnote: Scimitar: a short Turkish sword, carbine: a short
light rifle.] steadied the blade between his knees, cut through the
thongs which bound his hands; in an instant he was free. He at once
seized a carbine and a long dirk, [Footnote: Dirk: a dagger.] then took
the precaution of providing himself with a stock of dried dates, a small
bag of oats, some powder and bullets, and hung a scimitar around his
waist, mounted one of the horses and spurred on in the direction in
which he supposed the French army to be. So impatient was he to see a
bivouac [Footnote: Bivouac: an encampment without tents.] again that he
pressed on the already tired courser at such a speed that its flanks
were lacerated with the spurs, and soon the poor animal, utterly
exhausted, fell dead, leaving the Frenchman alone in the midst of the
desert.

After walking for a long time in the sand, with all the courage and
firmness of an escaped convict, the soldier was obliged to stop, as the
day had already come to an end. Despite the beauty of an Oriental night,
with its exquisite sky, he felt that he could not, though he fain would,
continue on his weary way. Fortunately he had come to a small eminence,
on the summit of which grew a few palm-trees whose verdure shot into the
air and could be seen from afar; this had brought hope and consolation
to his heart.

(Here follows a description of the cave which the soldier finds in the
rocks.)

His fatigue was so great that he threw himself down on a block of
granite, capriciously fashioned [Footnote: Capriciously fashioned.
Explain this term.] by nature into the semblance of a camp-bed, and,
without taking any precaution for defense, was soon fast in sleep. In
the middle of the night his sleep was disturbed by an extraordinary
sound. He sat up; the profound silence that reigned around enabled him
to distinguish the alternating rhythm of a respiration whose savage
energy it was impossible could be that of a human being.

A terrible terror, increased yet more by the silence, the darkness, his
racing fancy, froze his heart within him. He felt his hair rise on end,
as his eyes, dilated to their utmost, perceived through the gloom two
faint amber lights. At first he attributed these lights to the delusion
of his vision, but presently the vivid brilliance of the night aided him
to gradually distinguish the objects around him in the cave, when he
saw, within the space of two feet of him, a huge animal lying at rest.
Was it a lion? Was it a tiger? Was it a crocodile?

The Provencal was not sufficiently well educated to know under what
sub-species his enemy should be classed; his fear was but the greater
because his ignorance led him to imagine every terror at once. He
endured most cruel tortures as he noted every variation of the breathing
which was so near him; he dared not make the slightest movement.

An odor, pungent like that of a fox, but more penetrating as it were,
more profound, filled the cavern. When the Provencal became sensible of
this, his terror reached the climax, for now he could no longer doubt
the proximity of a terrible companion, whose royal lair [Footnote: Royal
lair. Why royal?] he had utilized as a bivouac.

Presently the reflection of the moon as it slowly descended to the
horizon, lighted up the den, rendering gradually visible the gleaming,
resplendent, and spotted skin of a panther.

This lion of Egypt lay asleep curled up like a great dog, the peaceful
possessor of a kennel at the door of some sumptuous hotel; its eyes
opened for a moment, then closed again; its face was turned towards the
Frenchman. A thousand confused thoughts passed through the mind of the
tiger's prisoner. Should he, as he at first thought of doing, kill it
with a shot from his carbine? But he saw plainly that there was not room
enough in which to take proper aim; the muzzle would have extended
beyond the animal--the bullet would miss the mark. And what if it were
to wake!--this fear kept him motionless and rigid.

He heard the pulsing of his heart beating in the so dread silence and he
cursed the too violent pulsations which his surging blood brought on,
lest they should awaken from sleep the dreadful creature; that slumber
which gave him time to think and plan over his escape.

Twice did he place his hand upon his scimitar, intending to cut off his
enemy's head; but the difficulty of severing the close haired skin
caused him to renounce this daring attempt. To miss was certain death.
He preferred the chance of a fair fight, and made up his mind to await
the daylight. The dawn did not give him long to wait. It came.

He could now examine the panther at his ease; its muzzle was smeared
with blood.

"It's had a good dinner," he said, without troubling himself to
speculate whether the feast might have been of human flesh or not. "It
won't be hungry when it wakes."

It was a female. The fur on her thighs was glistening white. Many small
spots like velvet formed beautiful bracelets round her paws; her sinuous
tail was also white, ending in black rings. The back of her dress was
yellow, like unburnished gold, very lissome, [Footnote: Lissome: supple,
nimble.] and soft, and had the characteristic blotches in the shape of
pretty rosettes, which distinguish the panther from every other species
felis. [Footnote: Species felis. Latin "felis," a cat.]

This formidable hostess lay tranquilly snoring in an attitude as
graceful and easy as that of a cat on the cushion of an ottoman. Her
bloody paws, nervous and well armed, were stretched out before her head,
which rested on the back of them, while from her muzzle radiated her
straight, slender whiskers, like threads of silver.

If he had seen her lying thus, imprisoned in a cage, the Provencal would
doubtless have admired the grace of the creature and the vivid contrasts
of color which gave her robe an imperial splendour; but just then his
sight was jaundiced [Footnote: Jaundiced. Explain this term.] by
sinister forebodings.

The presence of the panther, even asleep, had the same effect upon him
as the magnetic eyes of a snake are said to have on the nightingale.

The soldier's courage oozed away in the presence of this silent danger,
though he was a man who gathered courage at the mouth of a cannon
belching forth shot and shell. And yet a bold thought brought daylight
to his soul and sealed up the source from whence issued the cold sweat
which gathered on his brow. Like men driven to bay, who defy death and
offer their bodies to the smiter, so he, seeing in this merely a tragic
episode, resolved to play his part with honor to the last.

"The day before yesterday," said he, "the Arabs might have killed me."

So considering himself as already dead, he waited bravely, but with
anxious curiosity, the awakening of his enemy.

When the sun appeared the panther suddenly opened her eyes; then she
stretched out her paws with energy, as if to get rid of cramp. Presently
she yawned and showed the frightful armament of her teeth, and the
pointed tongue rough as a rasp.

"She is dainty as a woman," thought the Frenchman, seeing her rolling
and turning herself about so softly and coquettishly. She licked off the
blood from her paws and muzzle, and scratched her head with reiterated
grace of movement.

"Good, make your little toilet" said the Frenchman to himself; he
recovered his gayety with his courage. "We are presently about to give
each other good-morning," and he felt for the short poniard that he had
abstracted from the Maugrabins. At this instant the panther turned her
head toward him and gazed fixedly at him, without otherwise moving.

The rigidity of her metallic eyes and their insupportable lustre made
him shudder. The beast approached him; he looked at her caressingly,
staring into those bright eyes in an effort to magnetize her--to soothe
her. He let her come quite close to him before stirring; then with a
gentle movement, he passed his hand over her whole body, from the head
to the tail, scratching the flexible vertebrae, [Footnote: Vertebrae:
the bones of the spinal column.] which divided the yellow back of the
panther. The animal slightly moved her tail voluptuously, and her eyes
grew soft and gentle; and when for the third time the Frenchman had
accomplished this interested flattery, she gave vent to those purrings
like as cats express their pleasure; but it issued from a throat so
deep, so powerful, that it resounded through the cave like the last
chords of an organ rolling along the vaulted roof of a church. The
Provencal seeing the value of his caresses, redoubled them until they
completely soothed and lulled this imperious creature.

When he felt assured that he had extinguished the ferocity of his
capricious companion, whose hunger had so luckily been appeased the day
before, he got up to leave the grotto. The panther let him go out, but
when he reached the summit of the little knoll she sprang up and bounded
after him with the lightness of a sparrow hopping from twig to twig on a
tree, and rubbed against his legs, arching her back after the manner of
a domestic cat. Then regarding her guest with eyes whose glare had
somewhat softened, she gave vent to that wild cry which naturalists
compare to the grating of a saw.

"Madame is exacting," said the Frenchman, smiling.

He was bold enough to play with her ears; he stroked her body and
scratched her head good and hard with his nails. He was encouraged with
his success, and tickled her skull with the point of his dagger,
watching for an opportune moment to kill her, but the hardness of the
bone made him tremble, dreading failure.

The sultana of the desert [Footnote: Why does the author call the tiger
the sultana of the desert?] showed herself gracious to her slave; she
lifted her head, stretched out her neck, and betrayed her delight by the
tranquillity of her relaxed attitude. It suddenly occurred to the
soldier that, to slay this savage princess with one blow, he must stab
deep in the throat.

He raised the blade, when the panther, satisfied, no doubt, threw
herself gracefully at his feet and glanced up at him with a look in
which, despite her natural ferocity, a glimmer of goodwill was apparent.
The poor Provencal, thus frustrated for the nonce, [Footnote: For the
nonce: for the present.] ate his dates as he leaned against one of the
palm-trees, casting an interrogating glance from time to time across the
desert in quest of some deliverer, and on his terrible companion,
watching the chance of her uncertain clemency.

The panther looked at the place where the date-stones fell; and each
time he threw one, she examined the Frenchman with an eye of commercial
distrust. [Footnote: An eye of commercial distrust. Explain this term.]
However, the examination seemed to be favorable to him, for, when he had
eaten his frugal meal, she licked his boots with her powerful, rough
tongue, cleaning off the dust, which was caked in the wrinkles, in a
marvellous manner.

"Ah! but how when she is really hungry?" thought the Provencal. In spite
of the shudder caused by this thought, his attention was curiously drawn
to the symmetrical proportions of the animal, which was certainly one of
the most splendid specimens of its race. He began to measure them with
his eye. She was three feet in height at the shoulders and four feet in
length, not counting her tail; this powerful weapon was nearly three
feet long, and rounded like a cudgel. The head, large as that of a
lioness, was distinguished by an intelligent, crafty expression. The
cold cruelty of the tiger dominated, and yet it bore a vague resemblance
to the face of a woman. [Footnote: Face of a woman. The creature, part
tiger and part woman, suggests what famous monument?] Indeed, the
countenance of this solitary queen had something of the gayety of a Nero
[Footnote: Nero: a Roman Emperor notorious for his cruelty.] in his
cups; her thirst for blood was slaked, now she wished for amusement.

The soldier tried if he might walk up and down, the panther left him
freedom, contenting herself with following him with her eyes, less like
a faithful dog watching his master's movements with affectionate
solicitude, than a huge Angora cat uneasy and suspicious of every
movement.

When he looked around, he saw, by the spring, the carcass of his horse;
the panther had dragged the remains all that distance, and had eaten
about two-thirds of it already. The sight reassured the Frenchman, it
made it easy to explain the panther's absence and the forbearance she
had shown him while he slept.

This first good-luck emboldened the soldier to think of the future. He
conceived the wild idea of continuing on good terms with his companion
and to share her home, to try every means to tame her, and endeavoring
to turn her good graces to his account.

With these thoughts he returned to her side, and had the unspeakable joy
of seeing her wag her tail with an almost imperceptible motion as he
approached. He sat down beside her, fearlessly, and they began to play
together. He took her paws and muzzle, twisted her ears, and stroked her
warm, delicate flanks. She allowed him to do whatever he liked, and,
when he began to stroke the fur on her feet, she carefully drew in her
murderously savage claws, which were sharp and curved like a Damascus
sword. [Footnote: Damascus sword: A Damascus blade was famed for its
excellence.]

The Frenchman kept one hand on his poniard, and thought to watch his
chance to plunge it into the belly of the too confiding animal; but he
was fearful lest he might be strangled in her last convulsive struggles;
beside this, he felt in his heart a sort of remorse which bade him
respect this hitherto inoffensive creature that had done him no hurt. He
seemed to have found a friend in the boundless desert, and,
half-unconsciously, his mind reverted to his old sweetheart whom he had,
in derision, nicknamed "Mignonne."

This recollection of his youthful days suggested the idea of making the
panther answer to this name, now that he began to admire with less fear
her graceful swiftness, agility, and softness. Toward the close of the
day he had so familiarized himself with his perilous position that he
was half in love with his dangerous situation and its painfulness. At
last his companion had grown so far tamed that she had caught the habit
of looking up at him whenever he called in a falsetto voice, "Mignonne."

From that time the desert was inhabited for him. It contained a being to
whom he could talk and whose ferocity was now lulled into gentleness,
although he could not explain to himself this strange friendship.
Anxious as he was to keep awake and on guard, as it were, he gradually
succumbed to his excessive fatigue of body and mind; he threw himself on
the floor of the cave and slept soundly.

On awakening Mignonne was absent; he climbed the hillock and afar off
saw her returning in the long bounds characteristic of those animals who
cannot run owing to the extreme flexibility of the vertebral column.

Mignonne arrived with bloody jaws; she received the wonted caresses, the
tribute her slave hastened to pay, and showed by her purring how
transported she was. Her eyes, full of languor, rested more kindly on
the Provencal than on the previous day, and he addressed her as he would
have done a domestic animal.

"Ah! mademoiselle, you're a nice girl, ain't you? Just see now! we like
to be petted, don't we? Are you not ashamed of yourself? So you've been
eating some Arab or other, eh? Well, that doesn't matter. They're
animals, the same as you are; but don't take to crunching up a
Frenchman, bear that in mind, or I shall not love you any longer."

She played like a dog with its master, allowing herself to be rolled
over, knocked about, stroked, and the rest, alternately; at times she
would coax him to play by putting her paw upon his knee and making a
pretty gesture of solicitation.

One day, under a bright midday sun, a great bird hovered in the sky. The
Provencal left his panther to gaze at this new guest; but after pausing
for a moment the deserted sultana uttered a deep growl.

"God take me! I do believe that she is jealous," he cried, seeing the
rigid look appearing again in the metallic eyes. "The soul of Virginie
has passed into her body, that's sure!"

The eagle disappeared in the ether, and the soldier admired her again,
recalled by the panther's evident displeasure, her rounded flanks, and
the perfect grace of her attitude. There was youth and grace in her
form. The blonde fur of her robe shaded, with delicate gradations, to
the dead-white tones of her furry thighs; the vivid sunshine brought out
in its fulness the brilliancy of this living gold and its variegated
brown spots with indescribable lustre.

The Provencal and the panther looked at each other with a look pregnant
with meaning. She trembled with delight (the coquettish creature) when
she felt her friend scratch the strong bones of her skull with his
nails. Her eyes glittered like lightning-flashes--then she closed them
tightly.

"She has a soul!" cried he, looking at the stillness of this queen of
the sands, golden like them, white as their waving light, solitary and
burning as themselves.

(Here the narrative breaks off somewhat abruptly and continues in the
first person--that of the soldier.)

"Suddenly she turned on me in a fury, seizing my thigh with her sharp
teeth, and yet (I thought of this afterwards) not cruelly. I imagined
that she intended devouring me, and I plunged my poniard in her throat.
She rolled over with a cry that rent my soul; she looked at me in her
death-struggle, but without anger. I would have given the whole
world--my cross, which I had not yet gained, all, everything--to restore
her life to her. It was as if I had assassinated a real human being, a
friend. When the soldiers who had seen my flag came to my rescue they
found me in tears.

"Ah! well, monsieur, I went through the wars in Germany, Spain, Russia,
and France; I have marched my carcass well-nigh the world over, but I
have seen nothing comparable to the desert."

--HONORE DE BALZAC (adapted).

[Footnote: Note the detailed description. Does it add to the reality of
the scene? Does the author succeed in making the panther appeal to our
sympathy? Does the story seem plausible or merely fantastic? Where do
you find surprises in the story that add to its interest?]




FOR THOSE WHO LOVE MUSIC


I had engaged him by the year. Twice a week he came and went through his
whole repertoire, and lately, out of sympathy for me, he would play the
_Miserere_ of the _Trovatore_, [Footnote: Miserere of the
Trovatore. Trovatore is an opera by Verdi.] which was his show piece,
twice over. He stood there in the middle of the street looking
steadfastly up at my windows while he played, and when he had finished
he would take off his hat with an "Addio, Signor!" [Footnote: Addio
Signer: "Good-by, Sir."]

It is well known that the barrel-organ, like the violin, gets a fuller
and more sympathetic tone the older it is. The old artist had an
excellent instrument, not of the modern noisy type which imitates a
whole orchestra with flutes and bells and beats of drums, but a
melancholy old-fashioned barrel-organ [Footnote: A melancholy barrel
organ. What does the author mean by this?] which knew how to lend a
dreamy mystery to the gayest allegretto, [Footnote: Allegretto: lively,
a musical term to denote the tempo of a composition.] and in whose
proudest tempo di Marcia [Footnote: Tempo di Marcia: marching time.]
there sounded an unmistakable undertone of resignation. And in the
tenderer pieces of the repertoire, where the melody, muffled and
staggering like a cracked old human voice, groped its way amongst the
rusty pipes of the treble, then there was a trembling in the bass like
suppressed sobs. Now and then the voice of the tired organ failed it
completely, and then the old man would resignedly turn the handle during
some bars of rest more touching in their eloquent silence than any
music.

True, the instrument was itself very expressive, but the old man had
surely his share in the sensation of melancholy which came over me
whenever I heard his music. He had his beat in the poor quarter behind
the Jardin des Plantes, [Footnote: Jardin des Plantes: the botanical
garden.] and many times during my solitary rambles up there had I
stopped and taken my place among the scanty audience of ragged street
boys which surrounded him.

It was not difficult to see that times were hard--the old man's clothes
were doubtful, and the pallor of poverty lay over his withered features,
where I read the story of a long life of failure. He came from the
mountains around Monte Cassino, [Footnote: Monte Cassino: a monastery on
a hill near Cassino, Italy, about forty-five miles from Naples.] so he
informed me, but where the monkey hailed from I never quite got to know.

Thus we met from time to time during my rambles in the poor quarters.
Had I a moment to spare I stopped for a while to listen to a tune or
two, as I saw that it gratified the old man, and since I always carried
a lump of sugar in my pocket for any dog acquaintance I might possibly
meet, I soon made friends with the monkey also. The relations between
the little monkey and her impressario [Footnote: Impressario: the
conductor of an opera or a concert.] were unusually cordial, and this
notwithstanding that she had completely failed to fulfil the
expectations which had been founded upon her--she had never been able to
learn a single trick, the old man told me. Thus all attempts at
education had long ago been abandoned, and she sat there huddled
together on her barrel-organ and did nothing at all. Her face was sad,
like that of most animals, and her thoughts were far away. But now and
then she woke up from her dreams, and her eyes could then take a
suspicious, almost malignant expression, as they lit upon some of the
street boys who crowded round her tribune [Footnote: Round her tribune:
a curious use of this word, which means a pulpit or bench from which
speeches were made.] and tried to pull her tail, which stuck out from
her little gold-laced garibaldi. [Footnote: Garibaldi: a jacket which
took its name from its likeness in shape to the red shirt worn by the
Italian patriot Garibaldi.] To me she was always very amiable;
confidently she laid her wrinkled hand in mine and absently she accepted
the little attentions I was able to offer her. She was very fond of
sweetmeats, and burnt almonds were, in her opinion, the most delectable
thing in the world.

Since the old man had once recognized his musical friend on a balcony of
the Hotel de L'Avenir, [Footnote: Hotel de L'Avenir: literally, "Hotel
of the Future."] he often came and played under my windows. Later on he
became engaged, as already said, to come regularly and play twice a
week,--it may, perhaps, appear superfluous for one who was studying
medicine, but the old man's terms were so small, and you know I have
always been so fond of music. Besides it was the only recreation at
hand--I was working to take my degree in the spring.

So passed the autumn, and the hard times came. The rich tried on the new
winter fashions, and the poor shivered with the cold. It became more and
more difficult for well-gloved hands to leave the warm muff or the
fur-lined coat to take out a copper for the beggar, and more and more
desperate became the struggle for bread amongst the problematical
existences [Footnote: The problematical existences. Explain this
expression.] of the street.

Now and then I came across my friend, and we always had, as before, a
kind word for one another. He was now, wrapped up in an old Abruzzi
cloak, [Footnote: Abruzzi cloak. Abruzzi is a division of western Italy
including three provinces.] and I noticed that the greater the cold
became the faster did he turn the handle to keep himself warm; and
towards December the _Miserere_ itself was performed in allegretto.

The monkey had now become civilian, and wrapped up her little thin body
in a long ulster such as Englishmen wear; but she was fearfully cold
notwithstanding, and, forgetful of all etiquette, more and more often
she jumped from the barrel-organ and crept in under the old man's cloak.

And while they were suffering out there in the cold I sat at home in my
cosy, warm room, and instead of helping them, I forgot all about them,
more and more taken up as I was with my coming examination, with no
thought but for myself. And then one day I suddenly left my lodgings and
removed to the Hotel Dieu to take the place of a comrade, and weeks
passed before I put my foot out of the hospital.

I remember it so well, it was on New Year's Day we met each other again.
I was crossing the Place de Notre Dame, [Footnote: Place de Notre Dame.
The square in front of Notre Dame Cathedral.] mass was just over, and
the people were streaming out of the old cathedral. As usual, a row of
beggars was standing before the door, imploring the charity of the
church-goers. At the farther end, and at some distance from the others,
an old man stood with bent head and outstretched hat, and with painful
surprise I recognized my friend in his threadbare old coat without the
Abruzzi cloak, without the barrel-organ, without the monkey. My first
impulse was to go up to him, but an uneasy feeling of I do not know what
held me back; I felt that I blushed and I did not move from my place.
Every now and then a passer-by stopped for a moment and made as if to
search his pockets, but I did not see a single copper fall into the old
man's hat. The place became gradually deserted, and one beggar after
another trotted off with his little earnings. At last a child came out
of the church, led by a gentleman in mourning; the child pointed towards
the old man, and then ran up to him and laid a silver coin in his hat.
The old man humbly bowed his head in thanks, and even I, with my
unfortunate absent-mindedness, was very nearly thanking the little donor
also, so pleased was I. My friend carefully wrapped up the precious gift
in an old pocket-handkerchief, and stooping forward, as if still
carrying the barrel-organ on his back, he walked off.

I happened to be quite free that morning, and thinking that a little
walk before luncheon could do me no harm after the hospital air, I
followed him at a short distance across the Seine. [Footnote: Seine.
Paris is on the River Seine. "buon giorno": "Good day."] Once or twice I
nearly caught him up, and all but tapped him on the shoulder, with a
"Buon giorno, Don Gaetano!" Yet, without exactly knowing why, I drew
back at the last moment and let him get a few paces ahead of me again.

We had just crossed the Place Maubert [Footnote: Place Maubert:
Boulevard St. Germain: streets in Paris.] and turned into the Boulevard
St. Germain; the boulevard was full of people, so that, without being
noticed, I could approach him quite close. He was standing before an
elegant confectioners' shop, and to my surprise he entered without
hesitation. I took up my position before the shop window, alongside some
shivering street arabs [Footnote: Street Arabs. What is meant by this
term?] who stood there, absorbed in the contemplation of the
unattainable delicacies within, and I watched the old man carefully
untie his pocket-handkerchief and lay the little girl's gift upon the
counter. I had hardly time to draw back before he came out with a red
paper bag of sweets in his hand, and with rapid steps he started off in
the direction of the Jardin des Plantes.

I was very much astonished at what I had seen, and my curiosity made me
follow him. He slackened his pace at one of the little slums behind
Hopital de la Pitie, [Footnote: Hopital de la Pitie: literally,
"Hospital of Pity."] and I saw him disappear into a dirty old house. I
waited outside a minute or two and then I groped my way through the
pitch-dark entrance, climbed up a filthy staircase, and found a door
slightly ajar. An icy, dark room, in the middle three ragged little
children crouched together around a half-extinct braziero, [Footnote:
Brazier: a pan for burning coals. Tuscan. Tuscany is one of the
divisions of northern Italy.] in the corner the only furniture in the
room--a clean iron bedstead, with crucifix and rosary hung on the wall
above it, and by the window an image of the Madonna adorned with gaudy
paper flowers; I was in Italy, in my poor, exiled Italy. And in the
purest Tuscan the eldest sister informed me that Don Gaetano lived in
the garret. I went up there and knocked, but got no answer, so I opened
the door myself. The room was brightly lit by a blazing fire. With his
back towards the door, Don Gaetano was on his knees before the stove
busy heating a saucepan over the fire; beside him on the floor lay an
old mattress with the well-known Abruzzi cloak thrown over it, and close
by, spread out on a newspaper, were various delicacies--an orange,
walnuts, and raisins, and there also was the red paper bag. Don Gaetano
dropped a lump of sugar into the saucepan, stirred it with a stick, and
in a persuasive voice I heard him say, "Che bella roba, che bella roba,
quanto e buono questa latte con lo zucchero! Non piange anima mia,
adesso siamo pronti!" [Footnote: "What nice things, what nice things,
how good this milk with sugar is! Don't cry, my darling, it is ready
now!"]

A slight rustling was heard beneath the Abruzzi cloak and a black little
hand was stretched out toward the red paper bag.

"Primo il latte, primo il latte" admonished the old man. "Non importa,
piglio tu una," [Footnote: "The milk first, the milk first--never mind,
take one."] he repeated, and took a big burnt almond out of the paper
bag; the little hand disappeared, and a crunching was heard under the
cloak. Don Gaetano poured the warm milk in a saucer, and then he
carefully lifted up a corner of the cloak. There lay the poor little
monkey with heaving breast and eyes glowing with fever. Her face had
become so small and her complexion was ashy gray. The old man took her
on his knees, and tenderly as a mother he poured some spoonfuls of the
warm milk into her mouth. She looked with indifferent eyes towards the
delicacies on the table, and absently she let her fingers pass through
her master's beard. She was so tired that she could hardly hold her head
up, and now and then she coughed so that her thin little body trembled,
and she pressed both her hands to her temples. Don Gaetano shook his
head sadly, and carefully laid the little invalid back under the cloak.

A feeble blush spread over the old man's face as he caught sight of me.
I told him that I happened to be passing by just as he was entering his
house, and that I took the liberty of following him upstairs in order to
bid him good-morning and to give him my new address, in the hope that he
would come and play to me as before. I involuntarily looked round for
the barrel-organ as I spoke, and Don Gaetano, who understood, informed
me that he no longer played the organ--he sang. I glanced at the
precious pile of wood beside the fire-place, at the new blanket that
hung before the window to keep out the draught, at the delicacies on the
newspaper--and I also understood.

The monkey had been ill three weeks--"la febbre," [Footnote: La febbre:
the fever.] explained the old man. We knelt one on each side of the bed,
and the sick animal looked at me with her mute prayer for help. Her nose
was hot, as it is with sick children and dogs, her face wrinkled like
that of an old, old woman, and her eyes had got quite a human
expression. Her breathing was so short, and we could hear how it rattled
in her throat. The diagnosis was not difficult--she had consumption. Now
and again she stretched out her thin arms as if she implored us to help
her, and Don Gaetano thought that she did so because she wished to be
bled. I would willingly have given in in this case, although opposed in
principle to this treatment, if I had thought it possible that any
benefit could have been derived from it; but I knew only too well how
unlikely this was, and I tried my best to make Don Gaetano understand
it. Unhappily I did not know myself what there was to be done. I had at
that time a friend amongst the keepers of the monkey-house in the Jardin
des Plantes, and the same night he came with me to have a look at her;
he said that there was nothing to be done, and that there was no hope.
And he was right. For one week more the fire blazed in Don Gaetano's
garret, then it was left to go out, and it became cold and dark as
before in the old man's home.

True, he got his barrel-organ out from the pawn-shop, and now and then a
copper fell into his hat. He did not die of starvation, and that was
about all he asked of life.

The spring came and I left Paris; and God knows what become of Don
Gaetano.

If you happen to hear a melancholy old barrel-organ in the courtyard, go
to the window and give a penny to the poor errant [Footnote: Errant:
wandering.] musician--perhaps it is Don Gaetano! If you find that his
organ disturbs you, try if you like it, better by making him stand a
little farther off, but don't send him away with harshness! He has to
bear so many hard words as it is; why should not we then be a little
kind to him--we who love music?

--AXEL MUNTHE (adapted).

[Footnote: What interested the author in the old organ-grinder? What was
the music like? Explain the title of the story. By what incidents does
the author show the unselfish devotion of the old musician for his pet?
Was his pet winning or lovable? Why did the old man care so much for it?
Is the picture of the old man dignified or sordid?

Why? Point out instances of dramatic contrast. Are the descriptions in
the story simple or elaborate?]




OUT OF DOORS


St. Guido [Footnote: Saint Guido was a fanciful name given to the little
boy because his shock of golden curls looked like the nimbus around a
saint's head.] ran out at the garden gate into a sandy lane, and down
the lane till he came to a grassy bank. He caught hold of the bunches of
grass and so pulled himself up. There was a footpath on the top which
went straight in between fir-trees, and as he ran along they stood on
each side of him like green walls. They were very near together, and
even at the top the space between them was so narrow that the sky seemed
to come down, and the clouds to be sailing but just over them, as if
they would catch and tear in the fir-trees. The path was so little used
that it had grown green, and as he ran he knocked dead branches out of
his way. Just as he was getting tired of running he reached the end of
the path, and came out into a wheat-field. The wheat did not grow very
closely, and the spaces were filled with azure corn-flowers. St. Guido
thought he was safe away now, so he stopped to look.

There were the fir-trees behind him--a thick wall of green--hedges on
the right and left, and the wheat sloped down towards an ash-copse in
the hollow. No one was in the field, only the fir-trees, the green
hedges, the yellow, wheat, and the sun overhead. Guido kept quite still,
because he expected that in a minute the magic would begin, and
something would speak to him. His cheeks, which had been flushed with
running, grew less hot, but I cannot tell you the exact color they were;
for his skin was so white and clear, it would not tan under the sun, yet
being always out of doors it had taken the faintest tint of golden brown
mixed with rosiness. His blue eyes which had been wide open, as they
always were when full of mischief, became softer, and his long eyelashes
drooped over them. But as the magic did not begin, Guido walked on
slowly into the wheat, which rose nearly to his head, though it was not
yet so tall as it would be before the reapers came. He did not break any
of the stalks, or bend them down and step on them; he passed between
them, and they yielded on either side. The wheat-ears were pale gold,
having only just left off their green, and they surrounded him on all
sides as if he were bathing.

A butterfly painted a velvety red with white spots came floating along
the surface of the corn, [Footnote: Corn. In England corn means wheat,
or sometimes rye or barley or oats. What we call corn the English call
maize.] and played round his cap, which was a little higher, and was so
tinted by the sun that the butterfly was inclined to settle on it. Guido
put up his hand to catch the butterfly, forgetting his secret in his
desire to touch it. The butterfly was too quick--with a snap of his
wings, disdainfully mocking the idea of catching him, away he went.
Guido nearly stepped on a humble-bee--buzz-zz! the bee was so alarmed he
actually crept up Guido's knickers to the knee, and even then knocked
himself against a wheat-ear when he started to fly. Guido kept quite
still while the humble-bee was on his knee, knowing that he should not
be stung if he did not move. He knew, too, that humble-bees have stings
though people often say they have not, and the reason people think they
do not possess them is because humble-bees are so good-natured and never
sting unless they are very much provoked.

Another bumble-bee went over along the tips of the wheat--burr-rr--as he
passed; then a scarlet fly, and next a bright yellow wasp who was
telling a friend flying behind him that he knew where there was such a
capital piece of wood to bite up into tiny pieces and make into paper
for the nest in the thatch, but his friend wanted to go to the house
because there was a pear quite ripe there on the wall. Next came a moth,
and after the moth a golden fly, and three gnats, and a mouse ran along
the dry ground with a curious sniffing rustle close to Guido. A shrill
cry came down out of the air, and looking up he saw two swifts
[Footnote: Swifts: swallows.] turning circles, and as they passed each
other they shrieked--their voices were so shrill they shrieked. They
were only saying that in a month their little swifts in the slates would
be able to fly. While he sat so quiet on the ground and hidden by the
wheat, he heard a cuckoo such a long way off it sounded like a watch
when it is covered up. "Cuckoo" did not come full and distinct--it was
such a tiny little "cuckoo" caught in the hollow of Guido's ear. The
cuckoo must have been a mile away.

Suddenly he thought something went over, and yet he did not see
it--perhaps it was the shadow--and he looked up and saw a large bird not
very far up, not farther than he could fling, or shoot his arrows, and
the bird was fluttering his wings, but did not move away farther, as if
he had been tied in the air. Guido knew it was a hawk, and the hawk was
staying there to see if there was a mouse or a little bird in the wheat.
After a minute the hawk stopped fluttering and lifted his wings together
as a butterfly does when he shuts his, and down the hawk came, straight
into the corn. "Go away!" shouted Guido jumping up, and flinging his
cap, and the hawk, dreadfully frightened and terribly cross, checked
himself and rose again with an angry rush. So the mouse escaped, but
Guido could not find his cap for some time. Then he went on, and still
the ground sloping sent him down the hill till he came close to the
copse.

Some sparrows came out from the copse, [Footnote: Copse: a wood of small
trees.] and he stopped and saw one of them perch on a stalk of wheat,
with one foot above the other sideways, so that he could pick at the ear
and get the corn. Guido watched the sparrow clear the ear, then he
moved, and the sparrows flew back to the copse, where they chattered at
him for disturbing them. There was a ditch between the corn and the
copse, and a streamlet; he picked up a stone and threw it in, and the
splash frightened a rabbit, who slipped over the bank and into a hole.
The boughs of an oak reached out across to the corn, and made so
pleasant a shade that Guido, who was very hot from walking in the sun,
sat down on the bank of the streamlet with his feet dangling over it,
and watched the floating grass sway slowly as the water ran. Gently he
leaned back till his back rested on the sloping ground--he raised one
knee, and left the other foot over the verge where the tip of the
tallest rushes touched it. Before he had been there a minute he
remembered the secret which a fern had taught him.

First, if he wanted to know anything, or to hear a story, or what the
grass was saying, or the oak-leaves singing, he must be careful not to
interfere as he had done just now with the butterfly by trying to catch
him. Fortunately, that butterfly was a nice butterfly, and very
kindhearted, but sometimes, if you interfered with one thing, it would
tell another thing, and they would all know in a moment, and stop
talking, and never say a word. Once, while they were all talking
pleasantly, Guido caught a fly in his hand; he felt his hand tickle as
the fly stepped on it, and he shut up his little fist so quickly he
caught the fly in the hollow between the palm and his fingers. The fly
went buzz, and rushed to get out, but Guido laughed, so the fly buzzed
again, and just told the grass, and the grass told the bushes, and
everything knew in a moment, and Guido never heard another word all that
day. Yet sometimes now they all knew something about him; they would go
on talking. You see, they all rather petted and spoiled him. Next, if
Guido did not hear them conversing, the fern said he must touch a little
piece of grass and put it against his cheek, or a leaf, and kiss it, and
say, "Leaf, leaf, tell them I am here."

Now, while he was lying down, and the tip of the rushes touched his
foot, he remembered this, so he moved the rush with his foot and said,
"Rush, rush, tell them I am here." Immediately there came a little wind,
and the wheat swung to and fro, the oak-leaves rustled, the rushes
bowed, and the shadows slipped forwards and back again. Then it was
still.

--RICHARD JEFFERIES (adapted).

[Footnote: Whore do you imagine this scene is laid? What things in the
text suggest this? Do you get a single picture, or a rapid succession of
pictures? Which is the author really giving you: nature as it is, or as
it seems to the boy? Has any of it ever seemed so to you? Note the
appeal to sight, hearing, and touch; note the use of color. Does the
author show a love for, and knowledge of, nature? Select the passages in
which the sympathy between the boy and all nature is dwelt on.]




THE TABOO


There is a marked similarity, almost an identity, between the religious
institutions of most of the Polynesian islands; [Footnote: Polynesian
Islands: in the Pacific, just east of Australia.] and in all exists the
mysterious "Taboo," restricted in its uses to a greater or less extent.
So strange and complex in its arrangements is this remarkable system,
that I have in several cases met with individuals who, after residing
for years among the islands in the Pacific, and acquiring a considerable
knowledge of the language, have nevertheless been altogether unable to
give any satisfactory account of its operations. Situated as I was in
the Typce valley, I perceived every hour the effects of this
all-controlling power, without in the least comprehending it. Those
effects were indeed wide-spread and universal, pervading the most
important as well as the minutest transactions of life. The savage, in
short, lives in the continual observance of its dictates, which guide
and control every action of his being.

For several days after entering the valley, I had been saluted at least
fifty times in the twenty-four hours with the talismanic [Footnote:
Talismanic: having the properties of a charm.] word "Taboo" shrieked in
my ears, at some gross violation of its provisions, of which I had
unconsciously been guilty. The day after our arrival I happened to hand
some tobacco to Toby over the head of a native who sat between us. He
started up as if stung by an adder; while the whole company, manifesting
an equal degree of horror, simultaneously screamed out "Taboo!" I never
again perpetrated a similar piece of ill-manners, which indeed was
forbidden by the canons of good breeding as well as by the mandates of
the taboo. But it was not always so easy to perceive wherein you had
contravened [Footnote: Contravened: come into conflict with.] the spirit
of this institution. I was many times called to order, if I may use the
phrase, when I could not for the life of me conjecture what particular
offense I had committed.

One day I was strolling through a secluded portion of the valley; and
hearing the musical sound of the cloth-mallet at a little distance, I
turned down a path that conducted me in a few moments to a house where
there were some half-dozen girls employed in making tappa. [Footnote:
Tappa: a kind of cloth made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry.]
This was an operation I had frequently witnessed, and had handled the
bark in all the various stages of its preparation. On the present
occasion the females were intent upon their occupation; and after
looking up and talking gayly to me for a few moments, they resumed their
employment. I regarded them for awhile in silence, and then carelessly
picking up a handful of the material that lay around, proceeded
unconsciously to pick it apart. While thus engaged, I was suddenly
startled by a scream, like that of a whole boarding-school of young
ladies just on the point of going into hysterics. Leaping up with the
idea of seeing a score of Happar warriors about to perform anew the
Sabine atrocity, [Footnote: Sabine atrocity: referring to the carrying
off of the Sabine women by the Romans in the legendary history of early
Rome.] I found myself confronted by the company of girls, who, having
dropped their work, stood before me with staring eyes, swelling bosoms,
and fingers pointed in horror towards me.

Thinking that some venomous reptile must be concealed in the bark which
I held in my hand, I began cautiously to separate and examine it. Whilst
I did so the horrified girls redoubled their shrieks. Their wild cries
and frightened motions actually alarmed me; and throwing down the tappa,
I was about to rush from the house, when in the same instant their
clamors ceased, and one of them, seizing me by the arm, pointed to the
broken fibres that had just fallen from my grasp, and screamed in my ear
the fatal word "Taboo!"

I subsequently found out that the fabric they were engaged in making was
of a peculiar kind, destined to be worn on the heads of females; and
through every stage of its manufacture was guarded by a rigorous taboo,
which interdicted the whole masculine gender from even so much as
touching it.

Frequently in walking through the groves, I observed bread-fruit and
cocoanut trees with a wreath of leaves twined in a peculiar fashion
about their trunks. This was the mark of the taboo. The trees
themselves, their fruit, and even the shadows they cast upon the ground,
were consecrated by its presence. In the same way a pipe which the King
had bestowed upon me was rendered sacred in the eyes of the natives,
none of whom could I ever prevail upon to smoke from it. The bowl was
encircled by a woven band of grass, somewhat resembling those Turks'
heads occasionally worked in the handles of our whip-stalks. A similar
badge was once braided about my wrist by the royal hand of Mehevi
himself, who, as soon as he had concluded the operation, pronounced me
"Taboo." This occurred shortly after Toby's disappearance; and were it
not that from the first moment I had entered the valley the natives had
treated me with uniform kindness, I should have supposed that their
conduct afterwards was to be ascribed to the fact that I had received
this sacred investiture.

--HERMAN MELVILLE.

[Footnote: The author, Herman Melville, was born in New York in 1819. In
his youth he ran away from home and became a sailor on a whaling vessel.
Escaping from the cruel tyranny of the captain, he reached the Marquesas
Islands, where he had strange adventures as the captive of a tribe of
cannibals in the Typee Valley. He lived here many months, and finally
returned home in an Australian ship.]

[Footnote: Many writers on the customs of primitive people suppose the
taboo to be the earliest form of law. It is commonly imposed by the king
or the high priest of the tribe. Does the "taboo" here seem to you to be
a matter of law or religion? Have we any "taboos" in our social system?
What do we mean when we say of an act or a thing that it is "taboo," or
"tabooed"? Does ceremoniousness increase or decrease with civilization?]




SCHOOL DAYS AT THE CONVENT


I waited for night and supper very impatiently. Recreation time began as
soon as we left the refectory. [Footnote: Refectory: the dining hall.]
In summer the two classes went to the garden. In winter each class went
to its own room: the seniors to their fine and spacious study; we to our
forlorn quarters, where there was no room to play, and where our teacher
forced us to "amuse" ourselves quietly,--that is, not at all. Leaving
the refectory always made a momentary confusion, and I admired the way
the "devils" of the two classes managed to create the slight disorder
under whose favor one could easily escape. The cloister [Footnote:
Cloister: the covered arched passage on the side of a court.] had but
one little lamp to light it: this left the other three galleries in
semi-darkness. Instead of walking straight ahead towards the juniors'
room, you stepped to the left, let the flock pass on, and you were free.
I did so, and found myself in the dark with my friend Mary and the other
"devils" she had told me would be there. They were all armed, some with
logs, others with tongs. I had nothing, but was bold enough to go to the
school-room, get a poker, and return to my accomplices without being
noticed.

Then they initiated me into the great secret, and we started on our
expedition.

The great secret was the traditional legend of the convent: a dream
handed down from generation to generation, and from "devil" to "devil,"
for about two centuries; a romantic fiction which may have had some
foundation of truth at the beginning, but now rested merely on the needs
of our imagination. Its object was to "deliver the victim." There was a
prisoner, some said several prisoners, shut up somewhere in an
impenetrable retreat: either a cell hidden and bricked up in the
thickness of the walls, or in a dungeon under the vaults of the immense
sub-basements extending beneath the monastery as well as under a great
part of the Saint-Victor district. There were indeed magnificent cellars
there,--a real subterranean city, whose limits we never found,--and they
had many mysterious outlets at different points within the vast area of
the inclosure. We were told that at a great distance off, these cellars
joined the excavations running under the greater part of Paris and the
surrounding country as far as Vincennes. [Footnote: Vincennes: a town
about two miles from Paris.] They said that by following our convent
cellars you could reach the Catacombs, [Footnote: Catacombs:
subterranean passages.] the quarries, the baths of Julian, [Footnote:
Baths of Julian: a Roman emperor of the fourth century.] and what not.
These vaults were the key to a world of darkness, terrors, mysteries: an
immense abyss dug beneath our feet, closed by iron gates, whose
exploration was as perilous as the descent into hell of AEneas or Dante.
For this reason it was absolutely imperative to get there, in spite of
the insurmountable difficulties of the enterprise, and the terrible
punishments the discovery of our secret would provoke.

Entering these subterranean domains was one of those unhoped-for strokes
of good luck that occurred once, or at most twice, in the life of a
"devil," after years of perseverance and mental effort. It was of no use
thinking of getting in by the main door. That door was at the bottom of
a wide staircase next to the kitchens, which were cellars too; and here
the lay sisters [Footnote: Lay sisters: the nuns who are not in holy
orders.] congregated.

But we were sure that the vaults could be reached by a thousand other
ways, even by the roof. According to us, every nailed-up door, every
dark corner under a staircase, every hollow-sounding wall, might
communicate mysteriously with the subterranean region; and we looked for
that communication most earnestly up to the very attic.

I had read Mrs. Radcliffe's "Castle of the Pyrenees" [Footnote: Castle
of the Pyrenees. Mrs. Radcliffe's novels were the first "mystery and
horror" tales to become popular.] at Nohant, with terror and delight. My
companions had many another Scotch and Irish legend in their heads, all
fit to set one's hair on end. The convent too had innumerable stories of
its own lamentable events,--about ghosts, dungeons, inexplicable
apparitions, and mysterious noises. All this, and the thought of finally
discovering the tremendous secret of the victim, so kindled our
imaginations that we were sure we heard sighs and groans start from
under the stones, or breathe through the cracks of doors and walls.

We started off, my companions for the hundredth, I for the first time,
in search of that elusive captive,--languishing no one knew where, but
certainly somewhere, and whom perhaps we were called to discover. She
must have been very old, considering how long she had been sought in
vain! She might have been over two hundred years old, but we did not
mind that! We sought her, called her, thought of her incessantly, and
never despaired.

That evening I was led into the oldest and most broken-up part of the
buildings,--perhaps the most exciting locality for our exploration. We
selected a little passage with wooden railings overlooking an empty
space without any known outlet. A staircase with banisters led to this
unknown region, but an oaken door forbade access to the stairs. We had
to get around the obstacle by passing from the railing to the banisters,
and walk down the outside of the worm-eaten balusters. There was a dark
void below us whose depth we could not fathom. We had only a little
taper (a "rat"), and that hardly let us see more than the first steps of
the mysterious staircase.

We were at the bottom in a moment; and with more joy than disappointment
found that we were directly under the passage, in a square space without
any opening. Not a door nor a window, nor any explicable purpose for
this sort of closed vestibule. Why was there a staircase leading into a
blind space? Why was there a strong padlocked door shutting off the
staircase?

The little taper was divided into several lengths, and each one began
examining for herself. The staircase was made of wood. A secret spring
in one of the steps must lead to a passage, another staircase, or a
hidden trap. While some explored the staircase, and tried to force its
old planks apart, others groped along the wall in search of a knob, a
rack, a ring, or any of the thousand contrivances mentioned in the
chronicles of old manors as moving a stone, turning a panel, or opening
an entrance into unknown regions.

Alas, there was nothing! The wall was smooth and plastered. The pavement
sounded dull; not a stone was loose, and the staircase hid no spring.
One of us looked further. She declared that in the extreme corner under
the staircase the wall had a hollow sound; we struck it, and found it
true. "It's here!" we all exclaimed. "There's a walled-up passage in
there, but that passage leads to the awful dungeon. That is the way down
to the sepulchre holding the living victims." We glued our ears to the
wall, heard nothing; still the discoverer maintained that she could hear
confused groans and clanking chains. What was to be done?

"Why, it's quite plain," said Mary: "we must pull the wall down. All of
us together can surely make a hole in it."

Nothing seemed easier to us; and we all went to work,--some trying to
knock it down with their logs, others scraping it with their shovels and
tongs,--never thinking that by worrying those poor shaky walls, we
risked tumbling the building down on our heads. Fortunately we could not
do much harm, because the noise made by the logs would have attracted
some one.

We had to be satisfied with pushing and scratching. Yet we had managed
to make quite a noticeable hole in the plaster, lime, and stones, when
the bell rang for prayers. We had just time to repeat our perilous
escapade, [Footnote: Escapade: prank.] put out our lights, separate, and
grope our way back to the schoolrooms. We put off the continuation of
the enterprise till the next day, and appointed the same place of
meeting. Those who got there first were not to wait for those who might
be detained by punishment or unusual surveillance. Each one was to do
her best to scoop out the wall. It would be just so much done toward the
next day's work. There was no chance of any one's noticing it, as no one
ever went down into that blind hallway given over to mice and spiders.

We dusted each other off, regained the cloister, slipped into our
respective class-rooms, and were ready to kneel at prayers with the
others. I forget whether we were noticed and punished that evening. It
happened so often that no single event of the kind has any special date
in the great number. Still we could often carry on our work with
impunity.

The search for the great secret and the dungeon lasted the whole winter
I spent in the junior class. The wall was perceptibly damaged, but we
were stopped by reaching wooden girders. We looked elsewhere, ransacked
twenty different places, never having the least success, yet never
losing hope.

One day we thought we would look for some mansard [Footnote: Mansard:
having two slopes.] window which might be, so to speak, the upper key to
the so ardently desired subterranean world. There were many such
windows, whose purpose we ignored. There was a little room in the attic
where we practiced on one of the thirty pianos scattered through the
establishment. We had an hour for this practice every day, and very few
of us cared for it. As I always loved music, I liked to practice. But I
was becoming more of an artist in romance than music; for what more
beautiful poem could there be than the romance in action we were
pursuing with our joint imaginations, courage, and palpitating emotions?

In this way the piano hour became the daily hour for adventures, without
detriment, however, to the evening ones. We appointed meetings in one of
these straggling rooms, and from there would go to the "I don't know
where" or the "As you please" of fancy.

From the attic where I was supposed to be playing scales, I could see a
labyrinth of roofs, sheds, lofts, and slopes, all covered with
moss-grown tiles and decorated with broken chimneys, offering a vast
field for new explorations. So on the roof we went. It was not hard to
jump out of the window. Six feet below us there was a gutter joining two
gables. It was more imprudent than difficult to scale these gables, meet
others, jump from slope to slope, and run about like cats; and danger,
far from restraining, only seemed to stimulate us.

There was something exceedingly foolish, but at the same time heroic, in
this mania of "seeking the victim"; foolish, because we had to suppose
that the nuns, whose gentleness and kindness we worshipped, were
practicing horrible tortures upon some one; heroic, because we risked
our lives every day to deliver an imaginary creature, who was the object
of our most generous thought and most chivalrous undertakings.

We had been out about an hour, spying into the garden, looking down on a
great part of the courts and buildings, and carefully hiding behind
chimneys whenever we saw a black-veiled nun, who might have raised her
head and seen us in the clouds, when we asked ourselves how we should
get back. The arrangement of the roofs had allowed us to step or jump
down. Going up was not so easy. I think it would have been impossible
without a ladder. We scarcely knew where we were. At last we recognized
a parlor-boarder's window,--Sidonie Macdonald's, the celebrated
general's daughter. It could be reached by a final jump, but would be
more dangerous than the others. I jumped too hurriedly, and caught my
heel in a flat sky-light, through which I should have fallen thirty feet
into a hall near the junior's room, if by chance my awkwardness had not
made me swerve. I got off with two badly flayed knees, but did not give
them a second thought. My heel had broken into a part of the sash of
that deuced window, and smashed half a dozen panes, which dropped with a
frightful crash quite near the kitchen entrance. A great noise arose at
once among the lay sisters, and through the opening I had just made, we
could hear Sister Theresa's loud voice screaming, "Cats!" and accusing
Whisky--Mother Alippe's big tom-cat--of fighting with all his fellows,
and breaking all the windows in the house. But sister Mary defended the
cat's morals, and Sister Helen was sure that a chimney had fallen on the
roof. This discussion started the nervous giggle that nothing can stop
in little girls. We heard the sisters on the stairs, we should be caught
in the very act of walking on the roofs, and still we could not stir to
find refuge. Then I discovered that one of my shoes was gone,--that it
had dropped through the broken sash into the kitchen hall. Though my
knees were bleeding, my laughter was so uncontrollable that I could not
say a word, but merely showed my unshod foot and explained what had
happened by dumb show. A new explosion of laughter followed, although
the alarm had been given and the lay sisters were near.

We were soon reassured. Being sheltered and hidden by overhanging roofs,
we could hardly be discovered without getting up to the broken window by
a ladder, or following the road we had taken. And that was something we
could safely challenge any of the nuns to do. So when we had recognized
the advantage of our position, we began to me-ouw Homerically, so that
Whisky and his family might be accused and convicted in our stead. Then
we made for the window of Sidonie, who did not welcome us. The poor
child was practicing on the piano, and paying no attention to the feline
howls vaguely striking her ear. She was delicate and nervous, very
gentle, and quite incapable of understanding what pleasure we could find
in roaming over roofs. As she sat playing, her back was turned to the
window; and when we burst into it in a bunch, she screamed aloud. We
lost little time in quieting her. Her cries would attract the nuns; so
we sprang into the room and scampered to the door, while she stood
trembling and staring, seeing all the strange procession flit by without
understanding it nor recognizing any one of us, so terrified was she. In
a moment we had all dispersed: one went to the upper room whence we had
started, and played the piano with might and main; another took a
round-about way to the school-room. As for me, I had to find my shoe,
and secure that piece of evidence, if I still had the time. I managed to
avoid the lay sisters, and to find the kitchen entry free. "Audaces
fortuna juvat," [Footnote: Audaces fortuna juvat: "Fortune favors the
brave."] said I to myself thinking of the aphorisms Deschartres
[Footnote: Deschartres: the tutor of George Sand's father.] had taught
me And indeed I found the lucky shoe, where it had fallen in a dark
corner and not been seen. Whisky alone was accused. My knees hurt me
very much for a few days but, I did not brag of them; and the
explorations did not slacken.

--GEORGE SAND (adapted).

[Footnote: George Sand is a nom de plume. The author's real name is
Armandine Lucile Aurore Dupin. She was a famous French novelist and
playwright--born 1804, died 1876.]

[Footnote: Could you tell from the context where the scene is laid? What
kind of child do you imagine the writer was? Has the narrative the stamp
of a real experience? Do you know any books similar to what you may
imagine the "Castle of the Pyrenees" to be?]




IN BRITTANY


She [the writer, L. M. A.] soon ceased to be surprised at any
demonstration of feminine strength, skill, and independence, for
everywhere the women took the lead.

They not only kept house, reared children, and knit every imaginable
garment the human frame can wear, but kept the shops and the markets,
tilled the gardens, cleaned the streets, and bought and sold cattle,
leaving the men free to enjoy the only pursuits they seemed inclined to
follow,--breaking horses, [Footnote: Breaking horses: training horses to
work, an expression familiar to every country child.] mending roads, and
getting drunk.

The markets seemed entirely in the hands of the women, and lively scenes
they presented to unaccustomed eyes, especially the pig-market, held
every week, in the square before Madame C.'s house. At dawn the
squealing began, and was kept up till sunset. The carts came in from all
the neighboring hamlets, with tubs full of infant pigs, over which the
women watched with maternal care till they were safely deposited among
the rows of tubs that stood along the walk facing Anne of Bretaigne's
[Footnote: Anne of Bretaigne: the daughter of Francis II, duke of
Brittany; born at Nantes, 1476.] gray old tower, and the pleasant
promenade which was once the fosse [Footnote: Fosse: a moat; a ditch.]
about the city walls.

Here Madame would seat herself and knit briskly till a purchaser
applied, when she would drop her work, dive among the pink innocents,
and hold one up by its unhappy leg, undisturbed by its doleful cries,
while she settled its price with a blue-gowned, white-capped neighbor,
as sharp-witted and shrill-tongued as herself. If the bargain was
struck, they slapped their hands together in a peculiar way, and the new
owner clapped her purchase into a meal-bag, slung it over her shoulder,
and departed with her squirming, squealing treasure as calmly as a
Boston lady with a satchel full of ribbons and gloves.

More mature pigs came to market on their own legs, and very long, feeble
legs they were, for a more unsightly beast than a Breton pig was never
seen out of a toy Noah's ark. Tall, thin, high-backed, and sharp-nosed,
these porcine [Footnote: Porcine: relating to swine; hoglike.] victims
tottered to their doom, with dismal wailings, and not a vestige of
spirit till the trials and excitement of the day goaded them to
rebellion, when their antics furnished fun for the public. Miss Livy
observed that the women could manage the pigs when men failed entirely.
The latter hustled, lugged, or lashed, unmercifully and unsuccessfully;
the former, with that fine tact which helps them to lead nobler animals
than pigs, would soothe, sympathize, coax, and gently beguile the poor
beasts, or devise ways of mitigating their bewilderment and woe, which
did honor to the sex, and triumphantly illustrated the power of moral
suasion.

One amiable lady, who had purchased two small pigs and a coop full of
fowls, attempted to carry them all on one donkey. But the piggies
rebelled lustily in the bags, the ducks remonstrated against their
unquiet neighbors, and the donkey indignantly refused to stir a step
till the unseemly uproar was calmed. But the Bretonne was equal to the
occasion; for, after a pause of meditation, she solved the problem by
tying the bags round the necks of the pigs so that they could enjoy the
prospect. This appeased them at once, and produced a general lull; for
when the pigs stopped squealing, the ducks stopped quacking, the donkey
ceased his bray, and the party moved on in dignified silence, with the
youthful pigs, one black, one white, serenely regarding life from their
bags.

Another time, a woman leading a newly bought cow, came through the
square, where the noise alarmed the beast so much that she became
unruly, and pranced in a most dangerous manner. Miss Livy hung out of
the window, breathless with interest, and ready to fly with brandy and
bandages at a minute's notice, for it seemed inevitable that the woman
would be tossed up among the lindens before the cow was conquered. The
few men who were lounging about, stood with their hands in their
pockets, watching the struggle without offering to help, till the cow
scooped the lady up on her horns ready for a toss. Livy shrieked, but
Madame just held on, kicking so vigorously that the cow was glad to set
her down, when, instead of fainting she coolly informed the men, who,
seeing her danger, had approached, that she "could arrange her cow for
herself and did not want any help," which she proved by tying a big blue
handkerchief over the animal's eyes, producing instant docility; and
then she was led away by her flushed but triumphant mistress, who calmly
settled her cap, and took a pinch of snuff to refresh herself, after a
scuffle which would have annihilated most women.

When Madame C.'s wood was put in, the newcomers were interested in
watching the job, for it was done in a truly Bretonesque manner. It
arrived in several odd carts, each drawn by four great horses, with men
to each team; and as the carts were clumsy, the horses wild, and the men
stupid, the square presented a lively spectacle. At one time there were
three carts, twelve horses, and six men all in a snarl, while a dozen
women stood at their doors and gave advice. One was washing a lettuce,
another dressing her baby, a third twirling her distaff, and a fourth
with her little bowl of soup, which she ate in public while
gesticulating so frantically that her sabots [Footnote: Sabots: wooden
shoes.] clattered on the stones.

The horses had a free fight, and the men swore and shouted in vain, till
the lady with the baby suddenly went to the rescue. Planting the naked
cherub on the doorstep, this energetic matron charged in among the
rampant animals, and by some magic touch untangled the teams, quieted
the most fractious, a big gray brute prancing like a mad elephant, then
returned to her baby, who was placidly eating dirt, and with a polite
"Voila, messieurs!" [Footnote: Voila Messieurs: "There you are,
gentlemen."] she whipped little Jean into his shirt, while the men sat
down to smoke.

It took two deliberate men nearly a week to split the gnarled logs, and
one brisk woman carried them into the cellar and piled them neatly. The
men stopped about once an hour to smoke, drink cider, or rest. The woman
worked steadily from morning till night, only pausing at noon for a bit
of bread and the soup good Coste sent out to her. The men got two francs
a day, the woman half a franc; and, as nothing was taken out of it for
wine or tobacco, her ten cents probably went farther than their forty.

This same capable lady used to come to market with a baby on one arm, a
basket of fruit on the other, leading a pig, driving a donkey, and
surrounded by sheep, while her head bore a pannier [Footnote: Pannier.
Panniers are a pair of baskets slung across the back of a horse or
donkey.] of vegetables, and her hands spun busily with a distaff. How
she ever got on with these trifling incumbrances, was a mystery; but
there she was, busy, placid, and smiling, in the midst of the crowd, and
at night went home with her shopping well content.

The washerwomen were among the happiest of these happy souls, and
nowhere were seen prettier pictures than they made, clustered round the
fountains or tanks by the way, scrubbing, slapping, singing, and
gossiping, as they washed or spread their linen on the green hedges and
daisied grass in the bright spring weather. One envied the cheery faces
under the queer caps, the stout arms that scrubbed all day, and were not
too tired to carry some chubby Jean or little Marie when night came,
and, most of all, the contented hearts in the broad bosoms under the
white kerchiefs, for no complaint did one hear from these hard-working,
happy women. The same brave spirit seems to possess them now as that
which carried them heroically to their fate in the Revolution, when
hundreds of mothers and children were shot at Nantes [Footnote: Nantes:
a town near the mouth of the Loire River.] and died without murmur.

--LOUISA ALCOTT.

[Footnote: What traits does the author find most admirable in the women
of Brittany? Show how these traits are brought out by contrast with the
behavior of the men. Do women in this country do the same kinds of work
as the European peasant women? What other things might the descriptions
have included if the author had not been so much interested in the
people? What parts of the sketch are humorous? Point out passages that
are effective through contrast. Show how the women of Brittany are made
to seem womanly and dignified in spite of the amusement they furnish
us.]




THE ADIRONDACKS


One day we visited a cave some two miles down the stream, which had
recently been discovered. We squeezed and wriggled through a big crack
or cleft in the side of the mountain, for about one hundred feet, when
we emerged into a large dome-shaped passage, the abode, during certain
seasons of the year, of innumerable bats, and at all times of primeval
darkness. There were various other crannies and pit-holes opening into
it, some of which we explored. The voice of running water was heard
everywhere, betraying the proximity of the little stream by whose
ceaseless corroding the cave and its entrance had been worn. This
streamlet flowed out of the mouth of the cave, and came from a lake on
the top of the mountain; this accounted for its warmth to the hand,
which surprised us all.

Birds of any kind were rare in these woods. A pigeon-hawk came prowling
by our camp, and the faint piping call of the nuthatches, leading their
young through the high trees, was often heard.

On the third day our guide proposed to conduct us to a lake in the
mountains where we could float for deer.

Our journey commenced in a steep and rugged ascent, which brought us,
after an hour's heavy climbing, to an elevated region of pine-forest,
years before ravished by lumbermen, and presenting all manner of
obstacles to our awkward and incumbered pedestrianism. The woods were
largely pine, though yellow birch, beech and maple were common. The
satisfaction of having a gun, should any game show itself, was the chief
compensation to those of us who were thus burdened. A partridge would
occasionally whir up before us, or a red squirrel snicker and hasten to
his den; else the woods appeared quite tenantless. The most noted object
was a mammoth pine, apparently the last of a great race, which presided
over a cluster of yellow birches, on the side of the mountain.

About noon we came out upon a long, shallow sheet of water which the
guide called Bloody Moose Pond, from the tradition that a moose had been
slaughtered there many years before. Looking out over the silent and
lovely scene, his eye was the first to detect an object, apparently
feeding upon lily-pads, which our willing fancies readily shaped into a
deer. As we were eagerly waiting some movement to confirm this
impression, it lifted up its head, and lo! a great blue heron. Seeing us
approach, it spread its long wings and flew solemnly across to a dead
tree on the other side of the lake, enhancing rather than relieving the
loneliness and desolation that brooded over the scene. As we proceeded
it flew from tree to tree in advance of us, apparently loth to be
disturbed in its ancient and solitary domain. In the margin of the pond
we found the pitcher-plant growing, and here and there in the sand the
closed gentian lifted up its blue head.

In traversing the shores of this wild, desolate lake, I was conscious of
a slight thrill of expectation, as if some secret of Nature might here
be revealed, or some rare and unheard-of game disturbed. There is ever a
lurking suspicion that the beginning of things is in some way associated
with water, and one may notice that in his private walks he is led by a
curious attraction to fetch all the springs and ponds in his route, as
if by them was the place for wonders and miracles to happen. Once, while
in advance of my companions, I saw, from a high rock, a commotion in the
water near the shore, but on reaching the point found only the marks of
musquash [Footnote: Musquash: muskrat.] degrees.

Passing on through the forest, after many adventures with the pine
knots, we reached, about the middle of the afternoon, our destination,
Nate's Pond--a pretty sheet of water, lying like a silver mirror in the
lap of the mountain, about a mile long and half a mile wide, surrounded
by dark forests of balsam, hemlock, and pine, and, like the one we had
just passed, a very picture of unbroken solitude.

It is not in the woods alone to give one this impression of utter
loneliness. In the woods are sounds and voices, and a dumb kind of
companionship; one is little more than a walking tree himself; but come
upon one of these mountain lakes, and the wildness stands revealed and
meets you face to face. Water is thus facile and adaptive, that it makes
the wild more wild, while it enhances culture and art.

The end of the pond which we approached was quite shoal, the stones
rising above the surface as in a summer brook, and everywhere showing
marks of the noble game we were in quest of,--footprints, dung, and
cropped and uprooted lily-pads. After resting for a half hour, and
replenishing our game-pouches at the expense of the most respectable
frogs of the locality, we filed on through the soft, resinous pinewoods,
intending to camp near the other end of the lake, where, the guide
assured us, we should find a hunter's cabin ready built. A half hour's
march brought us to the locality, and a most delightful one it was, so
hospitable and inviting that all the kindly and beneficent influences of
the woods must have abided there. In a slight depression in the woods,
about one hundred yards from the lake, though hidden from it for a
hunter's reasons, surrounded by a heavy growth of birch, hemlock, and
pine, with a lining of balsam and fir, the rude cabin welcomed us. It
was of the approved style, three sides inclosed, with a roof of bark and
a bed of boughs, and a rock in front that afforded a permanent back-log
to all fires. A faint voice of running water was heard near by, and,
following the sound, a delicious spring rivulet was disclosed, hidden by
the moss and debris as by a new fall of snow, but here and there rising
in little well-like openings, as if for our special convenience.

--JOHN BURROUGHS.

[Footnote: What does this power of minute observation tell you about the
writer? What other qualities of the naturalist does Burroughs show in
this account? What things in nature seem most to attract his attention?
Do you know what science now says about "the beginning of things" being
"associated with water"? What do you imagine were the "adventures with
the pine knots" that Burroughs speaks of?]




AN ASCENT OF KILAUEA


[Footnote: Kilauea: a volcano on the island of Hawaii.]

At last we found ourselves at the very edge of the old crater, the bed
of which, three or four hundred feet beneath us, was surrounded by steep
and in many places overhanging sides. It looked like an enormous
cauldron, four or five miles in width, full of a mass of cooled pitch.
In the center was the still glowing stream of dark red lava flowing
slowly toward us, and in every direction were red-hot patches, and
flames, and smoke, issuing from the ground.

Yet the first sensation is rather one of disappointment, as one expects
greater activity on the part of the volcano; but the new crater was
still to be seen, containing the lake of fire, with steep walls rising
up in the midst of the sea of lava.

We spent the night at the Volcano House, and at three o'clock the next
afternoon we set out, a party of eight, with two guides, and three
porters to carry our wraps and provisions, and to bring back specimens.

First of all we descended the precipice, three hundred feet in depth,
forming the wall of the old crater, but now thickly covered with
vegetation. It is so steep in many places that flights of zigzag wooden
steps have been inserted in the face of the cliff in some places, in
order to render the descent practicable.

At the bottom we stepped straight on to the surface of cold boiled lava,
which we had seen from above last night. Even here, in every crevice
where a few grains of soil had collected, delicate little ferns might be
seen struggling for life, and thrusting out their green fronds towards
the light.

It was the most extraordinary walk imaginable, over that vast plain of
lava, twisted and distorted into every conceivable shape and form,
according to the temperature it had originally attained and the rapidity
with which it had cooled, its surface, like half-molten glass, cracking
and breaking beneath our feet.

Sometimes we came to a patch that looked like the contents of a pot,
suddenly petrified in the act of boiling; sometimes the black,
iridescent lava had assumed the form of waves, or more frequently of
huge masses of rope, twisted and coiled together; sometimes it was piled
up like a collection of organ pipes, or had gathered into mounds and
cones of various dimensions.

As we proceeded, the lava became hotter and hotter, and from every crack
arose gaseous fumes, affecting our noses and throats in a painful
manner; till at last, when we had to pass to leeward [Footnote: Leeward:
away from the wind.] of the molten stream flowing from the lake, the
vapors almost choked us, and it was with difficulty we continued to
advance.

The lava was more glassy and transparent-looking, as if it had been
fused at a higher temperature than usual; and the crystals of sulphur,
alum, and other minerals, with which it abounded, reflected the light in
bright prismatic colors. In places it was quite transparent, and we
could see beneath it the long streaks of a stringy kind of lava, like
brown spun glass, called "Pele's hair."

At last we reached the foot of the present crater, and commenced the
ascent of the outer wall. Many times the thin crust gave way beneath our
guide, and he had to retire quickly from the hot, blinding, choking
fumes that immediately burst forth. But we succeeded in reaching the
top, and then what a sight presented itself to our astonished eyes! I
could neither speak nor move at first, but could only stand and gaze at
the horrible grandeur of the scene.

We were standing on the extreme edge of a precipice, overhanging a lake
of molten fire, a hundred feet below us, nearly a mile across. Dashing
against the cliffs on the opposite side, with a noise like the roar of a
stormy ocean, waves of blood-red fiery liquid lava hurled their billows
upon an iron-bound headland, and then rushed up the face of the cliffs
to toss their gory spray high in the air.

The restless, heaving lake boiled and bubbled, never remaining the same
for two minutes together. Its normal color seemed to be a dull dark red,
covered with a thin gray scum, which every moment and in every part
swelled and cracked, and emitted fountains, cascades, and whirlpools of
yellow and red fire, while sometimes one big golden river, sometimes
four or five, flowed across it.

As the sun set and as darkness enveloped the scene, it became more awful
than ever. We retired a little way from the brink to breathe some fresh
air, and to try and eat the food we had brought with us; but this was an
impossibility. Every instant a fresh explosion or glare made us jump up
to survey the scene.

The violent struggles of the lava to escape from its fiery bed, and the
loud and awful noises by which they were at times, accompanied,
suggested the idea that some imprisoned monsters were trying to release
themselves from their bondage, with shrieks and groans, and cries of
agony and despair at the futility of their efforts. Sometimes there were
at least seven spots on the borders of the lake where the molten lava
dashed up furiously against the rocks--seven fire fountains playing at
the same time.

I had for some time been feeling very hot and uncomfortable, and on
looking round, the cause was at once apparent. Not two inches beneath
the surface, the gray lava on which we were standing and sitting was red
hot. A stick thrust through it caught fire, a piece of paper was
immediately destroyed, and the gentlemen found the heat from the
crevices so great that they could not approach near enough to light
their pipes.

One more long last look, and then we turned our faces away from the
scene that had enthralled us for so many hours. The whole of the lava we
had crossed in the extinct crater was now aglow in many patches, and in
all directions flames were bursting forth, fresh lava flowing, and steam
and smoke were issuing from the surface.

It was a toilsome journey back again, walking as we did in single file,
and obeying the strict charges of our head guide to follow him closely,
and to tread exactly in his footsteps. On the whole, it was easier by
night than by day to distinguish the route to be taken, as we could now
see the dangers that before we could only feel; and many were the fiery
crevices we stepped over and jumped across. Once I slipped, and my foot
sank through the thin crust. Sparks issued from the ground, and the
stick on which I leaned caught fire before I could fairly recover
myself.

--LADY BRASSEY.

[Footnote: Note the purely objective description. What colors
predominate? Point out the similes in use. Do they heighten the picture?
Does the author succeed in giving a clear picture of the volcano?]




THE FETISH


Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of
hearing, making her way towards the great attic that ran under the old
high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black locks as she ran,
like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This attic was Maggie's
favorite retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold; here
she fretted out all her ill-humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten
floors and the worm-eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with
cobwebs; and here she kept a Fetish [Footnote: Fetish (also spelt
"fetich"): a material object, venerated by certain African tribes; a
sort of idol, which is sometimes punished by its owner in disappointment
or anger.] which she punished for all her misfortunes. This was the
trunk of a large wooden doll, which once stared with the roundest of
eyes above the reddest of cheeks, but was now entirely defaced by a long
career of vicarious [Footnote: Vicarious: suffered or performed in place
of another.] suffering. Three nails driven into the head commemorated as
many crises in Maggie's nine years of earthly struggle; that luxury of
vengeance having been suggested to her by the picture of Jael [Footnote:
Jael: referring to the story of how Jael drove the nail into the
forehead of Sisera. _Judges_ IV: 17 to 22.] destroying Sisera in
the old Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke
than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented Aunt Glegg. But
immediately afterwards Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails
in, she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt, when
she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make believe to
poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even Aunt Glegg would be
pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so
as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven no more nails
in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and beating the
wooden head against the rough brick of the great chimneys that made two
square pillars supporting the roof. That was what she did this morning
on reaching the attic, sobbing all the while with a passion that
expelled every other form of consciousness,--even the memory of the
grievance that had caused it. As at last the sobs were getting quieter,
and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam of sunshine, falling through
the wire lattice across the worm-eaten shelves, made her throw away the
Fetish and run to the window. The sun was really breaking out; the sound
of the mill seemed cheerful again; the granary doors were open; and
there was Yap, the queer white-and-brown terrier, with one ear turned
back, trotting about and sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a
companion. It was irresistible. Maggie tossed her hair back and ran
downstairs, seized her bonnet without putting it on, peeped, and then
dashed along the passage lest she should encounter her mother, and was
quickly out in the yard, whirling round like a Pythoness, and singing as
she whirled, "Yap, Yap, Tom's coming home!" while Yap danced and barked
round her, as much as to say, if there was any noise wanted he was the
dog for it.

--GEORGE ELIOT.

[Footnote: What traits of character does Maggie show? Do children think
of their dolls as alive? Or as representing people they know? Did you
ever have the impulse to "take your spite out" on something, animate or
inanimate? Did you feel any better for relieving your feelings so? There
is an interesting account of a savage beating his idol in Melville's
"Typee."]




SALMON FISHING IN IRELAND


The pool has been cut through a peat bog, [Footnote: Peat-bog. Peat is a
kind of turf that is used for fuel.] and the greater part of it is
twenty feet deep. A broad fringe of water-lilies lines the banks,
leaving, however, an available space for throwing a fly upon between
them. This is the great resting-place of the fish on their way to the
lake and the upper river. The water is high, and almost flowing over the
bog. The wind catches it fairly, tearing along the surface and sweeping
up the crisp waves in white clouds of spray. The party of strangers who
had cards to fish were before us, but they are on the wrong side, trying
vainly to send their flies in the face of the southwester, which whirls
their casting-lines back over their heads. They have caught a peal
[Footnote: Peal: a small salmon.] or two, and one of them reports that
he was broken by a tremendous fish at the end of the round-pool. Jack
directs them to a bend higher up, where they will find a second pool as
good as this one, with a more favorable slant of wind, while I put my
rod together and turn over the leaves of my fly-book. Among the marvels
of art and nature I know nothing equal to a salmon-fly. It resembles no
insect, winged or unwinged, which the fish can have seen. A shrimp,
perhaps, is the most like it, if there are degrees to utter
dissimilarity. Yet every river is supposed to have its favorite flies.
Size, color, shape, all are peculiar. Here vain tastes prevail for
golden pheasant and blue and crimson paroquet. There the salmon are as
sober as Quakers, and will look at nothing but drabs and browns. Nine
parts of this are fancy, but there is still a portion of truth in it.
Bold hungry fish will take anything in any river; shy fish will
undoubtedly rise and splash at a stranger's fly, while they will swallow
what is offered them by any one who knows their ways. It may be
something in the color of the water: it may be something in the color of
the banks: experience is too uniform to allow the fact itself to be
questioned. Under Jack's direction, I select small flies about the size
of green drakes: one a sombre gray, with a silver twist about him, a
claret hackle, [Footnote: Claret hackle. A hackle is an artificial fly
made of feathers.] a mallard wing, [Footnote: Mallard wing. A mallard is
the drake of the wild duck. The artificial fly imitates its wing.]
streaked faintly on the lower side with red and blue. The drop fly is
still darker, with purple legs and olive green wings and body.

We move to the head of the pool and begin to cast in the gravelly
shallows, on which the fish lie to feed in a flood, a few yards above
the deep water. A white trout or two rise, and presently I am fast in
something which excites momentary hopes. The heavy rod bends to the
butt. A yard or two of line runs out, but a few seconds show that it is
only a large trout which has struck at the fly with his tail, and has
been hooked foul. He cannot break me, and I do not care if he escapes,
so I bear hard upon him and drag him by main force to the side, where
Harper slips the net under his head, and the next moment he is on the
bank. Two pounds within an ounce or so, but clean run from the sea,
brought up by last night's flood, and without a stain of the bog-water
on the pure silver of his scales. He has disturbed the shallow, so we
move a few steps down.

There is an alder bush on the opposite side, where the strength of the
river is running. It is a long cast. The wind is blowing so hard that I
can scarcely keep my footing, and the gusts whirl so unsteadily that I
cannot hit the exact spot where, if there is a salmon in the
neighborhood, he is lying.

The line flies out straight at last, but I have now thrown a few inches
too far; my tail fly is in the bush, dangling across an overhanging
bough. An impatient movement, a jerk, or a straight pull, and I am "hung
up," as is the phrase, and delayed for half an hour at least. Happily
there is a lull in the storm. I shake the point of the rod. The
vibration runs along the line; the fly drops softly like a leaf upon the
water--and as it floats away something turns heavily, and a huge brown
back is visible for an instant through a rift in the surface. But the
line comes home. He was an old stager, as we could see by his color, no
longer ravenous as when fresh from the salt-water. He was either lazy
and missed the fly, or it was not entirely to his mind. He was not
touched, and we drew back to consider. "Over him again while he is
angry," is the saying in some rivers, and I have known it to answer
where the fish feed greedily. But it will not do here; we must give him
time; and we turn again to the fly-book. When a salmon rises at a small
fly as if he meant business, yet fails to take it, the rule is to try
another of the same pattern a size larger. This too, however, just now
Jack thinks unfavorably of. The salmon is evidently a very large one,
and will give us enough to do if we hook him. He therefore, as one
precaution, takes off the drop fly lest it catch in the water-lilies. He
next puts the knots of the casting-line through a severe trial; replaces
an unsound joint with a fresh link of gut, and finally produces out of
his hat a "hook"--he will not call it a fly--of his own dressing. It is
a particolored father-long-legs, a thing which only some frantic
specimen of orchid ever seriously approached, a creature whose wings
were two strips of the fringe of a peacock's tail, whose legs descended
from blue jay through red to brown, and terminated in a pair of pink
trailers two inches long. Jack had found it do, and he believed it would
do for me. And so it did. I began to throw again six feet above the
bush, for a salmon often shifts his ground after rising. One cast--a
second--another trout rises which we receive with an anathema,
[Footnote: Anathema: a curse.] and drag the fly out of his reach. The
fourth throw there is a swirl like the wave which arises under the blade
of an oar, a sharp sense of hard resistance, a pause, and then a rush
for dear life. The wheel shrieks, the line hisses through the rings, and
thirty yards down the pool the great fish springs madly six feet into
the air. The hook is firm in his upper jaw; he had not shaken its hold,
for the hook had gone into the bone--pretty subject of delight for a
reasonable man, an editor of a magazine, and a would-be philosopher,
turned fifty! The enjoyments of the unreasoning part of us cannot be
defended on grounds of reason, and experience shows that men who are all
logic and morals, and have nothing of the animal left in them, are poor
creatures after all.

Any way, I defy philosophy with a twenty-pound salmon fast hooked, and a
pool right ahead four hundred yards long and half full of water-lilies.
"Keep him up the strame," shrieked a Paddy, who, on the screaming of the
wheel, had flung down his spade in the turf bog and rushed up to see the
sport. "Keep him up the strame, your honor--bloody wars! you'll lost him
else." We were at fault, Jack and I. We did not understand why down
stream was particularly dangerous, and Pat was too eager and too busy
swearing to explain himself. Alas, his meaning became soon but too
intelligible. I had overtaken the fish on the bank and had wheeled in
the line again, but he was only collecting himself for a fresh rush, and
the next minute it seemed as if the bottom had been knocked out of the
pool and an opening made into infinity. Round flew the wheel again;
fifty yards were gone in as many seconds, the rod was bending double,
and the line pointed straight down; straight as if there was a lead at
the end of it and unlimited space in which to sink. "Ah, didn't I tell
ye so?" said Pat; "what will we do now?" Too late Jack remembered that
fourteen feet down at the bottom of that pool lay the stem of a fallen
oak, below which the water had made a clear channel. The fish had turned
under it, and whether he was now up the river or down, or where he was
who could tell? He stopped at last. "Hold him hard," said Jack, hurling
off his clothes, and while I was speculating whether it would be
possible to drag him back the way that he had gone, a pink body flashed
from behind me, bounded off the bank with a splendid header, and
disappeared. He was under for a quarter of a minute; when he rose he had
the line in his hand between the fish and the tree.

"All right," he sputtered, swimming with the other hand to the bank and
scrambling up. "Run the rest of the line off the reel and out through
the rings." He had divined by a brilliant instinct the only remedy for
our situation. The thing was done, fast as Pat and I could ply our
fingers. The loose end was drawn round the log, and while Jack was
humoring the fish with his hand, and dancing up and down the bank
regardless of proprieties, we had carried it back down the rings,
replaced it on the reel, wound in the slack, and had again command of
the situation.

The salmon had played his best stroke. It had failed him, and he now
surrendered like a gentleman. A mean-spirited fish will go to the
bottom, bury himself in the weed, and sulk. Ours set his head towards
the sea, and sailed down the length of the pool in the open water
without attempting any more plunges. As his strength failed, he turned
heavily on his back, and allowed himself to be drawn to the shore. The
gaff [Footnote: Gaff: a large hook fixed on the end of a pole or
handle.] was in his side and he was ours. He was larger than we had
guessed him. Clean run he would have weighed twenty-five pounds. The
fresh water had reduced him to twenty-two, but without softening his
muscle or touching his strength.

--JAMES FROUDE (adapted).

[Footnote: Is the first part of the narrative a typical story of
"fisherman's luck"? Show how the story illustrates that a real lover of
fishing is enthusiastic over every detail of his experience. Is the
story technical at the expense of the reader's interest? How does the
element of suspense add to the interest? Is the account more interesting
by being told in the first person? Why?]




ACROSS RUNNING WATER


At a running water, that comes out at a place called Srath-namara, near
the sea-gates of Loch Suibhne, there is a pool called the Pool of the
Changeling. None ever goes that way from choice, for only the crying of
the curlew is heard there, or the querulous wailing lapwing.

It was here that one night, in a September of many storms, a woman stood
staring at the sea. The screaming seamews [Footnote: Seamews: gulls.]
wheeled and sank and circled overhead, and the solanders [Footnote:
Solanders: a kind of wild geese.] rose with heavy wing and hoarse cries,
and the black scarts screeched to the startled guillemots [Footnote:
Guillemots: birds similar to the auks.] or to the foam-white terns
[Footnote: Terns: a species of birds allied to the gulls.] blown before
the wind like froth. The woman looked neither at the seafowl nor at the
burning glens of scarlet flame which stretched dishevelled among the
ruined lands of the sunset.

Between the black flurries of the wind, striking the sea like flails,
came momentary pauses or long silences. In one of these the woman raised
her arms, she the while unheeding the cold tide wash about her feet,
where she stood insecurely on the wet slippery tangle.

Seven years ago this woman had taken the one child she had, that she did
not believe to be her own but a changeling, and had put it on the shore
at the extreme edge of the tide-reach, and had left it for the space of
an hour. When she came back, the child she had left with a numbness on
its face and with the curse of dumbness, was laughing wild, and when she
came near, it put out its arms and gave the cry of the young of birds.
She lifted the "leanav" in her arms and stared into its eyes, but there
was no longer the weary blankness, and the little one yearned with the
petulant laughing and idle whimpering of the children of other mothers.
And that mother there gave a cry of joy, and with a singing heart went
home.

It was in the seventh year after that finding by the sea, that one day,
when a cold wind was blowing from the west, the child Morag came in by
the peat-fire, where her mother was boiling the porridge, and looked at
her without speaking. The mother turned at that, and looked at Morag.
Her heart sank like a pool-lily at shadow, when she saw that Morag had
woven a wreath of brown tangled seaweed into her hair. But that was
nothing to the bite in her breast when the girl began singing a song
that had not a word in it she had ever heard on her own or other lips,
but was wild as the sound of the tide calling in dark nights of cloud
and wind, or as the sudden coming of waves over a quiet sea in the
silence of the black hours of sleep.

"What is it, Morag-mo-run?" she asked, her voice like a reed in the
wind.

"It's time," says Morag, with a change in her eyes, and her face shining
with a gleam on it.

"Time for what, Morag?"

"For me to be going back to the place I came from."

"And where will that be?"

"Where would it be but to the place you took me out of, and called
across?"

The mother gave a cry and a sob. "Sure, now, Morag-a-ghraidh, you will
be my own lass and no other?"

"Whist, woman," answered the girl; "don't you hear the laughing in the
burn, [Footnote: Burn: a small stream.] and the hoarse voice out in the
sea?"

"That I do not, O Morag-mo-chridh, and sure it's black sorrow to you and
to me hearing that hoarse voice and that thin laughing."

"Well, sorrow or no sorrow, I'm off now, poor woman. [Footnote: Poor
woman: a friendly term of address in Ireland.] And it's good-bye, and a
good-bye to you I'll be saying to you, poor woman. Sure it's a sorrow to
me to leave you in grief, but if you'll go down to the edge of the
water, at the place you took me from, where the runnin' water falls into
the sea-pool, you'll be having there against your breast in no time the
child of your own that I never was and never could be."

"And why that, and why that, O Morag, lennavanmo?"

"Peace on your sorrow, woman, and good-bye to you now;" and with that
the sea-changeling went laughing out at the door, singing a wave-song
that was so wild and strange the mother's woe was turned to a fear that
rose like chill water in her heart.

When she dared follow--and why she did not go at once she did not
know--she saw at first no sight of Morag or any other on the lonely
shore. In vain she called, with a great sorrowing cry. But as, later,
she stood with her feet in the sea, she became silent of a sudden, and
was still as a rock, with her ragged dress about her like draggled
seaweed. She had heard a thin crying. It was the voice of a
breast-child, and not of a grown lass like Morag.

When a gray heron toiled sullenly from a hollow among the rocks she went
to the place. She was still now, with a frozen sorrow. She knew what she
was going to find. But she did not guess till she lifted that little
frail child she had left upon the shore seven years back, that the
secret people of the sea or those who call across running water could
have the hardness and coldness to give her again the unsmiling dumb
thing she had mothered with so much bitterness of heart.

Morag she never saw again, nor did any other see her, except Padruig
Macrae, the innocent, who on a New Year's eve, that was a Friday, said
that as he was whistling to a seal down by the Pool at Srath-na-mara he
heard someone laughing at him; and when he looked to see who it was he
saw it was no other than Morag--and he had called to her, he said, and
she called back to him, "Come away, Padruig dear," and then had swum off
like a seal, crying the heavy tears of sorrow.

And as for the child she had found again on the place she had left her
own silent breast-babe seven years back; it never gave a cry or made any
sound whatever, but stared with round, strange eyes only, and withered
away in three days, and was hidden by her in a sand-hole at the root of
a stunted thorn that grew there.

At every going down of the sun thereafter, the mother of the changeling
went to the edge of the sea, and stood among the wet tangle of the
wrack, [Footnote: Wrack: coarse seaweed.] and put out her supplicating
hands, but never spoke word nor uttered cry.

But on this night of September, while the gleaming sea-fowl were flying
through the burning glens of scarlet flame in the wide purple wildness
of the sky, with the wind falling and wailing and wailing and falling,
the woman went over to the running water beyond the seapool, and put her
skirt over her head and stepped into the pool, and, hooded thus and thus
patient, waited till the tide came in.

--FIONA MACLEOD.

[Footnote: Notice how the author describes the wildness of nature so as
to make it seem in sympathy with the strangeness of the human story.
Pick out words and passages that convey this as: "screaming seamews,"
"screeched," "dishevelled," "black flurries," etc. Have you ever read
any stories or fairy tales that tell about changelings? Among what kind
of people would a story like this be believed? Read Yeats, "The Land of
Hearts' Desire" and compare with this story. Is the story too fantastic
to gain the reader's sympathy?]




THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS


The Captain John Hull aforesaid was the mint-master of Massachusetts,
and coined all the money that was made there. This was a new line of
business; for, in the earlier days of the colony, the current coinage
consisted of gold and silver money of England, and Portugal, and Spain.
These coins being scarce, the people were often forced to barter their
commodities instead of selling them.

For instance, if a man wanted to buy a coat, he perhaps exchanged a
bear-skin for it. If he wished for a barrel of molasses, he might
purchase it with a pile of pine boards. Musket-bullets were used instead
of farthings. The Indians had a sort of money, called wampum, which was
made of clam-shells; and this strange sort of specie was likewise taken
in payment of debts by the English settlers. Bank-bills had never been
heard of. There was not money enough of any kind, in many parts of the
country, to pay the salaries of the ministers; so that they sometimes
had to take quintals [Footnote: Quintals: hundredweights.] of fish,
bushels of corn, or cords of wood, instead of silver or gold.

As the people grew more numerous, and their trade one with another
increased, the want of current money was still more sensibly felt. To
supply the demand, the General Court passed a law for establishing a
coinage of shillings, sixpences, and threepences. [Footnote: Shillings:
Sixpences, and three-pences. What country did use and still uses this
system?] Captain John Hull was appointed to manufacture this money, and
was to have about one shilling out of every twenty to pay him for the
trouble of making them.

Hereupon all the old silver in the colony was handed over to Captain
John Hull. The battered silver cans and tankards, [Footnote: Tankards:
large drinking vessels.] I suppose, and silver buckles, and broken
spoons, and silver buttons of wornout coats, and silver hilts of swords
that had figured at court,--all such curious old articles were doubtless
thrown into the melting pot together. But by far the greater part of the
silver consisted of bullion [Footnote: Bullion: uncoined gold or silver
in the mass.] from the mines of South America, which the English
buccaneers [Footnote: Buccaneers: pirates.]--who were little better than
pirates--had taken from the Spaniards, and brought to Massachusetts.
All this old and new silver being melted down and coined, the result was
an immense amount of splendid shillings, sixpences, and threepences.
Each had the date, 1652, on the one side, and the figure of a pine-tree
on the other. Hence they were called pine-tree shillings. And for every
twenty shillings that he coined, you will remember, Captain John Hull
was entitled to put one shilling into his own pocket.

The magistrates soon began to suspect that the mint-master would have
the best of the bargain. They offered him a large sum of money if he
would but give up the twentieth shilling which he was continually
dropping into his own pocket. But Captain Hull declared himself
perfectly satisfied with the shilling. And well he might be; for so
diligently did he labor that, in a few years, his pockets, his
money-bags, and his strong box were overflowing with pine-tree
shillings. This was probably the case when he came into possession of
Grandfather's chair; and, as he had worked so hard at the mint, it was
certainly proper that he should have a comfortable chair to rest himself
in.

When the mint-master had grown rich, a young man, Samuel Sewell by name,
came a-courting to his only daughter. His daughter--whose name I do not
know, but we will call her Betsey--was a fine, hearty damsel, by no
means so slender as some young ladies of our own days. On the contrary,
having always fed heartily on pumpkin-pies, doughnuts, Indian puddings,
and other Puritan dainties, she was as round, and plump as a pudding
herself. With this round, rosy Miss Betsey did Samuel Sewell fall in
love. As he was a young man of good character, industrious in his
business, and a member of the church, the mint-master very readily gave
his consent.

"Yes, you may take her," said he, in his rough way, "and you'll find her
a heavy burden enough!"

On the wedding day, we may suppose that honest John Hull dressed himself
in a plum-colored coat, all the buttons of which were made of pine-tree
shillings. The buttons of his waistcoat were sixpences; and the knees of
his smallclothes [Footnote: Smallclothes: knee breeches.] were buttoned
with silver threepences. Thus attired, he sat with great dignity in
Grandfather's chair; and, being a portly old gentleman, he completely
filled it from elbow to elbow. On the opposite side of the room, between
her bridemaids, sat Miss Betsey. She was blushing with all her might,
and looked like a full-blown peony, or a great red apple.

There, too, was the bridegroom, dressed in a fine purple coat and
gold-lace waistcoat, with as much other finery as the Puritan laws and
customs would allow him to put on. His hair was cropped close to his
head, because Governor Endicott [Footnote: Governor Endicott: governor
of the Massachusetts colony from 1647 to 1665.] had forbidden any man to
wear it below the ears. But he was a very personable young man; and so
thought the bridemaids and Miss Betsey herself.

The mint-master also was pleased with his new son-in-law; especially as
he had courted Miss Betsey out of pure love, and had said nothing at all
about her portion. So, when the marriage ceremony was over, Captain Hull
whispered a word to two of his men-servants, who immediately went out,
and soon returned, lugging in a large pair of scales. There were such a
pair as wholesale merchants use for weighing bulky commodities; and
quite a bulky commodity was now to be weighed in them.

"Daughter Betsey," said the mint-master, "get into one side of these
scales."

Miss Betsey--or Mrs. Sewell, as we must now call her--did as she was
bid, like a dutiful child, without any question of the why and
wherefore. But what her father could mean, unless to make her husband
pay for her by the pound (in which case she would have been a dear
bargain), she had not the least idea.

"And now," said honest John Hull to the servants, "bring that box
hither."

The box to which the mint-master pointed was a huge square, iron-bound,
oaken chest; it was big enough, my children, for all four of you to play
hide-and-seek in. The servants tugged with might and main, but could not
lift this enormous receptacle, and were finally obliged to drag it
across the floor. Captain Hull then took a key from his girdle, unlocked
the chest, and lifted its ponderous lid. Behold! it was full to the brim
of bright pine-tree shillings, fresh from the mint; and Samuel Sewell
began to think that his father-in-law had got possession of all the
money in the Massachusetts treasury. But it was only the mint-master's
honest share of the coinage.

Then the servants, at Captain Hull's command, heaped double handfuls of
shillings into one side of the scales, while Betsey remained in the
other. Jingle, jingle, went the shillings, as handful after handful was
thrown in, till, plump and ponderous as she was, they fairly weighed the
young lady from the floor.

"There, son Sewell!" cried the honest mint-master, resuming his seat in
Grandfather's chair, "take these shillings for my daughter's portion.
Use her kindly, and thank Heaven for her. It is not every wife that's
worth her weight in silver!"

--NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

[Footnote: Notice the kindly quality of the humor. Do you know any other
stories written in this vein? Does the author seem to think that Miss
Betsey's charms or her money were her attraction?]




THE WHITE TRAIL


For the space of nearly ten weeks these people travelled thus in the
region of the Kabinikagam. Sometimes they made long marches; sometimes
they camped for the hunting; sometimes the great, fierce storms of the
north drove them to shelter, snowed them under, and passed on shrieking.
The wind opposed them. At first of little account, its very insistence
gave it value. Always the stinging snow whirling into the face; always
the eyes watering and smarting; always the unyielding opposition against
which to bend the head; always the rush of sound in the ears,--a
distraction against which the senses had to struggle before they could
take their needed cognisance of trail and of game. An uneasiness was
abroad with the wind, an uneasiness that infected the men, the dogs, the
forest creatures, the very insentient trees themselves. It racked the
nerves. In it the inimical Spirit of the North seemed to find its
plainest symbol; though many difficulties she cast in the way were
greater to be overcome.

Ever the days grew shorter. The sun swung above the horizon, low to the
south, and dipped back as though pulled by some invisible string.
Slanting through the trees it gave little cheer and no warmth. Early in
the afternoon it sank, silhouetting the pointed firs, casting across the
snow long, crimson shadows, which faded into gray. It was replaced by a
moon, chill and remote, dead as the white world on which it looked.

In the great frost continually the trees were splitting with loud,
sudden reports. The cold had long since squeezed the last drops of
moisture from the atmosphere. It was metallic, clear, hard as ice,
brilliant as the stars, compressed with the freezing. The moon, the
stars, the earth, the very heavens glistened like polished steel. Frost
lay on the land thick as a coverlid. It hid the east like clouds of
smoke. Snow remained unmelted two feet from the camp-fire.

And the fire alone saved these people from the enemy. If Sam stooped for
a moment to adjust his snow-shoe strap, he straightened his back with a
certain reluctance,--already the benumbing preliminary to freezing had
begun. If Dick, flipping his mitten from his hand to light his pipe, did
not catch the fire at the second tug, he had to resume the mitten and
beat the circulation into his hand before renewing the attempt, lest the
ends of his fingers become frosted. Movement, always and incessantly,
movement alone could keep going the vital forces on these few coldest
days until the fire had been built to fight back the white death.

It was the land of ghosts. Except for the few hours at midday these
people moved in the gloom and shadow of a nether world. The long
twilight was succeeded by longer night, with its burnished stars, its
dead moon, its unearthly aurora. On the fresh snow were the tracks of
creatures, but in the flesh they glided almost invisible. The
ptarmigan's [Footnote: Ptarmigan: a species of grouse that is brown in
summer but turns white, or nearly white, in winter.] bead eye alone
betrayed him, he had no outline. The ermine's black tip was the only
indication of his presence. Even the larger animals--the caribou, the
moose--had either turned a dull gray, or were so rimed by the frost as
to have lost all appearance of solidity. It was ever a surprise to find
these phantoms red, to discover that their flesh would resist the knife.
During the strife of the heavy northwest storms one side of each tree
had become more or less plastered with snow, so that even their dark
trunks flashed mysteriously into and out of view. In the entire world of
the great white silence the only solid, enduring, palpable reality was
the tiny sledge train crawling with infinite patience across its
vastness.

White space, a feeling of littleness and impotence, twilight gloom,
burnished night, bitter cold, unreality, phantasmagoria, [Footnote:
Phantasmagoria: illusive images.] ghosts like those which surged about
Aeneas, [Footnote: Ghosts about Aeneas: referring to the descent of
Aeneas into Hades as told in Virgil's "Aeneid."] and finally clogging,
white silence,--these were the simple but dreadful elements of that
journey which lasted, without event, from the middle of November until
the latter part of January.

--STEWART EDWARD WHITE.

[Footnote: What is the effect of the repeated use of "always" in the
first paragraph? Cite the passages that help most in giving you a clear
picture of the scene. What effect is produced by the absence of color in
the description? Why does the author use almost entirely the short
sentences? What possibilities of tragedy are hinted at in the narrative?
How is the sense of silence and isolation conveyed?]




A DISSERTATION ON ROAST PIG


Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging
enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages
ate their meat raw, clawing it or biting it from the living animal, just
as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted
at by their great Confucius [Footnote: Confucius: a celebrated Chinese
philosopher, born about 550 B.C.] in the second chapter of his Mundane
Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term
Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' holiday.

The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather
broiling (which I take to be the elder brother) was accidentally
discovered in the manner following. The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone
out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast
[Footnote: Mast-acorns: nuts.] for his hogs, left his cottage in the
care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of
playing with fire, as younkers [Footnote: Younkers: youngsters.] of his
age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which
kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor
mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage (a
sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it), what was
of much more importance, a fine litter of young pigs, no less than nine
in number, perished. China pigs [Footnote: China pigs. What adjective
would we use now?] have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from
the remotest periods that we read of.

Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for
the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up
again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any
time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should
say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of
one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike
any scent which he had before experienced.

What could it proceed from?--not from the burnt cottage--he had smelled
that smell before--indeed this was by no means the first accident of the
kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young
firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or
flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether
lip. He knew not what to think.

He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in
it. He burned his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby
fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come
away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the
world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he
tasted--crackling! [Footnote: Crackling: the brown crisp rind of roasted
pork.] Again he felt and fumbled at the pig.

It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort
of habit.

The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the
pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and,
surrendering himself to the newborn pleasure, he fell to tearing whole
handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming
it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid
the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how
affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's shoulders, as
thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had
been flies. The tickling pleasure which he experienced in his lower
regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might
feel in those remote quarters.

His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he
had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of
his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued:--

"You graceless fellow, what have you got there devouring? Is it not
enough that you have burned down three houses with your dog's tricks,
but you must be eating fire and I know not what--what have you got
there, I say?"

"O father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice the burnt pig
eats."

The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed
himself that ever he should have a son that should eat burnt pig.

Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked
out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half
by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out, "Eat, eat,
eat the burnt pig, father, only taste,"--with such like ejaculations,
cramming all the while as if he would choke.

Ho-ti trembled in every joint while he grasped the abominable thing,
wavering whether he should not put his son to death for an unnatural
young monster, when the crackling scorching his fingers, as it had done
his son's, and applying the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted
some of its flavor, which, make what sour mouths he would for a
pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In conclusion (for
the manuscript here is a little tedious) both father and son fairly sat
down to the mess, and never left off till they despatched all that
remained of the litter.

Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape, for the
neighbors would certainly have stoned them for a couple of abominable
wretches, who could think of improving upon the good meat God had sent
them. Nevertheless, strange stories got about. It was observed that
Ho-ti's cottage was burned down now more frequently than ever.

Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some would break out in broad
day, others in the night-time. And Ho-ti himself, which was the more
remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to grow more indulgent
to him than ever.

At length they were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father
and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an inconsiderable
assize town. [Footnote: Assize town: the place where the court sits to
conduct trials.] Evidence was given, the obnoxious food itself produced
in court, and verdict about to be pronounced, when the foreman of the
jury begged that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood
accused, might be handed into the box.

He handled it, and they all handled it, and burning their fingers, as
Bo-bo and his father had done before them, and nature prompting to each
of them the same remedy, against the face of all the facts, and the
clearest charge which the judge had ever given,--to the surprise of the
whole court, townsfolk, strangers, reporters, and all present--without
leaving the box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought in
a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty.

The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of
the decision; and when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought
up all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few days his
Lordship's town house was observed to be on fire. The thing took wing,
and now there was nothing to be seen but fires in every direction. Fuel
and pigs grew enormously dear all over the district. The insurance
offices one and all shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter
every day, until it was feared that the very science of architecture
would in no long time be lost to the world.

Thus this custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time,
says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, [Footnote: Locke: John
Locke, a celebrated English philosopher of the seventeenth century.] who
made a discovery, that flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal,
might be cooked (burnt, as they called it) without the necessity of
consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the rude form of a
gridiron.

Roasting by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, I
forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes the manuscript,
do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious arts, make their way
among mankind.

--CHARLES LAMB.

[Footnote: In this essay where does the humor lie? Is it in the
absurdity of the story told? In the exaggerations? What stories, of
those you have studied, does this most resemble? Why? Notice how bare
the story is of any description except that which is essential to the
theme. What is the effect of this? Does the author describe the taste of
roast pig sympathetically? Does any article of food arouse your
enthusiasm? If so, try writing an essay on it. Why does the author
introduce such incongruous terms as "foreman of the jury," "jury box,"
"insurance offices"?]




THE LAST CLASS


I was very late for school that morning, and I was afraid of being
scolded, especially as Monsieur Hamel had told us that he should examine
us on participles, and I did not know the first thing about them. For a
moment I thought of staying away from school and wandering about the
fields. It was such a warm, lovely day. I could hear the blackbirds
whistling on the edge of the wood, and in the Rippert field, behind the
sawmill, the Prussians going through their drill. [Footnote: Prussians
going through their drill. The time of the story is laid at the end of
the Franco-Prussian War.] All that was much more tempting to me than the
rules concerning participles; but I had the strength to resist, and I
ran as fast as I could to school. As I passed the Mayor's office, I saw
that there were people gathered about the little board on which notices
were posted. For two years all our bad news had come from that
board--battles lost, conscriptions, [Footnote: Conscription: compulsory
enrollment for military service.] orders from headquarters; and I
thought without stopping:

"What can it be now?"

Then, as I ran across the square, Wachter the blacksmith, who stood
there with his apprentice, reading the placard, called out to me:

"Don't hurry so, my boy; you'll get to your school soon enough!"

I thought that he was making fun of me, and I ran into Monsieur Hamel's
little yard all out of breath.

Usually, at the beginning of school, there was a great uproar which
could be heard in the street, desks opening and closing, lessons
repeated aloud in unison, with our ears stuffed in order to learn
quicker, and the teacher's stout ruler beating on the desk:

"A little more quiet!"

I counted on all this noise to reach my bench unnoticed, but as it
happened, that day everything was quiet, like a Sunday morning. Through
the open window I saw my comrades already in their places, and Monsieur
Hamel walking back and forth with the terrible iron ruler under his arm.
I had to open the door and enter, in the midst of that perfect silence.
You can imagine whether I blushed and whether I was afraid!

But no! Monsieur Hamel looked at me with no sign of anger and said very
gently:

"Go at once to your seat, my little Frantz; we were going to begin
without you."

I stepped over the bench and sat down at once at my desk. Not until
then, when I had partly recovered from my fright, did I notice that our
teacher had on his handsome blue coat, his plaited ruff, and the black
embroidered breeches, which he wore on days of inspection or of
distribution of prizes. Moreover, there was something extraordinary,
something solemn about the whole class. But what surprised me most was
to see at the back of the room, on the benches which were usually empty,
some people from the village sitting, as silent as we were: old Hauser
with his three-cornered hat, the ex-mayor, the ex-postman, and others
besides. They all seemed depressed; and Hauser had brought an old
spelling-book with gnawed edges, which he held wide-open on his knee,
with his great spectacles askew.

While I was wondering at all this, Monsieur Hamel had mounted his
platform, and in the same gentle and serious voice with which he had
welcomed me, he said to us:

"My children, this is the last time that I shall teach you. Orders have
come from Berlin to teach nothing but German in the schools of Alsace
and Lorraine. The new teacher arrives to-morrow. This is the last class
in French, so I beg you to be very attentive."

Those few words overwhelmed me. Ah! the villains! that was what they had
posted at the mayor's office.

My last class in French!

And I barely knew how to write! So I should never learn! I must stop
short where I was! How angry I was with myself because of the time I had
wasted, the lessons I had missed, running about after nests, or sliding
on the Saar! [Footnote: Saar: a river just beyond the northeast border
line of the province of Lorraine.] My books, which only a moment before
I thought so tiresome, so heavy to carry--my grammar, my sacred
history--seemed to me now like old friends, from whom I should be
terribly grieved to part. And it was the same about Monsieur Hamel. The
thought that he was going away, that I should never see him again, made
me forget the punishments, the blows with the ruler.

Poor man! It was in honor of that last lesson that he had put on his
fine Sunday clothes; and I understood now why those old fellows from the
village were sitting at the end of the room. It seemed to mean that they
regretted not having come oftener to the school. It was also a way of
thanking our teacher for his forty years of faithful service, and of
paying their respects to the fatherland which was vanishing.

I was at that point in my reflections, when I heard my name called. It
was my turn to recite. What would I not have given to be able to say
from the beginning to the end that famous rule about participles, in a
loud, distinct voice, without a slip! But I got mixed up at the first
words, and I stood there swaying against my bench, with a full heart,
afraid to raise my head. I heard Monsieur Hamel speaking to me:

"I will not scold you, my little Frantz; you must be punished enough;
that is the way it goes; every day we say to ourselves: 'Pshaw! I have
time enough. I will learn to-morrow.' And then you see what happens. Ah!
it has been the great misfortune of our Alsace always to postpone its
lessons until to-morrow. 'What! you claim to be French, and you can
neither speak nor write your language!' In all this, my poor Frantz, you
are not the guiltiest one. We all have our fair share of reproaches to
address to ourselves.

"Your parents have not been careful enough to see that you were
educated. They preferred to send you to work in the fields or in the
factories, in order to have a few more sous. And have I nothing to
reproach myself for? Have I not often made you water my garden instead
of studying? And when I wanted to go fishing for trout, have I ever
hesitated to dismiss you?"

Then passing from one thing to another, Monsieur Hamel began to talk to
us about the French language, saying that it was the most beautiful
language in the world, the most clear, the most substantial; that we
must always retain it among ourselves, and never forget it, because when
a people falls into servitude, "so long as it clings to its language, it
is as if it held the key to its prison." Then he took the grammar and
read us our lesson. I was amazed to see how readily I understood.
Everything that he said seemed so easy to me, so easy. I believed, too,
that I had never listened so closely, and that he, for his part, had
never been so patient with his explanations. One would have said that,
before going away, the poor man desired to give us all his knowledge, to
force it all into our heads at a single blow.

When the lesson was at an end, we passed to writing. For that day
Monsieur Hamel had prepared some entirely new examples, on which was
written in a fine, round hand: "France, Alsace, France, Alsace." They
were like little flags, waving all about the class, hanging from the
rods of our desks. You should have seen how hard we all worked and how
silent it was! Nothing could be heard save the grinding of the pens over
the paper. At one time some cockchafers [Footnote: Cockchafers: a
species of beetle.] flew in; but no one paid any attention to them not
even the little fellows, who were struggling with their straight lines,
with a will and conscientious application, as if even the lines were
French. On the roof of the schoolhouse, pigeons cooed in low tones, and
I said to myself as I listened to them:

"I wonder if they are going to compel them to sing German too!"

From time to time, when I raised my eyes from my paper, I saw Monsieur
Hamel sitting motionless in his chair and staring at the objects about
him as if he wished to carry away in his glance the whole of his little
schoolhouse. Think of it! For forty years he had been there in the same
place, with his yard in front of him and his class just as it was! But
the benches and desks were polished and rubbed by use; the walnuts in
the yard had grown, and the hop-vine which he himself had planted now
festooned the windows even to the roof. What a heartrending thing it
must have been for that poor man to leave all those things, and to hear
his sister walking back and forth in the room overhead, packing their
trunks! For they were to go away the next day--to leave the province
forever.

However, he had the courage to keep the class to the end. After the
writing, we had the lesson in history; then the little ones sang all
together the ba, be, bi, bo, bu. Yonder, at the back of the room, old
Hauser had put on his spectacles, and, holding his spelling-book in both
hands, he spelled out the letters with them. I could see that he too was
applying himself. His voice shook with emotion, and it was so funny to
hear him, that we all longed to laugh and to cry. Ah! I shall remember
that last class.

Suddenly the church struck twelve, then the Angelus [Footnote: Angelus:
the angelus bell, which is rung at morning, noon, and night.] rang. At
the same moment, the bugles of the Prussians returning from drill blared
under our windows. Monsieur Hamel rose, pale as death, from his chair.
Never had he seemed to me so tall.

"My friends," he said, "my friends, I--I--"

But something suffocated him. He could not finish the sentence.

Thereupon he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and,
bearing on with all his might, he wrote in the largest letters he could:

"Vive La France!" [Footnote: Vive la France: "Long live France."]

Then he stood there with his head resting against the wall, and without
speaking, he motioned to us with his hand:

"That is all; go."

--ALPHONSE DAUDET.

[Footnote: Compare this story with "A Leaf in the Storm." What do such
stories make you think of "the glory of conquest"? Why was the decree
made that this was to be "the last class in French"? Does the author
make this story a personal tragedy or the tragedy of France? Where is
the climax of the story? Is it effective? What kind of spirit does it
show? Does that spirit live in France to-day?]




AN ARAB FISHERMAN


This morning I reached the rocks before the dawn had begun to break. It
was too dark to fish; but I crept out to the very edge of the ledge, and
sat down beside a great boulder to wait for the light. I lit my pipe and
smoked impatiently. It seemed as though the dawn came up out of the
water itself; long before I could notice any increase of light the waves
began to change color from the dark, oily olive tint of night to a
lighter green, and gradually, just as it began to dawn, to their daytime
blue. A long trailing cloud, which stretched clean across the sky like
an exaggerated Milky Way, suddenly caught fire at its eastern end.
Rapidly the red flame along ran its entire length to the other horizon.
Then countless unexpected shadows woke up on the rocks about me, weird,
undefined shapes, which became clear-cut only when the rim of the sun
came up over Cap Rouge.

But a swish in the water beside me, as the first fish rose, recalled me
to the business in hand. I opened my little tin tackle-box, put the rod
together, and just as I was tying on the flies I was disturbed by human
voices. I said several things I shouldn't have, and looked up over my
rock to motion back the intruders. For a moment I thought I was back in
Old Greece, the Old Greece where early morning fishers were often
interrupted by the sea-nymphs. But a second glance reassured me--it was
only an Arab and his wife hunting crabs.

Their method was typical. He was a sombre old chap, with long, scanty
white beard, a soiled burnous, [Footnote: Burnous: a cloak-like garment
with a hood, worn by the Arabs.] and thin, scrawny brown legs. He sat
stolidly on a dry rock, a basket under his feet, and--this was the
typical part--watched his wife work. I did not blame him for watching.
It was a pretty sight. She was a supple young Mauresque, [Footnote:
Mauresque: Moorish (girl).] slim and graceful as the water-nymph for
whom I had first mistaken her. She had laid aside her outer cloak-like
garment, and was clad only in a light cotton tunic. It was very simple
affair--two small holes for her arms, a bigger one for her head, and a
still bigger one at the bottom to get in by. I could make one myself. It
was bound about her waist with a heavy dark red woollen sash, the ends
of which, hanging down at her side, were adorned with a most amazing
collection of colored strings, bright yellow, startling orange, pale
blue, and flaming crimson. It sounds discordant, and I must admit that,
as it hangs now in my room, it almost makes my head ache. But out there
on the red, wet rocks it was toned down by the faint morning light, and
mingled charmingly with the greens on the bank and the far-reaching blue
of the sea. In her hand was a spear--a stick sharpened in a fire.

If the old gentleman took it sedately and placidly, it was just the
reverse with her. She was fairly running over with the joy of life. She
would crawl about deftly until she saw a crab, then she would make a
long detour to get it between her and the sun, so that her shadow should
not frighten it. When she got within striking distance, she would wave
her hand at her husband, as though she thought he could increase the
intensity of his silence. With a graceful, dextrous thrust she would
stab her game, and, gathering up her scant skirts, she would dash into
the water after it. The moment she got her hand on it she would let out
a delighted little scream of glee, and go bounding over the rocks to
exhibit it to her lord and master. I wanted to wring his scrawny old
neck for not being more enthusiastic about it. But he never once lost
his blase manner. He would look at the crab a moment critically, then
lift up his foot and let her put it in the basket. Not a word would he
say. But off she would go again with undimmed ardor. It was a sight for
the gods. And for half an hour I forgot all about my fishing-rod.

At last their basket was full, and the old man got up and began to come
my way. She picked up her mantle and the basket and followed him. They
saw me at the same moment. She gave a startled little squeal and started
to retreat; but the old man grunted "Roumi," so she stopped.

"Roumi," being translated, means "Infidel." It was as though he had
said, "Don't get excited; it is only a dog." If I had been a Mussulman,
she would have run screaming to the woods, and would have had to do--I
don't know what penance--because I had seen her face unveiled. But I was
only an infidel dog and didn't count. The old man made the "Sign of
Peace," and the two sat down beside me.

I didn't return his salute. I had never felt so entirely, so shamefully
insulted in my life. I have always read a deep contempt for me in the
eyes of the Mussulmans I have met. The Arab boy who cleans my boots and
cares for "Citron," my mare, looks down on me from a perfectly
unspeakable height of superiority. The men do not matter, but to be
insulted so by a woman, a very pretty woman, made my hair crinkle! I had
heard that the Mohammedan women do not veil before the infidels. But I
had never realized the overpowering weight of the insult before. She
would have been utterly confused if an Arab had seen her face. She sat
there before me, almost within reach of my hand, in a thin, short, very
short, tunic, which was wet, and she never turned a hair. I was a
"Roumi," not a man, a dog. That was all there was to it. I felt that
unless I could shake her composure I would explode. I tried to convince
her I was a man by staring at her. I might just as well have tried to
embarrass the statue of Venus de Milo!

"Bonjour," [Footnote: Bonjour: "good day."] the old man said. He had
probably learned French working for a colonist; or perhaps he had served
in the Spahis [Footnote: Spahis: Algerian cavalrymen serving in the
French army.] when he was younger. I was too mad to return his greeting.

"Fishing?" he asked.

Such insane questions, when the answer is so evident, generally
infuriate me; and I probably would have told him I was skating if I had
not been afraid he would get mad and walk off with his wife, and I had
not yet given up hope of embarrassing her.

"Yes," I replied. "And you?"

"I've been crab-fishing," he said solemnly, and he showed me his basket.
"I'm a good fisher," he added.

I looked at his wife, but she did not seem to see anything funny in his
choice of pronouns. I tied another fly on my leader.

"No good," he said. "Use crab meat. Fish don't like feathers."

I made a couple of casts without making a strike. "No good!" he kept
repeating. He began to get on my nerves. At last I had better luck and
landed a beautiful three-pounder. I dangled it triumphantly before his
eyes.

"No good," he said stolidly. "Use crab meat. Fish don't like feathers."

Then I had a run of luck. Almost every cast I got a rise, and soon I had
a nice string of eight, all from two to five pounds. I noticed that all
the strikes had been on the same fly, so I stopped for a minute to
change the other two flies to this variety. I thought that if I should
have the luck to raise two at once--as sometimes happens--I might
convince him. When I opened the box to get the new flies, both of them
came close to look in. In one compartment were some bare hooks on which
I had not yet built flies. The old man pounced on them at once.

"There!" he cried. "These are good. Use these with crab meat and you
will catch fish!"

I sat back in dumb amazement. Once upon a time, way back in the dimness
before history, this chap's ancestors had begun to fish off these rocks
with a bent wire and a piece of crab meat. Century after century they
had sat there unchanging. Sat there all day long, and had been lucky to
catch half as many fish as I had done in fifteen minutes. And glaring
ocular demonstration did not shake his faith in the methods of his
ancestors. I began to understand the hopeless discouragement with which
my host talks of the "Native Question." The Arabs are starving off
because the French have stolen their land. But the fact remains that
most of the natives have more land than the colonists. An Arab will
starve to death on a piece of land which will support two French
families, simply because the Arabs do not know--and will not learn--how
to intensify their culture. Somehow--nobody knows just how--the Romans,
during the long centuries of their occupation, succeeded in teaching
them to put an iron point on the end of the crooked stick with which
they scratch the earth. It is the last thing they have learned.

The Arabs employed by my host are good workmen. They seem perfectly
intelligent; six days a week they yoke his stout oxen before a great
American plow, turn his soil, scatter his fertilizer, after the harvest
help him sort out the best grain for the next sowing, and so forth; but
the seventh day of the week they hitch their wives beside an ass, and
tickle the soil with their iron-pointed stick. "Why should we put on
fertilizer?" they ask. "Allah, the Just, will give us the harvest our
piety deserves."

My speculations about the fate of the race were interrupted by the voice
of the young woman. Her eye had been caught by a gaudy red-feathered
trolling-spoon and its polished brass disk. She pointed to it, and said
something in Arabic. The old man shook his head.

"No good" he repeated his deadly refrain.

"Use these. Crab meat. You will catch fish. Fish don't like feathers."

But I'd lost interest in fishing. I realized that if I pulled up Jonah's
whale it would not convince the old man. So I started to put up my
things.

--ALBERT EDWARDS.

[Footnote: Note the use of color. What things in the scene should you
like to see for yourself? Is the humor of the story one of situation or
character? Was the old Arab vain or only stupid? Is his attitude toward
the author a typically Eastern one? Do you know Kipling's ballad, "The
East and the West"?]




THE ARCHERY CONTEST


At the beginning of the contest a stranger appears to take part in the
shooting. He tells Prince John that his name is Locksley.

A target was placed at the upper end of the southern avenue which led to
the lists. [Footnote: Lists: fields of combat.] The contending archers
took their station in turn, at the bottom of the southern access, the
distance between that station and the mark allowing full distance for
what was called a shot at rovers. The archers, having previously
determined by lot their order of precedence, were to shoot each three
shafts in succession. The sports were regulated by an officer of
inferior rank, termed the Provost of the Games; for the high rank of the
marshals of the lists would have been held degraded, had they
condescended to superintend the sports of the yeomanry. [Footnote:
Yeomanry: the yeomen in England were the freeholders, the class next in
order to the gentry.]

One by one the archers, stepping forward, delivered their shafts
yeomanlike and bravely. Of twenty-four arrows, shot in succession, ten
were fixed in the target, and the others ranged so near it, that,
considering the distance of the mark, it was accounted good archery. Of
the ten shafts which hit the target, two within the inner ring were shot
by Hubert, a forester in the service of Malvoisin, who was accordingly
pronounced victorious.

"Now, Locksley," [Footnote: Locksley: a name for Robin Hood who was
supposed to have been born in Locksley, Nottinghamshire, about 1160.]
said Prince John [Footnote: Prince John was the brother of King Richard,
and ruled in England during the time that Richard was absent on the
Crusades.] to the bold yeoman with a bitter smile, "wilt thou try
conclusions with Hubert, or wilt thou yield up bow, baldric, [Footnote:
Baldric: a broad belt worn over one shoulder and under the opposite arm.
Drew a long bow at Hastings. The archers of that time used what were
called "long bows." The battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, when
William of Normandy defeated the English.] and quiver, to the Provost of
the sports?"

"Sith it be no better," said Locksley, "I am content to try my fortune;
on condition that when I have shot two shafts at yonder mark of Hubert's
he shall be bound to shoot at that which I shall propose."

"That is but fair," answered Prince John, "and it shall not be refused
thee. If thou dost beat this braggart, Hubert, I will fill the bugle
with silver-pennies for thee."

"A man can do but his best," answered Hubert; "but my grandsire drew a
good long bow at Hastings, and I trust not to dishonor his memory."

The former target was now removed, and a fresh one of the same size
placed in its room. Hubert, who, as victor in the first trial of skill,
had the right to shoot first, took his aim with great deliberation, long
measuring the distance with his eye, while he held in his hand his
bended bow, with the arrow placed on the string. At length he made a
step forward, and raising the bow at the full stretch of his left arm,
till the centre or grasping-place was nigh level with his face, he drew
his bowstring to his ear. The arrow whistled through the air, and
lighted within the inner ring of the target, but not exactly in the
centre.

"You have not allowed for the wind, Hubert," said his antagonist,
bending his bow, "or that had been a better shot."

So saying, and without showing the least anxiety to pause upon his aim,
Locksley stept to the appointed station, and shot his arrow as
carelessly in appearance as if he had not even looked at the mark. He
was speaking almost at the instant that the shaft left the bowstring,
yet it alighted in the target two inches nearer to the white spot which
marked the centre than that of Hubert.

"By the light of heaven!" said Prince John to Hubert, "an' thou suffer
that runagate knave to overcome thee, thou art worthy of the gallows!"

Hubert had but one set speech for all occasions.

"An' your highness were to hang me," he said, "a man can do but his
best. Nevertheless, my grandsire drew a good bow"--

"The foul fiend on thy grandsire and all his generation!" interrupted
John, "shoot, knave, and shoot thy best, or it shall be the worse for
thee!"

Thus exhorted, Hubert resumed his place, and not neglecting, he made the
necessary allowance for a very light air of wind, which had just arisen,
and shot so successfully that his arrow alighted in the very centre of
the target.

"A Hubert!" shouted the populace, more interested in a known person than
in a stranger. "In the clout!--in the clout!--a Hubert for ever!"

"Thou canst not mend that shot, Locksley," said the Prince, with an
insulting smile.

"I will notch his shaft for him, however," replied Locksley.

And letting fly his arrow with a little more precaution than before, it
lighted right upon that of his competitor, which it split to shivers.
The people who stood around were so astonished at his wonderful
dexterity, that they could not even give vent to their surprise in their
usual clamor. "This must be the devil, and no man of flesh and blood,"
whispered the yeomen to each other; "such archery was never seen since a
bow was first bent in Britain."

"And now," said Locksley, "I will crave your Grace's permission to plant
such a mark as is used in the North Country; and welcome every brave
yeoman who shall try a shot at it to win a smile from the bonny lass he
loves best."

He then turned to leave the lists. "Let your guards attend me," he said,
"if you please--I go but to cut a rod from the next willow-bush."

Prince John made a signal that some attendants should follow him in case
of his escape: but the cry of "Shame! shame!" which burst from the
multitude, induced him to alter his ungenerous purpose.

Locksley returned almost instantly with a willow wand about six feet in
length, perfectly straight, and rather thicker than a man's thumb. He
began to peel this with great composure, observing at the same time,
that to ask a good woodsman to shoot at a target so broad as had
hitherto been used, was to put shame upon his skill. "For his own part,"
he said, "and in the land where he was bred, men would as soon take for
their mark King Arthur's round-table, [Footnote: King Arthur's round
table. This was the famous table, made by the magician Merlin, which was
given to King Arthur as a wedding gift by the father of Guinevere. It
could seat 150 knights.] which held sixty knights around it. A child of
seven years old," he said, "might hit yonder target with a headless
shaft; but," added he, walking deliberately to the other end of the
lists, and sticking the willow wand upright in the ground, "he that hits
that rod at five-score yards, I call him an archer fit to bear both bow
and quiver before a king, an it were the stout King Richard himself."

"My grandsire," said Hubert, "drew a good bow at the battle of Hastings,
and never shot at such a mark in his life,--and neither will I. If this
yeoman can cleave that rod, I give him the bucklers--or rather I yield
to the devil that is in his jerkin, and not to any human skill; a man
can but do his best, and I will not shoot where I am sure to miss. I
might as well shoot at the edge of our parson's whittle, or at a wheat
straw, or at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak which I can
hardly see."

"Cowardly dog!" said Prince John.--"Sirrah Locksley, do thou shoot, but,
if thou hittest such a mark, I will say thou art the first man ever did
so. Howe'er it be, thou shalt not crow over us with a mere show of
superior skill."

"I will do my best, as Hubert says," answered Locksley, "No man can do
more."

So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the present occasion looked
with attention to his weapon, and changed the string, which he thought
was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two former
shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multitude
awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer vindicated their
opinion of his skill: his arrow split the willow rod against which it
was aimed. A jubilee of acclamations followed; and even Prince John, in
admiration of Locksley's skill, lost for an instant his dislike to his
person. "These twenty nobles," [Footnote: Twenty nobles. A noble was an
old coin worth about one dollar and sixty cents.] he said, "which, with
the bugle, thou hast fairly won, are thine own; we will make them fifty,
if thou wilt take livery and service with us as a yeoman of our
bodyguard, and be near to our person. For never did so strong a hand
bend a bow, or so true an eye direct a shaft."

"Pardon me, noble Prince," said Locksley; "but I have vowed, that if
ever I take service, it should be with your royal brother King Richard.
[Footnote: King Richard: Richard Coeur de Lion. He was born about 1157
and became king of England in 1189. He reigned until his death in 1199.
whittle: a pocket or sheath knife.] These twenty nobles I leave to
Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave a bow as his grandsire did at
Hastings. Had his modesty not refused the trial, he would have hit the
wand as well as I."

Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the
stranger, and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed
with the crowd, and was seen no more.

--WALTER SCOTT.

[Footnote: State some qualities of Locksley and Prince John that are
brought out in the narrative. What is the effect of Hubert's repetition
of the words "my grandsire drew a long bow," etc.? Can you get any hint
of the social conditions at the time of the story? Is there anything in
the narrative to suggest the identity of Locksley? Did Robin Hood ever
take service with King Richard? Why did Locksley refuse the money?]




BABY SYLVESTER


(The writer has taken up temporary quarters in the cabin of his friend
Sylvester, a California miner).

I do not remember how long I slept. I must have been conscious, however,
during my slumber, of my inability to keep myself covered by the serape,
[Footnote: Serape: a blanket or shawl commonly worn by the Mexicans.]
for I awoke once or twice clutching it with a despairing hand as it was
disappearing over the foot of the couch. Then I became suddenly aroused
to the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted by some equally
persistent force, and letting it go, I was horrified at seeing it
swiftly drawn under the couch. At this point I sat up, completely awake;
for immediately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began to
emerge from under the couch. Presently it appeared fully, dragging the
serape after it. There was no mistaking it now--it was a baby bear. A
mere suckling, it was true--a helpless roll of fat and fur--but
unmistakably, a grizzly cub!

I cannot recall anything more irresistibly ludicrous than its aspect as
it slowly raised its small wondering eyes to mine. It was so much taller
in its haunches than its shoulders--its fore legs were so
disproportionately small--that in walking, its hind feet invariably
took precedence. It was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed,
inoffensive nose, and recovering itself always, after these involuntary
somersaults, with the gravest astonishment. To add to its preposterous
appearance, one of its hind feet was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester's,
[Footnote: Sylvester: the author's friend in whose cabin he was staying
at the time of the story.] into which it had accidentally and
inextricably [Footnote: Inextricably: in a hopelessly involved manner.]
stepped. As this somewhat impeded its first impulse to fly, it turned to
me; and then, possibly recognizing in the stranger, the same species as
its master, it paused. Presently, it slowly raised itself on its hind
legs, and vaguely and deprecatingly [Footnote: Deprecatingly:
regretfully, entreatingly.] waved a baby paw, fringed with little hooks
of steel. I took the paw, and shook it gravely. From that moment we were
friends. The little affair of the serape was forgotten.

Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement our friendship by an act of
delicate courtesy. Following the direction of his eyes, I had no
difficulty in finding, on a shelf near the ridge-pole, the sugar box and
the square lumps of white sugar that even the poorest miner is never
without. While he was eating them I had time to examine him more
closely. His body was a silky, dark, but exquisitely modulated gray,
deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. His fur was excessively long,
thick, and soft as eider-down, the cushions of flesh beneath perfectly
infantine in their texture and contour. He was so very young that the
palms of his half-human feet were still tender as a baby's. Except for
the bright blue, steely hooks, half sheathed in his little toes, there
was not a single harsh outline or detail in his plump figure. He was as
free from angles as one of Leda's [Footnote: Leda: the maiden who was
wooed by Jupiter in the form of a swan.] offspring. Your caressing hand
sank away in his fur with dreamy languor. To look at him long was an
intoxication of the senses; to pat him was a wild delirium; to embrace
him, an utter demoralization of the intellectual faculties.

When he had finished the sugar he rolled out of the door with a
half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eye, as if he expected me to
follow. I did so, but the sniffing and snorting of the keen-scented
Pomposo [Footnote: Pomposo: the writer's horse.] in the hollow, not only
revealed the cause of his former terror, but decided me to take another
direction. After a moment's hesitation he concluded to go with me,
although I am satisfied, from a certain impish look in his eye, that he
fully understood and rather enjoyed the fright of Pomposo. As he rolled
along at my side, with a gait not unlike a drunken sailor, I discovered
that his long hair concealed a leather collar around his neck, which
bore for its legend the single word, "Baby!" I recalled the mysterious
suggestion of the two miners. This, then was the "baby" with whom I was
to "play."

How we "played"; how Baby allowed me to roll him downhill, crawling and
puffing up again each time, with perfect good humor; how he climbed a
young sapling after my Panama hat, which I had "shied" into one of the
topmost branches; how after getting it he refused to descend until it
suited his pleasure; how when he did come down he persisted in walking
about on three legs, carrying my hat, a crushed and shapeless mass,
clasped to his breast with the remaining one; how I missed him at last,
and finally discovered him seated on a table in one of the tenantless
cabins, with a bottle of syrup between his paws, vainly endeavoring to
extract its contents--these and other details of that eventful day I
shall not weary the reader with now. Enough, that when Dick Sylvester
returned, I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, an
immense bolster at the foot of the couch, asleep.

--BRET HARTE (adapted).

[Footnote: Why had the miners chosen the name "Baby Sylvester" for the
bear cub? Read the story and explain the author's surprise at the
appearance of the "Baby." Does the author describe the bear
sympathetically and lovingly or as a naturalist? Illustrate. What
qualities had the cub that endeared it to the author? Which of the
senses predominates in the description? Illustrate. Would you consider
"Baby Sylvester" capable of training? Why? Read the entire story and
tell what becomes of the "Baby."]




ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG


Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a
great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of
that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final
resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But,
in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot
hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here,
have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The
world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can
never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished
work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
us;--that from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion;--that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth.

--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

[Footnote: Does the style and sentiment expressed remind you of an older
literature? Illustrate. Do Lincoln's statements about war apply to the
present great European conflict? Illustrate. Point out the effectiveness
of repetition. Note the places where the prose becomes almost poetical.
Is the appeal in the speeches to reason or to feeling? Do you feel the
personality of Lincoln in these speeches? The Gettysburg speech is
commonly considered one of the greatest speeches ever made. Can you
mention any other famous speeches that are regarded as fine literature?]




SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS


Fellow Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the
presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than
there was at the first. Then, a statement, somewhat in detail, of a
course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration
of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly
called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still
absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little
that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all
else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and
it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With
high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were
anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought
to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this
place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent
agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to
dissolve the Union, 

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