life saved by Pocahontas--that's the Indian girl. But I don't know
what else he did."
"Oh, he was the leader of the first colony to be settled by the English
in this country. What colony was it, Alfred? You can tell, surely."
"Of course, Jamestown, in Virginia. That was why the Indians got mad
at him, because the white men were taking their lands away."
A burst of specially enthusiastic cheering arose from the street. The
reason for it was the approach of a kindly-faced gentleman in dark
gray coat and knee-breeches, with silver shoe-buckles and
broad-brimmed Quaker hat. It was William Penn, of course, looking for
all the world like the statue on the high City Hall tower. There was
no need for Aunt Eleanor to give any information about him, for these
were Philadelphia children, who knew and loved the founder of the
"green country town" that had grown to be so large a city. Nor was
there any need to explain about the next figure to arrive, a stately
general on horseback, in white wig, cocked hat, and Revolutionary
uniform of blue and buff. Behind him, in an old-fashioned carriage,
rode Betsy Ross, holding the newly adopted Stars and Stripes, at which
the men in the crowd doffed their hats.
But the next figure puzzled our little group of children. It was a
very short man, stockily built, yet full of dignity. He, too, wore a
cocked hat, and a plain uniform. He walked with head bent forward and
hands clasped behind him, and his piercing black eyes looked at the
ground. The children could not guess who he was, so Aunt Eleanor had
to tell them.
"That is the great French conquerer Napoleon Bonaparte. He began life as
an ordinary citizen, and won his way to the very top by his wonderful
military genius. He won so many battles in command of the French armies,
after the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, that
the people chose him to be consul, a position something like that of the
president of a republic. Then he loved power so that he got control of
the government and had himself made emperor, so that France wasn't a
republic any more. After that he set out to conquer all of Europe, and
he nearly succeeded. But one winter he went to Russia, and the cold and
snow almost entirely destroyed his army; and he never could succeed in
beating England. It was the great English general, the Duke of
Wellington, who finally crushed Napoleon at the battle of
Waterloo--you've heard of that? Well, after that the fallen Emperor was
sent away to a little island, St. Helena, that belonged to England, and
there he was kept a prisoner till the end of his life."
"He was something like the German Kaiser in the World's War, wasn't
he?" said Alfred. "He wanted to conquer all Europe--and the United
States, too."
"Yes, you'll learn that every once in so often history repeats itself.
But we'll hope that the Kaiser's effort to conquer the world will be
the last of such things, and that such a war may never be repeated."
"Oh, who is that rough looking man in the red flannel shirt?" cried
Betty.
"That very red shirt tells me who he is," said her aunt. "Have you
been wondering when we were going to have one of the heroes of Italy?
Well, this is an Italian patriot named Garibaldi. About sixty years
ago, when Italy was struggling to get free from Austria, and to be an
independent nation, Garibaldi gathered together as many brave soldiers
as he could, in the southern part of the country, and they marched to
the help of their countrymen in a time of very great need. As a part
of their uniform they wore red shirts. But one of the most interesting
things about Garibaldi is that when his country wanted to give him a
high position, he said he would rather go back to the farm he had
bought for himself, and live his life out as a plain, ordinary man."
Little Dick had been keeping very still and listening, for all the
people in the parade had been those that he never had heard of before.
But suddenly he jumped to his feet in excitement. He, like every other
child in the crowd, knew who was that tall, awkward, homely person in
the long black frock coat and the high silk hat. There could be no
mistaking that kind, sad face, with the patient, farseeing eyes.
Behind the great president rode two soldierly figures--General Grant
in his blue uniform, and General Lee in the gray, on his beloved white
horse, Traveller. Nor could there be any mistaking of the energetic
figure in hunting dress that followed him, whose face wore a smile
that could not be spoiled by the heavy eyeglasses that were so
familiar a part of a well-known countenance.
"Teddy," cheered the crowd, with the enthusiasm that always is stirred
by true, generous manliness.
The afternoon was growing late. One group remained, with which the
procession was to close. On horseback rode a tall, soldierly figure,
dressed in khaki, with an officer's hat bearing royal insignia, and with
his breast covered with medals. A pair of keen blue eyes smiled out of a
clear-cut, earnest face. Behind him, in an automobile, rode a thin, worn
old man in the scarlet robe and close scarlet cap of a cardinal.
"I need not tell you who they are," said Aunt Eleanor. "They stand to
us for the little country that in 1914 saved the world by sacrificing
herself. King Albert of Belgium led his own armies into battle; his
queen, Elizabeth, nursed the wounded in the hospitals; and Cardinal
Mercier stayed with his people to cheer and comfort them."
"I think they are the greatest heroes of all," said Betty softly.
"Any man is a hero, dear," said her aunt, "who spends his life for the
help and safety of his people, not thinking what it costs himself."
--_Mabel Dodge Holmes._
QUESTIONS
1. Make a list of the heroes whom you can remember in the
procession.
2. Was there any one of them whom you did not know about before?
3. Which one would you like to read more about?
4. Do you know any facts about any of these heroes that are not
told in this story? If so, write a title for the story you can
tell, and be ready to tell it to your classmates.
5. Do you know the name of any hero whom you would have added to
those in the procession?
6. Some of the figures are not mentioned by name. Give the names
of any of these you remember.
THE SKELETON IN ARMOR
In the poem that follows, the poet tells us of a strange and fearful
visitor that once came to him--the spirit of some ancient viking of
the Northland all dressed in armor and carrying sword and shield.
In order to understand the poem, you must remember that the vikings
were bold sea-rovers and fierce warriors who set out in their long
swift boats in search after plunder and adventure. Some of them are
even said to have come over to America long before Columbus ever
dreamed of the new world. The poem was suggested to Mr. Longfellow
by the finding of a skeleton clad in broken and rusted armor and
buried in the sands of the New England shore, and by a very ancient
tower that must have been built on the coast by the Northmen many
years before 1492. These two facts are true, but of course the story
that the poet made of them is merely a good story.
The poet's strange guest is one of these sea-robbers, who tells how
as a youth he had won the love of a blue-eyed princess of the far
North, only to find that her father forbade their marriage. In the
first stanza the poet asks a question; the rest of the poem tells
what the spirit of the viking said.
But you will want to read the story as the poet has told it.
"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with they hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me?"
"Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
Gleam in December;
And, like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
From the heart's chamber.
"I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse;
For this I sought thee.
"Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,
Tamed the gerfalcon;
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.
"Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare
Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf's bark,
Until the soaring lark
Sang from the meadow.
"But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair's crew,
O'er the dark sea I flew
With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
By our stern orders.
"Once as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
Burning yet tender;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine
Fell their soft splendor.
"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest's shade
Our vows were plighted.
Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest
By the hawk frighted.
"Bright in her father's hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall,
Loud sang the minstrels all,
Chanting his glory;
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter's hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
To hear my story.
"While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed
And as the wing-gusts waft
The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.
"She was a Prince's child,
I but a Viking wild,
And though she blushed and smiled,
I was discarded!
Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea-mew's flight,
Why did they leave that night
Her nest unguarded?
"Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me,
Fairest of all was she
Among the Norsemen!
When on the white sea-strand,
Waving his armed hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,
With twenty horsemen.
[Illustration: "I WOOED THE BLUE-EYED MAID"]
"Then launched they to the blast,
Bent like a reed each mast,
Yet we were gaining fast,
When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw
Laugh as he hailed us.
"And as to catch the gale
Round veered the flapping sail,
Death! was the helmsman's hail,
Death without quarter!
Mid-ships with iron keel
Struck we her ribs of steel;
Down her black hulk did reel
Through the black water!
"As with his wings aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,
With his prey laden,
So toward the open main,
Beating the sea again,
Through the wild hurricane,
Bore I the maiden.
"Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o'er,
Cloud-like we saw the shore
Stretching to leeward;
There for my lady's bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which, to this very hour,
Stands looking seaward.
"There lived we many years;
Time dried the maiden's tears;
She had forgot her fears,
She was a mother;
Death closed her mild blue eyes,
Under that tower she lies;
Ne'er shall the sun arise
On such another!
"Still grew my bosom then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,
O, death was grateful!
"Thus, seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior's soul,
Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!"
Thus the tale ended.
--_Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin Company._
ACTING FOR THE MOVIES
Here is another set of "movie" scenes. If you forget how we played
the first set, look on page 38 and see just what to do.
1. The blind man came slowly down the road, tapping restlessly with his
stick to guide him, and stopping every now and again to listen for some
fellow traveler who might lead him to the town beyond the hill.
2. When they reached the open country, Aladdin had to gather sticks and
to build a great fire for the magician, his uncle.
3. Aladdin's uncle stirred the fire until it blazed brightly. Then he
threw in some magical powder and as a thick cloud of smoke arose, he
made mystical signs over the fire, and muttered some strange words that
Aladdin could not understand.
4. The Indian squatted down with legs crossed under him and waited for
the morning sun to enable him to take up the trail again. Whenever the
fire died away, he arose silently and replenished the fuel, but except
for these breaks, one might have thought him a beautifully carved image.
5. None of the villagers knew Rip when he came back. He was old and
stiff and bent with age. He carried on his shoulder his cherished
musket, now useless and covered with rust. As the people crowded round
him he scanned each face in turn, hoping to recognize some former
familiar acquaintance.
6. Sir Roger drew his sword, and taking advantage of a corner in the
garden wall, which might make a cowardly attack in the rear impossible,
he waited for the band to approach. He knew that he was caught like a
fox in this narrow garden, and he looked eagerly to count how many were
against him.
7. Hardly had the Sheriff ridden off with his men, before Robin Hood
came down the road, still dressed in the long gown that old Mother
Hobbes had given him, and walking with the help of a cane, like an old
woman, bent with years.
8. The savage raised his spear, and was about to cast it, but some
slight sound caused him to hesitate an instant with the long shaft
balancing lightly in his grasp.
9. An aged palmer came down the road. He was evidently returning from a
long pilgrimage, for his cloak was old and tattered, his shoes were
dusty and patched, and every few steps he stopped to rest on his long
staff.
10. The tinker, very tired from his run, sat down on a large stone by
the roadside. After looking cautiously about, he took the king's letter
from his pocket and read it. Then folding it carefully again, and
returning it to his pocket, he rose and started down the road singing
cheerily.
11. He had tramped for three hours and had not discovered a single
familiar sign. There was no sign in the cloudy sky to serve him as
finger post. He climbed a tall tree that seemed to promise a view of the
surrounding landscape, but everything was strange. He had read somewhere
that the trees are mossy and green on the north side, but when he
looked, even the trees seemed to be as uncertain as he. In despair he
sat down on a fallen log and waited.
12. White Eagle looked far out over the plain. Beyond the now dry river
basin and the green strip of brush and scrubby trees that bordered it,
he could trace the slow, crawling wagon-train trailing out and winding
like a lazy serpent through the dust. When he had counted for a second
time to be sure, he drew back from the edge of the bluff, built two tiny
fires, and watched the thin columns of smoke as they curled straight up
in the air.
THE SAFEST PLACE
Here is a story of real human interest. We are all foreigners here
in America except the American Indians. The ancestors of some of us
came before those of others; and it is the duty of those of us whose
ancestors have been here the longest to help the strange-looking,
strange-speaking people who come to us from Europe to feel at home
in our country.
The government has tried hard to protect the immigrants from
dishonest people who have tried to cheat them out of their earnings.
One of the good things that came out of the World's War was a
knowledge on the part of almost all of our people of the safe
investments that the government offers in bonds and thrift stamps.
"At last the way is clear!"
Stefan spoke with much emotion as he counted the roll of notes, clean
and soiled, that lay before him on the table in his little room in the
over-crowded boarding house.
As he fingered the bills, he saw before him each detail of the past two
years--New York harbor with Liberty flinging up her welcome torch; the
thrill of arrival in the city of his dreams; the days that followed,
days of discouragement, home-sickness, and poverty, among strangers
speaking strange tongues, with a medley of unfamiliar manners and
customs. He saw with vivid clearness the first dollar he had earned, and
he forgot the slow, painful processes of saving--the self-denial and the
sacrifice--in the picture of what those sacrifices were to bring.
"She will come," he murmured. "On the same boat perhaps. When she gets
the ticket, she will leave that war-threatened land and she will come
to me." He smiled. Then as his face suddenly clouded he started
forward on the rickety chair with a violence that threatened its
frailness. "If anything should happen! If I should lose the money!"
Greatly disturbed he gathered up the precious bills as though to
shield them from possible loss. He rose to place them in the old
hiding place in his trunk, but that no longer satisfied him. He
wavered, then said:
"No, that won't do. I must see Ian about this. He knows. He is wise. I
will see Ian this very minute."
Wrapping the money in a piece of old newspaper and carefully placing
it in an inner pocket, he set out. He went straight to the dingy
office in a side alley of the foreign section of the town, where
through the dusty window could be seen the grizzled head of Ian
Skeemersky, the real estate agent and private banker, whose sign,
written by his own hand, hung over the entrance.
After greetings had been exchanged, he anxiously put the case before
his shrewd friend, whose eyes sparkled with eagerness as he replied
smoothly.
"Nothing so easy and so safe in the world, my dear fellow. Put your
money in my bank. You will get good interest and can withdraw it
whenever you want it."
Stefan hesitated for a second. So much was at stake! His slow mind
must have time to weigh the proposal. As he noted the earnestness and
assurance of Skeemersky's face, belief in this shrewd friend decided.
He drew out the pack and laid it on the desk before Skeemersky, whose
long fingers closed over it at once.
"You have done well, Stefan Broda, your money is as safe with me as if
it was in Mt. Vavel," he declared.
Stefan felt that he had done well. The phrase "as safe as Mt. Vavel"
lingered in his mind. It helped him be patient in the long weeks in
the factory where he worked during the winter; it consoled him during
the dull days while he waited for the open springtime when he planned
to send for Agatha. When he heard of others losing their small savings
in various ways he congratulated himself on the security of his own,
"as safe as Vavel," he would repeat.
One sunny morning in March, just as he decided to stop on his way from
work to withdraw the three hundred dollars for Agatha's expenses,
there came to him a neighbor, in great excitement. Peter's face was
red, his eyes startling and his voice hoarse.
"That--that robber, that scoundrel!" he stuttered. "That Skeemersky.
He has gone, gone, do you hear? He has taken it all, all the money in
his cursed bank."
Stefan could not believe his ears. Skeemersky gone, and the money,
too! "As safe as Vavel!" he had said. He stared for a moment and then
broke out, weeping for the first time since his mother's death,
cursing the smooth trickster with hearty Polish curses.
"May the thunder-bolt strike him!" he cried. "I will lay hands on him.
I will choke that money out of his black soul. Come, we will go!"
They rushed out, boiling with rage, only to find a crowd of other
dupes before the shabby little office in the side-alley. The tightly
closed door and the blank windows told the story more clearly than any
words. Skeemersky had gone--the bank was no more!
Despair took strong hold of Stefan. For two days he roamed the
streets, not eating nor drinking, sleepless. He saw no further, no
hope--all was blackness and desolation. When he came back to the
boarding house on the third day he found a letter from Agatha. He read
it with tears and intolerable anguish and he passionately kissed the
final sentence: "Every bit of me is yours and I shall never change."
This tender faith was balm to his anguish.
He put the letter in a pocket nearest his heart, while a new look came
to his tired face. Almost unconsciously he began to build a new future
on the ruins of the old.
He swiftly mapped out his course. The season for farmwork was at hand.
He would go back to the open skies and broad fields of God's world. He
packed a few belongings in the rusty brown-paper suitcase and boarded
the trolley for the long ride. He knew what he should do if he could
rent a suitable piece of land.
He had spent the previous summer on a farm in the onion-growing
section of the Connecticut Valley; he knew what large profits might be
gotten with hard labor from a comparatively small plot of ground. He
figured that three or four acres would give him the needed amount in
the fall, if he had health and good weather.
He found the man whom he sought, secured the land, and went to work.
All that season he slaved early and late, weeding on his knees in the
damp earth the interminable rows of tiny, delicate plants where the
weeds sprang like magic. He heeded neither scorching sun, nor soaking
rain. He cared nothing for the monotony of the toil. Always he saw
before him the steamer that should bring Agatha, from the hazards of
war, to him and security.
By September he had once again the dream within his grasp. He was back
in the old room in the crowded boarding house, and in his bluish tin
trunk at the foot of the bed were hidden five hundred and fifteen
dollars in crisp, clean notes. His earliest belief in his trunk had come
back a hundredfold. He would not trust any bank, private or national,
with the fruit of his heart-breaking toil. Banking systems and
government investments were all beyond his grasp. Skeemersky had taught
him to distrust others--the little thin trunk would not run away.
This conviction of safety obsessed him. He preached it to others, to
his fellow-boarders, especially to the friendly young man in the room
across the hall. "See," he would say, waving a hand toward the great
untrustworthy world of finance beyond his little window. "They run
away--those bankers. I have a better place."
He did not tell the friendly young man where or how much he had hidden.
He merely smiled mysteriously. His faith in his trunk was absolute. Day
after day, when returning from work in the factory, he took out his roll
of notes and rejoiced that he had found the solution; he counted the
days when he should send for his love. It was hard for him to wait for
the lagging spring, but a winter journey in war-time from Russian Poland
to New England was not to be thought of for his Agatha.
Blind faith often leads to the pit. Stefan, upon a night in late
winter, found his theory shattered. The friendly young man had gone,
and the crisp, clean notes had disappeared with him!
In this second crash of his hopes he was numbed. He neither wept nor
cursed. He silently shrank into himself. He grew abstracted. He stared
at the world with unseeing eyes. In the turmoil of his distracted mind
there was but one growing determination not to be beaten by fate.
It was not, however, until the news of the German campaign in Warsaw,
that his resolve took definite shape. Borrowing two hundred dollars,
he sent the money to Agatha in Poland, and regardless of winter or
war, urged her to come at once.
When, after long weeks of suspense, he stood by the gate at Ellis Island
waiting for the sight of her dear, familiar face among the surging crowd
of tagged and numbered immigrants beyond the iron barrier, a great wave
of joyous hope flooded his heart. All his disasters were forgotten when
he caught the glint of her pale hair under the embroidered kerchief.
Banks and trunks went to oblivion as he took her small roughened hands
in his own. Destiny had no terrors for him.
On the train he poured out his heart to her. He told her of his great
efforts and his greater misfortunes. He made her see his challenge to
destiny. He pictured his emotions in the last weeks. And he wound up
with an eager entreaty for immediate marriage.
"Let us no longer delay," he urged. "Let us find the good priest." But
Agatha was not to be hurried. Her blue eyes showed her own sorrow for
the words her lips spoke. "Our love, my Stefan, will not change. But
your money is gone. We cannot live without money. I shall work, and
you shall work. Then we will marry."