GETTING THE AUTHOR’S MOOD
HINTS TO THE STUDENT
Before the pupil is ready for this second step, _Sympathetic Reading_, he
must have mastered part one, _Intelligible Reading_. The first step was
concerned primarily with the development of the intellect, but the second
step appeals primarily to the emotions, one’s sympathetic response to
_mood_.
The outlines for the study of a selection, given later, will be found
very helpful as a basis and guide for study and analysis.
MEMORABILIA
BY ROBERT BROWNING
Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you,
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at—
My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world, no doubt,
Yet a hand’s-breadth of it shines alone
’Mid the blank miles round about:
For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest.
THE JOY OF THE HUMAN VOICE
How much squandering there is of the voice! How little there is
of the advantage that may come from conversational tones! How
seldom does a man dare to acquit himself with pathos and fervor!
And the men are themselves mechanical and methodical in the bad
way who are most afraid of the artificial training that is given
in the schools, and who so often show by the fruit of their labor
that the want of oratory is the want of education.
How remarkable is the sweetness of voice in the mother, in the
father, in the household! The music of no chorded instruments
brought together is, for sweetness, like the music of familiar
affection when spoken by brother and sister, or by father and
mother.
—HENRY WARD BEECHER, from “Lectures on Oratory.”
The one great object in reading is to get at the mind of the author. What
did he mean? What did he intend me to feel as I read? What is his real
message? How can I best reach the mind and heart of the author, the poet,
the dramatist, through his written words?
This is the real mission of literature, and he is a poor teacher who
fails to impress the heart of his students with its importance. Too
often teachers spend the valuable time of their students with matters
of entirely subsidiary importance, such as the style of the author,
questions as to when, where and how he wrote, his figures of speech,
his methods of composition, and the like. All these are of importance
to those who are learning to write, and are of interest to others, but
the prime reason for all literature is that the author has something of
greater or lesser importance to say, which he wishes to reach the mind
and heart of his reader.
Take, for instance, Browning’s exquisite short poem above. What good
does it do the student to engage his attention with Browning’s style, his
verse forms, etc.? To him the matter of prime importance is that he shall
know what Browning _meant_.
_This is the vital question in all reading._
That literature which is a mere collection of fine words, beautifully
arranged in perfect sentences, is “as sounding brass and a clanging
cymbal.” To have any real significance it must be surcharged with high,
lofty, pure, stirring human emotion; and to feel the same emotion that
the writer felt as he penned poem, essay, novel, story or drama is the
aim of every intelligent and thoughtful reader. One of the best possible
ways of accomplishing this is by reading aloud—even when one is alone.
One writer boldly affirms that we can never know the vital, spiritual
message of a writer until we have put his words upon our tongue and sent
them winging away in speech, freighted with the meaning that has reached
our minds.
In reading carefully this poem of Browning, observe if the very nature of
the theme does not demand the various modulations of the human voice to
give it adequate interpretation. Repeat the first two lines, thinking of
their purpose, and then see if you do not feel somewhat of an emotional
thrill which must be akin to that which was felt by Browning when he
thought of his great teacher, that marvelous poet, Shelley.
Is it possible really to get the heart throb of this poem unless we sing
it out through the voice? The major portion of time spent in literary
study should be through oral interpretation. Let a pupil read to you,
and instantly you can detect whether or not he understands what he is
reading. Corson said he believed the time is coming when examinations in
literature will be wholly oral. He goes on to say:
Reading must supply all the deficiencies of written or printed
language. It must give life to the letter. How comparatively
little is addressed to the eye, in print or manuscript, of
what has to be addressed to the ear by the reader! There are
no indications of tone, quality of voice, inflection, pitch,
time, or any other of the vocal functions demanded for a full
intellectual and spiritual interpretation. A poem is not truly
a poem until it is voiced by an accomplished reader, who has
adequately assimilated it—in whom it has, to some extent, been
born again, according to his individual spiritual constitution
and experiences. The potentialities, so to speak, of the printed
poem, must be vocally realized. What Shelley, in his lines “To
a Lady, With a Guitar,” says of what the revealings of the
instrument depend upon, may be said with equal truth of the
revealings of every true poem; it
“Will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before,”
by those who endeavor to get at its secrets.
—HIRAM CORSON, “The Voice and Spiritual Education,” p. 29.
In this same connection let us add what Goethe has said:
Persuasion, friends, comes not by wit nor art,
Hard study never made the matter clearer.
’Tis the live fountain in the speaker’s heart
Sends forth the streams that melt the ravished hearer;
Then work away for life, heap book upon book,
Line upon line, precept upon example;
The multitude may gape and look
And fools may think your wisdom ample—
But would you touch the heart, the only method known,
My friend, is first to have one of your own.
MOOD-ANALYSIS
The following is an illustration of what might be called the
“mood-analysis” of a selection. For the sake of convenience the sentences
in the excerpt are numbered. The important thing for the student to bear
in mind is to see that the author’s purpose is completely grasped, and
then render it in the proper mood.
_First_: Read the selection paragraph by paragraph. Then arrange the
several points in their respective order. Now give them orally as simply
and progressively as possible.
_Second_: Read the selection again by paragraphs and this time determine
what are the important and unimportant words. Then give these important
words a greater force of utterance.
_Third_: Do not fear to make many groups. It is imperative to grasp the
author’s ideas and pictures in separate detail. When each of these has
been well thought over, we are then ready to put these separate parts
into one complete and harmonious whole.
_Fourth_: Determine the mood which dominates each separate picture or
detail, then see how these fit into each other, like the parts of a
picture puzzle, perfecting the thought as a whole and making it a living,
harmonious, mental or spiritual conception.
THE MAN WHO WEARS THE BUTTON
BY JOHN MELLEN THURSTON[6]
1. Sometimes in passing along the street I meet a man who, in the left
lapel of his coat, wears a little, plain, modest, unassuming bronze
button. 2. The coat is often old and rusty; the face above it seamed and
furrowed by the toil and suffering of adverse years; perhaps beside it
hangs an empty sleeve, and below it stumps a wooden peg. 3. But when I
meet the man who wears that button I doff my hat and stand uncovered in
his presence—yea! to me the very dust his weary foot has pressed is holy
ground, for I know that man, in the dark hour of the nation’s peril,
bared his breast to the hell of battle to keep the flag of our country in
the Union sky.
4. Maybe at Donaldson he reached the inner trench; at Shiloh held the
broken line; at Chattanooga climbed the flame-swept hill, or stormed the
clouds on Lookout Heights. 5. He was not born or bred to soldier life. 6.
His country’s summons called him from the plow, the forge, the bench,
the loom, the mine, the store, the office, the college, the sanctuary.
7. He did not fight for greed of gold, to find adventure, or to win
renown. 8. He loved the peace of quiet ways, and yet he broke the clasp
of clinging arms, turned from the witching glance of tender eyes, left
good-by kisses upon tiny lips to look death in the face on desperate
fields.
9. And when the war was over he quietly took up the broken threads of
love and life as best he could, a better citizen for having been so good
a soldier.
10. What mighty men have worn this same bronze button! Grant, Sherman,
Sheridan, Logan, and an hundred more, whose names are written on the
title-page of deathless fame. 11. Their glorious victories are known of
men; the history of their country gives them voice; the white light of
publicity illuminates them for every one. 12. But there are thousands
who, in humbler way, no less deserve applause. 13. How many knightliest
acts of chivalry were never seen beyond the line or heard of above the
roar of battle.
14. God bless the men who wear the button! 15. They pinned the stars of
Union in the azure of our flag with bayonets, and made atonement for a
nation’s sin in blood. 16. They took the negro from the auction-block and
at the altar of emancipation crowned him—citizen. 17. They supplemented
“Yankee Doodle” with “Glory Hallelujah,” and Yorktown with Appomattox.
18. Their powder woke the morn of universal freedom and made the
name “American” first in all the earth. 19. To us their memory is an
inspiration, and to the future it is hope.—From an address at a banquet
of the Michigan Club of Detroit, February 21, 1890.
(_To find the designated mood of any sentence in the above selection
refer to its corresponding number below._)
1. Pleasant meditation.
2. Pity and compassion.
3. Veneration and pride.
4. Heroism and triumph.
5 and 6. Loyal self-denial.
7 and 8. Heroic self-sacrifice.
9. Admiration and enterprise.
10. Compassion.
11. Praise and honor.
12 and 13. Contrast.
14. Supplication.
15. Heroic patriotism.
16. Justice.
17. Unity.
18. Sublimity.
19. Gratitude.
Now take Joaquin Miller’s magnificent and stirring poem “Columbus” and
analyze it in the same fashion. Here is the analysis made of it by an
intelligent reader on his own initiative, without any knowledge of the
method we would have each student master and follow:
A STUDENT’S ANALYSIS OF “COLUMBUS”
First dwell upon the outlines of the history of Columbus, his early
struggles and mastery of hardships. Recall that it was in his day that
the new idea of the rotundity of the earth was being largely discussed.
Watch the growth of this idea in his thought, until there springs up the
confident assurance that if this idea be true it must be possible to
reach India—or any other land—by sailing around the earth in _either_
direction. Confident of his idea, his scientific mind demands knowledge,
demonstration. He seeks help to find out. Is rebuffed on every hand.
Called crazy, insane, a fool, a lunatic. The idea persists. It grows
into an obsession. _He_ knows, and now his soul demands that he compel
_other people_ to know. The more rebuffs the greater his determination.
Get hold here of the great fundamental thought that moves the universe,
that works all the marvels that man has accomplished, viz., that when
you link up with Truth, you are linked up with God—the Supreme Power of
the Universe—and there cannot be any failure to a man so connected. All
Columbus had to do was to _persist_. He did so, and finally Isabella and
Ferdinand were convinced, the money needed was raised, the ship provided,
and the happy, joyous Columbus sets sail to demonstrate to the world that
which his soul had already convinced him was true.
Now remember the ignorance of the world at large on the subject. Recall
that his sailors were densely ignorant and fearfully superstitious, but
Columbus had never given that a thought.
He sets sail, full of delight, happiness, confidence. Now refer to the
poem. 1. He and his sailors alike knew that the islands of the Azores
and the Gates of Hercules were behind them. 2. Here, however, is a
difference in the knowledge of Columbus and his sailors. He, with the eye
of scientific confidence, could see ahead, though there was nothing in
sight but shoreless seas, not even the ghost of shores. The sailors saw
nothing but the uncharted and unknown seas. Do you not feel their awe
and superstitious fears? Can you not picture their fearful whisperings
together as they sail further and further into the unknown? The mate
is the means of communication between them and the admiral. 3. Observe
the _dread_ of sailors and mate. The stars with which they are familiar
disappear and new and strange ones appear, adding new fuel to their
superstitious fears. 4. The mate asks Columbus how he shall reply to
these fears. His mood is one of fear and growing alarm excited into the
action of questioning. 5. Now ask yourself: What would be Columbus’s
natural reply? Remember he has given years of thought to this subject.
He has no question as to the success of the voyage. Expecting to sail on
uncharted seas, they have no fears for him. He _knows_ what he will find
when he has gone far enough around. The fears and questions of the mate
are absurd, preposterous. There is but one answer: Calmly and confidently
he gives it, “Why, say, Sail on! and on!” Matter of fact, almost
indifferent, totally unconscious of the seething fears bubbling up every
moment afresh in the hearts of his sailors. What kind of intonation in
his voice would such a question call forth?
6. For the time being the questionings of the men are satisfied, and
they _sail and sail_ (don’t hurry in giving this repetition) _as winds
might blow_. The fears and questionings now begin afresh. 7. The fear is
indicated in the word _blanched_, and in the mate’s words. 8. Being away
from familiar scenes, and all other men, his and his sailors’ small minds
fear that even God has lost sight of them. The winds are lost, God is not
here. 9. Hence there is increasing urgency in his second appeal to the
admiral. But Columbus (10), seeing the vision that has been familiar to
him for many years, and preoccupied by his dream, neither sees any reason
for fears, _nor does he yet become aware of the fear_ expressed in the
mate’s voice. His reply, therefore, is the quiet, scarcely heard voice
of the dreamer, given much lower and quieter than his ordinary talking
voice, but with the deep intensity of a man who has but one purpose.
Pause now for a few moments to allow this quiet urge of the admiral to
_sink in_. Don’t hurry. Then let the next stanza open with some degree
of haste and excitement. 11. The mate’s tone now is one of definite,
open remonstrance. It is all very well for his admiral to say “Sail on!”
He—the mate—has to come in direct conflict with the men. _They_ are
growing mutinous. They are growing _ghastly wan and weak_. Even he, 12,
had begun to think of home and, in spite of himself, tears, 13 (for is
not this suggested in “a spray of salt wave”?) washed his swarthy cheek.
Hence now, his question is more definite. He seeks to “pin” the admiral
down to a fixed time, 14. He gives him until _dawn_ to see land. But the
admiral, feeling that each dawn sees him _nearer to the goal_ of his
heart’s desire, and impatient that the foolish fears and unreasoning
terrors of his men should even threaten the possible thwarting of this
desire, replies sternly, impatiently and somewhat fiercely, 15. He shall
say at break of day, land or no land, fears or no fears, _but one thing_,
and he puts such emphasis upon it that no one can misunderstand.
Here, again, pause. Let this firm determination “seep” into the minds of
the hearers. A few moments is long enough, but to speed on immediately
to the fourth stanza is to lose a striking effect. Then, in perfectly
natural, quiet voice, continue the story: _They sailed_. 16. Observe the
repetition of this statement. Why is it repeated? A thoughtful author
doesn’t repeat for nothing. Here, by the repetition, 17, Joaquin Miller
seeks powerfully to impress upon his reader that after they had sailed a
long, long way further, they _still_ sailed on. Hence, is it not apparent
there must be quite a little pause between the first “they sailed” and
the second? Try the effect of this and see the result.
Now, 18, the mate, forced by his own and his sailors’ fears, though
assured of the displeasure of the admiral at his voicing of these fears,
braves his anger by calling his attention to the coming storm on the sea,
19, and he becomes more agitated as he expresses his own fears, 20. Yet
he knows the courage of the admiral, and consciously or unconsciously
pays him the tribute of bravery. At the same time, as hope has almost
fled from the bosoms of himself and his shipmates he asks the question,
pleadingly, agonizingly: “_What shall we_, 22, _do when hope is gone_?”
In the answer all of Columbus’s exasperation, despair, determination, are
compressed. Has he studied, prayed, pleaded, striven for years, and come
thus far to be balked by the fears of a few craven cowards? Is he _now_,
just now, when success must be close within his reach, to fail? No! by
the Eternal, he shall not fail! The childish cries of his men shall not
avail. He will compel them to go on, and, as though he were maddened
beyond control his words “leap like a leaping sword,” 23, and cleave the
air with ringing sound that strikes down all opposition, _Sail on!_
_Sail on!_ SAIL ON! AND ON!
Let the crescendo come with all the power, force, voice, of which you
are capable. Prepare for it. Get the lungs full of air. Put all the
intensity and passion of a lifetime’s hopes, desires, ambitions, into it,
and feel as though you had these cowardly sailors by the throat and were
determined upon pouring your will into their craven souls.
Again pause, before going to the last stanza. Elbert Hubbard and his
wife, both of whom were public speakers and readers of high order,
regarded this sixth stanza as an anticlimax. Personally, I do not.
Properly given, it is a most powerful climax to a most powerful poem. Ask
yourself: After the expression of an overwhelming emotion, what natural
reaction is felt? One of weariness. Add this thought to the thoughts
expressed in the words. Long and endless vigils, harassment from his men,
_doubts in his own soul_, which, however, he dare not voice. 25. That
night was so dark because, crushed by long-continued opposition, and his
body weakened by constant watchfulness, and the urge of his passion, even
_he lost hope_. But thanks be to God, there are men like Columbus, who,
even when hope seems gone, when there is no light whatever in “_that
night of all dark nights_” still persist. For, is it not darkest just
before dawn? Suddenly our minds are transferred to the lookout man. He
sees a speck. 26. Wonderingly he looks at it again and again, until he is
assured it is a light, so he gives the warning cry: “A light!” 27. Now
notice the repetition of the word light. Four times it appears. Why? Most
critics account such repetitions as proofs of an author’s weakness, but
they little know Joaquin Miller who so regard his repetitions. Let your
brain work awhile. Remember, Columbus and his sailors have been weeks
away from land, sailing on unknown, uncharted seas. They are becoming
used to seeing no land, nothing but seas upon which even the winds have
lost their way. Yet the lookout sees a light. He satisfies himself. He
gives the signal call: “A light!” For dramatic purposes we can imagine
that every one on the vessel hears it. Incredulously they call out a
query: “A light?” It cannot be! But, sure of himself, and seeing it more
clearly each moment, the lookout assertingly replies, “A light! I tell
you!” Then, all doubt removed, filled with joy, their fears dispersed,
their bodings and apprehensions removed, the sailors hysterically and
joyously unite in the cry: “A light!” and the reason for the four “a
lights!” is made clear.
Now, the poet, 28, changes the thought and rapidly introduces figures of
speech. The light on the first land seen by Columbus ultimately grows
to the “starlit flag of freedom” of the United States, the flag of the
people, the flag of a true republic, the flag of genuine democracy. But
it grew further, 29. That light, and that flag, grew to be “Time’s burst
of dawn.” In other words, until all men, everywhere, in every way, are
_free_, mankind is still in the night. The dawn comes only when men can
be themselves, as God intended they should when he created them. Hence
triumphant joy should be expressed in speaking of this flag, and what it
means to the world.
Then, calmly, quietly, bring the mind back to the admiral. What did he
gain? 30. “A world.” And he gave that world its grandest lesson, that of
persistence in following the vision of the higher and larger things, _On,
Sail on!_
COLUMBUS
Behind him lay the gray Azores(1)
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,(2)
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate(3) said: “Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Adm’r’l, speak, what shall I say?”(4)
“Why, say,(5) ‘Sail on! Sail on and on!’”
They sailed and sailed(6) as winds might blow
Until at last the blanched mate(7) said:
“Why, now, not even God would know,
Should I and all my men fall dead.(8)
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone,
Brave Adm’r’l, speak, what shall I say?”(9)
He said,(10) “Sail on! Sail on and on!”
“My men grow mutinous day by day;(11)
My men grow ghastly wan and weak!”
The stout mate thought of home;(12) a spray(13)
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
“What shall I say, brave Adm’r’l, say,
If we sight(14) naught but seas at dawn?”
“Why, you shall say, at break of day,(15)
Sail on! Sail on! Sail on and on!”
They sailed.(16) They sailed.(17) Then spake(18) the mate:
“This mad sea(19) shows his teeth to-night,
He curls his lip, he lies in wait
With lifted teeth,(20) as if to bite!
Brave Adm’r’l,(21) say but one good word;
What shall we(22) do when hope is gone?”
The words leapt like a leaping sword:(23)
“Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!”
Then pale and worn,(24) he paced his deck
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night(25)
Of all dark nights! And then a(26) speck—
A light!(27) A light? A light! A light!
It grew,(28) a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn.(29)
He gained a world,(30) he gave that world
Its grandest less’n: “On! Sail on!”
A SUGGESTIVE OUTLINE FOR THE STUDY OF A SELECTION
I. _Mastery of Main Theme_
The first step in the study of any selection is to gain an idea of it as
a whole. This can best be done by reading the selection in its entirety.
If there should be strange words, let them pass for the time being. Thus
we grasp the predominant mood and significant setting or situation.
II. _Progressive Analysis_
Read the selection, silently, a second time. The aim now is to make a
mental note of the several parts which make up the whole. This demands
close concentration, in order that we may unify matters and prevent
abrupt transitions. We are to break up the whole into parts, and each
part represents a thought group.
1. Punctuation makes the meaning clear, and the clear meaning determines
the various groups. Example: “It came, rushing in torrents like an
avalanche of rock.” We do not pause after “came,” although it is so
punctuated. Question: Do you find like instances in the selection under
consideration? Where?
2. The length and frequency of the _pause_ which sets off the groups is
dependent upon the context and upon the listeners. If the context is
serious, or if the listeners are uneducated, there will of necessity be
many groups. And obversely, if the context is not serious or difficult,
or if the audience is educated, there will be fewer and longer groups.
Question: What is the situation in the present selection?
3. In the study of the chief word in the group we must remember that its
real meaning depends upon its relation to the other words in the same
group. For instance, the word “fire” does not mean the same thing at
all times. The meaning of this word depends upon its kinship with other
members of the same group. When we say, “The house is on fire,” this word
“fire” means an altogether different thing than when we say, “There is a
fire in the stove this morning.” Let us take care that we do not isolate
words, but that we get their associative meanings.
Questions: What are the important words in the various groups? What is
the real meaning of each? Why? Give five synonyms of each.
III. _Reference to Experience_
We are now prepared to call upon our storehouse of past experiences in
order that we may identify ourselves more closely with the author’s
meaning. We are to react upon what we read. The more vividly we can bring
what we read from the page into our own actual experience, the more
deeply are we impressed with its meaning. We translate the unseen, the
unfelt and unbelieved by likening it to what is already seen, felt or
believed. If experience is lacking, we draw upon our imagination.
1. If we are reading a description, we will see this scene in
terms of a past like experience.
2. If we are reading a narration, we will feel it in terms of
a past like experience.
3. If we are reading something we have not believed, we will
accept it in terms of what we have already believed.
Question: What experiences does this selection call upon from me? What
purposes do they serve?
IV. _Classification_
There are three divisions into which all selections may be put. A
selection may be written to make something CLEAR; it may be for the
purpose of inspiring, or elevating one’s thoughts and feelings—to make
IMPRESSIVE; it may be for the purpose of enforcing some great truth—to
make BELIEF. This classification is based upon the author’s purpose.
Questions: Where the author’s purpose is to make CLEAR some obscure point
or idea.
1. What significant words are used?
2. Is there any obscurity? Why?
3. What illustrations or comparisons are made?
4. Think earnestly of an experience which will aid you to see
clearly the author’s purpose.
Where the author’s purpose is IMPRESSIVENESS
1. Is the emotion aroused pleasurable?
2. Have you had an experience which resembles what is referred to?
3. What mood is predominant? Is it:
Impassioned, grave, sad,
Triumphant, exalted, solemn,
Humorous, satirical, pathetic,
Inspiring, enheartening, discouraging?
4. What are the minor moods? Supply your own descriptive mood if
none of the following are adequate:
Fanciful, enthusiastic, cheerful,
Dreamy, sentimental, witty,
Pensive, tender, serene, quiet,—or suggestive of
Awe, loneliness,
Admiration, suspense, joy, anger,
Fear, rage, sympathy, grief, sorrow, surprise, anxiety.
Where the author’s purpose is BELIEF. The author does more than make us
see, or feel.
1. What actual experience have you had that resembles the thing
the author would have you believe?
2. Do you accept as truth what you have read?
3. What particular thought carries the most conviction?
4. Do you think others should believe what the author says?
5. Is it clear and impressive, and do you believe it?
V. _Setting_
This has to do with time, place, objects, sounds, movement, or anything
that gives local color to the selection.
Questions:
1. Is it modern or old?
2. Where is the scene laid?
3. Are descriptions given in detail or mere suggestion?
4. Is dialect used?
5. Will personation aid in rendering the selection?
6. Does the power and beauty of the selection lie in narration,
description, or in character drawing?
7. Name some definite things, sounds or objects described, that
give color or atmosphere.
8. Is the movement:
Slow, swift, light, heavy,
Tripping, graceful, spirited,
Powerful, easy, varied?
VI. _Vocalization_
Let our guide be as Shakespeare has so well put it:
Let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word; the
word to the action; with this special observance—that you o’erstep not
the modesty of nature.
1. Read the selection as ordinary conversation.
2. Now read again as enlarged conversation, or, as it were, for
the ears of many.
3. Ask yourself the following questions:
(1) Do I make proper use of Pitch?
(2) Do I make proper use of Pause?
(3) Do I make proper use of Inflection?
(4) Do I make proper use of Tone Color?
(5) Do I make proper use of Stress?
(6) Do I make proper use of Movement?
4. At all times let us remember that our purpose is not to give
a pleasing performance, but faithfully to interpret the author’s
meaning.
A CONDENSED OUTLINE FOR THE STUDY OF A SELECTION FOR ORAL PRESENTATION
I. INTELLIGENT IMPRESSION
A. _General Preparation_
Read silently the entire selection. The purpose is to gain an impression
of the selection as a whole.
1. What was the author’s purpose in writing this selection?
2. What specific intent did he have:
a. To make something clear?
b. To make something impressive?
c. To establish a truth?
d. To stimulate to righteous action?
3. Consult the dictionary for the meaning of strange words.
4. Look up the historical references.
B. _Special Preparation_
Read the selection silently a second time. The aim is to make a mental
note of the respective importance of the several parts which make up the
whole.
1. What is the definite idea, or definite picture, or definite
feeling the author would have us get?
2. In what part of the selection is the author’s aim most
forcibly presented?
3. What is the relative value of the thought-groups?
II. INTELLIGIBLE EXPRESSION
A. _General Preparation_
Before rendering a selection orally it must be given a setting. This has
to do with time, place, objects, sounds, movements, or anything that
tends to give local color.
1. Is the selection colloquial or dramatic?
2. Is dialect used?
3. Will personation be necessary?
4. Give an original word-picture of the characters and situation.
5. To what reference to experience does it make?
6. What is the predominant mood?
B. _Special Preparation_
Read the selection aloud for the first time. In doing this, ask yourself:
1. Am I reading with correct thought-groups?
2. Do I make proper use of the pause? (Remember the length and
frequency of the pause depends upon the nature of the subject and
the audience.)
3. Am I enunciating clearly?
4. Is my voice melodious? That is, do I make proper use of pitch
and inflection?
5. Am I conscious of the change and interchange of moods?
6. Do I make proper use of stress and movement?
7. Do my tones fit the color-words?
8. Am I faithfully and adequately interpreting the author’s
meaning?
PROSE SELECTIONS
Humorous
Pathetic
Dramatic
Dialect
THE JOY OF READING
Who can estimate the joy, comfort and inspiration reading has afforded to
the human race, how many weary hours it has solaced, how many distracted
minds it has quieted, how many harassed souls it has soothed into
forgetfulness? Who has not felt the thrill of discovery when he has found
a new author, a new poet who peculiarly affected his mind, his soul,
his risibilities, his ambitions, his life? I shall never forget when I
found Charles Warren Stoddard’s “Apostrophe to a Skylark.” It was buried
in one of his books and few seemed ever to have read it. There was joy
incalculable in putting it side by side with Shelley’s classic “Ode” and
comparing the two conceptions. Thousands of souls have been inspired by
reading to higher, nobler, more worthy endeavor. So, like Sancho Panza,
we bless God and thank Him for the man who invented reading.
—GEORGE WHARTON JAMES.
HUMOROUS SELECTIONS
NATHAN FOSTER
BY PAUL L. DUNBAR
Nathan Foster and his lifelong friend and neighbor, Silas Bollender, sat
together side by side upon the line-fence that separated their respective
domains. They were both whittling away industriously, and there had been
a long silence between them. Nathan broke it, saying:
“’Pears to me like I’ve had oncommon good luck this year.”
“Wall, you have had good luck, there ain’t no denyin’ that. It ’pears as
though you’ve been ee-specially blest.”
“An’ I know I ain’t done nothin’ to deserve it.”
“No, o’ course not. Don’t take no credit to yourself, Nathan. We don’t
none of us deserve our blessings, however we may feel about our crosses;
we kin be purty shore o’ that.”
“Now, look, my pertater vines was like little trees, an’ nary a bug on
’em.”
“An’ you had as good a crop of corn as I’ve ever seen raised in this part
of Montgomery county.”
“Yes, an’ I sold it, too, jest before that big drop in the price.”
“After givin’ away all yer turnips you could, you had to feed ’em to the
hogs.”
“My fruit trees jest had to be propped up, an’ I’ve got enough perserves
in my cellar to last two or three winters, even takin’ into consideration
the drain o’ church socials an’ o’ charity.”
“Yore chickens are fat and sassy, not a sign o’ pip on ’em.”
“Look at them cows in the fur pastur. Did yer ever see anything to beat
’em fer sleekness?”
“Wall, look at the pasture itself; it’s most enough to make human beings
envy the critters. You didn’t have a drop of rain on yer while you was
gettin’ in yer hay, did yer?”
“Not a drop.”
“An’ I had a whole lot ruined jest as I was about to rick it.”
“Silas, sich luck as I’m a-havin’ is achilly skeery; it don’t seem right.”
“No, it don’t seem right for a religious man like you, Nathan. Ef you was
a hard an’ graspin’ Sinner, it ’ud be jest makin’ you top-heavy so’s yore
fall ’ud be the greater.”
“I don’t know but what that’s it, anyhow. Mebbe I’m a-gettin’ puffed up
over my goods without exactly knowin’ it.”
“Mebbe so, mebbe so. Them kind o’ feelin’s is mighty sneakin’ comin’ on a
body. O’ course I ain’t seen no signs of it in you; but it ’pears to me
you’ll have to mortify yore flesh yit to keep from being purse-proud.”
“Mortify the flesh?”
“O’ course, you can’t put peas in yore shoes er get any of yer frien’s to
lash you, so you’ll have to find some other way of mortifyin’ yer flesh.
Wall, fer my part, I don’t need to look fur none, fur I never had too
many blessin’s in my life, less’n you’d want to put the children under
that head.”
Silas shut his jack-knife with a snap and, laughing, slid down on his
side of the fence. In serious silence Nathan Foster watched him go
stumping up the path toward the house.
“Silas seems to take everything so light in this world; I wonder how he
can do it.”
With Nathan, now, it was just the other way. Throughout his eight and
forty years he had taken every fact of life with ponderous seriousness.
Entirely devoid of humor, he was a firm believer in signs, omens, tokens,
and judgments. He was a religious man, and his wealth frightened and
oppressed him. He gave to his church and gave freely.
As usual, he had taken his friend’s bantering words in hard earnest and
was turning them over in his mind.
The next morning when Nathan and Silas met to compare notes, Nathan began:
“I have been thinking over what you said last night, Silas, about me
mortifyin’ my flesh, and it seems to me like a good idee. I wrasselled
in prayer last night, and it was shown to me that it wa’n’t no more’n
right fur me to make some kind o’ sacrifice fur the mercies that’s been
bestowed upon me.”
“Wall, I don’t know, Nathan; burnt-offerings are a little out now.”
“I don’t mean nothin’ like that; I mean some sacrifice of myself, some—”
His sentence was broken in upon by a shrill voice that called from Silas
Bollender’s kitchen door:
“Si, you’d better be a-gittin’ about yore work instid o’ standin’ over
there a-gassin’ all the mornin’. I’m shore I don’t have no time to stand
around.”
“All right, Mollie; speakin’ of mortifyin’ the flesh an’ makin’ a
sacrifice of yoreself, Nathan, why don’t you git married?”
Nathan started.
“Then you’d be shore to accomplish both. Fur pure mortification of the
flesh, I don’t know of nothin’ more thoroughgoin’ er effectiver than a
wife. Also she is a vexation to a man’s sperit. You raaly ought to git
married, Nathan.”
“Do you think so?”
“It looks to me that that ’ud be about as good a sacrifice as you could
make; an’ then it’s such a lastin’ one.”
“I don’t believe you realize what you air a-sayin’, Silas. It’s a mighty
desprit step that you’re advisin’ me to take.”
Again Mrs. Bollender’s voice broke in:
“Si, air you goin’ to git anything done this mornin’, er air you goin’ to
stand there an’ hold up that fence fur the rest of the day?”
“Nathan, kin you stand here an’ listen to a voice an’ a speech like that
an’ then ask me if I realize the despritness of marriage?”
“It’s desprit, but who’d you advise me to marry,—Silas, that is, if I
made up my mind to marry,—an’ I don’t jest see any other way.”
“Oh, I ain’t pickin’ out wives fur anybody, but it seems to me that you
might be doin’ a good turn by marryin’ the Widder Young. The Lord ’ud
have two special reasons fur blessin’ you then; fur you’d be mortifyin’
yore flesh an’ at the same time a-helpin’ the widder an’ her orphans.”
“That’s so.” He couldn’t admit to Silas that he had been thinking hard of
the Widow Young even before he had of mortifying his flesh with a wife.
Once decided, it did not take him long to put his plans into execution.
But he called Silas over to the fence that evening after he had dressed
to pay a visit to the widow.
“Wall, Silas, I’ve determined to take the step you advised.”
“Humph, you made your mind up in a hurry, Nathan.”
“I don’t know as it’s any use a-waiting; ef a thing’s to be done, I think
it ought to be done and got through with. What I want particular to know
now is, whether it wouldn’t be best to tell Lizzie—I mean the widder—that
I want her as a means of mortification.”
“Wall, no, Nathan, I don’t know as I would do that jest yit; I don’t
believe it would be best.”
“But if she don’t know, wouldn’t it be obtainin’ her under false
pretenses if she said yes?”
“Not exactaly the way I look at it, fur you’ve got more motives fur
marryin’ than one.”
“What! Explain yoreself, Silas; explain yoreself.”
“I mean you want to do her good as well as subdue your own sperit.”
“Oh, yes, that’s so.”
“Now, no woman wants to know at first that she’s a vexation to a man’s
sperit. It sounds scriptual, but it don’t sound nooptial. Now look at me
an’ Mis’ Bollender. I never told her until we’d been married more’n six
months; but she didn’t believe it then, an’ she won’t believe it till
this day.”
“Wall, I’ll agree not to tell her right away, but if she consents, I must
tell her a week or so after we are married. It’ll ease my conscience.
Ef I could tell her now, it ’ud be a heap easier in gittin’ round the
question. I don’t know jest how to do it without.”
“Oh, you won’t have no trouble in makin’ her understand. Matrimony’s a
subject that women air mighty keen on. They can see if a man’s a-poppin’
the question ef he only half tries. You’ll git through all right.”
Somewhat strengthened, Nathan left his friend and sought the widow’s
home. He found her stitching away merrily under the light of a coal-oil
lamp with a red shade.
“La, Nathan, who’d a’ expected to see you up here? You’ve got to be such
a home body that no one don’t look to see you out of yore own field and
garden.”
“I jest thought I’d drop in.”
“Wall, it’s precious kind of you, I’m shore. I was a-feelin’ kind o’
lonesome. The children go to bed with the chickens.”
“I jest thought I’d drop in.”
“Wall, it does remind me of old times to see you jest droppin’ in,
informal like, this way. My, how time does fly!”
“Widder, I’ve been thinkin’ a good deal lately; I’ve been greatly
prospered in my day; in fact, my cup runneth over.”
“You have been prospered, Nathan.”
“Seems ’s ef—seems ’s ef I ought to sheer it with somebody, don’t it?”
“Wall, Nathan, I don’t know nobody that’s more generous in givin’ to the
pore than you air.”
“I don’t mean in jest exactly that way. I mean, widder—you’re the
morti—I mean the salvation of my soul. Could you—would you—er do you
think you’d keer to sheer my blessin’s with me an’ add another one to
’em?”
The Widow Young looked at him in astonishment; then the tears filled her
eyes as she asked, “Nathan, do you mean it?”
“I wouldn’t a-spent so much trouble on a joke, widder.”
“No, it don’t seem that you would, Nathan. Well, it’s mighty sudden,
mighty sudden, but I can’t say no.”
“Fur these an’ many other blessin’s make us truly thankful, O Lord,” said
Nathan devoutly. And he sat another hour with the widow making plans for
the early marriage, on which he insisted.
The widow had been settled in Nathan’s home over a month before he had
ever thought of telling her of the real motive of his marriage, and every
day from the time it occurred to him it grew harder for him to do it.
One night when he had been particularly troubled he sought his friend
and counselor with a clouded brow. They sat together in their accustomed
place on the fence.
“I’m bothered, Silas.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Why, there’s several things. First off, I ain’t never told the widder
that she was a mortification, an’ next she ain’t. I look around at that
old house o’ mine that ain’t been a home since mother used to scour
the hearth, an’ it makes me feel like singin’ fer joy. An’ I hear them
children playin’ round me—they’re the beatenest children; that youngest
one called me daddy yistiddy—well, I see ’em playin’ round and my eyes
air opened, an’ I see that the widder’s jest another blessin’ added to
the rest. It looks to me like I had tried to beat the Almighty.”
“Wall, now, Nathan, I don’t know that you’ve got any cause to feel
bothered. You’ve done yore duty. If you’ve tried to mortify yore flesh
an’ it refused to mortify, why, that’s all you could do, an’ I believe
the Lord’ll take the will fer the deed an’ credit you accordin’ly.”
“Mebbe so, Silas, mebbe so.”
—Copyright by _Dodd, Mead & Co._, New York, and used by arrangement.
DOING A WOMAN’S WORK
BY MCKILLIP-STANWOOD
“Breakfast ready yet?” asked Jack Telfer, as he set two pails of foaming
milk on the bench and turned to wash his hands.
“Almost,” replied his wife. “But, say, Jack, won’t you fix the calf pen
while you’re waiting? It won’t take but a minute. The calves got out
twice yesterday and tramped all over the flower beds and garden. I had an
awful time getting them in. I tried to fix it, but I don’t think I did a
good job.”
“I can’t stop now. I guess it’s all right. If they get out, why chase
them in; you have nothing else to do, and I’ll fix it up right when I get
time. I want my breakfast now. I can’t fool around here till noon. I’ve
got to cultivate the peaches to-day.”
“I’ve nothing else to do,” repeated his wife, as she dished up the
tempting breakfast. “Well, I like that, Jack Telfer. I wish to goodness I
hadn’t any more to do than you have.”
“Why, what under the sun have you to do? You have only Toodles and me to
look after and this little house to keep. I could do all the work you do
with one hand tied behind me and then find time to throw at the birds.
You see, I know what I am talking about, for I can cook and do housework
as well as any woman.”
“You’ve never displayed any talent in that direction since I’ve known
you. It’s like pulling teeth to get you to do a chore around the house.
Not that I want a man to do housework, for I don’t; that’s a woman’s
business. But when she has every step to take and a dozen things to do at
once, a little help occasionally comes mighty handy.”
“Well, the reason I don’t help around here is because there isn’t much
to do. The work you have is a snap, my girl, and a mighty soft one, too.
Why, my mother had nine children and did all her own work and cooked for
harvest hands and threshers and used to help the neighbors out if they
got in a pinch.”
“Well, my dear husband, I do not doubt but your mother was a very smart
woman. She must have been to have raised so promising a son. But women
are not all alike, my dear.”
“Now, your work is a sort of paper-flower work compared with what I have
to do. It would be a picnic for me to stay in the house, wash dishes,
play with the baby and do such things.”
“All right, suppose you have a picnic to-day. I can drive the cultivator
just as well as you and you can cook and keep house a great deal better
than I; at least you think you can. I’ll hitch up and cultivate the
peaches and you can tie one hand behind you and do the work to-day and
see how much time you have to throw at the birds. What do you say?”
“Say,” laughed Mr. Telfer as he pushed back from the table. “Why, I say
I’m willing, but if you don’t get enough riding in the hot sun—”
“The hot sun,” interrupted his wife, “is no worse than the hot stove I
cook over. Will you do it?”
“You bet I’ll do it, but you must tell me what’s to be done so you can’t
throw it up to me for ever after that the reason I got through so soon
was because I didn’t do half the work.”
“First,” said Mrs. Telfer, “there’s the milk to skim and the calves to
feed and the churning to do. Skim the milk on the north shelf in the
cellar; the dishes to wash, and don’t forget to scald the churn and the
milk things. Then you can iron; the clothes are all dampened down in the
basket. You need not iron any but the plain things, I’ll do the others.
Pit the cherries I picked last night and make a pie for dinner. And, oh,
yes, you will have to kill a chicken and dress it, for you know you said
last night you wanted chicken and dumplings for dinner to-day, and now is
your chance.
“Stew some prunes for supper to-night, make the bed, sweep and dust and
get the vegetables ready for dinner. Oh, I guess you know about what
there is to do. I must be off now, for it is nearly 6 o’clock.” And she
was gone.
“Well, it’s early yet; guess I’ll smoke and read the Rural World awhile.
There’s an article on hogs I wanted to read; it seems nice to have time
to do what you please.”
After he had read a long time he at last knocked the ashes into his hand
and stretched lazily.
He went down cellar and skimmed the milk, then he fed the calves, laughed
at the way his wife had tried to fix the calf pen, went in and took off
the table cloth and piled the dishes and empty milk things on the table.
“Guess I’ll wash up before I churn. No, I won’t, either. I’ll churn
first; then I’ll clean up all at once. Oh, I’ve got a head on me. I ought
to have been a woman.”
He brought from the cellar a large new pan of thick cream and set it on
the table, then he went to scald the churn, but the fire was out and the
dish water Mrs. Telfer had put on before breakfast was nearly cold.
“Blame it all, I’ve got to go to the barn for peach pits; not one in the
basket. But I’ll kill the chicken while I’m out there and save an extra
trip. If Jennie would only use some management about her work she’d have
plenty of time.”
The large pit basket was soon filled, but the chicken was another
proposition. Every time he selected one to catch it seemed to know it was
a marked bird and would shy off to the edge of the flock. At last he had
to run one down, and he wrung its neck with a great deal of satisfaction.
As he entered the house the clock struck nine.
“Wheu! Where has the morning gone? I must get a move on me. Guess I’ll
make the pie first so it can bake while the water is heating.”
He prepared the cherries. Then he made the pie; made it as well as a
woman could. He had pushed the dishes back on the cluttered table to make
room for his bread-board, and just as he had the crust nicely stamped
down around the edge of his pie, with a fork, a tousled head of yellow
curls appeared in the doorway, one chubby hand holding up a long, white
nighty, the other rubbing a sleepy eye.
There was surprise on the baby face at the sight of his father. Papa
meant fun for Toodles, and, running to him, he put up his little arms,
saying, “Papa, high me; high Toodles, papa; high Toodles.” And his
father, dusting the flour from his hands, tossed the baby to the ceiling
again and again while the little fellow screamed with delight.
In the midst of this jolly frolic the clock announced that it was the
tenth hour of the day.
“Hear that, young man?” said the father. “That means that we must cut out
this racket and get down to business. Your paternal ancestor is chief
cook and general manager to-day and has several little chores to do yet.
We will get Toodles’ breakfast first, then wash and dress him afterwards
so that he won’t get mussed up when he eats.
“Mamma don’t do that way, but we can give mamma a few pointers on keeping
a baby clean, can’t we, Toodles?”
And, putting the child in his high-chair, Mr. Telfer pinned a tea towel
around the little neck for a bib, took a bowl and went to the cellar for
some new milk.
While Toodles was eating breakfast his father washed the prunes and put
them on to stew, set the pie in the oven and started to build the fire,
but he was interrupted by an emphatic voice saying, “Papa, down; papa,
down.”
“All right, young man, I’ll attend to your case directly,” said Jack,
touching a match to the kindling. “Guess I’ll wash and dress you and have
you off my hands.”
And, taking a wash-pan of tepid water, with soap, comb, rag, towel and
Toodles, he went into the sitting-room where it was cool and pleasant.
The baby’s clean clothes were lying upon a chair, where his mamma had
placed them the night before. Then what a time they had. Toodles would
catch the wash rag in his teeth and papa would shake it and growl till
the little mouth would have to let loose to scream with the agonizing
fun.
Then came the tangled curls, and it took a wonderful story about a doggie
that would say “Bow, wow,” and a little horsie that Toodles could ride
and a chicky that went “Peep, peep, peep,” and several other mental
concoctions to keep the baby quiet until the ringlets were in order.
When the clean coaties were on and two little arms hugged papa tight,
Jack Telfer thought, “Jennie calls this work.”
The clock pounded out eleven strokes.
“Blast that clock; what’s got into it,” thought the man, putting the
child down and hurrying to the kitchen. “I’ve been busy every minute this
morning, and here it is 11 o’clock and not a thing done yet.”
He found the fire had burned out; he had forgotten to put the peach pits
on the kindling when he had stopped to fuss with Toodles.
“Well, I guess I’ll make it all right by noon,” he soliloquized. “This is
a hurry-up order, but I’ll be on time or eat my hat.”
He looked at his pie; it was nearly half baked. He built a roaring fire,
packed the stove with peach pits, pulled the prunes to the front where
they would cook quicker, and was debating in his mind which he should
scald first, the churn or the chicken, when something rushed by the door.
“Drat those calves; they’re out again.”
Snatching his hat, he hurried after them. It was a merry chase for the
calves if not for Mr. Telfer. They were willing to go in any direction
but the right one, and by the time he got them corralled Jack was hot,
tired and cross.
When Toodles was left alone he started out on a tour of inspection. The
first objects of interest were the dead chicken and the peach-pit basket,
but his attention was soon detracted from these by the bright pan that
held the cream; it had been pushed to the edge of the table. As Toodles
approached it he saw the reflection of a chubby baby face on the outside.
“Baby,” said Toodles. He smiled and the pan baby smiled, and he concluded
that the pan must be full of pretty, smiling babies, and he wanted them
to play with. He could just get his little fingers over the edge of the
pan. He pulled and tugged with all his might to get the pan baby down.
He succeeded, for the pan toppled over and deluged the immaculate Toodles
with thick, yellow cream. His pretty curls were filled with chunks of
oily coagulation, and cream ran in rivulets down his little back and
bosom.
He seated himself in the middle of it and paddled and spattered in great
glee.
The calf pen took longer to fix than Jack had expected, and as he neared
the house he heard the clock striking twelve, and, looking fieldward, he
saw his wife coming to dinner.
“Jumping Jupiter! what will she say?” was his mental comment. “But she
will soon fix things, I’ll bet.”
As he entered the kitchen what a sight met his gaze. The room was dark
with smoke from burned prunes, the table piled full of unwashed pans and
dishes. The cream. Heavens, the cream! The dead chicken lay in the middle
of the floor and the pit-basket was upset, as Toodles had left it for the
pan baby. The open-mouthed churn stared at him.
Mr. Telfer opened the oven door; his pie was a black mass.
“I can see now why women sit down and cry sometimes. I’m blessed if I
don’t feel like it myself,” he said.
Toodles, drenched but happy, called from the middle of his cream puddle,
“High me, papa; high me.”
Mrs. Telfer called out as she passed the house: “Hello! Dinner ready? I’m
awful hungry.” But her husband was not visible.
She had enjoyed her morning’s work and was in excellent spirits. She
watered and fed the team, then started for the house. The novelty of the
situation amused her. She expected Jack would have some surprise ready,
some extra dish for dinner, the table decorated with flowers or, perhaps,
be tricked out in one of her white aprons with his hair curled and a pink
ribbon around his neck to show how a wife should greet her husband.
He was such a wag it was impossible to tell what he might do. As she
entered the house she stood dumb with amazement. Her eyes took in the
situation. The breakfast dishes, the burned pie, the creamy Toodles, the
dead chicken, the littered sitting-room with the remains of Toodles’
toilet and the distracted-looking man.
“How soon will dinner be ready?” she asked. But her husband did not
answer; he was busy picking up peach pits. “I’ve got to get back to work
as soon as I can,” she continued.
Crossing the room, she took up a paper and went outside and sat down in
the shade to read.
Toodles, greasy and dripping, trotted after.
“Oh, baby, go to papa and get cleaned up. Go tell papa to clean baby up,
darling,” said his mother. And the little fellow hurried into the house,
saying: “Keen baby up, papa; keen baby up.”
Poor Jack, he had lost out. He was hopelessly balled up. He was mad. He
had felt somehow that his troubles were over when he saw his wife coming,
but when she took the paper and sat down to read, leaving him in that
awful muss, the iron entered his soul.
Yet he knew that was exactly the way he did, and only yesterday when she
asked him to get a pitcher of fresh water for dinner he had said:
“It’s a pity a man can’t get a moment to rest without having to chore
around the house.”
“Keen baby up, papa; keen baby up!” reiterated Toodles. Jack looked down
at the greasy, smeary child with its cream-matted curls and capitulated.
“Say, Jennie,” he called, “I’ll give up. I know when I’m worsted. It’s my
treat. If you’ll come in here and help me out of this mix-up you can name
your own price and I’ll pay it. I’ve worked all the morning and haven’t
done a blamed thing but get all balled up. I never would have believed a
woman had so much to do if I hadn’t tried it. I am dead sore at the whole
deal.”
“Why, Jack,” laughed his wife, as she came to his assistance, “you don’t
seem to like paper-flower work. I guess you forgot to tie one hand behind
you and so used both to throw time at the birds.”
“Now see here, Jennie, don’t strike a man when he’s down. I’ll admit that
I’m not nearly so smart as I thought I was this morning, but how things
ever got in this shape I can’t tell,” said Jack with a grim smile.
Together they soon brought order out of chaos, and as they sat eating
their picked-up dinner Jack said:
“If it is all the same to you, Jennie, I’ll finish the orchard this
afternoon.”—_The Los Angeles Times._
A BAD NIGHT
BY J. ROSS BROWNE
I gradually dropped off into a doze, a mere doze, for I scorn the charge
of having slept a wink that night. The grating of the grindstones, the
everlasting clatter of tongues, the dust, the chaff, smoke, and fleas, to
say nothing of the roar of the water down below, were enough to banish
all hope of sleep; I merely closed my eyes to try how ridiculous it
would feel. How long they remained closed I scarcely know; it was not
long, however, for I soon heard a heavy breathing close by my head, and
felt the warm breath of some monster on my face. I knew it to be no
Arab; it blew and snuffed altogether unlike anything of the human kind.
Thinking it might be all fancy, I cautiously put out my hand in the dark
and began to feel around me. For some moments I could discover nothing,
but in waving my hand around I at length touched something—something
that sent the blood flying back to my heart a good deal quicker than it
ever flew before. To tell the honest truth, I never was so startled in
all the previous adventures of my life. The substance that I put my hand
on was bare and warm; it was wet also and slimy, and had large nostrils
which seemed to be in the act of smelling me, previous to the act of
mastication. With the quickness of lightning I jerked up my hand, and
felt it glide along a skin covered with long rough hair; the next instant
my ears were stunned by the most dreadful noises, which resembled, as I
thought in the horror of the moment, the roaring of a full-grown lion.
But it was not the roaring of a lion; it was only the braying of an
ass.—From _The Mill of Malaha_.
AN UNTHANKFUL ORPHAN
BY KATE LANGLEY BOSHER
My name is Mary Cary. I live in the Yorkburg Female Orphan Asylum. You
may think nothing happens in an Orphan Asylum. It does. The orphans are
sure enough children, and real, much like the kind that have Mothers and
Fathers; but though they don’t give parties or wear truly Paris clothes,
things happen.
To-day I was kept in. Yesterday, too. I don’t mind, for I would rather
watch the lightning up here than be down in the basement with the others.
There are days when I love thunder and lightning. I can’t flash and
crash, being just Mary Cary; but I’d like to, and when it is done for me
it is a relief to my feelings.
The reason I was kept in was this: Yesterday Mr. Gaffney, the one with
a sunk eye and cold in his head perpetual, came to talk to us for the
benefit of our characters. He thinks it’s his duty, and, just naturally
loving to talk, he wears us out once a week anyhow. Yesterday, not
agreeing with what he said, I wouldn’t pretend I did, and I was punished
prompt, of course.
I don’t care for duty-doers, and I tried not to listen to him; but
tiresome talk is hard not to hear—it makes you so mad. Hear him I did,
and when, after he had ambled on until I thought he really was castor-oil
and I had swallowed him, he blew his nose and said:
“You have much, my children, to be thankful for, and for everything you
should be thankful. Are you? If so, stand up. Rise, and stand upon your
feet.”
I didn’t rise. All the others did—stood on their feet, just like he
asked. None tried their heads. I was the only one that sat, and when
his good eye stared at me in such astonishment, I laughed out loud. I
couldn’t help it, I truly couldn’t.
I’m not thankful for everything, and that’s why I didn’t stand up. Can
you be thankful for toothache, or stomachache, or any kind of ache? You
cannot. And not meant to be, either.
The room got awful still, and then presently he said:
“Mary Cary”—his voice was worse than his eye—“Mary Cary, do you mean to
say you have not a thankful heart?” And he pointed his finger at me like
I was the Jezebel lady come to life.
I didn’t answer, thinking it safer, and he asked again:
“Do I understand, Mary Cary”—and by this time he was real red-in-the-face
mad—“do I understand you are not thankful for all that comes to you? Do I
understand aright?”
“Yes, sir, you understand right,” I said, getting up this time. “I am not
thankful for everything in my life. I’d be much thankfuller to have a
Mother and Father on earth than to have them in heaven. And there are a
great many other things I would like different.” And down I sat, and was
kept in for telling the truth.
Miss Bray says it was for impertinence (Miss Bray is the Head Chief of
this Institution), but I didn’t mean to be impertinent. I truly didn’t.
Speaking facts is apt to make trouble, though—also writing them. To-day
Miss Bray kept me in for putting something on the blackboard I forgot to
rub out. I wrote it just for my own relief, not thinking about anybody
else seeing it. What I wrote was this:
“Some people are crazy all the time;
All people are crazy sometimes.”
That’s why I’m up in the punishment-room to-day, and it only proves that
what I wrote is right. It’s crazy to let people know you know how queer
they are. Miss Bray takes personal everything I do, and when she saw that
blackboard, up-stairs she ordered me at once. She loves to punish me, and
it’s a pleasure I give her often.
She thinks she could run this earth better than it’s being done, and she
walks around like she is the Superintendent of most of it.
But she’s taught me a good deal about Human Nature, Miss Bray has.
About the side I didn’t know. I think I will make a special study of
Human Nature. I thought once I’d take up Botany in particular, as I
love flowers; or Astronomy, so as to find out all about those million
worlds in the sky, so superior to earth, and so much larger; but I think,
now, I’ll settle on Human Nature. Nobody ever knows what it is going
to do, which makes it full of surprises, but there’s a lot that’s real
interesting about it. I like it. As for its Bray side, I’ll try not to
think about it; but if there are puddles, I guess it’s well to know
where, so as not to step in them. I wish we didn’t have to know about
puddles and things! I’d so much rather know little and be happy than find
out the miserable much some people do. God is going to have a hard time
with Miss Bray. She’s right old to change, and she’s set in her ways—bad
ways.
Did you know I wrote poetry? Umhm. I do. Last week I wrote one. This is
it:
“In the winter, by the fireside, when the snow falls soft and white,
I am waiting, hoping, longing, but for what I don’t know quite.
And when summer’s sunshine shimmers, and the birds sing clear and sweet,
I am waiting, always waiting, for the joy I hope to meet.
“It will be, I think, my husband, and the home he’ll make for me;
But of his coming or home-making, I as yet no signs do see.
But I still shall keep on waiting, for I know it’s true as fate,
When you really, truly hustle, things will come if just you’ll wait.”
Miss Bray was to get married. When I grow up I am going to marry a
million-dollar man, so I can travel around the world and have a house
in Paris with twenty bathrooms in it. And I’m going to have horses and
automobiles and a private car and balloons, if they are working all right
by that time. I hope they will be, for I want something in which I can
soar up and sit and look down on other people.
All my life people have looked down on me, passing me by like I was a
Juny bug or a caterpillar, and I don’t wonder. I’m merely Mary Cary with
fifty-eight more just like me. Blue calico, white dots for winter, white
calico, blue dots for summer. Black sailor hats and white sailor hats
with blue capes for cold weather, and no fire to dress by, and freezing
fingers when it’s cold, and no ice-water when it’s hot.
Yes, I am going to marry a rich man. I will try to love him, but if I
can’t I will be polite to him and travel alone as much as possible. But
I am going to be rich some day, I am. And when I come back to Yorkburg
eyes will bulge, for the clothes I am going to wear will make mouths
water, they’re going to be so grand.
It seems like every time Miss Katherine goes away from the ’Sylum I’d
be bad. Last time she hadn’t been gone two days till I’d invented more
trouble. It was this way: In the summer we have much more time than
in the winter, and the children kept coming to me asking me to make
up something, and all of a sudden a play came in my mind. I just love
acting. The play was to be the marriage of Dr. Rudd and Miss Bray.
You see, Miss Bray is dead in love with Dr. Rudd—really addled about him.
And whenever he comes to see any of the children who are sick she is so
solitious and sweet and smiley that we call her, to ourselves, Ipecac
Mollie. Other days, plain Mollie Cottontail. It seemed to me if we could
just think him into marrying her, it would be the best work we’d ever
done, and I thought it was worth trying.
They say if you just think and think and think about a thing you can make
somebody else think about it, too. And not liking Dr. Rudd, we didn’t
mind thinking her on him, and so we began. Every day we’d meet for an
hour and think together, and each one promised to think single, and in
between times we got ready.
Becky Drake says love goes hard late in life, and sometimes touches the
brain. Maybe that accounts for Miss Bray.
She is fifty-three years old, and all frazzled out and done up with
adjuncts. But Dr. Rudd, being a man with not even usual sense, and awful
conceited, don’t see what we see, and swallows easy. Men are funny—funny
as some women.
I don’t think he’s ever thought of courting Miss Bray. But she’s thought
of it, and for once we tried to help her, and the play was a corker; it
certainly was. We chose Friday night because Miss Jones always takes tea
with her aunt that night, and Miss Bray goes to choir practicing. I wish
everybody could hear her sing! Gabriel ought to engage her to wake the
dead—only they’d want to die again.
Dr. Rudd is in the choir, and she just lives on having Friday nights to
look forward to.
The ceremony took place in the basement-room where we play in bad
weather. It’s across from the dining-room, the kitchen being between, and
it’s a right nice place to march in, being long and narrow.
I was the preacher, and Prudence Arch and Nita Polley, Emma Clark and
Margaret Witherspoon were the bridesmaids.
Lizzie Wyatt was the bride, and Katie Freeman, who is the tallest girl in
the house, though only fourteen, was the groom.
Katie is so thin she would do as well for one thing in this life as
another, so we made her Dr. Rudd.
We didn’t have but two men. Miss Webb says they’re really not necessary
at weddings, except the groom and minister. Nobody notices them, and,
besides, we couldn’t get the pants.
I was an Episcopal minister, so I wouldn’t need any.
If anybody thinks that wedding was slumpy, they think wrong. It was
thrilly. When the bride and groom and the bridesmaids came in, all the
girls were standing in rows on either side of the walls, making an aisle
in between, and they sang a wedding-song I had invented from my heart.
It was to the Lohengrin tune, which is a little wobbly for words, but
they got them in all right, keeping time with their hands. These are the
words:
Here comes the bride,
God save the groom!
And please don’t let any chil-i-il-dren come,
For they don’t know
How children feel,
Nor do they know how with children to deal.
She’s still an old maid,
Though she would not have been
Could she have mar-ri-ed any kind of man.
But she could not.
So to the Humane
She came, and caus-ed a good deal of pain.
But now she’s here
To be married, and go
Away with her red-headed, red-bearded beau.
Have mercy, Lord,
And help him to bear
What we’ve been doing this many a year!
And such singing! We’d been practicing in the back part of the yard, and
humming in bed, so as to get the words into the tune; but we hadn’t let
out until that night. That night we let go.
There’s nothing like singing from your heart, and, though I was the
minister and stood on a box which was shaky, I sang too. I led.
The bride didn’t think it was modest to hold up her head, and she was the
only silent one. But the bridegroom and bridesmaids sang, and it sounded
like the revivals at the Methodist church. It was grand.
And that bride! She was Miss Bray. A graven image of her couldn’t have
been more like her.
She was stuffed in the right places, and her hair was frizzled just like
Miss Bray’s. Frizzled in front, and slick and tight in the back; and her
face was a purple pink, and powdered all over, with a piece of dough just
above her mouth on the left side to correspond with Miss Bray’s mole.
And she held herself so like her, shoulders back, and making that little
nervous sniffle with her nose, like Miss Bray makes when she’s excited,
that once I had to wink at her to stop.
The groom didn’t look like Dr. Rudd. But she wore men’s clothes, and
that’s the only way you’d know some men were men, and almost anything
will do for a groom. Nobody noticed him.
We were getting on just grand, and I was marrying away, telling them what
they must do and what they mustn’t do. Particularly that they mustn’t get
mad and leave each other, for Yorkburg was very old-fashioned and didn’t
like changes, and would rather stick to its mistakes than go back on its
word. And then I turned to the bride.
“Miss Bray,” I said, “have you told this man you are marrying that you
are two-faced and underhand, and can’t be trusted to tell the truth? Have
you told him that nobody loves you, and that for years you have tried to
pass for a lamb, when you are an old sheep? And does he know that though
you’re a good manager on little and are not lazy, that your temper’s been
ruined by economizing, and that at times, if you were dead, there’d be no
place for you? Peter wouldn’t pass you, and the devil wouldn’t stand you.
And does he know he’s buying a pig in a bag, and that the best wedding
present he could give you would be a set of new teeth? And will you
promise to stop pink powder and clean your finger-nails every day? And—”
But I got no further, for something made me look up, and there, standing
in the door, was the real Miss Bray.
All I said was—“Let us pray!”—Abridged from “Mary Cary,” copyrighted by
_The Century Company_, New York, and used by the kind consent of author
and publisher.
A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR A LADY
BY MYRA KELLY
It was the week before Christmas, and the First-Reader Class had, almost
to a man, decided on the gifts to be lavished on “Teacher.” But Morris
Mogilewsky, whose love for Teacher was far greater than the combined
loves of all the other children, had as yet no present to bestow. The
knowledge saddened all his hours and was the more maddening because it
could in no wise be shared by Teacher, who noticed his altered bearing
and tried with all sorts of artful beguilements to make him happy and at
ease. But her efforts served only to increase his unhappiness and his
love. And he loved her! Oh, how he loved her! Since first his dreading
eyes had clung for a breath’s space to her “like man’s shoes” and had
then crept timidly up to her “light face,” she had been mistress of
his heart of hearts. That was more than three months ago. And well he
remembered the day!
His mother had washed him horribly, and had taken him into the big, red
schoolhouse, so familiar from the outside, but so full of unknown terrors
within.
He was then dragged through long halls and up tall stairs by a large boy,
who spoke to him disdainfully as “greenie,” so that his spirit was quite
broken and his nerves were all unstrung when he was pushed into a room
full of bright sunshine and of children who laughed at his frightened
little face. The sunshine smote his timid eyes, the laughter smote his
timid heart, and he turned to flee. But the door was shut, the large boy
gone, and despair took him for its own.
Down upon the floor he dropped, and wailed, and wept, and kicked. It was
then that he heard, for the first time, the voice which now he loved.
“Why, my dear little chap, you mustn’t cry like that. What’s the matter?”
The hand was gentle and the question kind, and these, combined with a
faint perfume suggestive of drug-stores and barber-shops—but nicer than
either—made him uncover his hot little face. Kneeling beside him was
a lady, and he forced his eyes to that perilous ascent; from shoes to
skirt, from skirt to jumper, from jumper to face, they trailed in dread
uncertainty, but at the face they stopped. They had found—rest.
Morris allowed himself to be gathered into the lady’s arms, and held upon
her knee, and when his sobs no longer rent the very foundations of his
pink and wide-spread tie, he answered her question in a voice as soft as
his eyes, and as gently sad.
“I ain’t so big, and I don’t know where is my mamma.”
Thereafter he had been the first to arrive every morning, and the last
to leave every afternoon; and under the care of Teacher, his liege lady,
he had grown in wisdom and love and happiness. But the greatest of these
was love. And now, when the other boys and girls were planning surprises
and gifts of price for Teacher, his hands were as empty as his heart was
full. Appeal to his mother met with denial prompt and energetic.
“For what you go und make, over Christmas, presents?”
“All the other fellows buys her presents, und I’m loving mit her too;
it’s polite I gives her presents the while I’m got such a kind feeling
over her,” said Morris stoutly.
“Well, we ain’t got no money for buy nothings,” said Mrs. Mogilewsky
sadly. “No money, und your papa, he has all times a scare he shouldn’t to
get no more.”
So Morris was helpless, his mother poor, and Teacher all unknowing.
And now the great day, the Friday before Christmas, came, and the school
was, for the first half-hour, quite mad. Room 18, generally so placid and
so peaceful, was a howling wilderness full of brightly colored, quickly
changing groups of children, all whispering, all gurgling, and all hiding
queer bundles.
Isidore Belchatosky was the first to lay tribute before Teacher. He
came forward with a sweet smile and a tall candlestick, and Teacher,
for a moment, could not be made to understand that all that length of
bluish-white china was really hers “for keeps.”
“It’s to-morrow holiday,” Isidore assured her; “and we gives you
presents, the while we have a kind feeling. Candlesticks could to cost
twenty-five cents.”
“It’s a lie! three for ten,” said a voice in the background; but Teacher
hastened to respond to Isidore’s test of her credulity.
“Indeed, they could. This candlestick could have cost fifty cents, and
it’s just what I want. It is very good of you to bring me a present.”
“You’re welcome,” said Isidore, retiring.
And then, the ice being broken, the First-Reader Class in a body rose to
cast its gifts on Teacher’s desk, and its arms around Teacher’s neck.
Nathan Horowitz presented a small cup and saucer; Isidore Applebaum
bestowed a large calendar for the year before last; Sadie Gonorowsky
brought a basket containing a bottle of perfume, a thimble, and a bright
silk handkerchief; Sarah Schrodsky offered a pen-wiper and a yellow
celluloid collarbutton, and Eva Kidansky gave an elaborate nasal douche,
under the pleasing delusion that it was an atomizer.
Jacob Spitsky pressed forward with a tortoise-shell comb of terrifying
aspect and hungry teeth, and an air showing forth a determination to
adjust it in its destined place. Teacher meekly bowed her head; Jacob
forced his offering into her long-suffering hair, and then retired with
the information “Costs fifteen cents, Teacher.”
Meanwhile the rush of presentation went steadily on. Cups and saucers
came in wild profusion. The desk was covered with them. The soap, too,
became urgently perceptible. It was of all sizes, shapes and colors, but
of uniform and dreadful power of perfume. Teacher’s eyes filled with
tears—of gratitude—as each new piece or box was pressed against her
nose, and Teacher’s mind was full of wonder as to what she could ever
do with it all. Bottles of perfume vied with one another and with the
all-pervading soap, until the air was heavy and breathing grew laborious.
But pride swelled the hearts of the assembled multitude. No other Teacher
had so many helps to the toilet. None other was so beloved.
When the wastepaper basket had been twice filled with wrappings and twice
emptied; when order was emerging out of chaos; when the Christmas-tree
had been disclosed and its treasures distributed, a timid hand was laid
on Teacher’s knee and a plaintive voice whispered, “Say, Teacher, I got
something for you”; and Teacher turned quickly to see Morris, her dearest
boy charge.
“Now, Morris dear,” said Teacher, “you shouldn’t have troubled to get me
a present; you know you and I are such good friends that—”
“Teacher, yiss, ma’am,” Morris interrupted, in a bewitching and rising
inflection of his soft and plaintive voice. “I know you got a kind
feeling by me, and I couldn’t to tell even how I got a kind feeling by
you. Only it’s about that kind feeling I should give you a present. I
didn’t”—with a glance at the crowded desk—“I didn’t to have no soap nor
no perfumery, and my mamma she couldn’t to buy none by the store; but,
Teacher, I’m got something awful nice for you by present.”
“And what is it, deary?” asked the already rich and gifted young person.
“What is my new present?”
“Teacher, it’s like this: I don’t know; I ain’t so big like I could
to know”—and, truly, God pity him! he was passing small—“it ain’t for
boys—it’s for ladies. Over yesterday on the night comes my papa to my
house, und he gives my mamma the present. Sooner she looks on it, sooner
she has a awful glad; in her eyes stands tears, und she says, like
that—out of Jewish—‘Thanks,’ un’ she kisses my papa a kiss. Und my papa,
how he is polite! He says—out of Jewish, too—‘you’re welcome, all right,’
un’ he kisses my mamma a kiss. So my mamma, she sets und looks on the
present, und all the time she looks she has a glad over it. Und I didn’t
to have no soap, so you could to have the present.”
“But did your mother say I might?”
“Teacher, no, ma’am; she didn’t say like that, und she didn’t to say not
like that. She didn’t to know. But it’s for ladies, un’ I didn’t to have
no soap. You could to look on it. It ain’t for boys.”
And here Morris opened a hot little hand and disclosed a tightly folded
pinkish paper. As Teacher read it he watched her with eager, furtive
eyes, dry and bright, until hers grew suddenly moist, when his promptly
followed suit. As she looked down at him, he made his moan once more:
“It’s for ladies, and I didn’t to have no soap.”
“But, Morris dear,” cried Teacher, unsteadily, laughing a little, and
yet not far from tears, “this is ever so much nicer than soap—a thousand
times better than perfume; and you’re quite right, it is for ladies, and
I never had one in all my life before. I am so very thankful.”
“You’re welcome, all right. That’s how my papa says; it’s polite. Und my
mamma,” he said insinuatingly—“she kisses my papa a kiss.”
“Well?” said Teacher.
“Well,” said Morris, “you ain’t never kissed me a kiss, und I seen how
you kissed Eva Gonorowsky. I’m loving mit you too. Why don’t you never
kiss me a kiss?”
“Perhaps,” suggested Teacher mischievously, “perhaps it ain’t for boys.”
“Teacher, yiss, ma’am; it’s for boys,” he cried, as he felt her arms
about him, and saw that in her eyes, too, “stands tears.”
Late that night Teacher sat in her pretty room and reviewed her
treasures. She saw that they were very numerous, very touching, very
whimsical, and very precious. But above all the rest she cherished a
frayed and pinkish paper, rather crumpled and a little soiled. For it
held the love of a man and a woman and a little child, and the magic of
a home, for Morris Mogilewsky’s Christmas present for ladies was the
receipt for a month’s rent for a room on the top floor of a Monroe Street
tenement.—From “Little Citizens,” copyrighted by _Doubleday, Page & Co._,
New York, and used by arrangement.
THE CAMP-MEETING AT BLUFF SPRINGS
BY JUSTIN TRUITT BISHOP
Bascom Barnard paused on the kitchen steps, and looked in at the door
with suspicion and irritation in his eyes.
“Bakin’ chickens, air ye?” he asked. “Now I’d like to know what ye’re
wastin’ chickens fur at this rate? An’ pies an’ lightbread an’ puddin’,
well the land, Ma’ Jane, did ye think we was millionaires?”
“I didn’t know but ye’d change your mind about goin’ over to the
camp-meetin’ an’ it would help along to have most of the cookin’ for
Sunday done at home,” she said humbly.
“It does seem to me, Ma’ Jane, that it takes more talkin’ to convince
you of anything, than any other seventeen women I ever have saw. I’ve
tol’ you every day for the last week that we warn’t goin’ to that
dratted camp-meetin’—that we couldn’t both leave, and I was bound to go
over to the corners and see Bink Denny about that land—that a woman’s
business was at home, stid of gallivantin’ ’round the country ’tendin’
camp-meetin’s; cain’t you ever learn anything, Ma’ Jane?”
Ma’ Jane shut the oven door and stood up; she wiped the perspiration from
her face with a checked apron.
“I’ve been hopin’ for years that they’d have a camp-meetin’ near enough
for me to go. I’ve not ’tended since I was a girl. Mother always had a
tent an’ you was glad enough to come to camp-meetin’ then, Bascom, an’
this one’s not more’n six miles away—an’ I want to go.”
“Well, you know good an’ well you cain’t. Somebody’s got to stay on this
place to take keer o’ things—an’ since it cain’t be me, it’s got to be
you.”
“Mary Hopkins tol’ me she’d save one end of her tent for me; it’s built
o’ boards—two rooms and a hall between—an’ there’s a big shed at the
back for a dining-room, an’ I wanted to go worse’n I ever wanted to go
anywheres, I guess.”
“Fur’s that’s concerned, I reckon I wanted to go, but you don’t see me
throwin’ our livin’ away so’s I could gallop off to every camp-meetin’
that comes along, do ye?
“I won’t be back for three days,” he stated, as he went away. In deep
silence Ma’ Jane sat down and looked at the kitchen table. It was heaped
with the good things she had prepared for the great Sunday dinner at the
camp-ground, where it was the joy of every tenter to keep open house and
entertain all who would come.
True, Bascom had said all along that they could not go, yet she had gone
on cooking and planning. She had even packed most of the things which she
would need for housekeeping in the other end of Mary Hopkins’s tent.
Ma’ Jane went out to the barn and looked at the cows, which were ready to
eat again, having been fed fully an hour before.
“Drat ye,” said she vindictively. Coming from Ma’ Jane, this might have
been considered mild profanity.
Her heart stood still for a moment, then she wept remorsefully on the
outstretched nose of the nearest cow. “It’s about time I was goin’ to
camp-meetin’,” she said. “If I ain’t gettin’ to be a heathen, I dunno who
is.”
As she slowly walked out of the barn, the two cows followed her, and it
was at the barn-door that an inspiration came to Ma’ Jane Barnard.
Her face paled a moment, and then flushed crimson. She put her hand to
her throat—“them cows lead like dogs,” she whispered.
Bascom Barnard’s work at the corners was over in less time than he had
contemplated. In fact, he met Bink Denny coming out of the “First and
Last Chance” in such a state of intoxication that Bascom was glad to tear
himself away and set forth on the homeward road.
He went slowly and sorrowfully, because if he went home, Ma’ Jane would
insist on going to camp-meeting and he would be left alone over Sunday.
The few times when he had been left to look after the house had been
brief but memorable. Of course, it was no trouble for Ma’ Jane to run the
place. She was already reconciled to the staying at home now, anyway, and
did not expect to go to the camp-meeting.
Bascom was silent on his way home—only two or three miles off the
road—and he really felt that it would do him good to see what a
camp-meeting was like once more. He felt that he might finish up the
day there at any rate, and then go home and give Ma’ Jane a chance; or
he might stay over Sunday at the camp-grounds, and then go back to the
corners, find Bink Denny sober, and transact his business according to
the first arrangement.
Bascom Barnard turned into the road that led to Bluff Springs. The sound
of hammering and sawing, and the merry clatter of tongues proclaimed the
camp-ground before he was in sight of it. He rode into the busy little
city where board and canvas tents were going up like magic. Brother
Wilkins, the minister, called cheerfully:
“Hello, Brother Barnard, where’s Sister Barnard, ain’t she coming?”
“She kinder thot she wouldn’t come. Ma’ Jane sets a lot o’ store by the
cows and things, ye see—so she reckoned she’d stay.”
He rode hurriedly down the line of tents, where a fire of questions met
him at every turn.
“I jes couldn’t get Ma’ Jane to come,” he explained to Miss Mirandy Barr.
“It don’t suit her to come away and leave things at six’s and seven’s, as
she says, so she jes stays by the stuff, Ma’ Jane does.”
Bascom Barnard began helping people to get their tents in order.
Before noon, he told his friends that Ma’ Jane didn’t know what she was
missing, and immediately after dinner—chicken-pie and fixin’s—if they
thought it would do any good, he would go after Ma’ Jane yet and make her
come, whether or no.
Just before the afternoon service, he said it was an awful mistake to
have a body’s mind on worldly things.
In the still hours of the night Bascom reasoned it out. He had not
treated himself to a holiday this many a year, and now he felt he was
entitled to one. Ma’ Jane could take hers some other time; besides, a
woman’s work was never wearin’ like a man’s—keepin’ house was like play
compared with what he had been called upon to do. He turned over on the
fragrant hay mattress, with which Sister Clark had provided him, and went
comfortably to sleep.
The clear notes of a horn roused everybody for the sunrise
prayer-meeting, and Bascom hurried arbor-wards with the others.
“Will Brother Barnard please lead us in prayer?” said the minister, when
the first hymn had been sung. Brother Barnard found himself on his knees
stumbling over a few familiar phrases; as he went on he gained confidence
and his voice became assured. He remarked upon the fact that our days are
few and evil.
After a few similar remarks, he got in full swing—time was no
object—scraps of forgotten phrases from prayers heard in his youth
tumbled forth in picturesque confusion. The hour for prayer-meeting to
close had come when he began to pray for the heathen, and this took time
of itself. When he had worked around to the sinful and depraved of our
own land, everybody would have been impatient, but for the fact that
something had happened—something that Bascom could not see, as his eyes
were shut. There were some who kept their eyes open when they prayed;
these nudged each other excitedly.
“An’ now, Lord,” pleaded Brother Bascom Barnard, pounding the bench in
front of him with a clenched fist, “be with all that’s near and dear to
them that’s gathered here to worship Thee. Be with them that’s stayed by
the stuff—an’ if they’ve stayed away from this blessed place because
they’re cold or hard-hearted—as we fear some of ’em has—O Lord, melt
their hearts of stone an’ make ’em see that they’re hangin’ over eternal
punishment prepared for the devil and his angels.”
“Amen,” said a clear voice, undeniably feminine, which seemed in some
unaccountable way to come from the wrong direction.
Bascom was kneeling in the sawdust near the altar, and facing the
congregation. The voice came from behind him. Involuntarily he looked
back over his shoulder. At the same moment a faint giggle arose somewhere
down among the benches where the congregation was kneeling.
An old horse and wagon had drawn up close at the edge of the arbor, and
Ma’ Jane, her best bonnet tied under her chin, held the reins. The wagon
was piled high with a medley of things pertaining to housekeeping. Three
coops of excited chickens topped the pile, the anxious mewing of a cat
came from a basket behind the seat, and tied to the back of the wagon
were two cows, both intimating that something to eat would be quite
acceptable. Under the wagon sat the black puppy, its astonished head to
one side as it viewed its master under these unaccustomed circumstances.
Every one had arisen and was looking with might and main. The minister
hastily pronounced the benediction.
“I’m sorry to move in on Sunday,” explained Ma’ Jane, “but it’s took me
all night to get ready an’ to come. My husband couldn’t help me because
he was over to the corners, makin’ a trade with Bink Denny. I warn’t
goin’ to stay at home tendin’ the cows and things while camp-meetin’ was
goin’ on only six miles away, so I brung ’em all along. ’Long as Bascom’s
not here, if some of you would help me unload at Mary Hopkins’s tent, I’d
be thankful, an’ you’ll take dinner with me to-day, Brother Wilkins—an’
as many more as can crowd in.”
That dinner in the other end of Mary Hopkins’s tent, was a thing long to
be remembered. Bascom crept meekly in after awhile and offered himself
at least as a guest. But Ma’ Jane remarked dryly, “My husband not bein’
here, I reckon I can’t take you in—I ain’t makin’ no new acquaintances.”
He went away and ate with Miss Mirandy Barr, who had corn-beef and cold
potatoes for dinner. Somehow everything was different.
The minister’s sermon on hypocrisy that afternoon was something terrible
to hear, and sounded personal to the last degree. Another meal at Miss
Mirandy Barr’s with a night on a pallet at Sister Clark’s prepared Bascom
to enter upon another day with a chastened spirit, but there was no
relenting on the part of Ma’ Jane. Between sermons he heard goodly sounds
of cooking at her tent and, wandering near, smelled such odors as tore
his very being asunder. But he was an outcast there, and might not hope
to enter. He listened to the sermons in gloomy silence; his voice was not
raised in the hymns.
But when the long day had worn itself out, and the night service was
going on, he sat looking around on the scene from which it seemed that he
was all at once shut out.
Over there in the brightest light he saw Ma’ Jane, her face lifted, her
hands clasped in her lap. He saw how gray she was getting and how shabby.
That best bonnet of hers had been bought fifteen years before, and she
had washed the ribbon and retrimmed it many times. While he looked he saw
the tears on her face too. The hands she raised to wipe them were rough
and hard; how she must have worked!
The minister had turned towards him and looked into his eyes. What he saw
there decided him—“Will Brother Bascom Barnard lead us in prayer?” And
Brother Bascom Barnard fell on his knees, shaken with sobs.
“The Lord forgive us for bein’ miserable fools,” he cried, “an’ give us
a chance to try again an’ see if we can’t do better next time, Amen!” It
was a very complete prayer; after it was over Bascom found a hand on his
arm, and there was Ma’ Jane looking up at him.
“I’ve got some chicken-pie saved up for you, Bascom,” she whispered. And
they went away toward the tent, arm in arm, walking where the shadows
of the trees lay thickest. “It looks like we’re goin’ to have a great
meetin’,” he said, stumbling. “I’m awful glad you got a chance to come,
Ma’ Jane.”
THE CATACOMBS OF PALERMO
J. ROSS BROWNE
Chief among the wonders of Palermo are the Catacombs of the Capuchin
Convent, near to Porta d’Ossuna. It is said to be a place of great
antiquity; many of the bodies have been preserved in it for centuries,
and still retain much of their original freshness. Entering the ancient
and ruinous court of the convent, distant about a mile from the city, I
was conducted by a ghostly-looking monk through some dark passages to
the subterranean apartments of the dead. It was not my first visit to a
place of this kind, but I must confess the sight was rather startling. It
was like a revel of the dead—a horrible, grinning, ghastly exhibition
of skeleton forms, sightless eyes, and shining teeth, jaws distended,
and bony hands outstretched; heads without bodies, and bodies without
heads—the young, the old, the brave, the once beautiful and gay, all
mingled in the ghastly throng. I walked through long subterranean
passages, lined with the dead on both sides; with a stealthy and measured
tread I stepped, for they seemed to stare at the intrusion, and their
skeleton fingers vibrated as if yearning to grasp the living in their
embrace. Long rows of upright niches are cut into the walls on each side;
in every niche a skeleton form stands erect as in life, habited in a robe
of black; the face, hands, and feet naked, withered, and of an ashy hue;
the grizzled beards still hanging in tufts from the jaws, but matted and
dry. To each corpse is attached a label upon which is written the name
and the date of decease, and a cross or the image of the Saviour....
Who was the prince here? Who was the great man, or the proud man, or the
rich man? The musty, grinning, ghastly skeleton in the corner seemed to
chuckle at the thought, and say to himself, “Was it you, there on the
right, you ugly, noseless, sightless, disgusting thing? Was it you that
rode in your fine carriage, about a year ago, and thought yourself so
great when you ordered your coachman to drive over the beggar? Don’t you
see he is as handsome as you are now, and as great a man; you can’t cut
him down now, my fine fellow! And you, there on the left. What a nice
figure you are, with your fleshless shanks and your worm-eaten lips!
It was you that betrayed youth and beauty and innocence, and brought
yourself here at last to keep company with such wretches as I am. Why,
there is not a living thing now, save the maggots, that wouldn’t turn
away in disgust from you. And you, sir, on the opposite side, how proud
you were the last time I saw you; an officer of state, a great man in
power, who could crush all below you, and make the happy wife a widowed
mourner, and bring her little babes to starvation; it was you who had
innocent men seized and thrown into prison. What can you do now? The
meanest wretch that mocks you in this vault of death is as good as you,
as strong, as great, as tall, as broad, as pretty a piece of mortality,
and a great deal nearer to heaven. Oh, you are a nice set of fellows,
all mixing together without ceremony! Where are your rules of etiquette
now; your fashionable ranks, and your plebeian ranks; your thousands of
admiring friends, your throngs of jeweled visitors? Why, the lowliest
of us has as many visitors here, and as many honest tears shed as you.
Ha! Ha! This is a jolly place, after all; we are all a jolly set of
republicans, and old Death is our President.”—From “Yusef, or the
Journey of the Frangi.” Published by _Harper & Brothers_ and used by
their kind permission.
GETTING READY FOR THE TRAIN
BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE
When they reached the station, Mr. and Mrs. Man gazed in unspeakable
disappointment at the receding train which was just pulling away from
the station at the rate of about a thousand miles a minute. Their first
impulse was to run after it, but as the train was out of sight and
whistling for the next station before they could act upon this impulse,
they remained in the auto and disconsolately turned homeward.
“It all comes of having to wait for a woman to get ready!”
“I was ready before you were!”
“Great heavens, just listen to that! And I sat out in the car ten minutes
yelling for you to come along until the whole neighborhood heard me!”
“Yes, and every time I started down the stairs you sent me back after
something you had forgotten.”
Mr. Man groaned. “This is too much to bear when everybody knows that if
I were going to Europe I would just rush in the house, put on a clean
shirt, grab a grip and fly, while you would want at least six months to
get ready in and then dawdle around the whole day of starting until every
train had left town.”
Well, the upshot of the matter was that the Mans put off their visit to
San Diego until the next week, when it was agreed that each one should
get himself or herself ready, get down to the train and go. And the one
who failed to get ready should be left.
The day of the match came around in due time. The train was to leave at
ten-thirty and Mr. Man, after attending to business, came home at nine
forty-five.
“Now, then, only three-quarters of an hour until train time. Fly around.
A fair field and no favors, you know.”
And away they flew. Mr. Man bulged into this room, and rushed through
that, and into one closet after another, with inconceivable chuckling
under his breath all the time to think how cheap Mrs. Man would feel when
he started off alone. He stopped on the way upstairs to pull off his
heavy boots to save time. For the same reason he pulled off his coat as
he ran through the dining-room and hung it on the corner of the silver
closet. Then he jerked off his vest as he ran through the hall and tossed
it on a hook on the hatrack, and by the time he reached his own room he
was ready to plunge into clean clothes. He pulled out a dresser drawer
and began to paw among the things like a Scotch terrier after a rat.
“Elinor, where are my shirts?”
“In your dresser drawer.”
“Well, but they ain’t. I’ve pulled out every last thing and there isn’t a
thing I’ve ever seen before.”
(Laughing.) “These things scattered around on the floor are all mine;
perhaps you haven’t been looking in your own drawer.”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t put my things out for me, when you had
nothing to do all morning.”
“Because—because, nobody put mine out. A fair field and no favors, my
dear.”
Mr. Man plunged into his shirt. “Gad, no buttons on the neck!”
“Because you have it on wrong side out.”
When his head came through the clock struck ten. “Where’s my shirt studs?”
“In the shirt you just pulled off.” Mrs. Man put on her gloves while Mr.
Man hunted up and down the room for his cuff buttons.
“Elinor, I believe you must know where those buttons are.”
“I didn’t see them. Didn’t you leave them on the window-sill in the
living-room last night?”
Mr. Man remembered, and down the stairs he flew. He stepped on one of his
boots and was immediately landed at the foot of the stairs with neatness
and dispatch, attended in the transmission with more bumps than he could
count.
“Are you nearly ready, dear?”
The unhappy man groaned. “Can’t you throw me down my other boot?”
Mrs. Man pitifully kicked it down to him.
“My valise?”
“In your dressing-room.”
“Packed?”
“I do not know; unless you packed it yourself probably not. I had hardly
time to pack my own.” She was passing out of the gate when the door
opened and he shouted: “Where in the name of goodness did you put my
vest? It has all my money in it.”
“You threw it on the hatrack; good-by, dear.”
Before she reached the corner of the street she was hailed again.
“Elinor! Elinor Man! Did you wear off my coat?”
She paused after signaling the street car to stop, and cried: “You threw
it on the silver-closet,” and the street car engulfed her graceful form
and she was seen no more.
But the neighbors say that they heard Mr. Man charging up and down the
house, rushing out to the front door every now and then and shrieking up
the deserted street after the unconscious Mrs. Man to know where his hat
was and where did she put the valise key, and that there wasn’t a linen
collar in the house.
And when he went away at last he left the front door, the kitchen door,
and side door, all the down-stairs windows and front gate wide open, and
the loungers around the station were somewhat amused, just as the train
was pulling out of sight down in the yards, to see a flushed, perspiring
man with his hat on sideways, his vest unbuttoned, necktie flying, and
his grip flapping open and shut like a demented shutter on a March night,
and a doorkey in his hand, dash wildly across the platform and halt
in the middle of the track, glaring in dejected, impatient, wrathful
mortification at the departing train, and shaking his fist at the pretty
woman who was throwing kisses at him from the rear platform of the last
car.
“A fair field and no favors, my dear!”
A STARTLING ADVENTURE
BY J. ROSS BROWNE
I descended several of these shafts rather to oblige my friend, the
Judge, than to satisfy any curiosity I had on the subject myself. This
thing of being dropped down two hundred feet into the bowels of the earth
in wooden buckets, and hoisted out by blind horses attached to “whims,”
may be very amusing to read about, but I have enjoyed pleasanter modes
of locomotion. There was one shaft in particular that left an indelible
impression upon my mind—so much so, indeed, that I am astonished every
hair in my head is not quite gray. It was in the San Antonia, a mine in
which the Judge held an interest in connection with a worthy Norwegian by
the name of Jansen. As I had traveled in Norway, Jansen was enthusiastic
in his devotion to my enjoyment—declared he would go down with me himself
and show me everything worth seeing—even to the lower level just opened.
While I was attempting to frame an excuse the honest Norwegian had
lighted a couple of candles, given directions to one of the “boys” to
look out for the old blind horse attached to the “whim” and now stood
ready at the mouth of the shaft to guide me into the subterranean regions.
“Mr. Jansen,” said I, looking with horror at the rickety wooden bucket
and the flimsy little rope that was to hold us suspended between the
surface of the earth and eternity, “is that rope strong?”
“Well, I think it’s strong enough to hold us,” replied Jansen; “it
carries a ton of ore. We don’t weigh a ton, I guess.”
“But the bucket looks fearfully battered. And who can vouch that the old
horse won’t run away and let us down by the run?”
“Oh, sir, he’s used to it. That horse never runs. You see, he’s fast
asleep now. He sleeps all along on the down turn. It’s the up turn that
gets him.”
“Mr. Jansen,” said I, “all that may be true; but suppose the bucket
should catch and drop us out?”
“Well, sometimes it catches; but nobody’s been hurt bad yet; one man fell
fifteen feet perpendicular. He lit on the top of his head.”
“Wasn’t he killed?”
“No; he was only stunned a little. There was a buzzing about among his
brains for a few days after; he’s at work down below now, as well as
ever.”
“Mr. Jansen, upon the whole I think I’d rather go down by the ladder, if
it’s all the same to you.”
“Certainly, sir, suit yourself; only the ladder’s sort o’ broke in spots,
and you’ll find it a tolerably hard climb down; how-so-ever, I’ll go
ahead and sing out when I come to bad places.”
With this the Norwegian disappeared. I looked down after him. The shaft
was about four feet square; rough, black and dismal, with a small,
flickering light, apparently a thousand feet below, making the darkness
visible. It was almost perpendicular; the ladders stood against the
near side, perched on ledges or hanging together by means of chafed and
ragged-looking ropes. I regretted that I had not taken Jansen’s advice
and committed myself to the bucket; but it was now too late. With a
hurried glance at the bright world around me, a thought of home and
unhappy conditions of widows and orphans, as a general thing, I seized
the rungs of the ladder and took the irrevocable dive. Down I crept, rung
after rung, ladder after ladder, in the black darkness, with the solid
walls of rock pressing the air close around me. Sometimes I heard the
incoherent muttering of voices below, but could make nothing of them.
Perhaps Jansen was warning me of breaks in the ladder; perhaps his voice
was split up by the rocks and sounded like many voices; or it might
be there were gnomes whisking about in the dark depths below. Down and
still down I crept, slower and slower, for I was getting tired, and I
fancied there might be poisonous gases in the air. When I had reached the
depth of a thousand feet, as it seemed, but about a hundred and forty as
it was in reality, the thought occurred to me that I was beginning to
get alarmed. In truth I was shaking like a man with the ague. Suppose
I should become nervous and lose my hold on the ladder? The very idea
was enough to make me shaky. There was an indefinite extent of shaft
underneath, black, narrow and scraggy, with a solid base of rock at the
bottom. I did not wonder that it caused a buzzing of the brain to fall
fifteen feet and light on top of the head. My brain was buzzing already,
and I had not fallen yet. But the prospect to that effect was getting
better and better every moment, for I was now quite out of breath, and
had to stop and cling around the ladder to avoid falling. The longer I
stood this way the more certain it became that I should lose my balance
and topple over. With a desperate effort I proceeded, step after step,
clinging desperately to the frail wood-work as the drowning man clings
to a straw, gasping for breath, the cold sweat streaming down my face,
and my jaws chattering audibly. The breaks in the ladder were getting
fearfully common. Sometimes I found two rungs gone, sometimes six or
seven, and then I had to slide down by the sides till my feet found a
resting-place on another rung or some casual ledge of rock. To Jansen,
or the miners who worked down in the shaft every day, all of this, of
course, was mere pastime. They knew every break and resting-place; and
besides, familiarity with any particular kind of danger blunts the
sense of it. I am confident that I could make the same trip now without
experiencing any unpleasant sensation. By good fortune I at length
reached the bottom of the shaft, where I found my Norwegian friend and
some three or four workmen quietly awaiting my arrival. A bucket of ore,
containing some five or six hundred pounds, was ready to be hoisted up.
It was very nice-looking ore, and very rich ore, as Jansen assured me;
but what did I care about ore till I got the breath back again into my
body?
“Stand from under, sir,” said Jansen, dodging into a hole in the rocks;
“a chunk of ore might fall out, or the bucket might give way.”
Stand from under? Where in the name of sense was a man to stand in such
a hole as this, not more than six or eight feet square at the base,
with a few dark chasms in the neighborhood through which it was quite
possible to be precipitated into the infernal regions? However, I stood
as close to the wall as was possible without backing clean into it. The
bucket of ore having gone up out of sight, I was now introduced to the
ledge upon which the men were at work. It was about four feet thick,
clearly defined, and apparently rich in the precious metals. In some
specimens which I took out myself gold was visible to the naked eye. The
indications of silver were also well marked. This was at a depth of a
hundred and seventy-five feet. At the bottom of this shaft there was a
loose flooring of rafters and planks.