curious, thin wailing of the wind, rising swiftly to a dull, ominous
roar. Startled, both boys stopped abruptly, and stared up the slope.
And as they did so, something like a vast, white, opaque curtain
surged over the crest of the hill and swept swiftly toward them.
Almost before they could draw a breath it was upon them, a dense,
blinding mass of snow, which whirled about them in choking masses and
blotted out the landscape in a flash.
“Wough!” gasped Hedges. “Some speed to that! I guess we'd better beat
it, kid, while the going's good.”
But even Hedges, with his easy, careless confidence, was swiftly forced
to the realization that the going was very far from good even then.
It was impossible to see more than a dozen yards ahead of them. As a
matter of course, the older fellow took the lead, but he had not gone
far before he ran off the track and only saved himself from a spill by
grabbing a small tree.
“Have to take it easy,” he commented, recovering his balance. “This
storm will let up soon; it can't possibly last long this way.”
Seabury made no answer. Shaking with nervousness, he could not trust
himself to speak.
Regaining the trail, Hedges started off again, cautiously enough at
first. But a little success seemed to restore his confidence, and he
began to use his staff as a brake with less and less frequency. They
had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when a sudden heavier gust of
stinging flakes momentarily blinded them both. Seabury instantly put
on the brake and almost stopped. When he was able to clear his eyes,
Hedges was out of sight. An instant later there came a sudden crash, a
startled, muffled cry, and then--silence!
Horrified, Seabury instantly jerked his staff out of the snow and sped
forward. At first, he could barely see the tracks of his companion's
skees, but presently the storm lightened a trifle and of a sudden he
realized what had happened. Hedges had misjudged a sharp curve in the
trail and, instead of following it, had plunged off to one side and
down a steep declivity thickly grown with trees. At the foot of this
little slope Seabury found him lying motionless, a twisted heap, face
downward in the snow.
Sick with horror, the boy bent over that silent figure. “Bill!” he
cried, “what has--”
His voice died in a choking sob, but a moment later his heart leaped as
Hedges stirred, tried to rise, and fell back with a stifled groan.
“It's--my ankle,” he mumbled, “I--I've--turned it. See if you can't--”
With shaking fingers, Seabury jerked at the buckles of his skees and
stepped out of them. Hedges' left foot was twisted under him, and the
front part of his skee was broken off. As Paul freed the other's feet
from their encumbering straps, Bill made a second effort to rise, but
his face turned quite white and he sank back with a grunt of pain.
“Thunder!” he muttered. “I--I believe it's sprained.”
For a moment or two he sat there, face screwed up, arms gripping his
knees. Then, as his head cleared, he looked up at the frightened
Seabury, a wry smile twisting the corners of his mouth.
“I'm an awful nut, kid,” he said. “I forgot that curve and was going
too fast to pull up. Reckon I deserve that crack on the head and all
the rest of it for being so awfully cocky. Looks as if we were in
rather a mess, doesn't it?”
Seabury nodded, still unable to trust himself to speak. But Hedges'
coolness soothed his jangled nerves, and presently a thought struck him.
“That cabin back there!” he exclaimed. “If we could only manage to get
that far--”
He paused and the other nodded. “Good idea,” he agreed promptly. “I'm
afraid I can't walk it, but I might be able to crawl.”
“Oh, I didn't mean that. If we only had some way of fastening my skees
together, you could lie down on them and I could pull you.”
A gleam of admiration came into the older chap's dark eyes. “You've got
your nerve with you, old man,” he said. “Do you know how much I weigh?”
“That doesn't matter,” protested Seabury. “It's all down hill; it
wouldn't be so hard. Besides, we can't stay here or--or we'll freeze.”
“Now you've said something,” agreed Hedges.
And it was true. Already Seabury's teeth were chattering, and even
the warmer blooded Hedges could feel the cold penetrating his thick
sweater. He tried to think of some other way out of their predicament,
but finally agreed to try the plan. His heavy, high shoes were laced
with rawhide thongs, which sufficed roughly to bind the two skees
together. There was no possibility, however, of pulling them. The only
way they could manage was for Hedges to seat himself on the improvised
toboggan while Seabury trudged behind and pushed.
It was a toilsome and painful method of progress for them both and
often jolted Hedges' ankle, which was already badly swollen, bringing
on a constant succession of sharp, keen stabs. Seabury, wading
knee-deep in the snow, was soon breathless, and by the time they
reached the cabin, he felt utterly done up.
“Couldn't have kept that up much longer,” grunted Hedges, when they
were inside the shelter with the door closed against the storm.
His alert gaze traveled swiftly around the bare interior. There was a
rough stone chimney at one end, a shuttered window at the back, and
that was all. Snow lay piled up on the cold hearth, and here and there
made little ridges on the logs where it had filtered through the many
cracks and crevices. Without the means of making fire, it was not much
better than the out-of-doors, and Hedges' heart sank as he glanced at
his companion, leaning exhausted against the wall.
“It's sure to stop pretty soon,” he said presently, with a confidence
he did not feel. “When it lets up a little, we might--”
“I don't believe it's going to let up.” Seabury straightened with an
odd, unwonted air of decision. “I was caught in a storm like this two
years ago and it lasted over two days. We've got to do something, and
do it pretty quick.”
Hedges stared at him, amazed at the sudden transformation. He did not
understand that a long-continued nervous strain will sometimes bring
about strange reactions.
“You're not thinking of pushing me all the way down the road, are you?”
he protested. “I don't believe you could do it.”
“I don't believe I could, either,” agreed the other, frankly. “But I
could go down alone and bring back help.”
“Gee-whiz! You--you mean skee down that road? Why, it's over three
miles, and you'd miss the trail a dozen times.”
“I shouldn't try the road,” said Seabury, quietly. His face was pale,
but there was a determined set to the delicate chin. “If I went
straight down the hill back of this cabin, I'd land close to the
school, and I don't believe the whole distance is over half a mile.”
Hedges gasped. “You're crazy, man! Why, you'd kill yourself in the
first hundred feet trying to skee through those trees.”
“I don't think so. I've done it before--some. Besides, most of the
slope is open fields. I noticed that when we started out.”
“But they're steep as the dickens, with stone walls, and--”
Seabury cut short his protests by buttoning his collar tightly about
his throat and testing the laces of his shoes. He was afraid to delay
lest his resolution should break down.
“I'm going,” he stated stubbornly; “and the sooner I get off, the
better.”
And go he did, with a curt farewell which astonished and bewildered his
companion who had no means of knowing that it was a manner assumed to
hide a desperate fear and nervousness. As the door closed between them,
Seabury's lips began to tremble; and his hands shook so that he could
scarcely tighten up the straps of his skees.
Back of the cabin, poised at the top of the slope, with the snow
whirling around him and the unknown in front, he had one horrible
moment of indecision when his heart lay like lead within him and he was
on the verge of turning back. But with a tremendous effort he crushed
down that almost irresistible impulse. He could not bear the thought of
facing Hedges, an acknowledged coward and a quitter. An instant later
a thrust of his staff sent him over the edge, to glide downward through
the trees with swiftly increasing momentum.
Strangely enough, he felt somehow that the worst was over. To begin
with, he was much too occupied to think of danger, and after he had
successfully steered through the first hundred feet or so of woods,
a growing confidence in himself helped to bolster up his shrinking
spirit. After all, save for the blinding snow, this was no worse than
some of the descents he had made of wooded slopes back there at home.
If the storm did not increase, he believed that he could make it.
At first he managed, by a skilful use of his staff, to hold himself
back a little and keep his speed within a reasonable limit. But just
before he left the woods, the necessity for a sudden side-turn to avoid
a clump of trees through which he could not pass nearly flung him off
his balance. In struggling to recover it, the end of his staff struck
against another tree and was torn instantly from his grasp.
His heart leaped, then sank sickeningly, but there was no stopping now.
A moment later he flashed out into the open, swerved through a gap in
the rough, snow-covered wall, and shot down the steep incline with
swiftly increasing speed.
His body tense and bent slightly forward, his straining gaze set
unwaveringly ahead, striving to pierce the whirling, beating snow,
Seabury felt as if he were flying through the clouds. On a clear day,
with the ability to see what lay before him, there would have been
a rather delightful exhilaration in that descent. But the perilous
uncertainty of it all kept the boy's heart in his throat and chained
him in a rigid grip of cold fear.
Long before he expected it, the rounded, snow-covered bulk of a second
wall seemed to leap out of the blinding snow-curtain and rush toward
him. Almost too late, he jumped, and, soaring through the air, struck
the declining slope again a good thirty feet beyond.
In the lightning passage of that second field, he tried to figure
where he was coming out and what obstacles he might encounter, but
the effort was fruitless. He knew that the high-road, bordered by a
third stone wall, ran along the foot of the hill, with the school
grounds on the other side. But the speed at which he was traveling made
consecutive thought almost impossible.
Again, with that same appalling swiftness, the final barrier loomed
ahead. He leaped, and, at the very take-off, a gasp of horror was
jolted from his lips by the sight of a two-horse sledge moving along
the road directly in his path!
It was all over in a flash. Helpless to avoid the collision, Seabury
nevertheless twisted his body instinctively to the left. He was vaguely
conscious of a monstrous looming bulk; of a startled snort which sent a
wave of hot breath against his face, and the equally startled yell of a
human voice. The next instant he landed badly, his feet shot out from
under him, and he fell backward with a stunning crash.
His first conscious observation was of two strange faces bending over
him and of hands lifting him from where he lay half buried in the snow.
For a moment he was too dazed to speak or even to remember. Then, with
a surging rush of immense relief, he realized what had happened, and
gaining speech, he poured out a hurried but fairly coherent account of
the situation.
His rescuers proved to be woodsmen, perfectly familiar with the Hogan
Hill trail and the old log-cabin. Seabury's skees were taken off and he
was helped into the sledge and driven to the near-by school. Stiff and
sore, but otherwise unhurt, he wanted to go with them, but his request
was firmly refused; and pausing only long enough to get some rugs
and a heavy coat, the pair set off. Little more than two hours later
they returned with the injured Hedges, who was carried at once to the
infirmary to be treated for exposure and a badly sprained ankle.
His rugged constitution responded readily to the former, but the ankle
proved more stubborn, and he was ordered by the doctor not to attempt
even to hobble around on it for at least a week. As a result, Christmas
dinner had to be eaten in bed. But somehow Hedges did not mind that
[Illustration: =“At the very take-off, a gasp of horror was jolted from
his lips.”=] (_page 264_)
very much, for Paul Seabury shared it, sitting on the other side of a
folding table drawn up beside the couch.
Having consumed everything in sight and reached that state of repletion
without which no Christmas dinner may be considered really perfect,
the two boys relapsed for a space into a comfortable, friendly sort of
silence.
“Not _much_ on skees, are you?” commented Hedges, presently, glancing
quizzically at his companion.
Seabury flushed a little. “I wish you wouldn't,” he protested. “If you
had any idea how scared I was, and--and--Why, the whole thing was just
pure luck.”
Hedges snorted. “Bosh! You go tell that to your grandmother. There's
one thing,” he added; “as soon as I'm around again, you've got to come
out and give me some points. I thought I was fairly decent on skees,
but I guess after all I'm pretty punk.”
“I'll show you anything I can, of course,” agreed Seabury, readily.
He paused an instant and then went on hesitatingly: “I--I'm going to
do a lot more of that sort of thing from now on. It--it was simply
disgusting the way I got winded so soon and all tired out.”
“Sure,” nodded Hedges, promptly. “That's what I've always said. You
ought to take more exercise and not mope around by yourself so much.
But we'll fix that up all right from now on.” He paused. “Aren't you
going to read some more in 'Treasure Island'?” he asked expectantly.
“That's some book, believe me! What with you and that and everything,
I'm not going to mind being laid up at all.”
Seabury made no comment, but as he reached for the book and found
their place, the corners of his mouth curved with the beginnings of a
contented, happy smile.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS
1. What is the character of Bill Hedges?
2. What is the character of “Plug” Seabury?
3. Why are both boys at the school in vacation time?
4. What had been the past life of each boy?
5. What had been their feeling for each other?
6. What change does the story make in their feeling for each other?
7. How does the author make the story seem probable?
8. Show how the author leads to the climax of the story.
9. Divide the story into its most important incidents.
10. Show that the author is consistent in character presentation.
11. How does the author make the climax powerful in effect?
12. What makes the conclusion effective?
13. What use does the author make of conversation?
14. What is the proportion of description and explanation in the
story?
15. What are the good characteristics of the story?
SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION
1. A Summer Adventure 11. The Fire in School
2. At Easter Time 12. An Unexpected Hero
3. The Swimming Match 13. Tony's Brother
4. A Cross Country Adventure 14. Skating on the River
5. The Lost Books 15. The Bicycle Meet
6. The School Bully 16. At the Sea Shore
7. The Hiding Place 17. The Trip to the Woods
8. An Excursion 18. The Surprise of the Day
9. The Little Freshman 19. The Best Batter
10. Our Election Day 20. How We Found a Captain
DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING
Write a story that will be closely connected with school life. Use
the ordinary characters that are to be found in your school, but use
typical characters that will sum up well-recognized characteristics.
Base your story upon any sharp contrast in characters. Begin
your story by telling of everyday events, but make those events lead
quickly to events that are out of the ordinary. In like manner begin
with familiar surroundings and then lead your readers into surroundings
that will be less familiar and that will be an appropriate
setting for unusual action. Make the climax of your story powerful
by using suspense. Indicate that your hero is likely to be overcome.
Make his final success depend upon his resolution or good
spirit,--upon his character. Use much conversation. Omit everything
that will not contribute to the effect of the climax.
THE CRITICAL ESSAY
CODDLING IN EDUCATION
By HENRY SEIDEL CANBY
_(1878). Editor of The Literary Review; Assistant Editor of The
Yale Review, and Assistant Professor of English in the Sheffield
Scientific School. He is author and co-author of many books on
English, among which are:_ The Short Story; Facts, Thought and
Imagination; _and_ Good English.
=The critical essay comments on a fault,--but it does no more: it
makes no searching analysis and it points to no specific remedy.=
=_Coddling in Education_ is a critical essay. It points at what its
author believes is a serious fault in American education. Like all
critical essays it aims at reform, but it merely suggests the means
of reform.=
=Many of the editorial articles in newspapers are examples of the
critical essay.=
American minds have been coddled in school and college for at least
a generation. There are two kinds of mental coddling. The first
belongs to the public schools, and is one of the defects of our
educational system that we abuse privately and largely keep out of
print. It is democratic coddling. I mean, of course, the failure to
hold up standards, the willingness to let youth wobble upward, knowing
little and that inaccurately, passing nothing well, graduating with
an education that hits and misses like an old type-writer with a
torn ribbon. America is full of “sloppy thinking,” of inaccuracy,
of half-baked misinformation, of sentimentalism, especially
sentimentalism, as a result of coddling by schools that cater to an
easy-going democracy. Only fifty-six per cent. of a group of girls,
graduates of the public schools, whose records I once examined, could
do simple addition, only twenty-nine per cent. simple multiplication
correctly; a deplorable percentage had a very inaccurate knowledge of
elementary American geography.
A dozen causes are responsible for this condition, and among them, I
suspect, one, which if not major, at least deserves careful pondering.
The teacher and the taught have somehow drifted apart. His function
in the large has been to teach an ideal, a tradition. He is content,
he has to be content, with partial results. It is not for life as it
is, it is for what life ought to be, that he is preparing even in
arithmetic; he has allowed the faint unreality of a priestcraft to numb
him. In the mind of the student a dim conception has entered, that this
education--all education--is a garment merely, to be doffed for the
struggle with realities. The will is dulled. Interest slackens.
But it is in aristocratic coddling that the effects of our educational
attitude gleam out to the least observant understanding. This is the
coddling of the preparatory schools and the colleges, and it is more
serious for it is a defect that cannot be explained away by the hundred
difficulties that beset good teaching in a public-school system,
nation-wide, and conducted for the young of every race in the American
menagerie. The teaching in the best American preparatory schools and
colleges is as careful and as conscientious as any in the world. That
one gladly asserts. Indeed, an American boy in a good boarding-school
is handled like a rare microbe in a research laboratory. He is
ticketed; every instant of his time is planned and scrutinized; he is
dieted with brain food, predigested, and weighed before application. I
sometimes wonder if a moron could not be made into an Abraham Lincoln
by such a system--if the system were sound.
It is not sound. The boys and girls, especially the boys, are coddled
for entrance examinations, coddled through freshman year, coddled
oftentimes for graduation. And they too frequently go out into the
world fireproof against anything but intellectual coddling. Such
men and women can read only writing especially prepared for brains
that will take only selected ideas, simply put. They can think only
on simple lines, not too far extended. They can live happily only
in a life where ideas never exceed the college sixty per cent. of
complexity, and where no intellectual or esthetic experience lies too
far outside the range of their curriculum. A world where one reads the
news and skips the editorials; goes to musical comedies, but omits
the plays; looks at illustrated magazines, but seldom at books; talks
business, sports, and politics, but never economics, social welfare,
and statesmanship--that is the world for which we coddle the best of
our youth. Many indeed escape the evil effects by their own innate
originality; more bear the marks to the grave.
The process is simple, and one can see it in the English public
school (where it is being attacked vivaciously) quite as commonly as
here. You take your boy out of his family and his world. You isolate
him except for companionship with other nursery transplantings and
teachers themselves isolated. And then you feed him, nay, you cram
him, with good traditional education, filling up the odd hours with
the excellent, but negative, passion of sport. Then you subject him to
a special cramming and send him to college, where sometimes he breaks
through the net of convention woven about him, and sees the real world
as it should appear to the student before he becomes part of it; but
more frequently wraps himself deep and more deeply in conventional
opinion, conventional practice, until, the limbs of his intellectual
being bound tightly, he stumbles into the outer world.
And there, in the swirl and the vivid practicalities of American life,
is the net loosened? I think not. I think rather that the youth learns
to swim clumsily despite his encumbrances of lethargic thinking and
tangled idealism. But if they are cut? If he goes on the sharp rocks
of experience, finds that hardness, shrewdness, selfish individualism
pay best in American life, what has he in his spirit to meet this
disillusion? Of what use has been his education in the liberal,
idealistic traditions of America? Of some use, undoubtedly, for habit,
even a dull habit, is strong; but whether useful enough, whether
powerful enough, to save America, to keep us “white” in the newer and
more colloquial sense, the future will test and test quickly.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS
1. Explain what the writer means by “coddling.”
2. Define “democratic coddling.”
3. Define aristocratic “coddling.”
4. What are the results of “coddling”?
5. What are the causes of “coddling”?
6. What is the writer's ideal of education?
7. What criticism of American life does the essay present?
8. Point out effective phrasing.
SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION
1. The Best Kind of Teacher 11. Thinking for One's Self
2. The Most Helpful Subjects 12. 60% or 100%
3. The Value of Marks 13. Serious Reading
4. Study and Play 14. Pleasure Seeking
5. What Promotion Means 15. Character Training
6. Mistaken Kindness 16. The Value of Hard Work
7. The Passing Mark 17. Discipline
8. Scholarship in My School 18. Faithfulness in Work
9. The Purposes of Study 19. Real Success in Life
10. The School Course 20. “Cramming.”
DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING
Plan to emphasize some original phrasing like “Coddling in School
and College.” Use familiar words that every one will understand
but use them in some new relation.
Make your essay point at a really serious fault that will be worthy of
attack. Do not go into details, but make your writing represent your
honest opinion.
Use expressions that will represent you, and that will make your essay
personal in nature. Notice how Mr. Canby makes use of such words as
“wobble,” “sloppy,” “half-baked,” “coddle,” “cram” and “white.” Notice,
too, how many conversational short sentences Mr. Canby uses. His essay
is like a vigorous talk. Make your own essay equally personal and
equally vigorous.
A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE
By GLENN FRANK
_(1887-). Editor of_ The Century Magazine. _He is a member of
many important associations, and was one of ex-President Taft's
associates in suggesting a covenant for the League of Nations. His
magazine articles are notable for constructive thought._
=Any subject is appropriate material for the essayist, and any
method of treatment is satisfactory so long as the writer gives us
his personal reaction on some province of human thought.=