Scene 4: Complications are untangled, and the lie is atoned for.

(Perhaps this scene can be combined with the preceding.)

=A Long-lost Relative=:--This may be taken from a real or an imaginary

circumstance. Tell of the first news that the relative is coming. Where

has he (or she) been during the past years? Speak of the period before

the relative arrives: the conjectures as to his appearance; the

preparations made; the conversation regarding him. Tell of his arrival.

Is his appearance such as has been expected? Describe him rather fully.

What does he say and do? Does he make himself agreeable? Are his ideas

in any way peculiar? Do the neighbors like him? Give some of the

incidents of his visit. Tell about his departure. Are the family glad or

sorry to have him go? What is said about him after he has gone? What has

been heard of him since?

COLLATERAL READINGS

Suburban Sketches William Dean Howells

A Boy's Town " " "

The Rise of Silas Lapham " " "

The Minister's Charge " " "

Their Wedding Journey " " "

The Lady of the Aroostook " " "

Venetian Life " " "

Italian Journeys " " "

The Mouse Trap (a play) " " "

Evening Dress (a play) " " "

The Register (a play) " " "

The Elevator (a play) " " "

Unexpected Guests (a play) " " "

The Albany Depot (a play) " " "

Literary Friends and Acquaintances " " "

Their California Uncle Bret Harte

A Lodging for the Night R.L. Stevenson

Kidnapped " "

Ebb Tide " "

Enoch Arden Alfred Tennyson

Rip Van Winkle Washington Irving

Wakefield Nathaniel Hawthorne

Two Years before the Mast R.H. Dana

Out of Gloucester J.B. Connolly

Jean Valjean (from _Les Misérables_) Victor Hugo (Ed. S.E. Wiltse)

Historic Towns of New England

(Cambridge) L.P. Powell (Ed.)

Old Cambridge T.W. Higginson

American Authors at Home, pp. 193-211 J.L. and J.B. Gilder

American Authors and their Homes,

pp. 99-110 F.W. Halsey

American Writers of To-day, pp. 43-68 H.C. Vedder

Bookman, 17:342 (Portrait); 35:114, April, 1912; Current Literature,

42:49, January, 1907 (Portrait).

THE WILD RIDE

LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY

_I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses

All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,

All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing_.

Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle,

Weather-worn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion,

With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.

The trail is through dolour and dread, over crags and morasses;

There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:

What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.

Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,

And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sun-beam:

Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.

A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle,

A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty:

We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.

(_I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses

All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,

All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing._)

We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind;

We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil.

Thou leadest, O God! All's well with Thy troopers that follow.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

This poem is somewhat like the _Road-Hymn for the Start_, on page 184.

It is about those people who go forward eagerly into the work of the

world, without fearing, and without shrinking from difficulties. Read it

through completely, trying to get its meaning. Regard the lines in

italic as a kind of chorus, and study the meaning of the other stanzas

first. Who are the galloping legions? A _stirrup-cup_ was a draught of

wine, taken just before a rider began his journey; it was usually drunk

to some one's health. Is _dolour_ a common word? Is it good here? Try to

put into your own words the ideas in the "land of no name," and "the

infinite dark," remembering what is said above about the general meaning

of the poem. What picture and what idea do you get from "like sparks

from the anvil"? Now go back to the lines in italic, and look for their

meaning.

What do you notice about the length of the words in this poem? Why has

the author used this kind of words? Notice carefully how the sound and

the sense are made harmonious. Look for the rhyme. How does the poem

differ from most short poems?

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

invisible horses."

OTHER POEMS TO READ

A Troop of the Guard Hermann Hagedorn

How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix Robert Browning

Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr " "

Reveille Bret Harte

A Song of the Road Richard Watson Gilder

The House and the Road J.P. Peabody

The Mystic Cale Young Rice

(In _The Little Book of Modern Verse_, Ed. by J.B. Rittenhouse.)

A Winter Ride Amy Lowell

(In _The Little Book of Modern Verse_.)

The Ride Clinton Scollard

(In _Songs of Sunrise Lands_.)

CHRISTMAS IN THE WOODS

DALLAS LORE SHARP

(In _The Lay of the Land_)

On the night before this particular Christmas every creature of the

woods that could stir was up and stirring; for over the old snow was

falling swiftly, silently, a soft, fresh covering that might mean a

hungry Christmas unless the dinner were had before morning.

But when the morning dawned, a cheery Christmas sun broke across the

great gum swamp, lighting the snowy boles and soft-piled limbs of the

giant trees with indescribable glory, and pouring, a golden flood, into

the deep spongy bottoms below. It would be a perfect Christmas in the

woods, clear, mild, stirless, with silent footing for me, and everywhere

the telltale snow.

And everywhere the Christmas spirit, too. As I paused among the pointed

cedars of the pasture, looking down into the cripple at the head of the

swamp, a clear wild whistle rang in the thicket, followed by a flash

through the alders like a tongue of fire, as a cardinal grosbeak shot

down to the tangle of greenbrier and magnolia under the slope. It was a

fleck of flaming summer. As warm as summer, too, the staghorn sumac

burned on the crest of the ridge against the group of holly

trees,--trees as fresh as April, and all aglow with berries. The woods

were decorated for the holy day. The gentleness of the soft new snow

touched everything; cheer and good-will lighted the unclouded sky and

warmed the thick depths of the evergreens, and blazed in the

crimson-berried bushes of the ilex and alder. The Christmas woods were

glad.

Nor was the gladness all show, mere decoration. There was real cheer in

abundance; for I was back in the old home woods, back along the

Cohansey, back where you can pick persimmons off the trees at Christmas.

There are persons who say the Lord might have made a better berry than

the strawberry, but He didn't. Perhaps He didn't make the strawberry at

all. But He did make the Cohansey Creek persimmon, and He made it as

good as He could. Nowhere else under the sun can you find such

persimmons as these along the creek, such richness of flavor, such

gummy, candied quality, woodsy, wild, crude,--especially the fruit of

two particular trees on the west bank, near Lupton's Pond. But they

never come to this perfection, never quite lose their pucker, until

midwinter,--as if they had been intended for the Christmas table of the

woods.

It had been nearly twenty years since I crossed this pasture of the

cedars on my way to the persimmon trees. The cows had been crossing

every year, yet not a single new crook had they worn in the old paths.

But I was half afraid as I came to the fence where I could look down

upon the pond and over to the persimmon trees. Not one of the Luptons,

who owned pasture and pond and trees, had ever been a boy, so far as I

could remember, or had ever eaten of those persimmons. Would they have

left the trees through all these years?

I pushed through the hedge of cedars and stopped for an instant,

confused. The very pond was gone! and the trees! No, there was the

pond,--but how small the patch of water! and the two persimmon trees?

The bush and undergrowth had grown these twenty years. Which way--Ah,

there they stand, only their leafless tops showing; but see the hard

angular limbs, how closely globed with fruit! how softly etched upon the

sky!

I hurried around to the trees and climbed the one with the two broken

branches, up, clear up to the top, into the thick of the persimmons.

Did I say it had been twenty years? That could not be. Twenty years

would have made me a man, and this sweet, real taste in my mouth only a

_boy_ could know. But there was college, and marriage, a Massachusetts

farm, four boys of my own, and--no matter! it could not have been

_years_--twenty years--since. It was only yesterday that I last climbed

this tree and ate the rich rimy fruit frosted with a Christmas snow.

And yet, could it have been yesterday? It was storming, and I clung here

in the swirling snow and heard the wild ducks go over in their hurry

toward the bay. Yesterday, and all this change in the vast treetop

world, this huddled pond, those narrowed meadows, that shrunken creek! I

should have eaten the persimmons and climbed straight down, not stopped

to gaze out upon the pond, and away over the dark ditches to the creek.

But reaching out quickly I gathered another handful,--and all was

yesterday again.

I filled both pockets of my coat and climbed down. I kept those

persimmons and am tasting them to-night. Lupton's Pond may fill to a

puddle, the meadows may shrivel, the creek dry up and disappear, and old

Time may even try his wiles on me. But I shall foil him to the

end; for I am carrying still in my pocket some of yesterday's

persimmons,--persimmons that ripened in the rime of a winter when I was

a boy.

High and alone in a bare persimmon tree for one's dinner hardly sounds

like a merry Christmas. But I was not alone. I had noted the fresh

tracks beneath the tree before I climbed up, and now I saw that the snow

had been partly brushed from several of the large limbs as the 'possum

had moved about in the tree for his Christmas dinner. We were guests at

the same festive board, and both of us at Nature's invitation. It

mattered not that the 'possum had eaten and gone this hour or more. Such

is good form in the woods. He was expecting me, so he came early, out of

modesty; and, that I too might be entirely at my ease, he departed

early, leaving his greetings for me in the snow.

Thus I was not alone; here was good company and plenty of it. I never

lack a companion in the woods when I can pick up a trail. The 'possum

and I ate together. And this was just the fellowship I needed, this

sharing the persimmons with the 'possum. I had broken bread, not with

the 'possum only, but with all the out-of-doors. I was now fit to enter

the woods, for I was filled with good-will and persimmons, as full as

the 'possum; and putting myself under his gentle guidance, I got down

upon the ground, took up his clumsy trail, and descended toward the

swamp. Such an entry is one of the particular joys of the winter. To go

in with a fox, a mink, or a 'possum through the door of the woods is to

find yourself at home. Any one can get inside the out-of-doors, as the

grocery boy or the census man gets inside our houses. You can bolt in at

any time on business. A trail, however, is Nature's invitation. There

may be other, better beaten paths for mere feet. But go softly with the

'possum, and at the threshold you are met by the spirit of the wood, you

are made the guest of the open, silent, secret out-of-doors.

I went down with the 'possum. He had traveled home in leisurely fashion

and without fear, as his tracks plainly showed. He was full of

persimmons. A good happy world this, where such fare could be had for

the picking! What need to hurry home, except one were in danger of

falling asleep by the way? So I thought, too, as I followed his winding

path; and if I was tracking him to his den, it was only to wake him for

a moment with the compliments of the season. But it was not even a

momentary disturbance; for when I finally found him in his hollow gum,

he was sound asleep, and only half realized that some one was poking him

gently in the ribs and wishing him a merry Christmas.

The 'possum had led me to the center of the empty, hollow swamp, where

the great-boled gums lifted their branches like a timbered, unshingled

roof between me and the wide sky. Far away through the spaces of the

rafters I saw a pair of wheeling buzzards and, under them, in lesser

circles, a broad-winged hawk. Here, at the feet of the tall, clean

trees, looking up through the leafless limbs, I had something of a

measure for the flight of the birds. The majesty and the mystery of the

distant buoyant wings were singularly impressive.

I have seen the turkey-buzzard sailing the skies on the bitterest winter

days. To-day, however, could hardly be called winter. Indeed, nothing

yet had felt the pinch of the cold. There was no hunger yet in the

swamp, though this new snow had scared the raccoons out, and their

half-human tracks along the margin of the swamp stream showed that, if

not hungry, they at least feared that they might be.

For a coon hates snow. He will invariably sleep off the first light

snowfalls, and even in the late winter he will not venture forth in

fresh snow unless driven by hunger or some other dire need. Perhaps,

like a cat or a hen, he dislikes the wetting of his feet. Or it may be

that the soft snow makes bad hunting--for him. The truth is, T believe,

that such a snow makes too good hunting for the dogs and the gunner. The

new snow tells too clear a story. His home is no inaccessible den among

the ledges; only a hollow in some ancient oak or tupelo. Once within, he

is safe from the dogs; but the long fierce fight for life taught him

generations ago that the nest-tree is a fatal trap when behind the dogs

come the axe and the gun. So he has grown wary and enduring. He waits

until the snow grows crusty, when, without sign, and almost without

scent, he can slip forth among the long shadows and prowl to the edge of

dawn.

Skirting the stream out toward the higher back woods, I chanced to spy a

bunch of snow in one of the great sour gums, that I thought was an old

nest. A second look showed me tiny green leaves, then white berries,

then mistletoe.

It was not a surprise, for I had found it here before,--a long, long

time before. It was back in my school-boy days, back beyond those twenty

years, that I first stood here under the mistletoe and had my first

romance. There was no chandelier, no pretty girl, in that romance,--only

a boy, the mistletoe, the giant trees, and the somber, silent swamp.

Then there was his discovery, the thrill of deep delight, and the wonder

of his knowledge of the strange unnatural plant! All plants had been

plants to him until, one day, he read the life of the mistletoe. But

that was English mistletoe; so the boy's wonder world of plant life was

still as far away as Mars, when, rambling alone through the swamp along

the creek, he stopped under a big curious bunch of green, high up in one

of the gums, and--made his first discovery.

So the boy climbed up again this Christmas Day at the peril of his

precious neck, and brought down a bit of that old romance.

I followed the stream along through the swamp to the open meadows, and

then on under the steep wooded hillside that ran up to the higher land

of corn and melon fields. Here at the foot of the slope the winter sun

lay warm, and here in the sheltered briery border I came upon the

Christmas birds.

There was a great variety of them, feeding and preening and chirping in

the vines. The tangle was a-twitter with their quiet, cheery talk. Such

a medley of notes you could not hear at any other season outside a city

bird store. How far the different species understood one another I

should like to know, and whether the hum of voices meant sociability to

them, as it certainly meant to me. Doubtless the first cause of their

flocking here was the sheltered warmth and the great numbers of

berry-laden bushes, for there was no lack either of abundance or variety

on the Christmas table.

In sight from where I stood hung bunches of withering chicken or frost

grapes, plump clusters of blue-black berries of the greenbrier, and

limbs of the smooth winterberry bending with their flaming fruit. There

were bushes of crimson ilex, too, trees of fruiting dogwood and holly,

cedars in berry, dwarf sumac and seedy sedges, while patches on the

wood slopes uncovered by the sun were spread with trailing partridge

berry and the coral-fruited wintergreen. I had eaten part of my dinner

with the 'possum; I picked a quantity of these wintergreen berries, and

continued my meal with the birds. And they also had enough and to spare.

Among the birds in the tangle was a large flock of northern fox

sparrows, whose vigorous and continuous scratching in the bared spots

made a most lively and cheery commotion. Many of them were splashing

about in tiny pools of snow-water, melted partly by the sun and partly

by the warmth of their bodies as they bathed. One would hop to a

softening bit of snow at the base of a tussock keel over and begin to

flop, soon sending up a shower of sparkling drops from his rather chilly

tub. A winter snow-water bath seemed a necessity, a luxury indeed; for

they all indulged, splashing with the same purpose and zest that they

put into their scratching among the leaves.

A much bigger splashing drew me quietly through the bushes to find a

marsh hawk giving himself a Christmas souse. The scratching, washing,

and talking of the birds; the masses of green in the cedars, holly, and

laurels; the glowing colors of the berries against the snow; the blue of

the sky, and the golden warmth of the light made Christmas in the heart

of the noon that the very swamp seemed to feel.

Three months later there was to be scant picking here, for this was the

beginning of the severest winter I ever knew. From this very ridge, in

February, I had reports of berries gone, of birds starving, of whole

coveys of quail frozen dead in the snow; but neither the birds nor I

dreamed to-day of any such hunger and death. A flock of robins whirled

into the cedars above me; a pair of cardinals whistled back and forth;

tree sparrows, juncos, nuthatches, chickadees, and cedar-birds cheeped

among the trees and bushes; and from the farm lands at the top of the

slope rang the calls of meadowlarks.

Halfway up the hill I stopped under a blackjack oak where, in the thin

snow, there were signs of something like a Christmas revel. The ground

was sprinkled with acorn shells and trampled over with feet of several

kinds and sizes,--quail, jay, and partridge feet; rabbit, squirrel, and

mice feet, all over the snow as the feast of acorns had gone on.

Hundreds of the acorns were lying about, gnawed away at the cup end,

where the shell was thinnest, many of them further broken and cleaned

out by the birds.

As I sat studying the signs in the snow, my eye caught a tiny trail

leading out from the others straight away toward a broken pile of cord

wood. The tracks were planted one after the other, so directly in line

as to seem like the prints of a single foot. "That's a weasel's trail,"

I said, "the death's-head at this feast," and followed it slowly to the

wood. A shiver crept over me as I felt, even sooner than I saw, a pair

of small sinister eyes fixed upon mine. The evil pointed head, heavy but

alert, and with a suggestion of fierce strength out of all relation to

the slender body, was watching me from between the sticks of cordwood.

And so he had been watching the mice and birds and rabbits feasting

under the tree!

I packed a ball of snow round and hard, slipped forward upon my knees,

and hurled it. "Spat!" it struck the end of a stick within an inch of

the ugly head, filling the crevice with snow. Instantly the head

appeared at another crack, and another ball struck viciously beside it.

Now it was back where it first appeared, and did not flinch for the

next, or the next ball. The third went true, striking with a "chug" and

packing the crack. But the black, hating eyes were still watching me a

foot lower down.

It is not all peace and good-will in the Christmas woods. But there is

more of peace and good-will than of any other spirit. The weasels are

few. More friendly and timid eyes were watching me than bold and

murderous. It was foolish to want to kill--even the weasel. For one's

woods are what one makes them; and so I let the man with the gun, who

chanced along, think that I had turned boy again, and was snowballing

the woodpile, just for the fun of trying to hit the end of the biggest

stick.

I was glad he had come. As he strode off with his stained bag, I felt

kindlier toward the weasel. There were worse in the woods than

he,--worse, because all of their killing was pastime. The weasel must

kill to live, and if he gloated over the kill, why, what fault of his?

But the other weasel, the one with the blood-stained bag, he killed for

the love of killing. I was glad he was gone.

The crows were winging over toward their great roost in the pines when I

turned toward the town. They, too, had had good picking along the creek

flats and ditches of the meadows. Their powerful wing-beats and constant

play told of full crops and no fear for the night, already softly gray

across the white silent fields. The air was crisper; the snow began to

crackle under foot; the twigs creaked and rattled as I brushed along; a

brown beech leaf wavered down and skated with a thin scratch over the

crust; and pure as the snow-wrapped crystal world, and sweet as the

soft gray twilight, came the call of a quail.

The voices, colors, odors, and forms of summer were gone. The very face

of things had changed; all had been reduced, made plain, simple, single,

pure! There was less for the senses, but how much keener now their joy!

The wide landscape, the frosty air, the tinkle of tiny icicles, and, out

of the quiet of the falling twilight, the voice of the quail!

There is no day but is beautiful in the woods; and none more beautiful

than one like this Christmas Day,--warm and still and wrapped, to the

round red berries of the holly, in the magic of the snow.

NOTES

=cripple=:--A dense thicket in swampy land.

=good-will=:--See the Bible, Luke 2:13, 14.

=Cohansey=:--A creek in southern New Jersey.

QUESTIONS FOR STUDY

Read the selection through once without stopping. Afterward, go through

it with these questions:--

Why might the snow mean a "hungry Christmas"? Note the color words in

paragraph three: Of what value are they? Why does the pond seem small to

the visitor? Does the author mean anything more than persimmons in the

last part of the paragraph beginning "I filled both pockets"? What sort

of man do you think he is? What is the meaning of "broken bread"? What

is meant by entering the woods "at Nature's invitation"? What do you

understand by "the long fierce fight for life"? What was it that the

coon learned "generations ago"? What does the author mean here? Do you

know anything of the Darwinian theory of life? What has it to do with

what is said here about the coon? How does the author make you feel the

variety and liveliness of the bird life which he observes? What shows

his keenness of sight? What do you know about weasels? Is it, true that

"one's woods are what one makes them"? Do you think the author judges

the hunter too harshly? How does the author make you feel the charm of

the late afternoon? Go through the selection and see how many different

subjects are discussed! How is the unity of the piece preserved? Notice

the pictures in the piece. What feeling prevails in the selection? How

can you tell whether the author really loves nature? Could you write a

sketch somewhat like this, telling what you saw during a walk in the

woods?

THEME SUBJECTS

A Walk in the Winter Woods

An Outdoor Christmas Tree

A Lumber Camp at Christmas

The Winter Birds

Tracking a Rabbit

Hunting Deer in Winter

A Winter Landscape

Home Decorations from the Winter Fields

Wild Apples

Fishing through the Ice

A Winter Camp

A Strange Christmas

Playing Santa Claus

A Snow Picnic

Making Christmas Gifts

Feeding the Birds

The Christmas Guest

Turkey and Plum Pudding

The Children's Christmas Party

Christmas on the Farm

The Christmas Tree at the Schoolhouse

What he Found in his Stocking

Bringing Home the Christmas Tree

Christmas in the South

Christmas away from Home

A "Sensible" Christmas

Christmas at our House

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

=A Walk in the Winter Woods=:--Tell of a real or imaginary stroll in the

woods when the snow is on the ground. If possible, plan the theme some

time before you write, and obtain your material through actual and

recent observation. In everything you say, be careful and accurate. You

might speak first of the time of day at which your walk was taken; the

weather; the condition of the snow. Speak of the trees: the kinds; how

they looked. Were any of the trees weighted with snow? Describe the

bushes, and the berries and grasses; use color words, if possible, as

Mr. Sharp does. What sounds did you hear in the woods? Did you see any

tracks of animals? If so, tell about these tracks, and show what they

indicated. Describe the animals that you saw, and tell what they were

doing. What did you gather regarding the way in which the animals live

in winter? Speak in the same way of the birds. Re-read what Mr. Sharp

says about the birds he saw, and try to make your own account clear and

full of action. Did you see any signs of human inhabitants or visitors?

If so, tell about them. Did you find anything to eat in the woods? Speak

briefly of your return home. Had the weather changed since your entering

the woods? Was there any alteration in the landscape? How did you feel

after your walk?

=The Winter Birds=:--For several days before writing this theme, prepare

material for it by observation and reading. Watch the birds, and see

what they are doing and how they live. Use a field glass if you can get

one, and take careful notes on what you see. Make especial use of any

interesting incidents that come under your observation.

When you write, take up each kind of bird separately, and tell what you

have found out about its winter life: how it looks; where you have seen

it; what it was doing. Speak also of its food and shelter; the perils it

endures; its intelligence; anecdotes about it. Make your theme simple

and lively, as if you were talking to some one about the birds. Try to

use good color words and sound words, and expressions that give a vivid

idea of the activities and behavior of the birds.

When you have finished, lay the theme aside for a time; then read it

again and see how you can touch it up to make it clearer and more

straightforward.

=Christmas at our House=:--Write as if you were telling of some

particular occasion, although you may perhaps be combining the events of

several Christmas days. Tell of the preparations for Christmas: the

planning; the cooking; the whispering of secrets. Make as much use of

conversation as possible, and do not hesitate to use even very small

details and little anecdotes. Perhaps you will wish to tell of the

hanging of the stockings on Christmas Eve; if there are children in the

family, tell what they did and said. Write as vividly as possible of

Christmas morning, and the finding of the gifts; try to bring out the

confusion and the happiness of opening the parcels and displaying the

presents. Quote some of the remarks directly, and speak of particularly

pleasing or absurd gifts. Go on and tell of the sports and pleasures of

the day. Speak of the guests, describing some of them, and telling what

they said and did. Try to bring out contrasts here. Put as much emphasis

as you wish upon the dinner, and the quantities of good things consumed.

Try to quote the remarks of some of the people at the table. If your

theme has become rather long, you might close it by a brief account of

the dispersing of the family after dinner. You might, however, complete

your account of the day by telling of the evening, with its enjoyments

and its weariness.

COLLATERAL READINGS

Wild Life Near Home D.L. Sharp

A Watcher in the Woods " "

The Lay of the Land " "

Winter " "

The Face of the Fields " "

The Fall of the Year " "

Roof and Meadow " "

Wild Life in the Rockies Enos A. Mills

Kindred of the Wild C.G.D. Roberts

Watchers of the Trail " " "

Haunters of the Silences " " "

The Ways of Wood Folk W.J. Long

Eye Spy W.H. Gibson

Sharp Eyes " "

Birds in the Bush Bradford Torrey

Everyday Birds " "

Nature's Invitation " "

Bird Stories from Burroughs (selections) John Burroughs

Winter Sunshine " "

Pepacton " "

Riverby " "

Wake-Robin " "

Signs and Seasons " "

How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar Bret Harte

Santa Claus's Partner T.N. Page

The First Christmas Tree Henry Van Dyke

The Other Wise Man " "

The Old Peabody Pew K.D. Wiggin

Miss Santa Claus of the Pullman Annie F. Johnson

Christmas Zona Gale

A Christmas Mystery W.J. Locke

Christmas Eve on Lonesome John Fox, Jr.

By the Christmas Fire S.M. Crothers

Colonel Carter's Christmas F.H. Smith

Christmas Jenny (in _A New England Nun_) Mary E. Wilkins

A Christmas Sermon R.L. Stevenson

The Boy who Brought Christmas Alice Morgan

Christmas Stories Charles Dickens

The Christmas Guest Selma Lagerlöf

The Legend of the Christmas Rose " "

GLOUCESTER MOORS

WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY

A mile behind is Gloucester town

Where the fishing fleets put in,

A mile ahead the land dips down

And the woods and farms begin.

Here, where the moors stretch free

In the high blue afternoon,

Are the marching sun and talking sea,

And the racing winds that wheel and flee

On the flying heels of June.

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue,

Blue is the quaker-maid,

The wild geranium holds its dew

Long in the boulder's shade.

Wax-red hangs the cup

From the huckleberry boughs,

In barberry bells the grey moths sup,

Or where the choke-cherry lifts high up

Sweet bowls for their carouse.

Over the shelf of the sandy cove

Beach-peas blossom late.

By copse and cliff the swallows rove

Each calling to his mate.

Seaward the sea-gulls go,

And the land birds all are here;

That green-gold flash was a vireo,

And yonder flame where the marsh-flags grow

Was a scarlet tanager.

This earth is not the steadfast place

We landsmen build upon;

From deep to deep she varies pace,

And while she comes is gone.

Beneath my feet I feel

Her smooth bulk heave and dip;

With velvet plunge and soft upreel

She swings and steadies to her keel

Like a gallant, gallant ship.

These summer clouds she sets for sail,

The sun is her masthead light,

She tows the moon like a pinnace frail

Where her phospher wake churns bright,

Now hid, now looming clear,

On the face of the dangerous blue

The star fleets tack and wheel and veer,

But on, but on does the old earth steer

As if her port she knew.

God, dear God! Does she know her port,

Though she goes so far about?

Or blind astray, does she make her sport

To brazen and chance it out?

I watched where her captains passed:

She were better captainless.

Men in the cabin, before the mast,

But some were reckless and some aghast,

And some sat gorged at mess.

By her battered hatch I leaned and caught

Sounds from the noisome hold,--

Cursing and sighing of souls distraught

And cries too sad to be told.

Then I strove to go down and see;

But they said, "Thou art not of us!"

I turned to those on the deck with me

And cried, "Give help!" But they said, "Let be:

Our ship sails faster thus."

Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue,

Blue is the quaker-maid,

The alder clump where the brook comes through

Breeds cresses in its shade.

To be out of the moiling street

With its swelter and its sin!

Who has given to me this sweet,

And given my brother dust to eat?

And when will his wage come in?

Scattering wide or blown in ranks,

Yellow and white and brown,

Boats and boats from the fishing banks

Come home to Gloucester town.

There is cash to purse and spend,

There are wives to be embraced,

Hearts to borrow and hearts to lend,

And hearts to take and keep to the end,--

O little sails, make haste!

But thou, vast outbound ship of souls,

What harbor town for thee?

What shapes, when thy arriving tolls,

Shall crowd the banks to see?

Shall all the happy shipmates then

Stand singing brotherly?

Or shall a haggard ruthless few

Warp her over and bring her to,

While the many broken souls of men

Fester down in the slaver's pen,

And nothing to say or do?

NOTES

=Gloucester town=: Gloucester is a seaport town in Massachusetts, the

chief seat of the cod and mackerel fisheries of the coast.

=Jill-o'er-the-ground=: Ground ivy; usually written

_Gill-over-the-ground_.

=Quaker-maid=: Quaker ladies; small blue flowers growing low on the

ground.

=wax-red=: The huckleberry blossom is red and waxy.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Read the poem slowly through to yourself, getting what you can out of

it, without trying too hard. Note that after the third stanza the earth

is compared to a ship. After you have read the poem through, go back and

study it with the help of the following questions and suggestions:--

The author is out on the moors not far from the sea: What details does

he select to make you feel the beauty of the afternoon? What words in

the first stanza suggest movement and freedom? Why does the author stop

to tell about the flowers, when he has so many important things to say?

Note a change of tone at the beginning of the fourth stanza. What

suggests to the author that the earth is like a ship? Why does he say

that it is not a steadfast place? How does the fifth stanza remind you

of _The Ancient Mariner_? Why does the author speak so passionately at

the beginning of the sixth stanza? Here he wonders whether there is

really any plan in the universe, or whether things all go by chance. Who

are the captains of whom he speaks? What different types of people are

represented in the last two lines of stanza six? What is the "noisome

hold" of the Earth ship? Who are those cursing and sighing? Who are

_they_ in the line, "But they said, 'Thou art not of us!'"? Who are

_they_ in the next line but one? Why does the author turn back to the

flowers in the next few lines? What is omitted from the line beginning

"To be out"? Explain the last three lines of stanza eight. How do the

ships of Gloucester differ from the ship _Earth_? What is the "arriving"

spoken of in the last stanza? What two possibilities does the author

suggest as to the fate of the ship? Why does he end his poem with a

question? What is the purpose of the poem? Why is it considered good?

What do you think was the author's feeling about the way the poor and

helpless are treated? Read the poem through aloud, thinking what each

line means.

ROAD-HYMN FOR THE START

WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY

Leave the early bells at chime,

Leave the kindled hearth to blaze,

Leave the trellised panes where children linger out the waking-time,

Leave the forms of sons and fathers trudging through the misty ways,

Leave the sounds of mothers taking up their sweet laborious days.

Pass them by! even while our soul

Yearns to them with keen distress.

Unto them a part is given; we will strive to see the whole.

Dear shall be the banquet table where their singing spirits press;

Dearer be our sacred hunger, and our pilgrim loneliness.

We have felt the ancient swaying

Of the earth before the sun,

On the darkened marge of midnight heard sidereal rivers playing;

Rash it was to bathe our souls there, but we plunged and all was done.

That is lives and lives behind us--lo, our journey is begun!

Careless where our face is set,

Let us take the open way.

What we are no tongue has told us: Errand-goers who forget?

Soldiers heedless of their harry? Pilgrim people gone astray?

We have heard a voice cry "Wander!" That was all we heard it say.

Ask no more: 'tis much, 'tis much!

Down the road the day-star calls;

Touched with change in the wide heavens, like a leaf the

frost winds touch,

Flames the failing moon a moment, ere it shrivels white and falls;

Hid aloft, a wild throat holdeth sweet and sweeter intervals.

Leave him still to ease in song

Half his little heart's unrest:

Speech is his, but we may journey toward the life for which we long.

God, who gives the bird its anguish, maketh nothing manifest,

But upon our lifted foreheads pours the boon of endless quest.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Do not be alarmed if you find this a little hard to understand. It is

expressed in rather figurative language, and one has to study it to get

its meaning. The poem is about those people who look forward constantly

to something better, and feel that they must always be pressing forward

at any cost. Who is represented as speaking? What sort of life are the

travelers leaving behind them? Why do they feel a keen distress? What is

the "whole" that they are striving to see? What is their "sacred

hunger"? Why is it "dearer" than the feasting of those who stay at home?

Notice how the third stanza reminds one of _Gloucester Moors_. Look up

the word _sidereal_: Can you tell what it means here? "Lives and lives

behind us" means _a long time ago_; you will perhaps have to ask your

teacher for its deeper meaning. Do the travelers know where they are

going? Why do they set forth? Note the description of the dawn in the

fifth stanza. What is the boon of "endless quest"? Why is it spoken of

as a gift (boon)? Compare the last line of this poem with the last line

of _The Wild Ride_, on page 161. Perhaps you will be interested to

compare the _Road-Hymn_ with Whitman's _The Song of the Open Road_.

Do the meter and verse-form seem appropriate here? Is anything gained by

the difference in the length of the lines?

ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES

WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY

Streets of the roaring town,

Hush for him, hush, be still!

He comes, who was stricken down

Doing the word of our will.

Hush! Let him have his state,

Give him his soldier's crown.

The grists of trade can wait

Their grinding at the mill,

But he cannot wait for his honor, now the trumpet has been blown;

Wreathe pride now for his granite brow, lay love on his breast

of stone.

Toll! Let the great bells toll

Till the clashing air is dim.

Did we wrong this parted soul?

We will make it up to him.

Toll! Let him never guess

What work we set him to.

Laurel, laurel, yes;

He did what we bade him do.

Praise, and never a whispered hint but the fight he fought was good;

Never a word that the blood on his sword was his country's

own heart's-blood.

A flag for the soldier's bier

Who dies that his land may live;

O, banners, banners here,

That he doubt not nor misgive!

That he heed not from the tomb

The evil days draw near

When the nation, robed in gloom,

With its faithless past shall strive.

Let him never dream that his bullet's scream went wide of its

island mark,

Home to the heart of his darling land where she stumbled

and sinned in the dark.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

What is "his state," in line five? How has the soldier been "wronged"?

Does the author think that the fight in the Philippines has not been

"good"? Why? What does he mean by the last line of stanza two? What

"evil days" are those mentioned in stanza three? Have they come yet?

What "faithless past" is meant? Do you think that the United States has

treated the Philippines unfairly?[14]

COLLATERAL READINGS

Gloucester Moors and Other Poems William Vaughn Mood

Poems and Plays of William Vaughn

Moody (2 vols. Biographical introduction) John M. Manley (Ed.)

Letters of William Vaughn Moody Daniel Mason (Ed.)

Out of Gloucester J.B. Connolly

For biography, criticism, and portraits of William Vaughn Moody,

consult: Atlantic Monthly, 98:326, September, 1906; World's Work, 13:

8258, December, 1906 (Portrait); Century, 73:431 (Portrait); Reader,

10:173; Bookman, 32:253 (Portrait.)

THE COON DOG

SARAH ORNE JEWETT

(In _The Queen's Twin and Other Stories_)

I

In the early dusk of a warm September evening the bats were flitting to

and fro, as if it were still summer, under the great elm that

overshadowed Isaac Brown's house, on the Dipford road. Isaac Brown

himself, and his old friend and neighbor John York, were leaning against

the fence.

"Frost keeps off late, don't it?" said John York. "I laughed when I

first heard about the circus comin'; I thought 'twas so unusual late in

the season. Turned out well, however. Everybody I noticed was returnin'

with a palm-leaf fan. Guess they found 'em useful under the tent; 'twas

a master hot day. I saw old lady Price with her hands full o' those free

advertising fans, as if she was layin' in a stock against next summer.

Well, I expect she'll live to enjoy 'em."

"I was right here where I'm standin' now, and I see her as she was goin'

by this mornin'," said Isaac Brown, laughing, and settling himself

comfortably against the fence as if they had chanced upon a welcome

subject of conversation. "I hailed her, same's I gener'lly do. 'Where

are you bound to-day, ma'am?' says I.

"'I'm goin' over as fur as Dipford Centre,' says she. 'I'm goin' to see

my poor dear 'Liza Jane. I want to 'suage her grief; her husband, Mr.

'Bijah Topliff, has passed away.'

"'So much the better,' says I.

"'No; I never l'arnt about it till yisterday,' says she;' an' she looked

up at me real kind of pleasant, and begun to laugh.

"'I hear he's left property,' says she, tryin' to pull her face down

solemn. I give her the fifty cents she wanted to borrow to make up her

car-fare and other expenses, an' she stepped off like a girl down tow'ds

the depot.

"This afternoon, as you know, I'd promised the boys that I'd take 'em

over to see the menagerie, and nothin' wouldn't do none of us any good

but we must see the circus too; an' when we'd just got posted on one o'

the best high seats, mother she nudged me, and I looked right down front

two, three rows, an' if there wa'n't Mis' Price, spectacles an' all,

with her head right up in the air, havin' the best time you ever see. I

laughed right out. She hadn't taken no time to see 'Liza Jane; she

wa'n't 'suagin' no grief for nobody till she'd seen the circus. 'There,'

says I, 'I do like to have anybody keep their young feelin's!'"

"Mis' Price come over to see our folks before breakfast," said John

York. "Wife said she was inquirin' about the circus, but she wanted to

know first if they couldn't oblige her with a few trinkets o' mournin',

seein' as how she'd got to pay a mournin' visit. Wife thought't was a

bosom-pin, or somethin' like that, but turned out she wanted the skirt

of a dress; 'most anything would do, she said."

"I thought she looked extra well startin' off," said Isaac, with an

indulgent smile. "The Lord provides very handsome for such, I do

declare! She ain't had no visible means o' support these ten or fifteen

years back, but she don't freeze up in winter no more than we do."

"Nor dry up in summer," interrupted his friend; "I never did see such an

able hand to talk."

"She's good company, and she's obliging an' useful when the women folks

have their extra work progressin'," continued Isaac Brown kindly.

"'Tain't much for a well-off neighborhood like this to support that old

chirpin' cricket. My mother used to say she kind of helped the work

along by 'livenin' of it. Here she comes now; must have taken the last

train, after she had supper with 'Lizy Jane. You stay still; we're goin'

to hear all about it."

The small, thin figure of Mrs. Price had to be hailed twice before she

could be stopped.

"I wish you a good evenin', neighbors," she said. "I have been to the

house of mournin'."

"Find 'Liza Jane in, after the circus?" asked Isaac Brown, with equal

seriousness. "Excellent show, wasn't it, for so late in the season?"

"Oh, beautiful; it was beautiful, I declare," answered the pleased

spectator readily. "Why, I didn't see you, nor Mis' Brown. Yes; I felt

it best to refresh my mind an' wear a cheerful countenance. When I see

'Liza Jane I was able to divert her mind consid'able. She was glad I

went. I told her I'd made an effort, knowin' 'twas so she had to lose

the a'ternoon. 'Bijah left property, if he did die away from home on a

foreign shore."

"You don't mean that 'Bijah Topliff's left anything!" exclaimed John

York with interest, while Isaac Brown put both hands deep into his

pockets, and leaned back in a still more satisfactory position against

the gatepost.

"He enjoyed poor health," answered Mrs. Price, after a moment of

deliberation, as if she must take time to think. "'Bijah never was one

that scattereth, nor yet increaseth. 'Liza Jane's got some memories o'

the past that's a good deal better than others; but he died somewheres

out in Connecticut, or so she heard, and he's left a very val'able coon

dog,--one he set a great deal by. 'Liza Jane said, last time he was to

home, he priced that dog at fifty dollars. 'There, now, 'Liza Jane,'

says I, right to her, when she told me, 'if I could git fifty dollars

for that dog, I certain' would. Perhaps some o' the circus folks would

like to buy him; they've taken in a stream o' money this day.' But 'Liza

Jane ain't never inclined to listen to advice. 'Tis a dreadful

poor-spirited-lookin' creatur'. I don't want no right o' dower in him,

myself."

"A good coon dog's worth somethin', certain," said John York handsomely.

"If he _is_ a good coon dog," added Isaac Brown. "I wouldn't have parted

with old Rover, here, for a good deal of money when he was right in his

best days; but a dog like him's like one of the family. Stop an' have

some supper, won't ye, Mis' Price?"--as the thin old creature was

flitting off again. At that same moment this kind invitation was

repeated from the door of the house; and Mrs. Price turned in,

unprotesting and always sociably inclined, at the open gate.

II

It was a month later, and a whole autumn's length colder, when the two

men were coming home from a long tramp through the woods. They had been

making a solemn inspection of a wood-lot that they owned together, and

had now visited their landmarks and outer boundaries, and settled the

great question of cutting or not cutting some large pines. When it was

well decided that a few years' growth would be no disadvantage to the

timber, they had eaten an excellent cold luncheon and rested from their

labors.

"I don't feel a day older'n ever I did when I get out in the woods this

way," announced John York, who was a prim, dusty-looking little man, a

prudent person, who had been selectman of the town at least a dozen

times.

"No more do I," agreed his companion, who was large and jovial and

open-handed, more like a lucky sea-captain than a farmer. After pounding

a slender walnut-tree with a heavy stone, he had succeeded in getting

down a pocketful of late-hanging nuts which had escaped the squirrels,

and was now snapping them back, one by one, to a venturesome chipmunk

among some little frost-bitten beeches. Isaac Brown had a wonderfully

pleasant way of getting on with all sorts of animals, even men. After a

while they rose and went their way, these two companions, stopping here

and there to look at a possible woodchuck's hole, or to strike a few

hopeful blows at a hollow tree with the light axe which Isaac had

carried to blaze new marks on some of the line-trees on the farther edge

of their possessions. Sometimes they stopped to admire the size of an

old hemlock, or to talk about thinning out the young pines. At last they

were not very far from the entrance to the great tract of woodland. The

yellow sunshine came slanting in much brighter against the tall trunks,

spotting them with golden light high among the still branches.

Presently they came to a great ledge, frost-split and cracked into

mysterious crevices.

"Here's where we used to get all the coons," said John York. "I haven't

seen a coon this great while, spite o' your courage knocking on the

trees up back here. You know that night we got the four fat ones? We

started 'em somewheres near here, so the dog could get after 'em when

they come out at night to go foragin'."

"Hold on, John;" and Mr. Isaac Brown got up from the log where he had

just sat down to rest, and went to the ledge, and looked carefully all

about. When he came back he was much excited, and beckoned his friend

away, speaking in a stage whisper.

"I guess you'll see a coon before you're much older," he proclaimed.

"I've thought it looked lately as if there'd been one about my place,

and there's plenty o' signs here, right in their old haunts. Couple o'

hens' heads an' a lot o' feathers"--

"Might be a fox," interrupted John York.

"Might be a coon," answered Mr. Isaac Brown. "I'm goin' to have him,

too. I've been lookin' at every old hollow tree I passed, but I never

thought o' this place. We'll come right off to-morrow night, I guess,

John, an' see if we can't get him. 'Tis an extra handy place for 'em to

den; in old times the folks always called it a good place; they've been

so sca'ce o' these late years that I've thought little about 'em.

Nothin' I ever liked so well as a coon-hunt. Gorry! he must be a big old

fellow, by his tracks! See here, in this smooth dirt; just like a baby's

footmark."

"Trouble is, we lack a good dog," said John York anxiously, after he had

made an eager inspection. "I don't know where in the world to get one,

either. There ain't no such a dog about as your Rover, but you've let

him get spoilt; these days I don't see him leave the yard. You ought to

keep the women folks from overfeedin' of him so. He ought to've lasted a

good spell longer. He's no use for huntin' now, that's certain."

Isaac accepted the rebuke meekly. John York was a calm man, but he now

grew very fierce under such a provocation. Nobody likes to be hindered

in a coon-hunt.

"Oh, Rover's too old, anyway," explained the affectionate master

regretfully. "I've been wishing all this afternoon I'd brought him; but

I didn't think anything about him as we came away, I've got so used to

seeing him layin' about the yard. 'Twould have been a real treat for old

Rover, if he could have kept up. Used to be at my heels the whole time.

He couldn't follow us, anyway, up here."

"I shouldn't wonder if he could," insisted John, with a humorous glance

at his old friend, who was much too heavy and huge of girth for quick

transit over rough ground. John York himself had grown lighter as he had

grown older.

"I'll tell you one thing we could do," he hastened to suggest. "There's

that dog of 'Bijah Topliff's. Don't you know the old lady told us, that

day she went over to Dipford, how high he was valued? Most o' 'Bijah's

important business was done in the fall, goin' out by night, gunning

with fellows from the mills. He was just the kind of a worthless

do-nothing that's sure to have an extra knowin' smart dog. I expect

'Liza Jane's got him now. Perhaps we could get him by to-morrow night.

Let one o' my boys go over!"

"Why, 'Liza Jane's come, bag an' baggage, to spend the winter with her

mother," exclaimed Isaac Brown, springing to his feet like a boy. "I've

had it in mind to tell you two or three times this afternoon, and then

something else has flown it out of my head. I let my John Henry take the

long-tailed wagon an' go down to the depot this mornin' to fetch her an'

her goods up. The old lady come in early, while we were to breakfast,

and to hear her lofty talk you'd thought 't would taken a couple o'

four-horse teams to move her. I told John Henry he might take that wagon

and fetch up what light stuff he could, and see how much else there was,

an' then I'd make further arrangements. She said 'Liza Jane'd see me

well satisfied, an' rode off, pleased to death. I see 'em returnin'

about eight, after the train was in. They'd got 'Liza Jane with 'em,

smaller'n ever; and there was a trunk tied up with a rope, and a small

roll o' beddin' and braided mats, and a quilted rockin'-chair. The old

lady was holdin' on tight to a bird-cage with nothin' in it. Yes; an' I

see the dog, too, in behind. He appeared kind of timid. He's a yaller

dog, but he ain't stump-tailed. They hauled up out front o' the house,

and mother an' I went right out; Mis' Price always expects to have

notice taken. She was in great sperits. Said 'Liza Jane concluded to

sell off most of her stuff rather 'n have the care of it. She'd told the

folks that Mis' Topliff had a beautiful sofa and a lot o' nice chairs,

and two framed pictures that would fix up the house complete, and

invited us all to come over and see 'em. There, she seemed just as

pleased returnin' with the bird-cage. Disappointments don't appear to

trouble her no more than a butterfly. I kind of like the old creator'; I

don't mean to see her want."

"They'll let us have the dog," said John York. "I don't know but I'll

give a quarter for him, and we'll let 'em have a good piece o' the

coon."

"You really comin' 'way up here by night, coon-huntin'?" asked Isaac

Brown, looking reproachfully at his more agile comrade.

"I be," answered John York.

"I was dre'tful afraid you was only talking, and might back out,"

returned the cheerful heavy-weight, with a chuckle. "Now we've got

things all fixed, I feel more like it than ever. I tell you there's just

boy enough left inside of me. I'll clean up my old gun to-morrow

mornin', and you look right after your'n. I dare say the boys have took

good care of 'em for us, but they don't know what we do about huntin',

and we'll bring 'em all along and show 'em a little fun."

"All right," said John York, as soberly as if they were going to look

after a piece of business for the town; and they gathered up the axe and

other light possessions, and started toward home.

III

The two friends, whether by accident or design, came out of the woods

some distance from their own houses, but very near to the low-storied

little gray dwelling of Mrs. Price. They crossed the pasture, and

climbed over the toppling fence at the foot of her small sandy piece of

land, and knocked at the door. There was a light already in the kitchen.

Mrs. Price and Eliza Jane Topliff appeared at once, eagerly hospitable.

"Anybody sick?" asked Mrs. Price, with instant sympathy. "Nothin'

happened, I hope?"

"Oh, no," said both the men.

"We came to talk about hiring your dog to-morrow night," explained

Isaac Brown, feeling for the moment amused at his eager errand. "We got

on track of a coon just now, up in the woods, and we thought we'd give

our boys a little treat. You shall have fifty cents, an' welcome, and a

good piece o' the coon."

"Yes, Square Brown; we can let you have the dog as well as not,"

interrupted Mrs. Price, delighted to grant a favor. "Poor departed

'Bijah, he set everything by him as a coon dog. He always said a dog's

capital was all in his reputation."

"You'll have to be dreadful careful an' not lose him," urged Mrs.

Topliff "Yes, sir; he's a proper coon dog as ever walked the earth, but

he's terrible weak-minded about followin' 'most anybody. 'Bijah used to

travel off twelve or fourteen miles after him to git him back, when he

wa'n't able. Somebody'd speak to him decent, or fling a whip-lash as

they drove by, an' off he'd canter on three legs right after the wagon.

But 'Bijah said he wouldn't trade him for no coon dog he ever was

acquainted with. Trouble is, coons is awful sca'ce."

"I guess he ain't out o' practice," said John York amiably; "I guess

he'll know when he strikes the coon. Come, Isaac, we must be gittin'

along tow'ds home. I feel like eatin' a good supper. You tie him up

to-morrow afternoon, so we shall be sure to have him," he turned to say

to Mrs. Price, who stood smiling at the door.

"Land sakes, dear, he won't git away; you'll find him right there

betwixt the wood-box and the stove, where he is now. Hold the light,

'Liza Jane; they can't see their way out to the road. I'll fetch him

over to ye in good season," she called out, by way of farewell; "'twill

save ye third of a mile extra walk. No, 'Liza Jane; you'll let me do it,

if you please. I've got a mother's heart. The gentlemen will excuse us

for showin' feelin'. You're all the child I've got, an' your prosperity

is the same as mine."

IV

The great night of the coon-hunt was frosty and still, with only a dim

light from the new moon. John York and his boys, and Isaac Brown, whose

excitement was very great, set forth across the fields toward the dark

woods. The men seemed younger and gayer than the boys. There was a burst

of laughter when John Henry Brown and his little brother appeared with

the coon dog of the late Mr. Abijah Topliff, which had promptly run away

home again after Mrs. Price had coaxed him over in the afternoon. The

captors had tied a string round his neck, at which they pulled

vigorously from time to time to urge him forward. Perhaps he found the

night too cold; at any rate, he stopped short in the frozen furrows

every few minutes, lifting one foot and whining a little. Half a dozen

times he came near to tripping up Mr. Isaac Brown and making him fall at

full length.

"Poor Tiger! poor Tiger!" said the good-natured sportsman, when somebody

said that the dog didn't act as if he were much used to being out by

night. "He'll be all right when he once gets track of the coon." But

when they were fairly in the woods, Tiger's distress was perfectly

genuine. The long rays of light from the old-fashioned lanterns of

pierced tin went wheeling round and round, making a tall ghost of every

tree, and strange shadows went darting in and out behind the pines. The

woods were like an interminable pillared room where the darkness made a

high ceiling. The clean frosty smell of the open fields was changed for

a warmer air, damp with the heavy odor of moss and fallen leaves. There

was something wild and delicious in the forest in that hour of night.

The men and boys tramped on silently in single file, as if they followed

the flickering light instead of carrying it. The dog fell back by

instinct, as did his companions, into the easy familiarity of forest

life. He ran beside them, and watched eagerly as they chose a safe place

to leave a coat or two and a basket. He seemed to be an affectionate

dog, now that he had made acquaintance with his masters.

"Seems to me he don't exactly know what he's about," said one of the

York boys scornfully; "we must have struck that coon's track somewhere,

comin' in."

"We'll get through talkin' an' heap up a little somethin' for a fire, if

you'll turn to and help," said his father. "I've always noticed that

nobody can give so much good advice about a piece o' work as a new hand.

When you've treed as many coons as your Uncle Brown an' me, you won't

feel so certain. Isaac, you be the one to take the dog up round the

ledge, there. He'll scent the coon quick enough then. We'll tend to this

part o' the business."

"You may come too, John Henry," said the indulgent father, and they set

off together silently with the coon dog. He followed well enough now;

his tail and ears were drooping even more than usual, but he whimpered

along as bravely as he could, much excited, at John Henry's heels, like

one of those great soldiers who are all unnerved until the battle is

well begun.

A minute later the father and son came hurrying back, breathless, and

stumbling over roots and bushes. The fire was already lighted, and

sending a great glow higher and higher among the trees.

"He's off! He's struck a track! He was off like a major!" wheezed Mr.

Isaac Brown.

"Which way'd he go?" asked everybody.

"Right out toward the fields. Like's not the old fellow was just

starting after more of our fowls. I'm glad we come early,--he can't have

got far yet. We can't do nothin' but wait now, boys. I'll set right down

here."

"Soon as the coon trees, you'll hear the dog sing, now I tell you!" said

John York, with great enthusiasm. "That night your father an' me got

those four busters we've told you about, they come right back here to

the ledge. I don't know but they will now. 'Twas a dreadful cold night,

I know. We didn't get home till past three o'clock in the mornin',

either. You remember, don't you, Isaac?"

"I do," said Isaac. "How old Rover worked that night! Couldn't see out

of his eyes, nor hardly wag his clever old tail, for two days; thorns in

both his fore paws, and the last coon took a piece right out of his off

shoulder."

"Why didn't you let Rover come to-night, father?" asked the younger boy.

"I think he knew somethin' was up. He was jumpin' round at a great rate

when I come out of the yard."

"I didn't know but he might make trouble for the other dog," answered

Isaac, after a moment's silence. He felt almost disloyal to the faithful

creature, and had been missing him all the way. "Sh! there's a bark!"

And they all stopped to listen.

The fire was leaping higher; they all sat near it, listening and

talking by turns. There is apt to be a good deal of waiting in a

coon-hunt.

"If Rover was young as he used to be, I'd resk him to tree any coon that

ever run," said the regretful master. "This smart creature o' Topliff's

can't beat him, I know. The poor old fellow's eyesight seems to be

going. Two--three times he's run out at me right in broad day, an'

barked when I come up the yard toward the house, and I did pity him

dreadfully; he was so 'shamed when he found out what he'd done. Rover's

a dog that's got an awful lot o' pride. He went right off out behind the

long barn the last time, and wouldn't come in for nobody when they

called him to supper till I went out myself and made it up with him. No;

he can't see very well now, Rover can't."

"He's heavy, too; he's got too unwieldy to tackle a smart coon, I

expect, even if he could do the tall runnin'" said John York, with

sympathy. "They have to get a master grip with their teeth through a

coon's thick pelt this time o' year. No; the young folks get all the

good chances after a while;" and he looked round indulgently at the

chubby faces of his boys, who fed the fire, and rejoiced in being

promoted to the society of their elders on equal terms. "Ain't it time

we heard from the dog?" And they all listened, while the fire snapped

and the sap whistled in some green sticks.

"I hear him," said John Henry suddenly; and faint and far away there

came the sound of a desperate bark. There is a bark that means attack,

and there is a bark that means only foolish excitement.

"They ain't far off!" said Isaac. "My gracious, he's right after him! I

don't know's I expected that poor-looking dog to be so smart. You can't

tell by their looks. Quick as he scented the game up here in the rocks,

off he put. Perhaps it ain't any matter if they ain't stump-tailed,

long's they're yaller dogs. He didn't look heavy enough to me. I tell

you, he means business. Hear that bark!"

"They all bark alike after a coon." John York was as excited as anybody.

"Git the guns laid out to hand, boys; I told you we'd ought to follow!"

he commanded. "If it's the old fellow that belongs here, he may put in

any minute." But there was again a long silence and state of suspense;

the chase had turned another way. There were faint distant yaps. The

fire burned low and fell together with a shower of sparks. The smaller

boys began to grow chilly and sleepy, when there was a thud and rustle

and snapping of twigs close at hand, then the gasp of a breathless dog.

Two dim shapes rushed by; a shower of bark fell, and a dog began to sing

at the foot of the great twisted pine not fifty feet away.

"Hooray for Tiger!" yelled the boys; but the dog's voice filled all the

woods. It might have echoed to the mountain-tops. There was the old

coon; they could all see him half-way up the tree, flat to the great

limb. They heaped the fire with dry branches till it flared high. Now

they lost him in a shadow as he twisted about the tree. John York fired,

and Isaac Brown fired, and the boys took a turn at the guns, while John

Henry started to climb a neighboring oak; but at last it was Isaac who

brought the coon to ground with a lucky shot, and the dog stopped his

deafening bark and frantic leaping in the underbrush, and after an

astonishing moment of silence crept out, a proud victor, to his prouder

master's feet.

"Goodness alive, who's this? Good for you, old handsome! Why, I'll be

hanged if it ain't old Rover, boys; _it's old Rover_!" But Isaac could

not speak another word. They all crowded round the wistful, clumsy old

dog, whose eyes shone bright, though his breath was all gone. Each man

patted him, and praised him and said they ought to have mistrusted all

the time that it could be nobody but he. It was some minutes before

Isaac Brown could trust himself to do anything but pat the sleek old

head that was always ready to his hand.

"He must have overheard us talkin'; I guess he'd have come if he'd

dropped dead half-way," proclaimed John Henry, like a prince of the

reigning house; and Rover wagged his tail as if in honest assent, as he

lay at his master's side. They sat together, while the fire was

brightened again to make a good light for the coon-hunt supper; and

Rover had a good half of everything that found its way into his master's

hand. It was toward midnight when the triumphal procession set forth

toward home, with the two lanterns, across the fields.

V

The next morning was bright and warm after the hard frost of the night

before. Old Rover was asleep on the doorstep in the sun, and his master

stood in the yard, and saw neighbor Price come along the road in her

best array, with a gay holiday air.

"Well, now," she said eagerly, "you wa'n't out very late last night, was

you? I got up myself to let Tiger in. He come home, all beat out, about

a quarter past nine. I expect you hadn't no kind o' trouble gittin' the

coon. The boys was tellin' me he weighed 'most thirty pounds."

"Oh, no kind o' trouble," said Isaac, keeping the great secret

gallantly. "You got the things I sent over this mornin'?"

"Bless your heart, yes! I'd a sight rather have all that good pork an'

potatoes than any o' your wild meat," said Mrs. Price, smiling with

prosperity. "You see, now, 'Liza Jane she's given in. She didn't re'lly

know but 'twas all talk of 'Bijah 'bout that dog's bein' wuth fifty

dollars. She says she can't cope with a huntin' dog same's he could, an'

she's given me the money you an' John York sent over this mornin'; an' I

didn't know but what you'd lend me another half a dollar, so I could

both go to Dipford Centre an' return, an' see if I couldn't make a sale

o' Tiger right over there where they all know about him. It's right in

the coon season; now's my time, ain't it?"

"Well, gettin' a little late," said Isaac, shaking with laughter as he

took the desired sum of money out of his pocket. "He seems to be a

clever dog round the house."

"I don't know's I want to harbor him all winter," answered the

excursionist frankly, striking into a good traveling gait as she started

off toward the railroad station.

NOTES

=Dipford=:--The New England town in which the scenes of some of Miss

Jewett's stories are laid.

=master hot=:--In the New England dialect, _master_ is used in the sense

of _very_ or _extremely_.

=bosom-pin=:--Mourning pins of jet or black enamel were much worn in

times past.

='suage=:--Assuage, meaning to soften or decrease.

=selectman=:--One of a board chosen in New England towns to transact

the business of the community.

=scattereth nor yet increaseth=:--See Proverbs, 11:24.

=right o' dower=:--The right to claim a part of a deceased husband's

property.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

The action takes place in a country district in New England. Judging by

the remarks about the fans, what kind of person do you suppose Old Lady

Price to be? Is there any particular meaning in the word _to-day_? How

is 'Liza Jane related to Mrs. Price? What was the character of Mr.

'Bijah Topliff? Does the old lady feel grieved at his death? What does

Isaac mean by _such_, in the last line, page 190? How does the old lady

live? What is shown of her character when she is called "a chirpin' old

cricket"? Does she feel ashamed of having gone to the circus? How does

she explain her going? What can you tell of 'Bijah from what is said of

'Liza's "memories"? Would the circus people have cared to buy the dog?

Notice how the author makes you feel the pleasantness of the walk in the

woods. Do you know where coons have their dens? How does Isaac show his

affection for old Rover? Is it true that "worthless do-nothings" usually

have "smart" dogs? Why does the author stop to tell all about 'Liza

Jane's arrival? What light is thrown on the old lady's character by

Isaac's words beginning, "Disappointments don't appear to trouble her"?

Are the men very anxious to "give the boys a treat"? Why does the old

lady call Mr. York "dear"? What is meant by the last five lines of Part

III? What sort of dog is Tiger? What is meant by "soon as the coon

trees"? How does the author tell you of old Rover's defects? What person

would you like to have shoot the coon at last? Why could Isaac Brown not

"trust himself to speak"? Do you think old Rover "overheard them

talking," as John Henry suggests? How does the author let you into the

secret of Tiger's behavior? Why does Isaac not tell the old lady which

dog treed the coon? What does he mean by saying that Tiger is "a clever

dog round the house"? Do you think that Mrs. Price succeeded in getting

fifty dollars for the dog? Why does the author not tell whether she does

or not? Try to put into your own words a summing up of the old lady's

character. Tell what you think of the two old men. Do you like the use

of dialect in this story? Would it have been better if the people had

all spoken good English? Why, or why not?

THEME SUBJECTS

Hunting for Squirrels

An Intelligent Dog

A Night in the Woods

An Old Man

Tracking Rabbits

Borrowers

The Circus

Old Lady Price

A Group of Odd Characters

Raccoons

Opossums

The Tree-dwellers

Around the Fire

How to Make a Camp Fire

The Picnic Lunch

An Interesting Old Lady

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING

Try to write a theme in which uneducated people talk as they do in real

life; as far as possible, fit every person's speech to his character.

Below are given some suggestions for this work:

Mrs. Wicks borrows Mrs. Hall's flat-irons.

Two or three country children quarrel over a hen's nest.

The family get ready to go to the Sunday School picnic.

Sammie tells his parents that he has been whipped at school.

Two old men talk about the crops.

One of the pigs gets out of the pen.

Two boys go hunting.

The farmer has just come back from town.

Mrs. Robbins describes the moving-picture show.

=An Intelligent Dog=:--Tell who owns the dog, and how much you have had

opportunity to observe him. Describe him as vividly as possible. Give

some incidents that show his intelligence.

Perhaps you can make a story out of this, giving the largest amount of

space to an event in which the dog accomplished some notable thing, as

protecting property, bringing help in time of danger, or saving his

master's life. In this case, try to tell some of the story by means of

conversation, as Miss Jewett does.

=An Interesting Old Lady=:--Tell where you saw the old lady; or, if you

know her well, explain the nature of your acquaintance with her.

Describe her rather fully, telling how she looks and what she wears. How

does she walk and talk? What is her chief occupation? If possible, quote

some of her remarks in her own words. Tell some incidents in which she

figures. Try to bring out her most interesting qualities, so that the

reader can see them for himself.

COLLATERAL READINGS

Dogs and Men H.C. Merwin

Stickeen: The Story of John Muir

Another Dog (in _A Gentleman Vagabond_) F.H. Smith

The Sporting Dog Joseph A. Graham

Dogtown Mabel Osgood Wright

Bob, Son of Battle Alfred Ollivant

A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs Laurence Hutton

A Boy I Knew and Some More Dogs " "

A Dog of Flanders Louise de la Ramée

The Call of the Wild Jack London

White Fang " "

My Dogs in the Northland E.R. Young

Dogs of all Nations C.J. Miller

Leo (poem) R.W. Gilder

Greyfriar's Bobby Eleanor Atkinson

The Biography of a Silver Fox E.S. Thompson

Our Friend the Dog (trans.) Maurice Maeterlinck

Following the Deer W.J. Long

The Trail of the Sand-hill Stag Ernest Thompson Seton

Lives of the Hunted " " "

The Wilderness Hunter Theodore Roosevelt

A Watcher in the Woods Dallas Lore Sharp

Wild Life near Home " " "

The Watchers of the Trails C.G.D. Roberts

Kindred of the Wild " "

Little People of the Sycamore " "

The Haunters of the Silences " "

Squirrels and other Fur-bearers John Burroughs

My Woodland Intimates E. Bignell

Stories of old people:--

Aged Folk (in _Letters from my Mill_) Alphonse Daudet

Green Island (chapter 8 of

_The Country of the Pointed Firs_) Sarah Orne Jewett

Aunt Cynthy Dallett " " "

The Failure of David Berry " " "

A Church Mouse Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

A White Heron and Other Stories Sarah Orne Jewett

Tales of New England " " "

The Country of the Pointed Firs " " "

A Country Doctor " " "

Deephaven " " "

The Queen's Twin and Other Stories " " "

The King of Folly Island and Other People " " "

A Marsh Island " " "

The Tory Lover " " "

A Native of Winby and Other Tales " " "

Betty Leicester's Christmas " " "

Betty Leicester " " "

Country By-ways " " "

Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett Mrs. James T. Fields (Ed.)

For Biographies and criticisms of Miss Jewett, see: Atlantic Monthly,

94:485; Critic, 39:292, October, 1901 (Portrait); New England Magazine,

22:737, August, 1900; Outlook, 69:423; Bookman, 34:221 (Portrait).

ON THE LIFE-MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

RICHARD WATSON GILDER

This bronze doth keep the very form and mold

Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he:

That brow all wisdom, all benignity;

That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold

Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold;

That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea

For storms to beat on; the lone agony

Those silent, patient lips too well foretold.

Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men

As might some prophet of the elder day--

Brooding above the tempest and the fray

With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken.

A power was his beyond the touch of art

Or armèd strength--his pure and mighty heart.

NOTES

=the life-mask=:--The life-mask of Abraham Lincoln was made by Leonard

W. Volk, in Chicago, in April, 1860. A good picture of it is given as

the frontispiece to Volume 4 of Nicolay and Hay's _Abraham Lincoln, A

History_.

=this bronze=:--A life-mask is made of plaster first; then usually it is

cast in bronze.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

This is not difficult to understand. Read it over slowly, trying first

to get the meaning of each sentence as if it were prose. You may have

to read it several times before you see the exact meaning of each part.

When you have mastered it, read it through consecutively, thinking of

what it tells about Lincoln.

This poem is, as you may know, a sonnet. Notice the number of lines, the

meter, and the rhyme-scheme, referring to page 139 for a review of the

sonnet form. Notice how the thought changes at the ninth line. Find a

sonnet in one of the good current magazines. How can you recognize it?

Read it carefully. If it is appropriate, bring it to class, and read and

explain it to your classmates. Why has the sonnet form been used so much

by poets?

If you can find it, read the sonnet on _The Sonnet_, by Richard Watson

Gilder.

COLLATERAL READINGS

For references on Lincoln, see pages 50 and 51.

For portraits of Richard Watson Gilder, and biographical material,

consult: Current Literature, 41:319 (Portrait); Review of Reviews, 34:

491 (Portrait); Nation, 89:519; Dial, 47:441; Harper's Weekly, 53:6;

World's Work, 17:11293 (Portrait); Craftsman, 16:130, May, 1909

(Portrait); Outlook, 93:689 (Portrait).

For references to material on the sonnet, see page 140.

A FIRE AMONG THE GIANTS

JOHN MUIR

(From _Our National Parks_)

In the forest between the Middle and East forks of the Kaweah, I met a

great fire, and as fire is the master scourge and controller of the

distribution of trees, I stopped to watch it and learn what I could of

its works and ways with the giants. It came racing up the steep

chaparral-covered slopes of the East Fork cañon with passionate

enthusiasm in a broad cataract of flames, now bending down low to feed

on the green bushes, devouring acres of them at a breath, now towering

high in the air as if looking abroad to choose a way, then stooping to

feed again,--the lurid flapping surges and the smoke and terrible

rushing and roaring hiding all that is gentle and orderly in the work.

But as soon as the deep forest was reached, the ungovernable flood

became calm like a torrent entering a lake, creeping and spreading

beneath the trees where the ground was level or sloped gently, slowly

nibbling the cake of compressed needles and scales with flames an inch

high, rising here and there to a foot or two on dry twigs and clumps of

small bushes and brome grass. Only at considerable intervals were fierce

bonfires lighted, where heavy branches broken off by snow had

accumulated, or around some venerable giant whose head had been stricken

off by lightning.

I tethered Brownie on the edge of a little meadow beside a stream a good

safe way off, and then cautiously chose a camp for myself in a big

stout hollow trunk not likely to be crushed by the fall of burning

trees, and made a bed of ferns and boughs in it. The night, however, and

the strange wild fireworks were too beautiful and exciting to allow much

sleep. There was no danger of being chased and hemmed in; for in the

main forest belt of the Sierra, even when swift winds are blowing, fires

seldom or never sweep over the trees in broad all-embracing sheets as

they do in the dense Rocky Mountain woods and in those of the Cascade

Mountains of Oregon and Washington. Here they creep from tree to tree

with tranquil deliberation, allowing close observation, though caution

is required in venturing around the burning giants to avoid falling

limbs and knots and fragments from dead shattered tops. Though the day

was best for study, I sauntered about night after night, learning what I

could, and admiring the wonderful show vividly displayed in the lonely

darkness, the ground-fire advancing in long crooked lines gently grazing

and smoking on the close-pressed leaves, springing up in thousands of

little jets of pure flame on dry tassels and twigs, and tall spires and

flat sheets with jagged flapping edges dancing here and there on grass

tufts and bushes, big bonfires blazing in perfect storms of energy where

heavy branches mixed with small ones lay smashed together in hundred

cord piles, big red arches between spreading root-swells and trees

growing close together, huge fire-mantled trunks on the hill slopes

glowing like bars of hot iron, violet-colored fire running up the tall

trees, tracing the furrows of the bark in quick quivering rills, and

lighting magnificent torches on dry shattered tops, and ever and anon,

with a tremendous roar and burst of light, young trees clad in

low-descending feathery branches vanishing in one flame two or three

hundred feet high.

One of the most impressive and beautiful sights was made by the great

fallen trunks lying on the hillsides all red and glowing like colossal

iron bars fresh from a furnace, two hundred feet long some of them, and

ten to twenty feet thick. After repeated burnings have consumed the bark

and sapwood, the sound charred surface, being full of cracks and

sprinkled with leaves, is quickly overspread with a pure, rich, furred,

ruby glow almost flameless and smokeless, producing a marvelous effect

in the night. Another grand and interesting sight are the fires on the

tops of the largest living trees flaming above the green branches at a

height of perhaps two hundred feet, entirely cut off from the

ground-fires, and looking like signal beacons on watch towers. From one

standpoint I sometimes saw a dozen or more, those in the distance

looking like great stars above the forest roof. At first I could not

imagine how these Sequoia lamps were lighted, but the very first night,

strolling about waiting and watching, I saw the thing done again and

again. The thick fibrous bark of old trees is divided by deep, nearly

continuous furrows, the sides of which are bearded with the bristling

ends of fibres broken by the growth swelling of the trunk, and when the

fire comes creeping around the feet of the trees, it runs up these

bristly furrows in lovely pale blue quivering, bickering rills of flame

with a low, earnest whispering sound to the lightning-shattered top of

the trunk, which, in the dry Indian summer, with perhaps leaves and

twigs and squirrel-gnawed cone-scales and seed-wings lodged in it, is

readily ignited. These lamp-lighting rills, the most beautiful

fire-streams I ever saw, last only a minute or two, but the big lamps

burn with varying brightness for days and weeks, throwing off sparks

like the spray of a fountain, while ever and anon a shower of red coals

comes sifting down through the branches, followed at times with

startling effect by a big burned-off chunk weighing perhaps half a ton.

The immense bonfires where fifty or a hundred cords of peeled, split,

smashed wood has been piled around some old giant by a single stroke of

lightning is another grand sight in the night. The light is so great I

found I could read common print three hundred yards from them, and the

illumination of the circle of onlooking trees is indescribably

impressive. Other big fires, roaring and booming like waterfalls, were

blazing on the upper sides of trees on hillslopes, against which limbs

broken off by heavy snow had rolled, while branches high overhead,

tossed and shaken by the ascending air current, seemed to be writhing in

pain. Perhaps the most startling phenomenon of all was the quick death

of childlike Sequoias only a century or two of age. In the midst of the

other comparatively slow and steady fire work one of these tall,

beautiful saplings, leafy and branchy, would be seen blazing up

suddenly, all in one heaving, booming, passionate flame reaching from

the ground to the top of the tree, and fifty to a hundred feet or more

above it, with a smoke column bending forward and streaming away on the

upper, free-flowing wind. To burn these green trees a strong fire of dry

wood beneath them is required, to send up a current of air hot enough to

distill inflammable gases from the leaves and sprays; then instead of

the lower limbs gradually catching fire and igniting the next and the

next in succession, the whole tree seems to explode almost

simultaneously, and with awful roaring and throbbing a round, tapering

flame shoots up two or three hundred feet, and in a second or two is

quenched, leaving the green spire a black, dead mast, bristled and

roughened with down-curling boughs. Nearly all the trees that have been

burned down are lying with their heads up hill, because they are burned

far more deeply on the upper side, on account of broken limbs rolling

down against them to make hot fires, while only leaves and twigs

accumulate on the lower side and are quickly consumed without injury to

the tree. But green, resinless Sequoia wood burns very slowly, and many

successive fires are required to burn down a large tree. Fires can run

only at intervals of several years, and when the ordinary amount of

fire-wood that has rolled against the gigantic trunk is consumed, only a

shallow scar is made, which is slowly deepened by recurring fires until

far beyond the centre of gravity, and when at last the tree falls, it of

course falls up hill. The healing folds of wood layers on some of the

deeply burned trees show that centuries have elapsed since the last

wounds were made.

When a great Sequoia falls, its head is smashed into fragments about as

small as those made by lightning, which are mostly devoured by the first

running, hunting fire that finds them, while the trunk is slowly wasted

away by centuries of fire and weather. One of the most interesting

fire-actions on the trunk is the boring of those great tunnel-like

hollows through which horsemen may gallop. All of these famous hollows

are burned out of the solid wood, for no Sequoia is ever hollowed by

decay. When the tree falls, the brash trunk is often broken straight

across into sections as if sawed; into these joints the fire creeps,

and, on account of the great size of the broken ends, burns for weeks or

even months without being much influenced by the weather. After the

great glowing ends fronting each other have burned so far apart that

their rims cease to burn, the fire continues to work on in the centres,

and the ends become deeply concave. Then heat being radiated from side

to side, the burning goes on in each section of the trunk independent of

the other, until the diameter of the bore is so great that the heat

radiated across from side to side is not sufficient to keep them

burning. It appears, therefore, that only very large trees can receive

the fire-auger and have any shell-rim left.

Fire attacks the large trees only at the ground, consuming the fallen

leaves and humus at their feet, doing them but little harm unless

considerable quantities of fallen limbs happen to be piled about them,

their thick mail of spongy, unpitchy, almost unburnable bark affording

strong protection. Therefore the oldest and most perfect unscarred trees

are found on ground that is nearly level, while those growing on

hillsides, against which fallen branches roll, are always deeply scarred

on the upper side, and as we have seen are sometimes burned down. The

saddest thing of all was to see the hopeful seedlings, many of them

crinkled and bent with the pressure of winter snow, yet bravely aspiring

at the top, helplessly perishing, and young trees, perfect spires of

verdure and naturally immortal, suddenly changed to dead masts. Yet the

sun looked cheerily down the openings in the forest roof, turning the

black smoke to a beautiful brown as if all was for the best.

NOTES

=Kaweah=:--A river in California, which runs through the Sequoia

National Park.

=Brownie=:--A small donkey which Mr. Muir had brought along to carry his

pack of blankets and provisions. (See pp. 285, 286 of _Our National

Parks_.)

=humus=:--Vegetable mold.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

In 1875, Mr. Muir spent some weeks in the Sequoia forests, learning what

he could of the life and death of the giant trees. This selection is

from his account of his experiences. How does the author make you feel

the fierceness of the fire? Why does it become calmer when it enters the

forest? Would most people care to linger in a burning forest? What is

shown by Mr. Muir's willingness to stay? Note the vividness of the

passage beginning "Though the day was best": How does the author manage

to make it so clear? Might this passage be differently punctuated, with

advantage? What is the value of the figure "like colossal iron bars"?

Note the vivid words in the passage beginning "The thick" and ending

with "half a ton." What do you think of the expressions _onlooking

trees_, and _childlike Sequoias_? Explain why the burned trees fall up

hill. Go through the selection and pick out the words that show action;

color; sound. Try to state clearly the reasons why this selection is

clear and picturesque.

THEME SUBJECTS

The Forest Fire

A Group of Large Trees

Felling a Tree

A Fire in the Country

A Fire in the City

Alone in the Woods

The Woodsman

In the Woods

Camping Out for the Night

By-products of the Forest

A Tree Struck by Lightning

A Famous Student of Nature

Planting Trees

The Duties of a Forest Ranger

The Lumber Camp

A Fire at Night

Learning to Observe

The Conservation of the Forests

The Pine

Ravages of the Paper Mill

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITING