Additional Readings - With Questions

[291]

---

THE SCHOOLMASTER'S RIDE

By Washington Irving

The time of this story is post-Revolutionary. Ichabod Crane, a lean, awkward schoolmaster, has been courting the village belle, Katrina Van Tassel, his rival being Brom Bones, a powerful fellow, noted for his pugnacity. He has frequently threatened Ichabod for aspiring to the charming Katrina. Here, Ichabod, at a late hour, is leaving the Van Tassel home after a "quilting frolic" where he took occasion to propose to Katrina. Judge of the young lady's answer!

Ichabod, heavy-hearted and crestfallen, pursued his
travel homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills
which rise above Tarrytown. The hour was as dismal as
himself. Far below him the Tappan Zee spread its dusky
and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the 5
tall mast of a sloop riding quietly at anchor under the
land. In the dead hush of midnight he could even hear
the barking of the watchdog from the opposite shore of the
Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an
idea of his great distance from this faithful companion of 10
man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a
cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off,
from some farmhouse away among the hills. No signs of
life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy
chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog 15
from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably
and turning suddenly in his bed.

The night grew darker and darker, the stars seemed to
sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid
[292]them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and 20
dismal. In the center of the road stood an enormous tulip
tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees
of the neighborhood and formed a kind of landmark. It
was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate
André, who had been taken prisoner hard by, and was 5
universally known by the name of Major André's Tree.
The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect
and superstition.

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to
whistle. He thought his whistle was answered. It was 10
but a blast sweeping through the dry branches. As he
approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something
white hanging in the midst of the tree. He paused and
ceased whistling; but on looking more narrowly, perceived
that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by 15
lightning and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard
a groan. His teeth chattered, and his knees smote against
the saddle. It was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon
another as they were swayed about by the breeze. He
passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.20

About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook
crossed the road and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded
glen, known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough
logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream.
To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this 25
identical spot that the unfortunate André was captured,
and this has ever since been considered a haunted stream,
and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to
pass it alone after dark.

As he approached the stream his heart began to thump. 30
He summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his
[293]horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to
dash briskly across the bridge. But instead of starting
forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement
and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears
increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side
and kicked lustily with the contrary foot. It was all in 5
vain. His steed started, it is true, but it was only to
plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of
brambles and alder bushes.

The schoolmaster now bestowed both whip and heel
upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed 10
forward, snuffling and snorting, but came to a stand just
by the bridge with a suddenness which had nearly sent his
rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a
plashy tramp on the bank of the stream, by the side of
the bridge, caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the 15
dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the murmuring
brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and
towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathering up in the
gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the
traveler. 20

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head
with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now
too late. Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he
demanded, in stammering tones, "Who are you?" He
received no reply. 25

He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice.
Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgeled the sides
of the inflexible Gunpowder, and shutting his eyes, broke
forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then
the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a 30
scramble and a bound, stood at once in the middle of the road.

[294]Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of
the unknown might now, in some degree, be ascertained.
He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions and
mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made
no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on
one side of the road. Ichabod, who had no relish for this 5
strange midnight companion, now quickened his steed in
hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger quickened
his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up and fell
into a walk, thinking to lag behind. The other did the
same. His heart began to sink within him. He endeavored 10
to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to
the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a stave.

There was something in the moody and dogged silence
of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and
appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On 15
mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his
fellow traveler in relief against the sky, gigantic in height
and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving
that he was headless! But his horror was still more
increased on observing that the head which should have 20
rested on his shoulders was carried before him on the
pommel of his saddle! His terror rose to desperation.
He rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder,
hoping by a sudden movement to give his companion the
slip. But the specter started full jump with him. Away 25
then they dashed, through thick and thin, stones flying
and sparks flashing at every bound.

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes
that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection
of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that 30
he was not mistaken. "If I can but reach that bridge,"
[295]thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he heard the
black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he
even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive
kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang
upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding
planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod 5
cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish,
according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just
then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very
act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to
dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered 10
his cranium with a tremendous crash. He was tumbled
headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed,
and the goblin rider passed by like a whirlwind.

The next morning the old horse was found without his
saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping 15
the grass at his master's gate, while near the bridge, on
the bank of a broad part of the brook where the water
ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate
Ichabod, and close beside it—a shattered pumpkin!

—A Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

1. You should read the entire "Legend" (see Irving's Sketch Book) and enjoy the detailed incidents leading up to this climax. Of course Ichabod leaves Sleepy Hollow, never to return. What evidence is there that Brom Bones was the ghost?

2. A ghost was supposed not to be able to cross running water. What evidence of this do you find in the story?

3. Why was Ichabod "heavy-hearted and crestfallen"? Give two reasons.

4. Pick out the elements of the first two paragraphs that make the situation appear lonely.

5. Who was Major André? Why should Ichabod have especially feared the André tree?

6. What is there in this selection that is humorous?

[111]

RIP VAN WINKLE

I


Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Catskill
Mountains. They are a branch of the great [v]Appalachian[9-*] family,
and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble
height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of
season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces
some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they
are regarded by all the goodwives, far and near, as perfect
[v]barometers.

At the foot of these fairy mountains the traveler may have seen the
light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among
the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the
fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great
age, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early
times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the
good Peter [v]Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were some of
the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built
of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and
gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks.

In that same village, and in one of these very houses, there lived, many
years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a
simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a
descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the
[v]chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege
of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial
character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple,
good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor and an obedient,
henpecked husband.

Certain it is that he was a great favorite among all the goodwives of
the village, who took his part in all family squabbles; and never
failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening
gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the
village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted
at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and
shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and
Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded
by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and
playing a thousand tricks on him; and not a dog would bark at him
throughout the neighborhood.

The great error in Rip's composition was a strong dislike of all kinds
of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of perseverance; for
he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a lance, and
fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged
by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling piece on his shoulder for
hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down
dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to
assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at
all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences;
the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands,
and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not
do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business
but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order,
he found it impossible.

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to
nobody. His son Rip promised to inherit the habits, with the old
clothes, of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at
his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off
breeches, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady
does her train in bad weather.

Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish,
well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or
brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would
rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he
would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept
continually dinning in his ear about his idleness, his carelessness, and
the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her
tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to
produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of
replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had
grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up
his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh
volley from his wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and
take to the outside of the house--the only side which, in truth, belongs
to a henpecked husband.

Rip's sole [v]domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much
henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions
in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of
his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit
befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever
scoured the woods; but what courage can withstand the ever-enduring and
all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the
house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground or curled between
his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong
glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or
ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.

Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony
rolled on. A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is
the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long
while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting
a kind of perpetual club of sages, philosophers, and other idle
personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a
small inn, designated by a [v]rubicund portrait of His Majesty George
III. Here they used to sit in the shade of a long, lazy summer's day,
talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy
stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman's
money to have heard the profound discussions which sometimes took place,
when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing
traveler. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out
by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster,--a dapper, learned little man,
who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary!
and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months
after they had taken place!

The opinions of this [v]junto were completely controlled by Nicholas
Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door
of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving
sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade of a large tree; so
that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as
by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his
pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his
adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his
opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was
observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short,
frequent, and angry puffs; but, when pleased, he would inhale the smoke
slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds, and
sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant
vapor curl about his nose, would nod his head in approbation.

From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his
[v]termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of
the assemblage, and call the members all to naught; nor was that august
personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of
this terrible virago, who charged him with encouraging her husband in
habits of idleness.

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only
[v]alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his
wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he
would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the
contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a
fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress
leads thee a dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live
thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee." Wolf would wag his
tail, look wistfully in his master's face; and if dogs can feel pity, I
verily believe he [v]reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.

In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had
unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Catskill
Mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel-shooting, and the
still solitudes had echoed and reëchoed with the reports of his gun.
Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a
green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a
precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the
lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the
lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic
course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging
bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing
itself in the blue highlands.

On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild and
lonely, the bottom filled with fragments from the overhanging cliffs,
and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some
time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the
mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he
saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he
heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame
Van Winkle.

As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing,
"Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!" He looked round, but could see nothing
but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought
his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he
heard the same cry ring through the still evening air: "Rip Van Winkle!
Rip Van Winkle!"--at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving
a low growl, skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully down into
the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked
anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly
toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he
carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this
lonely and unfrequented place; but supposing it to be some one of the
neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it.

On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the [v]singularity of
the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with
thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique
Dutch fashion,--a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, and several
pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of
buttons down the sides. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg that seemed
full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with
the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance,
Rip complied with his usual [v]alacrity, and relieving one another, they
clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain
torrent.

As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long, rolling peals, like
distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather
cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He
paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of
those transient thundershowers which often take place in mountain
heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a
hollow, like a small [v]amphitheater, surrounded by perpendicular
precipices, over the brinks of which trees shot their branches, so that
you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud.
During the whole time Rip and his companion had labored on in silence;
for though the former marveled greatly, what could be the object of
carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something
strange and incomprehensible about the unknown that inspired awe and
checked familiarity.

On entering the amphitheater new objects of wonder presented themselves.
On a level spot in the center was a company of odd-looking personages
playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion;
some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their
belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with
that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large
head, broad face, and small, piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to
consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat,
set off with a little red cock's tail. They all had beards, of various
shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was
a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a
laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red
stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group
reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of
[v]Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, which had been brought over
from Holland at the time of the settlement.

What seemed particularly odd to Rip was that, though these folks were
evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the
most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of
pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the
scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled,
echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.

As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from
their play, and stared at him with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and
such strange, uncouth countenances, that his heart turned within him,
and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of
the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the
company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in
profound silence, and then returned to their game.

By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when
no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had
much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty
soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked
another; and he repeated his visits to the flagon so often that at
length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head
gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.


II

On waking he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen
the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes--it was a bright, sunny
morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and
the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze.
"Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled
the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of
liquor--the mountain ravine--the wild retreat among the rocks--the
woe-begone party at ninepins--the flagon--"Oh! that flagon! that wicked
flagon!" thought Rip; "what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?"

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled
fowling piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel
incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He
now suspected that the grave revelers of the mountain had put a trick
upon him and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun.
Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a
squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but
all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was
to be seen.

He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if
he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to
walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual
activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and
if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall
have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got
down into the glen; he found the gully up which he and his companion had
ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain
stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling
the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up
its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch,
sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the
wild grapevines that twisted their coils from tree to tree, and spread a
kind of network in his path.

At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs
to the amphitheater; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks
presented a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came
tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin,
black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip
was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he
was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows sporting high
in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure
in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's
perplexities. What was to be done?--the morning was passing away, and
Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his
dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve
among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock,
and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps
homeward.

As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he
knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself
acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of
a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all
stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their
eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence
of this gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his
astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!

He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange
children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray
beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old
acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered;
it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had
never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had
disappeared. Strange names were over the doors--strange faces at the
windows--everything was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to
doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched.
Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day
before. There stood the Catskill Mountains--there ran the silver Hudson
at a distance--there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always
been. Rip was sorely perplexed. "That flagon last night," thought he,
"has addled my poor head sadly!"

It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house,
which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the
shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay--the
roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A
half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called
him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This
was an unkind cut indeed. "My very dog," sighed Rip, "has forgotten me!"

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had
always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently
abandoned. He called loudly for his wife and children--the lonely
chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was
silence.


III

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village
inn--but it, too, was gone. A large, rickety wooden building stood in
its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken and mended
with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, "The Union
Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to
shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a
tall, naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red
nightcap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular
assemblage of stars and stripes; all this was strange and
incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of
King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even
this was singularly changed. The red coat was changed for one of blue
and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a scepter, the head
was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large
characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip
recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was
a busy, bustling tone about it, instead of the accustomed drowsy
tranquility. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his
broad face, double chin, and long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke
instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth
the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean fellow,
with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about
rights of citizens--elections--members of congress--Bunker's
Hill--heroes of seventy-six--and other words, which were a perfect
jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.

The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling
piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his
heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They
crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity.
The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired
"On which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short
but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe,
inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was
equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing,
self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way
through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as
he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo,
the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating,
as it were, into his very soul, demanded, in an austere tone, "What
brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his
heels; and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?"--"Alas!
gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a
native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!"

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders--"A tory! a tory! a spy!
a refugee! hustle him! away with him!" It was with great difficulty that
the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and having
assumed a tenfold [v]austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown
culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking! The poor man
humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in
search of some of his neighbors.

"Well--who are they? Name them."

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's Nicholas Vedder?"

There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a
thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder! why, he is dead and gone these
eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used
to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone, too."

"Where's Brom Dutcher?"

"Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he
was killed at the storming of Stony Point; others say he was drowned in
a squall at the foot of Anthony's Nose. I don't know; he never came back
again."

"Where's Van Brummel, the schoolmaster?"

"He went off to the wars, too, was a great militia general, and is now
in congress."

Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and
friends and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer
puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of
matters which he could not understand: war--congress--Stony Point. He
had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair,
"Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?"

"Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three, "oh, to be sure! that's
Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree."

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, as he went up
the mountain--apparently as lazy and certainly as ragged. The poor
fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and
whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment,
the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name.

"God knows," exclaimed he, at his wits' end; "I'm not myself--I'm
somebody else--that's me yonder--no--that's somebody else got into my
shoes--I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and
they've changed my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I
can't tell what's my name, or who I am!"

The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly,
and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper,
also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing
mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the
cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a
fresh, comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the
gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened
at his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, you little
fool; the old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the
mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in
his mind. "What is your name, my good woman?" asked he.

"Judith Gardenier."

"And your father's name?"

"Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it's twenty years since
he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of
since--his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or
was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a
little girl."

Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering
voice:

"Where's your mother?"

"Oh, she, too, had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel
in a fit of passion at a New England peddler."

There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest
man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her
child in his arms. "I am your father!" cried he--"Young Rip Van Winkle
once--Old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?"

All stood amazed until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd,
put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment,
exclaimed, "Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle--it is himself! Welcome
home again, old neighbor. Why, where have you been these twenty long
years?"

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him
but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were
seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks: and
the self-important man in the cocked hat, who when the alarm was over
had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and
shook his head--upon which there was a general shaking of the head
throughout the assemblage.

It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk,
who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the
historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the
province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well
versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood.
He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most
satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed
down from his ancestor the historian, that the Catskill Mountains had
always been haunted by strange beings. It was affirmed that the great
Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a
kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the
_Half-moon_; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his
enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city
called by his name. His father had once seen them in their old Dutch
dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and he himself
had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant
peals of thunder.

To make a long story short, the company broke up and returned to the
more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to
live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout, cheery
farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that
used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto
of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on
the farm; but showed an hereditary disposition to attend to anything
else but his business.

WASHINGTON IRVING.


=HELPS TO STUDY=

"Rip Van Winkle" is the most beautiful of American legendary stories.
Washington Irving, the author, taking the old idea of long sleep, as
found in "The Sleeping Beauty" and other fairy tales, gave it an
American setting and interwove in it the legend of Henry Hudson, the
discoverer of the Hudson river, who was supposed to return to the scene
of his achievement every twenty years, together with the shades of his
crew.

     I. Where is the scene of this story laid? In which paragraph do you
     learn when the incident related in the story took place? Why does
     Irving speak of the mountains as "fairy mountains"? In which
     paragraph do you meet the principal characters? Give the opinion
     you form of Rip and his wife. Read sentences that show Rip's good
     qualities--those that show his faults. What unusual thing happened
     to Rip on his walk? How was the dog affected? Give a full account
     of what happened afterward. Tell what impressed you most in this
     scene. Read aloud the lines that best describe the scenery.

     II. Describe Rip's waking. What was his worst fear? How did he
     explain to himself the change in his gun and the disappearance of
     Wolf? How did he account for the stiffness of his joints? What was
     still his chief fear? Describe the changes which had taken place in
     the mountains. With what feeling did he turn homeward? Why? How did
     he discover the alteration in his own appearance? How did the
     children and dogs treat him? Why was this particularly hard for Rip
     to understand? What other changes did he find? What remained
     unaltered? How did Rip still account for the peculiar happenings?
     Describe Rip's feelings as he turned to his own house, and its
     desolation.

     III. What change had been made in the sign over the inn? Why? What
     important thing was taking place in the village? Why did the speech
     of the "lean fellow" seem "perfect jargon" to Rip? Why did he not
     understand the questions asked him? What happened when Rip made his
     innocent reply to the self-important gentleman? How did he at last
     learn of the lapse of time? What added to his bewilderment? How was
     the mystery explained? Note the question Rip reserved for the last
     and the effect the answer had upon him. How did Peter Vanderdonk
     explain the strange happening? What is the happy ending? Do you
     like Rip? Why?


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

     Urashima--Graded Classics III.
     Vice Versa--F. Anstey.
     Peter Pan--James Barrie.
     The Legend of Sleepy Hollow--Washington Irving.
     A Christmas Carol--Charles Dickens.
     Enoch Arden--Alfred Tennyson.


FOOTNOTE:

[9-*] For words marked [v], see Dictionary.


[Illustration: Photograph by Aldrich

The Great Stone Face]




THE GREAT STONE FACE


I

One afternoon when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy
sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face.
They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen,
though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.

And what was the Great Stone Face? The Great Stone Face was a work of
Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular
side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together
in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to
resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an
enormous giant, or a [v]Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the
precipice. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in
height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if
they could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one
end of the valley to the other.

It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with
the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were noble,
and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow
of a vast, warm heart that embraced all mankind in its affections, and
had room for more.

As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their
cottage door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The
child's name was Ernest. "Mother," said he, while the Titanic visage
smiled on him, "I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly
that its voice must be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a
face, I should love him dearly."

"If an old prophecy should come to pass," answered his mother, "we may
see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that."

"What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?" eagerly inquired Ernest. "Pray
tell me all about it!"

So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when
she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things that
were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very
old that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard
it from their forefathers, to whom, they believed, it had been murmured
by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the tree tops.
The story said that at some future day a child should be born hereabouts
who was destined to become the greatest and noblest man of his time, and
whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the
Great Stone Face.

"O mother, dear mother!" cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his
head, "I do hope that I shall live to see him!" His mother was an
affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was wisest not to
discourage the hopes of her little boy. She only said to him, "Perhaps
you may," little thinking that the prophecy would one day come true.

And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was
always in his mind whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He
spent his childhood in the log cottage where he was born, and was
dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her
much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. In this
manner, from a happy yet thoughtful child, he grew to be a mild, quiet,
modest boy, sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more
intelligence in his face than is seen in many lads who have been taught
at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save only that the
Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toil of the day was over,
he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to imagine that those vast
features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and
encouragement in response to his own look of [v]veneration. We must not
take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the Face may
have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. For
the secret was that the boy's tender simplicity [v]discerned what other
people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became
his alone.


II

About this time, there went a rumor throughout the valley that the great
man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to the
Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years
before, a young man had left the valley and settled at a distant
seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had set up as
a shopkeeper. His name--but I could never learn whether it was his real
one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in
life--was Gathergold.

It might be said of him, as of [v]Midas in the fable, that whatever he
touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was
changed at once into coin. And when Mr. Gathergold had become so rich
that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth,
he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go back
thither, and end his days where he was born. With this purpose in view,
he sent a skillful architect to build him such a palace as should be fit
for a man of his vast wealth to live in.

As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that Mr.
Gathergold had turned out to be the person so long and vainly looked
for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable likeness of the
Great Stone Face. People were the more ready to believe that this must
needs be the fact when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if
by enchantment, on the site of his father's old weather-beaten
farmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so dazzling white that it seemed
as though the whole structure might melt away in the sunshine, like
those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his young playdays, had been
accustomed to build of snow. It had a richly ornamented portico,
supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door, studded with
silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated wood that had been
brought from beyond the sea. The windows, from the floor to the ceiling
of each stately apartment, were each composed of but one enormous pane
of glass. Hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this
palace; but it was reported to be far more gorgeous than the outside,
insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver or
gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made such a
glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close
his eyes there. But, on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so
accustomed to wealth that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes
unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his
eyelids.

In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with
magnificent furniture; then a whole troop of black and white servants,
the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was
expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, meanwhile, had been
deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man of
prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to appear in his
native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways
in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform himself
into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human affairs as
wide and [v]benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face. Full of
faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people said was true,
and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous
features on the mountain side. While the boy was still gazing up the
valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone Face
returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was
heard, approaching swiftly along the winding road.

"Here he comes!" cried a group of people who were assembled to witness
the arrival. "Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!"

A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road.
Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the face of a
little old man, with a skin as yellow as gold. He had a low forehead,
small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very
thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly
together.

"The very image of the Great Stone Face!" shouted the people. "Sure
enough, the old prophecy is true."

And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that
here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced
to be an old beggar woman and two little beggar children, stragglers
from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out
their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously
beseeching charity. A yellow claw--the very same that had clawed
together so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach window, and
dropped some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great
man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have
been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest
shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people
bellowed:

"He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!"

But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that visage and
gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last
sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had
impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did
the benign lips seem to say?

"He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!"

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a
young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of
the valley, for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save
that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and
gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of
the matter, however, it was a pardonable folly, for Ernest was
industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of
this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone Face had become a
teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would
enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper
sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence would come a
better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than
could be molded on the example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest
know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in
the fields and at the fireside, were of a higher tone than those which
all men shared with him. A simple soul,--simple as when his mother first
taught him the old prophecy,--he beheld the marvelous features beaming
down the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so
long in making his appearance.

By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest
part of the matter was that his wealth, which was the body and spirit of
his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him
but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin. Since
the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally allowed that
there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble
features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain
side. So the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and quietly
forgot him after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory
was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had
built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the
accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to
visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. The man of
prophecy was yet to come.


III

It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before,
had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting, had
now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in
history, he was known in camps and on the battlefield under the nickname
of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now weary of a
military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the
trumpet that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified
a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where
he remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and
their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the [v]renowned
warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more
enthusiastically because it was believed that at last the likeness of
the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. A friend of Old
Blood-and-Thunder, traveling through the valley, was said to have been
struck with the resemblance. Moreover, the schoolmates and early
acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to
the best of their recollection, the general had been exceedingly like
the majestic image, even when a boy, only that the idea had never
occurred to them at that period. Great, therefore, was the excitement
throughout the valley; and many people, who had never once thought of
glancing at the Great Stone Face for years before, now spent their time
in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing exactly how General
Blood-and-Thunder looked.

On the day of the great festival, Ernest, and all the other people of
the valley, left their work and proceeded to the spot where the banquet
was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr.
Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set
before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor
they were assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared space of the
woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened
eastward, and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over the
general's chair, which was a relic from the home of Washington, there
was an arch of green boughs and laurel surmounted by his country's
banner, beneath which he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest
raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the
celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious
to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall
from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a
guard, pricked with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person
among the throng. So Ernest, being of a modest character, was thrust
quite into the background, where he could see no more of Old
Blood-and-Thunder's face than if it had been still blazing on the
battlefield. To console himself he turned toward the Great Stone Face,
which, like a faithful and long-remembered friend, looked back and
smiled upon him through the forest. Meantime, however, he could overhear
the remarks of various individuals who were comparing the features of
the hero with the face on the distant mountain side.

"'Tis the same face, to a hair!" cried one man, cutting a caper for joy.

"Wonderfully like, that's a fact!" responded another.

"Like! Why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous
looking-glass!" cried a third. "And why not? He's the greatest man of
this or any other age, beyond a doubt."

"The general! The general!" was now the cry. "Hush! Silence! Old
Blood-and-Thunder's going to make a speech."

Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been
drunk amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank
the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the
crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward,
beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner
drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in the same
glance, appeared the Great Stone Face! And was there, indeed, such a
resemblance as the crowd had testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize
it! He beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten countenance, full of energy,
and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad,
tender sympathies were altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's
visage.

"This is not the man of prophecy," sighed Ernest to himself, as he made
his way out of the throng. "And must the world wait longer yet?"

The mists had gathered about the distant mountain side, and there were
seen the grand and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful but
benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills and
enrobing himself in a cloud vesture of gold and purple. As he looked,
Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole
visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of
the lips. It was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting
the thin vapors that had swept between him and the object that he had
gazed at. But--as it always did--the aspect of his marvelous friend made
Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain.

"Fear not, Ernest," said his heart, even as if the Great Face were
whispering him--"fear not, Ernest."


IV

More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in his
native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By slow degrees he had
become known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he labored for his
bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had always been. But
he had thought and felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours
of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to mankind, that it
seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed a
portion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible in the calm beneficence
of his daily life, the quiet stream of which had made a wide, green
margin all along its course. Not a day passed by that the world was not
the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. He never
stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach a blessing to
his neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had become a preacher. The
pure and high simplicity of his thought, which took shape in the good
deeds that dropped silently from his hand, flowered also forth in
speech. He uttered truths that molded the lives of those who heard him.
His hearers, it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor
and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did
Ernest himself suspect it; but thoughts came out of his mouth that no
other human lips had spoken.

When the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready
enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between
General Blood-and-Thunder and the benign visage on the mountain side.
But now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs in the
newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the Great Stone Face had
appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent [v]statesman. He,
like Mr. Gathergold and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a native of the
valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of
law and politics. Instead of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's
sword he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. So
wonderfully eloquent was he that, whatever he might choose to say, his
hearers had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and
right like wrong. His voice, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes
it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest
music. In good truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had
acquired him all other imaginable success,--when it had been heard in
halls of state and in the courts of princes,--after it had made him
known all over the world, even as a voice crying from shore to
shore,--it finally persuaded his countrymen to select him for the
presidency. Before this time,--indeed, as soon as he began to grow
celebrated,--his admirers had found out the resemblance between him and
the Great Stone Face; and so much were they struck by it that throughout
the country this distinguished gentleman was known by the name of Old
Stony Phiz.

While his friends were doing their best to make him President, Old Stony
Phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the valley where he was
born. Of course he had no other object than to shake hands with his
fellow-citizens, and neither thought nor cared about any effect which
his progress through the country might have upon the election.
Magnificent preparations were made to receive the [v]illustrious
statesmen; a cavalcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the boundary
line of the State, and all the people left their business and gathered
along the wayside to see him pass. Among these was Ernest. Though more
than once disappointed, as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and
confiding nature that he was always ready to believe in whatever seemed
beautiful and good. He kept his heart continually open, and thus was
sure to catch the blessing from on high, when it should come. So now
again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the
Great Stone Face.

The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering of
hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high that
the visage of the mountain side was completely hidden from Ernest's
eyes. All the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback:
militia officers, in uniform; the member of congress; the sheriff of the
county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had mounted
his patient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It really was a
very brilliant spectacle, especially as there were numerous banners
flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits
of the illustrious statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling
familiarly at one another, like two brothers. If the pictures were to be
trusted, the resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvelous. We must
not forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the
echoes of the mountains ring with the loud triumph of its strains, so
that airy and soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all the heights
and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice to
welcome the distinguished guest. But the grandest effect was when the
far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the Great
Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in
acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was come.

All this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting with
such enthusiasm that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he likewise
threw up his hat and shouted as loudly as the loudest, "Huzza for the
great man! Huzza for Old Stony Phiz!" But as yet he had not seen him.

"Here he is now!" cried those who stood near Ernest. "There! There! Look
at Old Stony Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and see if
they are not as like as two twin brothers!"

In the midst of all this gallant array came an open [v]barouche, drawn
by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head
uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.

"Confess it," said one of Ernest's neighbors to him, "the Great Stone
Face has met its match at last!"

Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance
which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that
there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the
mountain side. The brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and all
the other features, indeed, were bold and strong. But the grand
expression of a divine sympathy that illuminated the mountain visage
might here be sought in vain.

Still Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and
pressing him for an answer.

"Confess! Confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of the
Mountain?"

"No!" said Ernest, bluntly; "I see little or no likeness."

"Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!" answered his
neighbor. And again he set up a shout for Old Stony Phiz.

But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent; for this was
the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have
fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the
cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him,
with the shouting crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down,
and the Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it
had worn for untold centuries.

"Lo, here I am, Ernest!" the benign lips seemed to say. "I have waited
longer than thou, and am not yet weary. Fear not; the man will come."


V

The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another's
heels. And now they began to bring white hairs and scatter them over the
head of Ernest; they made wrinkles across his forehead and furrows in
his cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain had he grown old; more
than the white hairs on his head were the wise thoughts in his mind. And
Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the
fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond
the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College
professors, and even the active men of cities, came from far to see and
converse with Ernest; for the report had gone abroad that this simple
farmer had ideas unlike those of other men, and a tranquil majesty as if
he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. Ernest
received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had marked him
from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or
lay deepest in his heart or their own. While they talked together his
face would kindle and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light.
When his guests took leave and went their way, and passing up the
valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face, they imagined that they
had seen its likeness in a human countenance, but could not remember
where.

While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence
had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the
valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from
that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and
din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar
to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere
of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for he had
celebrated it in a poem which was grand enough to have been uttered by
its lips.

The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his
customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage door, where for
such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing
at the Great Stone Face. And now, as he read stanzas that caused the
soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance
beaming on him so benignantly.

"O majestic friend," he said, addressing the Great Stone Face, "is not
this man worthy to resemble thee?"

The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word.

Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only
heard of Ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he
deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man whose untaught wisdom
walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer
morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline
of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from
Ernest's cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of
Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpetbag on
his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be
accepted as his guest.

Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume
in his hand, which he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves,
looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.

"Good evening," said the poet. "Can you give a traveler a night's
lodging?"

"Willingly," answered Ernest. And then he added, smiling, "Methinks I
never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger."

The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked
together. Often had the poet conversed with the wittiest and the wisest,
but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings
gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so
familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often
said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels
seemed to have sat with him by the fireside. So thought the poet. And
Ernest, on the other hand, was moved by the living images which the poet
flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage
door with shapes of beauty.

As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face
was bending forward to listen, too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's
glowing eyes.

"Who are you, my strangely gifted guest!" he said.

The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.

"You have read these poems," said he. "You know me, then,--for I wrote
them."

Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's
features; then turned toward the Great Stone Face; then back to his
guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his head, and mournfully
sighed.

"Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.

"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the
fulfillment of a prophecy; and when I read these poems, I hoped that it
might be fulfilled in you."

"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the
likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly
with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes,
Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious three,
and record another failure of your hopes. For--in shame and sadness do I
speak it, Ernest--I am not worthy."

"And why?" asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. "Are not those
thoughts divine?"

"You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song," replied the
poet. "But my life, dear Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. I
have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because I have
lived--and that, too, by my own choice--among poor and mean realities.
Sometimes even--shall I dare to say it?--I lack faith in the grandeur,
the beauty, and the goodness which my own works are said to have made
more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the
good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me in yonder image of the
divine?"

The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise,
were those of Ernest.

At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was
to speak to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open
air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went
along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with
a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the
pleasant foliage of many creeping plants, that made a [v]tapestry for
the naked rock by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At
a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure,
there appeared a [v]niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure. Into
this natural pulpit Ernest ascended and threw a look of familiar
kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon
the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling
over them. In another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the
same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.

Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and
mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and
his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the
life which he had always lived. The poet, as he listened, felt that the
being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he
had ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed
reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never
was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild,
sweet, thoughtful countenance with the glory of white hair diffused
about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the
golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with
hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest.

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter,
the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so full of
benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms
aloft, and shouted:

"Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone
Face!"

Then all the people looked and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said
was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. The man had appeared at last.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.


=HELPS TO STUDY=

The Great Stone Face is a rock formation in the Franconia Notch of the
White Mountains of New Hampshire, known as "The Old Man of the
Mountain."

     I. What picture do you get from Part I? Tell in your own words what
     the mother told Ernest about the Great Stone Face. Who had carved
     the face? How? Find something that is one hundred feet high, and
     picture to yourself the immensity of the whole face, judging by the
     forehead alone. Describe Ernest's childhood and his education.

     II. What reason had the people for thinking that the great man had
     come in the person of Mr. Gathergold? Explain the reference to
     Midas. What was there in Mr. Gathergold's appearance and action to
     disappoint Ernest? What comforted him? Why were the people willing
     to believe that Mr. Gathergold was the image of the Great Stone
     Face? What caused them to decide that he was not? What was there to
     indicate that Ernest would become a great and good man?

     III. What new character is now introduced? Wherein was Old
     Blood-and-Thunder lacking in resemblance to the Great Stone Face?
     Compare him with Mr. Gathergold and decide which was the greater
     character? How was Ernest comforted in his second disappointment?

     IV. What kind of man had Ernest become? What figure comes into the
     story now? Find a sentence that gives a clew to the character of
     Stony Phiz. Compare him with the characters previously introduced.
     Why was Ernest more disappointed than before? Where did he again
     look for comfort?

     V. What changes did the hurrying years bring Ernest? What sentence
     indicates who the man of prophecy might be? Who is now introduced
     in the story? Give the opinion that Ernest and the poet had of each
     other. Find the sentence which explains why the poet failed. Who
     was the first to recognize in Ernest the likeness to the Great
     Stone Face? Why did Hawthorne have a poet to make the discovery? In
     what way was Ernest great? How had he become so? What trait of
     Ernest's character is shown in the last sentence?

     The story is divided into five parts. Make an outline telling what
     is the topic of each part.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

     The Sketch Book--Washington Irving.
     Old Curiosity Shop--Charles Dickens.
     Pendennis--William Makepeace Thackeray.
     The Snow-Image--Nathaniel Hawthorne.
     The Legend Beautiful--Henry W. Longfellow.
     William Wilson--Edgar Allan Poe.

[Illustration: Priscilla and John Alden]




THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH


    I

    In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims,
    To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
    Clad in [v]doublet and hose, and boots of [v]Cordovan leather,
    Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
    Buried in thought he seemed, with hands behind him, and pausing
    Ever and anon to behold the glittering weapons of warfare,
    Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber,--
    Cutlass and corslet of steel, and his trusty [v]sword of Damascus.
    Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
    Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
    Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
    Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
    Near him was seated John Alden, his friend, and household companion,
    Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window;
    Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion.
    Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the May Flower.
      (Standish takes up a book and reads a moment.)
    Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,
    Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of
        Plymouth.
    "Look at these arms," he said, "the warlike weapons that hang here
    Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!
    This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this
        breastplate,
    Well, I remember the day! once saved my life in a skirmish;
    Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet.
    Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish
    Would at this moment be mold, in the grave in the Flemish morasses."
    Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:
    "Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;
    He in his mercy preserved you to be our shield and our weapon!"
    Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:
    "See how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
    That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.
    Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent [v]adage;
    So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.
    Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
    Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,
    Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,
    And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!"
    All was silent again; the Captain continued his reading.
    Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling
    Writing epistles important to go next day by the May Flower,
    Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, God willing,
    Homeward bound with the tidings of all that terrible winter,
    Letters written by Alden and full of the name of Priscilla,
    Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla.
    Every sentence began or closed with the name of Priscilla,
    Till the treacherous pen, to which he confided the secret
    Strove to betray it by singing and shouting the name of Priscilla!
    Finally closing his book, with a bang of its [v]ponderous cover,
    Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier grounding his musket,
    Thus to the young man spake Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth:
    "When you have finished your work, I have something important to tell
        you.
    Be not however in haste; I can wait; I shall not be impatient!"
    Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the last of his letters,
    Pushing his papers aside, and giving respectful attention:
    "Speak; for whenever you speak, I am always ready to listen,
    Always ready to hear whatever pertains to Miles Standish."
    Thereupon answered the Captain, embarrassed, and culling his phrases:
    "'Tis not good for a man to be alone, say the Scriptures.
    This I have said before, and again and again I repeat it;
    Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and say it.
    Since Rose Standish died, my life has been weary and dreary;
    Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of friendship.
    Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden Priscilla,
    Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, that if ever
    There were angels on earth, as there are angels in heaven,
    Two have I seen and known; and the angel whose name is Priscilla
    Holds in my desolate life the place which the other abandoned.
    Long have I cherished the thought, but never have dared to reveal it,
    Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the most part.
    Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth;
    Say that a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of actions,
    Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier.
    Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning;
    I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases."

    When he had spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, [v]taciturn stripling,
    All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, bewildered,
    Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject with lightness,
    Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand still in his bosom,
    Thus made answer and spake, or rather stammered than answered:
    "Such a message as that, I am sure I should mangle and mar it;
    If you would have it well done--I am only repeating your maxim--
    You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"
    But with the air of a man whom nothing can turn from his purpose,
    Gravely shaking his head, made answer the Captain of Plymouth:
    "Truly the maxim is good, and I do not mean to gainsay it;
    But we must use it discreetly, and not waste powder for nothing.
    Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of phrases.
    I can march up to a fortress and summon the place to surrender,
    But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare not.
    I'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of a cannon,
    But of a thundering No! point-blank from the mouth of a woman,
    That I confess I am afraid of, nor am I ashamed to confess it!
    Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the name of our friendship!"

    Then made answer John Alden: "The name of friendship is sacred;
    What you demand in that name, I have not the power to deny you!"
    So the strong will prevailed, subduing and molding the gentler,
    Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden went on his errand.


    II

    So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on his errand,
    Out of the street of the village, and into the paths of the forest,
    Into the tranquil woods, where bluebirds and robins were building
    Towns in the populous trees, with hanging gardens of [v]verdure,
    Peaceful, [v]aerial cities of joy and affection and freedom.
    All around him was calm, but within him commotion and conflict,
    Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.

    So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on his errand;
    Saw the new-built house, and people at work in a meadow;
    Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of Priscilla
    Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem,
    Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comforting many.
    Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form of the maiden
    Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a snow-drift
    Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous spindle,
    While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its motion.

    So he entered the house; and the hum of the wheel and the singing
    Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on the threshold,
    Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, in signal of welcome,
    Saying, "I knew it was you, when I heard your step in the passage;
    For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing and spinning."
    Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought of him had been mingled
    Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart of the maiden,
    Silent before her he stood.
    "I have been thinking all day," said gently the Puritan maiden,
    "Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the hedgerows of
        England,--
    They are in blossom now, and the country is all like a garden;
    Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the lark and the linnet,
    Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neighbors
    Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip together.
    Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my religion;
    Still my heart is so sad that I wish myself back in Old England.
    You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help it; I almost
    Wish myself back in Old England, I feel so lonely and wretched."

    Thereupon answered the youth: "Indeed I do not condemn you;
    Stouter hearts than a woman's have quailed in this terrible winter.
    Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger to lean on;
    So I have come to you now, with an offer and proffer of marriage
    Made by a good man and true, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth!"
    Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous writer of letters,--
    Did not [v]embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful phrases,
    But came straight to the point and blurted it out like a schoolboy;
    Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it more bluntly.
    Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puritan maiden
    Looked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated with wonder,
    Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned and rendered her
        speechless;
    Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous silence:
    "If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me,
    Why does he not come himself and take trouble to woo me?
    If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!"
    Then John Alden began explaining and smoothing the matter,
    Making it worse as he went, by saying the Captain was busy,--
    Had no time for such things;--such things! the words grating harshly,
    Fell on the ear of Priscilla; and swift as a flash she made answer:
    "Has he not time for such things, as you call it, before he is married,
    Would he be likely to find it, or make it, after the wedding?"
    Still John Alden went on, unheeding the words of Priscilla,
    Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, persuading, expanding.
    But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and eloquent language,
    Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival,
    Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter,
    Said, in a tremulous voice, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"

With conflicting feelings of love for Priscilla and duty to his friend,
Miles Standish, John Alden does not "speak for himself," but returns to
Plymouth to tell Standish the result of the interview.

    Then John Alden spake, and related the wondrous adventure,
    From beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened;
    How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his courtship,
    Only smoothing a little and softening down her refusal.
    But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken,
    Words so tender and cruel: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"
    Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the floor, till his
        armor
    Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of sinister omen.
    All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden explosion,
    E'en as a hand grenade, that scatters destruction around it.
    Wildly he shouted and loud: "John Alden! you have betrayed me!
    Me, Miles Standish, your friend! have supplanted, defrauded, betrayed
        me!
    You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and loved as a brother;
    Henceforth let there be nothing between us save war, and implacable
        hatred!"

    So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and strode about in the chamber,
    Chafing and choking with rage; like cords were the veins on his
        temples.
    But in the midst of his anger a man appeared at the doorway,
    Bringing in uttermost haste a message of urgent importance,
    Rumors of danger and war and hostile incursions of Indians!
    Straightway the Captain paused, and, without further question or
        parley,
    Took from the nail on the wall his sword with its scabbard of iron,
    Buckled the belt round his waist, and, frowning fiercely, departed.
    Alden was left alone. He heard the clank of the scabbard
    Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in the distance.
    Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into the darkness,
    Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot with the insult,
    Lifted his eyes to the heavens and, folding his hands as in childhood,
    Prayed in the silence of night to the Father who seeth in secret.


    III.

A report comes to the settlement that Miles Standish has been killed in
a fight with the Indians. John Alden, feeling that Standish's death has
freed him from the need of keeping his own love for Priscilla silent,
woos and wins her. At last the wedding-day arrives.

    This was the wedding-morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden.
    Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also
    Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the
        Gospel,
    One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of heaven.
    Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.
    Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal,
    Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate's presence,
    After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of Holland.
    Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth
    Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded that day in
        affection,
    Speaking of life and death, and imploring Divine benedictions.
    Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold,
    Clad in armor of steel, a somber and sorrowful figure!
    Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the strange apparition?
    Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?
    Is it a phantom of air,--a bodiless, spectral illusion?
    Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid the betrothal?
    Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, unwelcomed;
    Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an expression
    Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart hidden beneath them.
    Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but was silent,
    As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting intention;
    But when were ended the troth and the prayer and the last benediction,
    Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with amazement
    Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth!

    Grasping the bridegroom's hand, he said with emotion, "Forgive me!
    I have been angry and hurt,--too long have I cherished the feeling;
    I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! it is ended.
    Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of Hugh Standish,
    Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error.
    Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend of John Alden."
    Thereupon answered the bridegroom: "Let all be forgotten between us,--
    All save the dear old friendship, and that shall grow older and
        dearer!"
    Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Priscilla,
    Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding her husband.
    Then he said with a smile: "I should have remembered the adage,--
    If you would be well served, you must serve yourself; and, moreover,
    No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas!"

    Great was the people's amazement, and greater yet their rejoicing,
    Thus to behold once more the sunburnt face of their Captain,
    Whom they had mourned as dead; and they gathered and crowded about him,
    Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and of bridegroom,
    Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupting the other,
    Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpowered and bewildered,
    He had rather by far break into an Indian encampment,
    Than come again to a wedding to which he had not been invited.
    Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the bride at the
        doorway,
    Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.
    Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine,
    Lay extended before them the land of toil and privation;
    But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden,
    Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the sound of the
        ocean.
    Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and stir of departure,
    Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient of longer delaying.
    Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of wonder,
    Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla,
    Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand of its master,
    Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils,
    Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle.
    She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noonday;
    Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant.
    Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others,
    Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband,
    Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey.
    Onward the bridal procession now moved to the new habitation,
    Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together.
    Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendors,
    Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above them suspended,
    Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the
        fir-tree,
    Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of [v]Eshcol.
    Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral ages,
    Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac,
    Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,
    Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers,
    So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.


=HELPS TO STUDY=

Miles Standish was one of the early settlers of Plymouth colony. He came
over soon after the landing of the _Mayflower_ and was made captain of
the colony because of his military experience. The feeble settlement was
in danger from the Indians, and Standish's services were of great
importance. He was one of the leaders of Plymouth for a number of years.
Longfellow shaped the legend of his courtship into one of the most
beautiful poems of American literature, vividly describing the hardships
and perils of the early life of New England.

     I. Where is the scene of the story laid? At what time did it begin?
     What is the first impression you get of Miles Standish? of John
     Alden? Read the lines that bring out the soldierly qualities of the
     one and the studious nature of the other. What lines show that
     Standish had fought on foreign soil? Read the lines that show John
     Alden's interest in Priscilla. What request did Standish make of
     Alden? How was it received? Why did Alden accept the task?

     II. What time of the year was it? How do you know? Contrast Alden's
     feelings with the scene around him. What were Priscilla's feelings
     toward Alden? Quote lines that show this. How did he fulfill his
     task? With what question did Priscilla finally meet his eloquent
     appeal in behalf of his friend? How did Standish receive Alden's
     report? What interruption occurred?

     III. What report brought about the marriage of John Alden and
     Priscilla? Read the lines that describe the beauty of their
     wedding-day. What time of year was it? How do you know? What custom
     was followed in the marriage ceremony? Look in the Bible for a
     description of the marriage of Ruth and Boaz. Find other biblical
     references in the poem. Who appeared at the end of the ceremony?
     How was he received? Contrast his mood now with the mood when he
     left to fight the Indians. What adage did he use to show the
     difference between his age and Priscilla's? Describe the final
     scene of the wedding--the procession to the new home. Tell what you
     know of early life in Massachusetts.

---

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

(Written for Jesse W. Fell, December 20, 1859)

Abraham Lincoln enjoyed telling stories of his youth and early manhood, but he wrote very little about himself. The following is the longest statement he has set down anywhere about his own life. And he did this only at the earnest request of a fellow citizen in Illinois, Mr. Fell. You should read this brief autobiography with two things in mind: the facts of Lincoln's life, and the simplicity and modesty of the statement of these facts.

I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky.
My parents were both born in Virginia, of
undistinguished families—second families, perhaps I
should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was
of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside 5
in Adams, and others in Macon County, Illinois. My
paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from
Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky about 1781
or 1782, where a year or two later he was killed by the
Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring 10
to open a farm in the forest. His ancestors, who were
Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania.
An effort to identify them with the New England
family of the same name ended in nothing more definite
than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such 15
as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like.

My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of
age, and he grew up literally without education. He removed
[112]from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County,
Indiana, in my eighth year. We reached our new home
about the time the state came into the Union. It was a
wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still
in the woods. There I grew up. There were some schools,
so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher 5
beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin'" to the rule of three.
If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to
sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a
wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition
for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not 10
know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and
cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not
been to school since. The little advance I now have upon
this store of education I have picked up from time to time
under the pressure of necessity. 15

I was raised to farm work, which I continued till I was
twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Macon
County. Then I got to New Salem, at that time in Sangamon,
now in Menard County, where I remained a year as a
sort of clerk in a store. 20

Then came the Black Hawk war, and I was elected a captain
of volunteers, a success which gave me more pleasure
than any I have had since. I went the campaign, was
elated, ran for the legislature the same year (1832), and was
beaten—the only time I have ever been beaten by the 25
people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections
I was elected to the legislature. I was not a candidate
afterward. During this legislative period I had studied
law, and removed to Springfield to practice it. In 1846 I
was once elected to the lower house of Congress. Was 30
not a candidate for reëlection. From 1849 to 1854, both
[113]inclusive, practiced law more assiduously than ever before.
Always Whig in politics; and generally on the Whig
electoral tickets, making active canvasses. I was losing
interest in politics when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise
aroused me again. What I have done since then
is pretty well known. 5

If any personal description of me is thought desirable,
it may be said I am, in height, six feet four inches, nearly;
lean in flesh, weighing on an average one hundred and
eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair
and gray eyes. No other marks or brands recollected. 10

1. Outline Lincoln's life, ancestry, etc., as here presented, under the proper heads. Test your outline by trying to group all the facts under their proper headings. This will require careful re-reading of the selection.

2. Next take one of your topics and practice thinking of the items you have included under it. Be ready to speak on any one of your topics at class recitation.

3. What major events of Lincoln's life are omitted from this document? Why? (To answer this, refer to your history for the dates of Lincoln's presidency; compare with the date when this was written.)

4. Is there anything in the article that sounds the least boastful? Explain lines 25-26 in this connection.

5. Who were the Whigs? What was the Missouri Compromise?

6. One sentence in this suggests the sly humor of Lincoln. Find it.

[114]

---

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN

By Walt Whitman

The Civil War between the North and the South lasted from 1861-1865. Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States at the time, and it was largely due to his wisdom that the great conflict lasted no longer. The Northern armies were generally victorious in the winter and spring of 1865. The nation, however, was suddenly bowed in grief. The President was shot by an assassin on April 14, and died next day.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) at the time was employed in a clerical position in the War Department, and, outside office hours, in nursing wounded soldiers in Washington. He often saw Lincoln, who passed Whitman's house almost every day. The "Good Gray Poet" and the President had a bowing acquaintance; and in one of his books Whitman refers to the dark-brown face, deep-cut lines, and sad eyes of Lincoln. Whitman gave expression to his grief at the country's loss in the following poem, in which he refers to the martyred President as the captain of the Ship of State.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we
sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 5
daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead. 10
[115]
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle
trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the
shores a-crowding.  5
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces
turning.
Here, Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck10
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and
done, 15
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead. 20

—Drum Taps.

1. Explain the references to the safe arrival of the ship in port, the ringing of the bells, and the general exultation.

2. Re-read the poem carefully. Picture to yourself what each stanza contributes as you read. When you have finished, test yourself to see how much of it you can recall exactly. Complete the memorization by this same process of careful re-reading.

3. Whitman had his volume, Drum Taps, practically completed when Lincoln's assassination
occurred. He held up its publication to include "O Captain! My Captain" and another poem on the death of Lincoln, called "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed." Why is the title of the latter poem appropriate?

[116]

The Stagecoach
(See opposite page)

[253]

---

THE STAGECOACH

By Mark Twain

Before the days of the railroad, the lumbering, horse-drawn stagecoach was the general vehicle used for cross-country passenger travel. Following the Civil War, the brother of Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) was appointed Territorial Secretary of Nevada. Samuel accompanied his brother as private secretary. The journey was made largely in a stagecoach, the inconveniences of which are whimsically set forth in the following extract from Twain's Roughing It.

As the sun went down and the evening chill came on,
we made preparation for bed. We stirred up the
hard leather letter sacks, and the knotty canvas bags of
printed matter (knotty and uneven because of projecting
ends and corners of magazines, boxes, and books). We 5
stirred them up and redisposed them in such a way as to
make our bed as level as possible. And we did improve
it, too, though after all our work it had an upheaved
and billowy look about it, like a little piece of a stormy
sea. Next we hunted up our boots from odd nooks among 10
the mail bags where they had settled, and put them on.

Then we got down our coats, vests, pantaloons, and heavy
woolen shirts, from the arm loops where they had been
swinging all day, and clothed ourselves in them—for,
there being no ladies either at the stations or in the coach, 15
and the weather being hot, we had looked to our comfort
by stripping to our underclothing at nine o'clock in the
morning. All things being now ready, we stowed the uneasy
Dictionary where it would lie as quiet as possible and
[254]placed the water canteen and pistols where we could find 20
them in the dark. Then we smoked a final pipe and
swapped a final yarn; after which we put the pipes, tobacco,
and bag of coin in snug holes and caves among the mail
bags, and then fastened down the coach curtains all around,
and made the place as "dark as the inside of a cow," as 5
the conductor phrased it in his picturesque way. It was
certainly as dark as any place could be—nothing was even
dimly visible in it. And finally we rolled ourselves up like
silkworms, each person in his own blanket, and sank peacefully
to sleep. 10

Whenever the stage stopped to change horses we would
wake up, and try to recollect where we were—-and succeed—and
in a minute or two the stage would be off again,
and we likewise. We began to get into country now,
threaded here and there with little streams. These had 15
high, steep banks on each side, and every time we flew
down one bank and scrambled up the other, our party
inside got mixed somewhat. First we would all be down
in a pile at the forward end of the stage, nearly in a sitting
posture, and in a second we would shoot to the other end 20
and stand on our heads. And we would sprawl and kick,
too, and ward off ends and corners of mail bags that came
lumbering over us and about us; and as the dust rose
from the tumult, we would all sneeze in chorus, and the
majority of us would grumble, and probably say some hasty25
thing, like, "Take your elbow out of my ribs!—can't you
quit crowding?"

Every time we avalanched from one end of the stage to
the other, the Unabridged Dictionary would come too;
and every time it came it damaged somebody. One trip 30
it "barked" the Secretary's elbow; the next trip it hurt
[255]me in the stomach; and the third it tilted Bemis's nose
up till he could look down his nostrils—he said. The
pistols and coin soon settled to the bottom, but the pipes,
pipestems, tobacco, and canteens clattered and floundered
after the Dictionary every time it made an assault on us,
and aided and abetted the book by spilling tobacco in 5
our eyes and water down our backs.

Still, all things considered, it was a very comfortable
night. It wore gradually away, and when at last a cold,
gray light was visible through the puckers and chinks in
the curtains, we yawned and stretched with satisfaction, 10
shed our cocoons, and felt that we had slept as much as was
necessary. By and by, as the sun rose up and warmed the
world, we pulled off our clothes and got ready for breakfast.
We were just pleasantly in time, for five minutes afterward
the driver sent the weird music of his bugle winding over15
the grassy solitudes, and presently we detected a low hut
or two in the distance. Then the rattling of the coach, the
clatter of our six horses' hoofs, and the driver's crisp commands,
awoke to a louder and stronger emphasis, and we
went sweeping down on the station at our smartest speed. 20
It was fascinating—that old Overland stagecoaching.

We jumped out in undress uniform. The driver tossed
his gathered reins out on the ground, gaped and stretched
complacently, drew off his heavy buckskin gloves with
great deliberation and insufferable dignity—taking not 25
the slightest notice of a dozen solicitous inquiries after his
health, and humbly facetious and flattering accostings, and
obsequious tenders of service, from five or six hairy and
half-civilized station keepers and hostlers who were nimbly
unhitching our steeds and bringing the fresh team out of the 30
stables—for in the eyes of the stage driver of that day,
[256]station keepers and hostlers were a sort of good-enough low
creatures, useful in their place and helping to make up a
world, but not the kind of beings which a person of distinction
could afford to concern himself with; while on the
contrary, in the eyes of the station keeper and the hostler,
the stage driver was a hero—a great and shining dignitary; 5
the world's favorite son, the envy of the people, the observed
of the nations.

When they spoke to him they received his insolent
silence meekly and as being the natural and proper
conduct of so great a man; when he opened his lips 10
they all hung on his words with admiration (he never
honored a particular individual with a remark, but addressed
it with a broad generality to the horses, the stables,
the surrounding country, and the human underlings); when
he discharged a facetious insulting personality at a hostler, 15
that hostler was happy for the day; when he uttered his
one jest—old as the hills, coarse, profane, witless, and inflicted
on the same audience, in that same language, every
time his coach drove up there—the varlets roared, and
slapped their thighs, and swore it was the best thing they'd 20
ever heard in all their lives. And how they would fly
around when he wanted a basin of water, a gourd of the same,
or a light for his pipe!—but they would instantly insult
a passenger if he so far forgot himself as to crave a favor
at their hands. They could do that sort of insolence as 25
well as the driver they copied it from—for, let it be borne
in mind, the Overland driver had but little less contempt
for his passengers than he had for his hostlers.

The hostlers and station keepers treated the really
powerful conductor of the coach merely with the best 30
of what was their idea of civility, but the driver was the
[257]only being they bowed down to and worshiped. How
admiringly they would gaze up at him in his high seat as
he gloved himself with lingering deliberation, while some
happy hostler held the bunch of reins aloft and waited
patiently for him to take it! And how they would bombard
him with glorifying ejaculations as he cracked his long whip 5
and went careering away.

The station buildings were long, low huts, made of sun-dried,
mud-colored bricks, laid up without mortar (adobes,
the Spaniards call these bricks, and Americans shorten it
to 'dobies). The roofs, which had no slant to them worth 10
speaking of, were thatched and then sodded, or covered
with a thick layer of earth, and from this sprang a pretty
rank growth of weeds and grass. It was the first time we
had ever seen a man's front yard on top of his house. The
buildings consisted of barns, stable room for twelve or 15
fifteen horses, and a hut for an eating room for passengers.
This latter had bunks in it for the station keeper and a hostler
or two. You could rest your elbow on its eaves, and
you had to bend in order to get in at the door. In place
of a window there was a square hole about large enough 20
for a man to crawl through, but this had no glass in it.
There was no flooring, but the ground was packed hard.
There were no shelves, no cupboards, no closets. In a
corner stood an open sack of flour, and nestling against its
base were a couple of black and venerable tin coffeepots,25
a tin teapot, a little bag of salt, and a side of bacon.

By the door of the station keeper's den, outside, was a
tin washbasin, on the ground. Near it was a pail of water
and a piece of yellow bar soap, and from the eaves hung a
hoary blue-woolen shirt, significantly—but this latter was 30
the station keeper's private towel, and only two persons
[258]in all the party might venture to use it—the stage driver
and the conductor. The latter would not, from a sense of
decency; the former would not, because he did not choose
to encourage the advances of a station keeper. We had
towels—in the valise; they might as well have been in
Sodom and Gomorrah. 5

We (and the conductor) used our handkerchiefs, and
the driver his pantaloons and sleeves. By the door, inside,
was fastened a small old-fashioned looking-glass
frame, with two little fragments of the original mirror
lodged down in one corner of it. This arrangement afforded 10
a pleasant double-barreled portrait of you when you
looked into it, with one half of your head set up a couple
of inches above the other half. From the glass frame hung
the half a comb by a string—but if I had to describe that
patriarch or die, I believe I would order some sample 15
coffins. It had come down from Esau and Samson, and
had been accumulating hair ever since—along with
certain impurities. In one corner of the room stood three
or four rifles and muskets, together with horns and pouches
of ammunition. 20

The station men wore pantaloons of coarse country-woven
stuff, and into the seat and the inside of the
legs were sewed ample additions of buckskin to do duty
in place of leggings when the man rode horseback—so
the pants were half dull blue and half yellow, and 25
unspeakably picturesque. The pants were stuffed into
the tops of high boots, the heels whereof were armed with
great Spanish spurs whose little iron clogs and chains
jingled with every step. The man wore a huge beard and
mustachios, an old slouch hat, a blue-woolen shirt, no 30
suspenders, no vest, no coat; in a leathern sheath in his
[259]belt, a great long "navy" revolver (slung on right side,
hammer to the front), and projecting from his boot a horn-handled
bowie knife. The furniture of the hut was neither
gorgeous nor much in the way. The rocking-chairs and
sofas were not present and never had been, but they were
represented by two three-legged stools, a pine-board bench5
four feet long, and two empty candle boxes. The table
was a greasy board on stilts, and the tablecloth and napkins
had not come—and they were not looking for them, either.
A battered tin platter, a knife and fork, and a tin pint cup,
were at each man's place, and the driver had a queen's-ware 10
saucer that had seen better days. Of course this
duke sat at the head of the table.

There was one isolated piece of table furniture that bore
about it a touching air of grandeur in misfortune. This was
the caster. It was German silver and crippled and rusty, 15
but it was so preposterously out of place there that it
was suggestive of a tattered exiled king among barbarians,
and the majesty of its native position compelled respect
even in its degradation. There was only one cruet left,
and that was a stopperless, fly-specked, broken-necked 20
thing, with two inches of vinegar in it and a dozen preserved
flies with their heels up and looking sorry they
had invested there.

The station keeper upended a disk of last week's bread,
of the shape and size of an old-time cheese, and carved some 25
slabs from it which were as good as Nicholson pavement,
and tenderer.

He sliced off a piece of bacon for each man, but only the
experienced old hands made out to eat it, for it was condemned
army bacon which the United States would not feed 30
to its soldiers in the forts, and the stage company had
[260]bought it cheap for the sustenance of their passengers and
employees. We may have found this condemned army
bacon further out on the plains than the section I am locating
it in, but we found it—there is no gainsaying that.

Then he poured for us a beverage which he called slumgullion
and it is hard to think he was not inspired when 5
he named it. It really pretended to be tea, but there was
too much dishrag, and sand, and old bacon rind in it to
deceive the intelligent traveler. He had no sugar and no
milk—not even a spoon to stir the ingredients with.

We could not eat the bread or the meat, or drink the 10
"slumgullion." And when I looked at that melancholy
vinegar cruet, I thought of the anecdote (a very, very old
one, even at that day) of the traveler who sat down at a
table which had nothing on it but a mackerel and a pot
of mustard. He asked the landlord if this was all. The 15
landlord said:

"All! Why, thunder and lightning, I should think
there was mackerel enough there for six."

"But I don't like mackerel."

"Oh—then help yourself to the mustard." 20

—Roughing It.

1. How much of this selection is given over to a description of actual travel inside a stagecoach? To what is the remainder devoted?

2. Re-read only the description of the night's traveling and decide which parts of it are most humorous. Why are they funny?

3. Describe the driver. Make a sketch of him.

4. How much of the central paragraph, page 257, is serious description? What parts of it are humorous? Test your answer by reading the paragraph with the humor omitted.

5. Much of Twain's humor depends on an occasional single sentence or a startling word. Prove or disprove this statement.

6. Report fully on Samuel L. Clemens's life. If possible, read his Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE,
OR THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY"

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was born at Cambridge, Mass. Although he practiced his profession of medicine, was Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at the Harvard Medical School, and wrote some scientific works, he is best known as the author of poems and essays, mostly humorous, light, and fanciful. He was very popular in his time as a witty conversationalist and a brilliant speech maker.

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way?
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it—ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay— 5
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits—
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive— 10
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown. 15
It was on the terrible Earthquake day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
[287]
Now in building of chaises I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot—
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel or crossbar or floor or sill,
In screw, bolt, thorough-brace,—lurking still, 5
Find it somewhere you must and will—
Above or below or within or without—
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, 10
With an "I dew vum" or an "I tell yeou")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it couldn't break daown.

"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain 15
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 20
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke—
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees 25
The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs, of logs from the "Settler's ellum"—
Last of its timber—they couldn't sell 'em—
[288]
Never an ax had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips;
Step and prop iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 5
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thorough-brace, bison skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through." 10
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 15
Children and grandchildren—where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay,
As fresh as on Lisbon-Earthquake day!

Eighteen hundred—it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. 20
Eighteen hundred increased by ten—
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came—
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and Forty at last arrive, 25
And then come Fifty—and Fifty-five.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
[289]
In fact there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it.—You're welcome.—No extra charge.)

First of November—the Earthquake day— 5
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be—for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part 10
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.

For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whippletree neither less nor more, 15
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring, and axle, and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, Fifty-five! 20
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson.—Off went they. 25

The parson was working his Sunday's text—
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the—Moses—was coming next.
[290]
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill—
And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 5
At half past nine by the meet'n'house clock—
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

What do you think the parson found
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap, or mound, 10
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once—
All at once, and nothing first—
Just as bubbles do when they burst. 15

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

1. What kind of vehicle did the Deacon build? What was his theory as to building a "shay"?

2. How did he carry out his theory? Read the passages that answer this question. Make a list of the special parts of the chaise named.

3. On what day did the Deacon complete his task? Is Holmes correct as to the dates of Braddock's defeat and the Lisbon earthquake?

4. Explain lines 10-11, page 286; 8, 17, 27, page 289; 17, page 290.

5. What happened finally to the "masterpiece"? Was the Deacon still living? How did the chaise happen to go to pieces? Was the Deacon's theory of building correct?

6. Suggested readings: Holmes's "How the Old Horse Won the Bet"; Lowell's "The Courtin'."

[296]

---

HOW BUCK WON THE BET

By Jack London

Buck was a cross between St. Bernard and Scotch shepherd bloods, and a wonderful dog he was. He made a name for himself in Alaska, during the Klondike gold rush, and his owner, Thornton, was envied by all the miners in that land where dogs take the place of horses. Thornton once boasted that Buck could pull a thousand pounds on a sled—break it out and "mush," or draw, it a hundred yards. Matthewson bet a thousand dollars that he could not.

Matthewson's sled, loaded with a thousand pounds
of flour, had been standing for a couple of hours, and
in the intense cold (it was sixty below zero) the runners had
frozen fast to the hard-packed snow. Men offered odds of
two to one that Buck could not budge the sled. A quibble 5
arose concerning the phrase "break out." O'Brien contended
it was Thornton's privilege to knock the runners loose,
leaving Buck to "break it out" from a dead standstill.
Matthewson insisted that the phrase included breaking the
runners from the frozen grip of the snow. A majority of the 10
men who had witnessed the making of the bet decided in his
favor, whereat the odds went up to three to one against Buck.

There were no takers. Not a man believed him capable
of the feat. Thornton had been hurried into the wager,
heavy with doubt; and now that he looked at the sled 15
itself, the concrete fact, with the regular team of ten dogs
curled up in the snow before it, the more impossible the task
[148]appeared. Matthewson waxed jubilant.

"Three to one!" he proclaimed. "I'll lay you another
thousand at that figure, Thornton. What d'ye say?"

Thornton's doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting
spirit was aroused—the fighting spirit that soars above
odds, fails to recognize the impossible, and is deaf to all save 5
the clamor for battle. He called Hans and Pete to him.
Their sacks were slim, and with his own the three partners
could rake together only two hundred dollars. In the
ebb of their fortunes, this sum was their total capital;
yet they laid it unhesitatingly against Matthewson's six 10
hundred.

The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his
own harness, was put into the sled. He had caught the
contagion of the excitement, and he felt that in some way
he must do a great thing for John Thornton. Murmurs of 15
admiration at his splendid appearance went up. He was in
perfect condition, without an ounce of superfluous flesh,
and the one hundred and fifty pounds that he weighed were
so many pounds of grit and virility. His furry coat shone
with the sheen of silk. Down the neck and across the 20
shoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristled
and seemed to lift with every movement, as though excess
of vigor made each particular hair alive and active. The
great breast and heavy fore legs were no more than in
proportion with the rest of the body, where the muscles 25
showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt these
muscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds
went down to two to one.

"Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" stuttered a member of the
latest dynasty, a king of the Skookum Benches. "I offer 30
you eight hundred for him, sir, before the test, sir; eight
[149]hundred just as he stands."

Thornton shook his head and stepped to Buck's side.

"You must stand off from him," Matthewson protested.
"Free play and plenty of room."

The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices of
the gamblers vainly offering two to one. Everybody 5
acknowledged Buck a magnificent animal, but twenty
fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked too large in their eyes for
them to loosen their pouch strings.

Thornton knelt down by Buck's side. He took his head
in his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not 10
playfully shake him, as was his wont, or murmur soft love
curses; but he whispered in his ear. "As you love me,
Buck. As you love me," was what he whispered. Buck
whined with suppressed eagerness.

The crowd was watching curiously. The affair was growing 15
mysterious. It seemed like a conjuration. As Thornton
got to his feet, Buck seized his mittened hand between
his jaws, pressing it with his teeth and releasing it slowly,
half reluctantly. It was the answer, in terms not of speech
but of love. Thornton stepped well back. 20

"Now, Buck," he said.

Buck tightened the traces, then slacked them for a
matter of several inches. It was the way he had learned.

"Gee!" Thornton's voice rang out, sharp in the tense
silence. 25

Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a plunge
that took up the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his
one hundred and fifty pounds. The load quivered, and
from under the runners arose a crisp crackling.

"Haw!" Thornton commanded. 30

Buck duplicated the maneuver, this time to the left. The
[150]crackling turned into a snapping, the sled pivoting and the
runners slipping and grating several inches to the side.
The sled was broken out. Men were holding their breaths,
intensely unconscious of the fact.

"Now, mush!"

Thornton's command cracked out like a pistol shot. 5
Buck threw himself forward, tightening the traces with a
jarring lunge. His whole body was gathered compactly
together in the tremendous effort, the muscles writhing and
knotting like live things under the silky fur. His great
chest was low to the ground, his head forward and down, 10
while his feet were flying like mad, the claws scarring the
hard-packed snow in parallel grooves. The sled swayed
and trembled, half started forward. One of his feet slipped,
and one man groaned aloud. Then the sled lurched ahead
in what appeared a rapid succession of jerks, though it never 15
really came to a dead stop again—half an inch—an
inch—two inches. The jerks perceptibly diminished; as
the sled gained momentum he caught them up till it was
moving steadily along.

Men gasped and began to breathe again, unaware that 20
for a moment they had ceased to breathe. Thornton was
running behind, encouraging Buck with short, cheery
words. The distance had been measured off, and as he
neared the pile of firewood which marked the end of the
hundred yards, a cheer began to grow and grow, which 25
burst into a roar as he passed the firewood and halted at
command. Every man was tearing himself loose, even
Matthewson. Hats and mittens were flying in the air.
Men were shaking hands, it did not matter with whom,
and bubbling over in a general incoherent babel. 30

But Thornton fell on his knees beside Buck. Head was
[151]against head, and he was shaking him back and forth.
Buck seized Thornton's hand in his teeth. As though
animated by a common impulse, the onlookers drew back
to a respectful distance.

—The Call of the Wild.

(From The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, used by permission of The Macmillan Company, Publishers, and by arrangement with Mrs. Charmian K. London.)

1. Jack London (1867-1916) was a Californian by birth. He early began roving, and his voyages and tramps took him all over the world. He was a keen observer and a virile writer. The Call of the Wild is perhaps the best known of his many tales. You observe from the extract that his stories are full of action. They are moving pictures in words.

2. What was the situation that led up to the bet? Where is this event supposed to have taken place? Read the lines that show the men are miners.

3. How much was staked against Buck? Who was for the dog? Against him? How did he respond? How did the men who bet against Buck show they were good losers?