they got to Dave's house. They went with him to the woods-pasture on the way and helped him drive home

the cows.

Then Frank and Jake thought they had better be going home, but Dave's mother would not let them 5 start without something to eat; and she cut them each a slice of bread the whole width and length of the loaf and spread the slices with butter, and then apple-butter, and then brown sugar. Dave's mother said they must come and see Dave again some time.

QUESTIONS AND HELPS

1. Write or tell the story of Howells's life. Do you think the hard work which he had to do when he was a boy made him better or worse when he became a man? Name some of his books. From what book is this selection taken ?

2. What do you think of Jake and Frank's going to Dave's to spend the Fourth without an invitation? How would the way in which farmers lived in those days help to explain it ? 3. Why did Dave's father work on the Fourth? What is the Fourth? 4. Write or tell briefly how you have played Indian at some time. Another story of playing Indians and early settlers is told in Charles Dudley Warner's "Being a Boy." 5. What does the story of the raft show you about the advantage of knowing how to swim? 6. Do you think the boys would have had any more fun if they had stayed in town?

Now is a good time for you to read "The Flight of Pony Baker" and "A Boy's Town." Selections from both books are published in a volume called "Boy Life."

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Other good stories of boy life are Aldrich's "The Story of a Bad Boy" (see page 58 of this book), Warner's "Being a Boy" (see page 323), and Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer."

tragedy (trăg ́é dỹ): a play telling

of something sad or terrible. conspirators (con spir'a tõrs): plotters. consul (con'sŭl): a public official.

In Rome the consuls were the head of the government. A modern consul looks after the business affairs of his country in a foreign city and gives assistance to his countrymen in various ways. gristmill: a mill for grinding grain. reporter (ré pōrt'er): one who reports or gathers news for a newspaper.

hazard (hăz ́ård): a chance or risk. wheat fan: a machine for blowing the chaff, or husk, away from the wheat.

scalp-halloo a yell given by an Indian when about to scalp a victim.

threshold (thresh ́ōld): doorsill. Wyandots (Wy'an dots): also called

Hurons; a tribe of Indians formerly in Michigan and Ohio. keel-boat: a shallow covered freight boat with a keel but no sails.

(For memorizing)

THE EAGLE

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

He clasps the crag with hooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls;
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

PAUL REVERE'S RIDE

HENRY WADsworth Longfellow

[It was eleven o'clock on the night of April eighteenth, 1775. For weeks Boston had been full of British troops sent over from England to keep the people of Massachusetts from rising, as they had threatened to do, in defense of their rights. A whisper had passed through 5 the city and the outlying villages that on this particular night a force of British soldiers would probably go to Lexington, a village some fifteen miles away, to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two of the patriot leaders, and send them to England to be tried for treason. 10 It was also feared that the troops would go on to Concord, five miles farther, and destroy the arms and supplies which the Americans had collected at that place.

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Paul Revere, a Boston engraver and an earnest patriot, was waiting at Charlestown to give the alarm and arouse 15 the people as soon as he knew that the troops were really on the way. There were two roads to Lexington which could only be reached by crossing in boats the arm of the sea that separated Charlestown from Boston; the other by land, over Boston Neck and in a roundabout 20 course through the villages of Roxbury, Brookline, and Cambridge. Another horseman, William Dawes, was ready to ride over the latter route.

The poem does n't tell all the story. Paul Revere was stopped by British officers near Concord, and a young Concord doctor, Samuel Prescott, carried on the news.

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'Paul Revere's Ride" is from Longfellow's "Tales of 5 a Wayside Inn." The poet supposes that a company of travelers were at the old inn at Sudbury, when a storm came on and held them there. To pass away the time

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MAP SHOWING ROUTE OF PAUL REVERE, APRIL 18-19, 1775

each told a story; and this was the landlord's story. The poem was written in 1860, just before the Civil War. For 10 Longfellow's life, see Book Four, page 63.]

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

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He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower as a signal light-
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said, "Good night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,

Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;

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A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.