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This story is told in so simple and direct a way that it can be readily understood without questions.

SUGGESTIONS FOR ORAL AND WRITTEN ENGLISH

THEME SUBJECTS

In which of the stories you have read so far, is there much conversation? In Zenobia's Infidelity does the boy talk to the doctor naturally? Does he say what is necessary for his purpose, and no more? In How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox, how much of the story is in conversation? Does it add to the interest? When writing dialogue, i.e. a conversation between two, for a play, do not write “he said,” or similar terms, as you would in the case of novels or short stories. Each time there is a change of speaker, write the speaker's name on the left on a new line and follow it with a colon, then begin the speech as you would begin a sentence. Try to have your speakers express themselves naturally. Perhaps you can give a conversation you have overheard in some public place.

Write in the form of dialogues the indicated conversations between the giant and the pilgrims, and the giant and his wife. Write their names under the heading Characters. Take each episode after you have written the dialogue and write the place, the time, and a heading for the episode, as, for example,

Act I., Doubting Castle, — Early Morning.
Giant Despair's Discovery of the Pilgrims.

Can you make a complete outline of four acts? Try to do the same in Hop O' My Thumb, or Jack the Giant Killer, or any similar fairy tale.

SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READINGS

From The Pilgrim's Progress:

The Slough of Despond.

Mr. Great Heart.

At the House Beautiful.
The Celestial City.

The Great Stone Face (in The Snow Image). Nathaniel Hawthorne. Dr. Heidegger's Experiment (in Twice-Told Tales). Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Man Without a Country. Edward Everett Hale.

The Dawn of To-morrow. Frances Hodgson Burnett.

SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE1

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

The Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He received only two years of academic training. He edited and contributed to newspapers for over twenty years, and published during that time many volumes of poems. Snow Bound is a perfect picture of a New England country home. See also:

Halleck's History of American Literature, pp. 234-244, 284.
Carpenter's John Greenleaf Whittier.

Perry's John Greenleaf Whittier.

His

Pickard's Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier; and WhittierLand.

1. Of all the rides, since the birth of time,

Told in story or sung in rime

On Apuleius's Golden Ass,2

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Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass,3
Witch astride of a human hack,
Islam's prophet on Al-Borak 5 —
The strangest ride that ever was sped
Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead !

Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

1 This poem is used by permission of, and by arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin

Company, authorized publishers of Whittier's works.

2 The Golden Ass, the most celebrated book of Apuleius, a Roman philosopher of the second century A.D.

A story from Arabian Nights Entertainments.

4 Mohammed.

5 A wondrous animal on which Mohammed rode from Mecca to Jerusalem.

2. Body of turkey, head of owl,

Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
Feathered and ruffled in every part,
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
Scores of women, old and young,
Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,
Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,
Shouting and singing the shrill refrain:
"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"

3. Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,
Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,
Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase
Bacchus1 round some antique vase,
Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,
Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,

4.

With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,
Over and over the Mænads 2 sang:

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,

Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!".

Small pity for him! - he sailed away
From a leaking ship in Chaleur Bay 3
Sailed away from a sinking wreck,
With his own townspeople on her deck!
"Lay by lay by !" they called to him;
Back he answered, "Sink or swim !

Brag of your catch of fish again!"

And off he sailed through the fog and rain!

1 The god of wine.

2 Priestesses of Bacchus who became frenzied when they danced in his train. 3 An inlet in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

5. Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur
That wreck shall lie for evermore.
Mother and sister, wife and maid,
Looked from the rocks of Marblehead
Over the moaning and rainy sea
Looked for the coming that might not be!
What did the winds and the sea birds say
Of the cruel captain who sailed away? -
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

6. Through the street, on either side,
Up flew windows, doors swung wide,
Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
Hulks of old sailors run aground,
Shook head and fist and hat and cane,

And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:
"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"

7. Sweetly along the Salem road
Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.
Little the wicked skipper knew

Of the fields so green and the sky so blue.
Riding there in his sorry trim,

Like an Indian idol glum and grim,

Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear
Of voices shouting far and near:

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
By the women o' Morble'ead!"

8. "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried -
"What to me is this noisy ride?

What is the shame that clothes the skin
To the nameless horror that lives within?
Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,

And hear a cry from a reeling deck!
Hate me and curse me I only dread

The hand of God and the face of the dead!"
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!

9. Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea
Said, "God has touched him! why should we?"
Said an old wife mourning her only son,
"Cut the rogue's tether, and let him run!"
So with soft relentings and rude excuse,
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,
And gave him a cloak to hide him in,
And left him alone with his shame and sin.
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead !

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