APPENDIX D

I. EXAMPLES OF PUPILS' THEMES

I. MODELI

It had a garret, very nearly such a one as it seems to me one of us has described in one of his books; but let us look at this one as I can reproduce it from memory. It has a flooring of laths with ridges of mortar squeezed up between them, which if you tread on you will go to the Lord have mercy on you! where will you go to?-the same being crossed by narrow bridges of boards, on which you may put your feet, but with fear and trembling. Above you and around you are beams and joists, on some of which you may see, when the light is let in, the marks of the conchoidal clippings of the broadaxe, showing the rude way in which the timber was shaped as it came, full of sap, from the neighboring forest. It is a realm of darkness and thick dust, and shroud-like cobwebs and dead things they wrap in their gray folds. For a garret is like a sea-shore, where wrecks are thrown up and slowly go to pieces. There is the cradle which the old man you just remember was rocked in; there is the ruin of the bedstead he died on; that ugly slanting contrivance used to be put under his pillow in the days when his breath came hard; there is his old chair with both arms gone, symbol of the desolate time when he had nothing earthly left to lean on; there is the large wooden reel which the blear-eyed old deacon sent the minister's lady, who thanked him graciously, and twirled it smilingly, and in fitting season bowed it out decently to the limbo of troublesome conveniences. And there are old leather portmanteaus, like stranded porpoises, their mouths gaping in gaunt hunger 1Pupils were reading The Gambrel-Roofed House in the class in literature.

for the food with which they used to be gorged to bulging repletion; and old brass andirons, waiting until time shall revenge them on their paltry substitutes, and they shall have their own again, and bring with them the fore-stick and the back-log of ancient days; and the empty churn, with its idle dasher, which the Nancys and Phoebes, who have left their comfortable places to the Bridgets and Norahs, used to handle to good purpose; and the brown, shaky old spinning-wheel, which was running, it may be, in the days when they were hanging the Salem witches.-The Gambrel-Roofed House: J.G. Holmes.

PUPILS' THEMES.

1.

A CORNER OF AN ATTIC.

In a corner of my attic are met together in silence but in wild confusion, many old articles. Tattered coats, seedy hats, and intoxicated looking boots are hung on the rusty nails in the wall. An old sinewless table and chairs with faded coverings and lacking legs are leaning helplessly against the chests and boxes which chance to be in their way. On a crazy shelf many dog-eared volumes are scattered about. All are covered with a thick blanket of gray dust. This blanket perhaps is the shelter for them, summer and winter. From a small window at the farther end of the attic a thin ray of ghostly light settles on the silent articles, about which, many lightfooted sprites must often scamper.

2.

AN OLD ATTIC.

In the thin wavering light strained through a dingy, dusty window conspicuously decorated with cob-webs, I discerned, on first entering the room, a mere jumble of objects. But as my eyes became accustomed to the light, objects seemed to be moving to their places. Here was an old foot stove used long ago to keep the feet warm in church. Crippled chairs leaned on one another for support. On a rusty nail hung a sword that from disuse had rusted in its scabbard,

Against the wall was a time worn trundle bed that had heard many a generation of children sung to sleep by its mother's crooning. This spinning wheel, hung with wreath-like cobwebs had long survived the hands that turned its wheel. Possibly this sacque-coat and stove-pipe hat were the wedding raiment of some person long since dead and gone. If the people who treasured these things so should see them now they would not know them. It seems almost like seeing the dead again to spend a few hours in the old garret on a rainy day.

3.

A CORNER OF AN ATTIC.

In a certain dark and dusty attic, repose articles which have retired from active service, and are spending their last days in peace. Under an old bench is a doll's house forlorn and empty, while in a remote corner an old-fashioned cradle stands, used only as a haunt for the mice. Pompous spiders spin their webs around the windows and coax their unsuspecting victims into their parlors. Stacks of childish books are scattered over the dusty floor, and hanging above them on rusty nails, old carpet bags, and tattered hats keep "watch and ward" year in and year out. Everything tends to make the attic a forlorn, yet interesting place for an explorer of old relics.

4.

A CORNER IN THE CELLAR.

One rainy day last week found me with nothing to do, so I thought that I would go down cellar and rummage around a little bit. At the first glance I could not make out anything, but as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I saw a big box looming up directly in front of me. Peeping over the edge was an old bicycle-frame and some old wheels, which, after long years of service, were now resting in peace. Beside this box was a decrepit old chair, lacking a bottom. On a shelf over this chair were a number of dust-covered bottles which I was going to sell to the rag-man, but did not remember to. Beside the bottles was a yellow box and also a black one. The yellow

1An expression borrowed by many of the pupils after reading one of Whittier's poems.

1

box contained old snap-cracker fuses with which I had set off my cannon last Fourth of July. The black one contained a brush and a little bottle full of gilt. In reaching up to get these boxes I spilled a paint-pail full of water down on myself, so I hastily decamped and went upstairs to get dry.

5.

A CORNER IN A CELLAR.

This corner is filled with rubbish, cobwebs, and dust. As there is no attic in the house in which to stow things, this dark, mouldy corner is used instead. At a first glance the eyes meet with a jumbled mass of odds and ends, but at a nearer and more prolonged gaze they see a trunk, old and forsaken, against which a chair with two legs is leaning for support. An old stove, that in its youth has given warmth and light to the household is standing way back in the gloom as though ashamed of itself, and is holding on its head a lamp, or what was once a lamp. Dust an inch thick in some places is lying about on the articles. An old table that has done honor to the house in its young days is leaning against the wall for support, and under it repose the remnants of a couch now broken and old. Carpets and quilts are lying about trying to cover the barrenness of an old stove-pipe that is red with rust and gray with dust.

6.

A CORNER OF THE CELLAR.

In one corner of our cellar is the meeting house of all useless articles. Each article cries out for elbow-room. An old skate, rusty with age, hangs on a nail just like itself. The toe of an old boot is kicking its way through wood, dirt, and the much needed coal. A spider's web reaches from the old skate to the boot. A broken chisel is going to stab somebody if it does not get room. There is no end to broken jack knives. Here are the remains of an express cart, whose wheels would like to run away if they could. An old chair leans forsakenly against the wall. An aged stove stands in the

middle of the pile and looks upon himself as the "watch and ward" Society over the weaker articles.

7.

THE CORNER OF AN ATTIC.

The corner is one in a typical old farmhouse. At first glance the picture presented nothing of particular interest, and seemed but a confused mass of old rubbish and cobwebe. But upon a second observation, I discovered an antique chest, in which, undoubtedly, reposed the finery of bygone days. Resting on a broken stand was a pile of papers, yellow with age. Some were bordered by heavy black lines and contained accounts of President Lincoln's assassination and death. Against the wall leaned an old trundle bed, and a powder horn hung from a rusty nail. Partly obscured by a broken down chair, was a spinning wheel, its shuttle forever silent, and to replace the golden flax, were but the webs of the spiders. A small stove had toppled over, and leaned against a few old slats. Queer companions they, for in their time of usefulness one would have consumed the other. Nearly covering these two objects was a bundle of rags. A stove pipe hat, its lustre gone, formed but a banquet hall for the spiders. Some old, moth-eaten garments hung on a few hooks. Faded and dejected, they added to the little corner of cast off and mutilated objects.

II. MODEL.1

A storm of summer has its redeeming sublimities,—its slow, upheaving mountains of cloud glooming in the western horizon like new-created volcanoes, veined with fire, shattered by exploding thunders. Even the wild gales of the equinox have their varieties,— sounds of wind-shaken woods and waters, creak and clatter of sign and casement, hurricane puffs, and down-rushing rain-spouts. But this dull, dark autumn day of thaw and rain, when the very clouds seem too spiritless and languid to storm outright or take themselves out of the way of fair weather; wet beneath and above, reminding one of that rayless atmosphere of Dante's Third Circle; no sounds save the heavy plash of muddy feet on the pavements; the monotonous, melancholy drip from trees and roofs; the distressful gurgling

'The pupils happened to be studying Yankee Gypsies in the class in literature.