Take the plot at this stage, and work out a surprise for the attor ney, which shall also be a punishment for his wrong-doing.

32. Write out a story that has been told you—by your father or grandfather, for instance. If it has to do with some noted man, some great event, or some interesting custom of the past, it will be all the more worth telling.

33. Write an anecdote, in a single paragraph, which will illustrate some one of the following truths: (1) It is always best to speak and act the truth, (2) to be prompt, (3) to be polite, (4) to be industrious, (5) to be obliging to strangers. Or select any similar truth that you think of, but do not turn your anecdote into a sermon. Write from your own experience if you can.

34. Here are some simple subjects for short narratives. Some of the subjects may require some description:

1. The last skate of the winter.

2. A camping out adventure.

3. The most interesting incident in my life.

4. How the acorn becomes an oak.

5. A night search.

6. My first "piece."

7. My only experience with ghosts.

8. The farmer's wife in the elevator.

9. An exciting arrest.

10. Trouble in the poultry-yard.

11. A street-car incident.

12. How our cat was lost.

13. The plot of the last play I witnessed. 14. Baby's first visit to the photographer. 15. A night in the woods.

16. An adventure with a raft.

17. My experience with a strike. 18. A day in a house-boat.

19. My experience as a tramp.1

1 Nearly all of the above subjects call for stories and incidents that may have come under your own observation. At any rate, select one that has come under your own observation, and write and rewrite your story until you have worked it into the best form you are capable of. The little anecdote told by Franklin (Section 59) may serve as your model.

T

4

The following subjects require imaginative treatment:

1. A ride in a life-boat.

2. What the school clock saw one night.

3. An original fable.

4. An original fairy tale.

5. A leaf from the diary of a house fly.

6. An imaginary conversation with Dr. Johnson.

7. An interview with the President.

8. The autobiography of a blue jay.

9. How I discovered Captain Kidd's treasure. 10. Lost off Labrador.

11. The wanderings of a valentine.

12. What Flush, my dog, told me about cats. 13. On a runaway freight car.

14. Adrift on a raft.

CHAPTER VII

DESCRIPTION

Exercise 78

INDOORS ON A RAINY DAY1

BY HAMLIN GARLAND

THE rain was still falling, sweeping down from the half-seen hills, wreathing the wooded peaks with a gray garment of mist, and filling the valley with a whitish cloud.

It fell around the house drearily. It ran down into the tubs placed to catch it, dripped from the mossy pump, and drummed on the upturned milk-pails, and upon the brown and yellow beehives under the maple trees. The chickens seemed depressed, but the irrepressible blue jay screamed amid it all, with the same insolent spirit, his plumage untarnished by the wet. The barn-yard showed a horrible mixture of mud and mire, through which Howard caught glimpses of the men, slumping to and fro without more additional protection than a ragged coat and a shapeless felt hat.

In the sitting room where his mother sat sewing there was not an ornament, save the etching he had brought. The clock stood on a small shelf, its dial so much defaced that one could not tell the time of day; and when it struck, it was with noticeably disproportionate deliberation, as if it wished to correct any mistake into which the family might have fallen by reason of its illegible dial.

The paper on the walls showed the first concession of the Puritans to the Spirit of Beauty, and was made up of a heterogeneous mixture of flowers of unheard-of shapes and colors, arranged in four different ways along the wall. There were no books, no music, and only a few newspapers in sight- a bare, blank, cold, drab-colored shelter from

1 From Main Travelled Roads. The Arena Publishing Company, Boston.

the rain, not a home. Nothing cosey, nothing heart-warming; a grim and horrible shed.

HELPS TO STUDY: What is your feeling when forced to remain indoors on a rainy day? What adds to your discomfort? Is a similar impression produced by the present description? How is it produced? Point out the details that add to the general dreariness of the scene, indoors as well as outdoors. Do such words as 66 'drearily," "depressed," "bare," "blank," and the like, have any effect in producing a feeling of discomforting dreariness? Find other words of the same sort. What part do adjectives play in the description? Make a list of them, with the nouns they modify. Note especially the effect of such phrases as "half-seen hills," "wooded peaks," "gray garment," and the like. Some of these phrases of themselves make very vivid mental pictures. Which, should you say, in the whole selection makes the most vivid picture? Do you notice a difference between these phrases that make pictures? Between "mossy pump" and "irrepressible blue jay," for example? What of the nouns? Are they concrete or abstract? If a great many abstract nouns had been used, how would they have affected the description? What part do the verbs play in the description? Make a list of them, and note the effect of such verbs as 66 'dripped," "drummed," "screamed," etc. Which of the three, adjective, noun, or verb, has the greatest effect in description? Which has the least effect? Continue this line of word study in the selections which follow, and make use of what you learn by it in the descriptions which you yourself write.

It was a rainy Sunday in the gloomy month of November. I had been detained, in the course of a journey, by a slight indisposition, from which I was recovering; but was still feverish, and obliged to keep within doors all day, in an inn of the small town of Derby. A wet Sunday in a country inn!—whoever has had the luck to experience one can alone judge of my situation. The rain pattered against

1 From The Stout Gentleman.

the casements; the bells tolled for church with a melancholy sound. I went to the windows in quest of something to amuse the eye; but it seemed as if I had been placed completely out of reach of all amusement. The windows of my bedroom looked out among tiled roofs and stacks of chimneys, while those of my sitting room commanded a full view of the stable-yard. I know of nothing more calculated to make a man sick of this world than a stable-yard on a rainy day. The place was littered with wet straw that had been kicked about by travellers and stable-boys. In one corner was a stagnant pool of water, surrounding an island of muck; there were several half-drowned fowls crowded together under a cart, among which was a miserable, crest-fallen cock, drenched out of all life and spirit, his drooping tail matted, as it were, into a single feather, along which the water trickled from his back; near the cart was a half-dozing cow, chewing the cud, and standing patiently to be rained on, with wreaths of vapor rising from her reeking hide; a wall-eyed horse, tired of the loneliness of the stable, was poking his spectral head out of a window, with the rain dropping on it from the eaves; an unhappy cur, chained to a dog-house hard by, uttered something, every now and then, between a bark and a yelp; a drab of a kitchen-wench tramped backward and forward through the yard in pattens, looking as sulky as the weather itself; everything, in short, was comfortless and forlorn, excepting a crew of hardened ducks, assembled like boon companions round a puddle, and making a riotous noise over their liquor.

HELPS TO STUDY: This selection may be studied in much the same way as the preceding selection. Dealing as it does with almost the same subject, it will be interesting to compare the two rather closely-in point of view, impression produced, diction, etc. The key to the impression produced by the present paragraph is found well toward the close of the last sentence, where it is said that everything was "comfortless and forlorn." What details, what words help to make this impression? Is there anything in Garland's description like Irving's description of the "hardened ducks"? What is added to this latter bit of description which is not found in ordinary description?