they were rescued and finally forgiven by Lord Ullin. Give life to your narrative by introducing some direct quotations. Plan your story before you begin, deciding how many paragraphs you will use and what is to be included in each.

Grammar. - Combine, making a compound subject:

The Highland chief wished to cross Lochgyle. Lord Ullin's daughter wished to cross Lochgyle.

Combine, making compound predicates:

Lord Ullin stood on the shore. Lord Ullin called to his

daughter.

He shrank from the thorns. He longed for the fruit.

He arrested his courser's keen speed. He stood up erect on the back of his steed.

Combine these two sentences by using a connecting word:— Boatman, do not tarry! I'll give thee a silver pound to row us o'er the ferry.

In the following sentences find the connecting words:

We must cross Lochgyle, though it is a dark and stormy night. We must cross Lochgyle, for Lord Ullin is close behind us. We must cross Lochgyle, because Lord Ullin would kill me if he should overtake us.

He is close behind; therefore we must not tarry.

He is a man of great strength and of wonderful bravery.

Words which connect words, sentences, or parts of sentences in this way are called conjunctions.

31

RIP VAN WINKLE

[One of the first American writers was Washington Irving, and there is no one in whose works young people will find more entertaining reading. This was one of his earliest stories, and it has became so famous that everybody knows about Rip Van Winkle.

This is partly due to the fact that a remarkable actor, Joseph Jefferson, played the part of Rip for many years in an interesting play, based on this story, which has been seen by hundreds of thousands of people now living, old and young.]

WHOEVER has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Catskill Mountains. They are a branch of the great Appalachian 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 5 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 barometers.

At the foot of these fairy mountains the traveler 10 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 15 colonists in the early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter 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, 20 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 chiv5 alrous 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, hen10 pecked 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 15 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 20 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 dis25 like 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 5 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 10 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 15 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.

20

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 25 would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept continually dinning in his ears 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 5 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 10 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 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 15 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 all20 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 broom25 stick or ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and