5 talk about anything else, and so he asks the guard if he knows Rugby. "Goes through it every day of my life. Twenty minutes afore twelve down-ten o'clock up." "What sort of a place is it, please?" says Tom. The guard had just finished an account of a desperate fight which had happened at one of the fairs, between the drovers and the farmers with their whips and the boys with cricket bats, which arose out of the boys' playful but 10 objectionable practice of going round to the public houses and taking the linchpins out of the wheels of the gigs, when they turned a corner and neared the milestone, the third from Rugby. By the stone two boys stood, their jackets buttoned tight, waiting for the coach. 15 "Look here, sir," said the guard, after giving a sharp toot-toot; "there's two on 'em, out and out runners they be. They comes out about twice or three times a week, and spirts a mile alongside of us." And as they came up, sure enough, away went the two 20 boys along the footpath, keeping up with the horses the first a light, clean-made fellow, going on springs, the other stout and round-shouldered, laboring in his pace, but going as dogged as a bull-terrier. Old Blowhard looked on admiringly. "See how beau25 tiful that there un holds hisself together, and goes from his hips, sir," said he; "he's a 'mazin' fine runner. How many coachmen as drives a first-rate team'd put it on and try and pass 'em. But Bob, sir, bless you, he's tender-hearted; he'd sooner pull in a bit if he see'd 'em a-gettin' beat. I do b'lieve, too, as that there un'd sooner break his heart than let us go by him afore next milestone." 5 At the second milestone the boys pulled up short, and waved their hats to the guard, who had his watch out, and shouted, " 4.56," thereby indicating that the mile had been done in four seconds under the five minutes. They passed several more parties of boys, all of them objects of deepest 10 interest to Tom, and came in sight of the town at ten minutes before twelve. Tom fetched a long breath, and thought he had never spent a pleasanter day. Before he went to bed he had quite settled that it must be the greatest day he should ever spend, and didn't alter his 15 opinion for many a long year- if he has yet. -THOMAS HUGHES: Tom Brown's School-days. smock-frock, a workman's blouse; hack, horse; pink, red coat; mammoth, enormous (the mammoth was a large elephant, whose bones are now sometimes found); trencher, platter; viands, articles of food; imbibed, drank; destination, place set for a journey's end. In what way does the author let us know it is day without stating it plainly? Mention some of the signs of early morning. What beautiful comparison does he use in describing the mist? What is a huntsman's pack? A pink? Picture the breakfast room. Picture the scene at the inn door. Describe the ride through the town. Give Tom's conversation with the guard. What pranks of the Rugby boys does the guard relate? Describe the two Rugby boys who now appear. Who is Old Blowhard? What does Tom feel about this day? Mammoth, viands, dogged, imbibed, destination. Word Study. What use of figurative language in paragraph 11? Figurative language expresses or implies a comparison. Can you point out the comparison here? To what is breakfast compared? To what are the people compared? Is the figure forcible? "Anything for us, Bob?" said the burly guard. Tom's feet were dangling six inches from the floor. The beef had been cut from a mammoth ox. Is not this a worthy reward for our endur ance? Rewrite, using synonyms for the words in boldfaced type. Composition. In writing a composition you have a subject which is indicated in your title. You must see how many different points you are going to write about under that one subject. Either write down the topic, or make a full topic sentence, for each point, and then you will know how many paragraphs you are to have. Suppose you are to write on A Day in the Woods; you might write down the following headings: (1) The ride to the woods; (2) What happened there; (3) The return. Under topic 1, decide how many things you want to tell about. Do the same thing for 2 and 3. Then you have all your material. The next thing to do is to arrange your facts in some sort of order, generally giving them in order of time. up. In The Stagecoach notice the plan:- Paragraph 1. Tom gets Paragraph 2. You remember that in conversation a whole paragraph is given to each person's speech. Paragraph 3. Getting ready to start. Paragraphs 4, 5, 6. Conversation. Paragraph 7. The start. Paragraph 8. The author's remarks on the "old, dark ride." Paragraph 9. The dark ride. Could you exchange the places of any of these paragraphs? Why not? Write down a topic (not necessarily a topic sentence, for you will not always find one) for each paragraph in Part 2 of The Stagecoach. The following plan for a composition will serve you for a model: Title. - Going to the Country. Topics. 1. The Start. -(a) Time we train; reached the (b) Who were there to see us off; (c) Good-by-the train starts. 2. The Journey. (a) Scenery; (b) Comforts or discomforts. 3. The Arrival.-(a) Time; (b) Tired or not; (c) Appearance of place; (d) Who were there to meet us. Take for your title The School Picnic, or Going Away to School, or Our Trolley Ride, or A Trip up the Hudson, or any other similar title. Prepare an outline with three paragraph topics. Indicate your sentence topics as in model. Grammar. In Lesson 12, you learned that words which modify other words are called their modifiers. You supplied modifiers to a number of nouns, and may have noticed that in every case you used the part of speech which you know is an adjective. For what then is an adjective used? All adjectives modify nouns or the words. which stand for nouns (what are they?), but not all words that modify nouns are adjectives. Thus, in "Tom's dark ride," two words limit or modify the meaning of ride. The adjective dark does not allow the noun ride to be applied to a light ride, and Tom's makes it refer to this ride taken by Tom. But Tom, as you know, is a boy's name, and, therefore, a noun. Again, in this sentence, "Tom is enjoying his ride," his takes the place of Tom's, and is a pronoun showing possession, and not an adjective, although it modifies the noun ride. Be careful not to classify as adjectives nouns or pronouns that modify nouns by denoting possession. 14 WE ARE SEVEN A SIMPLE child, That lightly draws its breath, What should it know of death? 5 10 I met a little cottage girl: She was eight years old, she said; She had a rustic, woodland air, Her eyes were fair, and very fair; — "Sisters and brothers, little maid, "How many! Seven in all," she said, And wondering looked at me. "And where are they? pray you tell.” She answered, "Seven are we; And two are gone to sea. "Two of us in the churchyard lie, "You say that two at Conway dwell, Yet ye are seven! I pray you tell, Sweet maid, how this may be?" |