forty-five, and trying to reach a point three inches beyond what was possible for him to reach, the string would slip, and down he would slide on to the piano, a really fine musical effect being produced by the suddenness with which his head and body struck all the notes at the same time. And Aunt Maria would say that she would not allow the children to stand round and hear such language. At last Uncle Podger would get the spot fixed again, and put the point of the nail on it with his left hand, and take the hammer in his right hand. And, with the first blow, he would smash his thumb, and drop the hammer, with a yell, on somebody's toes. Aunt Maria would mildly observe that next time Uncle Podger was going to hammer a nail into the wall, she hoped he'd let her know in time, so that she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother while it was being done. "Oh! you women, you make such a fuss over everything,' Uncle Podger would reply, picking himself up. "Why, I like doing a little job of this sort." And then he would have another try, and, at the second blow, the nail would go clean through the plaster, and half the hammer after it, and Uncle Podger would fall against the wall with force nearly sufficient to flatten his nose. Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was made; and, about midnight, the picture would be up very crooked and insecure, the wall for yards around looking as if it had been smoothed down with a rake, and everybody dead beat and wretched-except Uncle Podger. "There you are," he would say, stepping heavily off the chair on to the charwoman's corns, and surveying the mess he had made with evident pride. "Why, some people would have had a man in to do a little thing like that!" CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. After all, who hung the picture? 2. Were you right about Jerome's purpose? Explain. 3. Read aloud the part that shows Uncle Podger at his best. 4. Would the story be as amusing if it had been told in the first person by Uncle Podger? If possible, have this phonograph record played before the class: "Uncle Josh and Aunt Nancy Put Up the Kitchen Stove." 5. Is the story suited for dramatizing? Give reasons. 6. Volunteer work: Make a drawing of Uncle Podger hanging the picture; or of the scene after the picture was hung. 7. Suggested theme topics: a. When father put up the kitchen stove. b. When I took the calf to the pasture. c. Uncle Tom's first ride on a bicycle. d. Sister's first baking. e. Installing a radio. f. Moving day at our house. 5. THE CHILDREN'S HOUR HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW "The poet of the fireside" is a name frequently given to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. "The Children's Hour" is a true picture of his home life. Between the dark and the daylight, When the night is beginning to lower, I hear in the chamber above me The sound of a door that is opened, From my study I see in the lamplight, Descending the broad hall stair, Grave Alice and laughing Allegra, And Edith with golden hair. A whisper and then a silence: Yet I know by their merry eyes They are plotting and planning together To take me by surprise. A sudden rush from the stairway, They climb up into my turret O'er the arms and back of my chair; If I try to escape, they surround me: They seem to be everywhere. They almost devour me with kisses, Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, I have you fast in my fortress, And there will I keep you forever, Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. Explain the title. Does it fit the poem? 2. To what does Longfellow liken or compare his study and his chair? To what does he liken his children? 3. Would you like to have been put down in Longfellow's dungeon? Explain. 4. Why should a home have a "Children's Hour"? CLASS-LIBRARY READINGS THE HOME CIRCLE 1. "My Family," The Thoughts of Youth, 48-58. 2. 3. "Christmas Day!" The Story of My Life, 41-42. 'America's Most Illustrious Family," Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, 1: 12-16. 4. "Christmas Carols Around the World," ibid., 2: 758-760. 5. "The Homes of Ants," ibid., 1: 139; World Book, 1: 269; Book of Knowledge, 10:2941-2950. 6. "The First Christmas Tree," The Van Dyke Book, 106–123. 7. "The Life of Young Animals," Book of Knowledge, 17: 5477-5482. 8. A Canadian Folk Song," Atlantic Prose and Poetry, 21. 9. "A Group of Christmas Poems," ibid., 189-190. 10. "Beloved of Men Conquerors, 57-88. and Dogs" (Sir Walter Scott), More Than II. "The Sunny Master of Sunnyside" (Washington Irving), ibid., 89-118. 12. "My Children," J. G. Holland, in Atlantic Prose and Poetry, 54-56. 13. "Jonas and Matilda," ibid., 269–274. During one of his camping trips. Horace Kephart became interested in the mountaineers in Tennessee and Kentucky. These primitive people are pure Anglo-Saxon Americans, many of whom can trace their ancestry in this country for two hundred years. From them came such leaders as Andrew Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and Abraham Lincoln. Kephart's interest in the descendants of the men who first carved out homes in the wilderness led him to write Our Southern Highlanders, from which this selection is taken. Reading Directions. - A good silent reader is one who reads understandingly at a fairly rapid rate, neither dawdling nor skimming. It is helpful to find out now and then just how rapidly you can get the thought from a printed page. Use this selection as a test. Do not start to read until you are told to begin. When the signal is given, start and read for exactly three minutes. Note the word where you are when the signal to stop is given; then read the rest of the selection and test your grasp of the thought by answering the questions at the end. The average mountain home is a happy one. There is little worry and less fret. Nobody's nerves are on edge. Our highlander views the events of life with the calmness and tolerant good-humor of Bret Harte's Southwesterner, "to whom cyclones, famine, drought, floods, pestilence, and savages were things to be accepted, and whom disaster, if it did not stimulate, certainly did not frighten.' |