Holland 216. ORAL LESSON THE WINDMILLS OF HOLLAND 193 What wonder that the Dutch have always been wise, plucky, and strong? They have had to struggle for a foothold upon the very land of their birth. They have had to push back the ocean to prevent it from welling in upon them. They have had to wall in the rivers and lakes to keep them within bounds. They have been forced to decide which should be land and which should be water, forever digging, building, embanking, and pumping for dear existence. Even the riotous wind has been made their slave. Caught by thousands of long-armed windmills, it does their grinding, pumping, draining, sawing. When it ceases to blow, those great sleevelike sails all over the country hang limp and listless in the misty air, or are tucked trimly out of sight; but let the first breath of a gale be felt, and straightway, with one flutter of preparation, every arm is turning slowly, steadily, with a peculiar plenty-of-time air, or is whirling as if the spirit of seventy Dutchmen had taken possession of it. You can scarcely stand anywhere in Holland without seeing one to twenty windmills. Many of them are built in the form of a two-story tower, the second story being smaller than the first, with a balcony at its base from which it tapers upward until the cap-like top is reached. High up, near the roof, the great axis juts from the wall; and to this are fastened two prodigious arms, formed somewhat like ladders, heaving great sheets of canvas, whose business it is to catch the mischief-maker and set him at work. These mills stand like huge giants guarding the country. Their bodies are generally of a dark red; and their heads, or roofs, are made to turn this way and that, according to the direction of the wind. Their round eye-window is always staring. Altogether, they seem to be keeping a vigilant watch in every direction. Sometimes they stand clustered together; sometimes alone, like silent sentinels; sometimes in long rows, like ranks of soldiers. Holland wouldn't be Holland without the windmills, any more than it would be Holland without its dikes and its Dutchmen. MARY MAPES DODGE, The Land of Pluck. Some of the topics for oral composition may be: "The Fight with the Sea," "Dutch Costumes," "Windmills," "Products of Holland," " A Dutch Milk Cart." 66 217. WRITTEN LESSON A DESCRIPTION Write a composition telling what you see in the picture, and using as many of the following expressions as possible : canals, flutter, baggy, clumsy, giants, poplars, demure, breath of wind, vigilant, clatter, on the cobble stones, plenty of time. 218. ORAL LESSON ADVERBS Review Lesson 175. Adverbs are used to modify the meaning of verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Adverbs answer the questions, when, where, or how, expressing time, place, or manner. Use the following adverbs in sentences: Heroes of the North 195 Many adverbs form the comparative and superlative by prefixing more and most. Positive, pleasantly; comparative, more pleasantly; superlative, most pleasantly. The following adjectives and adverbs are irregular in comparison : Form an adjective from each of these nouns; as, sensible, senseless, sensuous, sensitive, from sense. Form adverbs from as many as possible of the adjectives that you have just made. 219. ORAL LESSON HEROES OF THE NORTH In Lesson 213 we talked about some of the heroes and stories of ancient Greece. Other lands and other peoples also had hero tales handed down from generation to generation by singers and reciters and finally made into written poems. Most of the heroes are represented as having more than human strength, and as meeting with most wonderful adventures. One of the great heroes of the German people was Siegfried the Volsung, and the chief hero of French poetry was Roland, who died defending France against |