5. If any of you have read about early modes of travel in the Book List (p. 347), report to the class now.

6. Volunteer home work:

a. Try to find a very old person in your town who remembers stagecoach days. Ask him to tell you about them, and report your interview to the class.

c. Make a cartoon showing the people in Dickens's story. Draw the old stage-coach as you see it.

ADDITIONAL READINGS. 1. "We Are Seven," K. D. Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, chap. 1. 2. "The Overland Coach," Mark Twain, Roughing It, chap. 4. 3. "The Boy Who Rode on the First Train," M. K. Maul, in St. Nicholas, 35:899–901. 4. "When Bicycle Was King," in Scribner's Magazine, 67:635-636. 5. "The Cost of Progress," C. P. Barton, in Harper's Magazine, 147:462-474. 6. "To Albany by Way of Yesterday," S. Comstock, ibid., 147:751-763. 7. "From the Rocket to the St. Louis," J. L. Harbour, in St. Nicholas, 33:399–403. 8. "Queer Vehicles," Compton's Pictured Encyclopedia, 374, 584, 1807, 2874, 3082, 3140. 9. "The Boy's Ambition," Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, chap. 5. 10. "The Old Stage Road,” J. T. Faris, Real Stories from Our History, 134-140. II. "A Pioneer Traveler," ibid., 141-146. 12. "The Great National Road," ibid., 161–168. 13. "The Pony Express," ibid., 196–200.

READING PARTNERSHIP

When you read "Postmen," p. 350, you formed a reading partnership with Miss Sheard. When two partners work well together in any enterprise, each does his full share of the work. There are three ways in which the good reader makes his contributions to the partnership.

a. He is alert to see and understand the way in which the writer builds up his whole story by putting the parts together. (See p. 369.) b. He finds examples in his own experience which resemble the experiences of the writer. You do not know Miss Sheard's postmen, p. 350, but as you read you do know and think of other postmen. c. He finds examples in his own experience which differ from the experiences of the writer. You may never have ridden in old coaches over rough roads, but your pleasant automobile rides on concrete roads enable you to appreciate the discomforts of travel described on pp. 380, 385, and 389.

Choose one of the selections named below and find in it one place at which you can be an active partner: A Parable of White Paper," p. 353; "Postmen of the Skies," p. 357; "The Spider's Telegraph-Wire," p. 369; "A Hero of Wireless," p. 375; any other selection in Literature and Living.

2. A BAD TAVERN

J. RICHARD BESTE

J. Richard Beste, with his wife and eleven children, traveled over the old National Road from Indianapolis to Terre Haute in 1850. Some idea of the hardships of early travel may be gained from this story of one of their experiences.

The country became more wild, the road more broken; yet onward we toiled. Dark fir woods covered the little we could see of the country; and day was closing in as the longed-for Long's House loomed in sight. It was a single house. My children hurried out of the wagon, and into a neat parlor on the ground floor, where was a bed in a recess.

“On the table," writes Louise, my daughter, “lay several books of fashions, magazines, and other books, which I looked over. I had just begun to interest myself in a German ghost story, when a young woman with long ringlets came in and took the book from me, saying, 'I wish you'd let those books alone, and not go spoiling them that way.' So saying, she left the room, slamming the door after her. At that moment, our youngest brother, who had been asleep on the lap of one of his sisters, woke up and began crying for some tea, he was so thirsty. Mamma was trying to pacify him, when papa came into the room with the landlady.'

I had driven my wagon to the side of the road, and followed Mr. Long as he led my horses into the large barn at the bottom of his farmyard. Here I had consulted with him how many ears of Indian corn the horses ought to have with their oats; for it seemed to be necessary that they should have some, and to be dangerous to give them too many. The ears were to be paid for at so much each.

Mr. Long was an Irishman who had emigrated many years before; he had married an American, and had a grown-up daughter; he was very civil but apparently melancholy and timid. I could account for this when I became acquainted with his wife and daughter. For, when I now accompanied Mrs. Long into the little room where all my family were gathered, and asked her to

show us our bedrooms, she drily answered that she couldn't spare us any.

"Where, then, are we to sleep?" I asked.

"Oh, you can sleep here, can't you?" she replied.

"What! father, mother, and eleven children?"

“Well, now, if you can't sleep here, I calculate that you must sleep in the wagon."

I had already discovered that to get even money's worth in these countries it was necessary to treat every one as we would an unwilling or hostile voter in an English election. Fortunately, we had had experience in such matters; and drawing the crossgrained old woman aside, my wife and I began to butter and coax her with soft sawder, as if we hoped to get her vote for us. She at last so far relented as to place at our disposal one other large, double-bedded room. We hurried some of our children into it to secure it, while others went out to the wagons to fetch in their carpet-bags and dressing-cases, afraid to ask the woman of the house to assist them, lest she should take the room from them. We now begged to have tea.

"But what do you want tea for?"

"Because," I said, "we have had nothing to eat since two o'clock and the children are very hungry."

"Well, now, you should have come earlier; for we have finished this long time, and you would not have us prepare tea again, would you?"

Once more we had recourse to the "butter" and "soft sawder"; again, but with greater difficulty, we persuaded mother and daughter to give us what we needed. They boiled the kettle and spread the cloth in another room, whining through their noses and talking at us during the whole time. Once, I unluckily said a few words in praise of their meek husband and father, who wisely stayed with the horses in the stable; my praise only turned their talk against all immigrants and Irishmen.

Our six girls, with their two baby brothers, now took possession of the room which our tactics had won from Mother and Daughter Long. Our three elder boys went out to pass the night amid the hay in the bottom of our wagon; my wife and I were left to the parlor downstairs.

"There were two large beds in our room," writes Lucy. "We took off one of the mattresses and laid it on the floor for our elder sisters, Catherine and Ellen, and our little Isabel. Agnes and Louise took one of the beds, and I had the other for myself and two baby brothers. I was awakened about twenty times during the night, first by one baby kicking me on one side and then the other on the other side. Sometimes they would throw themselves across me; sometimes one of them would kick me in the face in his restless sleep.

"I had not much rest or sleep that night; but poor Ellen was worse off than I. Each time I woke, she was either tossing about the bed or walking up and down the room with the toothache, afraid of disturbing Catherine. With joy we heard a clock strike six, and all got up immediately, tired as we were. Here a new difficulty arose: there was neither basin, jug, water, nor towels in the room. When we asked our hostess to give us some, she asked, in her usual querulous tone:

666

'But what do you want them for?'

"To wash ourselves with.'

"Well, then, you can't have them, for we haven't any.' 'But what are we to do?'

666

"Go down to the yard; you'll find a pump and a towel.'

"We did not relish the idea," continues Lucy; "Ellen dressed herself and went down, found the daughter of the old woman, and told her how she had been suffering all night after a fatiguing day; and how unpleasant it would be to begin another day without washing. After talking to her thus for a long time with the greatest politeness, Ellen succeeded in obtaining from her a small tin pie-dish and a towel; she went to the pump, filled the dish with water, and brought her prize up to us. Imagine what a splendid washing we had in the pie-dish!"

This morning Mrs. Long and her daughter positively refused to give us any breakfast. "It was too much trouble." "There were too many of us." "She had something else to do." "She did not care for our money." And "there was a good hotel one mile further on."

The last motive encouraged us to let her have her own way; and we left her. I forget all the woes that I called down upon her

head; but my feelings are now calmed. No doubt, the two women have worried their husband and father to death; I now only wish that the daughter may have married some sturdy husband who beats both her and her mother once a week and compels them to wash themselves.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Explain how the character of Mrs. Long is portrayed: by what she does; by what she says; by what others say of her.

2. What hardships of early travel in America are indicated in the selection?

3. What was the meanest act of the Long family?

kindly acts?

Were there any

4. Compare the hardships here described with those in "A Pioneer Home in the Wilderness," Book One, pp. 9-16.

5. Volunteer work: Look up "The Old Cumberland Road" for the class. Many people travel this old road in auto trips from East to West. 6. Volunteer composition: Write a story suggested to you by one of these pictures.