on the driver's seat. Two men climbed in behind him. The long lash swung out over the leaders as Dan headed the old mail-sled across the drifted right-of-way of the Great Missouri and Eastern. CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. Let four pupils give the story in relay, each pupil telling one part. Before the floor-talks are given, let the class decide on titles for each of the four parts. 2. Why is a railroad important to a frontier region? Which usually comes first, settlement or means of transportation? If possible, give some examples or illustrations from American history which support your answer. 3. Explain Dan's dislike of the stranger. What did the stranger finally promise to do? 4. Mention the different kinds of courage shown by the three frontier folk who play a part in the story. Name ways in which each was a conqueror of nature. 5. Name respects in which the Dakota pioneers were like the Pilgrims. How were they like Captain MacWhirr? 6. What is the climax or the most interesting point in this story? 7. Explain whether the title fits the story. 8. Give examples which show that we are living on what frontiersmen have done. Read again p. 29. 9. What three adjectives best describe Dan? Hillas? Smith ? Mrs. Clark? IO. Which had the more difficult contest with nature the man in the forest or the pioneers in Dakota? Mention facts or details which support your opinion.. II. Volunteer work: d. Tell the story of the first railroad which was built in your community. b. Describe the chief problems of the first settlers in your part of the country. c. Draw four pictures to illustrate this story, or suggest four pictures which might be drawn. ADDITIONAL READINGS. 1. "A Home in the Wilderness," A. H. Shaw, in Book One, 9-16. 2. “Homesteaders,” H. I. Gilchrist, in Scribner's Magazine, 70:701. 3. “A Day with a Ranchwoman,” ibid., 71 : 447–450. 4. "Pioneer Farmers of the West," A. H. Sanford, Story of Agriculture in the United States, 100-123. 5. "Pioneer Food and Clothing," W. L. Nida, Following the Frontier, 112-121. 6. "Early Railroads," ibid, 205-214. 4. PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! WALT WHITMAN "'Tis the good reader makes the good book," said Emerson. He meant that what we get from our reading depends on what we bring to it. Keep the story "Turkey Red" in mind as you read this poem; then tell what the story gave you to bring to the poem. Come, my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready. Have you your pistols? Have you your sharp-edged axes? For we cannot tarry here, We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers! O you youths, Western youths. So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you, Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers! Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas? We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers! All the past we leave behind, We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world. We detachments steady throwing Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers! We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within, We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers! Colorado men are we, From the peaks gigantic, from the great Sierras and the high plateaus, From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers! From Nebraska, from Arkansas, Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein'd, All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O pioneers! O resistless, restless race! O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all! O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers! All the pulses of the world, Falling in, they beat for us, with the Western movement beat; Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O pioneers! O you daughters of the West! O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives! Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers! Has the night descended? Was the road of late so toilsome? Did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way? Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers! Till with sound of trumpet, Far, far off the daybreak call - hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind; Swift to the head of the army!-swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers! CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. Read the poem silently a second time and copy the lines which remind you of incidents or details in "Turkey Red." Be ready to read the passages in "Turkey Red" of which these lines remind you. 2. Describe some of the tasks of pioneers, giving examples from American history. 3. Read aloud the lines which best show the spirit and courage of the pioneers. Read the lines which best show their work of conquest. Read the stanza which is most stirring. 4. Explain the fourth stanza; the eighth stanza. 5. "A Home in the Wilderness,” Book One, p. 9, is about pioneer life. What lines in this poem remind you of experiences of the Shaws? 6. Find selections in "Seeking New Homes," in Book One, pp. 341-452, which illustrate this poem, wholly or in part. 7. Find in the glossary the meaning of these words: pioneer, brunt, sinewy, debouch, detachments, primeval, vexing, stemming, surveying, Sierras, oblivious. 8. Are there any pioneers to-day? Are there pioneers other than those who conquered the wilderness? Are there pioneers in education, industry, science? Mention examples and show how each person was a pioneer. Can you name any pioneers in your school? In your community? 9. This poem is a trumpet call to war, a war for the conquest of the wilderness. It should be read with fire and vigor, not slowly and softly like a lullaby. Choose members of the class to read it aloud. 10. Volunteer work: From the history of our country, give illustrations showing the truth of these lines about American pioneers: a. "We must bear the brunt of danger." 5. A HOME NEAR TO NATURE HENRY DAVID THOREAU A lover of the out-of-doors, of birds, and beasts, and creeping things: such was Henry David Thoreau. Sparrows would eat from his fingers, squirrels would perch on his shoulder, bees would crawl over his hands and face without stinging him. To gratify his love of nature and his longing for a simple life Thoreau lived for over two years in a hut which he built for himself at Walden Pond, a mile and a half from his birthplace, Concord, Massachusetts. As you read this selection a second time, make a list of the experiences which Thoreau enjoyed most. I. BUILDING THE CABIN Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin a hermit's life without borrowing, and perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellowmen to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it. I worked on a pleasant hillside, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored and saturated with water. One day when my axe head come off and I had cut a green hickory for a wedge, and had placed the whole to soak in a pond hole in order to swell the wood, I saw a striped snake run into the water; he lay on the bottom, apparently without inconvenience, as long as I stayed there, more than a quarter of an hour; perhaps because he had not fairly come out of the torpid state. I had previously seen snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still numb, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the first of April a warm rain melted the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, like the spirit of the fog. |