"red" showing ahead. Firmly he checked her mile-a-minute gait and let the air ease off so that the Pullmans rolled quietly past the cross-over, and then with a jerk he opened the throttle so that the couplings had no time to slack up and snap the Pullmans as the engine jumped forward. For five hours, the solitary figure spurred the 1500 horse-power steed into the teeth of the storm. The steel sides of the tank were white with ice, and the olive green of the Pullmans had blended to a lead-gray color. Great icicles hung under the running board and steps of the cab.

As dawn tinged the blackness of the storm with gray, the long train slowed down for the terminal yards with a spluttering of locked wheels on the "whiskered" frosty rails. Slowly 3115 nosed her way past day coaches and "diners" in the storage yards, and just as the station clock pointed to ten minutes past eight, the gray streaked locomotive came to a stop in front of the bumper of track 1.

Ten minutes late!-The "Autocrat" was ten minutes late! How those business men back in the Pullmans jostled and squeezed each other as they lined up in the aisles of the cars, suit cases in hand, waiting for the porter to lift the trap door and let them down the steps to the platform. Nor did their sneering remarks cease as they walked past the great gray dripping engine, panting softly in the heavy air of the train shed. They glanced casually up at the cab and saw a coal-blackened face with bloodshot eyes, looking listlessly down at them. Even the icicles on the running board and the crystals on the cab windows failed to excite their comment.

Three days later, O'Neil, lying in a white cot at the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia, received a gold watch from the company, together with a note saying that he would receive full pay until his recovery was complete.

As for Gannet, the following Monday when he reported at the round-house for work, he found another fireman on Number 3115. When he interviewed the superintendent, and asked him what engine he had been transferred to, the "super" turned on his heel and said, “3115 will haul the 'Autocrat' to-day; back her down at 9.45." In other words, 3115 was his engine. He had been promoted to the right side!

CLASS ACTIVITIES

I. Answer the questions which you had in mind when you began to read, p. 417.

2. Account for Maitland's promotion; for Gannet's promotion. Give your explanation under three heads. Find the paragraph which best describes the responsibilities of men who run locomotives. Tell the class of similar acts which required great presence of mind on the part of railroad men.

3. Select three adjectives which you think best describe Maitland; Gannet. What passages show how unreasonable passengers sometimes are?

4. Make another title for each of these stories and tel! why you selected it. What is the climax of the second story?

5. What comparison or contrast can you find between "Rushing Freight to New York," p. 309, and the present stories?

6. Is there an improbable element in either selection? Do you think an improbable incident spoils a story? Tell about other stories which have contained improbable incidents.

7. It is said that more than eighty per cent of the children of locomotive engineers are graduated from high schools. What do you think are the chief causes for this fact?

8. Exercises for the composition class: Each find five words in “Fireman Gannet" whose meaning may not be quite clear to a classmate. Write the five words on a sheet of paper. Exchange sheets, and try to write the meaning of the five on the sheet you receive. You may point out to each other the sentences in which the words occur. Try to make satisfactory definitions from the meaning of the sentences without using the glossary or dictionary.

9. Volunteer work:

a. Find "The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express," W. D. Howells, in The Howells Story Book, p. 18, a story for children. Try reading it aloud to some child who enjoys a good story.

b. Some boy who knows engines draw a sketch of a steam engine and explain the principles upon which it operates. Explain such terms as "the injector choke valve" and answer questions the class may ask.

c. Read about the different railway signals in W. F. Rocheleau, Transportation, p. 206; and explain to the class such phrases as ‘ever-changing signal lights," "its green light sweeps by."

d. Some boy explain to the class the chief difference between the operation of steam-engines and gasoline-engines.

4. THE HOME EXPRESS

JOHN GODFREY SAXE

Mr. Saxe describes a home-coming suburban train in Chicago, running out along the shore of Lake Michigan. What evidences can you find of the happiness of going home from work?

Bless me! this is pleasant,
Riding on a rail!

When the city's rush is over, and the monthly ticket shown, And the platform's crowd has scattered like the leaves in autumn

blown,

Then the engine feels the throttle, as the racer feels the whip, And sends its drivers whirling for its little homeward trip.

Oh, the home train and its quiver, and its shoot along the lake, And its gladness that the day is nearly done;

And the tumbling of the wave crests as they flash and swiftly break

In the last, low, level shining of the sun!

The clean-cut man of business eyes his fresh-bought paper close, Culling out the world's wide doings from the padded news verbose;

And the bargain hunter, happy, sits ensconced amid her gains, Complacent o'er the patent fact of her superior brains.

The trainman punches tickets with his swift and easy air,
Like the man that knows his business of getting every fare;
And he calls the Hyde Park station in the strong familiar ring
As he inward thrusts his body through the car door's sudden
swing.

Meanwhile the conversation of the women from the clubs
Increases with the train speed and the whirling of the hubs;
And the latest sociology or Kipling's virile verse

Or city art and garbage their gossip intersperse.

And the judge of human nature, as he notes their faces fair, Knows these are they whose strenuous wills can strongly do and dare;

And his inner eye sees visions of immortal Art's wide sway
And clear-eyed Science gazing on a fairer, sweeter day.

So the city's strong-faced thousands spin adown the steel-set bed,

With the two red signals rearward and the yellow on ahead;

Till the engine feels the throttle 'neath the station's glittering light,

And gladdens waiting home-hearts at the gathering of the night.

Oh, the home train and its quiver, and its shoot along the lake, And its gladness that the day is fairly done;

And the tumbling of the wave crests as they flash and swiftly break

In the twilight and the moonlight just begun!

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. What home-goers are mentioned? What occupations do they represent?

2. What is the joke in the two short lines quoted at the opening of the poem?

3. Read aloud the stanzas which bring out the joy of home-going. Try to make the stanzas sing the joy of home.

4. Find new words for: ensconced, complacent, sociology, culling out, virile, intersperse, strenuous.

5. Volunteer work:

a. If you live in a city that has suburban service, write a little poem about people you see on the trains or street-cars.

b. Find another poem which, like "The Home Express," has a swing or rhythm, that seems to make the words dance as you read them. Have your teacher approve the choice, and read it to the class.

c. Memorize the poem "Ellis Park," Book One, p. 273; recite it to the class, trying to express the help a beautiful park can give to one as he goes to his work.

d. Memorize and recite one of the poems about trees, Book One, pp.

278-281.

5. ON THE TRAIN

CAROL HAYNES

Last summer, when we went to Maine,
We traveled overnight by train.

At evening, when my prayers were said,
The porter came to make my bed.
He drew the curtains all around
And shut me in all safe and sound
So I alone could snugly lie

And watch the stars go sliding by.
What fun it was!

And as I lay

The moon came up as bright as day
So I could clearly see at last
The country as we hurried past-
The cows asleep upon the hill,
The little houses dark and still,

A lighted town, a bridge, a brook,
Like pictures printed in a book.

But, what seems puzzling to my mind:
We never left the moon behind

It shone above as clear as day

And stayed right with us all the way!

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Tell the class some pleasant experiences of travel you have had. Do you find any experiences in this poem similar to your own?

2. Change "On the Train" by spoiling the rhyme. For example, change Maine to New Hampshire in the first line: change bed to berth in the fourth. When you have spoiled all the rhymes, see how hard it is to read the poem aloud. Discuss the element of rhyme. How does it add to the beauty of a poem?

3. Volunteer work: Find three children's poems which you would like to read to a lower-grade class. Practice reading them aloud at home; read them in class and elect three of your number to represent the class. Ask one of the lower-grade teachers to let your representatives read their poems to her pupils.