Chapter III: Introduction: ix (1)

I THE WRITING OF ESSAYS ix

II NATURE OF THE ESSAY xi

III TYPES OF THE ESSAY xii

IV THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ESSAY xiv

V ESSAYS WELL WORTH READING xvi

VI THE WRITING OF SHORT STORIES xviii

VII NATURE OF THE SHORT STORY xix

VIII TYPES OF THE SHORT STORY xx

IX THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SHORT STORY xxii

X AUTHORS OF SHORT STORIES WELL WORTH READING xxiv

THE FAMILIAR ESSAY

THE PUP-DOG _Robert Palfrey Utter_ 3

CHEWING GUM _Charles Dudley Warner_ 11

THE MYSTERY OF AH SING _Robert L. Duffus_ 16

OLD DOC _Opie Read_ 19

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING _Helen Davenport_ 26

SUNDAY BELLS _Gertrude Henderson_ 28

DISCOVERY _Georges Duhamel_ 31

THE FURROWS _Gilbert K. Chesterton_ 36

MEDITATION AND IMAGINATION _Hamilton Wright Mabie_ 40

WHO OWNS THE MOUNTAINS? _Henry Van Dyke_ 49

THE LEGENDARY STORY

RUNNING WOLF _Algernon Blackwood_ 55

THE BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

HOW I FOUND AMERICA _Anzia Yezierska_ 77

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD _William Henry Shelton_ 94

A VISIT TO JOHN BURROUGHS _Sadakichi Hartmann_ 100

WASHINGTON ON HORSEBACK _H. A. Ogden_ 108

THE HISTORICAL STORY

HAVELOK THE DANE _George Philip Krapp_ 118

THE STORY ESSAY

POLITICS UP TO DATE _Frederick Lewis Allen_ 136

FREE! _Charles Hanson Towne_ 143

THE STORY OF ADVENTURE

PRUNIER TELLS A STORY _T. Morris Longstreth_ 148

THE DIDACTIC ESSAY

THE AMERICAN BOY _Theodore Roosevelt_ 168

THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE _Hildegarde Hawthorne_ 176

VANISHING NEW YORK _Robert and Elizabeth Shackleton_ 184

THE SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAR _Brander Matthews_ 203

LOCOMOTION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY _H. G. Wells_ 210

THE WRITING OF ESSAYS _Charles S. Brooks_ 219

THE RHYTHM OF PROSE _Abram Lipsky_ 225

THE REALISTIC STORY

THE CHINAMAN'S HEAD _William Rose Benét_ 230

GETTING UP TO DATE _Roberta Wayne_ 239

THE LION AND THE MOUSE _Joseph B. Ames_ 253

THE CRITICAL ESSAY

CODDLING IN EDUCATION _Henry Seidel Canby_ 267

A SUCCESSFUL FAILURE _Glenn Frank_ 271

THE DROLLERIES OF CLOTHES _Agnes Repplier_ 278

POETIC PROSE

CHILDREN _Yukio Ozaki_ 284

SHIPS THAT LIFT TALL SPIRES OF CANVAS _Ralph D. Paine_ 287

PERSONALITY IN CORRESPONDENCE

THE STATUE OF GENERAL SHERMAN _Theodore Roosevelt_ 291

THE ROOSEVELT SAINT-GAUDENS CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING
COINAGE _Theodore Roosevelt and Augustus Saint-Gaudens_ 292

THE SYMBOLIC STORY

HI-BRASIL _Ralph Durand_ 300

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

“Havelok had all he wanted to eat.” _Frontispiece_

The feeling stole over him without the slightest warning.
He was not alone 60

My great-grandmother 96

Colonel Humphreys landed in the ditch 116

“You made a fine signal” 164

It has been called the oldest building in New York 188

“A-ah, mystery!” said Mrs. Revis, clasping her beautiful hands
and gazing upward. “I adore mystery!” 236

“Isn't this great! They're here, every one of them! You're
awfully good to let us use the phonograph” 248

At the very take-off, a gasp of horror was jolted from
his lips 264

The fluctuations of fashion are alternately a grievance and a
solace 280

Its humming shrouds were vibrant with the eternal call of
the sea 288

Designing the ten- and twenty-dollar gold pieces 292

MODERN ESSAYS
AND STORIES

THE FAMILIAR ESSAY

THE PUP-DOG
By ROBERT PALFREY UTTER

_(1875--). Associate Professor of English in the University of
California. He taught for a time at Harvard and also at Amherst.
He is a delightful essayist, and contributes frequently to various
magazines._

=The writer of a familiar essay selects any subject in which he is
interested. Sometimes the more trifling the subject seems to be,
the more delightful is the essay. Trifles, in fact, make up life,
and around them center many of our deepest interests. The very
charm of the familiar essay lies in its ability to call attention
to the value of trifles,--to the little things in life, to little
events, and to all the odds and ends of human interests.=

=The familiar essay is nothing more than happy talk that gives us,
as it were, a walk or a chat with one who has a keen mind, a ready
wit, and a pleasant spirit.=

=_The Pup-Dog_ is an unusually excellent illustration of the
familiar essay. We all love him,--the pup-dog,--the good friend
about whom Mr. Utter has written so amusingly, so understandingly,
and so sympathetically. As we read we can see the dog jumping and
hear him barking; we laugh at his antics; we are, in fact, taking a
walk with Mr. Utter while he talks to us about his dog,--or our dog.=

Any dog is a pup-dog so long as he prefers a rat, dead or alive, to chocolate fudge, a moldy bone to sponge cake, a fight with a woodchuck to hanging round the tea-table for sweet biscuit. Of course he will show traits of age as years advance, but usually they are physical traits, not emotional. For the most part dogs’ affections burn warmly, and their love of life and experience brightly, while life lasts. They remain young, as poets do. Every dog is a pup-dog, but some are more so than others.

Most so of all is the Irish terrier. To me he stands as the archetype of the dog, and the doggier a dog is, the better I like him. I love the collie; none better. I have lived with him, and ranged the hills with him in every kind of weather, and you can hardly tell me a story of his loyalty and intelligence that I cannot go you one better. But the collie is a gentleman. He has risen from the ranks, to be sure, but he is every inch the gentleman, and just now I am speaking of dogs. The terrier is every inch a dog, and the Irish is the terrier _par excellence_.

The man who mistakes him for an Airedale, as many do, is one who does not know an Irishman from a Scot. The Airedale has a touch of the national dourness; I believe that he is a Calvinist at heart, with a severe sense of personal responsibility. The Irish terrier can atone vicariously or not at all for his light-hearted sins. The Airedale takes his romance and his fighting as seriously as an _Alan Breck_. The Irish terrier has all the imagination and humor of his race; he has a rollicking air; he is whimsical, warm-hearted, jaunty, and has the gift of blarney. He loves a scrimmage better than his dinner, but he bears no malice.

His fellest earthly foes,
Cats, he does but affect to hate.

The terrier family is primarily a jolly, good-natured crowd whose business it is to dig into the lairs of burrowing creatures and fight them at narrow quarters. The signal for the fight is the attack on the intrusive nose. You can read this family history in the pup-dog's treatment of the cat. The cat of his own household with whom he is brought up he rallies with good-humored banter, but he is less likely to hurt her than she him. He will take her with him on his morning round of neighborhood garbage-pails, and even warm her kittens on his back as he lies in the square of sunshine on the kitchen floor, till they begin to knead their tiny claws into him in a futile search for nourishment; then he shakes them patiently off and seeks rest elsewhere. He will chase any cat as long as she will run; if she refuses to run, he will dance round her and bark, trying to get up a game. “Be a sport!” he taunts her. “Take a chance!” But if she claws his nose, she treads on the tail of his coat, and no Irish gentleman will stand for that.

Similar are his tactics with human creatures. First he tries a small bluff to see if he can start anything. If his victim shows signs of fear, he redoubles his effort, his tail the while signaling huge delight at his success. If the victim shows fight, he may develop the attack in earnest. The victim who shows either fear or fight betrays complete ignorance of dog nature, for the initial bluff is always naïvely transparent; the pup-dog may have a poker face, but his tail is a rank traitor. A nest of yellow-jackets in a hole in the ground challenges his every instinct. He cocks his ear at the subterranean buzzing, tries a little tentative excavation with cautious paw. Soon one of the inmates scores on the tip of his nose, and war is declared in earnest. There are leaping attacks with clashing of teeth, and wildly gyrating rear-guard actions. Custom cannot stale the charm of the spot; all summer, so long as there is a wing stirring, hornets shall be hot i' the mouth.

The degree of youth which the pup-dog attains and holds is that of the human male of eleven or twelve years. He nurses an inextinguishable quarrel with the hair-brush. His hatred of the formal bath is chronic, but he will paddle delightedly in any casual water out of doors, regardless of temperatures and seasons. At home he will sometimes scoff at plain, wholesome food, but to the public he gives the impression that his family systematically starve him, and his dietetic experiments often have weird and disastrous results. You can never count on his behavior except on formal occasions, when you know to a certainty that he will disgrace you. His curiosity is equaled only by his adroitness in getting out of awkward situations into which it plunges him. His love of play is unquenchable by weariness or hunger; there is no time when the sight of a ball will not rouse him to clamorous activity.

For fine clothes he has a satiric contempt, and will almost invariably manage to land a dirty footprint on white waist-coat or “ice-cream pants” in the first five minutes of their immaculacy. He is one hundred per cent. motor-minded; when he is “stung with the splendor of a sudden thought,” he springs to immediate action. In the absence of any ideas he relaxes and sleeps with the abandon of a jute door-mat.

Dog meets dog as boy meets boy, with assertions of superiority, challenge, perhaps fight, followed by friendship and play. No wonder that with pup-boys the pup-dog is so completely at one; his code is their code, and whither they go he goes--except to school. With September come the dull days for him. No more the hordes of pirates and bandits with bandanas and peaked hats, belts stuck full of dirks and “ottermaticks,” sweep up and down the sidewalk on bicycles in open defiance of the law, raiding lawns and gardens, scattering shrieking tea-parties of little girls and dolls, haling them aboard the lugger in the next lot and holding them for fabulous ransom. There is always some one who will pay it with an imposing check signed “Theodore Wilson Roosevelt Woodrow Rockefeller.” He prances with flopping ears beside the flying wheels, crouches in ambush, gives tongue in the raid, flies at the victims and tears their frocks, mounts guard in the cave, and shares the bandits' last cookie.

But when the pirates become orderly citizens, his day begins after school and ends with supper. With his paws on the window-sill, his nose making misty spots on the glass, he watches them as they march away in the morning, then he makes a perfunctory round of the neighborhood, inspecting garbage-pails and unwary cats. After that there is nothing to do but relax in the September sunshine and exist in a coma till the pirates return and resume their normal functions, except for his routine attempt to intimidate the postman and the iceman. Perhaps he might succeed some happy day; who knows?

The pup-dog in the open is the best of companions; his exuberant vitality and unquenchable zest for things in general give him endless variety. There are times, perhaps, when you see little of him; he uses you as a mobile base of operations, and runs an epicycloidal course with you as moving center, showing only a flash of his tail on one horizon or the flop of his ears on the other. You hear his wild cries of excitement when he starts a squirrel or a rabbit. By rare luck you may be called in time to referee a fight with a woodchuck, or once in a happy dog's age you may see him, a khaki streak through the underbrush, in pursuit of a fox.

At last you hear the drumming of his feet on the road behind you; he shoots past before he can shift gears, wheels, and lands a running jump on your diaphragm by way of reporting present for duty. Thereafter he sticks a little closer, popping out into the road or showing his tousled face through the leaves at intervals of two or three hundred yards to make sure that you are still on the planet. Then you may enjoy his indefatigable industry in counting with his nose, his tail quivering with delight, the chinks of old stone walls. You may light your pipe and sit by for an hour as he energetically follows his family tradition in digging under an old stump, shooting the sand out behind with kangaroo strokes, tugging at the roots with his teeth, and pausing from time to time to grin at you with a yard of pink tongue completely surrounded by leaf mold. You may admire his zeal as inspector of chipmunks, mice, frogs, grasshoppers, crickets, and such small deer. Anything that lives and tries to get away from him is fair game except chickens. If round the turn of the road he plumps into a hen convention, memories of bitter humiliations surge up within him, and he blushes, and turns his face aside. Other dogs he meets with tentative growling, bristling, and tail-wagging, by way of asserting that he will take them on any terms they like; fight or frolic, it is all one to him.

You cannot win his allegiance by feeding him, though he always has his bit of blarney ready for the cook. He loves all members of the family with nice discrimination for their weaknesses: the pup-boy who cannot resist an invitation to romp; the pup-girl who cannot withstand begging blandishments of nose and paw, but will subvert discipline and share food with him whenever and wherever she has it. He will welcome with leapings and gyrations any one of them after a day's absence or an hour's, but his whole-souled allegiance is to the head of the house; his is the one voice that speaks with authority; his the first welcome always when the family returns in a group. That loyalty, burning bright and true to the last spark of life, that unfailing welcome on which a man can count more surely than on any human love--indeed, there is no secret in a man's love for a dog, however we may wonder at the dog's love for the man. Let Argos and Ulysses[1] stand as the type of it, though to me it lacks something of the ideal, not in the image of the dog, but in the conduct of the man. Were I disguised for peril of my life, and my dog, after the wanderings and dangers of many years, lifted his head and knew me and then died, I think no craft could withhold my feelings from betraying me.

“Dogs know their friends,” we say, as if there were mystery in the knowledge. The password of the fraternity is not hidden; you may hear it anywhere. It was spoken at my own hearth when the pup-dog, wet with autumn rain, thrust himself between my guest and the andirons and began to steam. My guest checked my remonstrance. “Don't disturb him on my account, you know. I rather like the smell of a wet dog,” he added apologetically. The word revealed a background that made the speaker at once and forever my guest-friend. In it I saw boy and dog in rain and snow on wet trails, their camp in narrow shelter, where they snuggle together with all in common that they have of food and warmth. He who shared his boyhood with a pup-dog will always share whatever is his with members of the fraternity. He will value the wagging of a stubby tail above all dog-show points and parlor tricks. He will not be rash to chide affectionate importunity, nor to set for his dog higher standards than he upholds for himself. Do you never nurse a grouch and express it in appropriate language? Do you never take direct action when your feelings get away with you? When the like befalls the pup-dog, have ready for him such sympathy as he has always ready for you in your moods. Treat him as an equal, and you will get from him human and imperfect results.

You will never know exactly what your pup-dog gets from you; he tries wistfully to tell you, but leaves you still wondering. But you may have from him a share of his perennial puphood, and you do well to accept it gratefully whenever he offers it. Take it when it comes, though the moment seem inopportune. You may be roused just as you settle for a nap by a moist nose thrust into your hand, two rough brown paws on the edge of your bunk, a pair of bright eyes peering through a jute fringe. Up he comes, steps over you, and settles down between you and the wall with a sigh. Then, if you shut your eyes, you will find that you are not far from that place up on the hill--the big rock and the two oaks--where the pup-boy that used to be you used to snuggle down with that first old pup-dog you ever had.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. What is the effect of the title?

2. How does Mr. Utter make us love the dog?

3. What knowledge of dog life does the writer show?

4. Point out words or expressions that are usually applied only to
human beings, that are here applied to dogs.

5. Point out adjective effects.

6. How does the writer make the dog seem amusing?

7. How does the writer make the dog seem admirable?

8. What human characteristics are attributed to the dog?

9. Point out noteworthy examples of humor.

10. Show how the writer employs detail as a means of emphasis.

11. Point out examples of especially effective metaphor.

12. What is said concerning the pup-boy and the pup-girl?

13. How does the essay make us feel toward dogs?

14. What is the effect of the closing sentences?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. My Dog 11. Cats
2. Lap Dogs 12. Kittens
3. Police Dogs 13. Rabbits
4. Hounds 14. Mice
5. Shepherd Dogs 15. Squirrels
6. Boston Bulls 16. Horses
7. Great Danes 17. Robins
8. Newfoundland Dogs 18. Sea Gulls
9. Greyhounds 19. Cows
10. Stray Dogs 20. Fish

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Select for your subject some animal with which you are intimately familiar, and in which you are especially and sympathetically interested. Write about that animal in such a way that you will bring to the surface its most humorous qualities and its most admirable qualities. Give a great number of details concerning the animal's habits, but give those details in a gossipy manner. Use quotations, if you can, or make allusions to books. Make all your work emphasize goodness. Make your closing paragraph your most effective paragraph,--one that will appeal to sentiment.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] According to Homer's _Odyssey_ when Ulysses returned after many years of wandering, his old dog “Argos” recognized him, even in disguise.

CHEWING GUM[2]
By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

_(1829-1900). A celebrated American essayist and editor. For many
years he wrote brilliant papers for_ Harper's Magazine _in the
departments called “The Editor's Drawer” and “The Editor's Study.”
He became the first President of the National Institute of Arts
and Letters. He was a great influence for good. Among his books
are_ My Summer in a Garden; Back-Log Studies; In the Wilderness;
The Relation of Literature to Life; As We Were Saying; Their
Pilgrimage. _He edited the valuable “American Men of Letters
Series,” and the remarkable work called_ Library of the World's
Best Literature, _a collection of extracts from the world's
literature, with which every student should be acquainted._

=The familiar essay takes for its subject anything that awakens the
interest of the essayist. Charles Dudley Warner wrote with freedom
and humor on a great number of subjects that in themselves suggest
light and humorous treatment rather than serious thinking. Among
his many informal essays is the one that follows, entitled _Chewing
Gum_.=

=What Mr. Warner says in the essay is by no means serious. It is
like the spoken reflections of an amused observer who has had his
attention attracted to the common American habit of chewing gum in
public. At the same time, under the kindly and facetious remarks,
is an undercurrent of satire--and satire means criticism.=

In language that is unfortunately understood by the greater portion of the people who speak English, thousands are saying on the first of January, a far-off date that it is wonderful any one has lived to see--“Let us have a new deal!” It is a natural exclamation, and does not necessarily mean any change of purpose. It always seems to a man that if he could shuffle the cards he could increase his advantages in the game of life, and, to continue the figure which needs so little explanation, it usually appears to him that he could play anybody else's hand better than his own. In all the good resolutions of the new year, then, it happens that perhaps the most sincere is the determination to get a better hand. Many mistake this for repentance and an intention to reform, when generally it is only the desire for a new shuffle of the cards. Let us have a fresh pack and a new deal, and start fair. It seems idle, therefore, for the moralist to indulge in a homily about annual good intentions, and habits that ought to be dropped or acquired, on the first of January. He can do little more than comment on the passing show.

It will be admitted that if the world at this date is not socially reformed it is not the fault of the Drawer,[3] and for the reason that it has been not so much a critic as an explainer and encourager. It is in the latter character that it undertakes to defend and justify a national industry that has become very important within the past ten years. A great deal of capital is invested in it, and millions of people are actively employed in it. The varieties of chewing gum that are manufactured would be a matter of surprise to those who have paid no attention to the subject, and who may suppose that the millions of mouths they see engaged in its mastication have a common and vulgar taste. From the fact that it can be obtained at the apothecary's, an impression has got abroad that it is medicinal. This is not true. The medical profession do not use it, and what distinguishes it from drugs--that they also do not use--is the fact that they do not prescribe it. It is neither a narcotic nor a stimulant. It cannot strictly be said to soothe or to excite. The habit of using it differs totally from that of the chewing of tobacco or the dipping of snuff. It might, by a purely mechanical operation, keep a person awake, but no one could go to sleep chewing gum. It is in itself neither tonic nor sedative. It is to be noticed also that the gum habit differs from the tobacco habit in that the aromatic and elastic substance is masticated, while the tobacco never is, and that the mastication leads to nothing except more mastication. The task is one that can never be finished. The amount of energy expended in this process if capitalized or conserved would produce great results. Of course the individual does little, but if the power evolved by the practice in a district school could be utilized, it would suffice to run the kindergarten department. The writer has seen a railway car--say in the West--filled with young women, nearly every one of whose jaws and pretty mouths was engaged in this pleasing occupation; and so much power was generated that it would, if applied, have kept the car in motion if the steam had been shut off--at least it would have furnished the motive for illuminating the car by electricity.

This national industry is the subject of constant detraction, satire, and ridicule by the newspaper press. This is because it is not understood, and it may be because it is mainly a female accomplishment: the few men who chew gum may be supposed to do so by reason of gallantry. There might be no more sympathy with it in the press if the real reason for the practice were understood, but it would be treated more respectfully. Some have said that the practice arises from nervousness--the idle desire to be busy without doing anything--and because it fills up the pauses of vacuity in conversation. But this would not fully account for the practice of it in solitude. Some have regarded it as in obedience to the feminine instinct for the cultivation of patience and self-denial--patience in a fruitless activity, and self-denial in the eternal act of mastication without swallowing. It is no more related to these virtues than it is to the habit of the reflective cow in chewing her cud. The cow would never chew gum. The explanation is a more philosophical one, and relates to a great modern social movement. It is to strengthen and develop and make more masculine the lower jaw. The critic who says that this is needless, that the inclination in women to talk would adequately develop this, misses the point altogether. Even if it could be proved that women are greater chatterers than men, the critic would gain nothing. Women have talked freely since creation, but it remains true that a heavy, strong lower jaw is a distinctively masculine characteristic. It is remarked that if a woman has a strong lower jaw she is like a man. Conversation does not create this difference, nor remove it; for the development of the lower jaw in women constant mechanical exercise of the muscles is needed. Now, a spirit of emancipation, of emulation, is abroad, as it ought to be, for the regeneration of the world. It is sometimes called the coming to the front of woman in every act and occupation that used to belong almost exclusively to man. It is not necessary to say a word to justify this. But it is often accompanied by a misconception, namely, that it is necessary for woman to be like man, not only in habits, but in certain physical characteristics. No woman desires a beard, because a beard means care and trouble, and would detract from feminine beauty, but to have a strong and, in appearance, a resolute underjaw may be considered a desirable note of masculinity, and of masculine power and privilege, in the good time coming. Hence the cultivation of it by the chewing of gum is a recognizable and reasonable instinct, and the practice can be defended as neither a whim nor a vain waste of energy and nervous force. In a generation or two it may be laid aside as no longer necessary, or men may be compelled to resort to it to preserve their supremacy.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. Why does the writer make use of some very colloquial
expressions?

2. Why did he use a number of long and somewhat formal words?

3. In what sense is the essay a New Year's essay?

4. Show how the author produces humor.

5. Show how the author avoids harshness of criticism.

6. What makes the essay forceful?

7. In what respects is the essay fantastic?

8. What advantage does the writer gain by appearing to support the
habit of chewing gum?

9. Point out examples of kindly satire.

10. What is the author's purpose?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. Whistling 11. Teasing
2. Lateness 12. Crowding
3. Whispering 13. Rudeness
4. Giggling 14. Inquisitiveness
5. Writing notes 15. Untidiness
6. Complaining 16. Forgetfulness
7. Hurrying 17. Conceit
8. Carelessness 18. Obstinacy
9. Making excuses 19. Vanity
10. Borrowing 20. Impatience

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

You are to write of some habit that is common and that is more or less annoying to well-bred people. Make your words, in mock seriousness, appear to defend the habit that you ridicule. Make your style of writing somewhat ponderous, as though you were writing with the utmost gravity, but be sure to write in such a way that your essay will convey your sense of the ridiculous. Let your whole essay so ridicule the annoying habit that you will tend to destroy it.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] From _As We Were Saying_, by Charles Dudley Warner. Copyright by Harper and Brothers.

[3] Drawer. The _Editor's Drawer_ of _Harper's Magazine_ for which Mr. Warner wrote many of his best essays.

THE MYSTERY OF AH SING
By ROBERT L. DUFFUS

_An editorial writer for the New York Globe, to which, on October
5, 1921, he contributed the following humorous editorial article._

=As we go about in daily life various people attract our attention;
their peculiarities amuse us, and we make semi-humorous but kindly
remarks concerning them. Such remarks are the germs of essays like
the following.=

=In the essay, _The Mystery of Ah Sing_, there is humor but not a
single unkind word. The essay makes us smile, but with sympathy and
understanding. Such essays, trivial as they may be, are restful and
pleasing.=

Ah Sing comes on Tuesdays to get the washing and on Saturdays to bring it back. He is an urbane, smiling person, who appears to view life impersonally and dispassionately. One would say that he realized that the career of Ah Sing was not of prime importance in a population so numerous and a universe so extensive. He loves to ask questions. How old is the mistress of the house? Where did she come from? How much does the master of the house earn? What does he do? Why haven't they any children? Where did they get all the books and pictures?

Ah Sing always wants to know about the vacations, both before and after taking, and looks intelligent when places like Nantucket and the Thousand Islands are mentioned. He follows the family fortunes like an old retainer, and seems to possess a kind of feudal loyalty. It would be morally impossible, not to say physically, to give the washing to any one but Ah Sing. He would come for it, and the mistress of the house would sink through the floor with contrition and embarrassment. He may die out of his job, or go back to China out of it, there to live like a mandarin, but he will not be fired out of it. Never will he join the army of unemployed; never will he stand humbly asking work. He is a monopoly, an institution, a friend.

So far one gets with Ah Sing. To lose him would be like losing a beloved pipe or a comfortable pair of slippers. He belongs amid the furniture of living, and is as simple, homely, and admirable as grandpa's picture on the wall. But what is Ah Sing thinking about? What is going on across that gulf which separates him from us? How many transmigrations must we all go through before we could know Ah Sing as well as we know the family from Indiana which moved in next door last week? How shall we penetrate to the soul of Ah Sing?

If we could answer these questions we could present ourselves forthwith at Washington with the solution of the world's most vexatious problem. But the answers are dark, Ah Sing is remote, and the East and the West have not yet met.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. In what respects is Ah Sing a mystery?

2. Why did the author write about Ah Sing?

3. What are Ah Sing's amusing characteristics?

4. What are Ah Sing's best characteristics?

5. Show that the author's language is original.

6. Show that the essay increases in effect toward the end.

7. How does the author avoid unkindness or satire?

8. How does the essay affect the reader?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. The Janitor 11. Grandmother
2. The Peanut Man 12. The Milk Man
3. The Auctioneer 13. The Small Boy
4. The Blind Man 14. The Newspaper Man
5. The Tramp 15. The Usher
6. The Old Soldier 16. The Policeman
7. The Violin Player 17. The Street Sweeper
8. The Dancing Teacher 18. Mother
9. The Scrub Woman 19. The Neighbors
10. The Baby 20. Relatives

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Write, with all kindness, about some one who amuses you. Do not include in your essay anything that will be in the nature of fault-finding or complaint. Point out, in a humorous way, the admirable and praiseworthy characteristics of the person about whom you write. Instead of writing a list of characteristics use original expressions that will indicate the real spirit of the character.

OLD DOC
By OPIE READ

_(1852--). An American journalist, noted for his work as Editor of_
The Arkansas Traveller. _Among his books, most of which concern
life in Arkansas, are_: Len Gansett; My Young Master; An Arkansas
Planter; Up Terrapin River; A Kentucky Colonel; On the Suwanee
River; Miss Polly Lop; The Captain's Romance; The Jucklins.

=The character sketch is interesting for the same reason that gossip
is interesting: we notice our neighbors and are curious to learn
more about them. We are all sharp observers of our fellows. We see
their oddities, their cranks, and their amusing habits just as
clearly as we see their virtues. We laugh and we admire--in much
the same spirit that a mother laughs at her baby, however much she
loves it.=

=Character sketches have been popular for many centuries. Chaucer's
_Prologue_ to _The Canterbury Tales_ is really a series of
shrewdly-true character sketches keenly tipped with humor, and full
of genuine respect for goodness. Sir Thomas Overbury (1581-1613)
wrote a number of strongly pointed sketches of character. A hundred
years later Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele conceived the
whimsical, good-hearted Sir Roger de Coverley and his company of
associates.=

=Out of such work grew not only the character sketch of to-day but
also material for the short story and the novel.=

=Mr. Read's presentation of the country doctor of the Old South is a
striking example of the character sketch. Following the example set
by Addison in 1711 Mr. Read first describes the character and then
tells an anecdote that reveals personality. The entire sketch is
redolent with good-humor.=

His house was old, with cedar-trees about it, a big yard, and in the corner a small office. In this professional hut there was only one window, the glass of which was dim with dust blown from the road. In the gentle breeze the lilacs and the roses swopped their perfume, while the guinea-hen arose from her cool nest, dug beneath the dahlias, to chase a katydid along the fence, and then with raucous cry to shatter the silence. The furnishings of the office were less than modest. In one corner a swayed bed threatened to fall, in another a wash-stand stood epileptic on three legs. Nailed against the wall was a protruding cabinet, giving off sick-room memories. The village druggist, compounder of the essences of strange and peculiar “yarbs,” might have bitter and pungent medicines, but Old Doc, himself an extractor of wild juices, had discovered the secret of the swamp. To go into his office and to come forth with no sign was a confession of the loss of smell. Sheep-shearing fills the nostrils with woolly dullness, but sheep-shearers could scent Old Doc as he drove along the road.

In every country the rural doctor is a natural sprout from the soil. His profession is almost as old as the daybreak of time. He bled the ancient Egyptian, blistered the knight of the Middle Ages, and poisoned the arrow of the Iroquois. He has been preserved in fiction, pickled in the drama, spiced in romance, and peppered in satire; but nowhere was he so pronounced a character as in America, in the South. He knew politics, but was not a politician. He looked upon man as a machinist viewing an engine, but was not an atheist. He cautioned health and flattered sickness. He listened with more patience to an old woman harping on her trouble than to a man in his prime relating his experience. His books were few, and the only medical journal found in his office was a sample copy. When his gathered lore failed him, he was wise in silence. To confess to any sort of ignorance would have crippled his trade. It was an art to keep loose things from rattling in his head when he shook it, and of this art he was a perfect master. In raiment he was not over-adorned, but near him you felt that you were in the presence of clothes. Philosophy's trousers might bag at the knees, theology's black vestment might be shy a button, art might wear a burr entangled in its tresses, and even the majesty of the law might go forth in slippers gnawed by a playful puppy; but old doc's “duds,” strong as they were in nostril penetration, must hug the image of neatness. He was usually four years behind the city's fashion, but this was shrewdly studied, for to dress too much after the manner of the flowing present would have branded him a foppish follower. The men might carp at his clean shirt every day, but it won favor with the women; and while robust medicine may steal secret delight from seeing two maul-fisted men punch each other in a ring, it must openly profess a preference for the scandals that shock society.

At no place along the numerous roads traversed by old doc was there a sign-post with a finger pointing toward the attainment of an ultimate ambition. No senate house, no woolsack of greatness, waited for him. The chill of foul weather was his most natural atmosphere; and should the dark night turn from rain to sleet, it was then that he heard a knock and a “Hello!” at his door. Down through the miry bottom-land and up the flint hillside flashed the light of his gig-lamp, striking responsive shine from the eye of the fascinated wolf. The farther he had to travel, the less likely was he to collect his bill. Usury might sell the widow's cow, for no one expected business to have a daintiness of touch; but if Doc sued for his fee, he was met even by the court with a sour look.

A summons to court as an expert witness in a murder trial gold-starred the banner of his career. It was then that he turned back to his heavy book, used mainly to prop the door open. Out of this lexicon he dug up words to confound the wise lawyer. It was in vain that the judge commanded him to talk not like the man in the moon, but like a man of this earth; he was not to be shaken from a pedestal that had cost him sweat to mount. The jury sat amazed at his learning. Asked to explain the meaning of a term, he would proceed to heap upon it a pile of incomprehensible jargon. It was like cracking the bones of the skeleton that stood behind his door, and giving to each splinter a sesquipedalian name. When told that he might “stand down,” he walked off to enjoy his victory. At the tavern, in the evening, he might be invited to sit in the game, done with the hesitating timidity of awed respect; but at cards it was discovered that he was an easy dabbler in common talk, not to say the profanity of the flat-boatmen.

Out of this atmosphere there arises the vision of old Doctor Rickney of Mississippi. He had appeared in court as an expert witness, and the county newspaper had given him a column of monstrous words, written by the doctor himself. He had examined the judge for life insurance, and it was hinted that he had been invited to attend a meeting of the medical convention, away off in Philadelphia. His professional cup was now about to foam over, when there fell an evil time.

Bill Saunders, down with a sort of swamp fever, was told by Dr. Rickney that his recovery was impossible. Bill was stubborn, and declined to accept Doc's verdict.

“Why, you poor old sot,” said Doc, “you must be nearer the end than I thought, since you have so little mind as to doubt my word. Here's your fever so high that it has almost melted my thermometer, and yet you question my professional forecast. And, besides, don't you know that you have ruined your constitution with liquor?”

Bill blew a hot breath.

“I don't know nothin' about constitutions nur the statuary of limitations, but I'm snickered if I'm goin' to die to please you nur nobody. All I need right now is possum baked along with about a peck of yams.”

“Possum! Why, by eleven-thirty to-night you'll be as dead as any possum.”

Bill drew another hot breath, and the leaves on a branch of honeysuckle peeping in at the open window were seen to wither with heat.

“I've got a hoss out thar in the stable, Doc, an' he's jes as good as any hoss you ever rid. An' I tell you whut I'll do: I'll bet him ag'in yo' hoss that I'll be up an' around in five weeks.”

Doc gave him a pitying look.

“All right; I'll just take that bet.”

Doc told it about the neighborhood, and along toward midnight, sitting in the rear room of a drug-store, he took out his watch, looked at it, and remarked:

“Well, by this time Bill Saunders is dead, and his horse belongs to me.”

The druggist spoke.

“I know the horse, and would like to have him. What'll you take for him, Doc?”

“Take for him! That horse is worth a hundred and fifty of as bright gold dollars as was ever dug out of the earth. Take for him!” says he. “Ain't he worth it, Nick?”

Nick, a yellowish lout, was sitting on the floor, with his back against the wall. For the most part his requirement of society was a mouthful of tobacco and a place to spit, and of the latter he was not over-careful. He added no more to civilization than worm-blight adds to a grape-vine, but without him no native drama could have been written. He was as native to the neighborhood as a wrinkle is to a ram's horn. In the absence of all other wit, he knew where his interest lay. Therefore he haggled not to respond to Doc's appeal. Doc had steadied his wife down from the high shakes of ague, had time and again reminded Nick of that fact, but had not yet received the five bushels of corn and the four pumpkins of average size, the physician's legitimate levy. Here was a chance on Nick's part to throw off at least two bushels. He arose, and dusted the seat of his brown jeans.

“Doc,” said he, “nobody don't know no mo' about nobody's hoss nur I do. An' I'm sayin' it without the fear of bein' kotch in a lie that Bill's hoss is wuth two hundred an' seventy-fi' dollars of as good money as ever built a church.”

“You've heard him,” was Doc's triumphant turn to the druggist. “But let me tell you. About a half-hour from now I've got to catch the _Lady Blanche_ for Memphis, on my way to attend the medical convention in Philadelphia. I've got to read a paper on snake-bite.”

Nick broke in upon him.

“I'll bet it's the Guv'ment that is a axin' you to do it.”

“Well, we won't discuss that,” was Doc's dismissal of the subject. Then he turned again to the druggist. “Got to get to that convention; and as I'll have a good deal of entertaining to do, I'll need a hundred extra. So you just give me a hundred dollars and take the horse. But you'll have to be quick about it, for I just heard the _Lady Blanche_ blowing around the bend.”

The druggist snatched at the knob or his safe, swung the door open, and seized a hundred dollars.

One afternoon, five weeks later, when the _Lady Blanche_ touched the shore on her way down, Old Doc stepped off. There on a bale of cotton, smoking a cob pipe, sat Bill Saunders.

“W'y, hello, Doc!”

Doc dropped his carpet-bag, caught up the tail of his coat, and with it blotted the sweat on his brow.

“Fine day,” said Bill. “'Lowed we'd have a little rain, but the cloud looked like it had business summers else. An' by the way, Doc, up whar you been what's that liquor as distroys the constitution wuth by the gallon?”

Doc reached down and took up his carpet-bag.

“Bill Saunders, sir, I don't want anything to do with you. I gave you my confidence, but you have deceived me. And now, sir, your lack of integrity----”

“Gives me a hoss,” Bill interrupted. “An' say, Doc, I seed the druggist man jest now, an' he said suthin' about a hundred dollars you owed him.”

Doc walked up to the cotton-bale and placed his carpet-bag on it, close beside Bill.

“Saunders,” said he, “in this thing is a pistol nearly a foot and a half long. Now I'll give you my horse all right, even if you are the most unreliable man I ever saw, and I'll pay the druggist his hundred; but if you go around the neighborhood boasting that you got well after I gave you up, something is going to flash, and it won't be out of a black bottle, either, but right out of Old Miss Betsy, here in this carpet-bag. I don't blame you for getting well, as a sort of a lark, you understand; but when you make a serious affair of it, you hurt my professional pride. Old Miss Betsy is right in here. Do you gather me?”

“I pick up yo' threads putty well, Doc, I think.”

“All right; and see that with them threads you sew up your mouth. You may be proof against the pizen of the swamp, but you ain't proof against the jolt of a lead-mine. That's all.”

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. How does the description of the doctor's home emphasize
character?

2. What was the doctor's ability?

3. How does the writer make the doctor a universal character as
well as a local character?

4. How does the writer produce humor?

5. How does the writer arouse our respect for the doctor?

6. How does the writer arouse our sympathy?

7. What character trait does the anecdote reveal?

8. Why does the writer use so much conversation in telling the
anecdote?

9. What advantage does the writer gain by ending the sketch so
abruptly?

10. How does the sketch affect the reader?

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. The Druggist 11. The Teacher
2. A Borrowing Neighbor 12. The Minister
3. The Natural Leader 13. The Policeman
4. The Peanut Man 14. The Expressman
5. The Milkman 15. The Freshman
6. The Iceman 16. The Senior
7. The Conductor 17. The College Student
8. The Clerk 18. The Elevator Boy
9. The Postman 19. The Farmer
10. The Lawyer 20. The Grocer

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Select for your subject a person in whom you see many laughable traits, but whom you really admire. Sum up his characteristics briefly and suggestively. Make your humor the kind that will awaken smiles but not ridicule. Use exaggeration in moderation. Be particularly careful to select words that will convey the half-humorous, half-serious thought that you wish to communicate. End your sketch by telling an anecdote that will emphasize one or more of the characteristics that you have mentioned. Tell the anecdote in a “snappy” way, with crisp dialogue.

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING
By HELEN DAVENPORT

_(1882--). Mrs. Helen Davenport Gibbons is a graduate of Bryn Mawr.
Her literary work appears in various publications. Among her books
are_ The Red Rugs of Tarsus; Les Turcs ont Passe Là!; A Little Gray
Home in France; Paris Vistas.

=A good essay is much like part of a conversation,--the part spoken
by an interesting speaker. It is breezy, unconventional, and free
in its use of familiar terms. How well all this is brought out in
the following extract from an essay on Christmas.=

My husband and I would not miss that day-before-Christmas last-minute rush for anything. And even if I risk seeming to talk against the sane and humane “shop-early-for-Christmas” propaganda, I am going to say that the fun and joy of Christmas shopping is doing it on the twenty-fourth. Avoid the crowds? I don't want to! I want to get right in the middle of them. I want to shove my way up to counters. I want to buy things that catch my eye and that I never thought of buying and wouldn't buy on any day in the year but December twenty-fourth. I want to spend more money than I can afford. I want to experience that panicky feeling that I really haven't enough things, and to worry over whether my purchases can be divided fairly among my quartet. I want to go home after dark, reveling in the flare of lamps lighting up mistletoe, holly wreaths, and Christmas-trees on hawkers' carts, stopping here and there to buy another pound of candy or a box of dates or a foolish bauble for the tree. I want to shove bundle after bundle into the arms of my protesting husband and remind him that Christmas comes but once a year until he becomes profane. And, once home, on what other winter evening would you find pleasure in dumping the whole lot on your bed, adding to the jumble of toys and books already purchased or sent by friends, and, all other thoughts banished, calmly making the children's piles despite aching back and legs, impatient husband, cross servants, and a dozen dinner-guests waiting in the drawing-room?

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS

1. By what rhetorical means does the writer communicate her emotion?

2. Show how the writer makes detail contribute to effect.

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. Christmas Gifts 11. Making Gifts for Friends
2. Giving a Party 12. Collecting
3. New Year's Day 13. Going to Games
4. Fourth of July 14. Buying a Hat
5. Memorial Day 15. Crowds
6. Family Reunions 16. Spending Money
7. Answering Letters 17. Hurrying
8. Holidays 18. Christmas Trees
9. Vacation Days 19. School Celebrations
10. Callers 20. Just Foolishness!

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Write on a subject in which you think you are, perhaps, excusably foolish. Be frankly honest and genuinely enthusiastic. Write in such a way that you will make your readers sympathize with you in your “foolishness.”

SUNDAY BELLS
By GERTRUDE HENDERSON

_At different times Miss Henderson has lived in Indiana, California
and New York. During the World War she gave active patriotic
service. She contributes to various publications._

=The bells of Sunday have given subjects to many poets and to many
essayists. Their sound is full of suggestions of peace, calm and
the solemnity of worship.=

=The writer of the following essay expresses, as she says, the
emotions of many people. It is that seizing upon what is, at the
same time, intensely personal and yet universal that gives the
essay its power.=

=Although the essay is written in a gossipy style it has a quiet
spirit entirely in harmony with its subject.=

Are all of us potentially devotees, I wonder. When the bells ring and I look up to the aspiring steeples against the sky in the middle of a Sunday morning, or when I hear them sounding upon the quiet of the Sunday evening dusk or sending their clear-toned invitation out through the secular bustle of the mid-week streets and in at doors and windows, summoning, summoning, there is that in me that hears them and starts up and would obey. It must be something my grandmothers left there--my long line of untraceable grandmothers back, back through the hundreds of years. I wonder if in all the other people of this questioning generation whose thoughts have separated them from the firm, sustaining certainties of the past the same ghostly allegiance rises, the same vague emotions stir and quiver at the evoking of the Sunday bells. I should think it altogether likely, for I have never found that in anything very real in me I am at all different from everybody else I meet.