upon the plot given you.

Summarize orally in a few sen

tences the plot for each chapter.

II. Write a short story of one or more of the kinds described on pages 414-415 above, selecting, if possible, your plots from among those you have already made yourself.

III. Criticize orally or in writing the best and the worst stories you have read outside of this book in the last month. IV. Get a plot which can be expanded to a novel (a plot taken from a novel you have not read see II will do). Plan the first chapter and write it out. Pass on the plot and the first chapter to some one else in the class who will write the second chapter, and so on.

V. Write the first half of a story based upon one of your plots. Exchange with a classmate for the first half of one of his stories. Finish the stories.

VI. Retell familiar stories, using the same plots, but making all the conditions such as might happen in your own town and within your own experience.

VII. Construct possible stories in which George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Queen Victoria, Stonewall Jackson, Walter Raleigh, Julius Cæsar, Ferdinando de Cortez, Michelangelo, Red Jacket (the Indian Chief), William Penn, Queen Elizabeth, or Daniel Boone might have figured.

VIII. Construct possible stories in which Natty Bumpo, Gurth, De Bracy, Gratiano, Portia, Jaques, Huckleberry Finn, Friday, or John Silver might have figured.

IX. Study the following stories with the suggestions of this chapter in mind:

FRECKLES

Lynn Roby Meekins

Copyright, 1901, by the Frank A. Munsey Co.

Nature named him.

Once in his earlier youth he was known as

Reddy, but as he gathered years his hair grew darker, and the

freckles shone forth with greater glory. They tipped his nose and adorned his ears. They seemed to flow over his entire face, almost tumbling into the depths of his blue eyes. They covered forehead as well as cheek, and in places they seemed to be piled up on one another, as if waiting for a vacant place.

When he was a freight brakeman, no one knew him except as Freckles. They all liked him even the engineer, and that is saying a great deal. He had another name, of course; on the pay roll it was James F. Morse, but with the men from one end of the run to the other it was nothing but Freckles.

He began as usual, and he was as green as his freckles were brown, but he had grit, and he passed through the primary experiences with the secret approval of his immediate superiors. He accepted his nickname as he did his duties, quietly and cheerfully. Whether the weather was good or bad, whether the train was held up hours on the siding or had a clear track for its station and a warm bed, Freckles never complained. The conductor soon found out that the lad was a trustworthy fellow.

Thus it went along until Freckles knew more about things than the conductor himself.

One fateful night the train it was too heavy for the engine grade, the very worst place on the line. It began to snow like fury, and when the snow had swirled down for some time, the engineer found that the straining upon the engine had broken her down. Then there was nothing to do but to send some one several miles up the line for help. It was bitter cold, and to most men it would have been a walk into another land. All saw the impossibility of all except Freckles.

the yard master should have known - got stalled on the Hammond

it

"I'll go," he said, and he went.

Less than a month afterwards an order was issued transferring him to the passenger service. Even those who saw him jumped over their heads could not object to his promotion.

Freckles never talked about his past or his home; but there were a few facts behind it all.

One day, before he became a brakeman, he walked into the office

-

of the president of the road. The president wheeled in his chair and exclaimed, "Why, hello, Freckles - James, I mean - where did you come from, and what are you doing in this part of the world?"

“I came from home,” he replied.

"Well, sit down and give an account of yourself. in the East, and what brought you out West?"

How are things

And James - Freckles, that is told the home news, news that was interesting to President Ranson, who was born in the same town, and whose lifelong friend had been the father of Freckles. Then, after all the local gossip, Freckles got down to business.

"Mr. Ranson, I've come out here to be a railroad man. All I want you to do is to put me in somewhere I don't care where and let me work out the rest. Just give me the usual chance of one who wants to work from the bottom as far up as he deserves to go. I don't want a clerkship, but a job on the road, so that I can get the practical part of it."

President Ranson had heard that kind of talk before, and all he said in reply was to ring for a cab and send Freckles up to his house. "I'll see you at dinner," he added, "and we'll talk it over."

The house was a mansion, and Miss Judith Ranson was its most precious possession. She knew Freckles, and Freckles knew her, for the Ransons generally spent part of the summer in Medway, where Freckles lived. And so the day passed pleasantly, with billiards and an afternoon drive and a delightful dinner in the evening. After that Mr. Ranson and Freckles had a talk in the library.

"You mean this, James?" said Mr. Ranson.

"Every word of it," said Freckles.

"And you'll start as a freight brakeman?"

"As soon as you say so."

"All right. I believe you've got it in you. We'll go to the theater to-night, and have a good time, and to-morrow you will report for duty at the freight yard."

So Freckles became a brakeman, and won his transfer to the passenger by his walk through the blizzard,

It was his second month in the passenger service, and he found himself getting on better trains, until he reached one of the expresses.

He was devoted to his work, unfailing in his attention to duty, and watchful for the comfort of the passengers. As usual, he went by the name of Freckles-really, there seemed to be no other name. They tell the story yet that the funniest sight that ever happened on the run between Marketville and Concord was when Freckles, in the kindness of his heart, tried to hold a crying baby, to give a little rest to a tired mother. They said the baby got an idea that the freckles could be pulled off, and began to act accordingly.

But Freckles got along, and now he was on the express. On this particular night there was an additional importance to the train, because it had taken on the president's private car, in which were the president and his wife and daughter and some friends. Freckles knew this, and he also knew that even if his place were in the rear of the train which it was not discipline would throw a chill on any social intentions. And if the Ransons should make the adwhich they would surely have done he would have been extremely uncomfortable.

vances

So Freckles kept well in front, where he belonged, and smiled to himself, as if fully enjoying the situation. A noisy passenger, who was becoming unruly in the smoking car, claimed his attention for a few moments. When the man threatened to whip everybody, Freckles stood closer, gazed at him through his calm blue eyes, and said: "I wouldn't talk that way if I were you, and you must not, anyhow, you know. Be quiet.”

That "Be quiet" seemed to weigh a ton. The brave passenger sank promptly into his seat and in a few minutes was asleep.

The train, which was half an hour behind time, was rattling along at a sixty-mile clip. Freckles stood just inside the car at the front end, when suddenly there was a flare of something, followed by a dull report. It might have been escaping steam, but it did not sound like it. Then he looked out, and realized that the train had too much speed for the approach to a near station. It was on a down grade, too otherwise the locomotive might have stopped of itself.

He sprang through the door, rushed through the baggage car, and, with the agility of an acrobat, clambered over the two express All the time the train was keeping its speed, and the conductor was pulling the rope in frenzy.

cars.

As Freckles reached the tender, he saw in a moment that something had happened. An accident had thrown the steam into the engine's cab, and both the engineer and fireman were probably dead.

But that did not stop Freckles. He felt his way through the steam, which was not so bad then. He had learned something about engines in his work on the freights, and he soon stopped the train.

Well, the engineer and fireman were saved by long weeks of nursing; and Freckles, who was taken to the private car, and afterwards to the home of the Ransons, was a different man after he got well. There was not a single freckle on his face.

Mr. Ranson, who is getting along in years now, but who expects to keep the presidency in the family, has one little joke which he never tires of telling.

66

"If you want to get rid of freckles," he says, 'use steam, and use it good and hot. If you have any doubts about it, ask Jim."

Jim by the way, it used to be Freckles is Mr. Ranson's son in law.

THE GOVERNOR AND THE NOTARY
Washington Irving

In former times there ruled, as governor of the Alhambra, a doughty old cavalier, who, from having lost one arm in the wars, was commonly known by the name of Manco, or "The one-armed Governor." He in fact prided himself upon being an old soldier, wore his moustaches curled up to his eyes, a pair of campaigning boots, and a toledo as long as a spit.

He was, moreover, exceedingly proud and punctilious, and tenacious of all his privileges and dignities. Under his sway the immunities of the Alhambra, as a royal residence and domain, were rigidly exacted. No one was permitted to enter the fortress with