down at him, stood the French officer -the officer whose picture he had carried in his mind so long and so far. Compared with the original, at last in every lineament how like it was!

He moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubledick heard his steps coming quickly down into the hall. He entered through an 10 archway. There was a bright, sudden look upon his face, much such a look as it had worn in that fatal moment.

Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick? Enchanted to receive him! A thousand apologies! The servants were all out in the air. There was a little fête among them in the garden. In effect, it was the fête day of my daughter, the little cherished and pro20 tected of Madame Taunton.

30

He was so gracious and so frank that Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick could not withhold his hand. "It is the hand of a brave Englishman," said the French officer, retaining it while he spoke. "I could respect a brave Englishman, even as my foe, how much more as my friend! I also am a soldier."

"He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; he did not take such note of my face, that day, as I took of his," thought Captain Richard Doubledick. "How shall I tell him?"

The French officer conducted his guest into a garden and presented him to his wife, an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting with Mrs. Taun40 ton in a whimsical old-fashioned pavilion. His daughter, her fair young face beaming with joy, came running to embrace him; and there was a boy baby to tumble down among the orange trees on the broad steps, in making for his father's legs. A multitude of children visitors were dancing to sprightly music, and all the servants and peasants about the château were

dancing too. It was a scene of inno- 50 cent happiness that might have been invented for the climax of the scenes of peace which had soothed the Captain's journey.

He looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding bell rang, and the French officer begged to Ishow him his rooms. They went upstairs into the gallery from which the officer had looked down; and Monsieur 60 le Capitaine Richard Doubledick was cordially welcomed to a grand outer chamber, and a smaller one within, all clocks and draperies, and hearths, and brazen dogs, and tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and vastness.

"You were at Waterloo," said the French officer.

"I was," said Captain Richard Doubledick. "And at Badajos."

70

Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he sat down to consider, "What shall I do, and how shall I tell him?" At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought between English and French officers, arising out of the recent war; and these duels, and how to avoid this officer's hospitality, were the uppermost thought in 80 Captain Richard Doubledick's mind.

He was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he should have dressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taunton spoke to him outside the door, asking if he could give her the letter he had brought from Mary. "His mother, above all," the Captain thought. "How shall I tell her?"

"You will form a friendship with 90 your host, I hope," said Mrs. Taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, “that will last for life. He is so truehearted and so generous, Richard, that you can hardly fail to esteem one another. If he had been spared," she kissed, not without tears, the locket in which she wore his hair,

"he would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and would have been truly happy that the evil days were past which made such a man his enemy."

She left the room; and the Captain walked, first to one window, whence he could see the dancing in the garden, then to another window, whence he 10 could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful vineyards.

"Spirit of my departed friend," said he, "is it through thee these better thoughts are rising in my mind? Is it thou who hast shown me, all the way I have been drawn to meet this man, the blessings of the altered time? Is it thou who hast sent thy stricken mother to me, to stay my angry hand? 20 Is it from thee the whisper comes, that this man did his duty as thou didst― and as I did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me here on earth-and that he did no more?"

He sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he rose up, made the second strong resolution of his life that neither to the French officer, nor to the mother of his 30 departed friend, nor to any soul, while

either of the two was living, would he breathe what only he knew. And when he touched that French officer's glass with his own, that day at dinner, he secretly forgave him in the name of the Divine Forgiver of injuries.

Here I ended my story as the first Poor Traveler. But if I had told it now, I could have added that the time 40 has since come when the son of Major Richard Doubledick, and the son of that French officer, friends as their fathers were before them, fought side by side in one cause, with their respective nations, like long-divided brothers whom the better times have brought together, fast united.

44. one cause, the Crimean War, in which France and England were allies, and which was in progress when this story was written.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

1. What was Richard's motive in going to Chatham? What is the significance of taking the King's shilling? Under what name did Richard enlist? Why did he conceal his own name?

2. How did he begin his soldier life? To what would such a course tend? Describe Doubledick's captain. How was Richard affected by his captain's eyes? How can you explain this?

3. How did the Captain show his interest in Richard? What appeal did he make to Dick's manhood? How was Dick affected by the mention of his mother? What promise did he make to the Captain?

4. Through what "stormy times" did Dick's regiment fight its way? What was the influence of the two friends upon others in the regiment?

5. Tell the story of Major Taunton's death. What rank did Dick hold at this time? For what did he seem to live after his friend's death?

6. How many years passed before Dick returned to England? What rank had he attained at that time? To whom only had he told his story? Read the words used by Dick in telling Mrs. Taunton what her son had done for him.

7. What famous battle took place soon after Dick rejoined his regiment? In what city did he lie ill? How did Mary Marshall come again into his life?

8.

Under what circumstances did Dick at last meet the French officer? What did the Frenchman say as he took Dick's hand? Read the words of Mrs. Taunton when she told Dick how her son would have felt toward the brave Frenchman. Read the words addressed to the spirit of his friend as Dick put away from him forever the thought of revenge.

9. What was the second great resolution of Dick's life? In what war did the son of Major Doubledick fight side by side with the son of the French officer? What might be added today about the grandson of the brave Englishman and the grandson of the brave Frenchman?

SEED-TIME AND HARVEST

JOHN GREENleaf WhittieR

As o'er his furrowed fields which lie Beneath a coldly-dropping sky,

Yet chill with winter's melted snow, The husbandman goes forth to sow,

wait for his reward; he may not be alive when the time of reaping comes; his work may be for others. So with the patriotic citizen: he does not serve for the sake of immediate gain, but in order that future generations may live more securely.

2. Such a comparison as this is called a simile. Look up the word in the Index of Special Terms, at the end of the book, for other examples.

3. Study with special care the first five stanzas. The first two lay the foundation for the simile, or comparison. In what ways are the husbandmen and the patriot alike? When Whittier wrote, America was free; what then does the poet mean by his references to "ventures" and trusting "to warmer sun"? In the fourth and fifth stanzas how is the simile advanced? Think carefully upon the fifth stanza. Then re-read the first two lines of the same stanza. What is "God's great thought"? Commit this stanza to memory.

4. This poem may serve as a transition between the group of selections you have just been reading and those that immediately follow. You have been reading about certain illustrations, told in story form, of ideals of service. A man lives not for himself alone, but for others. He lives most intelligently for himself, that is, he advances in power and happiness, when he gives up thinking about himself as the center of his world. The selections that follow illustrate this relationship between man and his fellows from a slightly different angle. Instead of stories about individuals you will find comments in prose and verse upon the meaning of this ideal in a democracy. Democracy is not a form of government; it is a partnership, a brotherhood. The suggestion is in Whittier's poem. Read it once more, try to see it clearly, and try to get, with special clearness, the poet's idea that this "great thought" of Freedom is one requiring two things to bring it into reality: coöperation in service, and working as the husbandman works, inspired by the vision of a harvest that is to bless mankind after seed-time and growthtime are past.

It seems so long ago that I might almost say, "Once upon a time". an Italian came to our town with a grind-organ, a monkey, and a parrot. The grind-organ and the monkey performed for rich and poor alike, but only the lucky owner of a certain number of kreutzers could arouse the parrot, which, with eyes shut, sat 10 upon his perch while the organ played and the monkey performed. No doubt the parrot was trying to forget this wretched company, and was dreaming of the far-off paradise which once was his.

Now kreutzers, the small coin of our realm, were rather rare in the pockets of little boys. Inasmuch as the par

8. kreutzer, the Austrian kreutzer is meant, worth at the old normal rate of exchange a little less than half a cent in American money.

rot was announced to be a celebrated fortune-teller, I wanted to prove him; 20 so I teased my dear mother just long enough to get the coveted number of

coins.

With an air of great importance I pushed through the crowd which encircled the Italian, and the eyes of the multitude were upon me. At least I thought they were, although in reality they were fixed on the parrot; for there had been long dispute as to 30 whether he was alive or not. His master took my money and struck the perch upon which the bird sat immovable, with eyes shut. Quizzically it cocked its head, looked at the promised reward in the hand of its trainer, then majestically descended, drew an envelope out of a row, which no doubt held the fate of all youths of my age, and dropped it upon the little table. 40 Thus my fortune was told, and my fate sealed.

In spite of the allurements offered, my imagination was fired by the parrot's prophecy, and that evening I sought out my teacher and asked him how to go to America.

"It is so far, my boy," he said, "that you will never reach there. It is one day by the omnibus, four days and nights by the railroad, and then across the yam-the great sea-for fourteen days.

"A ship," he continued, "does not go like the omnibus, but like a nutshell on the pottock, and you may at any moment be spilled over and eaten by the fish."

Long, long after this, my boyhood outgrown, a part of the parrot's prophecy was to be fulfilled.

In the part of the world where I lived there were, as everywhere, the rulers and the ruled, the oppressors and the oppressed: viz., the Magyars and the Slovaks. The latter have never

been strong enough to gain national independence, although once there 50 was a Slovak kingdom, and they cherish the memory of a great king whose name was Svatopluk. The warlike Magyars easily subjugated these agricultural Slavs, and they remained an unawakened, half-stupid, servile race. My natural feeling for the oppressed was intensified by the fact that in spite of their many faults they were a lovable people. . . . I 60 sensed their wrongs in my childhood and felt them keenly as I grew into manhood, especially after I came in touch with the revolutionary literature of that period. I think that most boys pass through some such heroic stage, where the thought of martyrdom seems like wine in their blood. I was at that age and committed many a senseless indiscretion. 70

One day, when I was at home during the Pentecostal vacation after a severe examination period, a copyist from the judge's office came to my mother and told her that for a certain sum he would reveal to her an official secret, which would save me from falling into the hands of the vengeful government. I am fairly sure I was liable to a reprimand or a slight so punishment, and that the shrewd copyist played on the fears of a Jewish mother who loved her boy and feared the law. Before I knew it I was on my way to America, the copyist promising to hold the secret till I should be safe across the border. Within three days of my leaving home I was on the big yam, the ship did act like a nutshell on the pottock, and I 90 wished many a time that I had left the parrot dreaming on his perch instead of waking him to prophesy for me so awful a fate.

When I went down for the first time into the steerage, no one said a word of cheer, no one waved farewell.