It was a burly brakeman that made the announcement as he pulled off his greasy gloves and mopped his sweaty face. No one in the little office stirred. Down the track only the consumptive cough of an engine going light to the roundhouse broke the quiet of a hot mid-August afternoon. The interchange clerk knocked the ashes from his pipe, placed it carefully in its case, and returned it to his pocket. "When?" he queried as he readjusted the ink pad on the desk before him. The brakeman had his nose in a dipper of ice water. Not until he had gulped down two dipperfuls and sighed deeply with satisfaction did he seem to give any thought to the question. "Why, just now," he replied indifferently. "Went down the second time as I was goin' past." I rushed from the office and sped down the path to the gravel pit. Surrounded by a curious crowd, a dozen half-naked Poles were working feverishly over a limp, wet body. Soon a doctor came. He roughly pushed the men aside, rolled the drowned man over on his back, thumped his chest, and opened his mouth. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "No use," he said, "he's dead," and laughed as he strode to his buggy. As I stumbled back to the yard office a great black mist came over the sun, and everything seemed cold and black and wrong. "Did Mead go out with Timpe on Number Four?" the clerk asked without looking up, as I reached the office. I dropped into a chair without answering and stared out across the tracks. c. My own thoughts were absorbing, and as I hurried down the street, I scarcely noticed the little group of children just ahead. Their eager laughter seemed only to belong to the general scheme of things, and not to be separated from the empty streets and the dusky twilight. In my mind I was counting up the remaining weeks of college and trying to figure where the last four years had gone, when a quick turn on the part of the children dashed me almost against them. Just in time I caught a small arm and steadied one of the boys who was about to fall. "Careful, little man," I admonished, "you pretty near had a tumble." I looked up to see what had caused the children to turn so suddenly and found myself gazing into a dingy shop window. Then, actuated by an impulse which I never took the trouble to explain, I followed the little group through the low doorway. The first glance told me the cause of the eagerness and the hurry. Standing on tiptoe with noses against the glass of the show case stood four children, three boys and a girl. In the case were rows of shallow trays filled with that variety of sweetmeats known as penny goods. I even recognized some old favorites of my own, such as marshmallow cigars and licorice babies. Gravely, and with a complete sense of the importance of the occasion, I watched the choice of each as he clamored to be heard. The smallest a boy, could scarcely get his eyes on a level with the bottom of the case, his call was none the less insistent. "I want red drops. I want red drops," he urged, with tiny hand stretched. Fascinated, I watched the little red disks disappear, lea telltale streaks of scarlet across cheek and lips. Another demanded a stic peppermint candy, while the girl, after retracting several decisions, dec on gum. There remained but one, evidently the oldest, and he was ta longest to consider. Up and down the case his eyes wandered, searching what he wanted. His eyes rested several moments on the suspicious l ing plug of licorice tobacco, but with a sigh he turned away. "What do you get the most of for a cent?" he asked finally. Upon b shown the marshmallows his indecision vanished and into his hand fou the fluffy white squares were counted with momentous exactness. The the same helter-skelter manner all four tumbled out into the street ag "What will you have, sir?" I started up and met the inquiring gaze of the shopwoman. "Why -a. How do you sell those apples?" I asked after I had allowed eyes to wander hopelessly over the shelves of cans. "The little ones are two for five, and the big ones five," the woman swered and rolled several of them out on the case. I chose the biggest in sight and laid down a nickel. "Strange," I thought as I too stepped out into the street, "that ten y ago I would have bought jelly beans and to-night I had to buy an apple d. Privates Tommy Burns and "Long Pete" Hogan, Massachus National Guard, crawled slowly from beneath a pile of rubbish. W chattering teeth and shivering limbs they gained their feet and surve the blackened ruins of the city. The fire had indeed left little. Hogan kicked his erstwhile bed disdainfully. "Huh!" he grow "No tents, no blankets, no grub since yesterday noon, no nuthin'." "I'm hungry," Burns averred very simply but with emotion. "D you suppose we could find somethin' to eat?” Hogan flung him a glance of extreme disgust. "Yes, probably," snapped. "Charcoal, maybe, or a warm brick. You - but what's tha Ten feet away the rubbish was in a state of violent commotion. it fell apart and a small refugee pig from one of the cattle wharves stro nonchalantly into view. Slo "A pig, by the holy Saint Patrick," squealed Hogan, his rifle spring involuntarily to his hip. "Hold on," warned Burns, "do you want the guard down on us? C him the baynit, you fool." Cautiously, and with many endearing terms, the two soldiers approac their victim. But the pig, scenting danger in their too friendly actions, quetted with them just out of reach, and finally took to his heels, followed by the two gleaming bayonets. Straight down the street fled the pig, and Burns and Hogan pursued their elusive breakfast with single-minded intentness. On they went, stumbling over a sleeping soldier at nearly every step, and accumulating an uproarious following of breakfastless messmates. - But they were gaining. Now but a foot intervened between the pig and their bayonets now only six inches. With a yell of triumph, Hogan hurled himself forward and impaled the pig right on top of a sleeper, who awoke bruised and swearing, while Burns stumbled over the heap and landed a full length beyond. In an instant, however, he had clambered to his feet to protect the spoils of war from the gathering crowd. "I guess I spitted him nice now," gasped Hogan as he recovered himself and the pig. "Who's got But he never finished his question. The sleeper upon whose body the last act of the tragedy had occurred confronted him with blazing eyes. It was the captain! "Privates Burns and Hogan, you are under arrest," he said, and then called, "Frensen !" "Yes, sir," shouted a tow-headed person, saluting. "Cook this pig for my breakfast." 8. Jean Paul Richter once said, "Never read till you have thought yourself empty; never write till you have read yourself full." Just what did he mean by this advice? Do you agree with him? 9. Go to the college library and ask the librarian to point out some of the most reliable reference works. Find the distinctive features of each. By means of a test case, make sure that you can use these books readily. 10. When you begin to collect material from printed sources, you can often find a bibliography already prepared. Have you ever seen the bibliographies on special subjects which are issued by the Library of Congress? Examine some of them. II. The Writer (Vol. 23, p. 166) tells what unusual efforts several authors have made to get complete information on their subjects before writing. Can you find in the prefaces of authoritative books any evidences of thoroughness in mastering sources ? 12. How does material in The Atlantic Monthly differ from that in McClure's? in Munsey's? in The Political Science Quarterly? in The Wall Street Journal? 13. How can one learn about an author? What information is the title page likely to give? the preface or introduction? such ART WRIT. ENG. -6 books as Who's Who and Who's Who in America? What magaz publish information about their contributors? 14. Do Emerson's Journals show that he had an abundanc material left over from his finished writings? What kind of mat did he store up in these journals ? 15. In The House of Harper we are told that Thomas Hardy's conception of Tess was derived from a glimpse he had of a con country lass sitting in the tail end of a cart which rumbled past as he was strolling along the road. Her pretty face was so sad appealing as it slowly disappeared from view that it haunted many a day, and he evolved from this transient vision the story wh has become an English classic. Can you see in this incident an il tration of the sensitiveness, the thoughtfulness, and the human s pathy which characterize the man with "an eye for copy"? 16. As a stimulus to closer observation read Sharp Eyes (in Loc and Wild Honey) and The Art of Seeing Things (in Leaf and Tend by John Burroughs. 17. Hawthorne said: "I would advise you not to stick too a rately to the bare facts, either in your descriptions or your narrativ else your hand will be cramped, and the result will be a wane of f dom that will deprive you of a higher truth than that which strive to attain. Allow your fancy pretty free license, and omit heightening touches merely because they did not chance to hap before your eyes. If they did not happen, they at least ought which is all that concerns you." What "higher truth" did he h in mind when he wrote this? Can you express clearly your own c ception of this "higher truth"? 18. In Representative Men Emerson says of Goethe: "He clothed our modern existence with poetry. Amid littleness and det he detected the Genius of life, the old cunning Proteus, nestling cl beside us, and showed that the dullness and prose we ascribe to age was only another of his masks: 'His very flight is presence in disguise :' - that he had put off a gay uniform for a fatigue dress, and was a whit less vivacious or rich in Liverpool or the Hague than once Rome or Antioch." Do you see the poetry of everyday life? you try? CHAPTER III. THE WRITER'S MEDIUM I. THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD WORKING If a writer hopes to say effectively what he wants to say, he must possess an adequate working vocabulary. In the first place, it should express clearly the knowledge he has gained through experience and observation, the so-called facts of life. Whether he is explaining the principle of an aëroplane, arguing against the recall of judges, describing a park full of children from the slums, or telling the story of a vacation spent in Saskatchewan, he must make his reader understand. Secondly, his vocabulary should reflect his own individuality. He must not only explain processes, argue propositions, describe objects, and recount action, but he must make the processes, the arguments, the objects, and the action significant and full of life and color by revealing his attitude toward the material he treats. Sometimes we meet persons whose comments on the most vital matters are expressed in the manner of algebraic formulas; to them, words are only conventional symbols to be used in treating "facts." Again we meet others who cannot explain anything thoroughly, who yet succeed in expressing their dislike or admiration for whatever they may be considering; to them, language is less conventional than personal. These two classes have vocabularies that are equally inadequate. It is true that language is conventional; words are rather rigid symbols which must have essentially the same meaning for writer and reader. But it is no less true that language is personal; words are not dead symbols, as we may see in the fact that writers who are equally clear produce wholly different impressions. The effective writer must combine the |