you point out the introduction, the climax, and the other parts of the story? (See Note, p. 420.) 17. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: compliance; garrulous; append; conjectured; dilapidated; commissioned; initial; interminable; transcendent; finesse. 18. Pronounce: infamous; tedious; inquiries; exquisitely; fellow; amateur.

Class Reading. Select passages to be read aloud in class.

Outline for Testing Silent Reading. Make an outline to guide you in telling the story.

Library Reading. A Literary Nightmare, Mark Twain; Tales of Laughter, Wiggin; the current number of the magazine Life; "In MarkTwain Land," Milbank (in St. Nicholas, August, 1919).

A Suggested Problem. Prepare a program for "Humor Day" in your school. Bring to class humorous selections-stories, poems, clippings, etc.—that have been enjoyed in your family. A committee of pupils may plan interesting ways for presenting this material. Let the class artist give a talk illustrated by his own drawings.

Suggestions for Theme Topics. 1. A humorous monologue: A Boy Scout telling a humorous incident that occurred on a hike; A Girl Scout describing camp life humorously; A Camp Fire girl telling a humorous incident of a ceremonial meeting; A sailor spinning a funny yarn, etc. 2. A book review of Tom Sawyer, pointing out particularly humorous incidents, such as how Tom Sawyer whitewashed the fence (add interest to your report by reading selected passages to the class).

THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

I wrote some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

5 They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;

Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.

Biography. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the son of a Congregational minister. He attended Phillips Andover Academy and was graduated from Harvard College in the famous class of 1829. After studying medicine and anatomy in Paris, he began practicing in Boston. Later he was made pro

fessor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth College, and afterwards at Harvard. In 1850 he first came into prominence through his poem "Old Ironsides" (page 458). Like Bryant, Holmes was a poet on occasion, not by profession. For more than forty years after he entered on his duties at Harvard he delivered his four lectures a week eight months of the year, and President Eliot stated that he was an able teacher of medicine as well as a clever writer.

When Lowell was offered the editorship of the Atlantic Monthly, he made it a condition of his acceptance that Holmes should be a contributor. The result was a series of articles entitled The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. Among his poems, the best known are "The Chambered Nautilus," "The Height of the Ridiculous," "The Deacon's Masterpiece," and short poems in celebration of various occasions.

He wrote several novels, but it is as the author of the Autocrat series and by his humorous poems that he will be best remembered by his readers. By his personal associates he was most fondly remembered for his sunny disposition and his witty conversation.

Discussion. 1. What is it that is described by the poet as being the "height of the ridiculous"? 2. What incidents are related that seem to show him to be right in this estimate? 3. What opinion of the poet does the poem give you? 4. In what state of mind do you think of him as writing it? 5. What is the "trifling jest" referred to in the fourth stanza? What are the duties of a "printer's devil"? 6. This poem is pure nonsense for the sake of a hearty laugh; of what use is a poem like this?

Library Reading. The Nonsense Book, Lear; "Just Nonsense," (in The Home Book of Verse for Young Folks, Stevenson).

Suggestions for Theme Topics. 1. A discussion of present-day humor as seen in the funny pictures of the newspaper. 2. The tendency of the modern newspaper reader to get his humor through pictures rather than words. 3. Some well-known cartoonists and the characters they have created. 4. The joke column of the newspaper which I am in the habit of reading; its title and its editor. 5. Limericks. 6. Moving pictures as sources of humor.

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI*

O. HENRY

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of par5 simony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the 10 moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an elettric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bear20 ing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."

The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of "Dillingham" looked blurred, as though they were thinking 25 seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the 80 powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully

*See Silent and Oral Reading, page 40.

at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week 5 doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling-something just a little bit near to being worthy of the 10 honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate con15 ception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

20

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang 25 out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

30

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her. knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn 35 red carpet.