New National Fourth Reader

PART II.

We staid up till late, and then I was left, at my own door by my friends, who in­formed me that York was a very qui­et, safe place, where peo­ple slept with un­locked doors, and noth­ing ev­er went amiss o' nights.

I said noth­ing of ghosts, be­ing ashamed to own that I quaked, a lit­tle at the idea of the “back bed-​room,” as I shut out the friend­ly faces and fas­tened my­self in.

A lamp and match­es stood in the hall, and light­ing the lamp, I whisked up stairs with sus­pi­cious ra­pid­ity, lock­ing my door, and went to bed, firm­ly re­fus­ing to own even to my­self that I had ev­er heard the name of Bezee Tuck­er.

Be­ing very tired, I soon fell asleep; but fried pota­toes and a dozen or two of hot clams are not kinds of food best fit­ted to bring qui­et sleep, so a fit of night­mare brought me to a re­al­iz­ing sense of my fool­ish­ness.

From a chaos of wild dreams was fi­nal­ly brought forth a gi­gan­tic clam, whose mis­sion it was to de­vour me as I had de­voured its rel­atives. The sharp shells were open be­fore me, and a solemn voice said, “Take her by her lit­tle head and eat her quick.”

Ret­ri­bu­tion was at hand, and, with a de­spair­ing ef­fort to es­cape by div­ing, I bumped my head smart­ly against the wall, and woke up feel­ing as if there was an earth­quake un­der the bed.

Col­lect­ing my scat­tered wits, I tried to go to sleep again; but alas! that fa­tal feast had de­stroyed sleep, and I vain­ly tried to qui­et my wake­ful sens­es with the rus­tle of leaves about the win­dow and the break­ing waves up­on the beach.

In one of the paus­es be­tween the sounds of the waves, I heard a cu­ri­ous noise in the house--a sort of moan, com­ing at reg­ular in­ter­vals.

And, as I sat up to make out where it was, an­oth­er sound caught my at­ten­tive ear. Drip, drip, drip, went some­thing out in the hall, and in an in­stant the tale told me on Sun­set Hill came back with un­pleas­ant re­al­ity.

“Non­sense! It is rain­ing, and the roof leaks,” I said to my­self, while an un­pleas­ant thrill went through me, and fan­cy, aid­ed by in­di­ges­tion, be­gan to peo­ple the house with ghost­ly in­mates.

No rain had fall­en for weeks, and peep­ing through my cur­tain, I saw the big, bright stars shin­ing in a cloud­less sky; so that ex­pla­na­tion failed, and still the drip, drip, drip went on.

Like­wise the moan­ing--so dis­tinct­ly now that it was clear that the lit­tle back bed-​room was next the cham­ber in which I was quak­ing at that very mo­ment.

“Some one is sleep­ing there,” I said, and then re­mem­bered that all the rooms were locked, and all the keys but mine in Mrs. Grant's pock­et, up at the house.

“Well, let the ghosts en­joy them­selves; I won't dis­turb them if they let me alone. Some of the ladies thought me brave to dare to sleep here, and it nev­er will do to own I was scared by a fool­ish sto­ry and an odd sound.”

So down I lay, and said the mul­ti­pli­ca­tion ta­ble with great de­ter­mi­na­tion for sev­er­al min­utes, try­ing to turn a deaf ear to the out­side world and check my un­ruly thoughts.

But it was a fail­ure; and when I found my­self say­ing over and over “Four times twelve is twen­ty-​four,” I gave up af­fect­ing courage, and went in for a good, hon­est scare.

As a cheer­ful sub­ject for mid­night con­sid­er­ation, I kept think­ing of B. Tuck­er, in spite of ev­ery ef­fort to give it up. In vain I re­mem­bered the fact that the de­part­ed gen­tle­man was “al­ways po­lite to ladies.”

I still was in great fear lest he might think it nec­es­sary to come and apol­ogize in per­son for “both­er­ing” me.

Present­ly a clock struck three, and I gave a moan that beat the ghost's all hol­low, so full of deep suf­fer­ing was I at the thought of sev­er­al hours of weary wait­ing.

I was not sure at what time the day­light would ap­pear, and I was bit­ter­ly sor­ry for not gath­er­ing use­ful in­for­ma­tion about sun­rise, tides, and such things, in­stead of lis­ten­ing to the fool­ish gos­sip of Un­cle Pe­ter on the hill-​top.

Minute af­ter minute dragged slow­ly on, and I was just think­ing that I should be obliged to shout “Fire!” as the on­ly means of re­lief in my pow­er, when, a stealthy step un­der the win­dow gave me a new feel­ing.

* * * * *

Di­rec­tions for Read­ing.--To give greater ef­fect to cer­tain parts of the les­son, read them very slow­ly.

The first line of the last para­graph is a good ex­am­ple of adding _em­pha­sis_ by read­ing slow­ly.

Point oat two oth­er places in the les­son where slow read­ing would be best.

What word in the last para­graph may be made very em­phat­ic, even to the ex­tent of us­ing the _call­ing tone_ of voice?

Let pupils pro­nounce in con­cert, and singly, the fol­low­ing words: _soon, do, two, fool­ish, roof, food, room_.

* * * * *

Lan­guage Les­son.--Let pupils write state­ments, each con­tain­ing one of the fol­low­ing words, used in such a man­ner as to show its prop­er mean­ing: _beech, beach; sense, scents; fourth, forth; hear, here_.

Give rules for the cap­ital let­ters in the first three para­graphs of the les­son.

Let pupils place _un_ be­fore each of the fol­low­ing words, and then de­fine them.

safe lock heard pleas­ant fit

De­fine each of the fol­low­ing words formed from _please_, and state in each case what change of mean­ing oc­curs.

please pleas­ant pleas­ant­ly un­pleas­ant­ly

* * * * *

LES­SON XLVII.

dag'ger, _a short sword_.

spell, _a feel­ing which pre­vents one from mov­ing_.

bran'dished, _raised, and moved in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions_.

in spir'ing, _mak­ing one feel_.

awe, _deep fear_.

de mand'ed, _asked as a right_.

punct'u al, _al­ways on time_.

ro mance, _a sto­ry of sur­pris­ing ad­ven­tures_.

bur'glar, _one who breaks in­to a house at night_.

cus'tom, _a way or a man­ner of do­ing things_.

reigned, _ruled; held pow­er_.

* * * * *

A GHOST STO­RY.