The Fall of the Year Part 11

_Pigeon Henny's coop_: a pet name for one of the hens that looked very much like a pigeon.

_sh.e.l.ls_: loaded cartridges used in a breech-loading gun.

_bead drew dead_: when the little metal ball on the end of the gun-barrel, used to aim by, showed that the gun was pointing directly at the fox.

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_the mind in the wild animal world_: how the animals may really feel when being chased, namely, not frightened to death, as we commonly think, but perhaps cool and collected, taking the chase as a matter of course, even enjoying it.

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_The Chase_: The sound of the hunting is likened to a chorus of singing voices; the changing sounds, as when the pack emerges from thick woods into open meadow, being likened to the various measures of the musical score; the whole musical composition or chorus being called _The Chase_.

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_dead heat_: a race between two or more horses or boats where two of the racers come out even, neither winning.

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_Flood_: Why spelled with a capital? What flood is meant?

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_hard-pressed fox had narrowly won his way_: In spite of the author's attempt to shoot the fox that was stealing his chickens do you think the author would be glad if there were no foxes in his woods? How do they add interest to his out of doors? What other things besides chickens do they eat? Might it not be that their destruction of woodchucks (for they eat woodchucks) and mice and muskrats quite balances their killing of poultry? (The author thinks so.)

CHAPTER III

TO THE TEACHER

The thought in this chapter is evident, namely, that love for the out of doors is dependent upon knowledge of the out of doors. The more we _know_ and the better we _understand_, the more perfect and marvelous nature seems and the more lovely. The toadfish _looks_ loathly, but upon closer study he becomes very interesting, even admirable--one of the very foundations of real love. So, as a teacher and as a lover of nature, be careful never to use the words "ugly" or "nasty" or "loathly"; never shrink from a toad; never make a wry face at a worm; never show that you are having a nervous fit at a snake; for it all argues a lack of knowledge and understanding. All life, from Man to the Am[oe]ba, is one long series of links in a golden chain, one succession of wonderful life-histories, each vastly important, all making up the divinely beautiful world of life which our lives crown, but of which we are only a part, and, perhaps, no more important a part than the toadfish.

FOR THE PUPIL

The toadfish of this story is _Batrachus tau_, sometimes called oyster-fish or sapo. The fis.h.i.+ng-frog or angler is by some called toadfish, as is also the swell-fish or common puffer of the Atlantic Coast.

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_Buzzards Bay_: Where is Buzzards Bay? Do you know Whittier's beautiful poem, _The Prayer of Aga.s.siz_, which begins:--

"On the isle of Penikese Ringed about by sapphire seas."

Where is Penikese? What waters are those "sapphire seas," and what was Aga.s.siz doing there?

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_Davy Jones_: Who is Davy Jones? Look him up under _Jones, Davy_, in your dictionary of _Proper Names_. Get into the "looking up" habit. Never let anything in your reading, that you do not understand, go unlooked up.

_Old Man of the Sea_: Look him up too. Are he and Davy Jones any relation?

_It was really a fish_: What names do you think of that might fit this fish?

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_coa.r.s.ely marbled with a darker hue_: What is the meaning of _marbled_?

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_covered with water_: The author means that the _rock_ is not always covered with water, not the _hole_ under the rock. Of course the hole is always built so that it is full of water, else the fish would perish at low tide.

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_love the out of doors with all your mind_: Do you know what is meant by loving the out of doors with your mind? Just this: that while you feel (with your heart) the beauty of a star, at the same time you know (with your mind) that that particular star, let us say, is the Pole Star, the guide to the sailors on the seas; that it is also only one of a vast mult.i.tude of stars each one of which has its place in the heavens, its circuit or path through the skies, its part in the whole orderly universe--a _thought_ so vast and wonderful that we cannot comprehend it.

All this it means to love with our minds. Without minds a star to us is only a point of light, as to Peter Bell

"A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose was to him And it was nothing more."

Does the toadfish become anything more than a mere toadfish in a shoe before the end of the chapter?

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_in the toadfish's shoe_: What does the author mean by asking you to put yourself in the toadfish's shoe? Only this: to try, even with the humblest of creatures, to share sympathetically their lives with them. The best way to do this with man as well as with toadfish is to learn about their lives.

CHAPTER IV

TO THE TEACHER

There are several practical uses to which you can put this chapter, and the similar chapters, VII and XII: they can be made the purpose for field excursions with the cla.s.s. Such excursions might be quite impossible for many a teacher in school hours; and we know how the exacting duties overcrowd the after-school hours; but one field excursion each season of the year, no matter how precious your time, would do more for you and your cla.s.s than many books about nature read inside your four plastered walls. Better the books than nothing; but take the book and go with your pupils into the real out of doors.

Again, you can make these chapters a kind of nature test, asking each pupil to try to see each of the things suggested here; or, if these do not chance to be the sights characteristic of the autumn in your region, then such sights as are characteristic. So the chapter can serve as a kind of field guide to the pupil, and a kind of test of his knowledge of nature.

Again, you can make each item mentioned here the subject for a short composition direct from the pupil's experience--the only kind of subject for him to write upon. Or make each item (say, No. IV, the Ballooning Spiders) the beginning for a short course of study or collateral reading for the individual pupil particularly interested in spiders!

CHAPTER V

TO THE TEACHER

The real point of this story (but first of all it is a story and should not be spoiled with any moral) is the thought in the lines:--

"There were thousands of persons who could have gold eggs if they cared. But eagles' eggs! Money could not buy such a sight as this." Which means, that the simple joys of the out of doors, and the possession of youth and health, are better than any joys that money can create, and more precious possessions than all the money in the world can buy. One can get all the thrilling sensations of height by standing up in a quaking eagle's nest sixty feet from the ground, that one can possibly get from the top of the Eiffel Tower or on the peak of Mount Was.h.i.+ngton, or from a flying-machine among the clouds. And then who among the rich of the world ever saw eagles' eggs in a nest, or had eagles dig him with their talons? To be alive to all the wonder of the life, to all the beauty of the world about us, is the very secret of living. An eagle's nest to climb into is as good as a flying-machine.

Take occasion, too, at the end of the story to say how much better, how much more interesting, an act it was to leave the eggs to hatch than to rob the nest and thus destroy two young eagles. Some years later, for instance, two young eagles were taken from a neighboring nest and were sent to the Zoological Gardens at Philadelphia, where they may still be living for thousands of visitors each year to see. Who knows but that one of the parents of these two captive birds may have been in the eggs laid back by the boy in that nest?

FOR THE PUPIL