EXERCISE

Notice what elements are included in each of the following introductions:—­

1.  Saturday last at Mount Holly, about eight miles from this place, nearly three hundred people were gathered together to see an experiment or two tried on some persons accused of witchcraft.

2.  On the morning of the 10th instant at sunrise, they were discovered from Put-in-Bay, where I lay at anchor with the squadron under my command.

3.  It was on Sunday when I awoke to the realization that I had quitted civilization and was afloat on an unfamiliar body of water in an open boat.

4.  Up and down the long corn rows Pap Overholt guided the old mule and the small, rickety, inefficient plow, whose low handles bowed his tall, broad shoulders beneath the mild heat of a mountain June sun.  As he went—­ever with a furtive eye upon the cabin—­he muttered to himself, shaking his head.

5.  After breakfast, I went down to the Saponey Indian town, which is about a musket shot from the fort.

6.  The lonely stretch of uphill road, upon whose yellow clay the midsummer sun beat vertically down, would have represented a toilsome climb to a grown and unencumbered man.  To the boy staggering under the burden of a brimful carpet bag, it seemed fairly unscalable; wherefore he stopped at its base and looked up in dismay to its far-off, red-hot summit.

7.  One afternoon last summer, three or four people from New York, two from Boston, and a young man from the Middle West were lunching at one of the country clubs on the south shore of Long Island, and there came about a mild discussion of the American universities.

8.  “But where is the station?” inquired the Judge.

“Ain’t none, boss.  Dis heah is jes a crossing.  Train’s about due now, sah; you-all won’t hab long fer to wait.  Thanky, sah; good-by; sorry you-all didn’t find no birds.”

The Judge picked up his gun case and grip and walked toward his two companions waiting on the platform a few yards away.  Silhouetted against the moonlight they made him think of the figure 10, for Mr. Appleton was tall and erect, and the little Doctor short and circular.

9.  I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he;
   I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
   “Good speed!” cried the watch, as the gate bolts undrew,
   “Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through. 
   Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
   And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 
—­Browning.

+Oral Composition II.+—­Relate orally to the class some incident in which you were personally concerned.

The following may suggest a subject:—­
   1.  How I made friends with the squirrels.
   2.  A trick of a tame crow.
   3.  Why I missed the train.
   4.  How a horse was rescued.
   5.  Lost and found.
   6.  My visit to a menagerie.