The Silent Readers Part 32

Two lines that rhyme with each other are called a _couplet_. How many couplets are there in each stanza? Can you find the two words from which the most rhymes are made?

THE BATTLE OF MORGARTEN

Can you read this selection thoroughly in four minutes? Some of you can read it in less time than that.

One of the most really democratic countries in the world today is Switzerland, the little republic among the Alps. It has a long and glorious history, for it is the earliest of modern republics. Its sections, instead of being called _states_, are called _cantons_.

Switzerland originally belonged to Austria, in the early days when Austria was ruled not by an emperor but by a duke. The dukes of Austria were cruel tyrants, and this story tells how the Swiss mountaineers first began to free themselves from Austrian rule, in the battle of Morgarten in the year 1315.

As you read the story, notice:

1. The differences between Swiss and Austrians in numbers and equipment.

2. What gave the Swiss an advantage over the Austrians.

There are people who doubt the story of William Tell and Gessler, the Swiss archer and the Austrian tyrant; but no one can doubt the great and decisive victory won at Morgarten by the Swiss on the 15th of November, 1315. Three cantons beside the lake--Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden: the three Forest Cantons, as they were called, because of their great woods--were resolved to be free of Austrian rule. The Austrian Duke determined to crush them once and for all.

He regarded it as a very easy matter. He had vast numbers of hors.e.m.e.n and footmen, all splendidly armed and well trained in warfare; his opponents were a few peasants, who clung to their native hills, and loved freedom, and were ready to die for it. The Austrians looked upon the affair as a mere hunting excursion. They provided themselves with cartloads of ropes to lead back prisoners and the herds of cattle they expected to seize.

When the men of the forest heard that their enemies were marching upon them, they gathered to defend their rights as freemen. They mustered thirteen hundred fighting men, armed with the rudest of weapons, many having nothing in their hands save heavy clubs, spiked with iron. But before night fell those spiked clubs had been dipped in the best blood of Austria.

Twenty-four thousand of the Duke's finest troops, led by his brother Leopold, advanced against these shepherds and herdsmen, and the two armies met on the slopes of Morgarten. At this point a narrow pa.s.s ascends the hill-side; upon one side of the pa.s.s lies the mountain, upon the other the deep waters of the lake. At the head of the pa.s.s stood the small band of Swiss, calmly surveying the splendid host of steel-clad knights and men-at-arms which rode against them. The Austrians pushed up the slope confident of victory.

But as the latter rode up the pa.s.s an avalanche was loosed upon them--not an avalanche of snow, but one prepared by the Swiss themselves. Great stones, rocks, and trunks of trees had been poised on the edge of the heights above the pa.s.s. When the Austrians were seen below, these were thrust over the brink of the descent, and came rolling, leaping, thundering down the mountainside, and cras.h.i.+ng in among the hors.e.m.e.n. Many were struck down, and the horses became so terrified that the whole body of the a.s.sailants was thrown into utter confusion.

Here was the opportunity of the Swiss, and they did not let it slip.

Down the pa.s.s they swept upon the bewildered foe, and a.s.sailed them furiously with their swords, their halberds (a heavy shaft of wood fitted with axe and spear-point), and with their great iron-spiked clubs.

The Austrians tried to turn back and escape, but in vain. They were caught in the narrow pa.s.s as in a net. Many sprang from their horses and tried to get away on foot; but they slipped on the rocks, and the nimble mountaineers, whose nailed shoes gave them good foothold on their native slopes, and who were used to climbing over perilous heights, caught and destroyed them easily.

It was hardly a battle: it was a mere slaughter. Great numbers of the Austrians were slain on the spot; many were driven into the lake and drowned; the rest fled. Among the latter was Duke Leopold, who himself narrowly escaped with his life. One who saw him on his flight from this fatal field said that he looked "like death, and quite distracted". Well might he look distracted. He had left behind him a battleground drenched with the best blood of Austria; while of the brave Swiss only fourteen men had fallen.

The latter could scarce believe at first that they had won so mighty a victory; but when they saw the Austrians flying for their lives, and knew that the day was indeed their own, they fell on their knees upon this forever famous field of Morgarten, and thanked G.o.d for deliverance from the power of Austria; and to this day a service of thanksgiving is held every year on the anniversary of that great fight. Year by year, on the 15th of November, Swiss men and women visit that sacred spot where the liberty of their land was won in one of the decisive battles of the world, for after Morgarten the Forest Cantons never lost their freedom again.

--_From "A Peep at Switzerland", by John Finnemore._

FINDING OPPOSITES

This is another drill that asks you to make a careful choice of words.

_Do not_ write your name at the top of the paper this time, but beginning on the first line, write the figures 1 to 12 in the margin.

Below are ten sets of words. In each set, the first word is followed by four other words. Among these four words there is one that is exactly opposite in meaning to the first word in the group. Look at the first group. SUMMER is the first word. Of the four words that follow it which one is the opposite in meaning to SUMMER? WINTER, of course. Write this pair of opposites after figure 1 on your paper as follows:

1. SUMMER WINTER

After figure 2 write the second pair of opposites:

2. TIGHT LOOSE

Complete the drill by selecting the opposites from each remaining group, and writing them after the proper figure on your paper. When finished, sign your name in the lower right-hand corner of your paper and wait quietly for the others.

1. SUMMER (snow, winter, skating, January).

2. TIGHT (small, larger, loose, bind).

3. LONG (straight, heavy, short, reach).

4. LEFT (before, right, corner, wrong).

5. STORM (calm, rain, sun, wind).

6. ROUND (box, cake, seat, square).

7. BEAUTIFUL (picture, flower, girl, ugly).

8. COLD (winter, ice, warm, weather).

9. HELP (mother, book, lift, hinder).

10. ROUGH (place, smooth, cotton, paper).

11. SWEET (candy, sour, smile, lemon).

12. POLITE (courtesy, manners, rude, clumsy).

WHAT MEKOLKA KNOWS

Here is a story of Mekolka, a little boy whose home is in the far northern part of Russia. Mekolka is a Samoyad; that is, a dweller on the northern coast of Russia or Siberia. The Tundra is a wide, almost level plain without any trees.

As you read, make a list of the things Mekolka can do with his hands.

What do you think a _disha_ must be? What is a _toor_?

Mekolka does not know how to read print, but he can read in the book of "all out-doors". What is the lesson he knows best?

Mekolka's clothes have queer Russian names. See if you can tell, from the way each is described, what is a _militza_, what is a _soveek_, and what are _pimmies_?

How does Mekolka keep track of the months and days?

If you were a little Samoyad boy, it is more than likely that you would not go to school, unless you were one of a family that went off in a procession of sleighs at the beginning of every winter to some small town on the Petchora, or even farther on to Mezen or Archangel on the White Sea. Then there would be some small school for you to go to while the days were dark, till the approach of spring brought with it a new packing up and long sleigh drive back to the haunts of seal and walrus.

But it is just as likely that there would be no school and no lessons.

Mekolka, for instance, though he has picked up a little learning--a very little--from the Russian traders, and from friends who have traveled over the Tundra, knows very few of the things you know.

But he can use his fingers with great skill, and if he cannot write much, he can make a beautiful pattern with one knife on the horn handle of another one. In fact, he is quite skilful in carving the reindeer horns. He is always on the lookout for a good piece of horn, and whenever he finds the shed antlers of a reindeer--for the deer cast off their antlers and grow new ones every spring--he picks them up and puts them to "season". There are regular piles of these antlers about. It is the custom for everyone to put the ones he finds on to one of these heaps, and to take the horn he wants to work from the more seasoned pieces at the bottom of the heap. Mekolka always chooses his piece with great care, cuts it down to the right shape, and as often as not decorates it with a metal pattern. For this he has to cut his design in a regular groove all over the horn. Having got his grooves deep and wide enough he puts some white-looking metal on the fire in a piece of wood scooped out like a cup. The metal soon melts, and Mekolka pours it into the groove and prevents it from running off by holding a piece of paper tight round the horn. The metal cools, and the edges are cut away. Then he polishes it with sand, after which he possesses a beautiful knife-handle.

Sometimes Mekolka goes in for ornaments without regard to use, and makes himself a ring. This time he makes the groove in a round piece of wood, which he has pared down to the right size, and runs in the same metal as before, with the piece of paper held tight, to support the metal on the under side. Then he cuts away the wood, and brings out knife and sand for the finis.h.i.+ng; at the end he puts it on his finger with a look of proud content. Some of the patterns he makes on the knife-handles are really very beautiful, so that the Russian traders are glad to take them away in return for snuff and tobacco.

Mekolka can make a sleigh and mend it when required, throw the _disha_ when he wants to catch a reindeer, and bring it round its horn at the first throw. He can harness a team of five correctly, and drive them like the wind. At the gullies he is splendid; he puts the deer to a gallop when he sees the ravine ahead; then over they go, sleigh and all, Mekolka sitting there, proud and unmoved. Sometimes the ravine cannot be treated this way. Then Mekolka brings the team up to the edge and holds his _toor_--the long driving pole--across them to make them stand evenly. Then he dexterously removes the pole and shouts to the deer; at once they leap together across the cleft and climb up the steep snow wall on the other side by the grip of their outspread hoofs. They are not long at the top with the sleigh before Mekolka has slithered down and scrambled up the walls of the ravine, where they are less steep and where the ravine is not quite so narrow. He is quickly on to his sleigh again while the deer race forwards.