The Silent Readers Part 40

At nightfall, ten miles from the tent, they come to a shelter made of boughs. When Otelne set the traps, he built this shelter to keep off the cold wind, for he knew he would have to sleep here on bitter cold nights. He builds a roaring fire in front of the shelter. They eat the mink, give the sc.r.a.ps and bones to Wagush, wrap up in rabbit-skin blankets, and lie down with their heads toward the shelter, their feet toward the fire, and the dog beside them. Two hours later Wagush wakes them with a growl. Two wolves are prowling around in the spruce trees, but wolves fear fire, so Otelne throws on more wood and they slink away.

At dawn the Indians are up and on their way to the rest of the traps.

They kill a bear. This is great luck, for now they have meat enough to last for weeks. Even with the help of Akusk and Wagush, Otelne has hard work to drag that bear on the toboggan six miles back to the tent. All three are so weary they have to rest all the next day.

Sulian, the mother, who skins the animals, takes care of the skins and smokes the meat. That is her part of the work. You may be sure that the children are glad to see their father and brother come back, for there isn't another family within twenty miles, nor is there one white man within a hundred miles.

Day after day, through the long, cold winter, Otelne and his family hunt the fur that they can trade for the white man's tools and supplies. When the trapping season ends, Otelne is four hundred miles from the post, and it takes many weeks of canoeing to get back there for summer trading. They carry with them a bundle of smoked meat to eat where game or fish cannot be found.

Each year Indian families go out for furs and never come back. The canoe may upset and swift water carry away all their things. Sometimes they get lost and freeze to death in terrible blizzards. The hunting may be bad, so they starve. The father may be drowned or break his leg and freeze to death away out in the forest. Then the mother cannot get enough game to keep the children alive, so they all starve and the wolves eat them. The fur gatherer has a hard, cold life in the far North, but it is better than it used to be before he traded with the white man and got guns, knives, traps, and fish hooks.

When all goes well with the fur gatherer, the boys and girls in the little tent play many games. They are fond of checkers. To make a checker-board, they split a piece of wood out of a log, smooth one side of it with an axe, mark it into squares with a knife, and blacken some of them with charcoal. For men, they saw off short pieces of a stick as thick as your thumb. Jackstraws is another favorite game, but the straws are tiny canoe paddles, knives, guns, snowshoes, snow shovels, and canoes, all whittled out of wood, making a queer looking pile. They have one campfire game in which they shake up eight disks of bone in a bowl.

This game is so hard to learn that my friend, Professor Speck, spent three days learning it, and the rules for counting the score would fill three pages of a book like this one. This game, so hard to learn, shows that the Indian would be as smart as the white man if he had a chance to learn the same things. White men who hunt with the Indians like them and say they are good companions.

The white men from the trading posts bring the furs down to our great cities, where they are made into mittens and m.u.f.fs and coats and ladies' furs, and the next winter, while the Indian is back in the forest following his traps, we can see people wearing the furs in almost any part of the United States.

--_J. Russell Smith.

Courtesy of The John C. Winston Co._

OUTLINE

1. Early life of the Indians.

2. Their present home in the North.

3. A visit to the trading post.

(_a_) Who came (_b_) (_c_)

4. The Indians' return.

(_a_) (_b_)

5. The life of a trapper.

(_a_) (_b_) (_c_) (_d_)

6. Games.

QUESTIONS

1. The setting of a story tells the place of the story, when it occurs, and who are the actors. Your teacher will ask one of you to give the setting of "Otelne, the Indian of the Great North Woods".

2. If you were an Indian boy or girl, how do you think you would feel during the winter about the summer trip to the trading post?

3. How does the trading post help the Indians? Make a list of things they buy. What can you think of that the author of the story did not mention? What else besides the cost will the Indians have to think of when deciding whether or not to buy anything?

4. Tell about the trip back into the woods after visiting the post.

Why do they go so far?

5. Tell the story of a visit to the trap with Otelne as if you were Akusk. Don't be afraid to put in probable incidents not told by the author.

WHICH IS RIGHT?

Arrange your papers with your name and grade on the first line; place the date and your room or teacher's name on the second line; leave the third line blank, and, beginning with the fourth line, number the lines from one to seven. This exercise is to help you to read quickly and accurately. See that you understand all the directions in each problem before you try to carry them out. On the other hand, work as quickly as you can.

1. How am I to sing your praise Happy chimney-corner days, Sitting safe in nursery nooks Reading picture story-books.

(_Stevenson--"Picture Books in Winter."_)

If this is a picture of play, draw a horseshoe on the first line.

If it is a picture of quiet, draw a hitching-post.

2. The long war with the Danes had left England without law and order. Trade and commerce had almost ceased to exist. The monasteries and churches were in ruins and the schools nearly all destroyed.

Which of the words below best states the cause of this destruction?

Famine Trade War Disease

Write your answer on the _second_ line.

3. The axle in breaking had thrown the full weight of the heavy cart upon the body of the unconscious boy. Although there were many willing hands ready to help, none could lift the weight. Jean saw the crowd and hurried to the spot. Bracing himself, he placed his ma.s.sive shoulders against the side of the cart. Slowly but surely it lifted and the child was drawn safely from beneath.

Which of the following words best describes Jean?

kind thoughtful strong brave good

Write your answer on the third line.

4. If you think after reading this paragraph that it is easy to land a trout, write the word _hard_ on the fourth line. If you think it is hard, write the word _easy_ there.

Trout fis.h.i.+ng in mountain streams is said to be the greatest sport in the world. When a trout has been caught on the hook, it is usually a question of which will tire first, the fish or the fisherman. Often the fish will get the best of it and the fisherman be forced to go home with a broken rod and no fish for his pains.

5. If in the following words _c_ is found with _h_ more often than with _r_, write _church_ on the fifth line. But if _c_ is found more often with _r_, write _crown_ there.

checkers cruller bench candy crunch

6. On the sixth line write any words in this sentence which have the same number of letters as the fourth word of the sentence, but which have no letters in common.

7. If a soldier wears out a pair of shoes every month, how many pairs of shoes will be needed for a regiment of 3000 men for a year of service?

Write the answer on the seventh line.

"VERDUN BELLE"