“To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth.”—Pliny.

I.Introduction

Laughter, when it hurts nobody, is wholesome. It is the handmaid of happiness. It enriches life. Pleasant but not silly humor and wit are therefore altogether desirable in a paper. Few days in anybody’s life are devoid of incidents that tickle the fancy. Material for good humorous stories is abundant everywhere. The faculty of recognizing it when it is seen, and the ability to present it effectively, however, need a little training. To make a beginning in these directions is the object of the exercises that follow.

II.Assignment

Find, but not in a book or a paper, a humorous story, and tell it, first orally, then in writing.

III.Models

I

Called on to decide the ownership of a hen claimed by George Bass and Joseph Nedrow, of Arnold City, Justice of the Peace John Reisinger hit upon a “Solomonesque” solution. “Take this fowl to Arnold City,” he directed his constable, “and release it near the poultry yards of these two men. In whose hen house it goes to roost, to him it belongs.” The constable, accompanied by Bass and Nedrow, did as directed. When liberated, the bird promptly flew into the chicken yard of Charles Black, where the constable decided it would have to stay under the justice’s ruling. The costs in the case amount to ten times the value of the hen.

II

James M.I. Galloway, veterinary surgeon of Kirkintilloch, Scotland, arrived yesterday from Glasgow with photographs of a cow with a wooden leg on the starboard quarter, which the veterinary says is almost as good to the cow as an ordinary leg of beef and much more effective in knocking out folks who try to milk her on the wrong side.

Other veterinaries laughed at Galloway, who is young and of an experimental temperament, when he decided to save the life of this cow after the leg had been cut off by a locomotive. He insisted, however, on fitting the wooden leg, which he regards as much more useful than wooden heads on Scotch veterinaries.

The only time the wooden leg gets the cow into trouble is when she stands too long in a damp field and the leg sinks in a foot or so.

III

The written orders of Mr. J.W. Brooks, a once celebrated American railroad manager of Michigan, were, it is said, almost beyond deciphering. On a certain occasion, when a double track had been laid on one of his roads, it was reported at headquarters that the barn of an old farmer stood partly upon land which the company had bought, and dangerously near to passing trains. Mr. Brooks, who was just getting ready for a trip down the Mississippi, wrote to the farmer that he must move his barn from the company’s land at once. If he delayed he would be liable to a suit for damages. The old farmer duly received the letter, and was able to make out the manager’s signature, but not another word could he decipher. He took it to the village postmaster, who, equally unable to translate the hieroglyphics, was unwilling to acknowledge it. “Didn’t you sell a strip of land to the railroad?” he asked. “Yes.” “Well, I guess this is a free pass over the road.” And for over a year the farmer used the manager’s letter as a pass, not one of the conductors being able to dispute his translation of the instrument.

IV.Notes and Queries

1. A good story always has three parts: (1) A Situation; (2) a Climax; (3) a Solution. Do the models possess these elements? If they do, point them out.
2. Point out the “Four W’s” in each.
3. Tell whether each sentence is simple, complex, or compound.
4. Tell why each mark of punctuation is used.
5. Tell why each capital letter is used.
6. Explain the syntax of the adjectives in I, the adverbs in II, the prepositions in III.
7. Explain the etymological signification of the following words: “solution”; “fowl”; “constable”; “photographs”; “veterinary”; “locomotive”; “decipher”; “liable”; “translate”; “hieroglyphics”; “conductors.”
8. Find on the map Uniontown, Arnold City, Kirkintilloch, Michigan, and the Mississippi River.
9. Explain the reference in “Solomonesque.”
10. What are “costs”?
11. Find a metaphor in II.

As usual, except that on Friday one number of the program may be a magazine composed of the best stories written during the week by pupils.

VI.Oral Composition

Be sure that your story has a good point; is free from slang; and possesses a beginning, a middle, and an end.

VII.Written Composition

Suggestion: Imagine that the classroom is the local room of a daily paper, the pupils reporters, and the teacher the editor. The stories may be written in class.

VIII.Memorize

THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET

The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s;—he takes the lead
In summer luxury;—he has never done
With his delights, for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

John Keats.
Contents