Part 9

But, though the enemy was now in his clutch, Washington lost no time in tightening his hold, for de Grasse 10 declared that his orders would not allow him to tarry much longer in the Chesapeake, and the failure of the other attempts to work with the French warned him to take no risks on this occasion.

He therefore instantly set the troops at work with pickaxes 15 and shovels throwing up intrenchments, behind which they crept nearer and nearer the imprisoned garrison, and he kept them at their tasks night and day, supervising every detail of the siege and organizing the labor with such method that not a second of time nor an ounce of strength 20 was wasted.

Finally, on October 14th--just sixteen days after the combined armies had arrived on the scene--the commander in chief determined to hurry matters still further by carrying two of the enemy's outer works by assault, and 25 Hamilton was assigned to lead the Americans and Colonel de Deuxponts the French. A brilliant charge followed, and Washington and Rochambeau, closely watching the movement, saw the Americans scale one of the redoubts and capture it within ten minutes, while the French soon 30 followed with equal success. From these two commanding positions a perfect storm of shot and shell was then loosed against the British fortifications, but still Cornwallis would not yield.

Indeed, he made an heroic attempt to break through the lines on the following night, and actually succeeded in spiking some of the French cannon before he was driven 5 back; and again on the next night he made a desperate effort to escape by water, only to be foiled by a terrific storm. By this time, however, his defenses were practically battered to the ground and the town behind them was tumbling to pieces beneath the fire of more than fifty guns. 10

In the face of this terrific bombardment further resistance was useless, and at ten o'clock on the morning of October 17, 1781, exactly four years after the surrender of Burgoyne, a red-coated drummer boy mounted on the crumbling ramparts and beside him appeared an officer with a white 15 flag. Instantly the firing ceased, and an American officer approaching, the flag bearer was blindfolded and conducted to Washington. The message he bore was a proposition for surrender and a request that hostilities be suspended for twenty-four hours. But to this Washington 20 would not consent. Two hours was all he would grant for arranging the terms of surrender. To this Cornwallis yielded, but his first propositions were promptly rejected by Washington, and it was not until eleven at night that all the details were finally agreed upon, and Cornwallis, 25 with over eight thousand officers and men, became prisoners of war.

Two days later the British marched from their intrenchments, their bands playing a quaint old English tune, called _The World Turned Upside Down_, and, passing between 30 the French and American troops drawn up in line to receive them, laid down their arms. At the head of the victorious columns rode Washington, Hamilton, Knox, Steuben, Lafayette, Rochambeau, Lincoln, and many other officers, but the British commander, being ill, was not present in person, and when his representative, General O'Hara, tendered his superior's sword to Washington, the 5 commander in chief allowed General Lincoln, who had once been Cornwallis's prisoner, to receive it, and that officer, merely taking it in his hand for a moment, instantly returned it.

Meanwhile horsemen were flying in all directions with 10 the joyful tidings, and within a week the whole country was blazing with enthusiasm, while Washington was calmly planning to finish the work to which he had set his hand.

(From Frederick Trevor Hill's _On the Trail of Washington_. Used by permission of the publishers, D. Appleton & Company.)

1. Make a sketch showing the position of the various armies and navies at the time Washington conceived the bold stroke of trapping Cornwallis, and explain from your map how this stroke was achieved.

2. Tell who the following are: De Grasse, Greene, Clinton, Rochambeau, Lafayette, Lincoln, Steuben, Cornwallis, Burgoyne.

3. What might have disjointed all Washington's plans? Discuss.

Where may the wearied eye repose, When gazing on the great, Where neither guilty glory glows Nor despicable state? Yes, one--the first--the last--the best-- 5 The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make men blush there was but one!

--_George Gordon Byron._

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON

BY W. F. MARKWICK AND W. A. SMITH

Our birds and our trees are often honored together on a Bird and Arbor Day. The names of many naturalists might be selected, whose biographies could fittingly be read on such an occasion; but none could be more appropriately chosen than that of John James Audubon, the American pioneer among the scientist lovers of both birds and trees.

In 1828 a wonderful book, _The Birds of America_, by John James Audubon, was issued. It is a good illustration of what has been accomplished by beginning in one's youth to use the powers of observation. Audubon loved and studied birds. Even in his infancy, lying under the orange 5 trees on his father's plantation in Louisiana, he listened to the mocking-bird's song, watching and observing every motion as it flitted from bough to bough. When he was older he began to sketch every bird that he saw, and soon showed so much talent that he was taken to France to be 10 educated.

He entered cheerfully and earnestly upon his studies, and more than a year was devoted to mathematics; but whenever it was possible he rambled about the country, using his eyes and fingers, collecting more specimens, and 15 sketching with such assiduity that when he left France, only seventeen years old, he had finished two hundred drawings of French birds. At this period he tells us that "it was not the desire of fame which prompted to this devotion; it was simply the enjoyment of nature." 20

A story is told of his lying on his back in the woods with some moss for his pillow and looking through a telescopic microscope day after day, to watch a pair of little birds while they made their nest. Their peculiar gray plumage harmonized with the color of the bark of the tree, so that it 5 was impossible to see the birds except by the most careful observation. After three weeks of such patient labor, he felt that he had been amply rewarded for the toil and sacrifice by the results he had obtained.

His power of observation gave him great happiness, from 10 the time he rambled as a boy in the country in search of treasures of natural history, till, in his old age, he rose with the sun and went straightway to the woods near his home, enjoying still the beauties and wonders of nature. His strength of purpose and unwearied energy, combined with 15 his pure enthusiasm, made him successful in his work as a naturalist; but it was all dependent on the habit formed in his boyhood--this habit of close and careful observation; and he not only had this habit of using his eyes but he looked at and studied things worth seeing, worth 20 remembering.

This brief sketch of Audubon's boyhood shows the predominant traits of his character--his power of observation, the training of the eye and hand--that made him in manhood "the most distinguished of American ornithologists," 25 with so much scientific ardor and perseverance that no expedition seemed dangerous or solitude inaccessible when he was engaged in his favorite study.

He has left behind him, as the result of his labors, his great book, _The Birds of America_, in ten volumes, and 30 illustrated with four hundred and forty-eight colored plates of over one thousand species of birds, all drawn by his own hand, and each bird represented in its natural size; also a _Biography of American Birds_, in five large volumes, in which he describes their habits and customs. He was associated with Dr. Bachman, of Philadelphia, in the preparation of a work on _The Quadrupeds of America_, in six 5 large volumes, the drawings for which were made by his two sons; and later on he published his _Biography of American Quadrupeds_, a work similar to the _Biography of American Birds_. He died at what is known as Audubon Park, on the Hudson, now within the limits of New York city, in 10 1851, at the age of seventy.

--_The True Citizen._

1. Give a brief summation of Audubon's life. What does his name stand for?

2. How many birds can you identify by sight? By song? What winter birds do you know? What is the first migrant bird you see in the spring? Name some birds that stay with us the year round.

3. If you are interested in birds you will enjoy looking through Chapman's _Bird-Life_; Burroughs' _Wake-Robin_; Gilmore's _Birds Through the Year_; Blanchan's _Bird Neighbors_; Miller's _The First Book of Birds_. You should make a list of these in your notebook for summer reading.

4. In this connection make up a list of five poems about birds; five about flowers; five about trees. For good reading on trees, see Dorrance's _Story of the Forest_.

MEMORIAL DAY, 1917

BY WOODROW WILSON

Spoken at Arlington to the veterans of the Federal and Confederate armies. There were present men in khaki soon to carry the spirit of America to the battlefields of France.

Any Memorial Day of this sort is, of course, a day touched with sorrowful memory, and yet I for one do not see how we can have any thought of pity for the men whose memory we honor to-day. I do not pity them. I envy them, rather, because theirs is a great work for liberty 5 accomplished and we are in the midst of a work unfinished, testing our strength where their strength already has been tested. There is a touch of sorrow, but there is a touch of reassurance also in a day like this, because we know how the men of America have responded to the call of the 10 cause of liberty, and it fills our minds with a perfect assurance that that response will come again in equal measure, with equal majesty, and with a result which will hold the attention of all mankind.

When you reflect upon it, these men who died to preserve 15 the Union died to preserve the instrument which we are now using to serve the world--a free nation espousing the cause of human liberty. In one sense that great struggle into which we have now entered is an American struggle, because it is in defense of American honor and 20 American rights, but it is something even greater than that; it is a world struggle. It is a struggle of men who love liberty everywhere and in this cause America will show herself greater than ever because she will rise to a greater thing.

We have said in the beginning that we planned this great government that men who wish freedom might have a place of refuge and a place where their hope could be 5 realized, and now, having established such a government, having preserved such a government, having vindicated the power of such a government, we are saying to all mankind, "We did not set this government up in order that we might have a selfish and separate liberty, for we are 10 now ready to come to your assistance and fight out upon the fields of the world the cause of human liberty." In this thing America attains her full dignity and the full fruition of her great purpose.

1. During the World War, President Woodrow Wilson (1856- ) delivered several notable speeches. In fact, his ability to phrase a thought neatly, caused Europe to look upon him as the spokesman of the Allied cause. This extract from his speech in the cemetery at Arlington, Va., is a good example of his finished literary style. Compare it with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. How are the two alike? How different?

2. How long before the delivery of this speech did the United States declare war against Germany? What references to this war are in the speech?

3. The cemetery at Arlington is a national burying ground of the fallen heroes of the Civil War. Read the line or lines that refer to them.

_ADVENTURE_

_Life is a series of experiences. A few of these we call adventures because they are out of the ordinary. If, however, one is keen and alert, every experience is a fresh adventure. And excitement galore can be had by reading about the doings of other people. It is no longer necessary to hunt lions or to be adrift on an ice sheet to get the thrill of those who have experienced these things. Books, pictures, and theaters afford us ample means of enjoying in comfort the hour of high adventure of the other person._

[Illustration: A GRANDSTAND SEAT IN THE SKY

(_See following page_)]

A GRANDSTAND SEAT IN THE SKY

BY HOWARD MINGOS

"I don't know whether we can make it or not," said the pilot. "There's a forty-mile-an-hour wind up aloft, and we're going straight in the teeth of it. Maybe we'll have to turn back."

But we did not turn back, and at times before we had 5 covered the twenty-two miles separating New York from the army's Hazlehurst Field at Mineola, Long Island, I wished that we might turn round, if only for an instant, that I might adjust the fur-lined chin strap, the buckle of which snapped against my left ear with maddening persistency. 10

A half dozen times, perhaps, I had raised my left hand carefully, only to have it flapped back at me as if I were slapping myself in the face. For we were in the pilot's seat of America's largest bombing plane, grandstand seats with nothing between us and the show but air, of which 15 there was a plenty.

Captain Roy N. Francis, one of the best-known American pilots, had cautioned me against sticking out my arm or hand, because of the nine-foot propeller whirling alongside of me, and its tips fanned my elbow just two thousand 20 times a minute as I huddled in the seat with Francis to afford him more room.

You understand I wanted to make myself as small as possible, so that he might have more space in which to operate the controls. I had every reason to believe they 25 required minute attention if we were to remain rebounding about the skies from wind pocket to wind pocket five thousand feet above the flying field. I had forgotten our objective, which was Manhattan--the dreams of fifteen years about to be realized.

I particularly wanted to be ricocheting from the crest 5 of one air wave to another. It was the choice of alternatives, I concluded, for below us the crazy-quilted landscape of Long Island appeared to be anything but a soft place for landing. And there was a barn directly under us for several minutes--the same barn. I know it was a 10 barn because it had a fence around it; otherwise it might have been a dog's kennel--a lone dog's kennel at that--so tiny was it from our viewpoint.

I know we hung suspended over it for some time. I had an opportunity to review my entire past life, my good 15 deeds, of which there were few that I could recall at the moment, and my misdeeds, of which there were many. I pondered if they would miss me at the office. I thought of other offices and other fellows and the nature of their retrospection, fellows who had been in positions similar 20 to mine--and I knew where they were, or rather, where they were not.

Francis had pointed at me among four other prospective passengers standing about the great plane while they tuned up the motors. 25

"You there, little fellow, get in here beside me!"

I had shinnied up the stepladder and crawled in beside him, flattered at the distinction--the others took their places in other cockpits free from controls and instruments--and then I understood the reason for his choice. 30

Our flying suits were lined with fur, and bulky. The cockpit was narrow at best, and Francis is not a small man. So I huddled as far as possible at the side of the flyer's seat, my side of it. And then: "Keep your paws in, if you don't want them taken off with that propeller," he had shouted into my ear. "Sit tight!"

I sat tight. No shrimp ever had as many wrinkles as I. 5 I pulled my hand in a fraction of an inch, braced my legs against nothing in particular, while my back assumed the characteristics of a concertina, closed.

He had thrown back the throttle. There was a blast and a roar. I had the same lonesome feeling in the pit of my 10 stomach that had seized me when I first took the express elevator in the Woolworth Building.

It occurred to me to win the respect of the pilot by appearing confident. So I forced myself to peer over the side. The earth was dropping away so fast that it all seemed 15 like a nightmare. I felt as if I had been dreaming and had fallen out of bed.

"Grin at him," something told me. I grinned.

A dozen or more icicles immediately crunched between my teeth, pierced the roof of my mouth, and froze my 20 brain, while leaden drops of water percolated through it and trickled down my spine.

"Keep grinning!" that unconscious self put in again. The advice was useless. I couldn't have closed my mouth had I wanted to. Finally by bowing my head I shut my 25 jaws. Oh, for that chin strap which was whacking my face! It would have kept me warm. Despite the heat through which we had traveled in reaching Hazlehurst Field that morning, up here, a mile high, the air was cold.

I stole a sidelong glance at Francis from behind the 30 heavy goggles which some friendly stranger had fitted over my helmet. Francis was not looking at me.

Instead of watching and appraising me, as I had thought he was half turned round, gazing back along the fuselage or body, of our craft, for what reason I do not know.

I turned in my seat and looked back at the tail. Not seeing anything unusual, I sat back again. And there was 5 Francis with his head thrown back, gazing at the sky. His hands and feet were not touching the controls.

Every time we struck an air pocket I shuddered. For ten minutes, minutes which seemed hours, I huddled and shrank and shuddered. That was about all there 10 appeared to be in the flight for me--huddles, shrinks, and shudders.

That dog kennel of a barn gave me much to think about. The wind was dead against us. Our speedometer registered ninety miles an hour--and the wind pushing us 15 back at the rate of forty miles left us fifty miles an hour speed. It seemed like fifty feet to me, until I saw off in the distance ahead the silvery haze that hangs over New York like a mantle of mist. A moment later we made out Long Island Sound, laid out with all its little bays and harbors 20 just like a pattern of white paper fallen on the extreme edge of a Persian carpet. There were a few specks on it, and from them whisps of smoke drifted up, many times smaller than pipe smoke.

Bump! A slight jar. I looked at Francis. He was 25 gazing ahead unconcernedly.

Air pockets. We had dropped twenty feet on two separate occasions within the space of a moment. Great!

The machine was still intact. Good old machine! Nice old craft! . . . I felt like patting it on the nose and stroking 30 its sleek fabric back--that is, if it remained constant. If ever I craved constancy in anything, it was then.

Suddenly I relaxed. A feeling of delightful content surged through me. Approaching New York. Above the haze, out of all the hustle and bustle of the human maelstrom. That look of absolute futility I had seen on the faces in the subway, on the streets, in the early hours of 5 morning--these receded from memory. Life was good, after all. It was a wonderful thing if you viewed it correctly. And this was the way to view it.

Reflections of a bright young man being smeared all over the island were things of the past now, as on the right, 10 as far as we could see, the Bronx stretched away, monotonously, endlessly. I thought how much happier I was up there, looking at the Bronx, than if I were in the Bronx down there, looking up at me.

Straight down I made out a Sound steamer. Hell Gate 15 Bridge, a tiny thing like the toys in shop windows.

But the Bronx got me. I had heard much of the Bronx and once or twice had visited the Zoo. But I never conceived the Bronx as a few bushels of building blocks thrown down on a wide green lawn and tumbled about promiscuously. 20 They were blocks, too, whole city squares, miles and miles of squares.

And there was the Harlem River--and Harlem. I looked for the homes of the cliff dwellers. They were not there. The scenery was as flat as the side of a house. 25

Veering slightly to the left, a mere touch from Francis of the auto wheel in front of him, and we were speeding over the upper East Side. Now I knew, or thought I knew, the millions who reside there, more or less in a state of perpetual congestion. I had often pondered as to where 30 these millions hung their wash, when they washed. To-day I learned.

Arranged in crisscross rows, compactly and without wasting an inch of space, that I could see, the roofs of the East Side were literally covered, literally littered, with clothes of a sameness that made of whole blocks or squares an awning. Here and there a red shirt, the only outstanding 5 bit of color. At least I chose to assume that it was a shirt because I knew that down in those narrow streets, moving about like minute grains of sand guided only by the confines of the conventional walls, were people sweltering in the heat of a summer day, and they needed those shirts 10 another season.

We dropped lower. We saw between the lines of garments, as we gazed straight downward, a bed, another bed, then a cot, more beds, a chair or two, now and then a bit of green I took to be plants, occasionally a bit of carpet 15 on the roof--and babies. The ten or fifteen babies who do not spend their days in the middle of the streets are enjoying the pleasures of their own roof gardens. As far as we could see to the left it was the same--roofs and clothes and babies, divided into squares like cuts of frosted 20 cake.

We struck Fifth Avenue at 110 Street. To our right was Central Park. And it was not as large as the palm of one's hand. In fact it might have been a bare spot from which a few building blocks had been lifted, evenly and 25 without disturbing the sharply outlined sides and corners.