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Short Stories for English Courses

V >> Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.) >> Short Stories for English Courses



Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team





SHORT STORIES
FOR
ENGLISH COURSES


EDITED
WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES


BY
ROSA M. R. MIKELS

SHORTRIDGE HIGH SCHOOL, INDIANAPOLIS, IND.





CONTENTS

PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
REQUIREMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY
HOW THIS BOOK MAY BE USED
THE FIRST CHRISTMAS-TREE Henry van Dyke
A FRENCH TAR-BABY Joel Chandler Harris
SONNY'S CHRISTENIN' Ruth McEnery Stuart
CHRISTMAS NIGHT WITH SATAN John Fox, Jr.
A NEST-EGG James Whitcomb Riley
WEE WILLIE WINKIE Rudyard Kipling
THE GOLD BUG Edgar Allan Poe
THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF O. Henry
THE FRESHMAN FULL-BACK Ralph D. Paine
GALLEGHER Richard Harding Davis
THE JUMPING FROG Mark Twain
THE LADY OR THE TIGER? Frank R. Stockton
THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT Francis Bret Harte
THE REVOLT OF MOTHER Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
MARSE CHAN Thomas Nelson Page
"POSSON JONE'" George W. Cable
OUR AROMATIC UNCLE Henry Cuyler Bunner
QUALITY John Galsworthy
THE TRIUMPH OF NIGHT Edith Wharton
A MESSENGER Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
MARKHEIM Robert Louis Stevenson.




PREFACE

Why must we confine the reading of our children to the older
literary classics? This is the question asked by an ever-
increasing number of thoughtful teachers. They have no wish to
displace or to discredit the classics. On the contrary, they love
and revere them. But they do wish to give their pupils something
additional, something that pulses with present life, that is
characteristic of to-day. The children, too, wonder that, with the
great literary outpouring going on about them, they must always
fill their cups from the cisterns of the past.

The short story is especially adapted to supplement our high-
school reading. It is of a piece with our varied, hurried,
efficient American life, wherein figure the business man's lunch,
the dictagraph, the telegraph, the telephone, the automobile, and
the railway "limited." It has achieved high art, yet conforms to
the modern demand that our literature--since it must be read with
despatch, if read at all--be compact and compelling. Moreover, the
short story is with us in almost overwhelming numbers, and is
probably here to stay. Indeed, our boys and girls are somewhat
appalled at the quantity of material from which they must select
their reading, and welcome any instruction that enables them to
know the good from the bad. It is certain, therefore, that,
whatever else they may throw into the educational discard when
they leave the high school, they will keep and use anything they
may have learned about this form of literature which has become so
powerful a factor in our daily life.

This book does not attempt to select the greatest stories of the
time. What tribunal would dare make such a choice? Nor does it
attempt to trace the evolution of the short story or to point out
natural types and differences. These topics are better suited to
college classes. Its object is threefold: to supply interesting
reading belonging to the student's own time, to help him to see
that there is no divorce between classic and modern literature,
and, by offering him material structurally good and typical of the
qualities represented, to assist him in discriminating between the
artistic and the inartistic. The stories have been carefully
selected, because in the period of adolescence "nothing read fails
to leave its mark"; [Footnote: G Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol.
II.] they have also been carefully arranged with a view to the
needs of the adolescent boy and girl. Stories of the type loved by
primitive man, and therefore easily approached and understood,
have been placed first. Those which appealed in periods of higher
development follow, roughly in the order of their increasing
difficulty. It is hoped, moreover, that this arrangement will help
the student to understand and appreciate the development of the
story. He begins with the simple tale of adventure and the simple
story of character. As he advances he sees the story develop in
plot, in character analysis, and in setting, until he ends with
the psychological study of Markheim, remarkable for its complexity
of motives and its great spiritual problem. Both the selection and
the arrangement have been made with this further purpose in view--
"to keep the heart warm, reinforcing all its good motives,
preforming choices, universalizing sympathies." [Footnote: Ibid.]

It is a pleasure to acknowledge, in this connection, the
suggestions and the criticism of Mr. William N. Otto, Head of the
Department of English in Shortridge High School, Indianapolis; and
the courtesies of the publishers who have permitted the use of
their material.




INTRODUCTION

I

REQUIREMENTS OF THE SHORT STORY


Critics have agreed that the short story must conform to certain
conditions. First of all, the writer must strive to make one and
only one impression. His time is too limited, his space is too
confined, his risk of dividing the attention of the reader is too
great, to admit of more than this one impression. He therefore
selects some moment of action or some phase of character or some
particular scene, and focuses attention upon that. Life not
infrequently gives such brief, clear-cut impressions. At the
railway station we see two young people hurry to a train as if
fearful of being detained, and we get the impression of romantic
adventure. We pass on the street corner two men talking, and from
a chance sentence or two we form a strong impression of the
character of one or both. Sometimes we travel through a scene so
desolate and depressing or so lovely and uplifting that the effect
is never forgotten. Such glimpses of life and scene are as vivid
as the vignettes revealed by the search-light, when its arm slowly
explores a mountain-side or the shore of a lake and brings objects
for a brief moment into high light. To secure this single strong
impression, the writer must decide which of the three essentials--
plot, character, or setting--is to have first place.

As action appeals strongly to most people, and very adequately
reveals character, the short-story writer may decide to make plot
pre-eminent. He accordingly chooses his incidents carefully. Any
that do not really aid in developing the story must be cast aside,
no matter how interesting or attractive they may be in themselves.
This does not mean that an incident which is detached from the
train of events may not be used. But such an incident must have
proper relations provided for it. Thus the writer may wish to use
incidents that belong to two separate stories, because he knows
that by relating them he can produce a single effect. Shakespeare
does this in Macbeth. Finding in the lives of the historic Macbeth
and the historic King Duff incidents that he wished to use, he
combined them. But he saw to it that they had the right relation,
that they fitted into the chain of cause and effect. The reader
will insist, as the writer knows, that the story be logical, that
incident 1 shall be the cause of incident 2, incident 2 of
incident 3, and so on to the end. The triangle used by Freytag to
illustrate the plot of a play may make this clear.

AC is the line of rising action along which the story climbs,
incident by incident, to the point C; C is the turning point, the
crisis, or the climax; CB is the line of falling action along
which the story descends incident by incident to its logical
resolution. Nothing may be left to luck or chance. In life the
element of chance does sometimes seem to figure, but in the story
it has no place. If the ending is not the logical outcome of
events, the reader feels cheated. He does not want the situation
to be too obvious, for he likes the thrill of suspense. But he
wants the hints and foreshadowings to be sincere, so that he may
safely draw his conclusions from them. This does not condemn,
however, the "surprise" ending, so admirably used by O. Henry. The
reader, in this case, admits that the writer has "played fair"
throughout, and that the ending which has so surprised and tickled
his fancy is as logical as that he had forecast.

To aid in securing the element of suspense, the author often makes
use of what Carl H. Grabo, in his The Art of the Short Story,
calls the "negative" or "hostile" incident. Incidents, as he
points out, are of two kinds--positive and negative. The first
openly help to untangle the situation; the second seem to delay
the straightening out of the threads or even to make the tangle
worse. He illustrates this by the story of Cinderella. The
appearance of the fairy and her use of the magic wand are
positive, or openly helpful incidents, in rescuing Cinderella from
her lonely and neglected state. But her forgetfulness of the hour
and her loss of the glass slipper are negative or hostile
incidents. Nevertheless, we see how these are really blessings in
disguise, since they cause the prince to seek and woo her.

The novelist may introduce many characters, because he has time
and space to care for them. Not so the short-story writer: he must
employ only one main character and a few supporting characters.
However, when the plot is the main thing, the characters need not
be remarkable in any way. Indeed, as Brander Matthews has said,
the heroine may be "a woman," the hero "a man," not any woman or
any man in particular. Thus, in The Lady or the Tiger? the author
leaves the princess without definite traits of character, because
his problem is not "what this particular woman would do, but what
A woman would do." Sometimes, after reading a story of thrilling
plot, we find that we do not readily recall the appearance or the
names of the characters; we recall only what happened to them.
This is true of the women of James Fenimore Cooper's stories. They
have no substantiality, but move like veiled figures through the
most exciting adventures.

Setting may or may not be an important factor in the story of
incident. What is meant by setting? It is an inclusive term. Time,
place, local conditions, and sometimes descriptions of nature and
of people are parts of it. When these are well cared for, we get
an effect called "atmosphere." We know the effect the atmosphere
has upon objects. Any one who has observed distant mountains knows
that, while they remain practically unchanged, they never look the
same on two successive days. Sometimes they stand out hard and
clear, sometimes they are soft and alluring, sometimes they look
unreal and almost melt into the sky behind them. So the atmosphere
of a story may envelop people and events and produce a subtle
effect upon the reader. Sometimes the plot material is such as to
require little setting. The incidents might have happened
anywhere. We hardly notice the absence of setting in our hurry to
see what happens. This is true of many of the stories we enjoyed
when we were children. For instance, in The Three Bears the
incidents took place, of course, in the woods, but our imagination
really supplied the setting. Most stories, however, whatever their
character, use setting as carefully and as effectively as
possible. Time and place are often given with exactness. Thus Bret
Harte says: "As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main
street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of
November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral
atmosphere since the preceding night." This definite mention of
time and place gives an air of reality of the story. As to
descriptions, the writer sifts them in, for he knows that few will
bother to read whole paragraphs of description. He often uses
local color, by which we mean the employment of epithets, phrases,
and other expressions that impart a "feeling" for the place. This
use of local color must not be confused with that intended to
produce what is called an "impressionistic" effect. In the latter
case the writer subordinates everything to this effect of scene.
This use of local color is discussed elsewhere.

Perhaps the writer wishes to make character the dominant element.
Then he subordinates plot and setting to this purpose and makes
them contribute to it. In selecting the character he wishes to
reveal he has wide choice. "Human nature is the same, wherever you
find it," we are fond of saying. So he may choose a character that
is quite common, some one he knows; and, having made much of some
one trait and ignored or subordinated others, bring him before us
at some moment of decision or in some strange, perhaps hostile,
environment. Or the author may take some character quite out of
the ordinary: the village miser, the recluse, or a person with a
peculiar mental or moral twist. But, whatever his choice, it is
not enough that the character be actually drawn from real life.
Indeed, such fidelity to what literally exists may be a hinderance
to the writer. The original character may have done strange things
and suffered strange things that cannot be accounted for. But, in
the story, inconsistencies must be removed, and the conduct of the
characters must be logical. Life seems inconsistent to all of us
at times, but it is probably less so than it seems. People puzzle
us by their apparent inconsistencies, when to themselves their
actions seem perfectly logical. But, as Mr. Grabo points out, "In
life we expect inconsistencies; in a story we depend upon their
elimination." The law of cause and effect, which we found so
indispensable in the story of plot, we find of equal importance in
the story of character. There must be no sudden and unaccountable
changes in the behavior or sentiments of the people in the story.
On the contrary, there must be reason in all they say and do.

Another demand of the character story is that the characters be
lifelike. In the plot story, or in the impressionistic story, we
may accept the flat figures on the canvas; our interest is
elsewhere. But in the character story we must have real people
whose motives and conduct we discuss pro and con with as much
interest as if we knew them in the flesh. A character of this
convincing type is Hamlet. About him controversy has always raged.
It is impossible to think of him as other than a real man.
Whenever the writer finds that the characters in his story have
caused the reader to wax eloquent over their conduct, he may rest
easy: he has made his people lifelike.

Setting in the character story is important, for it is in this
that the chief actor moves and has his being. His environment is
continually causing him to speak and act. The incidents selected,
even though some of them may seem trivial in themselves, must
reveal depth after depth in his soul. Whatever the means by which
the author reveals the character--whether by setting, conduct,
analysis, dialogue, or soliloquy--his task is a hard one. In
Markheim we have practically all of these used, with the result
that the character is unmistakable and convincing.

Stories of scenes are neither so numerous nor so easy to produce
successfully as those of plot and character. But sometimes a place
so profoundly impresses a writer that its demands may not be
disregarded. Robert Louis Stevenson strongly felt the influence of
certain places. "Certain dank gardens cry aloud for murder;
certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set
apart for shipwreck. Other spots seem to abide their destiny,
suggestive and impenetrable." Perhaps all of us have seen some
place of which we have exclaimed: "It is like a story!" When,
then, scene is to furnish the dominant interest, plot and
character become relatively insignificant and shadowy. "The
pressure of the atmosphere," says Brander Matthews, holds our
attention. The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe, is
a story of this kind. It is the scene that affects us with dread
and horror; we have no peace until we see the house swallowed up
by the tarn, and have fled out of sight of the tarn itself. The
plot is extremely slight, and the Lady Madeline and her unhappy
brother hardly more than shadows.

It must not be supposed from the foregoing explanation that the
three essentials of the short story are ever really divorced. They
are happily blended in many of our finest stories. Nevertheless,
analysis of any one of these will show that in the mind of the
writer one purpose was pre-eminent. On this point Robert Louis
Stevenson thus speaks: "There are, so far as I know, three ways
and three only of writing a story. You may take a plot and fit
characters to it, or you may take a character and choose incidents
and situations to develop it, or, lastly, you may take a certain
atmosphere and get actions and persons to express and realize it."
When to this clear conception of his limitations and privileges
the author adds an imagination that clearly visualizes events and
the "verbal magic" by which good style is secured, he produces the
short story that is a masterpiece.




HOW THIS BOOK MAY BE USED

This book may be used in four ways. First, it may serve as an
appetizer. Even the casual reading of good literature has a
tendency to create a demand for more. Second, it may be made the
basis for discussion and comparison. By using these stories, the
works of recognized authors, as standards, the student may
determine the value of such stories as come into his home. Third,
these selections may be studied in a regular short-story course,
such as many high schools have, to illustrate the requirements and
the types of this form of narration. The chapter on "The
Requirements of the Short Story" will be found useful both in this
connection and in the comparative study of stories. Fourth, the
student will better appreciate and understand the short story if
he attempts to tell or to write one. This does not mean that we
intend to train him for the literary market. Our object is
entirely different. No form of literature brings more real joy to
the child than the story. Not only does he like to hear stories;
he likes to tell them. And where the short-story course is rightly
used, he likes to write them. He finds that the pleasure of
exercising creative power more than offsets the drudgery
inevitable in composition. A plan that has been satisfactorily
carried out in the classroom is here briefly outlined.

The teacher reads with the class a story in which plot furnishes
the main interest. This type is chosen because it is more easily
analyzed by beginners. The class discusses this, applying the
tests of the short story given elsewhere in this book. Then a
number of short stories of different types are read and compared.
Next, each member of the class selects from some recent book or
magazine a short story he enjoys. This he outlines and reports to
the class. If this report is not satisfactory, the class insists
that either the author or the reporter be exonerated. The story is
accordingly read to the class, or is read and reported on by
another member. The class is then usually able to decide whether
the story is faulty or the first report inadequate.

Next the class gives orally incidents that might or might not be
expanded into short stories. The students soon discover that some
of these require the lengthy treatment of a novel, that others are
good as simple incidents but nothing more, and that still others
might develop into satisfactory short stories. The class is now
asked to develop original plots. Since plots cannot be produced on
demand, but require time for the mind to act subconsciously, the
class practises, during the "period of incubation," the writing of
dialogue. For these the teacher suggests a list of topics,
although any student is free to substitute one of his own. Among
the topics that have been used are: "Johnny goes with his mother
to church for the first time," "Mrs. Hennessy is annoyed by the
chickens of Mrs. Jones," "Albert applies for a summer job."
Sometimes the teacher relates an incident, and has the class
reproduce it in dialogue. By comparing their work with dialogue by
recognized writers the youthful authors soon learn how to
punctuate and paragraph conversation, and where to place necessary
comment and explanation. They also discover that dialogue must
either reveal character or advance the story; and that it must be
in keeping with the theme and maintain the tone used at the
beginning. A commonplace dialogue must not suddenly become
romantic in tone, and dialect must not lapse into ordinary
English.




INTRODUCTION

The original plots the class offers later may have been suggested
in many ways. Newspaper accounts, court reports, historical
incidents, family traditions--all may contribute. Sometimes the
student proudly declares of his plot, "I made it out of my own
head." These plots are arranged in outline form to show how
incident 1 developed incident 2, that incident 3, and so on to the
conclusion. The class points out the weak places in these plots
and offers helpful suggestions. This co-operation often produces
surprisingly good results. A solution that the troubled originator
of the plot never thought of may come almost as an inspiration
from the class. Criticism throughout is largely constructive.
After the student has developed several plots in outline, he
usually finds among them one that he wishes to use for his story.
This is worked out in some detail, submitted to the class, and
later in a revised form to the teacher. The story when complete is
corrected and sometimes rewritten.

Most of the class prefer to write stories of plot, but some insist
upon trying stories of character or of setting. These pupils are
shown the difficulties in their way, but are allowed to try their
hand if they insist. Sometimes the results are good; more often
the writer, after an honest effort, admits that he cannot handle
his subject well and substitutes a story of plot.

In any case the final draft is sure to leave much to be desired;
but even so, the gain has been great. The pupil writer has
constantly been measuring his work by standards of recognized
excellence in form and in creative power; as a result he has
learned to appreciate the short story from the art side. Moreover,
he has had a large freedom in his work that has relieved it of
drudgery. And, best of all, he has been doing original work with
plastic material; and to work with plastic material is always a source
of joy, whether it be the mud that the child makes into pies, the clay
that the artist moulds into forms of beauty, or the facts of life that the
creative imagination of the writer shapes into literature.






THE FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE

A STORY OF THE FOREST

BY HENRY VAN DYKE

This story is placed first because it is of the type that first
delighted man. It is the story of high adventure, of a struggle
with the forces of nature, barbarous men, and heathen gods. The
hero is "a hunter of demons, a subduer of the wilderness, a
woodman of the faith." He seeks hardships and conquers them. The
setting is the illumitable forest in the remote past. The forest,
like the sea, makes an irresistible appeal to the imagination.
Either may be the scene of the marvellous and the thrilling. Quite
unlike the earliest tales, this story is enriched with description
and exposition; nevertheless, it has their simplicity and dignity.
It reminds us of certain of the great Biblical narratives, such as
the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal and the
victory of Daniel over the jealous presidents and princes of
Darius. In "The First Christmas Tree," as in many others of these
stories, a third person is the narrator. But the hero may tell his
own adventures. "I did this. I did that. Thus I felt at the
conclusion." Instances are Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" and
Stevenson's "Kidnapped." But whether in the first or third person,
the story holds us by the magic of adventure.




THE FIRST CHRISTMAS TREE

[Footnote: From "The First Christmas Tree," by Henry Van Dyke.
Copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons.]


I

THE CALL OF THE WOODSMAN


The day before Christmas, in the year of our Lord 722.

Broad snow-meadows glistening white along the banks of the river
Moselle; pallid hill-sides blooming with mystic roses where the
glow of the setting sun still lingered upon them; an arch of
clearest, faintest azure bending overhead; in the centre of the
aerial landscape the massive walls of the cloister of Pfalzel,
gray to the east, purple to the west; silence over all,--a gentle,
eager, conscious stillness, diffused through the air like perfume,
as if earth and sky were hushing themselves to hear the voice of
the river faintly murmuring down the valley.

In the cloister, too, there was silence at the sunset hour. All
day long there had been a strange and joyful stir among the nuns.
A breeze of curiosity and excitement had swept along the corridors
and through every quiet cell.

The elder sisters,--the provost, the deaconess, the stewardess,
the portress with her huge bunch of keys jingling at her girdle,--
had been hurrying to and fro, busied with household cares. In the
huge kitchen there was a bustle of hospitable preparation. The
little bandy-legged dogs that kept the spits turning before the
fires had been trotting steadily for many an hour, until their
tongues hung out for want of breath. The big black pots swinging
from the cranes had bubbled and gurgled and shaken and sent out
puffs of appetizing steam.

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