JUDGE. But how did you know he was blind in one eye?

DERVISH. As the grass was cropped only on the left side of the tracks, I judged that he was blind in the right eye.

JUDGE. But you said he was lame in one leg.

DERVISH. Yes, I thought he might be, because I noticed that the mark he left in the sand with one foot was fainter than the other tracks.

JUDGE. But how could you know he had lost a tooth?

DERVISH. I looked carefully at the places he had grazed, and found everywhere a little tuft of grass, uncropped, in the very middle of every bite. This led me to believe he had lost a front tooth.

JUDGE. Very good. You have proved that you are innocent. You

FIRST MERCHANT. Wait, wait, good Judge! There is something more to explain! How did the dervish know what load the camel carried?

DERVISH. That is easily explained. The ants, busy carrying grains of wheat from one side of the tracks, and the flies gathering on the other side, told me that the load was wheat and honey.

JUDGE. You are not guilty, dervish. You may go. As for you merchants, if you will follow the tracks of your camel, and use your eyes as carefully as has this good dervish, I think you will soon find him.

NOTES

1. Dervish. A Mohammedan monk who professes extreme poverty and leads an austere religious life.

2. Merchant. One who not only sold goods, but who shipped goods on camels from one part of the desert to the other.

3. Bagdad. Locate this country on the map in your geography. 4. Look up the following words: desert, jewels, treasure, prisoner, bazaar, diligently, cropped, punished, fainter, restore.

EXERCISES

1. What characters appear in this selection?

2. What is a dervish?

3. What was the first inference drawn by the dervish? What other inferences in turn were drawn by him?

4. What effect did his explanation have on the merchants?

5. What did they think when the dervish said he had never seen the camel?

6. What led the merchants to think that the dervish was a robber? 7. For what purpose did they drag him before the judge?

8. What story did the two merchants tell?

9. What addition to the story was then given by the first merchant? 10. What did the merchants feel they had proven by their stories? 11. What effect did these stories have upon the judge?

12. What did the judge then tell the dervish to do in defense?

13. From the dervish's speech, tell each fact observed, and what inference the dervish drew from it.

14. What was the verdict of the judge?

15. What advice did the judge give to the merchants?

16. What lesson in observation may we learn from this story?

ADDITIONAL READINGS

CONAN DOYLE: Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet.

FORD: The Great K. and A. Train Robbery.

LOWELL: Yussouf.

SAXE: The Blind Men and the Elephant.

THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE TREE

NOTHING is more discouraging than to plant

something that does not grow. When drouth, or famine, or pestilence comes, and men cannot reap what they sow, they lose heart and are ready to quit trying; but when bountiful harvests follow the time of planting and sowing, all hearts rejoice. With such a spirit of uplift the poet here tells us of a planting which carries with it a larger vision of future harvest. He is planting, not a seed which will yield its harvest but once, but a tree which will give shade and shelter, flower and fruit, for many seasons.

And

"Heaven and Earth help him who plants a tree And his work its own reward shall be."

"A Nation's growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.'

The following poem is one of the best poetic interpretations of a planting that bears fruit each year.

Lucy Larcom says that he who plants a tree, plants hope, and joy, and peace, and youth, and love. Somehow the poets have always regarded the tree as a symbol of human life, which to fulfill itself must constantly bear fruits of kindness, helpfulness, and love.

THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE TREE'

Come, let us plant the apple tree.

Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;
Wide let its hollow bed be made;
There gently lay the roots, and there
Sift the dark mold with kindly care,
And press it o'er them tenderly,
As round the sleeping infant's feet
We softly fold the cradle sheet;
So plant we the apple tree.

What plant we in this apple tree?
Buds, which the breath of summer days

Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;

Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,

Shall haunt, and sing, and hide her nest;

We plant, upon the sunny lea,

A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer shower,
When we plant the apple tree.

What plant we in this apple tree?
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs,
To load the May wind's restless wings,
When, from the orchard row, he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors;
A world of blossoms for the bee,
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,

We plant with the apple tree.

1 Reprinted from Bryant's Complete Poetical Works, by permission of D. Appleton and Company.

What plant we in this apple tree?
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,
And redden in the August noon,
And drop, when gentle airs come by,
That fan the blue September sky,

While children come, with cries of glee,
And seek them where the fragrant grass
Betrays their bed to those who pass,
At the foot of the apple tree.

And when, above this apple tree,
The winter stars are quivering bright,
The winds go howling through the night,
Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth,
Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth,

And guests in prouder homes shall see, Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine, And golden orange of the line,

The fruit of the apple tree.

The fruitage of this apple tree,
Winds and our flag of stripe and star
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar,
Where men shall wonder at the view,
And ask in what fair groves they grew;
And sojourners beyond the sea
Shall think of childhood's careless day,
And long, long hours of summer play,
In the shade of the apple tree.

Each year shall give this apple tree
A broader flush of roseate bloom,
A deeper maze of verdurous gloom,