1. Outline Lincoln's life, ancestry, etc., as here presented, under the proper heads. Test your outline by trying to group all the facts under their proper headings. This will require careful re-reading of the selection.
2. Next take one of your topics and practice thinking of the items you have included under it. Be ready to speak on any one of your topics at class recitation.
3. What major events of Lincoln's life are omitted from this document? Why? (To answer this, refer to your history for the dates of Lincoln's presidency; compare with the date when this was written.)
4. Is there anything in the article that sounds the least boastful? Explain lines 25-26 in this connection.
5. Who were the Whigs? What was the Missouri Compromise?
6. One sentence in this suggests the sly humor of Lincoln. Find it.
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN
By Walt Whitman
The Civil War between the North and the South lasted from 1861-1865. Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States at the time, and it was largely due to his wisdom that the great conflict lasted no longer. The Northern armies were generally victorious in the winter and spring of 1865. The nation, however, was suddenly bowed in grief. The President was shot by an assassin on April 14, and died next day.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) at the time was employed in a clerical position in the War Department, and, outside office hours, in nursing wounded soldiers in Washington. He often saw Lincoln, who passed Whitman's house almost every day. The "Good Gray Poet" and the President had a bowing acquaintance; and in one of his books Whitman refers to the dark-brown face, deep-cut lines, and sad eyes of Lincoln. Whitman gave expression to his grief at the country's loss in the following poem, in which he refers to the martyred President as the captain of the Ship of State.
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we
sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 5
daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead. 10
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle
trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the
shores a-crowding. 5
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces
turning.
Here, Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck10
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and
done, 15
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead. 20
—Drum Taps.
1. Explain the references to the safe arrival of the ship in port, the ringing of the bells, and the general exultation.
2. Re-read the poem carefully. Picture to yourself what each stanza contributes as you read. When you have finished, test yourself to see how much of it you can recall exactly. Complete the memorization by this same process of careful re-reading.
3. Whitman had his volume, Drum Taps, practically completed when Lincoln's assassination occurred. He held up its publication to include "O Captain! My Captain" and another poem on the death of Lincoln, called "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed." Why is the title of the latter poem appropriate?
WASHINGTON'S GREATEST BATTLE
By Frederick Trevor Hill
By 1781 the French were coöperating with our colonial troops against the armies and navies of the British. Lafayette was in the South helping Greene worry Cornwallis. Rochambeau was working with Washington near New York, to keep Clinton from uniting his forces with those of Cornwallis. De Grasse, in charge of the French fleet, was planning a blow at the British squadron. The stage was thus set for a great military stroke—and Washington readily took up the cue.
Word was received from Lafayette that Cornwallis
had moved to Yorktown on the York River, Virginia,
close to Chesapeake Bay, and almost at the same
moment the long-expected dispatch arrived from de Grasse,
advising Washington that he was just on the point of 5
sailing for Chesapeake Bay. The instant he received this
news the American commander realized that his chance had
come. Cornwallis had evidently brought his army to
Yorktown that it might coöperate with a British fleet in
the Chesapeake, and by good luck de Grasse was heading 10
directly for this very spot. A bold, swift stroke might now
end the war, and the plan which Washington immediately
put in operation was daring to a really perilous degree.
Up to this point all the movements of the French and
Americans had convinced Clinton that an attack would 15
soon be made against New York. Never for a moment did
he imagine that his opponent would dare leave the Hudson
unguarded and throw his whole army against Cornwallis.
The risk of losing West Point and the difficulty of covering
the hundreds of miles that lay between New York and Yorktown
seemed to forbid any such maneuver. Nevertheless,
this was precisely what Washington intended to do, and
within a few days after the receipt of de Grasse's message
he was hurrying southward with every man he could 5
possibly spare.
Secrecy and speed were essential to success, for if Clinton
discovered what was happening, he would undoubtedly
try to throw his army between Cornwallis and the Americans,
and even though he failed in stopping them he could 10
easily delay their march until the British force at Yorktown
had time to escape. Washington, therefore, took extraordinary
care to conceal his plans, not only from his foes
but also from his friends. Indeed, Rochambeau was the
only officer who knew where the men were being headed as 15
they hurried through New Jersey, and so cleverly was their
route selected that even when Clinton learned of their
march he still believed that the Americans, having failed
in the attempt on his rear door near King's Bridge, were
about to swing around and try to get in at the front door20
from Staten Island or Sandy Hook.
This was just what Washington wanted him to think,
and to deceive him still further, camp kitchens were erected
along the expected line of march and the troops were so
handled that they seemed to be moving straight to an 25
attack on New York. But at the proper moment they were
suddenly turned southward at a pace that defied pursuit,
and before the true situation dawned on the British commander
they were almost at the Delaware River. But
though he had by this time acquired a fairly safe lead, 30
Washington did not slacken his speed, and with a roar of
cheers from the now excited populace, the dusty columns
were soon pouring through Philadelphia, the American
commander pushing on ahead to Chester, and sending back
word that de Grasse had arrived in Chesapeake Bay and
that not a moment must be lost.
Clinton then made a frantic effort to save the day by 5
sending Arnold to attack some of the New England towns,
thinking that the American commander might hurry back
to their rescue. But Washington was first and foremost a
man of good, hard common sense, and he knew that all
Arnold could accomplish would be the destruction of a few10
defenseless towns, and to let Cornwallis escape in order to
protect them did not appeal to his practical mind at all.
He therefore paid no attention to the traitor's movements,
but bent all his efforts on speeding his army southward.
At Chesapeake Bay an exasperating delay occurred, for 15
there were not sufficient vessels to transport the army over
the water, and for a time the success of the whole expedition
was threatened. But Washington was in no mood to be
blocked by obstacles of this sort. If his troops could not
be ferried down the bay, they must march around it, and 20
march many of them did, their general obtaining the first
glimpse he had had in six years of his beloved Mount
Vernon as he swept by, and on September 28, 1781, his
whole force was in front of Yorktown, with success fairly
within its grasp. 25
Meanwhile de Grasse's fleet had fiercely assailed a British
squadron which had been sent to the rescue, and after a
sharp engagement the French had been able to return to
the bay while the British vessels were obliged to retire to
New York, leaving Cornwallis with the York River on one 30
side of him, the James River on the other, and the Chesapeake
Bay at his back, but no ships to carry him to safety.
Only one chance of escape now remained, and that was to
hurl his whole army through the narrow neck of land immediately
in front of him and beat a hasty retreat to the south.
But Washington had anticipated this desperate move by
positive instructions to Lafayette, and acting upon them the 5
young marquis rushed a body of French troops from the
fleet into the gap, and the arrival of the American army
completely blocked it.
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 strength20
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 between30
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.
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 orange5
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, in10
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.
(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 good15
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 of5
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.
There was nothing to be seen of the beautiful drives.
The wonderful trees were as clumps of sagebrush, the
gathering spots mere splotches of gray in a patch of moldy
green. The lakes and the reservoir were as bits of broken30
glass with jagged edges and no reason on earth for their
being there.
Below us we did make out a few of the taller buildings,
but it required an effort and a prior knowledge of their location.
Fifth Avenue, over which we were traveling at
ninety miles an hour as we tacked across the pathway of
the wind and sped southward, was like any other street 5
from that height. One could never recognize it as Fifth
Avenue, though in front of the Public Library the limousines
forming two thin lines like black threads helped identify it.
The Metropolitan tower was passed far more quickly than
it requires in the telling. I looked ahead to see the wonderful 10
skyline down toward the Battery with its galaxy of skyscrapers.
It was not there. Back over my shoulder I saw
42 Street and Broadway. Strange to relate, the great
buildings on that side of town stood up in bold relief.
We could now take in both the North and East rivers and 15
all of New York Bay at a single glance. A mile above them,
and we were following Broadway to Battery Park. We
recognized the Woolworth tower. But the Statue of
Liberty was far more prominent, standing alone and distinguished,
ready to meet all comers. 20
The Woolworth Building was a disappointment. I had
thought to see it at its best, gaze at it from all angles; but
I became far more interested in the piers that curbed our
little island of Manhattan, the ferryboats that plied like
toy ships, leaving scarcely a wake that we could see. 25
I recalled that the giant Leviathan was due in, that noon,
with several thousand soldiers. I scanned the bay for it.
A moment later, when we had swung around in a wide circle
and started back uptown, I saw it. The transport had
been under us and we had not seen it. I knew there must 30
be thousands in Battery Park to greet the Leviathan and
her heroes.
After straining my eyes I decided that the tiny specks at
certain spots in the park where there were no trees must of
a surety be human beings. But they were specks.
At this juncture all of us received a shock. The plane
headed against the stiff west wind again, bumped into it 5
head first, and then keeled halfway over. Try tipping up
on one runner of a rocking chair, try balancing yourself
as you go whizzing through space. I realized then that if
one were placed in a rocking chair in the tonneau of a
motor car and the car rounded a corner say at thirty or 10
forty-five miles an hour, one might derive the same sensation.
Our bodies were tugging at the life belts that held us
firmly in our seats. Every muscle in my body was taut.
I held my breath. Would we turn over? Would something 15
snap and send us down? I looked to see where we
would fall. We would have fallen a sheer 5000 feet, directly
on the Woolworth tower, the entire building of which
was little more than a toy. But we did not fall.
The wind was better to us now, being in the rear. Yet 20
we did not appear to be making more speed. We drifted
along, apparently. A moment later we were over green
fields again. Far ahead I saw a Long Island train, doubtless
moving. My gaze wandered momentarily. I looked
for the train. It was gone. I looked back. It was in 25
our rear, and still coming in our direction.
It seemed but a matter of a few breaths of piercingly cold
air before we were circling Hazlehurst Field. A brief glide
and we were coasting on the ground toward the exact spot
we had left. I looked at the watch again. 30
We had traveled from New York to the field, a distance
of twenty-two miles, at the rate of two miles and a half a
minute. And my picture of Greater New York was that
of a beautiful toy, a diamond sunburst glittering in a setting
of purple and gold, a city full of windowpanes and skylights
that throw back the rays of the sun—but a toy nevertheless,
for verily I had beheld a city and had taken it in the 5
palm of my hand, gazed at it in wonder a moment, and had
then put it back again.
—Motor Life.
(Used by arrangement with Motor Life, New York city)