Though shaking all over, I summoned courage enough to go to the window and look out of a hole in the shade.  As the men came into sight around the corner, I screamed outright, but from relief rather than fear, for the men were not soldiers, but Grandpa Smith and his fourteen-year-old grandson.  They stopped at the well to get a drink, and when we opened the window, the old man said, “We’re just on our way to mow the back lot and stopped to grind the scythe on your stone.  We broke ours yesterday.”

Then he picked up the scythe which in the fog I had taken for a saber, while the grandson again shouldered his pitchfork musket.

What effect would it have on the interest aroused by the preceding story to begin it as follows?

“One morning during the Civil War, I saw two of my neighbors, Grandpa Smith and his grandson, crossing our orchard, one carrying a scythe and the other a pitchfork.”

Why is the expression, “before the fog had lifted,” used near the beginning of the story?  Would a description of the appearance of the house, the barn, or the persons add to the interest aroused by the story?  Is it necessary to add anything to the story?

EXERCISE

In each of the following selections decide where the interest reaches its climax.  Has anything been said in the beginning of any of them which suggests what the point will be, or which helps you to appreciate it when you come to it?

1.  The next evening our travelers encamped on a sand bar, or rather a great bank of sand, that ran for miles along one side of the river.  They kept watch as usual, Leon taking the first turn.  He seated himself on a pile of sand and did his best to keep awake; but in about an hour after the rest were asleep, he felt very drowsy and fell into a nap that lasted nearly half an hour, and might have continued longer had he not slid down the sand hill and tumbled over on his side.  This awoke him.  Feeling vexed with himself, he rubbed his eyes and looked about to see if any creature had ventured near.  He first looked towards the woods, for of course that was the direction from which the tigers would come; but he had scarcely turned himself when he perceived a pair of eyes glancing at him from the other side of the fire.  Close to them another pair, then another and another, until, having looked on every side, he saw himself surrounded by a complete circle of glancing eyes.  It is true they were small ones, and some of the heads which he could see by the blaze were small.  They were not jaguars, but they had an ugly look.  They looked like the heads of serpents.  Was it possible that a hundred serpents could have surrounded the camp?

Brought suddenly to his feet, Leon stood for some moments uncertain what to do.  He believed that the eyes belonged to snakes which had just crept out of the river; and he feared that any movement on his part would lead them to attack him.  Having risen to his feet, his eyes were above the level of the blaze, and he was able in a little while to see more clearly.