SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

What is “his state,” in line five?  How has the soldier been “wronged”?  Does the author think that the fight in the Philippines has not been “good”?  Why?  What does he mean by the last line of stanza two?  What “evil days” are those mentioned in stanza three?  Have they come yet?  What “faithless past” is meant?  Do you think that the United States has treated the Philippines unfairly?[14]

COLLATERAL READINGS

Gloucester Moors and Other Poems William Vaughn Mood
Poems and Plays of William Vaughn
  Moody (2 vols.  Biographical introduction) John M. Manley (Ed.)
Letters of William Vaughn Moody Daniel Mason (Ed.)
Out of Gloucester J.B.  Connolly

For biography, criticism, and portraits of William Vaughn Moody, consult:  Atlantic Monthly, 98:326, September, 1906; World’s Work, 13:  8258, December, 1906 (Portrait); Century, 73:431 (Portrait); Reader, 10:173; Bookman, 32:253 (Portrait.)

THE COON DOG

SARAH ORNE JEWETT

(In The Queen’s Twin and Other Stories)

I

In the early dusk of a warm September evening the bats were flitting to and fro, as if it were still summer, under the great elm that overshadowed Isaac Brown’s house, on the Dipford road.  Isaac Brown himself, and his old friend and neighbor John York, were leaning against the fence.

“Frost keeps off late, don’t it?” said John York.  “I laughed when I first heard about the circus comin’; I thought ’twas so unusual late in the season.  Turned out well, however.  Everybody I noticed was returnin’ with a palm-leaf fan.  Guess they found ’em useful under the tent; ’twas a master hot day.  I saw old lady Price with her hands full o’ those free advertising fans, as if she was layin’ in a stock against next summer.  Well, I expect she’ll live to enjoy ’em.”

“I was right here where I’m standin’ now, and I see her as she was goin’ by this mornin’,” said Isaac Brown, laughing, and settling himself comfortably against the fence as if they had chanced upon a welcome subject of conversation.  “I hailed her, same’s I gener’lly do.  ’Where are you bound to-day, ma’am?’ says I.

“‘I’m goin’ over as fur as Dipford Centre,’ says she.  ‘I’m goin’ to see my poor dear ’Liza Jane.  I want to ’suage her grief; her husband, Mr.  ‘Bijah Topliff, has passed away.’

“‘So much the better,’ says I.

“‘No; I never l’arnt about it till yisterday,’ says she;’ an’ she looked up at me real kind of pleasant, and begun to laugh.

“‘I hear he’s left property,’ says she, tryin’ to pull her face down solemn.  I give her the fifty cents she wanted to borrow to make up her car-fare and other expenses, an’ she stepped off like a girl down tow’ds the depot.