NOTES AND QUESTIONS
Biography. Hamlin Garland (1860-1940) was born in Wisconsin. His father was a farmer-pioneer, who was always eager to be on the border line of the farming country; consequently, he moved from Wisconsin to Minnesota, from Minnesota to Iowa, and from Iowa to Dakota. The hope of cheaper land, better soil, and bigger crops led him on. When Hamlin Garland turned his attention to literature, he decided to write truthfully of the western farmer's life and its great hardships in pioneer days, as well as its hopes and joys. In A Son of the Middle Border, an autobiography, from which "My Boyhood on the Prairie" is taken, he has given a most interesting record of experiences in the development of the Middle West. Mitchell County, where this scene is laid, is in Iowa.
Discussion. 1. Describe the boy's new home. 2. What work did the boy have to do? 3. In what spirit did he start the plowing? 4. Why did his "sense of elation" soon disappear? 5. Was his task harder than that of Peter or of the boy who helped "Somebody's Mother"? 6. Must a boy do some marvelous thing to be a hero? 7. How did the boy try to keep himself in good cheer? 8. In The World of Nature, A Forward Look you are told that if you have eyes to see, "the world of Nature is a fairyland." Why do you think this boy had "eyes to see"? Find your answer by reading the last two lines on page 131 and the first ten lines on page 132. 9. What made him wish for freedom? 10. Class reading: Page 131, line 8, to the end of the story. 11. Outline for testing silent reading. Tell the story briefly, using these topics: (a) the region and the cabin; (b) what plowing meant to a boy; (c) how the boy was cheered. 12. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: marveled; scorched; skillet; ridges; reinforcing; habitable; commission; stature; implement; stubble; share; cross-brace; judgment; tormentors; tolerable; unhoused; deposited; clog ging; evaporated. 13. Pronounce: chore; tedious; loam; imaginable; gopher; leisure.
Phrases for Study
billowed like a russet ocean, guiding lines, fleck its lonely spread, tortured by their lances, county town, astride the traces, initial round, go the entire round, confident mood, plow had violated, sense of elation, bound boy.