In this way our great western plains are opened to civilization. Every year millions of acres are added to our national domain. The wild prairie with its countless buffaloes and its skulking, murderous war-parties of red men becomes the frontier; the frontier becomes the settled farms and villages; the iron horse and the telegraph connect it with the great East; and still the pioneer and the army push ahead to open up still more of the richest land in the world to the conquering axe and plow of the Anglo-Saxon.
—From "Belden the White Chief".
Pupils should be prepared to recite on the following topics:
1. Moving west, then moving west again.
2. What an army train carried.
3. The work of the pioneer corps.
4. An army camp at night
(a) Supper.
(b) Changing the guard.
(c) How the camp was protected.
5. Development of a fort into a settlement.
6. Summary.Write answers to the following questions:
1. Who of your relations might have been one of these soldiers; your older brother, your father, your grandfather, or your great grandfather?
2. Name three kinds of food that we eat every day that come from the part of the country opened as described in this selection.
3. Tell some of the sounds you might have heard if you had been sleeping in one of the wagons when camped for the night.
[TURNING OUT THE INTRUDER]
Here is another exercise that will help you see how well you can arrange words in groups. What kind of list is the first group of words below? Do all the words under figure 1 belong in that list? Would it be a better list without the word velvet? Write velvet on the first line of your paper.
In each group of words, there is one that does not belong there. Find the misplaced word in each group, writing one under the other. You have now made a new list of words of one class by taking one word out of each group. Pick out a good heading for this new list and write it as the top.
| 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. |
| corn | copper | satin | teaching | horse |
| velvet | tin | coasting | surveying | sheep |
| potatoes | muslin | swimming | building | oxen |
| wheat | lead | tennis | linen | dog |
| barley | brass | skating | mining | silk |
| beets | gold | football | printing | cattle |