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CHOOSE A BOOK

1. Beveridge, Albert Jeremiah, The Young Man and the World. Apple

ton.

How to learn your own possibilities for success and how to start out in the direction for which you are fitted.

2. Center, Stella S. (editor), The Worker and His Work. Lippincott. Fishing, farming, lumbering, advertising, merchandising, banking, housekeeping pictured in essays, poems, and short stories by such writers as H. G. Wells, Maurice Maeterlinck, O. Henry, Arnold Bennett, and Joseph Pennell. 3. Coe, Fannie E., Heroes of Every Day Life. Ginn.

Many stories of heroism: of engineers; of telegraphers; and of life-savers. 4. Dearmer, Mabel, A Child's Life of Christ. Methuen, London. The story of the greatest life ever lived.

5. Deland, Ellen Douglas, A Successful Venture. Wilde.

How four plucky girls and their younger brother earned their own living when misfortunes came.

6. Doughton, Isaac, Preparing for the World's Work. Scribner. An introduction to the world of occupations and one's place in it.

7. Drysdale, William, Helps for Ambitious Boys and Helps for Ambitious Girls. Crowell.

Life careers open to young men and young women and the qualities necessary for success in each career.

8. Every Day Heroes: Retold from St. Nicholas. Century.

Was Walter Harvey a coward? Why did the fireman get a medal? How did a boy save a ship? How was Ulric saved? What was the grit of the chemist's helper?

9. Gore, John Rogers, The Boyhood of Abraham Lincoln. Bobbs-Merrill. How Lincoln, a child of the wilderness, lived through his early childhood among the hills of Kentucky. How he won the nickname "Abe."

10. Holland, Rupert Sargent, Historic Boyhoods and Historic Girlhoods. Jacobs.

Stories of the youth of great men and women.

11. Kaempffert, Waldemar (Editor). A Popular History of American Inventions. Scribner.

Many stories of the life work of Americans who have made life better and happier by their inventive genius.

12. Kipling, Rudyard, Kim. Doubleday.

The son of a British soldier, brought up in India, has many adventures with a wandering teacher, and is trained for his life work in that land.

13. Miller, Mary Rogers, Out-Door Work. Doubleday.

The best ways of earning money by out-of-door work.

14. Morgan, James, Theodore Roosevelt: the Boy and the Man. Macmillan. Story of the foremost American of his day; his Southern mother and Northern father; his life in the West; his recreations and home life.

15. Richardson, Anna Steese, The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living. Rickey.

How a girl just finishing the grammar school may become self-supporting.

16. Roosevelt, Theodore, and Lodge, Henry Cabot, Hero Tales from American History. Century.

Sketches of famous men and of dramatic events in American history.

17. Sweetser, Kate Dickinson, Ten American Girls from History. Duffield.

Stories of Pocahontas, Mollie Pitcher, Clara Barton, Louisa M. Alcott, Clara Morris, and five other American girls.

18. Tappan, Eva March, Heroes of Progress. Houghton.

Stories of thirty men and women of our country whose success lay in the value of their service to us all, from John Audubon, lover of birds, to George W. Goethals, builder of the Panama Canal.

19. Trowbridge, John Townsend, Jack Hazard and His Fortunes. Winston.

Story of a canal boy who made his own way.

20. Twain, Mark (Samuel Clemens), The Prince and the Pauper. Harper. By a strange accident a prince becomes a poor boy and a beggar boy becomes a king; both learn by interesting adventures the best qualities of manhood.

21. Twombly, Frances D., and Dana, John C., Romance of Labor. Macmillan.

A collection of stories from great writers showing the human interest in agriculture, fishing, engineering, manufacture, herding, lumbering, mining, and science.

22. Wade, Mary Hazelton, Real Americans. Little, Brown.

Stories of six American leaders, who found their work, fitted themselves for it, and accomplished it: Roosevelt, Hoover, Wood, Burroughs, Clemens, and Hale.

23. Weaver, Eli Witwer, Building a Career. Association Press.

This book has a chapter on the life-work any boy or girl might like to do.

24. Whitehead, Harold, Your Job. Biddle. Business Publications, New York.

How to choose a job; how to secure a job; how to hold a job; how to grow on a job. Seventeen qualities that a successful man or woman should possess.

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Read the story quickly. When you have finished, suggest another title which will show the fitness of this story to be in "Finding One's Work."

Katherine seemed to be a sort of leader among her playmates. I used to see them in groups clustered around her, sometimes perfectly silent while she did the talking, again all talking at once, apparently excited. Sometimes she seemed to be giving orders and laying out parts for each one. Again there seemed to be rebellion and violent arguments. But Katherine could talk them all down; or, if she could not, her last resort was to stalk off towards home without a word. Then they would go chasing after her, calling: "Aw, now, Kit, don't go off mad. Aw, now, Kit, c'mon, we'll do it your way." They would stand any meanness from her if she would only stay with them.

She had them play Shakespeare. Katherine read Shakespeare before she was twelve; sat up in bed to read it nights, to her father's great wrath. I don't know how she got the idea that Shakespeare was to be played. She had never seen a play or heard of one, so far as I know. Anyway, she staged a good deal of Shakespeare one year in an empty barn.

Even grown-ups went to see the plays, though they had to pay real pennies to get in, the children getting in for whatever they had that Katherine wanted. Of course it was impossible to make the children learn Shakespeare's plays, so Katherine

prepared suitable versions, very practicable versions they were too, both as to language and business. Katherine was business manager and stage manager, as well as adapter of the play; she also took a part, sometimes two or three parts.

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They played "Hamlet" and "Julius Caesar" in this way, and some others I forget now. They came to grief over "Hamlet." The butcher's son was cast for the title rôle. At one place Katherine had him say: "The blood that drippeth from this dagger in my hand-" At this moment, as he scowled fiercely at the dagger, a boy in the audience piped out: "It's a calf's!" Forgetting all about his part, the butcher's boy shook his dagger at the interpolator and shrieked: “I know who you are that said that, and I'll lick you to-morrow, smarty ape."

The audience went into fits and the show broke up in disorder. But afterwards Johnny Bream and the butcher's boy fought, and real blood dripped from real noses. Their mothers inquired into matters, and then told around that that Kitty Dale was at the bottom of all the mischief done in this village.

I never saw the Shakespeare plays. A teacher told me about them. She stopped me on the street and talked twenty minutes about what a remarkable child Katherine was.

"She's a genius! You ought to make a dramatic artist of her," she said.

"I'd like to make a dish-washing artist of her," said I.

Another trait that troubled me in Katherine was her fondness for some of our neighbors. In those days, near the Quebec border we had only two kinds of foreigners, Irish and French-Canadians Canucks, we called them. I was middle-aged before I ever saw any other kind of a foreigner. There was a little settlement of the Canadians by the river, whom Katherine would visit in spite of all I could do. She organized the French and Indian War, with the village children for the colonists, the French children for the French, and Katherine herself for the Indian tribes. That ended in bloodshed, too. She would sit for hours in their oniony kitchens listening to the old folks talk and talking with them. She learned to talk Canuck French from them; I've heard her jabbering it.

Some Indians used to come every summer and camp in the

woods and sell baskets and berries- some of the old St. Regis tribe that still wander around St. Lawrence County in summer. Katherine was hand in glove with them, too.

If a band of gypsies came through, as they did occasionally, she would be at their camp before they got the fire built. It was impossible to keep her away from such people unless I locked her up.

Katherine was fourteen when we moved to Wyburn. She was entered in the eighth grade in the middle of the winter. In June this grade would be promoted to the high school if they passed their examinations. It was my first contact with a real graded school. Near the end of the term the principal came to see me. He was a conscientious young man, very solemn and

nervous.

"Mrs. Dale," said he, "your daughter doesn't know the multiplication table."

I was silent. It was a fresh shame put on me by Katherine; not to know the multiplication table at fourteen !

"She knows the 2's," said he desperately, "but she doesn't know the 3's, or anything beyond except the 5's and io's. She doesn't know fractions, she doesn't know long division, she can't multiply and carry, she can't subtract and borrow. She doesn't know the multiplication table." He came back to that with a sort of wail. "Her arithmetic paper in examination was a blank,” said he. "She doesn't know anything about arithmetic. There's a blank in her mind where that ought to be. And she's got to go into the high school in September. How can I admit her to the high school when she doesn't know the multiplication table?

"Couldn't you, Mrs. Dale," said he hesitatingly, "couldn't you teach her the multiplication table this summer, so she could go on with her class in the fall? You've taught her so many things that are not taught in school that I'm sure you can."

"We've paid school taxes a good many years," said I, grimly; "it seems a pity if I've got to do the teaching too. But I'll see what I can do."

"Do, Mrs. Dale, do," said he eagerly, grabbing his hat. "Your daughter is such a genius."

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