The Silent Readers: Sixth Reader. Albert Lindsay Rowland
to churning up and down in the suds; and the electric iron, heated by the pressing of still another button.
Betty Showed Her the Victrola
"Why, nobody needs to do any work at all," said Alice admiringly, while Betty began to feel that after all she had a great many remarkable things in her house, which she had never thought much about because they had always been there. As they walked back into the hall, they heard a click-clicking sound.
"What's that?" said Alice.
"Oh, it's just my big brother's wireless apparatus catching a message. If he were here he could tell us what it says."
"What's a wireless?"
"Why, you don't know anything much, do you?" Betty explained as well as she could about the wireless telegraph.
"Goodness! That's like real magic. You must feel as if you were living in a fairy story."
Betty had never thought of life in that way, and was about to tell Alice how really dull a time she had, when a sound of music interrupted them.
"Oh, how lovely! Somebody's singing!"
"No, you little goose, that's only the victrola," answered Betty.
"What's a victrola?"
Betty tried to explain that it was a machine that caught and imprisoned somebody's voice or the music of some instrument. But Alice couldn't understand. Even when Betty showed her the victrola, and the record, she could hardly believe that a real singer wasn't hidden somewhere making fun of her.
While she was still unpersuaded, Betty heard her father's key in the lock. She knew the car must still be before the door.
"Father, father," she cried, "this is Alice—from Wonderland, you know. Won't you take us for a ride?"
"A little one," said Betty's father. Alice clapped her hands, for she loved to go driving. But when the two little girls were safely seated in the back seat, she began to wonder again.
"Where are the horses?" she inquired.
"Horses! Why, it's an automobile."
"What's an automobile?"
"Why, a carriage that runs of itself." The car started, and Alice understood without further explaining. She couldn't ask any more questions, because the rapid motion quite took away her breath.
Betty asked Alice to spend the night with her, and promised that next morning she would take her to town and show her some more of the sights of the New Wonderland. She went to sleep feeling that after all it wasn't such a humdrum world, and that she had taken for granted a great many things that, when you came to think of it, really made life a fairy tale, and the world Wonderland.
—Mabel Dodge Holmes
Questions
1. Alice was no more surprised than any little girl of 1850 would be. What has happened in the world since that time to make it a Wonderland?
2. Why was the telephone a wonder to Alice?
3. Make a list of the wonders Betty showed Alice. Add to this list any similar wonders that you could show her in your house.
4. Can you think of some of the wonders that Betty showed Alice in their trip to the city?
BRISTOL
Here is an account of the City of Bristol taken from an encyclopedia. Without reading the whole account, find as quickly as possible the answer to each of the following questions, in order.
1. Where is Bristol?
2. Is it an attractive city?
3. Is it an industrial city?
4. Is it a healthy city?
5. Are there many public buildings there?
6. If you had children could they be well educated there?
7. Has it had any famous citizens?
8. Is it a seaport or an inland city?
9. Is it a large city?
Bristol, a cathedral city of England, situated partly in Gloucestershire, partly in Somersetshire, but forming a county in itself. In 1911 it had a population of 357,059. It stands at the confluence of the rivers Avon and Frome, which unite within the city whence the combined stream (the Avon) pursues a course of nearly seven miles to the Bristol Channel. The Avon is a navigable river, and the tides rise in it to a great height. The town is built partly on low grounds, partly on eminences, and has some fine suburban districts, such as Clifton, on the opposite side of the Avon, connected with Bristol by a suspension bridge 703 feet long and 245 feet above high-water mark. The public buildings are numerous and handsome, and the number of places of worship very great. The most notable of these are the cathedral, founded in 1142, exhibiting various styles of architecture, and recently restored and enlarged; St. Mary Redcliff, said to have been founded in 1293, and perhaps the finest parish church in the kingdom. Among modern buildings are the exchange, the guild-hall, the council house, the post office, the new grammar school, the fine arts academy, the West of England, and other banks, insurance offices, etc. The charities are exceedingly numerous, the most important being Ashley Down Orphanage, for the orphans of Protestant parents, founded and still managed by the Rev. George Müller, which may almost be described as a village of orphans. Among the educational institutions are the University College, the Theological Colleges of the Baptists and Independents, Clifton College, and the Philosophical Institute. There is a school of art, and also a public library. Bristol has glassworks, potteries, soap works, tanneries, sugar refineries, and chemical works, shipbuilding and machinery yards. Coal is worked extensively within the limits of the borough. The export and import trade is large and varied, it being one of the leading English ports in the foreign trade. Regular navigation across the Atlantic was first established here, and the Great Western, the pioneer steamship in this route, was built here. There is a harbor in the city itself, and the construction of new docks at Avonmouth and Portishead has given a fresh impetus to the port. The construction of very large new docks was begun in 1902. Bristol is one of the healthiest of the large towns of the kingdom. It has an excellent water supply chiefly obtained from the Mendip Hills.—In old Celtic chronicles we find the name Caer Oder, or "the City of the Chasm", given to a place in this neighborhood, a name peculiarly appropriate to the situation of Bristol, or rather of its suburb Clifton. The Saxons called it Bricgstow, "bridge-place". In 1373 it was constituted a county of itself by Edward III. It was made the seat of a bisphoric by Henry VIII in 1542 (now united with Gloucester). Sebastian Cabot, Chatterton, and Southey were natives of Bristol.
ON THE FRONTIER
The Setting for an Act in a Play
Your teacher will give the word when you are to begin. She will keep track of the time and will ask you to stop reading in thirty seconds. Then she will ask you, without looking back at the paragraph, to write answers to the questions at the end.
It is a blockhouse in a Kentucky clearing, at one of the outposts of civilization to be found all along the frontier of the United States at the close of the eighteenth century. The sun is about to rise and objects are only dimly seen through the early morning haze. The building itself is at the left. It is made of rough hewn logs. A closed door of heavy planks is shown in the front wall. The windows are narrow loop-holes through which can be seen from time to time the blue barrels of flint-lock rifles. The second story of the blockhouse projects over the first, so that anyone approaching the wall would be subjected to rifle fire from the floor above.