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A SHEEP IS LOST AT THE FORKED ROADYangzi’s neighbor lost a sheep; his neighbor not only led his relatives , but also asked Yangzi’s young servants to go together with them to pursue the lost sheep . Yangzi said:” Hey! You’ve just lost one sheep, why are so many people pursuing it ?” The neighbor said:” Because there are many forked roads .” When the neighbor had returned, Yangzi asked:” Did you find the sheep? ”The neighbor said:” The sheep has been lost.” Yangzi said :” Why was it lost?” The neighbor said:” Among the forked paths were still more forked paths; I did not know down which forked path the sheep had gone, and for this reason I came back..” Yangzi became morose and his facial expression changed; for a long time he did not speak, and he did not laugh once the whole day .
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A SHEEP IS LOST AT THE FORKED ROADYangzi’s neighbor lost a sheep; his neighbor not only led his relatives , but also asked Yangzi’s young servants to go together with them to pursue the lost sheep . Yangzi said:” Hey! You’ve just lost one sheep, why are so many people pursuing it ?” The neighbor said:” Because there are many forked roads .” When the neighbor had returned, Yangzi asked:” Did you find the sheep? ”The neighbor said:” The sheep has been lost.” Yangzi said :” Why was it lost?” The neighbor said:” Among the forked paths were still more forked paths; I did not know down which forked path the sheep had gone, and for this reason I came back..” Yangzi became morose and his facial expression changed; for a long time he did not speak, and he did not laugh once the whole day .
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A Shameful AffairMildred orme, seated in the snuggest corner of the big front porch of the Kraummer farmhouse, was as content as a girl need hope to be.
This was no such farm as one reads about in humorous fiction. Here were swelling acres where the undulating wheat gleamed in the sun like a golden sea. For silver there was the Meramec—or, better, it was pure crystal, for here and there one might look clean through it down to where the pebbles lay like green and yellow gems. Along the river’s edge trees were growing to the very water, and in it, sweeping it when they were willows.
The house itself was big and broad, as country houses should be. The master was big and broad, too. The mistress was small and thin, and it was always she who went out at noon to pull the great clanging bell that called the farmhands in to dinner.
From her agreeable corner where she lounged with her Browning or her Ibsen, Mildred watched the woman do this every day. Yet when the clumsy farmhands all came tramping up the steps and crossed the porch in going to their meal that was served within, she never looked at them. Why should she? Farmhands are not so very nice to look at, and she was nothing of an anthropologist. But once when the half dozen men came along, a paper which she had laid carelessly upon the railing was blown across their path. One of them picked it up, and when he had mounted the steps restored it to her. He was young, and brown, of course, as the sun had made him. He had nice blue eyes. His fair hair was dishevelled. His shoulders were broad and square and his limbs strong and clean. A not unpicturesque figure in the rough attire that bared his throat to view and gave perfect freedom to his every motion.
Mildred did not make these several observations in the half second that she looked at him in courteous acknowledgment. It took her as many days to note them all. For she signaled him out each time that he passed her, meaning to give him a condescending little smile, as she knew how. But he never looked at her. To be sure, clever young women of twenty, who are handsome, besides, who have refused their half dozen offers and are settling down to the conviction that life is a tedious affair, are not going to care a straw whether farmhands look at them or not. And Mildred did not care, and the thing would not have occupied her a moment if Satan had not intervened, in offering the employment which natural conditions had failed to supply. It was summer time; she was idle; she was piqued, and that was the beginning of the shameful affair.
“Who are these men, Mrs. Kraummer, that work for you? Where do you pick them up?”
“Oh, ve picks ’em up everyvere. Some is neighbors, some is tramps, and so.”
“And that broad-shouldered young fellow—is he a neighbor? The one who handed me my paper the other day—you remember?”
“Gott, no! You might yust as well say he vas a tramp. Aber he vorks like a steam ingine.”
“Well, he’s an extremely disagreeable-looking man. I should think you’d be afraid to have him about, not knowing him .”
“Vat you vant to be ’fraid for?” laughed the little woman. “He don’t talk no more un ven he vas deef und dumb. I didn’t t’ought you vas sooch a baby.”
“But, Mrs. Kraummer, I don’t want you to think I’m a baby, as you say —a coward, as you mean. Ask the man if he will drive me to church tomorrow. You see, I’m not so very much afraid of him,” she added with a smile.
The answer which this unmannerly farmhand returned to Mildred’s request was simply a refusal. He could not drive her to church because he was going fishing.
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A School Girl Sues Her School A straight-A student got a C in cooking class and didn't like it. She didn't like it so much that her dad filed a complaint in federal court about it. He alleges that the teacher, who is white, discriminated against his daughter, who is black. He seeks to have her grade changed from a C to an A and asks for unspecified financial damages. Virginia Brown is in the ninth grade at Ashley High School. Since her first year in school, she has had perfect attendance and all her grades have been A's. Virginia's father said her heart was broken when she got the C. "She cried the whole weekend," he said. "She wouldn't come out of her room. Her eyes were red and puffy . My little girl hasn’t been this upset since her cat got run over by a car when she was 6 years old ." Virginia is a model student. She's the class president. She's on the swim team, the volleyball team, and the track team. She belongs to the chess club. She is a member of the Girl Scouts and sings in her church choir. The home economics teacher is 28-year-old Jessica Smith. This is her first year teaching. Ms. Smith said that discrimination was absolutely not the issue. “Some of my best friends are African-Americans," she said. “This isn’t a black and white problem. Everybody in America wants to sue everybody else. I’m going to sue them for defamation of character and whatever else my lawyer comes up with.” The school principal, who grew up in India, said that he supported Ms. Smith 100 percent. He said that Virginia is an excellent student who would have no problem getting into the best universities even with a C in cooking. “She won’t have any difficulty finding a great university , but she might have problems finding a husband,” he laughed. “She’d better look for a man who likes to eat out a lot.”
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A Rose from Homer's GraveBy Hans Christian Andersen
(1842)
All the songs of the east speak of the love of the nightingale for the rose in the silent starlight night. The winged songster serenades the fragrant flowers.
Not far from Smyrna, where the merchant drives his loaded camels, proudly arching their long necks as they journey beneath the lofty pines over holy ground, I saw a hedge of roses. The turtle-dove flew among the branches of the tall trees, and as the sunbeams fell upon her wings, they glistened as if they were mother-of-pearl. On the rose-bush grew a flower, more beautiful than them all, and to her the nightingale sung of his woes; but the rose remained silent, not even a dewdrop lay like a tear of sympathy on her leaves. At last she bowed her head over a heap of stones, and said, “Here rests the greatest singer in the world; over his tomb will I spread my fragrance, and on it I will let my leaves fall when the storm scatters them. He who sung of Troy became earth, and from that earth I have sprung. I, a rose from the grave of Homer, am too lofty to bloom for a nightingale.” Then the nightingale sung himself to death. A camel-driver came by, with his loaded camels and his black slaves; his little son found the dead bird, and buried the lovely songster in the grave of the great Homer, while the rose trembled in the wind.
The evening came, and the rose wrapped her leaves more closely round her, and dreamed: and this was her dream.
It was a fair sunshiny day; a crowd of strangers drew near who had undertaken a pilgrimage to the grave of Homer. Among the strangers was a minstrel from the north, the home of the clouds and the brilliant lights of the aurora borealis. He plucked the rose and placed it in a book, and carried it away into a distant part of the world, his fatherland. The rose faded with grief, and lay between the leaves of the book, which he opened in his own home, saying, “Here is a rose from the grave of Homer.”
Then the flower awoke from her dream, and trembled in the wind. A drop of dew fell from the leaves upon the singer's grave. The sun rose, and the flower bloomed more beautiful than ever. The day was hot, and she was still in her own warm Asia. Then footsteps approached, strangers, such as the rose had seen in her dream, came by, and among them was a poet from the north; he plucked the rose, pressed a kiss upon her fresh mouth, and carried her away to the home of the clouds and the northern lights. Like a mummy, the flower now rests in his “Iliad,” and, as in her dream, she hears him say, as he opens the book, “Here is a rose from the grave of Homer.”
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