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FORTY-SECOND DAY

Among Uncle Jack's mail on the morning of October twelfth was a letter from Ben.

Jack opened the letter with surprise and read:

DEAR UNCLE JACK:

Uncle

October 11, 1914.

You have probably been wondering why we children have been getting home from school too late for your accustomed afternoon story, and now I can tell you that we have been practicing every day for a Columbus Day program. Belle, May, and I are going to take part in the exercises, and we all hope that you can come to our entertainment in the Assembly Hall of the school, at half-past ten o'clock on the morning of October twelfth. We hope that you will enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed practicing for it. I am enclosing a program of the exercises.

Your loving nephew,

BEN.

Uncle Jack was very much pleased to receive this invitation, and quickly unfolded the program.

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Queen Isabella

King Ferdinand

First Sailor

Second Sailor

Third Sailor

Fourth Sailor

Fifth Sailor

A Page

A Trumpeter

A Flag Bearer

Carter Irvine

Sylvia Jones

Bobby Orde

Pudgy Kincaid Sylvester Jones Billy Blue Johnny English Rodney Drake

Morton Drake
Fred Fowler

Six other boys from the Fifth Grade

A Guard

Four Indians

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A few minutes before half-past ten that morning Uncle Jack found a good seat on the middle aisle of the Assembly Hall of the children's school. You are now going to read what he heard and saw at the Columbus Day exercises.

THE COLUMBUS STORY*

Wharf scene An oar, a coiled of sea life about.

FIRST SAILOR:

SCENE I

sailors sitting on boxes and barrels. rope, and other things suggestive

The last time that I went to Iceland we were nearly lost in a storm. If we had gone much farther west, I fear we should have come to the edge of the world; then we surely would have fallen over. SECOND SAILOR: So you still believe that the earth is flat, do you? I have heard that

some wise men are actually trying to make

*From "Colonial Plays for the Schoolroom," copyright by Educational Publishing Co., and used by their permission.

the people believe that the world is round. (All laugh.)

THIRD SAILOR: Now, isn't that ridiculous when you can see the edge of it right over there? (Points toward horizon.) Why, how could the world be round? If that were true the people on the other side would be walking with their heads down. (All laugh.) FOURTH SAILOR: To-morrow we go on a trip down the African coast. We may stop for some negro slaves before we return.

FIFTH SAILOR: Do any of you believe there is any truth in this scheme of Henry the Navigator's to reach India by sailing around this Africa?

FIRST SAILOR: Why yes, I do, although most people believe it can't be done. We've got

to have a new route to India, and why not an ocean route? The Turks will surely leave us alone then.

SECOND SAILOR: Yes, we must have new routes to India. 'Tis said that the Turks grow bolder every month now. Every caravan reports some trouble that they have had with the robbers. It grows harder and harder to make up caravan trains. Few men wish

to risk their lives between the Turks and the desert.

THIRD SAILOR: I don't see, though, how Henry of Portugal expects his schemes to succeed. Does he not know that there are terrible monsters in the ocean that would swallow a ship, and who knows but that in sailing to the south they will find that dreadful place where the water boils? Indeed, I think Henry's plan very dangerous.

FOURTH SAILOR: I have been to Iceland and to Africa also, and yet no terrible monsters

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again and I am not afraid.

COLUMBUS: (a barefoot boy, who has been listening

intently to the sailors' stories - jumps up and stands before the fourth sailor) O sir! Do you think that your Captain would let me sail with him to-morrow? My father is a wool-comber and we are so poor that I must do something to earn a living. I want to be a sailor more than anything else in the world. FOURTH SAILOR: (rising) We'll ask the Captain, my boy. Come down to the dock with me if you are willing to work. A sailor's life is a hard one these days.

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