4. Night comes early.

5. The brook is swollen to a torrent.

6. A fire on the hearth is a comfort.

7. It burns cheerily.

8. Now and then a puff of smoke bursts into the room. 9. The light of the flames flickers on the walls and ceiling. 10. I watch with half-shut eyes.

C.1 Make a similar group of ten short sentences that picture or tell a story. Have the time either present or past in all ten. Number the sentences as above and write them in a single paragraph. When you are satisfied with them and are sure you understand the pattern of each one, number the three important elements in each one. Use I for the subject element, 3 for the predicate element, and 2 for the linking element; for example:

Always find the predicate element before you look for the linking element. Remember that the predicate element is the word or group of words that expresses the predicated characteristic.

In the ten small sentences that you make try to produce a vivid memory picture, which will make the rest of the class imagine as you read it to them. Hints of possible pictures may come to you if you imagine or remember yourself in one of the following situations:

1. Waiting for the parade.

2. Alone in the house at night.

3. Playing in the sand.

1 For the best pupils in the class.

4. Watching a horse race.

5. Blackberrying.

6. In front of the monkey cage.

7. Burning leaves at night.

8. Watching a game of ball in the street.

9. Dreaming in a hammock.

10. Starting on a journey at dawn.

EXERCISE 6

TELLING A STORY VIVIDLY AND KEEPING THE

TIME STRAIGHT1

Write either the story that you told in Exercise 2 or a new story, real or imaginary, suggested by the hints in Exercise 5 or by the picture opposite. Make this composition a test of all that you have learned about story-telling and about good form in writing. (Remember your school magazine.) After it is written to your satisfaction, underline all the linking elements that you can find without puzzling. yourself over difficult ones, and see that these express the same time throughout, unless there is a real need of changing. It is generally best to tell a story in past time.

NOTE. The rule about doubling final consonants (see p. 72) applies also when ed is added to a word to make it express past time; as, pat, patted; can, canned; clip, clipped; stop, stopped. Find other examples, and be careful to spell all such forms correctly in your story.

1 Telling a story vividly may be part of a large project. See Appendix G.

PROBLEM XIV

SUMMING UP WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED ABOUT THE SENTENCE

EXERCISE 1

REVIEWING SENTENCES

In almost all connected writing some sentences are too varied and complicated for you to separate them into their elements as yet. You yourselves speak and write every day hundreds of sentences which would puzzle you if you stopped to study them. You have learned how to make them by hearing other people talk and by reading. Later you will find many of these interesting to analyze - that is, to separate into their elements.

The following passage has been adapted from a description of the young hero's schoolmates in "Cuore," a book for boys by an Italian author, a book that you will enjoy reading if you have not already done so. It is supposed to be a journal of an Italian schoolboy; the title means courage."

་་

If you read the two paragraphs aloud you will feel the difference in style. In the first paragraph you will notice. the broken, jolting effect of so many short sentences in succession. The sentences have been made over according to the simple patterns which you have already studied. In the second paragraph there are errors in punctuation, made purposely to test you. See the directions under B, below,

A. As a review of what you have learned, study the sentences in the first paragraph and find the elements of each — that is, the three elements that you have so far studied. If you do not instantly discover them, think carefully according to the directions in Exercise 5 of Problem XIII, p. 134. You will find that it is very important to ask yourself first in every case, "What is predicated? of what?” and to answer those questions before going farther. Do not forget that the linking and predicate elements are often combined in one word.

MY COMRADES

1. One boy pleases me best of all. 2. His name is Garrone. 3. He is the biggest boy in the class. 4. He is about fourteen years old. 5. His head is large. 6. His shoulders are broad. 7. He is good. 8. His smile shows his goodness. 9. He seems to think like a man. 10. I already know many of my comrades. 11. Another one pleases me, too, by the name of Coretti. 12. He wears chocolate-colored trousers and a catskin cap. 13. He is always jolly. 14. He is the son of a huckster of wood. 15. His father was a soldier in the war of 1866, in the squadron of Prince Umberto. 16. He has three medals. 17. Little Nelli is a weak boy with a thin face. 18. One is very well dressed. 19. He always wears Florentine plush. 20. His name is Votini. 21. On the bench in front of me is a boy called "the little mason.” 22. His father is a mason. 23. The boy's face is as round as an apple. 24. His nose is like a small ball. 25. He possesses a special talent. 26. He makes a hare's face. 27. All the boys laugh at it. 28. He wears a little ragged cap. 29. He carries it rolled up in his pocket like a handkerchief. 30 Beside the little mason sits Garoffi. 31. Garoffi is a long, thin, silly fellow, with a nose like the beak of a screech owl, and very small eyes. 32. He is always trafficking in little pens and images and matchboxes. 33. He is sly,