ADVENTURE ON HIGHWAY 66 G216

 ADVENTURE ON HIGHWAY 66

A snowstorm can be exciting. But too much snow can cause trouble. I learned this in a way I will never forget.

My name is Tom Johnson. I'm a bus driver. At five o'clock one morning I turned my bus onto Highway 66. It was snowing. But I was used to driving in all kinds of weather. Maybe the storm wouldn't last long, I thought.

As I drove, I counted my passengers. There were 14—nine men, four women and a little two-year-old boy. It was so early that most of them were still asleep. No one seemed to worry about the storm.

After an hour or two, I felt the wind getting stronger. It was snowing harder, and I had to drive even more slowly and more carefully. I wished I had never started out.

**Real Trouble!**

Soon the wind had piled the snow into drifts. But I still thought I could get through. I stepped on the gas. The wheels turned quickly, but instead of going forward the bus slid into a drift four feet high. The men got out and pushed the bus. But it wouldn't move, not one bit!

At first the passengers joked about being stuck in the snow. They felt sure that help would come very soon. Now and then I turned on the motor to keep the bus warm.

 One man said with a laugh, "They must be talking about us on the radio right now. " He was right. We found out later that news flashes were being broadcast—"Bus stuck on Highway 66. Road blocked. Passengers in danger!"

When help did not come, I began to worry. Snow was still falling. It had grown colder, much colder.

"We're in real trouble," I said to myself.

“There's still enough gas, and while it lasts the motor will keep the bus warm. When it's gone, everyone will be freezing cold. That poor little boy！”

I told the passengers, “I'm going up the road. I'll get gas and food. When it gets cold in here, let the motor run a while. You'll be warm enough. I'll get back as soon as I can.”

Then I stepped out of the bus and into the snowstorm.

**Fighting the Storm**

It was snowing much harder now. The whiteness hurt my eyes. Snowdrifts had covered the highway in many places and I kept falling down and bumping my knees. I stayed on the road by following the telephone poles.

As it was growing dark, I came to a car stuck in a drift. There were people in it—safe and warm. They asked me to stay. But I thought of the passengers waiting for help. I went on.

By seven o'clock, the wind was blowing harder than ever. I had been fighting the storm for five hours. Oh, how I wanted to rest! But I knew I couldn't. If I did, I would freeze.

In the darkness I kept losing my way. I bumped into fences and bushes. The bumps told me when I was off the highway. Each time I fought my way back again.

Then I began to fall over my own feet. Down I went, again and again. Was I falling asleep? I slapped my face hard. The slaps kept me awake. I pushed on through the snow.

**End of the Adventure**

Hours later I saw lights ahead. They looked strange and not very clear, but beautiful! I pushed on toward them.

Step by step I came nearer the first building. It was a gas station. I could have asked for help there. But I was so worn out I wasn't thinking clearly. So I went right by, trying to get to the next lights on the road.

Suddenly, my legs gave out under me. I fell in a snowdrift and lay there. I couldn't get up; but I was wide awake now. "Don't give up. Don't give up," I kept telling myself. I tried to shout, but I couldn't. My voice was too weak.

All at once I knew what to do. I could whistle. Taking a deep breath, I gave a sharp whistle through my teeth.

"You need help?" called a voice out of the darkness.

"Yes," I tried to shout, but my voice sounded strange. "I can't walk."

"Keep talking. We'll get to you in a minute, "said the voice.

Some men got to me and carried me into the gas station. As soon as I could, I told them about the bus. At first, they could not believe I had come so far. I had been out in the storm for nine hours!

The men put blankets, food and gas on a heavy truck. It had a special motor and chains to help it travel through snow.

I found out later that the truck reached the bus at two o'clock in the morning. The bus was still warm and the passengers were safe.

They cheered when the truck came. Then they all started talking at once.

"Where's our driver? Did he send you after us? Is he all right?"

"They're taking him to the hospital," one of the men said. "He's half frozen. But he'll be fine in a few days. Believe it or not, he walked 12 miles to get help for you!"

Later, many of the passengers visited me.

"We want to thank you," they said. "You saved our lives. We think you're a hero."

"It takes more than a long walk to make a hero," I answered. "I just take care of my passengers. That's my job."

THE GIFTS G215

 THE GIFTS

(Continued)

Jim was never late. Della held the gold chain tightly in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door by which he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stairs, and she turned pale for just a moment.

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two—and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and his shoes were old and worn.

As soon as Jim stepped inside the door, he stood still. His eyes were fixed upon Della. There was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the emotions that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della jumped off the table and went to him. "Jim!" she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow again—you don't mind, do you? I just had to do it. My hair grows very fast, you know. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, slowly, as if he had not yet understood that obvious fact even after the hardest mental labour.

"I've cut it off and sold it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you—sold and gone. It's Christmas Eve, Jim. Be good to me, for it went for you.

Jim seemed quickly to wake out of his trance. He drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake about me, Della, "he said, "I don't think there's anything about a haircut that could make me love you any less. But if you unwrap that package you will see why I was upset at first."

Della's fingers tore at the string and paper. Then came an excited scream of joy, and then, alas! a quick change to tears.

For there lay The Combs — the set of combs that Della had worshipped for many months in a shopwindow. Beautiful combs, pure tortoiseshell, with jewels set in — just the colour to wear in her beautiful hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had longed for them without the least hope of possession. And now they were hers, but with her hair gone there could be no use for them.

But she hugged them to her chest, and at last she was able to look up with tearful eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

Then Della remembered something else and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful gift. She held it out to him eagerly in her open hand.

"Isn't it lovely, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim dropped onto the couch, put his hands under the back of his head, and smiled.

"Della," said he, "let's put our Christmas gifts away and keep them a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs ... And now, let's have our supper."

THE GIFTS G214

 THE GIFTS

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all she had saved. Three times Della counted it. Only one dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing left to do but drop herself onto the shabby little couch and weep. So Della did. You see, life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles—but mainly of sniffles.

When Della had finished crying she went to the window and looked out sadly at a grey cat walking along a grey fence in a grey backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim, her husband, a present. She had been saving every cent she could for months, but twenty dollars a week—which was the total of their income—doesn't leave much for saving. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. And now she had only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Many happy hours she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare—something worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim.

There was a mirror between the windows of the room. Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but soon her face lost its colour. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, Della and Jim had two possessions in which they both took very great pride. One was Jim's gold watch, which had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. It fell about her, rippling and shining like a brown waterfall. It reached below her knees and almost made a garment for her.

She did her hair up again nervously and quickly. She hesitated for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket. On went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she ran out of the door and down the stairs into the street.

She stopped at a sign that read: "Madame Sofronie. We Buy Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and paused for a moment, panting. She opened the door.

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"Take your hat off and let's have a look at it," said Madame.

Down came the long brown waves.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass of hair with a practised hand.

"Give it to me quickly," said Della.

The next two hours sped by in a whirl of happiness. She searched shop after shop for Jim's present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. It was a gold watch chain. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was just right for him. Twenty-one dollars they took for it, and she hurried home with the remaining 87 cents.

When Della reached home she looked at what was left of her poor hair and started to work on it.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny curls that made her look wonderfully like a naughty schoolboy. She looked at herself in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove, hot and ready to cook the supper.

(To be continued)

MADAME CURIE AND RADIUM G213

 MADAME CURIE AND RADIUM

Madame Curie will always be remembered as the discoverer of the element radium.

A certain scientist had discovered that a metal called uranium gave off a kind of radiation, which Marie Curie was later to call radioactivity. But where did this radiation come from, and what was it like? This was what she set out to discover. She did experiment after experiment. There was failure, a little success, a little more failure, a little more success. All seemed to prove that in the mineral which she was examining there was some source of radiation which man knew nothing about.

Four years before this, Marie had expressed her thoughts in words much like this: "Life is not easy for any of us. We must work, and above all we must believe in ourselves. We must believe that each one of us is able to do something well, and that, when we discover what this something is, we must work until we succeed." This something in Madame Curie's own life was to lead science down a new path to a great discovery.

At this time her husband left his own laboratory work, in which he had been very successful, and joined her in her search for this unknown radiation. In 1898 they declared that they believed there was something in nature which gave out radiation. To this something, still unseen, they gave the name radium. All this was very interesting, but it was against the beliefs of some of the scientists of that day. These scientists were very polite to the two Curies, but did not believe them. The common feeling among them was: "Show us some radium, and we will believe you."

There was an old building at the back of the university where Pierre Curie had been working. Its walls and roof were made of wood and glass. It was furnished with some old tables, a blackboard, and an old stove. It was not much better than a shed, and no one else seemed to want it. The Curies moved in and set up their laboratory and workshops. Here for four very difficult years they worked every moment that they could spare, weighing and boiling and measuring and calculating and thinking. They believed that radium was hidden somewhere in the mass of mineral dirt which was sent to them from far away. But where?

The shed was hot in summer and cold in winter, and when it rained, water dripped from the ceiling. But in spite of all the discomforts, the Curies worked on. For them these were the four happiest years of their lives.

Then, one evening in 1902, as husband and wife sat together in their home, Marie Curie said: "Let's go down there for a moment." It was nine o'clock and they had been "down there" only two hours before. But they put on their coats and were soon walking along the street to the shed. Pierre turned the key in the lock and opened the door. "Don't light the lamps," said Marie, and they stood there in the darkness. "Look! ... Look!"

And there, glowing with a faint blue light in the glass test-tubes on the tables, was the mysterious something which they had worked so hard to find: Radium.

WALKING IN SPACE G212

 WALKING IN SPACE

The whole world seemed to be black and empty. The sky was black with bright, shining stars that never twinkled. The sun, white, round and burning seemed to hang in the black space. This was the scene that spread before the eyes of the first astronaut who left his spaceship to walk in outer space. The name of this Soviet astronaut was Leonov; and the date was March 18,1965. Several months later, an American astronaut did the same thing. Both of these "space walkers" had spent months before their flight learning how to control their movements under the strange conditions that they would find in outer space. Wearing their thick space suits, they learned to deal with conditions where there is neither weight nor gravity, neither "up" nor "down".

We do not realize how much we depend on the earth's gravity. When there is no gravity, our feet no longer stay on the ground. We float around in the air and the slightest touch may send us floating off in the opposite direction. 

In the laboratories where astronauts are trained for their journeys, the conditions are like those of flight. It takes time for them to prepare for the great changes that take place in space. When the spaceship leaves the earth at very high speed, the astronauts feel as if they are being crushed against the spaceship floor. Later, when they are far away from the earth and there is no more gravity, they find they are unable to stay in one place. Simple actions, such as eating and drinking, become very difficult. You may have some idea of what the astronauts have to deal with if you try to drink a glass of water while standing on your head or while just lying down.

Leonov and his companion, Beliaiev, began making preparations for the historic walk shortly after their flight began. Their spaceship was equipped with a double door, which was fitted with a bellows between the ship and the outside. This made it possible for the astronaut, in his space suit with oxygen supply, to go first from the air-filled ship to the bellows. Then the air was let out of the bellows. When the man then stepped outside, the air inside the ship remained at normal pressure. If the door had opened directly into space, the air in the ship would have rushed out and been lost when the door opened.

Leonov and his companion practised testing the doors several times after they had begun to circle around the earth. When the time came for Leonov to go out, his companion helped him fix the line that was to keep him from floating away from the ship. Then Leonov entered the bellows and the door closed behind him. As the air was let out of the bellows, his suit began to grow out, like a balloon, because of the air pressure inside. When there was no air left in the bellows, the outer door opened, and Leonov stepped out into the empty black space.

If the sky appears blue to us on earth, it is because the earth's atmosphere scatters a certain number of blue rays of sunlight. Out where there is no air, this phenomenon does not take place. On the earth, when the sun is up, our atmosphere diffuses light, making it seem to be everywhere. However, in the airless outer space, strong lights, such as the sun, can be seen side by side with a dark that is like the dark of the blackest night. The absence of air also explains why the stars do not seem to twinkle in space, as they do from the earth.

While Leonov was outside the ship, he kept in touch by telephone with his companion and with the earth. With his camera, he kept taking pictures of what he did and saw. When it was time for him to return to the ship, he was enjoying the scene so much that he was disappointed to have to stop his stroll in space so soon.

THE LAST LESSON G211

 THE LAST LESSON

(Continued)

My last lesson in French! I hardly knew how to write, and I would never learn now. How I regretted the hours wasted in the woods and fields, the days when I had played and should have studied!

My books that a short time ago had seemed so tiresome, so heavy to carry, now seemed to me like old friends.

I was thinking of this when I heard my name called. It was my turn to recite. How I wish I had been able to say the rules without a mistake! But I could not say a word, and stood at my bench without daring to lift my head. Then I heard the master speaking to me.

“I shall not scold you, little Franz. You are punished enough now. Every day you have said to yourself: ‘I have plenty of time. I will learn my lesson tomorrow.' Now you see what has happened."

Then he began to talk to us about the French language, saying that it was the most beautiful tongue in the world, and that we must keep it among us and never forget it.

Finally he took up the grammar book and read us the lesson. I was surprised to see how well I understood. Everything seemed easy. I believed, too, that I had never listened so attentively. It almost seemed as if the good man were trying to teach us all he knew at this last lesson.

When the lesson in grammar was over, we began our writing. For that day the master had prepared some cards on which were written, "Alsace, France; Alsace, France."

They seemed like so many little flags dotted about the schoolroom. How we worked! Nothing was heard but the voice of the master and the scratching of pens on paper. There was no time for play now. On the roof of the schoolhouse some pigeons were softly cooing, and I said to myself,"Will they,too,be obliged to sing in German?"

From time to time,when I looked up from my page,I saw the master looking about him as if he wished to impress upon his mind everything in the room.

After writing,we had a history lesson.Next,the little ones recited together their"Ba,be, bi, bo, bu".

Oh.I shall always remember that last lesson!

Suddenly the church clock struck twelve.The master rose from his chair."My friends,"said he,"my friends,... I ... I ..."

But something choked him; he could not finish the sentence. He returned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and wrote in large letters, “VIVE LA FRANCE！”

Then he stood leaning against the wall, unable to speak. He signed to us with his hand: “The lesson is over. You are dismissed.”

THE LAST LESSON G210

 THE LAST LESSON

I was very late that morning on my way to school and was afraid of being scolded. The master had told us he would question us on verbs, and I did not know a thing about them, for I had not studied my lesson.

For a moment I thought of playing truant. The air was so warm and bright, and I could hear birds whistling at the edge of the woods, and the Prussians drilling in the meadow behind the sawmill.

I liked this much better than learning the rules for verbs, but I did not dare to stop, so I ran quickly towards school.

Passing the mayor's office, I saw people standing before the little bulletin board. For two years it was there that we had received all the news of battles, of victories and defeats.

"What is it now?" I thought, without stopping.

Then, as I ran along, the blacksmith, who was there reading the notice, cried out to me, "Not so fast, little one, you'll get to your school in plenty of time."

I thought he was making fun of me and ran faster than ever reaching the schoolyard quite out of breath.

Usually at the beginning of school, the noise of desks being opened and closed, and lessons repeated at the top of the children's voices could be heard out in the street. Occasionally the master beat the table with his heavy ruler as he cried, "Silence, please, silence!"

I had hoped to be able to take my seat in all this noise without being seen, but that morning the room was quiet and orderly.

Through the open window I saw my schoolmates already in their places. The master was walking up and down the room with the iron ruler under his arm and a book in his hand.

As I entered he looked at me kindly and said, without scolding, "Go quickly to your place, little Franz; we were going to begin without you. You should have been here five minutes ago."

I climbed over my bench and sat down at once at my desk. Just then I noticed, for the first time, that our master was wearing his fine green coat and his black silk cap.

But what surprised me most was to see some of the village people seated on the benches at the end of the room. One of them was holding an old spelling book on his knee. They all looked sadly at the master.

While I was wondering at this, our schoolmaster took his place. "Children," he said, "this is the last time that I shall give you a lesson. An order has come from Berlin that no language but German may be taught in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. A new master will come tomorrow who will teach you German. Today is your last lesson in French. I beg you to pay attention.”

These words frightened me. This was what they had posted on the bulletin board then! This was what the blacksmith was reading!

(To be continued)