A Mystery of Heroism PDF Past Paper

A Mystery of Heroism By Stephen Crane Directions: Read the short story and answer the questions that follow. Refer to the text to check your answers. The dark uniforms of the men were so coated with dust One of a swing team was suddenly smitten quivering to from the incessant wrestling of t...

A Mystery of Heroism By Stephen Crane Directions: Read the short story and answer the questions that follow. Refer to the text to check your answers. The dark uniforms of the men were so coated with dust One of a swing team was suddenly smitten quivering to from the incessant wrestling of the two armies that the 1 the ground, and his maddened brethren dragged his torn regiment almost seemed a part of the clay bank which 2 body in their struggle to escape from this turmoil and shielded them from the shells. On the top of the hill a danger. A young soldier astride one of the leaders swore battery was arguing in tremendous roars with some other and fumed in his saddle, and furiously jerked at the bridle. guns, and to the eye of the infantry, the artillerymen, the An officer screamed out an order so violently that his guns, the caissons , the horses, were distinctly outlined 3 voice broke and ended the sentence in a falsetto shriek. 8 upon the blue sky. When a piece was fired, a red streak as The leading company of the infantry regiment was round as a log flashed low in the heavens, like a somewhat exposed, and the colonel ordered it moved monstrous bolt of lightning. The men of the battery wore more fully under the shelter of the hill. There was the white duck trousers, which somehow emphasized their clank of steel against steel. legs: and when they ran and crowded in little groups at the bidding of the shouting officers, it was more impressive A lieutenant of the battery rode down and passed them, than usual to the infantry. holding his right arm carefully in his left hand. And it was as if this arm was not at all a part of him, but belonged to Fred Collins, of A Company, was saying: "Thunder, I another man. His sober and reflective charger went 9 wisht I had a drink. Ain't there any water round here?" slowly. The officer's face was grimy and perspiring, and Then, somebody yelled: "There goes th' bugler!" his uniform was tousled as if he had been in direct grapple As the eyes of half the regiment swept in one with an enemy. He smiled grimly when the men stared at machine-like movement, there was an instant's picture of a him. He turned his horse toward the meadow. horse in a great convulsive leap of a death-wound and a Collins, of A Company, said: "I wisht I had a drink. I bet rider leaning back with a crooked arm and spread fingers there's water in that there ol' well yonder!" before his face. On the ground was the crimson terror of an exploding shell, with fibres of flame that seemed like "Yes; but how you goin' to git it?" lances. A glittering bugle swung clear of the rider's back For the little meadow which intervened was now suffering as fell headlong the horse and the man. In the air was an a terrible onslaught of shells. Its green and beautiful calm odour as from a conflagration.4 had vanished utterly. Brown earth was being flung in Sometimes they of the infantry looked down at a fair little monstrous handfuls. And there was a massacre of the meadow which spread at their feet. Its long, green grass young blades of grass. They were being torn, burned, was rippling gently in a breeze. Beyond it was the grey obliterated. Some curious fortune of the battle had made form of a house half torn to pieces by shells and by the this gentle little meadow the object of the red hate of the busy axes of soldiers who had pursued firewood. The line shells, and each one as it exploded seemed like an of an old fence was now dimly marked by long weeds and imprecation in the face of a maiden. by an occasional post. A shell had blown the well-house The wounded officer who was riding across this expanse to fragments. Little lines of grey smoke ribboning upward said to himself: "Why, they couldn't shoot any harder if from some embers indicated the place where had stood the the whole army was massed here!" barn. A shell struck the grey ruins of the house, and as, after the From beyond a curtain of green woods there came the roar, the shattered wall fell in fragments, there was a noise sound of some stupendous scuffle, as if two animals of the which resembled the flapping of shutters during a wild size of islands were fighting. At a distance there were gale of winter. Indeed, the infantry paused in the shelter of occasional appearances of swift-moving men, horses, the bank appeared as men standing upon a shore batteries, flags, and, with the crashing of infantry volleys contemplating a madness of the sea. The angel of calamity were heard, often, wild and frenzied cheers. In the midst had under its glance the battery upon the hill. of it all Smith and Ferguson, two privates of A 5 Company, were engaged in a heated discussion, which Vocabulary involved the greatest questions of the national existence. 1. incessant: without pause or stop; not ending 2. regiment: a unit of armed troops under an officer's command The battery on the hill presently engaged in a frightful 6 3. caisson: a large box to hold ammunition duel. The white legs of the gunners scampered this way 4. conflagration: a large fire; a large-scale conflict and that way, and the officers redoubled their shouts. The 5. private: a soldier of the lowest rank in the army guns, with their demeanors of stolidity and courage, were 6. battery: a coordinated group of artillery weapons typical of something infinitely self-possessed in this 7 7. self-possessed: confident, assured and poised 8. falsetto: speech or singing using the highest vocal folds clamor of death that swirled around the hill. 9. charger: a large horse trained for battle and used by the cavalry Fewer white-legged men labored about the guns. A shell Collins said, in a terrible voice: "You see now!" At this had smitten one of the pieces, and after the flare, the ominous threat his comrades broke into renewed jeers. 11 smoke, the dust, the wrath of this blow were gone, it was Collins gave them a dark scowl, and went to find his possible to see white lugs stretched horizontally upon the captain. The latter was conversing with the colonel of the ground. And at that interval to the rear, where it is the regiment. business of battery horses to stand with their noses to the fight awaiting the command to drag their guns out of the "Captain," said Collins, saluting and standing at destruction, or into it, or wheresoever these attention--in those days all trousers bagged at the incomprehensible humans demanded with whip and knees--"Captain, I wan't t' get permission to go git some spur--in this line of passive and dumb spectators, whose water from that there well over yonder!" fluttering hearts yet would not let them forget the iron The colonel and the captain swung about simultaneously laws of man's control of them--in this rank of and stared across the meadow. The captain laughed. "You brute-soldiers there had been relentless and hideous must be pretty thirsty, Collins?" carnage. From the ruck of bleeding and prostrate horses, 10 the men of the infantry could see one animal raising its "Yes, sir, I am." stricken body with its fore legs, and turning its nose with "Well--ah," said the captain. After a moment, he asked, mystic and profound eloquence toward the sky. "Can't you wait?" Some comrades joked Collins about his thirst. "Well, if "No, sir." yeh want a drink so bad, why don't yeh go git it?" The colonel was watching Collins's face. "Look here, my "Well, I will in a minnet, if yeh don't shut up!" lad," he said, in a pious sort of a voice--"Look here, my A lieutenant of artillery floundered his horse straight lad"--Collins was not a lad--"don't you think that's taking down the hill with as little concern as if it were level pretty big risks for a little drink of water." ground. As he galloped past the colonel of the infantry, he "I dunno," said Collins uncomfortably. Some of the threw up his hand in swift salute. "We've got to get out of resentment toward his companions, which perhaps had that," he roared angrily. He was a black-bearded officer, forced him into this affair, was beginning to fade. "I and his eyes, which resembled beads, sparkled like those dunno whether 'tis." of an insane man. His jumping horse sped along the column of infantry. The colonel and the captain contemplated him for a time. The fat major, standing carelessly with his sword held "Well," said the captain finally. horizontally behind him and with his legs far apart, looked "Well," said the colonel, "if you want to go, why, go." after the receding horseman and laughed. "He wants to get back with orders pretty quick, or there'll be no batt'ry left," Collins saluted. "Much obliged t' yeh." he observed. As he moved away the colonel called after him. "Take The wise young captain of the second company hazarded some of the other boys' canteens with you an' hurry back to the lieutenant-colonel that the enemy's infantry would now." probably soon attack the hill, and the lieutenant-colonel The colonel and the captain looked at each other then, for snubbed him. it had suddenly occurred that they could not for the life of A private in one of the rear companies looked out over the them tell whether Collins wanted to go or whether he did meadow, and then turned to a companion and said, "Look not. there, Jim!" It was the wounded officer from the battery, They turned to regard Collins, and as they perceived him who some time before had started to ride across the surrounded by gesticulating comrades, the colonel said: 12 meadow, supporting his right arm carefully with his left "Well, by thunder! I guess he's going." hand. This man had encountered a shell apparently at a time when no one perceived him, and he could now be Collins appeared as a man dreaming. In the midst of the seen lying face downward with a stirruped foot stretched questions, the advice, the warnings, all the excited talk of across the body of his dead horse. A leg of the charger his company mates, he maintained a curious silence. extended slantingly upward precisely as stiff as a stake. They were very busy in preparing him for his ordeal. Around this motionless pair the shells still howled. When they inspected him carefully, it was somewhat like There was a quarrel in A Company. Collins was shaking the examination that grooms give a horse before a race; his fist in the faces of some laughing comrades. "Dern and they were amazed, staggered by the whole affair. yeh! I ain't afraid t' go. If yeh say much, I will go!" Their astonishment found vent in strange repetitions. "Of course, yeh will! You'll run through that there Vocabulary medder, won't yeh?" 10. ruck: a throng or crowd of people or things; a mass, a pack 11. ominous: giving indication of a coming ill; being an evil omen "Are yeh sure a-goin'?" they demanded again and again. 12. gesticulate: to make expressive gestures or motions No, it could not be true. He was not a hero. Heroes had no "Certainly I am," cried Collins at last furiously. shames in their lives, and, as for him, he remembered He strode sullenly away from them. He was swinging five borrowing fifteen dollars from a friend and promising to or six canteens by their cords. It seemed that his cap pay it back the next day, and then avoiding that friend for would not remain firmly on his head, and often he reached ten months. When at home his mother had aroused him and pulled it down over his brow. for the early labor of his life on the farm, it had often been his fashion to be irritable, childish, diabolical ; and his 16 There was a general movement in the compact column. mother had died since he had come to the war. The long animal-like thing moved slightly. Its four hundred eyes were turned upon the figure of Collins. He saw that, in this matter of the well, the canteens, the shells, he was an intruder in the land of fine deeds. "Well, sir, if that ain't th' derndest thing! I never thought Fred Collins had the blood in him for that kind of He was now about thirty paces from his comrades. The business." regiment had just turned its many faces toward him. "What's he goin' to do, anyhow?" From the forest of terrific noises there suddenly emerged a little uneven line of men. They fired fiercely and rapidly "He's goin' to that well there after water." at distant foliage on which appeared little puffs of white 17 "We ain't dyin' of thirst, are we? That's foolishness." smoke. The spatter of skirmish firing was added to the thunder of the guns on the hill. The little line of men ran "Well, somebody put him up to it, an' he's doin' it." forward. A color-sergeant fell flat with his flag as if he "Say, he must be a desperate cuss." 13 had slipped on ice. There was hoarse cheering from this distant field. When Collins faced the meadow and walked away from the regiment, he was vaguely conscious that a chasm, the Collins suddenly felt that two demon fingers were pressed deep valley of all prides, was suddenly between him and into his ears. He could see nothing but flying arrows, his comrades. It was provisional , but the provision was 14 flaming red. He lurched from the shock of this explosion, that he return as a victor. He had blindly been led by but he made a mad rush for the house, which he viewed as quaint emotions, and laid himself under an obligation to a man submerged to the neck in a boiling surf might view walk squarely up to the face of death. the shore. In the air, little pieces of shell howled and the earthquake explosions drove him insane with the menace But he was not sure that he wished to make a retraction, of their roar. As he ran the canteens knocked together with even if he could do so without shame. As a matter of a rhythmical tinkling. truth, he was sure of very little. He was mainly surprised. As he neared the house, each detail of the scene became It seemed to him supernaturally strange that he had vivid to him. He was aware of some bricks of the allowed his mind to maneuver his body into such a vanished chimney lying on the sod. There was a door situation. He understood that it might be called which hung by one hinge. dramatically great. Rifle bullets called forth by the insistent skirmishers came However, he had no full appreciation of anything, from the far-off bank of foliage. They mingled with the excepting that he was actually conscious of being dazed. shells and the pieces of shells until the air was torn in all He could feel his dulled mind groping after the form and directions by hootings, yells, howls. The sky was full of colour of this incident. He wondered why he did not feel fiends who directed all their wild rage at his head. some keen agony of fear cutting his sense like a knife. He wondered at this, because human expression had said When he came to the well, he flung himself face loudly for centuries that men should feel afraid of certain downward and peered into its darkness. There were things, and that all men who did not feel this fear were furtive silver glintings some feet from the surface. He phenomena --heroes. 15 grabbed one of the canteens, and, unfastening its cap, swung it down by the cord. The water flowed slowly in He was, then, a hero. He suffered that disappointment with an indolent gurgle. 18 which we would all have if we discovered that we were ourselves capable of those deeds which we most admire in And now as he lay with his face turned away he was history and legend. This, then, was a hero. After all, suddenly smitten with the terror. It came upon his heart heroes were not much. like the grasp of claws. All the power faded from his muscles. For an instant he was no more than a dead man. Vocabulary 13. cuss: a fellow, person 14. provisional: temporary, based on conditions 15. phenomenon: a wonderful or very remarkable person or thing 16. diabolical: extremely wicked or cruel 17. foliage: the leaves of plants The canteen filled with a maddening slowness, in the 18. indolent: lazy; procrastinating manner of all bottles. Presently he recovered his strength The officer's head sank down, and one elbow crooked. His and addressed a screaming oath to it. He leaned over 19 foot in its brass-bound stirrup still stretched over the body until it seemed as if he intended to try to push water into it of his horse, and the other leg was under the steed. with his hands. His eyes as he gazed down into the well But Collins turned. He came dashing back. His face had shone like two pieces of metal, and in their expression now turned grey, and in his eyes was all terror. "Here it is! was a great appeal and a great curse. The stupid water here it is!" derided him. 20 The officer was as a man gone in drink. His arm bent like There was the blaring thunder of a shell. Crimson light a twig. His head drooped as if his neck were of willow. shone through the swift-boiling smoke, and made a pink He was sinking to the ground, to lie face downward. reflection on part of the wall of the well. Collins jerked out his arm and canteen with the same motion that a man Collins grabbed him by the shoulder. "Here it is. Here's would use in withdrawing his head from a furnace. your drink. Turn over. Turn over, man, for God's sake!" He scrambled erect and glared and hesitated. On the With Collins hauling at his shoulder, the officer twisted ground near him lay the old well bucket, with a length of his body and fell with his face turned toward that region rusty chain. He lowered it swiftly into the well. The where lived the unspeakable noises of the swirling bucket struck the water and then, turning lazily over, sank. missiles. There was the faintest shadow of a smile on his When, with hand reaching tremblingly over hand, he lips as he looked at Collins. He gave a sigh, a little hauled it out, it knocked often against the walls of the well primitive breath like that from a child. and spilled some of its contents. Collins tried to hold the bucket steadily, but his shaking In running with a filled bucket, a man can adopt but one hands caused the water to splash all over the face of the kind of gait. So through this terrible field, over which 21 dying man. Then he jerked it away and ran on. screamed practical angels of death, Collins ran in the The regiment gave him a welcoming roar. The grimed manner of a farmer chased out of a dairy by a bull. faces were wrinkled in laughter. His face went staring white with anticipation--anticipation His captain waved the bucket away. "Give it to the men!" of a blow that would whirl him around and down. He would fall as he had seen other men fall, the life knocked The two genial , skylarking young lieutenants were the 27 28 out of them so suddenly that their knees were no more first to gain possession of it. They played over it in their quick to touch the ground than their heads. He saw the fashion. long blue line of the regiment, but his comrades were standing looking at him from the edge of an impossible When one tried to drink the other teasingly knocked his star. He was aware of some deep wheel-ruts and elbow. "Don't, Billie! You'll make me spill it," said the hoof-prints in the sod beneath his feet. one. The other laughed. Suddenly there was an oath, the thud of wood on the The artillery officer who had fallen in this meadow had ground, and a swift murmur of astonishment among the been making groans in the teeth of the tempest of sound. 22 ranks. The two lieutenants glared at each other. The These futile cries, wrenched from him by his agony, 23 bucket lay on the ground empty. were heard only by shells, bullets. When wild-eyed Collins came running, this officer raised himself. His face contorted and blanched from pain, he was about to utter 24 Vocabulary some great beseeching cry. But suddenly his face 25 19. oath: a curse or profane utterance straightened and he called: 20. deride: to harshly mock; ridicule 21. gait: manner of walking or stepping "Say, young man, give me a drink of water, will you?" 22. tempest: any violent commotion; a storm with severe winds 23. futile: useless; not successful; not worth attempting Collins had no room amid his emotions for surprise. He 24. blanched: lacking complexion or color was mad from the threats of destruction. 25. beseech: a heartfelt plea "I can't!" he screamed, and in his reply was a full 26. apprehension: dread or fear at the prospect of some future ill 27. genial: friendly and cheerful description of his quaking apprehension. His cap was 26 28. skylark: to play around, play tricks gone and his hair was riotous. His clothes made it appear that he had been dragged over the ground by the heels. He ran on.  Name: ____________________________________ A Mystery of Heroism | Reading Quiz 1. Explain what the author includes in the following sentence from the fourth paragraph. "Sometimes they of the infantry looked down at a fair little meadow which spread at their feet. Its long, green grass was rippling gently in a breeze." 2. The narrator describes each of the following EXCEPT which? a. A soldier with no shoes cuts his feet on sharp rocks while running away from battle. b. A rider loses control of his horse team when one of them is injured. c. An officer rides past his men while holding his detached right arm in his left hand. d. A beautiful meadow is destroyed by artillery shells. 3. Which character trait is NOT displayed by Fred Collins of A company? a. He is cunning. b. He is stubborn. c. He is courageous. d. He is proud. 4. What provides the greatest motivation for Collins to get the water? 5. Which of the following statements about Collins' mission is true? a. The captain orders Collins to go. b. Collins is taking an unnecessary risk. c. The men are depending on Collins. d. Collins was afraid before he went on the mission. 6. What is the narrator trying to teach readers about heroism? 7. Which best explains what the author includes in the following sentence from the fourth paragraph? "He saw that, in this matter of the well, the canteens, the shells, he was an intruder in the land of fine deeds." a. Simile b. Metaphor c. Hyperbole d. Alliteration 8. Which event happens last? a. Collins fills up the bucket. b. Collins speaks with the Captain. c. The other soldiers tease Collins. d. Collins helps the wounded officer. 9. If this story were to be continued, which event would most likely occur next? 10. What is ironic about how the story ends? Long Response: Answer the following question in complete sentences. 1. Is Collins a "real" hero? Why or why not? Use the text to support your response.