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Материалы для выполнения контрольной работы III-II
за третий курс

Учебно-методические материалы для студентов третьего курса факультета английского языка

Сохраним окружающую природу - сохраним себя

The story "Good Morning" by Mark Hager, a contemporary American writer, is about the choice between material and spiritual values a schoolboy has to make.

It is a story of everyday life or a story of manners. The story depicts things as they really are, presents descriptions of observed details of everyday life.

It also possesses the qualities of a psychological story because much attention is paid not only to the life of its main character but to his complicated mental state. What was it like? what promoted it? And what motivated his behaviour?

When I was a boy, I walked through two miles of woods to get to the schoolhouse. And I would take my father's twenty-two rifle with me and hide it in a hollow tree before I got to the schoolhouse and get it as I came home in the evening.

One evening, coming from school, I ran into a community uprising at Mr. Epperly's house. Mr. Epperly's cow had gone mad and was bawling lonesome bawls and twisting the young apple-trees out of the ground with her horns, and whole community was demanding that Mr. Epperly's dog, Old Ranger, be shot as Old Ranger had fought and killed the mad dog that bit the cow.

Mr. Epperly wanted to know if it wouldn't be safe to put Old Ranger in the stable or some place and keep him penned up until the danger period was over, but the neighbours said no; that Mr. Epperly's might slip and feed him through the cracks and get bit.

Mr. Epperly said he could not do it himself, abd wanted to know who would volunteer to do it, but non the men would.

Mr. Epperly came to me and said, :Joe, why can't you take him with you through the woods on your way home and do it?"

I told Mr. Epperly I did not want to shoot Old Ranger, I saw Mr. Epperly's three kids were already keeping close to the old dog.

I considered. I had never yet had a one-dollar bill all my own and while the idea of shooting Old Ranger did not appeal to me, it did seem like a thing that was demanded by the whole community, and they all put at me to do it, trying to make me feel like a kind of hero, and pointed to the danger to Mr. Epperly's children. Then Mr. Epperly put a piece of clithes-line around Old Ranger's neck and I started with him. The Epperly kids began to cry.

As I walked through the woods by the little path, I started looking for a place suitable to shoot a dog and leave him lay. I saw a heavy clump of wild grapevines and I led him down under there and there (tied him) and then got back up in the path. Old Ranger looked at me and whiled and wagged his tail. He wanted to come to me. I recollected always seeing him wherever there was a splash of sunshine in Mr. Epperly's yard when I would pass there and Mr. Epperly's kids would join me for school.

I went down and untied Old Ranger and walked on. I came to a place where there was a hickory grove in a little flat where the underbrush was thin. I recollected how Old Ranger liked too go to the hickory groves and tree squirrels. I led Old Ranger down and tied him close to the trunk of a big hickory tree.

I started to take aim, but Old Ranger started prancing and looked up the tree. I remembered then hearing Mr. Epperly tell how Old Ranger would do that when he'd tree a squirrel and Mr. Epperly would rise the gun to shoot, and I could not fool Old Ranger like that.

Besides, there was too much light and Old Ranger could see me take aim. I decided to wait for the gloom. Soon as the sun dropped a few more feet behind the Wilson Ridge, there would be gloom, and maybe Old Ranger would not see so plainly how I pointed the gun.

While I waited for the gloom, the burning started in my pocket. I took the one-dollar bill out. I had a feeling there was something nasty about it.

While I thought of that, Old Ranger roared and barked and surged at the cord leash, and when I looked back out the path I saw Mr. Epperly's three kids, but they were running away. They had turned to run when Old Ranger barked. I guessed they had slipped of from their house and followed just to see where I left Old Ranger.

The thought struck me that they would run back to their house and tell I had not shot Old Ranger yet, and that would set the folks to worrying again, and I took aim, I thought I had better fire in their hearing. I took aim at Old Ranger, but I could not touch the trigger the way he looked at me and tried to speak, so I fired in the air so the Epperly kids could say they heard the shot.

I stuck the dollar back in my pocket, went down and hugged Old Ranger around the neck. I knew I would never shoot Old Ranger, I took him and walked on. I got to the edge of our field.

I climbed on the gate and sat a long time and considered. I tried to think up how I could explain to my mother why I had brought Old Ranger home with me so that she would not be scared. I could not decide how I could explain with a good face that I had a one-dollar bill in my pocket I had been given to shoot Old Ranger.

I remembered where I had seen an empty castor-oil bottle at the edge of the path. It was still there; and I got it and stuck the one-dollar bill in it, and buried the bottle in some soft dirt under the corner of the fence.

My mother decided that since I had fired the shot, she would let me keep Old Ranger for a month, with the community thinking he was dead, but it was the hardest month I ever spent.

The Epperly kids would not walk with me to school. They would pucker up to cry when they saw me, and the other kids down at the schoolhouse, they would say with a sneer, "What did you buy with your dollar bill?"

I could not answer. I could not tell them about the castor-oil bottle under the fence corner or Old Ranger in our stable; the Epperly kids searched the woods on both sides of the path to our house, hunting for the body of Old Ranger, but they would not ask me where I had left him, and the other neighbours spoke of how Old Ranger's great booming voice was missed.

Mrs. Epperly was kind to me. I met her in the road one day, and she told me how she had scolded the kids for treating me like that. "But", she added, "if it was to do over, I would not allow it done. The children... Mr. Epperly, too, they're half crazy."

Then came the happy morning. "You can take Old Ranger home now, Joe," my mother said. "Been over a month. No danger now."

I went to the stable, got Old Ranger, and he roared and licked my face. I shouldered my book strap, and led Old Ranger down the path. I stopped at the fence corner and got the castor-oil bottle with one-dollar bill in it. I had a time trying to hold Old Ranger's mouth shut so I could get in sight of the Epperly house before he barked.

At the right place where they could see us when they came running to the front porch, I let Old Ranger have his voice, Old Ranger let go with a great howl that rolled and rocked around the ridges, and the Epperlys came bounding. Mr. and Mrs. Epperly and three kids. They alternated between my neck and Old Ranger's, and I don't know to this day which of us got the most hugging.

He tried to make me keep it and when I wouldn't he just pitched it towards me and his three kids, and we started for the schoolhouse, feeling rich, with a whole dollar to spend.

2.3. Answer these questions which will help you to narrate the main episodes of the story:

2.7. Imagine you are Old Ranger and you can speak a human language. Now you’re recollecting your past life, your habitual behaviour in your master’s house.

2.8. Imagine you are Mr. Epperly. After you asked Joe to kill the dog and gave him a one-dollar bill, you feel frustrated and distressed. You are extremely sorry for what you have done. You feel pretty ashamed. You wish you hadn’t done it. What do you wish you hadn’t done?

2.12. To narrate the sequence of incidents the story “Good Morning” is composed of, one should know the main forms of the following verbs. Can you write their correct forms?

To hide	To run
To shoot	To stick
To slip	To feed
To get (bit)	To pull
To lead	To untie
To rise	To fool
To point (one’s gun)	To keep (smb. penned up)
To hug	To bring
To bury	To fire (a shot)
To buy	To search
To scold	To feel
To cry	To put
To try

2.14. Consult the Dictionary for adjectives with the help of which you can characterize 1) the boy; 2) Mr. Epperly; 3) Mrs. Epperly. Write them out. Practice the adjectives in the pattern:

2.17. Speak about Joe’s character. The following questions may be of help to you:

3) Is Joe a magnetic character? What qualities of him are very sympathetic and appeal to you most of all?

5) Did the boy display an exceptional force of character? If yes, prove it. If no, give your reasons.