McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson XLVII · Part 5: Courage, kindness and the village smithy

53. The Relief of Lucknow, from the "London Times"

Goal: Your child retells the dramatic moment when Jessie hears the pipes, and reads Jessie's words with feeling.

⏱ About 30 minutes · 6 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook and pencil

What's in the book

A letter to the London Times by a lady, the wife of an officer at Lucknow, describing the last hours of the siege when a Scottish girl, Jessie Brown, first hears the bagpipes of the rescuing Highlanders. Notes follow.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Before you read

    The heading says the piece is from a letter to the London Times, by a lady, the wife of an officer at Lucknow. Lucknow is a city in India. The British there were besieged (surrounded) and expected to die.

  2. Read aloud

    Take turns by paragraph.

    The engineer had said so, and all knew the worst.

    Poor Jessie had been in a state of restless excitement all through the siege.

    Suddenly I was aroused by a wild, unearthly scream close to my ear.

  3. Jessie's words

    Jessie speaks in Scottish dialect. Read her words together and work out the meaning:

    Dinna ye hear it? dinna ye hear it?

    Will ye no believe it noo?

    SayWhat do dinna and noo mean? (Don't and now.)

  4. Talk about it

    SayWhat did Jessie hear? Why couldn't the others hear it at first?

    Our dull Lowland ears heard only the rattle of the musketry.

    SayHow did the mood change when the pipes were heard by all?

    SayWhy is this told by someone who was there? How does that change how it feels?

  5. Tell it back

    Your child tells the story as if they were the officer's wife.

  6. Write (optional)

    The book's note says Whittier and Robert T. S. Lowell both wrote poems about this same incident. Write a few lines of your own about the moment Jessie hears the pipes.

@teddyrookbook GitHub