McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson LXXX · Part 8: Truth, wisdom and work

84. Hugh Idle and Mr. Toil, part 2, by Hawthorne

Goal: Your child finishes the story and explains the lesson Hugh learned.

⏱ About 30 minutes · 7 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • A notebook or lined paper and a pencil

What's in the book

The conclusion: Hugh keeps finding Mr. Toil's brothers, as a soldier's captain and even as the fiddler at a dance, until, worn out, he finds out who his traveling companion really is. Definitions and Exercises follow.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Warm up

    Have your child tell what happened in the first half, and guess again who the stranger is.

  2. Words and meanings

    The new words are at the end of the lesson, under Definitions. The small number in front of each word is the paragraph or verse where it is used. Read them together before the lesson. A few of them:

    Dismay, fright, terror.

    Composedly, calmly, quietly.

    Innumerable, not to be counted.

    Approbation, the act of regarding with pleasure.

    Ask your child to find two of these words in the lesson and read the sentence each one is in.

  3. Read it aloud

    Your child reads it aloud. Hugh's fear grows funnier each time:

    "Oh, dear me!" whispered he, turning pale; "it seems as if there were nobody but Mr. Toil in the world."

  4. Talk about it

    SayTo whose school was Hugh Idle sent? Why did he run away?

    SayRelate the adventures of Hugh and the stranger.

    SayWho was the stranger, really? Where had they been walking all day?

    SayWhat lesson is taught by this story?

    Let your child look back at the page to find answers.

  5. Tell it back

    Close the book. Your child tells the whole story of Hugh Idle and Mr. Toil, both parts.

    For a written narration, your child writes a paragraph about what Hugh learned.

  6. Copywork

    Your child copies this from the book, slowly and neatly, minding every capital letter and mark of punctuation:

    Little Hugh Idle, however, had learned a good lesson, and from that time forward was diligent at his task.

  7. Words to learn

    Learn: venture, dismay, precisely, enlist, composedly, resumed, innumerable, approbation. Spell each aloud, then write it with its meaning.

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