Download Full Version ebook - Visit ebookmeta.

com

Discover Solar System 1st Edition Norma O'Toole

https://ebookmeta.com/product/discover-solar-system-1st-
edition-norma-otoole/

OR CLICK HERE

DOWLOAD NOW

Discover More Ebook - Explore Now at ebookmeta.com

 Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) ready for you
Download now and discover formats that fit your needs...

Start reading on any device today!

Understanding The Solar System 1st Edition Future

Publishing Limited

https://ebookmeta.com/product/understanding-the-solar-system-1st-
edition-future-publishing-limited/

ebookmeta.com

Planetary Volcanism across the Solar System 1st Edition

Tracy K. P. Gregg

https://ebookmeta.com/product/planetary-volcanism-across-the-solar-
system-1st-edition-tracy-k-p-gregg/

ebookmeta.com

New Scientist Essential Guide No 13 The Solar System

Stephen Battersby (Editor)

https://ebookmeta.com/product/new-scientist-essential-guide-no-13-the-
solar-system-stephen-battersby-editor/

ebookmeta.com

Becoming His 2nd Edition Bruce Rose

https://ebookmeta.com/product/becoming-his-2nd-edition-bruce-rose/

ebookmeta.com
The Tensions of Algorithmic Thinking Automation
Intelligence and the Politics of Knowing 1st Edition David
Beer
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-tensions-of-algorithmic-thinking-
automation-intelligence-and-the-politics-of-knowing-1st-edition-david-
beer/
ebookmeta.com

The Routledge Introductory Course in Modern Hebrew Second

Edition Giore Etzion Dick Beutick

https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-routledge-introductory-course-in-
modern-hebrew-second-edition-giore-etzion-dick-beutick/

ebookmeta.com

Crazy To Leave You 1st Edition Marilyn Simon Rothstein

https://ebookmeta.com/product/crazy-to-leave-you-1st-edition-marilyn-
simon-rothstein/

ebookmeta.com

Windows Presentation Foundation Development Cookbook 100

recipes to build rich desktop client applications on
Windows 1st Edition Kunal Chowdhury
https://ebookmeta.com/product/windows-presentation-foundation-
development-cookbook-100-recipes-to-build-rich-desktop-client-
applications-on-windows-1st-edition-kunal-chowdhury/
ebookmeta.com

Sport Fans The Psychology and Social Impact of Fandom 2nd

Edition Daniel L. Wann

https://ebookmeta.com/product/sport-fans-the-psychology-and-social-
impact-of-fandom-2nd-edition-daniel-l-wann/

ebookmeta.com
National Geographic Readers Ruth Bader Ginsburg L3 Rose
Davidson

https://ebookmeta.com/product/national-geographic-readers-ruth-bader-
ginsburg-l3-rose-davidson/

ebookmeta.com
 (03L

Milliken Publishing Company

Milliken Publishing Company
 Solar SyStem
by Norma o’toole

table of CoNteNtS
Our Solar System....................................1, 2 Review of the Inner Planets ...................... 18
Activities for Solar System............................ 3 Outer Planets ..................................... 19–21
Orbits ....................................................4, 5 Review of the Outer Planets ..................... 22
Solar System and Orbit Review ................... 6 Seasons.................................................... 23
The Sun .................................................7, 8 Seasons in the Northern Hemisphere ....... 24
How the Sun Produces Energy .................. 9 Day and Night ...................................25, 26
Review of the Sun .................................... 10 Review of the Seasons.............................. 27
Earth’s Moon ........................................... 11 Solar System Crossword Puzzle Review ..... 28
Phases of the Moon ...........................12, 13 Solar System Background Material ............ 29
Review of the Moon ................................ 14 Answers ................................................... 31
Inner Planets ...................................... 15–17

The activities in this book explain elementary concepts in the study of the solar system, including orbits, the
sun, the moon and moon phases, planets, seasons, and day and night.
General background information, suggested activities, questions for discussion, and answers are included.
Encourage students to keep completed pages in a folder or notebook for further reference and review.

Copyeditor: Cindy Barden

Illustrations: Thomson Design and Nancee McClure
Cover and Inside Design: Good Neighbor Press, Inc.
© Copyright 1999, 2014
Milliken Publishing Company
a Lorenz company
P.O. Box 802
Dayton, OH 45401-0802
All rights reserved.
www.LorenzEducationalPress.com

Permission to reproduce pages extends only to the teacher-purchaser for individual classroom use, not to
exceed in any event more than one copy per student in a course.
The reproduction of any part for an entire school or school system or for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

ORBITS

Earth’s Orbit

Moon’s Orbit
Sun

The word orbit describes the curved path that a body follows when revolving around another
body. The moon travels around the Earth in an orbit. The planets travel around the Sun in orbits.
You can also use the word orbit as a verb. The moon orbits the Earth. The planets orbit the Sun.
The path of their orbit is an ellipse. An ellipse may be nearly a circle or it may be very elongated.

elongated nearly circular

DRAWING ELLIPSES
MATERIALS
two thumbtacks 24" string unlined paper
pencil 8 ⁄2 x 11" corrugated cardboard
1

ACTIVITY
1. Place a sheet of paper on the cardboard. Push two thumbtacks into the middle of the paper
about two to three inches apart. Make a small loop out of eight to ten inches of string and
put it around the tacks. Pull the loop of string tight with the pencil. Draw an ellipse as you
move the pencil around.
2. Vary the position of the tacks and the length of the string to make different shaped ellipses.
All planetary orbits are ellipses (very slight) and not circular as most people think.

EXTRA CREDIT
Write a report telling who Johannes Kepler was and why he is important in our study of the
Solar System.
5
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

OUR SOLAR SYSTEM

The Solar System is made up of the Sun and its its Wherever the Sun goes in space, the rest of the
family of eight planets. Pluto, formerly the ninth
planets (Pluto, family or system goes too.
planet,
planet, was reclassified as
was reclassified as aa “dwarf
dwarf planet
planet”inin The Solar System is part of an even larger family
August of 2006 when similar-sized
August of 2006). Orbiting between the planets objects were
discovered. Scientists decided to finally define in space. The Sun is only one of a huge group of
are chunks of rock and metal called asteroids, stars called the Milky Way Galaxy. Compared to
“planet” when they found Eris to be larger than
as wellOrbiting
Pluto. as loosebetween
collectionstheofplanets
rock and arefrozen
chunks the Milky Way Galaxy, our Solar System is an
gasrock
of andcomets.
called metal called asteroids, as well as extremely tiny speck. There are billions of stars in
loose
Planetscollections
and stars of arerock and frozen
different from one gas another.
called this Galaxy and our Sun is only one.
comets.
A planet is a body that does not give off light of Our study does not end there. If you look
its own.and
Planets It reflects thedifferent
stars are light of the
fromSun.
oneStars
another. through a powerful telescope, you would see
A planet and
produce is a body thattheir
give off does notheat
own give and
off light
light. millions and millions of other galaxies, each
of its own. It
Our Sun is a star.reflects the light of the Sun. Stars containing billions of stars of their own. Our
produce and give off their own heat and light.
Our Sun is the center of our Solar System and Solar System, the Milky Way, and all the other
Our Sun is a star.
the planets revolve around it. It is also the largest galaxies make up the Universe. Everything in
Our
member.Sun isThe
theword
center of our
solar Solar“ofSystem
means and
the Sun.” space is part of the Universe.
the planets revolve around it. It is also the largest
member. The word solar means “of the Sun.”

SOLAR SYSTEM

Solar
System

Solar System

Side view of Milky Way Galaxy Front view of Milky Way Galaxy
2
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

ACTIVITIES FOR SOLAR SYSTEM

Hint: To help you remember the planets in their correct order from
the sun, memorize this sentence.
Sun My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos
e e a a u a r e
r n r r p t a p
c u t s i u n t
u s h t r u u
r e n s n
y r e

Write the answers on the blanks.

1. The Sun is the center of what system? ____________________________________________________

2. What are comets?______________________________________________________________________
3. Explain the main difference between a planet and a star. ____________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
4. Name the largest member of our Solar System. _____________________________________________
5. Does the Sun travel around the planets or do the planets travel around the Sun?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
6. Our Solar System is in what Galaxy? ______________________________________________________
7. How does our Solar System compare in size to this Galaxy? __________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
8. Fill in the names of the planets in their correct order in space.

Sun

3
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
___ Name
Date____________________________________________________
__________________________ Date __________________________
Name ______________

EM SOLAR SYSTEM

ORBITS

Earth’s Orbit Earth’s Orbit

Moon’s Orbit
Sun

ws when revolving
The word orbit another
around describes the curved path that a body follows when revolving around anotherThe word orbit de
anets travelbody.
around
Thethe
moon
Sun travels
in orbits.
around the Earth in an orbit. The planets travel around the Sun in orbits.
body. The moon tr
the Earth. The
You planets
can alsoorbit
use the Sun.
word orbit as a verb. The moon orbits the Earth. The planets orbit the Sun. You can also use th
a circle or The
it may
path
be of
very
their
elongated.
orbit is an ellipse. An ellipse may be nearly a circle or it may be very elongated.
The path of their o

nearly circular elongated nearly circular

DRAWING ELLIPSES DRAWING E

MATERIALS MATERIALS
two thumbtacks 24" string unlined paper two thumbtacks
pencil 8 ⁄2 x 11" corrugated cardboard
1
pencil

ACTIVITY ACTIVITY
umbtacks into 1.thePlace
middle
a sheet
of theof paper
paper on the cardboard. Push two thumbtacks into the middle of the paper1. Place a sheet
ut of eight to ten about
inchestwo
of string
to three
andinches apart. Make a small loop out of eight to ten inches of string and about two to
h the pencil. Drawputanit around
ellipse as
theyou
tacks. Pull the loop of string tight with the pencil. Draw an ellipse as you put it around
move the pencil around. move the pe
ng to make different
2. Vary the
shaped
position
ellipses.
of the tacks and the length of the string to make different shaped ellipses.2. Vary the posi
ular as most people
All planetary
think. orbits are ellipses (very slight) and not circular as most people think. All planetary

EXTRA CREDIT EXTRA CREDI

e is important
Writeinaour
report
study
telling
of the
who Johannes Kepler was and why he is important in our study of theWrite a report tellin
Solar System. Solar System.
5
MP3409
CopyrightSolar
© Milliken
SystemPublishing Co. All rights reserved. Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co.
MP3409
All rights
Solar
reserved.
System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

ORBITS

Earth’s Orbit

Moon’s Orbit
Sun

The word orbit describes the curved path that a body follows when revolving around another
body. The moon travels around the Earth in an orbit. The planets travel around the Sun in orbits.
You can also use the word orbit as a verb. The moon orbits the Earth. The planets orbit the Sun.
The path of their orbit is an ellipse. An ellipse may be nearly a circle or it may be very elongated.

elongated nearly circular

DRAWING ELLIPSES
MATERIALS
two thumbtacks 24" string unlined paper
pencil 8 ⁄2 x 11" corrugated cardboard
1

ACTIVITY
1. Place a sheet of paper on the cardboard. Push two thumbtacks into the middle of the paper
about two to three inches apart. Make a small loop out of eight to ten inches of string and
put it around the tacks. Pull the loop of string tight with the pencil. Draw an ellipse as you
move the pencil around.
2. Vary the position of the tacks and the length of the string to make different shaped ellipses.
All planetary orbits are ellipses (very slight) and not circular as most people think.

EXTRA CREDIT
Write a report telling who Johannes Kepler was and why he is important in our study of the
Solar System.
5
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

SOLAR SYSTEM AND ORBIT REVIEW

Write T for true or F for false on the blanks before each sentence. If the sentence is false, rewrite it to
make it true.

1. _____ A planet is a body that gives off light of its own. ___________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
2. _____ The Sun is the largest member of our Solar System. ________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
3. _____ The Universe is made up of only our Solar System. _________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
4. _____ The Earth orbits the moon.______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
5. _____ Neptune has the fastest orbit around the Sun.
________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
6. _____ The planets orbit the Sun._______________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
7. _____ The Earth takes one year or 365.25 days to orbit the moon. _________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
8. _____ The Sun is the center of our Solar System. _________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
9. _____ There are eight planets in our Solar System. _______________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
10. _____ The correct order of the planets from the Sun is: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter,
Uranus, Neptune, Saturn.
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
11. _____ A star gives off heat and light of its own.
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________

6
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

THE SUN
The Sun is a star made up of hot gases that explode with energy similar to that of a continuously
exploding nuclear bomb. It is the center of our Solar System. It provides us with heat and light. The
Sun has been spinning on its axis and exploding for about 5 billion years.
The Sun is an average-size star, but seems larger because it is the star nearest to us—only 93,000,000
miles (150,000,000 km) away. This is a very, very long way, but the other stars are even farther out in
space. Light from the Sun takes about eight minutes to reach us, so actually we see the Sun as it was
eight minutes ago!
The corona is the outer part of the Sun’s atmosphere. The chromosphere is made of very, very hot
gases which shoot up into the corona at high speeds. Heat is sent to the surface of the Sun through
the middle and outer layers from the core. The temperature of the core is approximately
57,000,000°F (31,350,000°C).
Label the diagram of the sun.
A

B A. ___________________________________

B. ___________________________________

C. ___________________________________
C
E D D. ___________________________________

E. ___________________________________
inside the Sun
The Sun is much larger than the Earth. The Earth
diameter (distance across) of the Sun is 109
times that of the Earth. For comparison, you Sun
could fit about one million Earths inside the Sun! Sun’s size compared to the Earth

MAKE A SOLAR COLLECTOR

MATERIALS
2 cans the same size black paper thermometer

ACTIVITY
1. Cover one can with black paper. Fill both cans with water.
2. Set both cans outside in the sun on a warm sunny day.
3. Record the water temperature at the beginning of the experiment and again after 10, 20, and 30
minutes.
4. Which can collected the most solar energy?

7
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

THE SUN
flares

photosphere

prominences

middle outer
core layer layer

sunspots

chromosphere

corona

8
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

HOW THE SUN PRODUCES ENERGY

Define these words. Use a dictionary if you need help.

1. energy__________________________________ 3. hydrogen _______________________________

2. atom ___________________________________ 4. helium __________________________________

Deep within the core, there are atoms of hydrogen that are under pressure and are turning into
atoms of helium. As they do this, energy is given off and sent out into space as heat energy and light
energy. Because this energy is being produced deep within the Sun, it takes millions of years for it to
reach the surface and escape into space.
Less than one percent of the Sun’s energy reaches Earth. Without this energy, there would be no life
on our planet.
On the surface of the Sun, there are dark spots that may grow or disappear. They are called
sunspots. It is believed that these spots are areas where gases have broken through the surface.
They are cooler than the surface of the Sun. On or between sunspots, there are powerful explosions
lasting only a few moments. These explosions are known as flares. Huge sheets of glowing gases,
called prominences, are seen leaping up from the Sun. They may reach 250,000 miles (400,000 km)
into space.

Label these features on the photosphere, or surface, of the Sun on the drawing below.

prominences sunspots flares

5. _______________________ 6. _______________________

7. _______________________

9
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

REVIEW OF THE SUN

Write a short definition for each word. Then use the numbers to label the drawing below.

1. outer layer ____________________________________________________________________________

2. middle layer ___________________________________________________________________________
3. sunspot_______________________________________________________________________________
4. flare__________________________________________________________________________________
5. prominence ___________________________________________________________________________
6. chromosphere _________________________________________________________________________
7. corona _______________________________________________________________________________
8. core__________________________________________________________________________________

10
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

EARTH’S MOON
The moon is Earth’s satellite. A satellite is an object that travels around
moon
a larger object. The moon travels around the Earth.
The Earth is about four times as large as the moon, our nearest Earth
neighbor in space. Because the moon is so close, it appears to be
almost as big as the Sun. This is far from true.
The moon looks beautiful from Earth, but it is not a friendly place.
Since the moon has such a weak gravitational pull, it has lost its
atmosphere. Life, as we know it, cannot exist on the moon. The
moon has no surface air or water. It is made up of hills, mountains,
plains, and craters. There are no clouds, wind, or rain so the moon
has no weather.
The moon does, however, have temperature. On the side of the moon
facing the Sun, the temperature may rise to over 250°F (121°C) at midday.
Then, because there is no air, the moon loses that heat at night and drops to minus 260°F
(–162°C) or lower. The moon has no light of its own. Like the Earth, it reflects the light of the Sun.

moon moon

Earth

It revolves around It rotates on its axis

the Earth.

Sun

moon
It follows the Earth in its movement
around the Sun.

The moon always keeps the same side facing the Earth. Its period of rotation is the same as its
period of revolution around the Earth—about 27 days.

11
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

PHASES OF THE MOON

Sun’s Rays

New Moon

Waxing Crescent Waning Crescent

Earth

First Quarter Last Quarter

Gibbous Moon Gibbous Moon

Full Moon

12
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

PHASES OF THE MOON

From our view on Earth, the moon seems to change shape from night to night. These changing
shapes are called phases. The moon does not actually change. The shape we see depends on how
much of the moon’s lighted half we can see. Half of the moon is always lighted by the Sun, but we
do not always see all of the bright side.
When the moon is between the Sun and Earth, its dark side is facing us. This is known as a new
moon. It cannot be seen at all.
When the moon is on the far side of the Earth, and the Sun is on the opposite side of us, the moon is
full. That is, the whole of the sunlit side is facing us and we see a full moon.

new moon
Sun
5.2°
Earth
full moon

We have one full moon and one new moon each month. It takes about 27 days, 7 hours, and
43 minutes for the moon to complete one revolution of the Earth and to go through all phases. At
different times the shape may be crescent, half, or gibbous (3⁄4 ), depending on how much of the
lighted half we can see at a particular time.

VIEWING PHASES OF THE MOON

MATERIALS
unshaded lamp light colored ball

ACTIVITY
1. Darken the room and turn on the lamp. Hold the
ball in front of you, in line with your eyes and the
light bulb. The lamp is the Sun, the ball is the moon,
and you are the Earth.
2. Begin moving the ball slightly to the left of the lamp. You will see a new moon. (The ball will
appear completely dark.) Keep moving around the light with the ball in front of you. You will see
each phase of the moon.

EXTRA CREDIT
Make a drawing showing the Sun, the Earth, and the moon in all its phases. Label each phase with
its correct name.

13
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

REVIEW OF THE MOON

In each box, draw how the moon looks from Earth during its four main phases. The drawing shows
how the moon would look from space.

1st Quarter New Moon

Sun

Full Moon 3rd Quarter

Full 3rd Quarter New 1st Quarter

The moon has three kinds of motion or movement. On the lines below, tell what those three
movements are.

1. _____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Complete the following sentences:

4. The changing shapes of the moon are called its____________________________________________.

5. Half of the moon is always lighted by the _________________________________________________.
6. The moon has no weather because it has no ______________________________________________.
7. The moon travels around the____________________________________________________________.
8. A __________________________________________ is an object that travels around another object.

14
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

INNER PLANETS
There are eight planets in our Solar System. They are dark spheres that reflect light from the Sun.
They can be divided into two groups—inner planets and outer planets. The inner planets are
Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The outer planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

MERCURY
Mercury is the small planet closest to the Sun. Since it is between the Sun and Earth, it is often hidden
in the Sun’s glare. The Sun appears nine times larger on Mercury than on Earth. It bathes the planet in
deadly radiation. Mercury is a ball of rock that has craters, hills, plains, and mountains. The days and
nights on Mercury are long—the time between one sunrise and the next is 59 Earth days. Mercury is
the speed demon of the Solar System, however, because it takes only 88 days to travel around the Sun.

How Old Would You Be on Mercury?

To keep track of your age on Mercury, you would simply have to remember
that every 88 days you would be a year older—but a Mercurian year! How
old would you be on Mercury? Figure out how many days old you are and
divide that number by 88.

I am _________ days old on Earth and _________ years old on Mercury!

VENUS
Venus is second from the Sun and has an orbit twice as big as Mercury. Venus is sometimes called
the morning or evening star because it appears shortly after sunset and before sunrise. With
sunlight reflecting off its dense cloud cover, Venus is brighter than anything in the sky except for
the Sun and moon. Because of its location between the Sun and Earth, Venus goes through
phases as does our moon.
Venus is a hostile place. Its atmosphere is 98% carbon dioxide. The upper clouds are poisonous
sulfuric acid. Its surface temperature is approximately 900°F (475°C). The atmosphere alone would
crush you!

Sun
Venus

Earth Phases of Venus

15
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

INNER PLANETS

Mercury

Venus

Sun

Earth

Mars

16
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

INNER PLANETS
EARTH
Earth is the third planet from the Sun. It is a planet of intelligent life. Earth is a ball of rock and metal
with a thin blanket of air. Much of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. There are many reasons
why this planet is perfect for life as we know it. The distance from the Sun is just right to receive
plenty of heat and light, but not too much to bake in the Sun’s
radiation. Next, the orbit is nearly a circle which keeps the Earth
always about the same distance from the Sun. This lets Earth get
a constant steady flow of heat and light.
Because the Earth tilts and spins on its axis, it has gentle heating
by day and cooling by night. Its atmosphere acts as a shield by
day to filter out dangerous rays and as a blanket at night, to
keep the heat from escaping into space. Earth’s atmosphere is Earth
desirable for life.
Earth’s atmosphere is made up of a combination of gases we can breathe—mainly nitrogen and
oxygen. The size of our planet and the materials it is made of make our gravity just right to keep the
atmosphere from escaping into space.

MARS
Mars is a small rocky planet with a thin atmosphere. It is fourth from the Sun and about half the
size of Earth. A year on Mars is nearly twice as long as a year on Earth. It takes 687 Earth days for
Mars to complete one orbit around the Sun. Mars has two moons or satellites, known as Phobos
and Deimos.
Mars is bone-dry on its surface and has giant volcanoes.
moons Mars is tilted on its axis and has seasons, but they are
twice as long as ours. Changes occur during the seasons.
Martian ice caps grow in winter and shrink in summer. The
Mars average temperature by day is 86°F (30°C) and –103°F
(–75°C) at night.
Asteroid Belt

Just beyond Mars is a belt of tiny planets known as

asteroids. They orbit the Sun as do the planets. Some
asteroids are as big as mountains while others are
quite small. Since they are like tiny planets, they are
sometimes called planetoids.

Ice caps in Ice caps in

winter summer

17
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

REVIEW OF THE INNER PLANETS

Matching: Write the number of the statement that best fits each word.

A. _____ Mercury 1. dark spheres that reflect light from the Sun
B. _____ planets 2. often referred to as the morning star
C. _____ Earth 3. small planet containing giant volcanoes
D. _____ atmosphere 4. planet closest to the Sun
E. _____ Venus 5. contains much water and just the right amount of heat and light
F. _____ asteroids 6. the air surrounding a planet
G. _____ Mars 7. tiny planets
H. _____ planetoids 8. another name for asteroids
I. _____ Jupiter 9. an outer planet
J. _____ phases 10. the changes in shape that Venus appears to go through

Circle the words in the puzzle.

1 Find the names of the four inner planets.

2. Find these words:
SUN
ORBIT
PHASE
B C S T A R F E
MOON D M R U E Y A R
STAR N O A A N T M E
SOLAR
P O M O O E G H
ATMOSPHERE
PLANET R N H Q R N V P
M E I C B A S S
X A U J I L T O
Z R K L T P V M
Y T S O L A R T
P H A S E U W A

18
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

OUTER PLANETS
JUPITER
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the first of the four outer planets in our Solar System. It is
the largest planet. You could fit eleven Earths along its diameter and more than a thousand Earths
inside it. Jupiter is made up of twice as much material as all the other planets put together. Jupiter is
so big and bright that you can see it from Earth without a
telescope.
Jupiter takes almost 10 hours to spin around once on its
axis and 12 Earth years to orbit the Sun once.
Jupiter is best known for its beautiful colors and its huge
red spot. The colors make up the top of a clouded,
churning atmosphere. The red spot is a giant, reddish,
football-shaped mass believed to be a great storm system
similar to a hurricane. The top of the atmosphere is a
chilly –200°F (–128°C) or colder, while Jupiter itself is hot
and believed to be made of gases and liquid metal. Jupiter
Scientists now believe Jupiter has over 60 moons. The
rings around Jupiter are composed of tiny particles.

EXTRA CREDIT
Write a report about the satellites or moons of Jupiter. Include drawings if you wish.

SATURN
Saturn is a giant outer planet, sixth from the Sun. It is best
known for the beautiful system of rings that circle the
planet. The rings are made up of huge chunks of ice and
tiny particles of dust and rock.
Saturn has a long orbit, taking 291⁄ 2 Earth years to circle
the Sun. Saturn is the second largest planet, but it is very
light. So light, in fact, that it could float on water. Like
Jupiter, Saturn is made mostly of gases.It also has over 60
Saturn known moons. Titan, the largest of Saturn’s moons, is
larger than Mercury.

EXTRA CREDIT
Find out why Titan is a likely place to look for life.

19
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

* Reclassified as a “dwarf planet” in August of 2006

OUTER PLANETS
Pluto*

Neptune

Uranus
Saturn
Jupiter

Mars

Earth

Venus
Mercury

Sun

20
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

OUTER PLANETS
URANUS
Uranus is the
the seventh
seventh planet
planetfrom
fromthetheSun–a
Sun—a giant
giant outer
outer
planet. Uranus isis four
four times
timesthe
thesize
sizeofofEarth.
Earth.Bluish-green
Bluish-greeninin
color, Uranus has
has 13 tenknown ringswith
faint rings withfifteen
more than
moons 25orbiting
moons
orbiting the planet. Uranus lies on its side, unlike other
the planet. Uranus lies on its side, unlike other planets. planets.
A day on Uranus would last 23 hours and 15 minutes.
Earth
That’s how long it takes to spin around on its axis. However,
it would take 84 years for Uranus to complete one orbit Uranus
around the Sun. Deep within this planet lies an ocean
which may be 6,000 miles deep.

NEPTUNE
Neptune is eighth from the Sun and a large planet. It
looks like Uranus because of its bluish color, but it is
slightly smaller. Neptune can only be seen through a
telescope. Even then, it is very difficult to study. It has at
Earth eight
least 14 moons.
moons andNeptune takesNeptune
several rings. 165 Earth years
takes 165toEarth
orbit
Neptune
years to orbit
the Sun. the Sun.
Neptune Neptune
contains contains
a great dark aspot
great
asdark
largespot
as
as
thelarge as the
planet planet Earth.
Earth.

PLUTO
In August
Until 2006,ofPluto
2006,wasPluto was reclassified
considered in a vote
the fifth outer by However,
planet. the International Astronomical
it was reclassified Union
in a vote by as
thea
“dwarf planet.”
International Dwarf planets
Astronomical Unionareas defined
a dwarf as round
planet. objects
Dwarf that are
planets have not cleared
defined as roundtheobjects that
have not cleared the neighborhood around their orbits, and are not satellites (Pluto’
neighborhood around their orbits, and are not satellites (Pluto’s orbit takes it through the s orbit takes it
Kuiper
through
Belt, the Kuiper
a large area ofBelt, a large
rocks at thearea of rocks
edge of theat
the edge of the solar system).
solar system). This reclassification is still being
hotly debated.

Pluto is so far out in space that it takes 248 Earth

years to orbit the Sun once. Pluto has onefive small
moon,
known Charon.
moons. Pluto’s orbit is the shape of a
long, flattened circle. Sometimes Pluto is closer to Sun
Neptune
the Sun than Neptune. In fact, Pluto sometimes
swings inside Neptune’s orbit. It is very dark
Pluto
because it is so far out in space. Pluto was
named after the god of the dead.

Astronomers believe that Pluto was once a moon of Neptune’s. It was pulled out of orbit by
something passing by. It is not at all like its giant neighbors with thick atmospheres. Pluto is more like
the inner planets.
21
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

REVIEW OF OUTER PLANETS

Who am I? Use the clues to name the planet being described.
1. I am a bluish-green planet and have rings. Unlike other ____________________________
planets, I lie on my side. Who am I?
2. I am the sixth planet from the Sun. I am known for my ____________________________
beautiful rings and my colors. I am made up mostly of
gases. Who am I?
3. I was reclassified as a “dwarf planet”. Not much is ____________________________
known about me because I am so far away and so hard
to study. I have five moons. Who am I?
4. I am eighth from the Sun and have a greenish color. I can ____________________________
only be seen through a telescope. I have at least 14
moons. Who am I?
5. I am the largest planet and well known for beautiful colors ____________________________
and my great red spot. I have rings and over 60 known
moons. Who am I?

SPACE MAIL
Pretend you are sending a letter to someone in outer space. It will be carried on board a spaceship.
Fill in the information on the envelope below so the letter will reach your friend.

Place
____________________________ stamp
here

____________________________
____________________________

Name _________________________________________
Street __________________________________________
City ____________________________________________
State ___________________________________________
Country ________________________________________
Planet __________________________________________
System _________________________________________
Galaxy _________________________________________

On a separate piece of paper, design a stamp to fit on the envelope above. Cut it out and paste it in
the upper right corner.

22
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

SEASONS
Spring

Sun
Summer
Winter

Earth

Fall

The Earth orbits the Sun. Earth is slightly tilted We live in the Northern Hemisphere. It is
and spins on its axis. Because it is tilted and summer when the North Pole is tilted toward the
travels around the Sun, we have seasons. We Sun. At this time, the Sun is high overhead and
go from summer, to fall, to winter, to spring, we receive strong, direct sun rays. The Sun
and then back to summer. These changes were shines for many hours each day. Its strong rays
most likely the first calendar people used. The have a lot of time to heat the Earth. In the far
time it took to complete these changes gave the north, it shines for 24 hours a day. This gradually
length of time we call a year or 3651⁄ 4 days. changes—days get shorter and cooler and the
These changes were noted in two ways— Sun appears low in the sky at noon as the North
change in temperature and change in the Pole moves slowly away from the Sun. Summer
length of daylight. turns to fall, and then to winter.
In winter, the North Pole is tilted away from the
Northern Sun. We do not receive the strong, direct rays
Hemisphere and the Sun is low in the sky. The Sun shines for
fewer hours each day. These weak rays do not
have time to heat the Earth. This explains the
colder winters even though the Sun is shining.
Southern Winter turns to spring and then back to summer
Hemisphere as the Earth completes one orbit around the Sun.

23
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

SEASONS IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE

January
February

December
Winter

November
March

October
Sun
Spring
April

Fall

September
May

Summer

August
June

July

24
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

DAY AND NIGHT

Our days and nights are caused by the spinning of the Earth.
Imagine the Earth is a ball of yarn with a knitting needle stuck
through it. If you spin the needle, the ball will turn. We know
there is nothing really poked through the center of the Earth, but
the Earth still spins as if there were. This imaginary line through
the center is called the axis. We say the Earth spins on its axis. It is
at a slight tilt and spins from West to East. As the Earth rotates or
spins on its axis, it is day when your part of the Earth is facing the
Sun. It is night where you live when you are facing away from the
Sun. The amount of time it takes for the Earth to spin around once on its axis is measured as one
day—24 hours.

This is a view of the Earth from

above the North Pole. Write
the names of the times on the
blanks. North Pole
Noon Midnight
Sunset Sunrise

Complete the following:

1. The Earth spins on its _________________.

2. The Earth revolves or travels around the _________________.
3. It takes the Earth _________________ hours to spin one complete time around.
4. When one side of the Earth is daytime, the opposite side is _________________.
5. Explain in your own words why we have day and night. ____________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

EXTRA CREDIT
Tell what you believe would happen if the Earth suddenly stopped spinning and you were in the part
of the world that had sunlight 24 hours a day. Include such things as how this would affect your
sleep, work, school, and crime. You may include any other things of importance in your life and how
they would be changed.

25
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

DAY AND NIGHT

N

EARTH TURNING
ON ITS AXIS W

Eq
uat
or
s
Axi
E

DAY AND NIGHT

Sunrise

Sun Night
Day

Sunset

It takes 24 hours for the Earth to

complete one rotation on its axis.

26
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

REVIEW OF THE SEASONS

Fill in the blanks below with the correct vowels to make the sentences true. Remember, the vowels
are a, e, i, o, u, and y.

1. W ___ h ___ v ___ s ___ ___ s ___ ns b ___ c ___ ___ s ___ th ___ ___ ___ rth ___s

t ___ lt ___d ___ nd tr ___ v ___ ls ___ r ___ ___ nd th ___ S ___ n.

2. Th ___ f ___ ___ r s ___ ___ s ___ ns ___ r ___: s ___ mm ___ r, w ___ nt ___ r, f ___ ll,

___ nd spr ___ ng.

3. W ___ l ___ v ___ ___ n th ___ N ___ rth ___ rn H ___ m ___ sph ___ r ___.

4. ___ t ___ s s ___ mm ___ r wh ___ n th ___ N ___ rth P ___ l ___ ___s t ___lt ___ d

t ___ w ___ rd th ___ S ___ n.

5. Th ___ ___ ___ rth ___ rb ___ ts th ___ S ___ n ___ n 3651⁄4 d ___ ys.

6. ___ n w ___ nt ___ r, th ___ N ___ rth P ___ l ___ ___ s t ___ lt ___ d ___ w ___ y

fr ___ m th ___ S ___ n.

7. ___ n th ___ s ___ mm ___ r, th___ S ___ n ___ s h ___ gh ___ v ___ rh ___ ___ d

___ nd w ___ r ___ c ___ ___ v ___ str ___ ng, d ___ r ___ ct r ___ ys.

8. Th ___ S ___ n ___ s l ___ w ___ n th ___ sk ___ ___ t n ___ ___ n d ___ r ___ ng

th ___ w ___ nt ___ r.

9. Th ___ ___ ___ rth sp ___ ns ___ n ___ ts ___ x ___ s.

10. ___ n w ___ nt ___ r, w ___ r ___ c ___ ___ v ___ f ___ w ___ r h ___ ___ rs ___f

s ___ nl ___ ght th ___ n w ___ d ___ ___ n th ___ s ___ mm ___ r.

27
MP3409 Solar System Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
Name ____________________________________________________ Date __________________________

SOLAR SYSTEM

SOLAR SYSTEM CROSSWORD PUZZLE REVIEW

DOWN 1 2 3 4 5

1. Planet of giant volcanoes 6

2. Center of our Solar System 7 8

4. We hear with this part of 9 10

the body. 11

5. One orbit around the Sun is 12

called a _____. 13 14 15

6. Everything in space is a part

of the _____. 16 17

8. A tiny particle 18

9. The Earth spins on 19 20 21

its _____. 22

10. Center of the Sun

12. Reclassified as a dwarf planet 23 24

13. It gives off its own heat

and light. 25 26 27

14. Planet with a beautiful

ring system
15. Another name for 28 29

automobile
18. We live in the Milky
Way _____.
between Mars and Jupiter 23. Asteroids are often
19. The largest planet called _____.
11. Outer part of the Sun’s
21. Changes in temperature atmosphere 25. Evening or morning “star”
and length of days
13. The Sun is the center of 26. Dark, cool spot on the Sun
23. Changes in shape the the _____. 28. The Sun gives off heat and
moon seems to go through
15. Loose collection of rock light _____.
24. Eighth planet from the Sun and frozen gas that has 29. Round sphere that does
27. Uranus is one of the four a tail not give off light of its own
_____ Planets. 16. 2,000 pounds = 1_____
17. The Earth’s satellite
ACROSS
20. The Earth _____
3. Planet closest to the Sun
on its axis.
6. Planet that lies on its side
22. To rotate
7. Planet we live on means to _____.
9. ”Tiny planets” that orbit

28
Copyright © Milliken Publishing Co. All rights reserved. MP3409 Solar System
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
large a ball of earth with the roots as he could manage, but he had
to sever unnumbered tiny shoots, and the voyage down the
mountain filled him with misgivings.
When Bret came home that night the two trees stood close
together like Adam and Eve whitely saluting the sunset. Over them a
great tulip-tree towered a hundred feet in air, and all aglow with its
flowers like a titanic bridal bouquet. When the bedraggled Sheila
came back with the played-out children she was immeasurably
pleased with the thoughtfulness of the surprise.
The next morning Bret called her to the window to see how her
namesake laughed with all her leaves in the early light. The two
trees seemed to laugh together. “It’s their honeymoon,” he said.
When he left the house old Gottlieb was shaking his head over the
spectacle. Bret triumphantly cuffed him on the shoulder. “You see! I
told you it would be all right.”
“Vait once,” said Gottlieb.

A few days before this Dorothy had called on Sheila to say that
the church was getting up an open-air festival, a farewell to the
congregation about to disperse for the summer. They wanted to
borrow the Winfield lawn.
Sheila consented freely. Also, they wanted to give a kind of
masque. Masques were coming back into fashion and Vickery had
consented to toss off a little fantasy, mainly about children and
fairies, with one or two grown-ups to hold them together.
Sheila thought it an excellent idea.
Also, they wanted Sheila to play the principal part, the mother of
the children.
Sheila declined with the greatest cordiality.
Dorothy pleaded. Sheila was adamant. She would work her head
off and direct the rehearsals, she said, but she was a reformed
actress who would not backslide even for the church.
Other members of the committee and even the old parson
begged Sheila to recant, but she beamed and refused. Rehearsals
began with Dorothy as the mother and Jim’s sister Mayme as the
fairy queen. Sheila’s children and Dorothy’s and a mob of others
made up the rest of the cast, human and elfin.
Sheila worked hard, but her material was unpromising—all except
her own daughter, whom she had named after Bret’s mother and
whom she called “Polly” after her own. Little Polly displayed a
strange sincerity, a trace of the Kemble genius for pretending.
When Vickery, who came down to see his work produced and
saw little Polly, it was like seeing again the little Sheila whom he still
remembered.
He told big Sheila of it, and her eyes grew humid with
tenderness.
He said, “I wrote my first play for you—and I’d be willing to write
my last for you now if you’d act in it.”
Sheila blessed him for it as if it were a beautiful obituary for her
dead self. He did not tell her that he was writing her into his
masterpiece, that she was posing for him even now.
On the morning of the performance Miss Mayme Greeley woke
up with an attack of hay-fever in full bloom. The June flowers had
filled her with a kind of powder that went off like intermittent
skyrockets. She began to pack her trunk for immediate flight to a
pollenless clime. It looked as if she were trying to sneeze her head
into her trunk. There was no possibility of her playing the fairy
queen when her every other word was ker-choo!
Sheila saw it coming. Before the committee approached her like a
press-gang she knew that she was drafted. She knew the rôle from
having rehearsed it. Mayme’s costume would fit her, and if she did
not jump into the gap the whole affair would have to be put off.
These were not the least of the sarcasms fate was lavishing on
her that her wicked past as an actress, which had kept her under
suspicion so long, should be the means of bringing the village to her
feet; that the church should drive her back on the stage; that the
stage should be a plot of grass, that her own children should play
the leading parts, and she be cast for a “bit” in their support.
Thus it was that Sheila returned to the drama, shanghaied as a
reluctant understudy. The news of the positive appearance of the
great Mrs. Winfield—“Sheila Kemble as was, the famous star, you
know”—drew the whole town to the Winfield lawn.
The stage was a level of sward in front of the two birches, with
rhododendron-bushes for wings. The audience filled the terraces,
the porches, and even the surrounding trees.
The masque was an unimportant improvisation that Vickery had
jingled off in hours of rest from the labor of his big play, “Clipped
Wings.”
But it gained a mysterious charm from the setting. People were
so used to seeing plays in artificial light among flat, hand-painted
trees with leaves pasted on visible fishnets, that actual sunlight,
genuine grass, and trees in three dimensions seemed poetically
unreal and unknown.
The plot of the masque was not revolutionary.
Dorothy played a mother who quieted her four clamoring children
with fairy-stories at bedtime; then they dreamed that a fairy queen
visited them and transported them magically in their beds to
fairyland.
At the height of the revel a rooster cock-a-doodle-did, the fairies
scampered home, the children woke up to find themselves out in the
woods in their nighties, and they skedaddled. Curtain.
The magic transformation scene did not work, of course. The
ropes caught in the trees and Bret’s chauffeur and Gottlieb Hauf had
to get a stepladder and fuss about, while the sleeping children sat
up and the premature fairies peeked and snickered. Then the play
went on.
Bret watched the performance with the indulgent contempt one
feels for his unprofessional friends when they try to act. It puzzled
him to see how bad Dorothy was.
All she had to do was to gather her family about her and talk
them to sleep. Sheila had reminded her of this and pleaded:
“Just play yourself, my dear.”
But Dorothy had been as awkward and incorrigible as an
overgrown girl.
To the layman it would seem the simplest task on earth—to play
oneself. The acting trade knows it to be the most complex, the last
height the actor attains, if he ever attains it at all.
Bret watched Dorothy in amazement. He was too polite to say
what he thought, since Jim Greeley was at his elbow. Jim was not so
polite. He spoke for Bret when he groaned:
“Gee whiz! What’s the matter with that wife of mine? She’s put
her kids to bed a thousand times and yet you’d swear she never saw
a child in her life before. You’d swear nobody else ever did. O Lord!
Whew! I’ll get a divorce in the morning.”
The neighbors hushed him and protested with compliments as
badly read and unconvincing as Dorothy’s own lines. At last Sheila
came on, in the fairy-queen robes. Everybody knew that she was
Mrs. Winfield, and that there were no fairies, at least in Blithevale,
nowadays.
Yet somehow for the nonce one fairy at least was altogether
undeniable and natural and real. The human mother putting her
chicks to bed was the unheard-of, the unbelievable fantasm. Sheila
was convincing beyond skepticism.
At the first slow circle of her wand, and the first sound of her
easy, colloquial, yet poetic speech, there was a hush and, in one
heart-throb, a sudden belief that such things must be true, because
they were too beautiful not to be; they were infinitely lovely beyond
the cruelty of denial or the folly of resistance.
Bret’s heart began to race with pride, then to thud heavily. First
was the response to her beauty, her charm, her triumph with the
neighbors who had whispered him down because he had married an
actress. Then came the strangling clutch of remorse: What right had
he to cabin and confine that bright spirit in the little cell of his life?
Would she not vanish from his home as she vanished from the
scene? Actually, she merely walked between the rhododendron-
bushes, but it had the effect of a mystic escape.
There was great laughter when the children woke up and
scooted across the lawn in their bed-gear, but the sensation was
Sheila’s. Her ovation was overwhelming. The women of the audience
fairly attacked Bret with congratulations. They groaned, shouted,
and squealed at him:
 “Oh, your wife was wonderful! wonderful! wonderful! You must be
so proud of her!”
He accepted her tributes with a guilty feeling of embezzlement, a
feeling that the prouder he was of her the more ashamed he should
be of himself.
He studied her from a distance as she took her homage in shy
simplicity. She was happy with a certain happiness he had not seen
on her face since he last saw her taking her last curtain calls in a
theater.
Sheila was so happy that she was afraid that her joy would
bubble out of her in disgraceful childishness. With her first entrance
on the grassy “boards” she had felt again the sense of an audience
in sympathy and in subjection, the strange clasp of hands across the
footlights, even though there were no footlights. It was a double
triumph because the audience was Philistine and little accustomed to
the theater. But she could feel the pulse of all those neighbors as if
they had but one wrist and she held that under her fingers, counting
the leap and check of their one heart and making it beat as she
willed.
The ecstasy of her power was closely akin, in so different a way,
to what Samson felt when the Philistines that had rendered him
helpless called him from the prison where he did grind, to make
them sport:
“He said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I
may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth that I may lean
upon them.” As he felt his strength rejoicing again in his sinews, he
prayed, “Strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be
avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.”
Nobody could be less like Samson than Sheila, yet in her capacity
she knew what it was to have her early powers once more restored
to her. And she bowed herself with all her might—“And the house
fell.”
An almost inconceivable joy rewarded Sheila till the final
spectator had italicized the last compliment. Then, just as Samson
was caught under his own triumph, so Sheila went down suddenly
under the ruination of her brief victory.
 She was never to act again! She was never to act again!
When Bret came slowly to her, the last of her audience, she read
in his eyes just what he felt, and he read in her eyes just what she
felt. They wrung hands in mutual adoration and mutual torment. But
all they said was:
“You were never so beautiful! You never acted so well!” and “If
you liked me, that’s all I want.”

The next morning Bret woke to a new and busy day after a night
of perfect oblivion. Sheila did not get up, as her new habit was, but
she reverted to type. She said that she had not slept and Bret urged
her to stay where she was till she was rested.
Later, as he was knotting his tie, he glanced from the window as
usual at the birches whose wedding he was so proud of. His hands
paused at his throat and his fingers stiffened. He called, “Sheila!
Sheila! Come look!”
He forgot that she had not risen with him. She lifted herself
heavily from her pillow and came slowly to his side. She brushed
back her heavy hair from her heavy eyes and said, “What is it?”
“Look at the difference in the birches. ‘Bret’ is bright and fine and
every leaf is shining. But look at ‘Sheila’!”
The Sheila tree seemed to have died in the night. The leaves
drooped, shriveled, turning their dull sides outward on the black
branches. The wind, that made the other tree glisten like breeze-
shaken water, sent only a mournful shudder through her listless
foliage.
 CHAPTER LI
Bret turned with anxious, almost with superstitious query to
Sheila. He found her wan and tremulous and weirdly aged. He cried
out: “Sheila! What’s the matter? You’re ill!”
She tried to smile away his fears: “I had a bad night. I’m all
right.”
But she leaned on him, and when he led her back to bed she fell
into her place like a broken tree. She was stricken with a chill and he
bundled the covers about her, spread the extra blankets over her,
and held her in his arms, but the lips he kissed shivered and were
gray.
He was in a panic and begged her to let him send for the doctor,
but she reiterated through her chattering teeth that she was “all
right.” When he offered to stay home from the office she ridiculed
his fears and insisted that all she needed was sleep.
He left her anxiously, and came home to luncheon earlier than
usual. He did not find Sheila on the steps to greet him. She was not
in the hall. He asked little Polly where her mother was, and she said:
“Mamma’s sick. She’s been crying all day.”
“No, I haven’t,” said Sheila; “I’m all right.”
She was coming down the stairs; she was bravely dressed and
smiling bravely, but she depended on the banister, and she almost
toppled into Bret’s arms.
He kissed her with terror, demanding: “What’s the matter, honey?
Please, please tell me what’s the matter.”
But she repeated her old refrain: “Why, I’m all right, honey! I’m
perfectly all right!”
But she was not. She was broken in spirit and her nerves were in
shreds.
Though she sat in her place at table, Bret saw that she was only
pretending to eat. Dinner was the same story. And there was
another bad night and a haggard morning.
 Bret sent for the doctor in spite of her. He found only a general
constitutional depression, or, as Bret put it, “Nothing is wrong except
everything.”
A week or two of the usual efforts with tonics brought no
improvement. Meanwhile the doctor had asked a good many
questions. It struck him at last that Sheila was suffering from the
increasingly common malady of too much nervous energy with no
work to expend it on. She must get herself interested in something.
Perhaps a change would be good, a long voyage. Bret urged a trip
abroad. He would leave the factory and go with her. Sheila did not
want to travel, and she reminded him of the vital importance of his
business duties. He admitted the truth of this and offered to let her
go without him. She refused.
The doctor advised her to take up some active occupation. Bret
suggested water-colors, authorship, pottery, piano-playing, the harp,
vocal lessons—Sheila had an ear for music and sang very well, for
one who did not sing. Sheila waved the suggestions aside one by
one.
Bret and the doctor hinted at charity work. It is necessary to
confess that the idea did not fascinate Sheila. She had the actor’s
instinct and plenteous sympathy, and had always been ready to give
herself gratis to those benefit performances with which theatrical
people are so generous, and whose charity should cover a multitude
of their sins. But charity as a job! Sheila did not feel that going
about among the sick and poverty stricken people would cheer her
up especially.
The doctor as his last resort suggested a hobby of his own—he
suggested that Sheila take up the art of hammering brass. He had
found that it worked wonders with some of his patients.
Sheila, not knowing that it was the doctor’s favorite vice and that
his home was full of it, protested: “Hammered brass! But where
would I hide it when I finished it? No, thank you!”
She said the same to every other proposal. You can lead a
woman to an industry, but you cannot make her take it up. Still Bret
agreed with the doctor that idleness was Sheila’s chief ailment.
There was an abundance of things to do in the world, but Sheila did
not want to do them. They were not to her nature. Forcing them on
her was like offering a banquet to a fish. Sheila needed only to be
put back in the water; then she would provide her own banquet.
Bret gave up trying to find occupations for her. The summer did
not retrieve her strength as he hoped. She tired of beaches and
mountains and family visitations.
In Bret’s baffled anxiety he thought perhaps it was himself she
was so sick of; that love had decayed. But Sheila kept refuting this
theory by her tempests of devotion.
He knew better than the doctor did, better than he would admit
to himself, what was the matter with her. She wanted to go on the
stage, and he could not bear the thought of it. Neither could he bear
the thought of her melancholia.
If Sheila had stormed, complained, demanded her freedom he
could have put up a first-class battle. But he could not fight the poor,
meek sweetheart whose only defense was the terrible weapon of
reticence, any more than he could fight the birch-tree that he had
brought from its native soil.
The Sheila tree made a hard struggle for existence, but it grew
shabbier and sicker, while the Bret tree, flourishing and growing,
offered her every encouragement to prosper where she was. But she
could not prosper.
One evening when Bret came home, nagged out with factory
annoyances, he saw old Gottlieb patting the trunk of the Sheila tree
and shaking his head over it. Bret went to him and asked if there
were any hope.
There were tears in Gottlieb’s eyes. He scraped them off with his
wrist-bone and sighed:
“Die arme schöne Birke. Ain’t I told you she don’t like? She goink
die. She goink die.”
“Take her back to the sunlight, then,” said Bret.
But Gottlieb shook his head. “Jetzt ist’s all zu spät. She goink
die.”
Bret hurried on to the house, carrying a load of guilt. Sheila was
lying on a chair on the piazza. She did not rise and run to him. Just
to lift her hand to his seemed to be all that she could achieve. When
he dropped to his knee and embraced her she seemed uncannily
frail.
The servant announcing dinner found him there.
Bret said to Sheila, “Shall I carry you in?”
She declined the ride and the dinner.
Bret urged, “But you didn’t eat anything for lunch.”
“Didn’t I? Well, no matter.”
He stared at her, and Gottlieb’s words came back to him. The two
Sheilas would perish together. He had taken them both from the soil
where they had first taken root. Neither of them could adapt herself
to the new soil. It was too late to restore the birch to its old home.
Was it too late to save Sheila?
He would not trust the Blithevale fogies longer. She should have
the best physician on earth. If he were in New York, well and good;
if he lived in Europe, they would hunt him down. Craftily he said to
Sheila:
“How would you like to take a little jaunt to New York?”
“No, thanks.”
“With me. I’ve got to go.”
“I’m sorry I can’t; but it will be a change for you.”
“I’ll be lonely without you.”
“Not in New York,” she laughed.
“In heaven,” he said, and the extravagance pleased her. He took
courage from her smile and pleaded: “Come along. You can buy a
raft of new clothes.”
She shook her head even at that!
“You could see a lot of new plays.”
This seemed to waken the first hint of appetite. She whispered,
“All right; I’ll go.”
 CHAPTER LII
Paris fashions rarely get a good word from men or a bad word
from women. The satirists and the clergy and native dressmakers
who do not import have delivered tirades in all languages against
them for centuries. They are still giving delight and refreshment
from the harems on the Bosporus to the cottages on the Pacific and
the rest of the way around the world.
The doctors have not seemed to recognize their medicinal value.
They recommend equally or even more expensive changes of
occupation or of climate which work a gradual improvement at best
in the condition of a failing woman.
But for instant tonic and restorative virtue there is nothing to
match the external application of a fresh Paris gown. For mild
attacks a Paris hat may work, and where only domestic wares are
obtainable they sometimes help, if fresh. For desperate cases both
hat and gown are indicated.
Mustard plasters, electric shocks, strychnia, and other remedies
have nothing like the same potency. The effect is instantaneous, and
the patient is not only brought back to life, but stimulated to exert
herself to live up to the gown. Husbands or guardians should be
excluded during the treatment, as the reaction of Paris gowns on
male relatives is apt to cause prostration. There need be no fear,
however, of overdosing women patients.
As a final test of mortality, the Paris gown has been strangely
overlooked. Holding mirrors before the lips, lifting the hands to the
light, and like methods sometimes fail of certainty. If, however, a
Paris gown be held in front of the woman in question, and the words
“Here is the very newest thing from Paris just smuggled in” be
spoken in a loud voice, and no sign of an effort to sit up is made,
she is dead, and no doubt of it.
Bret had decoyed Sheila to New York with an elaborate story of
having to go on business and hating to go alone. When they arrived
she was so weak that Bret wanted to send a red-cap for a wheeled
chair to carry her from the train to the taxicab. Her pride refused,
but her strength barely sufficed the distance.
Bret chose the Plaza for their hotel, since it required a ride up
Fifth Avenue. His choice was justified by the interest Sheila displayed
in the shop windows. She tried to see both sides of the street at
once.
She was as excited as a child at Coney Island. She astounded
Bret by gifts of observation that would have appalled an Indian
scout.
After one fleeting glance at a window full of gowns she could
describe each of them with a wealth of detail that dazzled him and a
technical terminology that left him in perfect ignorance.
At the hotel she displayed unsuspected vigor. She needed little
persuasion to spend the afternoon shopping. He was afraid that she
might faint if she went alone, and he insisted that his own
appointments were for the next day.
He followed her on a long scout through a tropical jungle of
dressmakers’ shops more brilliant than an orchid forest. Sheila
clapped her hands in ecstasy after ecstasy. She insisted on trying
things on and did not waver when she had to stand for long periods
while the fitters fluttered about her. She promenaded and preened
like a bird-of-paradise at the mating season. She was again the
responsive, jocund Sheila of their own seaside mating period.
She found one audacious gown and a more audacious hat that
suited her and each other without alterations. And since Bret urged
it, she let him buy them for her to wear that night at the theater.
She made appointments for further fittings next day.
On the way to the hotel she tried to be sober long enough to
reproach herself for her various expenditures, but Bret said:
“I’d mortgage the factory to the hilt for anything that would bring
back that look to your face—and keep it there.”
At the hotel they discussed what play they should see. The ticket
agent advised the newest success, “Twilight,” but Sheila knew that
Floyd Eldon was featured in the cast and she did not want to cause
Bret any discomfort. She voted for “Breakers Ahead” at the Odeon,
though she knew that Dulcie Ormerod was in it. Dulcie was now
established on Broadway, to the delight of the large rural-minded
element that exists in every city.
Bret bought a box for the sake of the new gown. It took Sheila
an age to get into it after dinner, but Bret told her it was time well
spent. When they reached the theater the first act was well along,
and in the otherwise deserted lobby Reben was talking to Starr
Coleman concerning a learned interview he was writing for Dulcie.
Both stared at the sumptuous Delilah floating in at the side of
Bret Winfield. They did not recognize either Bret or Sheila till Sheila
was almost past them. Then they leaped to attention and called her
by name.
All four exchanged greetings with cordiality. Time had blurred the
old grudges. The admiration in the eyes of both Reben and Coleman
reassured Sheila more than all the compliments they lavished.
Reben ended a speech of Oriental floweriness with a gracious
implication: “You are coming in at the wrong door of the theater.
This is the entrance for the sheep. The artists—Ah, if we had you
back there now!”
Bret whitened and Sheila flushed. Then they moved on. Reben
called after her, laughingly:
“I’ve got that contract in the safe yet.”
It was a random shot, but the arrow struck. When the Winfields
had gone on Reben said to Coleman:
“She’s still beautiful—she is only now beautiful.”
Coleman, whose enthusiasms were exhausted on his typewriting
machine, agreed, cautiously: “Ye-es, but she’s aged a good deal.”
Reben frowned. “So you could say of a rosebud that has
bloomed. She was pretty then and clever and sweet, but only a
young thing that didn’t know half as much as she thought she did.
Now she has loved and suffered and she has had children and seen
death maybe, and she has cried a lot in the night. Now she is a
woman. She has the tragic mask, and I bet she could act—my God! I
know she could act—if that fellow didn’t prevent.”
“Fellow” was not the expression he used. Reben abhorred Bret
even more than Bret him.
 Once more Sheila was in the Odeon, but as one of the laity.
When she entered the dark auditorium her eyes rejoiced at the
huge, dusty, gold arch of the proscenium framing the deep brilliant
canvas where the figures moved and spoke. It was a finer sight to
her than any sunset or seascape or any of the works of mere nature,
for they just happened; these canvas rocks and cloth flowers were
made to fit a story. She preferred the human to the divine, and the
theatrical to the real.
The play was good, the company worthy of the Odeon traditions.
Even Dulcie was not bad, for Reben had subtly cast her as herself
without telling her so. She played the phases of her personality that
everybody recognized but Dulcie. The play was a comedy written by
a gentle satirist with a passion for making a portrait of his own
times. The character Dulcie enacted was that of a pretty and well-
meaning girl of a telephonic past married into a group of snobs,
through having fascinated a rich man with her cheerful voice. Dulcie
could play innocence and amiability, for she was not intelligent
enough to be anything but innocent, even in her vices, and she
usually meant well even when she did her worst.
The author had selected Dulcie as his ideal for the rôle, but he
had been at a loss how to tell her to play herself without hurting her
feelings. She saved him by asking:
“Say, listen, should I play this part plebean or real refined?”
He hastened to answer, “Play it real refined.”
And she did. She was delicious to those who understood; and to
those who didn’t she was admirable. Thus everybody was pleased.
Sheila would have enjoyed the rôle as a tour de force, or what
she called a stunt, of character-playing. But she was glad that she
was not playing it. She felt immortal longings in her for something
less trivial than this quaint social photograph; something more
earnest than any light satire.
She did not want to play that play, but she wanted to play—she
smoldered with ambition. Her eyes reveled in the splendor of the
theater, the well-groomed informality of the audience so eager to be
swayed, in the boundless opportunity to feed the hungry people with
the art of life. She felt at home. This was her native land. She
breathed it all in with an almost voluptuous sense of well-being.
Bret, eying her instead of the stage, caught that contentment in
her deep breathing, the alertness of her very nostrils relishing the
atmosphere, the vivacity of her eager eyes. And his heart told him
what her heart told her, that this was where she belonged.
He leaned close to her and whispered, “Don’t you wish you were
up there?”
She heard the little clang of jealousy in his mournful tone, and
for his sake she answered, “Not in the least.”
He knew that she lied, and why. He loved her for her love of him,
but he felt lonely.
Dulcie did not send for Sheila to come back after the play.
Broadway stars are busy people, with many suppliants for their time.
Dulcie had no time for ancient history.
Sheila was glad to be spared, but did not misunderstand the
reason. As she walked out with the audience she did not feel the
aristocracy of her wealth and her leisure. She wanted to be back
there in her dressing-room, smearing her features into a mess with
cold-cream and recovering her every-day face from her workaday
mask.
Bret and she supped in the grand manner, and Sheila had plenty
of stares for her beauty. But she could see that nobody knew her.
Nobody whispered: “That’s Sheila Kemble. Look! Did you see her in
her last play?” It was not a mere hunger for notoriety that made her
regret anonymity; it was the artist’s legitimate need of recognition
for his work.
She went back to the hotel and took off her fine plumage. It had
lost most of its warmth for her. She had not earned it with her own
success. It was the gift of a man who loved her body and soul, but
hated her mind.
Sheila was very woman, and one Paris gown and the prospect of
more had lifted her from the depths to the heights. But she was an
ambitious woman, and clothes alone were not enough to sustain her.
In her situation they were but gilding on her shackles. The more
gorgeously she was robed the more restless she was. She was in the
tragi-comic plight of the man in the doleful song, “All dressed up and
no place to go!”
Fatigue enveloped her, but it was the fag of idleness that has
seen another day go by empty, and views ahead an endless series of
empty days like a freight-train.
She tried to comfort Bret’s anxiety with boasts of how well she
was, but she fell back on the pitiful refrain, “I’m all right.” If she had
been all right she would not have said so; she would not have had to
say so.
Both lay awake and both pretended to be asleep. In the two
small heads lying as motionless on the pillows as melons their brains
were busy as ant-hills after a storm. Eventually both fell into that
mysterious state called sleep, yet neither brain ceased its civil war.
Bret was wakened from a bitter dream of a broken home by
Sheila’s stifled cry. He spoke to her and she mumbled in her
nightmare. He listened keenly and made out the words:
“Bret, Bret, don’t leave me. I’ll die if I don’t act. I love you, I love
my children. I’ll take them with me. I’ll come home to you. Don’t
hate me. I love you.”
Her voice sank into incoherence and then into silence, but he
could tell by the twitching of her body and the clutching of her
fingers that she was still battling against his prejudice.
He wrapped her in his arms and she woke a little, but only
enough to murmur a word of love; then she sank back into sleep like
a drowning woman who has slipped from her rescuer’s grasp.
He fell asleep again, too, but the daybreak wakened him. He
opened his eyes and saw Sheila standing at the window and gazing
at her beloved city, her Canaan which she could see but not possess.
She shook her head despairingly and it reminded him of the old
gardener’s farewell to the birch-tree that must die.
She looked so eery there in the mystic dawn; her gown was so
fleecy and her body so frail that she seemed almost translucent,
already more spirit than flesh. She seemed like the ghost, the soul of
herself departed from the flesh and about to take flight.
Bret thought of her as dead. It came to him suddenly with
terrifying clarity that she was very near to death; that she could not
live long in the prison of his love.
He was the typical American husband who hates tyranny so
much that he would rather yield to his wife’s tyranny than subject
her to his own. He took no pride in the thought of sacrificing any
one on the altar of his self, and least of all did he want Sheila’s
bleeding heart laid out there.
The morning seemed to have solved the perplexities of the night;
chill and gray, it gave the chill, gray counsel: “She will die if you do
not return her where you found her.” He vowed the high resolve that
Sheila should be replaced upon the stage.
The pain of this decision was so sharp that when she crept back
to bed he did not dare to announce it. He was afraid to speak, so he
let her think him asleep.
That morning Sheila was ill again, old again, and jaded with
discontent. He reminded her of her appointments with the
dressmakers, but she said that she would put them off—or, better
yet, she would cancel the orders.
He had their breakfast brought to the room, and he chose the
most tempting luxuries he could find on the bill of fare. Nothing
interested her. He suggested a drive in the Park. She was too tired to
get up.
Suddenly he looked at his watch, snapped it shut, rose, said that
he was late for his conference. She asked him what time it was, and
he did not know till he looked at his watch again. He kissed her and
left her, saying that he would lunch down-town.
 CHAPTER LIII
Though there was a telephone in their rooms, Bret went down to
the public booths. He remembered Eugene Vickery’s tirade about the
crime of Sheila’s idleness. He telephoned to Vickery’s apartments
and told Vickery that he must see him at once. Vickery answered:
“Sorry I can’t ask you up or come to where you are this morning,
but the fact is I’m at the last revision of my new play and I can’t
leave it while it’s on the fire. Meet me at the Vagabonds Club and
we’ll have lunch, eh?—say, at half past twelve.”
Bret reached the club a little before the hour. Vickery had not
come. The hall captain ushered Bret into the waiting-room. He sat
there feeling a hopeless outsider. “The Vagabonds” was made up
chiefly of actors. From where he sat he could see them coming and
going. He studied them as one looking down into a pool to see how
curious fish behave or misbehave. They hailed each other with a
simple cordiality that amazed him. The spirit was rather that of a
fraternity chapter-house than of a city club, where every man’s chair
is his castle. Everything was without pose; nearly everybody called
nearly everybody by his first name. There were evidences of
prosperity among them. Through the window he could see actors,
whose faces were familiar even to him, roll up in their own
automobiles.
At one o’clock Vickery had not come, and a friend of Bret’s,
named Crashaw, who had grown wealthy in the steel business,
caught sight of Bret and took him under his wing, registered him in
the guest-book and led him to the cocktail desk. Then Crashaw
urged him to wait for the uncertain Vickery no longer, but to lunch
with him. Bret declined, but sat with him while he ate.
Bret, still looking for proof that actors were not like other people,
asked Crashaw what the devil he was doing in that galley.
“It’s my pet club,” said Crashaw, “and I belong to a dozen of the
best. It’s the most prosperous and the most densely populated club
in town, and the only one where a man can always find somebody in
a cheerful humor at any hour of the day or night, and I like it best
because it’s the only club where people aren’t always acting.”
“What!” Bret exclaimed.
“I mean it,” said Crashaw. “In the other clubs the millionaire is
always playing rich, the society man always at his lah-de-dah, the
engineer or the painter or the athlete is always posing. But these
fellows know all about acting and they don’t permit it here. So that
forces them to be natural. It’s the warmest-hearted, gayest-hearted,
most human, clubbiest club in town, and you ought to belong.”
Bret gasped at the thought and rather suspected Crashaw than
absolved the club.
Bret was introduced to various members, and even his suspicious
mind could not tell which were actors and which business men, for
there are as many types of actor as there are types of mankind, and
as many grades of prosperity, industry, and virtue.
Some of the clubmen joined Bret’s group, and he was finally
persuaded to give Vickery up for lost and eat his luncheon with an
eminent tragedian who told uproarious stories, and the very buffoon
who had conquered him at the benefit in the Metropolitan Opera
House. The buffoon had an attack of the blues, but it yielded to the
hilarity of the tragedian, and he departed recharged with electricity
for his matinée, where he would coerce another mob into a state of
rapture.
It suddenly came over Bret that this club of actors was as
benevolent an institution in its own way as any monastery. Even the
triumphs of players, which they were not encouraged to recount in
this sanctuary, were triumphs of humanity. When an actor boasts
how he “killed ’em in Waco” it does not mean that he shot anybody,
took anybody’s money away, or robbed any one of his pride or
health; it means that he made a lot of people laugh or thrilled them
or persuaded them to salubrious tears. It is the conceit of a
benefactor bragging of his philanthropies. Surely as amiable an
egotism as could be!
Bret was now in the frame of mind that Sheila was born in. He
felt that the stage did a noble work and therefore conferred a
nobility upon its people.
All this he was mulling over in the back of his head while he was
listening to anecdotes that brought the tears of laughter to his eyes.
He needed the laughter; it washed his bitter heart clean as a
sheep’s. Most of the stories were strictly men’s stories, but those
abound wherever men gather together. The difference was that
these were better told.
Gradually the clatter decreased; the crowd thinned out. It was
Wednesday and many of the actors had matinées; the business men
went back to their offices. Still no Vickery.
By and by only a few members were left in the grill-room.
Bret had laughed himself solemn; now he was about to be
deserted. Vickery had failed him, and he must return to that doleful,
heartbroken Sheila with no word of help for her.
He had come forth to seek a way to compel her to return to the
stage as a refuge from the creeping paralysis that was extinguishing
her life. He hated the cure, but preferred it to Sheila’s destruction.
Now he was persuaded that the cure was honorable, but beyond his
reach. He had heard many stories of the hard times upon the stage,
and of the unusual army of idle actors and actresses, and he was
afraid that there would be no place for Sheila even though he was
himself ready to release her.
Crashaw rose at length and said: “Sorry, old man, but I’ve got to
run. Before I go, though, I’d like to show you the club. You can
choose your own spot and wait for Vickery.”
He led Bret from place to place, pointing out the portraits of
famous actors and authors, the landscapes contributed by artist
members, the trophies of war presented by members from the army
and navy, the cups put up for fearless combatants about the pool-
tables. He gave him a glimpse of the theater, where, as in a
laboratory, experiments in drama and farce and musical comedy
were made under ideal conditions before an expert audience.
Last he took him to the library. It was deserted save by
somebody in a great chair which hid all but his feet and the hand
that held a big volume of old plays. Crashaw went forward to see
who it was. He exclaimed:
 “What are you doing here, you loafer? Haven’t you a matinée to-
day?”
A voice that sounded familiar to Bret answered, “Ours is
Thursday.”
“Fine. Then you can take care of a friend of mine who’s waiting
for Vickery.”
The voice answered as the man rose: “Certainly. Any friend of
Vickery’s—” Crashaw said:
“Mr. Winfield, you ought to know Mr. Floyd Eldon. Famous
weighing-machine, shake hands with famous talking-machine.”
The two men shook hands because Crashaw asked them to. He
left them with a hasty “So long!” and hurried to the elevator.

It is a curious contact, the hand-clasp of two hostile men. It has

something of the ritual value of the grip that precedes a prize-fight
to the finish.
Once Bret’s and Eldon’s hands were joined, it was not easy to
sever them. There was a kind of insult in being the first to relinquish
the pressure. They looked at each other stupidly, like two school-
boys who have quarreled. Neither could say a harsh word or feel a
kind one. They had either to fight or to laugh.
Eldon was more used than Bret to speaking quickly in an
emergency. He ended what he would have called a “stage wait” by
lifting his left hand to his jaw, rubbing it, and smiling.
“It’s some time since we met.”
“Nearly five years, I guess,” said Bret, and returned the
compliment by rubbing his own jaw.
“We meet every few years,” said Eldon. “I believe it’s my turn to
slug now.”
“It is,” said Bret. “Go on. I’ve found that I didn’t owe you that last
one. I misunderstood. I apologize.” Bret said this not because of any
feeling of cordiality, but because he believed it especially important
not to be dishonest to an enemy.
Eldon, with equal punctilio and no more affection, answered: “I
imagine the offense was outlawed years ago. I never knew what the
cause of your anger was, but I’m glad if you know it wasn’t true.”
 Silence fell upon them. Bret was wondering whether he ought to
describe the injustice he had done Eldon. Eldon was debating
whether it would be more conspicuous to ask about Sheila or to
avoid asking about her. Finally he took a chance:
“And how is Mrs. Winfield?”
The question cleared the air magically. Bret said, “Oh, she’s well,
thank you, very well—that is, no, she’s not well at all.”
Bret had attempted a concealment of his cross, but the truth
leapt out of him. Eldon was politely solicitous:
“Oh, I am sorry! Very sorry! She’s not seriously ill, I hope.”
“She’s worse than ill. I’m worried to death!”
Eldon’s alarm was genuine. “What a pity! Have you been to see a
specialist? What seems to be the trouble?”
“She’s pining away. She—I think I made a mistake in taking her
off the stage. I think she ought to be at work again.”
Eldon was as astounded at hearing this from Winfield as Bret at
hearing himself say it. But Bret was in a panic of fear for Sheila’s
very life and he had to tell some one. Once he had betrayed himself
so far, he was driven on:
“She won’t admit it. She’s trying to fight off the longing. But the
battle is wearing her out. You see, we have two children. We have
no quarrel with each other. We’re happy—ideally happy together. She
feels that she ought to be contented. She insists that she is. But—
well, she isn’t, that’s all. I’ve tried everything, but I believe that the
only hope of saving her is to get her back where she belongs.
Idleness is killing her.”
Eldon hid in his heart any feeling that might have surged up of
disprized love finding itself vindicated. His thoughts were solemn and
he spoke with earnestness:
“I believe you are right. You must know. I can quite understand.
People laugh a good deal at actresses who come back after leaving
the stage. They think it is a kind of craze for excitement. But it is
better than that. The stage is still the only place where a woman’s
individuality is recognized and where she can be really herself.
“Sheila—er—Miss Kemble—pardon me—Mrs. Winfield has the
theater in her blood, of course. Almost all the Kemble women have
been actresses, and good ones. Your wife was a charming woman to
act with. We fought each other—for points. I feel very grateful to
her, for she gave me my first encouragement. She and her aunt,
Mrs. Vining, taught me my first lessons. I grew very fond of them
both and very grateful.
“There’s a natural enmity between a leading woman and a
leading man. They love each other as two rival prize-fighters do. The
better boxer each of them is, the better the fight. Sheila—your wife,
always gave me a fight—on the stage—and after, sometimes, off the
stage. She was a great actress—a born aristocrat of the theater.”
Bret took fright at the word “was.” It tolled like a passing-bell. He
had made up his mind that Sheila should not be destroyed on his
account. He had determined, after the morning’s relapse, that he
would restore his stolen sweetheart to her rightful owners as soon
as he could. He would keep as close to her as might be. His business
would permit him to make occasional journeys to Sheila. His mother
would take care of the children and be enchanted with the privilege.
Sometimes they could travel a little with Sheila.
His great-grandmother had crossed the plains in a prairie-
schooner with five children, and borne a sixth on the way. That was
considered praiseworthy in all enthusiasm. Wherein was it any worse
for an actress to take her children with her?
There was no hiding from slander in any case, and he must
endure the contempt of those who did not understand. The one
unendurable thing was the ruination of his beloved’s happiness, of
her very life, even.
He had sought out Vickery as an old friend who knew the theater
world. But Vickery had failed him. He dreaded to go back to Sheila
without definite news.
Of all men he most hated to ask Eldon’s help, but Eldon was the
sole rescuer on the horizon. He threw off his pride and appealed to
the man he had fought with.
“Mr. Eldon, you say you think my wife is a great artist. Will you
help me to—to set her to work? I’m afraid for her, Mr. Eldon. I’m
afraid that she is going to die. Will you help me?”
 “Me? Will I help?” Eldon stammered. “What can I do? I’m not a
manager, I have no company, no theater, hardly any influence.”
Bret’s courage went to pieces. He was a stranger in a strange
land. “I don’t know any manager—except Reben, and he hates me. I
don’t know anything at all about the stage. I only know that my wife
wants her career, and I’m going to get it for her if I have to build a
theater myself. But that takes time. I thought perhaps you would
know some way better than that.”
Eldon was stirred by Bret’s resolution. He said: “There must be a
way. I’ll do anything I can—everything I can, for the sake of the
stage—and for the sake of an old colleague—and for the sake of—of
a man as big as you, Mr. Winfield.”
And now their hands shot out to each other without compunction
or restraint and wrestled, as it were, in a tug of peace.
 CHAPTER LIV
It was thus that Eugene Vickery found them. His gasp of
astonishment ended in a fit of coughing as he came forward, trying
to express his amazement and his delight.
Bret seized his right hand, Eldon his left. Bret was horrified at the
ghostly visage of his friend. Already it had a post-mortem look.
Vickery saw the shock in Bret’s eyes. He dropped into a seat.
“Don’t tell me how bad I look. I know it. But I don’t care. I’ve
finished my play! Incidentally my play has finished me. But what
does that matter? I put into it all there was of me. That’s what I’m
here for. That’s why there’s nothing much left. But I’m glad. I’ve
done all I can. J’ai fait mon possible. It’s glorious to do that. And it’s
a good play. It’s a great play—though I do say it that shouldn’t.
Floyd, I’ve got it!” He turned back to Bret. “Poor Floyd here has
heard me read it a dozen times, and he’s suggested a thousand
changes. I was in the vein this morning. I worked all day yesterday,
and all night till sunrise. Then I was up at seven. When you called
me I was writing like a madman. And when the lunch hour came I
was going so fast I didn’t dare stop then even to telephone. I
apologize.”
“Please don’t,” said Bret.
“I see you’ve had your luncheon. Will you have another with me?
I’m famished.”
He rang for a waiter and ordered a substantial meal and then
returned to Bret.
“How’s Sheila?”
“She—she’s not well.”
“What a shame! She ought to be at work and I wish to the Lord
she were. I may as well tell you, Bret, that I took the liberty of
imagining Sheila as the principal woman of my play. And now that
it’s finished, I can’t think of anybody who fills the bill except your
wife. There are thousands of actresses starving to death, but none
of them suits my character. None of them could play it but your
Sheila.”
“Then for God’s sake let her play it!” Bret groaned. Vickery,
astonished beyond surprise, mumbled, “What did you say?”
Bret repeated his prayer, explained the situation to the
incredulous Vickery, apologized for himself and his plight. Vickery’s
joy came slowly with belief. The red glow that spotted his cheeks
spread all over his face like a creeping fire.
When he understood, he murmured: “Bret, you’re a better man
than I thought you were. Whether or not you’ve saved Sheila’s life,
you’ve certainly saved mine.” A torment of coughing broke down his
boast, and he amended, “Artistically, I mean. You’ve saved my play,
and that’s all that counts. The one sorrow of mine was that when I
had finished it there was no one to give it life. But what if Sheila
doesn’t like it? What if she refuses!”
His woe was so profound that Bret reached across the table and
squeezed his arm—it was hardly more than a bone. Bret said, “I’ll
make her like it!”
“She’s sure to,” Eldon said.
Vickery broke in: “You ought to hear him read it. Sometimes he
reads a doubtful scene to me. Then it sounds greater to me than I
ever dreamed. A manuscript is like an electric-light bulb, all glass
and brass and little loops of thread that don’t mean anything. When
the right actor reads it it fills with light like a bowl of fire and shines
into dark places.” His mood was so grave that it influenced his
language.
Bret said, “Let me take the manuscript to Sheila.”
Vickery frowned. “It’s not in shape for her eyes. It ought to be
read to her.”
“Come read it to her, then.”
“My voice is gone and I cough all the time, but if—”
He paused. He did not dare suggest that Eldon read it for him.
Eldon did not dare to volunteer. Bret did not dare to ask him. But at
length, after a silence of crucial distress, he overcame himself and
said, with difficulty:
“Perhaps Mr. Eldon would be—would be willing to read it.”
 “I should be very glad to,” said Eldon in a low tone.
It was strange how solemn and tremulous they were all three
over so small a matter. A razor edge is a small thing, but a most
uncomfortable place to balance.
Vickery broke out with a revulsion to hope. “Great!” he
exclaimed. “When?”
“This afternoon would please me best,” said Bret, rather sickly,
now that the business had gone so far. “If Mr. Eldon—”
“I am free till seven,” said Eldon.
“I’ll go back and ask Mrs. Winfield, if she hasn’t gone out,” said
Bret, rising.
“I’ll go fasten the manuscript together,” said Vickery, rising.
“I’ll go along and glance over the new scenes,” said Eldon, rising.
“Telephone me at my place,” said Vickery, “and let me know one
way or the other as soon as you can. The suspense is killing.”
They walked out on the steps of the club, and Bret hailed a
passing taxicab. As he turned round he saw Eldon lifting Vickery into
a car that was evidently his own, for he took the wheel.
The nearer he got to the hotel the more Bret repented of his rash
venture, the uglier it looked from various angles. He hoped that
Sheila would be at the dressmaker’s, contenting herself with
rhapsodies in silk.
But she was sitting at the window. She was dressed, but her eyes
were dull as she turned to greet him.
“How are you, honey?” he asked.
“I’m all right,” she sighed. The old phrase!
Then he knew he had crossed the Rubicon and must go forward.
“Why didn’t you go to your fitting?”
“I tried to, but I was too weak. I don’t need any new clothes.
How was your business talk?”
“I can’t tell yet,” he said, and, after a battle with his stage-fright,
broached the most serious business of his life. He had a right to be a
bad actor and he read wretchedly the lines he improvised on his own
scenario. “By the way, I stumbled across Eugene Vickery this
afternoon.”
“Oh, did you? How is he?”
 “Pretty sick. He’s just finished a new play.”
“Oh, has he?”
“He says it’s the work of his life.”
“Poor boy!”
“I don’t think he’ll write another.”
“Great heavens! Is he so bad?”
“Terribly weak. I told him you were in town and he was anxious
to see you.”
“Why didn’t you invite him up?”
“I did. He said he’d like to come this afternoon if you were
willing.”
“By all means. Better call him up at once.”
Bret went to the telephone, but turned to say, trying to be
casual, “He asked if you’d be interested in hearing his play.”
“Indeed I would!” There was distinct animation in this. “Ask him
to bring it along.”
Bret cleared his throat guiltily. “I told him I was sure you’d be
dying to hear it, and he said he wondered if you would mind if he—
er—brought along a friend to read it. Vick’s voice is so weak, you
know.”
“I’m not in the mood for strangers, but if Vickery wants it, why—
of course. Did he say who it was?”
“Floyd Eldon.”
That name had a way of dropping into the air like a meteor.
When two lovers have fought over an outsider’s name that name
always recurs with all its battle clamor. It is as hard to mention idly
as “Gettysburg” or “Waterloo.”
Sheila knew what Bret had said of Eldon, what he had thought of
him and done to him. She was amazed, and it is hard not to look
guilty when old accusations of guilt are remembered. Bret saw the
sudden tensity in her hands where they held the arms of her chair.
He felt a miserable return of the old nausea, the incurable regret of
love that it can never count on complete possession of its love, past,
present, and future. But he was committed now to the conviction
that he could not keep Sheila behind bars, and had no right to try.
He had given her back to herself and the world, as one uncages a
bird, hoping that it will hover about the house and return, but never
sure what will draw it, or whither, once it has climbed into the sky.
To escape the ordeal of watching Sheila, and the ordeal of being
questioned, he called up Vickery’s’ number and told him to come
over at once, and added, “Both of you.”
Then he hung up the receiver and went forward to face Sheila’s
eyes. He told her all that had happened except his appeal to Eldon
and their conspiracy to get her back on the stage.
She was agitated immensely, and risked his further suspicion by
setting to work to primp and to change her gown to one that her
nature found more appropriate to such an audition.
Eldon and Vickery arrived while she was in the dressing-room,
and Bret whispered to them:
“I haven’t told her that the play is for her. Don’t let her know.”
This threw Eldon and Vickery into confusion, and they greeted
Sheila with helpless insincerity.
She saw how feeble Vickery was and how well Eldon was, and
both saw that she was not the Sheila that had left the stage. Eldon
felt a resentment against Winfield for what time and discontent had
wrought to Sheila, but he knew what the theater can do for impaired
beauty with make-up and artifice of lights.
After a certain amount of small talk and fuss about chairs the
reading began. To Bret it was like a death-warrant; to Vickery and
Eldon it was a writ of habeas corpus; to Sheila it was like the single
copy of a great romance that she could never own.

Eldon read without action or gesticulation and with almost no

attempt to indicate dialect or characterization. But he gave hint
enough of each to set the hearers’ imagination astir and not enough
to hamper it.
Outside in the far-below streets was a muffled hubbub of motors
and street-cars. And within there was only the heavy elegance of
hotel furniture. But the listeners felt themselves peering into the
lives of living people in a conflict of interests.
The light in the room grew dimmer and dimmer as Eldon read, till
the air was thick with the deep crimson of sunset straining across
the roofs. It served as the very rose-light of daybreak in which the
play ended, calling the husband and wife to their separate tasks in
the new manhood and the new womanhood, outside the new home
to which they should return in the evening, to the peace they had
earned with toil.
Bret hated the play because he loved it, because he felt that it
had a right to be and it needed his wife to give it being; because it
seemed to command him to sacrifice his old-fashioned home for the
sake of the ever-demanding world.
Sheila made no comment at all during the reading. She might
have been an allegory of attention.
Even when Eldon closed the manuscript and the play with the
quiet word “Curtain” Sheila did not speak. The three men watched
her for a long hushed moment, and then they saw two great tears
roll from the clenched eyes.
She murmured, feebly: “Who is the lucky woman that is to—to
create it?”
“You!” said Bret.
Woman-like, Sheila’s first emotion at the vision of her husband
urging her to go back on the stage was one of pain and terror. She
stared at Bret through the tears evoked by Vickery’s art, and she
gasped: “Don’t you love me any more? Are you tired of me?”
“Oh, my God!” said Bret.
But when he collapsed Vickery took the floor and harangued her
till she yielded, to be rid of him and of Eldon, that she might
question her husband.