ling. These four elements may not always be stated in incidents taken
from books, for the reader may be already familiar with them from the
preceding portions of the book. The title of a printed or written story
may serve as an introduction and give us all needed information. In
relating personal incidents the time element is seldom omitted, though it
may be stated indirectly or indefinitely by such expressions as "once" or
'lately.' In many stories the interest depends upon the plot, and the time
is not definitely stated.

EXERCISE

Notice what elements are included in each of the following
introductions:--

1. Saturday last at Mount Holly, about eight miles from this place, nearly
three hundred people were gathered together to see an experiment or two
tried on some persons accused of witchcraft.

2. On the morning of the 10th instant at sunrise, they were discovered
from Put-in-Bay, where I lay at anchor with the squadron under my command.

3. It was on Sunday when I awoke to the realization that I had quitted
civilization and was afloat on an unfamiliar body of water in an open
boat.

4. Up and down the long corn rows Pap Overholt guided the old mule and the
small, rickety, inefficient plow, whose low handles bowed his tall, broad
shoulders beneath the mild heat of a mountain June sun. As he went--ever
with a furtive eye upon the cabin--he muttered to himself, shaking his
head.

5. After breakfast, I went down to the Saponey Indian town, which is about
a musket shot from the fort.

6. The lonely stretch of uphill road, upon whose yellow clay the midsummer
sun beat vertically down, would have represented a toilsome climb to a
grown and unencumbered man. To the boy staggering under the burden of a
brimful carpet bag, it seemed fairly unscalable; wherefore he stopped at
its base and looked up in dismay to its far-off, red-hot summit.

7. One afternoon last summer, three or four people from New York, two from
Boston, and a young man from the Middle West were lunching at one of the
country clubs on the south shore of Long Island, and there came about a
mild discussion of the American universities.

8. "But where is the station?" inquired the Judge.

"Ain't none, boss. Dis heah is jes a crossing. Train's about due now, sah;
you-all won't hab long fer to wait. Thanky, sah; good-by; sorry you-all
didn't find no birds."

The Judge picked up his gun case and grip and walked toward his two
companions waiting on