Call It Courage An excerpt from the book by Armstrong Sperry 60 wpm

It happened many years ago,

before the traders and missionaries came to the Polynesian Islands.

Yet, even today the people sing of this story in their chants

and tell the story over the evening fires.

It is the story of the Boy Who Was Afraid.

You see, the people worshiped courage.

The spirit which had urged them across the Pacific in their sailing canoes,

before the dawn of recorded history.

Courage – that is all there was.

A man who was afraid had no place with them.

And the boy, the Boy Who Was Afraid, he had always been afraid.

So the people drove him out.

He was sent out alone to face that which he feared the most.

The people still sing his story in their chants and tell his story over their evening fires.

This is his story...