The Labors of Hercules Beal

by Gary D. Schmidt

For language arts, we will be reading simultaneously Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet for its superb plot lines—and to give you some practical knowledge of what to do when you are on your own and have only a hatchet to keep yourself alive—and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, a selection of classical myths to give you a body of stories that will inform your aesthetic senses for the rest of your life.

Sometimes we hunt for stuff when we should have just waited for it.

Your final reflection is an important one—and unusual for someone in your frantic generation. Sometimes being still is the hardest thing to do—but in fact, the most productive.

“Courage is shown in what we do, not in what we’re feeling. I think you showed real courage.”

Unless you are William Shakespeare, coining new words is an arrogant and cocky thing to do—and truth be told, it was probably arrogant and cocky for him to do it too.

There is something about working in an old barn that makes you sort of quiet. Maybe it’s because the barn is so old that you feel like you’re working side by side with all the people who have worked in it before.

i've experienced on my uncle's farm in pennsylvania

And maybe what you start to learn is that even when you miss someone who is gone—I mean, really really miss them—that doesn’t mean that everyone is gone. And it doesn’t mean that the ones you miss have been replaced. But it does mean that you’re not alone. And that’s something, right? 228

I don’t know what happiness beyond belief would feel like. I can imagine, I guess, but I’m not sure what it would feel like. What I am sure of is this: Who would not want to give someone else happiness beyond belief? 193

I try to ask myself what my friend would have done when I come to any sort of crossroads. And I think, he would have given happiness. Then I hope that I try to do that too.

Maybe, the stuff we hold up, we don’t have to hold up by ourselves all the time. Maybe sometimes we can let someone else hold it up too. Maybe that’s how we can get by. Maybe that’s how we can do a whole lot better than just get by.

We are here to help you carry the sky when you have to, and we are here to help you put it down when you need to. Why else would anyone ever become a teacher?

First, by the end of his Labors, Hercules understood that sometimes, he was a jerkface—and he had to live with that and try to do better. Second, by the end of his Labors, Hercules understood that he had been to hell and come back. That meant a lot—that he had come back. Now he had a lot more living to do—and he was grateful beyond anything for that. Third, by the end of his Labors, Hercules was no longer a secret to himself. That’s what all the Labors were really for.