Read the following passage written by a teen hero:

I want to be a vocal advocate for nature.
I reject the idea that I am too young to make a difference.
I recently helped a group with a river cleanup.
I was mortified to see the destruction of animals and plants.
When I got home, I composed a letter to my state politicians and asked them to allocate more money to the local river cleanup effort.
I believe my vocation is to help citizens see that we are at a junction.
We can decide to subject nature to abuse, or we can decide to be a benefactor to nature.
I won't let obstacles detract from my mission.

What is the meaning of the word "detract" as it is used in sentence 8?
To join together
To pull in the opposite direction
To make or do the opposite
To step back

"the children's hour" by henry wadsworth longfellow between the dark and the daylight, when the night is beginning to lower, comes a pause in the day's occupations, that is known as the children's hour. i hear in the chamber above me the patter of little feet, the sound of a door that is opened, and voices soft and sweet. from my study i see in the lamplight, descending the broad hall stair, grave alice, and laughing allegra, and edith with golden hair. a whisper, and then a silence: yet i know by their merry eyes they are plotting and planning together to take me by surprise. a sudden rush from the stairway, a sudden raid from the hall! by three doors left unguarded they enter my castle wall! they climb up into my turret o'er the arms and back of my chair; if i try to escape, they surround me; they seem to be everywhere. they almost devour me with kisses, their arms about me entwine, till i think of the bishop of bingen in his mouse-tower on the rhine! do you think, o blue-eyed banditti, because you have scaled the wall, such an old mustache as i am is not a match for you all! i have you fast in my fortress, and will not let you depart, but put you down into the dungeon in the round-tower of my heart. and there will i keep you forever, yes, forever and a day, till the walls shall crumble to ruin, and moulder in dust away! which literary device does longfellow use most frequently in the poem? a. simile b. metaphor c. repetition d. personification