Importance of lit.

to the life of a man:

There are many limitations on the extent of a mans lifetime

experience such as time, geography and point of view. Literature
serves as a method of transcending such barriers.
Literature is derived from the latin term littera which means
letter, any printed matter written in a book, a magazine, or a
pamphlet, a faithfull reprduction of man's manifold experiences
blended in to harmonious expression.
Literature is very important today because it enable the people
to know the history of a nation's spirit, people must read its
literature. To understand the real spirit of a nation, one must
trace the little rills as they course along down the ages,
broadening and deepening into the great ocean of thought which men
at the present source are presently exploring. it also enable to
express of one's feelings according to him, may be through love,
sorrow, happiness, hatred, anger, contempt or revenge.
Literature is one way for us to hear the voices of the past and
work with the present. it is the way for the present to connect to
the possible future. we learn about history we didn't experience.
the customs we are not familiar with or that read to what we do
now, it unlocks the culture of the time period, and in a way can
give wisdom to the modern society about life, allow us to to
interprete our own life and emotions and we find ways to relate to
the story so we in turn can reflect.
Literature is the most invisible with the five senses and the most
visible with feelings,
Literature is always realistic, it is about life. it is life when we
get involved in it
even it is legendary, unbelievable, and whatever it talks about, it
is life because it is created and produced by people from their
life.
 HUMANITIES AND ITS BRANCHES
Humanities are educational courses that aim to teach individuals
about the human condition in a variety of forms, as well as look at
them with a critical and analytical eye. The branches of humanities
consist of languages, the arts, literature, philosophy, religion and
history.
 The studying of humanities has become a huge part of western
education as it helps individuals to learn and analyze the ways of
the world and put forward interpretations. It helps a lot of people
to approach situations intellectually as well as in their academics.
Humanities focus more on interpretation and ideals rather than
concrete facts such as math and science.
Languages
 This particular branch of humanities consists of learning the way
people communicate in different speaking countries. It brings a
sense of culture to individuals as they are likely to be taught the
various history and origins of the languages they learn.
The arts
 The arts consist of theater, music, art and film. They are all
mediums of self-expression and these courses in particular encourage
personal interpretation and analysis. Fine arts courses also come
into this category; however, they focus more on the historical forms
of art and their origins.
Literature
 Literature refers to novels, short stories, plays and so on.
Individuals attempt to decipher the meaning of texts and look into
symbolism and themes. Literature courses delve into social aspects
that may influence texts.
Philosophy and religion
 These courses study human behavior and the age-old questions such as
the meaning of life and the existence of God. They analyze various
cultures and their religious beliefs as well as moral codes.
History
 This is arguably the most facts-based course as individuals delve
into past events such as war and politics and how societies and
cultures have been affected throughout the years.
 Two main branches of literature:

Prose Drama – a drama in prose form. It consists entirely dialogues

in prose, and is meant to be act on stage.
1. Essay – a short literary composition which is expository in nature.
The author shares his thoughts feelings, experiences, or
observations on some aspects of life that has interested him.
2. Prose Fiction – something invented, imagined, or feigned to be true)

1. Novel – a long fiction narrative with a complicated plot. It may

have one main plot and one or more sub plots that develop with the
main plot. It is made up of chapters.
2. Short Story – a fictitious narrative compressed into one unit of
time, place and action. It deals with single character interest, a
single emotion or series of emotions called forth by a single. It is
distinguished from the novel by its compression.
3. Biography and Autobiography
1. Biography – a story of a certain person’s life written by another
who knows the subject well.
2. Autobiography – a written account of man’s life written by himself.
4. Letter – a written message which displays aspects of an author’s
physiological make-up not immediately apparent in his more public
writings. It is a prose form which by the force of its style and the
importance of its statements becomes an object of interest in its
own right.
5. Diary – a daily written record of account of the writer’s own
experiences, thoughts, activities or observations.
6. Journal – a magazine or periodical especially of serious or learned
nature. It is the reflection, opinion of a read material.
 Types of Poetry
 Narrative Poetry – a poem that tells a story

1. Epic – a long narrative poem of the largest proportions. Epic is a

tale mainly about a hero concerning the beginning, continuance, and
the end of events of great significance on tribal or national
significance.
2. Metrical Poem – a narrative poem that tells a story of adventure,
love and chivalry. The Typical hero is a knight on a quest.
3. Metrical Tale – a narrative poem consisting usually a single series
connective events that are simple, and generally do not form a plot.
Examples of these are simple idylls or home tales, love tales, tales
of the supernatural or tales written for a strong moral purpose in
verse form.
4. Ballad – the simplest type of narrative poetry. It is s short
narrative poem telling a single incident in simple meter and
stanzas. It is meant to be sung.
5. Popular ballad – a ballad of wide workman ship telling some simple
incidents of adventure, cruelty, passion, or superstition, an
incident that shows the primary instincts of man influenced by the
restraint of modern civilization.
6. Modern or artistic – created by poet in imitation of the folk
ballad, makes use of many of its devices and conventions.
7. Metrical Allegory – an extended narrative that carries a second
meaning along worth the surface story.
 Lyric Poetry – a poem that is very personal in nature. It expresses
the author’s own thoughts, feelings, moods and reflections in
musical language. It derived its name from the musical instrument,
the lyre.
1. Ode – a lyric poem of some length, serious in subject and dignified
in style. It is most majestic of the lyric poems. It is written in a
spirit of praise of some persons or things.
2. Elegy – a poem written on the death of a friend of the poet. The
ostensible purpose is to praise the friend. But in the end of the
poem, however, we can expect that poet will have come to terms with
his grief.
3. Song – a lyric poem in a regular metrical pattern set to music.
These have twelve syllables and slowly sung to the accompaniment of
a guitar or banduria.
4. Sonnet – a lyric poem containing four iambic pentameter lines, and a
complicated rhyme.

ELEMENTS OF POETRY
POETRY ASSUMPTIONS
Readers of poetry often bring with them many related assumptions:
 That a poem is to be read for its "message,"
 That this message is "hidden" in the poem,
 The message is to be found by treating the words as symbols which
naturally do not mean what they say but stand for something else,
 You have to decipher every single word to appreciate and enjoy the
poem.
STRUCTURE and POETRY

An important method of analyzing a poem is to look at the stanza

structure or style of a poem. Generally speaking, structure has to
do with the overall organization of lines and/or the conventional
patterns of sound. Again, many modern poems may not have any
identifiable structure (i.e. they are free verse), so don't panic if
you can't find it!
SOUND PATTERNS
Three other elements of poetry are rhyme scheme, meter (ie. regular
rhythm) and word sounds (like alliteration). These are sometimes
collectively called sound play because they take advantage of the
performative, spoken nature of poetry.
MEANING and POETRY
I said earlier that poetry is not always about hidden or indirect
meanings (sometimes called meaning play). Nevertheless, if often is
a major part of poetry, so here some of the important things to
remember:
5 Important Elements of a Short Story

A character is a person, or sometimes even an animal, who takes part

in the action of a short story or other literary work.

The setting of a short story is the time and place in which it

happens. Authors often use descriptions of landscape, scenery,
buildings, seasons or weather to provide a strong sense of setting.

A plot is a series of events and character actions that relate to

the central conflict.

The conflict is a struggle between two people or things in a short

story. The main character is usually on one side of the central
conflict.
On the other side, the main character may struggle against another
important character, against the forces of nature, against society,
or even against something inside himself or herself (feelings,
emotions, illness).

The theme is the central idea or belief in a short story.

Poems
ECHO
Christina Rossetti, 1830 – 1894

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,

Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimful of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!

Analysis:
An echo is a concept that initially might feel ill-suited for poetic
purposes. Of course, most are familiar with the concept, this
lingering, fading repetition of a sound that has already been
made. Christina Rossetti, who was well-known for her deeply
emotional and sentimental use of metaphor in poetry (among other
things, of course), is able to use this simple, everyday concept to
craft a powerful, touching piece that is related to its title only
thematically. Many artists will do this, name one of their pieces by
a related concept, rather than by an idea that actually appears
within the piece, and oftentimes — this one included — the work is
that much stronger for the inclusion of a unique idea.
 SAFE IN THEIR ALABASTER CHAMBERS (124)
BY EMILY DICKINSON
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -
Untouched by Morning -
and untouched by noon -
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection,
Rafter of Satin and Roof of Stone -

Grand go the Years,

In the Crescent above them -
Worlds scoop their Arcs -
and Firmaments - row -
Diadems - drop -
And Doges surrender -
Soundless as Dots,
On a Disk of Snow.

Analysis:

The poem's theme revolves around the topic of death. Like many of
her other poems, Emily Dickinson does not directly address the
subject, but instead, she allows her words to guide the reader onto
the topic of death.

The illustration she depicts with her opening lines, is that of

people "sleeping" safely in their alabaster chambers. "Sleeping"
references towards the eternal sleep that everyone must face when
their life comes to an end. Rather than saying dead, the word sleep
better fits the imagery that Emily depicts within the poem. Instead
of using the word "casket," the word chamber is used instead.

These words bring forth the second theme of the poem, which is
Christianity. The belief that life after death is real, changes the
way one presents the topic of death. The person "sleeps," like a
living person would, but this sleep is not eternal like death, this
sleep has an end. They will awake when the "resurrection" occurs.
The idea of resurrection lies within the belief that Jesus Christ
will come a second time, in which the great resurrection will occur
and the "meek" shall inherit the earth.
 A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

BY JOHN DONNE
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,

No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,

Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love

(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,

That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

Analysis:
One of the great ‘goodbye’ poems in the English language, ‘A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’ is, in a sense, not a farewell
poem at all, since Donne’s speaker reassures his addressee that
their parting is no ‘goodbye’, not really. The occasion of the poem
was a real one – at least according to Izaak Walton, author of The
Compleat Angler and friend of Donne’s, who recorded that Donne wrote
‘A Valediction’ for his wife when he went to the Continent in 1611.
Anyway, before we proceed to an analysis of the poem, here’s a
reminder of it.
The Cactus
by O. Henry

The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative.

A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to
the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an
entire courtship while removing one's gloves.

That is what Trysdale was doing, standing by a table in his

bachelor apartments. On the table stood a singular-looking green
plant in a red earthen jar. The plant was one of the species of
cacti, and was provided with long, tentacular leaves that
perpetually swayed with the slightest breeze with a peculiar
beckoning motion.
Trysdale's friend, the brother of the bride, stood at a sideboard
complaining at being allowed to drink alone. Both men were in
evening dress. White favors like stars upon their coats shone
through the gloom of the apartment.
As he slowly unbuttoned his gloves, there passed through Trysdale's
mind a swift, scarifying retrospect of the last few hours. It seemed
that in his nostrils was still the scent of the flowers that had
been banked in odorous masses about the church, and in his ears the
lowpitched hum of a thousand well-bred voices, the rustle of crisp
garments, and, most insistently recurring, the drawling words of the
minister irrevocably binding her to another.
From this last hopeless point of view he still strove, as if it had
become a habit of his mind, to reach some conjecture as to why and
how he had lost her. Shaken rudely by the uncompromising fact, he
had suddenly found himself confronted by a thing he had never before
faced --his own innermost, unmitigated, arid unbedecked self. He saw
all the garbs of pretence and egoism that he had worn now turn to
rags of folly. He shuddered at the thought that to others, before
now, the garments of his soul must have appeared sorry and
threadbare. Vanity and conceit? These were the joints in his armor.
And how free from either she had always been--But why--
As she had slowly moved up the aisle toward the altar he had felt an
unworthy, sullen exultation that had served to support him. He had
told himself that her paleness was from thoughts of another than the
man to whom she was about to give herself. But even that poor
consolation had been wrenched from him. For, when he saw that swift,
limpid, upward look that she gave the man when he took her hand, he
knew himself to be forgotten. Once that same look had been raised to
him, and he had gauged its meaning. Indeed, his conceit had
crumbled; its last prop was gone. Why had it ended thus? There had
been no quarrel between them, nothing--
For the thousandth time he remarshalled in his mind the events of
those last few days before the tide had so suddenly turned.
She had always insisted upon placing him upon a pedestal, and he had
accepted her homage with royal grandeur. It had been a very sweet
incense that she had burned before him; so modest (he told himself);
so childlike and worshipful, and (he would once have sworn) so
sincere. She had invested him with an almost supernatural number of
high attributes and excellencies and talents, and he had absorbed
the oblation as a desert drinks the rain that can coax from it no
promise of blossom or fruit.
As Trysdale grimly wrenched apart the seam of his last glove, the
crowning instance of his fatuous and tardily mourned egoism came
vividly back to him. The scene was the night when he had asked her
to come up on his pedestal with him and share his greatness. He
could not, now, for the pain of it, allow his mind to dwell upon the
memory of her convincing beauty that night--the careless wave of her
hair, the tenderness and virginal charm of her looks and words. But
they had been enough, and they had brought him to speak. During
their conversation she had said:
"And Captain Carruthers tells me that you speak the Spanish language
like a native. Why have you hidden this accomplishment from me? Is
there anything you do not know?"
Now, Carruthers was an idiot. No doubt he (Trysdale) had been guilty
(he sometimes did such things) of airing at the club some old,
canting Castilian proverb dug from the hotchpotch at the back of
dictionaries. Carruthers, who was one of his incontinent admirers,
was the very man to have magnified this exhibition of doubtful
erudition.
But, alas! the incense of her admiration had been so sweet and
flattering. He allowed the imputation to pass without denial.
Without protest, he allowed her to twine about his brow this
spurious bay of Spanish scholarship. He let it grace his conquering
head, and, among its soft convolutions, he did not feel the prick of
the thorn that was to pierce him later.
How glad, how shy, how tremulous she was! How she fluttered like a
snared bird when he laid his mightiness at her feet! He could have
sworn, and he could swear now, that unmistakable consent was in her
eyes, but, coyly, she would give him no direct answer. "I will send
you my answer to-morrow," she said; and he, the indulgent, confident
victor, smilingly granted the delay. The next day he waited,
impatient, in his rooms for the word. At noon her groom came to the
door and left the strange cactus in the red earthen jar. There was
no note, no message, merely a tag upon the plant bearing a barbarous
foreign or botanical name. He waited until night, but her answer did
not come. His large pride and hurt vanity kept him from seeking her.
Two evenings later they met at a dinner. Their greetings were
conventional, but she looked at him, breathless, wondering, eager.
He was courteous, adamant, waiting her explanation. With womanly
swiftness she took her cue from his manner, and turned to snow and
ice. Thus, and wider from this on, they had drifted apart. Where was
his fault? Who had been to blame? Humbled now, he sought the answer
amid the ruins of his self-conceit. If--
The voice of the other man in the room, querulously intruding upon
his thoughts, aroused him.
"I say, Trysdale, what the deuce is the matter with you? You look
unhappy as if you yourself had been married instead of having acted
merely as an accomplice. Look at me, another accessory, come two
thousand miles on a garlicky, cockroachy banana steamer all the way
from South America to connive at the sacrifice--please to observe
how lightly my guilt rests upon my shoulders. Only little sister I
had, too, and now she's gone. Come now! take something to ease your
conscience."
"I don't drink just now, thanks," said Trysdale.
"Your brandy," resumed the other, coming over and joining him, "is
abominable. Run down to see me some time at Punta Redonda, and try
some of our stuff that old Garcia smuggles in. It's worth the, trip.
Hallo! here's an old acquaintance. Wherever did you rake up this
cactus, Trysdale?"
"A present," said Trysdale, "from a friend. Know the species?"
"Very well. It's a tropical concern. See hundreds of 'em around
Punta every day. Here's the name on this tag tied to it. Know any
Spanish, Trysdale?"
"No," said Trysdale, with the bitter wraith of a smile--"Is it
Spanish?"
"Yes. The natives imagine the leaves are reaching out and beckoning
to you. They call it by this name--Ventomarme. Name means in
English, 'Come and take me.'"

Analysis:
It's incredible, how in one second you can think about hours, weeks
or even years.
"Time is so purely relative"
But why did they break up?
Because of her admiration on him;
Because of his vanity;
Because of his lies
Because of them, Trysdale don't realise de meaning of his love's
answer, a cacti.
What's the meaning of the cacti?
The name of this specie means "Came and take me"
The plant can mean the man
How the plant survives can mean the girl
The fact of Trysdale says that he can speaks Spanish fluently, make
her think in a different answer, that he couldn't understand.
The difference about this tale is, that usually, O. Henry makes
tragic endings, and in this time, the end was pathetic.
A Poor Rule
by O. Henry

I have always maintained, and asserted ime to time, that woman is no

mystery; that man can foretell, construe, subdue, comprehend, and
interpret her. That she is a mystery has been foisted by herself
upon credulous mankind. Whether I am right or wrong we shall see. As
"Harper's Drawer" used to say in bygone years: "The following good
story is told of Miss --, Mr. --, Mr. --and Mr. --."
We shall have to omit "Bishop X" and "the Rev. --," for they do not
belong.
In those days Paloma was a new town on the line of the Southern
Pacific. A reporter would have called it a "mushroom" town; but it
was not. Paloma was, first and last, of the toadstool variety.
The train stopped there at noon for the engine to drink and for the
passengers both to drink and to dine. There was a new yellow-pine
hotel, also a wool warehouse, and perhaps three dozen box
residences. The rest was composed of tents, cow ponies, "black-waxy"
mud, and mesquite-trees, all bound round by a horizon. Paloma was an
about-to- be city. The houses represented faith; the tents hope; the
twice-a- day train by which you might leave, creditably sustained
the role of charity.
The Parisian Restaurant occupied the muddiest spot in the town while
it rained, and the warmest when it shone. It was operated, owned,
and perpetrated by a citizen known as Old Man Hinkle, who had come
out of Indiana to make his fortune in this land of condensed milk
and sorghum.
There was a four-room, unpainted, weather-boarded box house in which
the family lived. From the kitchen extended a "shelter" made of
poles covered with chaparral brush. Under this was a table and two
benches, each twenty feet long, the product of Paloma home
carpentry. Here was set forth the roast mutton, the stewed apples,
boiled beans, soda- biscuits, puddinorpie, and hot coffee of the
Parisian menu.
Ma Hinkle and a subordinate known to the ears as "Betty," but denied
to the eyesight, presided at the range. Pa Hinkle himself, with
salamandrous thumbs, served the scalding viands. During rush hours a
Mexican youth, who rolled and smoked cigarettes between courses,
aided him in waiting on the guests. As is customary at Parisian
banquets, I place the sweets at the end of my wordy menu.
Ileen Hinkle!
The spelling is correct, for I have seen her write it. No doubt she
had been named by ear; but she so splendidly bore the orthography
that Tom Moore himself (had he seen her) would have indorsed the
phonography.
Ileen was the daughter of the house, and the first Lady Cashier to
invade the territory south of an east-and-west line drawn through
Galveston and Del Rio. She sat on a high stool in a rough pine
grand- stand--or was it a temple?--under the shelter at the door of
the kitchen. There was a barbed-wire protection in front of her,
with a little arch under which you passed your money. Heaven knows
why the barbed wire; for every man who dined Parisianly there would
have died in her service. Her duties were light; each meal was a
dollar; you put it under the arch, and she took it.
I set out with the intent to describe Ileen Hinkle to you. Instead,
I must refer you to the volume by Edmund Burke entitled: A
Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime
and Beautiful. It is an exhaustive treatise, dealing first with the
primitive conceptions of beauty--roundness and smoothness, I think
they are, according to Burke. It is well said. Rotundity is a patent
charm; as for smoothness--the more new wrinkles a woman acquires,
the smoother she becomes.
Ileen was a strictly vegetable compound, guaranteed under the Pure
Ambrosia and Balm-of-Gilead Act of the year of the fall of Adam. She
was a fruit-stand blonde-strawberries, peaches, cherries, etc. Her
eyes were wide apart, and she possessed the calm that precedes a
storm that never comes. But it seems to me that words (at any rate
per) are wasted in an effort to describe the beautiful. Like fancy,
"It is engendered in the eyes." There are three kinds of beauties--I
was foreordained to be homiletic; I can never stick to a story.
The first is the freckle-faced, snub-nosed girl whom you like. The
second is Maud Adams. The third is, or are, the ladies in
Bouguereau's paintings. Ileen Hinkle was the fourth. She was the
mayoress of Spotless Town. There were a thousand golden apples
coming to her as Helen of the Troy laundries.
The Parisian Restaurant was within a radius. Even from beyond its
circumference men rode in to Paloma to win her smiles. They got
them. One meal--one smile--one dollar. But, with all her
impartiality, Ileen seemed to favor three of her admirers above the
rest. According to the rules of politeness, I will mention myself
last.
The first was an artificial product known as Bryan Jacks--a name
that had obviously met with reverses. Jacks was the outcome of paved
cities. He was a small man made of some material resembling flexible
sandstone. His hair was the color of a brick Quaker meeting-house;
his eyes were twin cranberries; his mouth was like the aperture
under a drop-letters-here sign.
He knew every city from Bangor to San Francisco, thence north to
Portland, thence S. 45 E. to a given point in Florida. He had
mastered every art, trade, game, business, profession, and sport in
the world, had been present at, or hurrying on his way to, every
head- line event that had ever occurred between oceans since he was
five years old. You might open the atlas, place your finger at
random upon the name of a town, and Jacks would tell you the front
names of three prominent citizens before you could close it again.
He spoke patronizingly and even disrespectfully of Broadway, Beacon
Hill, Michigan, Euclid, and Fifth avenues, and the St. Louis Four
Courts. Compared with him as a cosmopolite, the Wandering Jew would
have seemed a mere hermit. He had learned everything the world could
teach him, and he would tell you about it.
I hate to be reminded of Pollock's Course of Time, and so do you;
but every time I saw Jacks I would think of the poet's description
of another poet by the name of G. G. Byron who "Drank early; deeply
drank--drank draughts that common millions might have quenched; then
died of thirst because there was no more to drink."
That fitted Jacks, except that, instead of dying, he came to Paloma,
which was about the same thing. He was a telegrapher and station-
and express-agent at seventy-five dollars a month. Why a young man
who knew everything and could do everything was content to serve in
such an obscure capacity I never could understand, although he let
out a hint once that it was as a personal favor to the president and
stockholders of the S. P. Ry. Co.
One more line of description, and I turn Jacks over to you. He wore
bright blue clothes, yellow shoes, and a bow tie made of the same
cloth as his shirt.
My rival No.2 was Bud Cunningham, whose services had been engaged by
a ranch near Paloma to assist in compelling refractory cattle to
keep within the bounds of decorum and order. Bud was the only cowboy
off the stage that I ever saw who looked like one on it. He wore the
sombrero, the chaps, and the handkerchief tied at the back of his
neck.
Twice a week Bud rode in from the Val Verde Ranch to sup at the
Parisian Restaurant. He rode a many-high-handed Kentucky horse at a
tremendously fast lope, which animal he would rein up so suddenly
under the big mesquite at the corner of the brush shelter that his
hoofs would plough canals yards long in the loam.
Jacks and I were regular boarders at the restaurant, of course.
The front room of the Hinkle House was as neat a little parlor as
there was in the black-waxy country. It was all willow rocking-
chairs, and home-knit tidies, and albums, and conch shells in a row.
And a little upright piano in one comer.
Here Jacks and Bud and I--or sometimes one or two of us, according
to our good-luck--used to sit of evenings when the tide of trade was
over, and "visit" Miss Hinkle.
Ileen was a girl of ideas. She was destined for higher things (if
there can be anything higher) than taking in dollars all day through
a barbed-wire wicket. She had read and listened and thought. Her
looks would have formed a career for a less ambitious girl; but,
rising superior to mere beauty, she must establish something in the
nature of a salon--the only one in Paloma.
"Don't you think that Shakespeare was a great writer?" she would
ask, with such a pretty little knit of her arched brows that the
late Ignatius Donnelly, himself, had he seen it, could scarcely have
saved his Bacon.
Ileen was of the opinion, also, that Boston is more cultured than
Chicago; that Rosa Bonheur was one of the greatest of women
painters; that Westerners are more spontaneous and open-hearted than
Easterners; that London must be a very foggy city, and that
California must be quite lovely in the springtime. And of many other
opinions indicating a keeping up with the world's best thought.
These, however, were but gleaned from hearsay and evidence: Ileen
had theories of her own. One, in particular, she disseminated to us
untiringly. Flattery she detested. Frankness and honesty of speech
and action, she declared, were the chief mental ornaments of man and
woman. If ever she could like any one, it would be for those
qualities.
"I'm awfully weary," she said, one evening, when we three musketeers
of the mesquite were in the little parlor, "of having compliments on
my looks paid to me. I know I'm not beautiful."
(Bud Cunningham told me afterward that it was all he could do to
keep from calling her a liar when she said that.)
"I'm only a little Middle-Western girl," went on Ileen, "who justs
wants to be simple and neat, and tries to help her father make a
humble living."
(Old Man Hinkle was shipping a thousand silver dollars a month,
clear profit, to a bank in San Antonio.[)]
Bud twisted around in his chair and bent the rim of his hat, from
which he could never be persuaded to separate. He did not know
whether she wanted what she said she wanted or what she knew she
deserved. Many a wiser man has hesitated at deciding. Bud decided.
"Why--ah, Miss Ileen, beauty, as you might say, ain't everything.
Not sayin' that you haven't your share of good looks, I always
admired more than anything else about you the nice, kind way you
treat your ma and pa. Any one what's good to their parents and is a
kind of home- body don't specially need to be too pretty."
Ileen gave him one of her sweetest smiles. "Thank you, Mr.
Cunningham," she said. "I consider that one of the finest
compliments I've had in a long time. I'd so much rather hear you say
that than to hear you talk about my eyes and hair. I'm glad you
believe me when I say I don't like flattery."
Our cue was there for us. Bud had made a good guess. You couldn't
lose Jacks. He chimed in next.
"Sure thing, Miss Ileen," he said; "the good-lookers don't always
win out. Now, you ain't bad looking, of course-but that's nix-cum-
rous. I knew a girl once in Dubuque with a face like a cocoanut, who
could skin the cat twice on a horizontal bar without changing hands.
Now, a girl might have the California peach crop mashed to a
marmalade and not be able to do that. I've seen--er--worse lookers
than you, Miss Ileen; but what I like about you is the business way
you've got of doing things. Cool and wise--that's the winning way
for a girl. Mr. Hinkle told me the other day you'd never taken in a
lead silver dollar or a plugged one since you've been on the job.
Now, that's the stuff for a girl--that's what catches me."
Jacks got his smile, too.
"Thank you, Mr. Jacks," said Ileen. "If you only knew how I
appreciate any one's being candid and not a flatterer! I get so
tired of people telling me I'm pretty. I think it is the loveliest
thing to have friends who tell you the truth."
Then I thought I saw an expectant look on Ileen's face as she
glanced toward me. I had a wild, sudden impulse to dare fate, and
tell her of all the beautiful handiwork of the Great Artificer she
was the most exquisite--that she was a flawless pearl gleaming pure
and serene in a setting of black mud and emerald prairies--that she
was--a--a corker; and as for mine, I cared not if she were as crtiel
as a serpent's tooth to her fond parents, or if she couldn't tell a
plugged dollar from a bridle buckle, if I might sing, chant, praise,
glorify, and worship her peerless and wonderful beauty.
But I refrained. I feared the fate of a flatterer. I had witnessed
her delight at the crafty and discreet words of Bud and Jacks. No!
Miss Hinkle was not one to be beguiled by the plated-silver tongue
of a flatterer. So I joined the ranks of the candid and honest. At
once I became mendacious and didactic.
"In all ages, Miss Hinkle," said I, "in spite of the poetry and
romance of each, intellect in woman has been admired more than
beauty. Even in Cleopatra, herself, men found more charm in her
queenly mind than in her looks."
"Well, I should think so!" said Ileen. "I've seen pictures of her
that weren't so much. she had an awfully long nose."
"If I may say so," I went on, "you remind me of Cleopatra, Miss
Ileen."
"Why, my nose isn't so long!" said she, opening her eyes wide and
touching that comely feature with a dimpled forefinger.
"Why--er--I mean," said I--" I mean as to mental endowments."
"Oh!" said she; and then I got my smile just as Bud and Jacks had
got theirs.
"Thank every one of you," she said, very, very sweetly, "for being
so frank and honest with me. That's the way I want you to be always.
Just tell me plainly and truthfully what you think, and we'll all be
the best friends in the world. And now, because you've been so good
to me, and understand so well how I dislike people who do nothing
but pay me exaggerated compliments, I'll sing and play a little for
you."
Of course, we expressed our thanks and joy; but we would have been
better pleased if Ileen had remained in her low rocking-chair face
to face with us and let us gaze upon her. For she was no Adelina
Patti-- not even on the fare-wellest of the diva's farewell tours.
She had a cooing little voice like that of a turtle-dove that could
almost fill the parlor when the windows and doors were closed, and
Betty was not rattling the lids of the stove in the kitchen. She had
a gamut that I estimate at about eight inches on the piano; and her
runs and trills sounded like the clothes bubbling in your
grandmother's iron wash-pot. Believe that she must have been
beautiful when I tell you that it sounded like music to us.
"She Must Have Been Beautiful When I Tell You That It Sounded Like
Music To Us"
Ileen's musical taste was catholic. She would sing through a pile of
sheet music on the left-hand top of the piano, laying each
slaughtered composition on the right-hand top. The next evening she
would sing from right to left. Her favorites were Mendelssohn, and
Moody and Sankey. By request she always wound up with Sweet Violets
and When the Leaves Begin to Turn.
When we left at ten o'clock the three of us would go down to Jacks'
little wooden station and sit on the platform, swinging our feet and
trying to pump one another for dews as to which way Miss Ileen's
inclinations seemed to lean. That is the way of rivals--they do not
avoid and glower at one another; they convene and converse and
construe--striving by the art politic to estimate the strength of
the enemy.
One day there came a dark horse to Paloma, a young lawyer who at
once flaunted his shingle and himself spectacularly upon the town.
His name was C. Vincent Vesey. You could see at a glance that he was
a recent graduate of a southwestern law school. His Prince Albert
coat, light striped trousers, broad-brimmed soft black hat, and
narrow white muslin bow tie proclaimed that more loudly than any
diploma could. Vesey was a compound of Daniel Webster, Lord
Chesterfield, Beau Brummell, and Little Jack Horner. His coming
boomed Paloma. The next day after he arrived an addition to the town
was surveyed and laid off in lots.
Of course, Vesey, to further his professional fortunes, must mingle
with the citizenry and outliers of Paloma. And, as well as with the
soldier men, he was bound to seek popularity with the gay dogs of
the place. So Jacks and Bud Cunningham and I came to be honored by
his acquaintance.
The doctrine of predestination would have been discredited had not
Vesey seen Ileen Hinkle and become fourth in the tourney.
Magnificently, he boarded at the yellow pine hotel instead of at the
Parisian Restaurant; but he came to be a formidable visitor in the
Hinkle parlor. His competition reduced Bud to an inspired increase
of profanity, drove Jacks to an outburst of slang so weird that it
sounded more horrible than the most trenchant of Bud's imprecations,
and made me dumb with gloom.
For Vesey had the rhetoric. Words flowed from him like oil from a
gusher. Hyperbole, compliment, praise, appreciation, honeyed
gallantry, golden opinions, eulogy, and unveiled panegyric vied with
one another for pre-eminence in his speech. We had small hopes that
Ileen could resist his oratory and Prince Albert.
But a day came that gave us courage.
About dusk one evening I was sitting on the little gallery in front
of the Hinkle parlor, waiting for Ileen to come, when I heard voices
inside. She had come into the room with her father, and Old Man
Hinkle began to talk to her. I had observed before that he was a
shrewd man, and not unphilosophic.
"Ily," said he, "I notice there's three or four young fellers that
have been callin' to see you regular for quite a while. Is there any
one of 'em you like better than another?"
"Why, pa," she answered, "I like all of 'em very well. I think Mr.
Cuninngham and Mr. Jacks and Mr. Harris are very nice young men.
They are so frank and honest in everything they say to me. I haven't
known Mr. Vesey very long, but I think he's a very nice young man,
he's so frank and honest in everything he says to me."
"Now, that's what I'm gittin' at," says old Hinkle. "You've always
been sayin' you like people what tell the truth and don't go
humbuggin' you with compliments and bogus talk. Now, suppose you
make a test of these fellers, and see which one of 'em will talk the
straightest to you."
"But how'll I do it, pa?"
"I'll tell you how. You know you sing a little bit, Ily; you took
music-lessons nearly two years in Logansport. It wasn't long, but it
was all we could afford then. And your teacher said you didn't have
any voice, and it was a waste of money to keep on. Now, suppose you
ask the fellers what they think of your singin', and see what each
one of 'em tells you. The man that 'll tell you the truth about it
'll have a mighty lot of nerve, and 'll do to tie to. What do you
think of the plan?"
"All right, pa," said Ileen. "I think it's a good idea. I'll try
it."
Ileen and Mr. Hinkle went out of the room through the inside doors.
Unobserved, I hurried down to the station. Jacks was at his
telegraph table waiting for eight o'clock to come. It was Bud's
night in town, and when he rode in I repeated the conversation to
them both. I was loyal to my rivals, as all true admirers of all
Ileens should be.
Simultaneously the three of us were smitten by an uplifting thought.
Surely this test would eliminate Vesey from the contest. He, with
his unctuous flattery, would be driven from the lists. Well we
remembered Ileen's love of frankness and honesty--how she treasured
truth and candor above vain compliment and blandishment.
Linking arms, we did a grotesque dance of joy up and down the
platform, singing Muldoon Was a Solid Man at the top of our voices.
That evening four of the willow rocking-chairs were filled besides
the lucky one that sustained the trim figure of Miss Hinkle. Three
of us awaited with suppressed excitement the application of the
test. It was tried on Bud first.
"Mr. Cunningham," said Ileen, with her dazzling smile, after she had
sung When the Leaves Begin to Turn, "what do you really think of my
voice? Frankly and honestly, now, as you know I want you to always
be toward me."
Bud squirmed in his chair at his chance to show the sincerity that
he knew was required of him.
"Tell you the truth, Miss Ileen," he said, earnestly, "you ain't got
much more voice than a weasel--just a little squeak, you know. Of
course, we all like to hear you sing, for it's kind of sweet and
soothin' after all, and you look most as mighty well sittin' on the
piano-stool as you do faced around. But as for real singin'--I
reckon you couldn't call it that."
I looked closely at Ileen to see if Bud had overdone his frankness,
but her pleased smile and sweetly spoken thanks assured me that we
were on the right track.
"And what do you think, Mr. Jacks?" she asked next. "Take it from
me," said Jacks, "you ain't in the prima donna class. I've heard 'em
warble in every city in the United States; and I tell you your vocal
output don't go. Otherwise, you've got the grand opera bunch sent to
the soap factory--in looks, I mean; for the high screechers
generally look like Mary Ann on her Thursday out. But nix for the
gargle work. Your epiglottis ain't a real side-stepper--its footwork
ain't good."
With a merry laugh at Jacks' criticism, Ileen looked inquiringly at
me.
I admit that I faltered a little. Was there not such a thing as
being too frank? Perhaps I even hedged a little in my verdict; but I
stayed with the critics.
"I am not skilled in scientific music, Miss Ileen," I said, "but,
frankly, I cannot praise very highly the singing-voice that Nature
has given you. It has long been a favorite comparison that a great
singer sings like a bird. Well, there are birds and birds. I would
say that your voice reminds me of the thrush's--throaty and not
strong, nor of much compass or variety--but still--er--sweet--in--
er--its--way, and-- er--"
"Thank you, Mr. Harris," interrupted Miss Hinkle. "I knew I could
depend Upon your frankness and honesty."
And then C. Vincent Vesey drew back one sleeve from his snowy cuff,
and the water came down at Lodore.
My memory cannot do justice to his masterly tribute to that
priceless, God-given treasure--Miss Hinkle's voice. He raved over it
in terms that, if they had been addressed to the morning stars when
they sang together, would have made that stellar choir explode in a
meteoric shower of flaming self-satisfaction.
He marshalled on his white finger-tips the grand opera stars of all
the continents, from Jenny Lind to Emma Abbott, only to depreciate
their endowments. He spoke of larynxes, of chest notes, of phrasing,
arpeggios, and other strange paraphernalia of the throaty art. He
admitted, as though driven to a corner, that Jenny Lind had a note
or two in the high register that Miss Hinkle had not yet acquired--
but-- "!!!"-that was a mere matter of practice and training.
And, as a peroration, he predicted--solemnly predicted--a career in
vocal art for the "coming star of the Southwest--and one of which
grand old Texas may well be proud," hitherto unsurpassed in the
annals of musical history.
When we left at ten, Ileen gave each of us her usual warm, cordial
handshake, entrancing smile, and invitation to call again. I could
not see that one was favored above or below another--but three of us
knew--we knew.
We knew that frankness and honesty had won, and that the rivals now
numbered three instead of four.
Down at the station Jacks brought out a pint bottle of the proper
stuff, and we celebrated the downfall of a blatant interloper.
Four days went by without anything happening worthy of recount.
On the fifth, Jacks and I, entering the brush arbor for our supper,
saw the Mexican youth, instead of a divinity in a spotless waist and
a navy-blue skirt, taking in the dollars through the barbed-wire
wicket.
We rushed into the kitchen, meeting Pa Hinkle coming out with two
cups of hot coffee in his hands.
"Where's Ileen?" we asked, in recitative.
Pa Hinkle was a kindly man. "Well, gents," said he, "it was a sudden
notion she took; but I've got the money, and I let her have her way.
She's gone to a corn--a conservatory in Boston for four years for to
have her voice cultivated. Now, excuse me to pass, gents, for this
coffee's hot, and my thumbs is tender."
That night there were four instead of three of us sitting on the
station platform and swinging our feet. C. Vincent Vesey was one of
us. We discussed things while dogs barked at the moon that rose, as
big as a five-cent piece or a flour barrel, over the chaparral.
And what we discussed was whether it is better to lie to a woman or
to tell her the truth.
And as all of us were young then, we did not come to a decision.
The Lottery
by Shirley Jackson

On a warm summer day, villagers gather in a town square to

participate in a lottery. The village is small with about 300
residents, and they are in an excited but anxious mood. We learn
that this is an annual event and that some surrounding towns are
thinking about abandoning the lottery. Mrs. (Tess) Hutchinson makes
an undramatic entrance and chats briefly with Mrs. Delacroix, her
friend.
The night before Mr. Summers, a town leader who officiates the
lottery, had made paper slips listing all the families with the help
of Mr. Graves (subtle name choice?). The slips were stored overnight
in a safe at the coal company.
The villagers start to gather at 10 a.m. so that they may finish in
time for lunch. Children busy themselves collecting stones -- one of
those odd details that will later emerge loaded with meaning --
until the proceedings get underway and they are called together by
their parents.
Mr. Summers works down the list of families, summoning the head man
of each household. A male sixteen years or older comes forward and
draws a slip of paper. When every family has a slip of paper, Mr.
Summers has everyone look at the slip, and we discover that Bill
Hutchinson has drawn the one slip with a black spot. It's his family
that has been chosen. Mrs. Hutchinson begins to protest. With
tension mounting, it becomes clear that "winning" this lottery isn't
going to be what we expected, and that the "winner" isn't going to
walk away with a pile of cash.
Once a family is chosen, the second round begins. In this round,
each family member, no matter how old or young, must draw a slip of
paper. It is Tess Hutchinson who draws the slip with the black
circle. While Mrs. Hutchinson protests the unfairness of the
situation, each of the villagers picks up a stone -- "And someone
gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles" -- and closes in on her.
The story ends with Mrs. Hutchinson being stoned to death while
protesting, "It isn't fair, it isn't right." The story concludes
with six of the most famous closing words in short story
history, "And then they were upon her."
One literary critic described the story as "a chilling tale of
conformity gone mad." Yes, that's a nice sound-bite to release in a
classroom discussion, a book club gathering or a short story seminar
but I honestly doubt that the letters received by Jackson in 1948
cursed her for writing a tale of 'conformity gone mad.' I do suspect
that some people picked up and reacted strongly to the idea that
Jackson might be suggesting that underneath the idyllic image of
rural communities peopled by wholesome citizens, that there might be
a sinister force waiting to be unleashed. The people in those
communities certainly didn't see themselves that way. I suspect that
some folks made simpler inferences about the story that they still
found offensive; that the stones represented harmful gossip and
insults, that these gatherings were a place where unfounded rumors
could be born by chance and inflict real damage on those targeted;
as gathering by gathering, a new "target" might become subject to
slander earned or unearned.
Jackson kept her intended meaning to herself, believing that it
would emerge more clearly with the passage of time. But considering
that she was genuinely surprised by the reaction, it seems logical
to conclude that she intended to make a commentary on general human
nature rather than a specific criticism of rural American
communities in the mid-20th century.
Personally, I think the questions of permission and participation
make for a great discussion or essay about this particular short
story. As small as the gathering is, it is an official event and an
act of governance. The American writer and intellectual Henry David
Thoreau suggested that you have a moral responsibility for your
government; that when the government does something wrong -- say,
handing out "free" small-pox infected blankets to Native American
Indian tribes -- that it's not right to simply blame the government,
because by extension that government belongs to you and acts on your
behalf. So the blame belongs to you as well. That is part of the
foundation for many of the ideas he advocates in his essay On Civil
Disobedience.
In The Lottery, I see questions regarding the use of force:
would you voluntarily participate in an annual lottery like this?
Yet the people come every year. Why? I also see questions about
permission and consent. Are people willing to tolerate the
possibility of bad things happening in their community as long as
the odds of it happening to them are low and the cost of speaking
out and protesting against it might be high? What are we willing to
trade-off or compromise to be part of a community? How do these
questions relate to modern American culture and politics where some
people -- an increasing number -- believe that some individual
liberty should be sacrificed for the good of the community while
others believe that individual liberty and the freedom to make
personal choices is the highest consideration. That can be a
difficult question for some, and they wish to answer it with a
compromise: "Of course *some* individual liberty must be
sacrificed." This story may be useful for removing the middle ground
and raising guiding principles to the surface for consideration.
For those of you that have landed on this page looking for the
secret to winning the lottery, I have a few thoughts . . .
First, good luck to you. I hope you win.
Second, there is no magic formula, and the odds of winning are
extremely low. So balance your participation modestly, never spend
more than you can afford. Enjoy dreaming about what you will do if
you win.
Lastly, keep in mind, that no matter how often you play and lose,
your worst loss is better than Tess Hutchinson's win!

Analysis:
When the story was released it engendered a very strong negative
reaction and backlash that manifested itself in subscription
cancellations for The New Yorker and large amounts of what could be
described as "hate mail" for both the magazine and the author.
Shirley Jackson and the editors at The New Yorker were both
surprised by the reaction. Even Jackson's mother was critical of the
work. Here is an excerpt from Jackson herself:
'It had simply never occurred to me that these millions and millions
of people might be so far from being uplifted that they would sit
down and write me letters I was downright scared to open; of the
three-hundred-odd letters that I received that summer I can count
only thirteen that spoke kindly to me, and they were mostly from
friends. Even my mother scolded me: "Dad and I did not care at all
for your story in The New Yorker," she wrote sternly; "it does seem,
dear, that this gloomy kind of story is what all you young people
think about these days. Why don't you write something to cheer
people up?"'
Sredni Vashtar
by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his
professional opinion that the boy would not live another five years.
The doctor was silky and effete, and counted for little, but his
opinion was endorsed by Mrs. De Ropp, who counted for nearly
everything. Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian, and in
his eyes she represented those three-fifths of the world that are
necessary and disagreeable and real; the other two-fifths, in
perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were summed up in himself and
his imagination. One of these days Conradin supposed he would
succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome necessary things---
such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out dullness.
Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of
loneliness, he would have succumbed long ago.
Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed
to herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been
dimly aware that thwarting him "for his good" was a duty which she
did not find particularly irksome. Conradin hated her with a
desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able to mask. Such few
pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish
from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his guardian,
and from the realm of his imagination she was locked out---an
unclean thing, which should find no entrance.
In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many windows that
were ready to open with a message not to do this or that, or a
reminder that medicines were due, he found little attraction. The
few fruit-trees that it contained were set jealously apart from his
plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind blooming
in an arid waste; it would probably have been difficult to find a
market-gardener who would have offered ten shillings for their
entire yearly produce. In a forgotten corner, however, almost hidden
behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool-shed of respectable
proportions, and within its walls Conradin found a haven, something
that took on the varying aspects of a playroom and a cathedral. He
had peopled it with a legion of familiar phantoms, evoked partly
from fragments of history and partly from his own brain, but it also
boasted two inmates of flesh and blood. In one corner lived a
ragged-plumaged Houdan hen, on which the boy lavished an affection
that had scarcely another outlet. Further back in the gloom stood a
large hutch, divided into two compartments, one of which was fronted
with close iron bars. This was the abode of a large polecat-ferret,
which a friendly butcher-boy had once smuggled, cage and all, into
its present quarters, in exchange for a long-secreted hoard of small
silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe, sharp-fanged
beast, but it was his most treasured possession. Its very presence
in the tool-shed was a secret and fearful joy, to be kept
scrupulously from the knowledge of the Woman, as he privately dubbed
his cousin. And one day, out of Heaven knows what material, he spun
the beast a wonderful name, and from that moment it grew into a god
and a religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a week at a
church near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church
service was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in
the dim and musty silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with
mystic and elaborate ceremonial before the wooden hutch where dwelt
Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers in their season and
scarlet berries in the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for
he was a god who laid some special stress on the fierce impatient
side of things, as opposed to the Woman's religion, which, as far as
Conradin could observe, went to great lengths in the contrary
direction. And on great festivals powdered nutmeg was strewn in
front of his hutch, an important feature of the offering being that
the nutmeg had to be stolen. These festivals were of irregular
occurrence, and were chiefly appointed to celebrate some passing
event. On one occasion, when Mrs. De Ropp suffered from acute
toothache for three days, Conradin kept up the festival during the
entire three days, and almost succeeded in persuading himself that
Sredni Vashtar was personally responsible for the toothache. If the
malady had lasted for another day the supply of nutmeg would have
given out.
The Houdan hen was never drawn into the cult of Sredni Vashtar.
Conradin had long ago settled that she was an Anabaptist. He did not
pretend to have the remotest knowledge as to what an Anabaptist was,
but he privately hoped that it was dashing and not very respectable.
Mrs. De Ropp was the ground plan on which he based and detested all
respectability.
After a while Conradin's absorption in the tool-shed began to
attract the notice of his guardian. "It is not good for him to be
pottering down there in all weathers," she promptly decided, and at
breakfast one morning she announced that the Houdan hen had been
sold and taken away overnight. With her short-sighted eyes she
peered at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow,
which she was ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent precepts and
reasoning. But Conradin said nothing: there was nothing to be said.
Something perhaps in his white set face gave her a momentary qualm,
for at tea that afternoon there was toast on the table, a delicacy
which she usually banned on the ground that it was bad for him; also
because the making of it "gave trouble," a deadly offence in the
middle-class feminine eye.
"I thought you liked toast," she exclaimed, with an injured air,
observing that he did not touch it.
"Sometimes," said Conradin.
In the shed that evening there was an innovation in the worship of
the hutch-god. Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, tonight
be asked a boon.
"Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar."
The thing was not specified. As Sredni Vashtar was a god he must be
supposed to know. And choking back a sob as he looked at that other
empty comer, Conradin went back to the world he so hated.
And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom, and every
evening in the dusk of the tool-shed, Conradin's bitter litany went
up: "Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar."
Mrs. De Ropp noticed that the visits to the shed did not cease, and
one day she made a further journey of inspection.
"What are you keeping in that locked hutch?" she asked. "I believe
it's guinea-pigs. I'll have them all cleared away."
Conradin shut his lips tight, but the Woman ransacked his bedroom
till she found the carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched down
to the shed to complete her discovery. It was a cold afternoon, and
Conradin had been bidden to keep to the house. From the furthest
window of the dining-room the door of the shed could just be seen
beyond the corner of the shrubbery, and there Conradin stationed
himself. He saw the Woman enter, and then be imagined her opening
the door of the sacred hutch and peering down with her short-sighted
eyes into the thick straw bed where his god lay hidden. Perhaps she
would prod at the straw in her clumsy impatience. And Conradin
fervently breathed his prayer for the last time. But he knew as he
prayed that he did not believe. He knew that the Woman would come
out presently with that pursed smile he loathed so well on her face,
and that in an hour or two the gardener would carry away his
wonderful god, a god no longer, but a simple brown ferret in a
hutch. And he knew that the Woman would triumph always as she
triumphed now, and that he would grow ever more sickly under her
pestering and domineering and superior wisdom, till one day nothing
would matter much more with him, and the doctor would be proved
right. And in the sting and misery of his defeat, he began to chant
loudly and defiantly the hymn of his threatened idol:
Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.
And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and drew closer to the
window-pane. The door of the shed still stood ajar as it had been
left, and the minutes were slipping by. They were long minutes, but
they slipped by nevertheless. He watched the starlings running and
flying in little parties across the lawn; he counted them over and
over again, with one eye always on that swinging door. A sour-faced
maid came in to lay the table for tea, and still Conradin stood and
waited and watched. Hope had crept by inches into his heart, and now
a look of triumph began to blaze in his eyes that had only known the
wistful patience of defeat. Under his breath, with a furtive
exultation, he began once again the pan of victory and devastation.
And presently his eyes were rewarded: out through that doorway came
a long, low, yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a-blink at the waning
daylight, and dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat.
Conradin dropped on his knees. The great polecat-ferret made its way
down to a small brook at the foot of the garden, drank for a moment,
then crossed a little plank bridge and was lost to sight in the
bushes. Such was the passing of Sredni Vashtar.
"Tea is ready," said the sour-faced maid; "where is the mistress?"
"She went down to the shed some time ago," said Conradin. And while
the maid went to summon her mistress to tea, Conradin fished a
toasting-fork out of the sideboard drawer and proceeded to toast
himself a piece of bread. And during the toasting of it and the
buttering of it with much butter and the slow enjoyment of eating
it, Conradin listened to the noises and silences which fell in quick
spasms beyond the dining-room door. The loud foolish screaming of
the maid, the answering chorus of wondering ejaculations from the
kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps and hurried embassies for
outside help, and then, after a lull, the scared sobbings and the
shuffling tread of those who bore a heavy burden into the house.
"Whoever will break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the life of
me!" exclaimed a shrill voice. And while they debated the matter
among themselves, Conradin made himself another piece of toast.

Analysis:
All of Saki’s short stories are very short and to the point, and
“Sredni Vashtar” is no exception. Many of his stories are also as
macabre as this one. What distinguishes Saki’s stories is his
ability to capture the feelings and attitudes of children toward
their elders. That he was reared by two aunts, one of whom acted
sadistically toward children, is probably what motivated Saki to
fill so many of his stories with young children and sadistic elder
guardians. His purpose is usually achieved by a quasi-objective
narrative stance, in which the narrator interprets events from the
point of view of the young protagonist but pretends to relate events
objectively, as in this story.
The narrator at the beginning depicts the situation as Conradin
views it. To him, Mrs. De Ropp represents “those three-fifths of the
world that are necessary and disagreeable and real,” while “the
other two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the foregoing, were
summed up in himself and his imagination.” The fruit trees in the
“dull cheerless garden” are described as being “jealously apart from
his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind
blooming in an arid waste.” It is an adult narrating the perceptions
of a child.
Mrs. De Ropp becomes for the boy the epitome of all that is
respectable, and thus the antithesis of all that he holds dear. When
she has sold his beloved hen, he refuses to let her see how deeply
he feels the loss, but he is described as hating the world as
represented chiefly by Mrs. De Ropp. His antipathy takes the form of
his devoting his energies to praying more fervently to his animal
god.
Saki cleverly omits mentioning the subject of Conradin’s
supplication to Sredni Vashtar, and while the cousin is in the
toolshed to get rid of the ferret, the narrator describes Conradin’s
imagining his cruel cousin’s final triumph over him by extirpating
the one creature he so venerates. Then, as Saki obliquely informs
the reader of the demise of the hated guardian, his description of
Conradin calmly eating and enjoying his butter and toast heightens
the reader’s sense of shock.
MYTH
Down with the Tide
by Charles Dickens

A VERY dark night it was, and bitter cold; the east wind blowing
bleak, and bringing with it stinging particles from marsh, and moor,
and fen - from the Great Desert and Old Egypt, may be. Some of the
component parts of the sharp-edged vapour that came flying up the
Thames at London might be mummy-dust, dry atoms from the Temple at
Jerusalem, camels' foot-prints, crocodiles' hatching-places,
loosened grains of expression from the visages of blunt-nosed
sphynxes, waifs and strays from caravans of turbaned merchants,
vegetation from jungles, frozen snow from the Himalayas. O! It was
very, very dark upon the Thames, and it was bitter, bitter cold.
'And yet,' said the voice within the great pea-coat at my side,
'you'll have seen a good many rivers, too, I dare say?'
'Truly,' said I, 'when I come to think of it, not a few. From the
Niagara, downward to the mountain rivers of Italy, which are like
the national spirit - very tame, or chafing suddenly and bursting
bounds, only to dwindle away again. The Moselle, and the Rhine, and
the Rhone; and the Seine, and the Saone; and the St. Lawrence,
Mississippi, and Ohio; and the Tiber, the Po, and the Arno; and the
- '
Peacoat coughing as if he had had enough of that, I said no more. I
could have carried the catalogue on to a teasing length, though, if
I had been in the cruel mind.
'And after all,' said he, 'this looks so dismal?'
'So awful,' I returned, 'at night. The Seine at Paris is very gloomy
too, at such a time, and is probably the scene of far more crime and
greater wickedness; but this river looks so broad and vast, so murky
and silent, seems such an image of death in the midst of the great
city's life, that - '
That Peacoat coughed again. He COULD NOT stand my holding forth.
We were in a four-oared Thames Police Galley, lying on our oars in
the deep shadow of Southwark Bridge - under the corner arch on the
Surrey side - having come down with the tide from Vauxhall. We were
fain to hold on pretty tight, though close in shore, for the river
was swollen and the tide running down very strong. We were watching
certain water-rats of human growth, and lay in the deep shade as
quiet as mice; our light hidden and our scraps of conversation
carried on in whispers. Above us, the massive iron girders of the
arch were faintly visible, and below us its ponderous shadow seemed
to sink down to the bottom of the stream.
We had been lying here some half an hour. With our backs to the
wind, it is true; but the wind being in a determined temper blew
straight through us, and would not take the trouble to go round. I
would have boarded a fireship to get into action, and mildly
suggested as much to my friend Pea.
'No doubt,' says he as patiently as possible; 'but shore-going
tactics wouldn't do with us. River-thieves can always get rid of
stolen property in a moment by dropping it overboard. We want to
take them WITH the property, so we lurk about and come out upon 'em
sharp. If they see us or hear us, over it goes.'
Pea's wisdom being indisputable, there was nothing for it but to sit
there and be blown through, for another half-hour. The water-rats
thinking it wise to abscond at the end of that time without
commission of felony, we shot out, disappointed, with the tide.
'Grim they look, don't they?' said Pea, seeing me glance over my
shoulder at the lights upon the bridge, and downward at their long
crooked reflections in the river.
'Very,' said I, 'and make one think with a shudder of Suicides. What
a night for a dreadful leap from that parapet!'
'Aye, but Waterloo's the favourite bridge for making holes in the
water from,' returned Pea. 'By the bye - avast pulling, lads! -
would you like to speak to Waterloo on the subject?'
My face confessing a surprised desire to have some friendly
conversation with Waterloo Bridge, and my friend Pea being the most
obliging of men, we put about, pulled out of the force of the
stream, and in place of going at great speed with the tide, began to
strive against it, close in shore again. Every colour but black
seemed to have departed from the world. The air was black, the water
was black, the barges and hulks were black, the piles were black,
the buildings were black, the shadows were only a deeper shade of
black upon a black ground. Here and there, a coal fire in an iron
cresset blazed upon a wharf; but, one knew that it too had been
black a little while ago, and would be black again soon.
Uncomfortable rushes of water suggestive of gurgling and drowning,
ghostly rattlings of iron chains, dismal clankings of discordant
engines, formed the music that accompanied the dip of our oars and
their rattling in the rowlocks. Even the noises had a black sound to
me - as the trumpet sounded red to the blind man.
Our dexterous boat's crew made nothing of the tide, and pulled us
gallantly up to Waterloo Bridge. Here Pea and I disembarked, passed
under the black stone archway, and climbed the steep stone steps.
Within a few feet of their summit, Pea presented me to Waterloo (or
an eminent toll-taker representing that structure), muffled up to
the eyes in a thick shawl, and amply great-coated and fur-capped.
Waterloo received us with cordiality, and observed of the night that
it was 'a Searcher.' He had been originally called the Strand
Bridge, he informed us, but had received his present name at the
suggestion of the proprietors, when Parliament had resolved to vote
three hundred thousand pound for the erection of a monument in
honour of the victory. Parliament took the hint (said Waterloo, with
the least flavour of misanthropy) and saved the money. Of course the
late Duke of Wellington was the first passenger, and of course he
paid his penny, and of course a noble lord preserved it evermore.
The treadle and index at the toll-house (a most ingenious
contrivance for rendering fraud impossible), were invented by Mr.
Lethbridge, then property-man at Drury Lane Theatre.
Was it suicide, we wanted to know about? said Waterloo. Ha! Well, he
had seen a good deal of that work, he did assure us. He had
prevented some. Why, one day a woman, poorish looking, came in
between the hatch, slapped down a penny, and wanted to go on without
the change! Waterloo suspected this, and says to his mate, 'give an
eye to the gate,' and bolted after her. She had got to the third
seat between the piers, and was on the parapet just a going over,
when he caught her and gave her in charge. At the police office next
morning, she said it was along of trouble and a bad husband.
'Likely enough,' observed Waterloo to Pea and myself, as he adjusted
his chin in his shawl. 'There's a deal of trouble about, you see -
and bad husbands too!'
Another time, a young woman at twelve o'clock in the open day, got
through, darted along; and, before Waterloo could come near her,
jumped upon the parapet, and shot herself over sideways. Alarm
given, watermen put off, lucky escape. - Clothes buoyed her up.
'This is where it is,' said Waterloo. 'If people jump off straight
forwards from the middle of the parapet of the bays of the bridge,
they are seldom killed by drowning, but are smashed, poor things;
that's what THEY are; they dash themselves upon the buttress of the
bridge. But you jump off,' said Waterloo to me, putting his fore-
finger in a button-hole of my great-coat; 'you jump off from the
side of the bay, and you'll tumble, true, into the stream under the
arch. What you have got to do, is to mind how you jump in! There was
poor Tom Steele from Dublin. Didn't dive! Bless you, didn't dive at
all! Fell down so flat into the water, that he broke his breast-
bone, and lived two days!'
I asked Waterloo if there were a favourite side of his bridge for
this dreadful purpose? He reflected, and thought yes, there was. He
should say the Surrey side.
Three decent-looking men went through one day, soberly and quietly,
and went on abreast for about a dozen yards: when the middle one, he
sung out, all of a sudden, 'Here goes, Jack!' and was over in a
minute.
Body found? Well. Waterloo didn't rightly recollect about that. They
were compositors, THEY were.
He considered it astonishing how quick people were! Why, there was a
cab came up one Boxing-night, with a young woman in it, who looked,
according to Waterloo's opinion of her, a little the worse for
liquor; very handsome she was too - very handsome. She stopped the
cab at the gate, and said she'd pay the cabman then, which she did,
though there was a little hankering about the fare, because at first
she didn't seem quite to know where she wanted to be drove to.
However, she paid the man, and the toll too, and looking Waterloo in
the face (he thought she knew him, don't you see!) said, 'I'll
finish it somehow!' Well, the cab went off, leaving Waterloo a
little doubtful in his mind, and while it was going on at full speed
the young woman jumped out, never fell, hardly staggered, ran along
the bridge pavement a little way, passing several people, and jumped
over from the second opening. At the inquest it was giv' in evidence
that she had been quarrelling at the Hero of Waterloo, and it was
brought in jealousy. (One of the results of Waterloo's experience
was, that there was a deal of jealousy about.)
'Do we ever get madmen?' said Waterloo, in answer to an inquiry of
mine. 'Well, we DO get madmen. Yes, we have had one or two; escaped
from 'Sylums, I suppose. One hadn't a halfpenny; and because I
wouldn't let him through, he went back a little way, stooped down,
took a run, and butted at the hatch like a ram. He smashed his hat
rarely, but his head didn't seem no worse - in my opinion on account
of his being wrong in it afore. Sometimes people haven't got a
halfpenny. If they are really tired and poor we give 'em one and let
'em through. Other people will leave things - pocket-handkerchiefs
mostly. I HAVE taken cravats and gloves, pocket-knives, tooth-picks,
studs, shirt-pins, rings (generally from young gents, early in the
morning), but handkerchiefs is the general thing.'
'Regular customers?' said Waterloo. 'Lord, yes! We have regular
customers. One, such a worn-out, used-up old file as you can
scarcely picter, comes from the Surrey side as regular as ten
o'clock at night comes; and goes over, I think, to some flash house
on the Middlesex side. He comes back, he does, as reg'lar as the
clock strikes three in the morning, and then can hardly drag one of
his old legs after the other. He always turns down the water-stairs,
comes up again, and then goes on down the Waterloo Road. He always
does the same thing, and never varies a minute. Does it every night
- even Sundays.'
I asked Waterloo if he had given his mind to the possibility of this
particular customer going down the water-stairs at three o'clock
some morning, and never coming up again? He didn't think THAT of
him, he replied. In fact, it was Waterloo's opinion, founded on his
observation of that file, that he know'd a trick worth two of it.
'There's another queer old customer,' said Waterloo, 'comes over, as
punctual as the almanack, at eleven o'clock on the sixth of January,
at eleven o'clock on the fifth of April, at eleven o'clock on the
sixth of July, at eleven o'clock on the tenth of October. Drives a
shaggy little, rough pony, in a sort of a rattle-trap arm-chair sort
of a thing. White hair he has, and white whiskers, and muffles
himself up with all manner of shawls. He comes back again the same
afternoon, and we never see more of him for three months. He is a
captain in the navy - retired - wery old - wery odd - and served
with Lord Nelson. He is particular about drawing his pension at
Somerset House afore the clock strikes twelve every quarter. I HAVE
heerd say that he thinks it wouldn't be according to the Act of
Parliament, if he didn't draw it afore twelve.'
Having related these anecdotes in a natural manner, which was the
best warranty in the world for their genuine nature, our friend
Waterloo was sinking deep into his shawl again, as having exhausted
his communicative powers and taken in enough east wind, when my
other friend Pea in a moment brought him to the surface by asking
whether he had not been occasionally the subject of assault and
battery in the execution of his duty? Waterloo recovering his
spirits, instantly dashed into a new branch of his subject. We
learnt how 'both these teeth' - here he pointed to the places where
two front teeth were not - were knocked out by an ugly customer who
one night made a dash at him (Waterloo) while his (the ugly
customer's) pal and coadjutor made a dash at the toll-taking apron
where the money-pockets were; how Waterloo, letting the teeth go (to
Blazes, he observed indefinitely), grappled with the apron-seizer,
permitting the ugly one to run away; and how he saved the bank, and
captured his man, and consigned him to fine and imprisonment. Also
how, on another night, 'a Cove' laid hold of Waterloo, then
presiding at the horse-gate of his bridge, and threw him
unceremoniously over his knee, having first cut his head open with
his whip. How Waterloo 'got right,' and started after the Cove all
down the Waterloo Road, through Stamford Street, and round to the
foot of Blackfriars Bridge, where the Cove 'cut into' a public-
house. How Waterloo cut in too; but how an aider and abettor of the
Cove's, who happened to be taking a promiscuous drain at the bar,
stopped Waterloo; and the Cove cut out again, ran across the road
down Holland Street, and where not, and into a beer-shop. How
Waterloo breaking away from his detainer was close upon the Cove's
heels, attended by no end of people, who, seeing him running with
the blood streaming down his face, thought something worse was 'up,'
and roared Fire! and Murder! on the hopeful chance of the matter in
hand being one or both. How the Cove was ignominiously taken, in a
shed where he had run to hide, and how at the Police Court they at
first wanted to make a sessions job of it; but eventually Waterloo
was allowed to be 'spoke to,' and the Cove made it square with
Waterloo by paying his doctor's bill (W. was laid up for a week) and
giving him 'Three, ten.' Likewise we learnt what we had faintly
suspected before, that your sporting amateur on the Derby day,
albeit a captain, can be - 'if he be,' as Captain Bobadil observes,
'so generously minded' - anything but a man of honour and a
gentleman; not sufficiently gratifying his nice sense of humour by
the witty scattering of flour and rotten eggs on obtuse civilians,
but requiring the further excitement of 'bilking the toll,' and
'Pitching into' Waterloo, and 'cutting him about the head with his
whip;' finally being, when called upon to answer for the assault,
what Waterloo described as 'Minus,' or, as I humbly conceived it,
not to be found. Likewise did Waterloo inform us, in reply to my
inquiries, admiringly and deferentially preferred through my friend
Pea, that the takings at the Bridge had more than doubled in amount,
since the reduction of the toll one half. And being asked if the
aforesaid takings included much bad money, Waterloo responded, with
a look far deeper than the deepest part of the river, HE should
think not! - and so retired into his shawl for the rest of the
night.
Then did Pea and I once more embark in our four-oared galley, and
glide swiftly down the river with the tide. And while the shrewd
East rasped and notched us, as with jagged razors, did my friend Pea
impart to me confidences of interest relating to the Thames Police;
we, between whiles, finding 'duty boats' hanging in dark corners
under banks, like weeds - our own was a 'supervision boat' - and
they, as they reported 'all right!' flashing their hidden light on
us, and we flashing ours on them. These duty boats had one sitter in
each: an Inspector: and were rowed 'Ran-dan,' which - for the
information of those who never graduated, as I was once proud to do,
under a fireman-waterman and winner of Kean's Prize Wherry: who, in
the course of his tuition, took hundreds of gallons of rum and egg
(at my expense) at the various houses of note above and below
bridge; not by any means because he liked it, but to cure a weakness
in his liver, for which the faculty had particularly recommended it
- may be explained as rowed by three men, two pulling an oar each,
and one a pair of sculls.
Thus, floating down our black highway, sullenly frowned upon by the
knitted brows of Blackfriars, Southwark, and London, each in his
lowering turn, I was shown by my friend Pea that there are, in the
Thames Police Force, whose district extends from Battersea to
Barking Creek, ninety-eight men, eight duty boats, and two
supervision boats; and that these go about so silently, and lie in
wait in such dark places, and so seem to be nowhere, and so may be
anywhere, that they have gradually become a police of prevention,
keeping the river almost clear of any great crimes, even while the
increased vigilance on shore has made it much harder than of yore to
live by 'thieving' in the streets. And as to the various kinds of
water-thieves, said my friend Pea, there were the Tier-rangers, who
silently dropped alongside the tiers of shipping in the Pool, by
night, and who, going to the companion-head, listened for two snores
- snore number one, the skipper's; snore number two, the mate's -
mates and skippers always snoring great guns, and being dead sure to
be hard at it if they had turned in and were asleep. Hearing the
double fire, down went the Rangers into the skippers' cabins; groped
for the skippers' inexpressibles, which it was the custom of those
gentlemen to shake off, watch, money, braces, boots, and all
together, on the floor; and therewith made off as silently as might
be. Then there were the Lumpers, or labourers employed to unload
vessels. They wore loose canvas jackets with a broad hem in the
bottom, turned inside, so as to form a large circular pocket in
which they could conceal, like clowns in pantomimes, packages of
surprising sizes. A great deal of property was stolen in this manner
(Pea confided to me) from steamers; first, because steamers carry a
larger number of small packages than other ships; next, because of
the extreme rapidity with which they are obliged to be unladen for
their return voyages. The Lumpers dispose of their booty easily to
marine store dealers, and the only remedy to be suggested is that
marine store shops should be licensed, and thus brought under the
eye of the police as rigidly as public-houses. Lumpers also smuggle
goods ashore for the crews of vessels. The smuggling of tobacco is
so considerable, that it is well worth the while of the sellers of
smuggled tobacco to use hydraulic presses, to squeeze a single pound
into a package small enough to be contained in an ordinary pocket.
Next, said my friend Pea, there were the Truckers - less thieves
than smugglers, whose business it was to land more considerable
parcels of goods than the Lumpers could manage. They sometimes sold
articles of grocery and so forth, to the crews, in order to cloak
their real calling, and get aboard without suspicion. Many of them
had boats of their own, and made money. Besides these, there were
the Dredgermen, who, under pretence of dredging up coals and such
like from the bottom of the river, hung about barges and other
undecked craft, and when they saw an opportunity, threw any property
they could lay their hands on overboard: in order slyly to dredge it
up when the vessel was gone. Sometimes, they dexterously used their
dredges to whip away anything that might lie within reach. Some of
them were mighty neat at this, and the accomplishment was called dry
dredging. Then, there was a vast deal of property, such as copper
nails, sheathing, hardwood, &c., habitually brought away by
shipwrights and other workmen from their employers' yards, and
disposed of to marine store dealers, many of whom escaped detection
through hard swearing, and their extraordinary artful ways of
accounting for the possession of stolen property. Likewise, there
were special-pleading practitioners, for whom barges 'drifted away
of their own selves' - they having no hand in it, except first
cutting them loose, and afterwards plundering them - innocents,
meaning no harm, who had the misfortune to observe those foundlings
wandering about the Thames.
We were now going in and out, with little noise and great nicety,
among the tiers of shipping, whose many hulls, lying close together,
rose out of the water like black streets. Here and there, a Scotch,
an Irish, or a foreign steamer, getting up her steam as the tide
made, looked, with her great chimney and high sides, like a quiet
factory among the common buildings. Now, the streets opened into
clearer spaces, now contracted into alleys; but the tiers were so
like houses, in the dark, that I could almost have believed myself
in the narrower bye-ways of Venice. Everything was wonderfully
still; for, it wanted full three hours of flood, and nothing seemed
awake but a dog here and there.
So we took no Tier-rangers captive, nor any Lumpers, nor Truckers,
nor Dredgermen, nor other evil-disposed person or persons; but went
ashore at Wapping, where the old Thames Police office is now a
station-house, and where the old Court, with its cabin windows
looking on the river, is a quaint charge room: with nothing worse in
it usually than a stuffed cat in a glass case, and a portrait,
pleasant to behold, of a rare old Thames Police officer, Mr.
Superintendent Evans, now succeeded by his son. We looked over the
charge books, admirably kept, and found the prevention so good that
there were not five hundred entries (including drunken and
disorderly) in a whole year. Then, we looked into the store-room;
where there was an oakum smell, and a nautical seasoning of
dreadnought clothing, rope yarn, boat-hooks, sculls and oars, spare
stretchers, rudders, pistols, cutlasses, and the like. Then, into
the cell, aired high up in the wooden wall through an opening like a
kitchen plate-rack: wherein there was a drunken man, not at all
warm, and very wishful to know if it were morning yet. Then, into a
better sort of watch and ward room, where there was a squadron of
stone bottles drawn up, ready to be filled with hot water and
applied to any unfortunate creature who might be brought in
apparently drowned. Finally, we shook hands with our worthy friend
Pea, and ran all the way to Tower Hill, under strong Police
suspicion occasionally, before we got warm.

Analysis:
A VERY dark night it was, and bitter cold; the east wind blowing
bleak, and bringing with it stinging particles from marsh, and moor,
and fen - from the Great Desert and Old Egypt, may be. Some of the
component parts of the sharp-edged vapour that came flying up the
Thames at London might be mummy-dust, dry atoms from the Temple at
Jerusalem, camels' foot-prints, crocodiles' hatching- places,
loosened grains of expression from the visages of blunt- nosed
sphynxes, waifs and strays from caravans of turbaned merchants,
vegetation from jungles, frozen snow from the Himalayas. O! It was
very, very dark upon the Thames, and it was bitter, bitter cold.

'And yet,' said the voice within the great pea-coat at my side,
'you'll have seen a good many rivers, too, I dare say?'
'Truly,' said I, 'when I come to think of it, not a few. From the
Niagara, downward to the mountain rivers of Italy, which are like
the national spirit - very tame, or chafing suddenly and bursting
bounds, only to dwindle away again.
The Beginnings — Creation

In the beginning there was only Chaos, an empty void. But somehow
this enormous vacancy gave birth to Gaea, the earth, to Tartarus,
the great region beneath the earth, and to Eros, the shining god of
love and attraction. Chaos also bore Erebus, the darkness of the
netherworld, and Night, the darkness over the earth. Then Erebus
slept with Night, who gave birth to Ether, the heavenly light, and
to Day, the earthly light. Later Night alone produced such beings as
Doom, Fate, Death, Sleep, Dreams, Nemesis, and a long list of other
atrocities that steal upon men in darkness.

Meanwhile Gaea, without help, gave birth to Uranus, the starry sky,
to the Mountains, and to Pontus, the sterile sea. Uranus then became
Gaea's mate and equal, for he covered her on all sides. This
primordial couple, sky and earth, produced the twelve Titans, the
three towering wheel-eyed Cyclopes, and the three terrible
Hecatoncheires with fifty heads and a hundred arms apiece.

However, Uranus proved to be a harsh husband and father. Each of the

Hecatoncheires hated him, and he hated them in return. In his anger
Uranus pushed them back into Gaea's womb and kept them there. Gaea
writhed in pain at this and plotted revenge upon her mate. She
fashioned a flint sickle and called upon her other children to
avenge her. The Titans and Cyclopes recoiled in fear of their
father, and only the last-born Titan, Cronus, was daring enough.

That night when Uranus came to lie without Gaea the crafty Cronus
was hiding in ambush. He grabbed his father's genitals and severed
them with his mother's sickle. As the blood fell to earth the
Furies, who punish crimes, the Ash-Tree Nymphs, and the race of
Giants were created. Cronus heaved the members into the sea, and
from the foam arose Aphrodite, the beautiful goddess of love, who
floated along and stepped ashore at Cyprus. The mutilated Uranus
either withdrew forever from the earth or else he perished. But
before he did so he promised that Cronus and the other Titans would
be punished.

After confining the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires to Tartarus,

Cronus established his reign. He married his sister Rhea, and under
his lordship the Titans produced many offspring. Yet Cronus could
not allow his own children to survive, for both Gaea and Uranus had
prophesied that Cronus would be supplanted by a son. When Rhea, his
wife, gave birth to the gods and goddesses Cronus swallowed Hestia,
Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon shortly after each was born. Rhea
was furious and took pains to save her sixth child, Zeus, from his
father. She bore Zeus in secret and then gave Cronus a stone wrapped
in swaddling bands to swallow instead.

Attended by nymphs, Zeus grew to manhood on Crete. Cronus,

meanwhile, was growing old. So Zeus sought advice on how to defeat
him from the Titaness Metis, who prepared an emetic potion.
Disguised as a cupbearer, Zeus gave this potion to Cronus, who
vomited up Zeus's brothers and sisters, as well as the stone Rhea
had given him. The gods were alive and unhurt, and together with
Zeus they triumphed over Cronus and bound him in Tartarus. Zeus then
set up the stone at Parnassus, a monument to his victory over the
Titan king.

Zeus's triumph, however, was far from secure. The other Titans, with
the exception of Prometheus and Oceanus, rebelled under these
upstart gods. For ten years the fighting lasted, a cosmos-shaking
battle in which the elements of nature raged without check. Neither
the gods nor the Titans could secure a decisive victory. But then
Zeus went down to Tartarus and released the Cyclopes and the
hundred-handed monsters. The Cyclopes awarded Zeus their weapons of
thunder and lightning, and the Hecatoncheires pelted the Titans with
boulders. And at last the Titans were defeated. Zeus imprisoned them
in Tartarus, and he condemned the rebel Atlas to stand forever at
the edge of the world and bear the heavens on his shoulders.

Gaea was enraged at the downfall of her children, the Titans. And
through her union with Tartarus she gave birth to one last monster,
Typhoeus, a dragon with a hundred heads that never rested.
Terrified, most of the gods fled. But Zeus was captured and
confined. Released by Hermes, Zeus finally destroyed the dragon by
hurling lightning at it again and again, and by burying it under
Etna in Sicily.

There was one more attempt to dislodge Zeus and the other Olympians
from their mastery of the world. The Giants, who had sprouted from
Uranus' blood, were dissatisfied, so they laid siege to Olympus by
piling mountain upon mountain in an attempt to scale it. It required
all the prowess of the gods and the assistance of the mortal
Heracles to subdue and kill the Giants. Having vanquished the
Titans, the dragon Typhoeus, and the Giants, the rule of the
Olympians was undisputed.

That version of the creation was taken largely from Hesiod, a Greek
poet of the seventh century B.C.. But here is an earlier story by
way of contrast.

Eurynome, the goddess of all creation, arose from Chaos and

separated the sea from the sky. Then, dancing naked upon the waves,
she created the wind and rubbed it in her hands to create the
serpent Ophion, who made love to her. Pregnant, Eurynome became a
dove and laid the World Egg, and Ophion coiled about the Egg and
hatched it. This Egg brought forth the cosmos and everything in it.
Then Eurynome and Ophion settled on Olympus, but their union was
unhappy. When Ophion proclaimed himself the Creator, Eurynome
banished him to the netherworld. Finally Eurynome established the
seven planets, each with a Titan and Titaness to rule it. When man
appeared he sprang from the soil, and the first man, Pelasgus,
taught the others to eat acorns, build huts, and make a rude
garment.

Analysis

The first version of the creation is intensely masculine and crude.

The primary forces generate their opposites. Thus vacancy creates
solidity, darkness creates light, the earth creates the sky and the
sea, the first crime creates a goddess of love. Further, these
forces are conceived as having sexes, and they copulate the way
human beings do, and the 'female elements give birth to newer
forces, and those forces have vague personalities.

Apart from childbearing, Gaea and her daughter Rhea have one
important function. In anger they help their sons dethrone their own
husbands. The relationship between the sexes is troubled, and the
decisive factor in losing control of the world is mistreating one's
children. The forces of nature are rendered in terms of the human
family, which makes the creation both understandable and dramatic.

The most notable feature of this myth, however, is the drive for
power and dominance. Uranus confines the mightiest of his offspring
to Gaea's belly. Cronus castrates his father and the new generation
of Titans takes over. Then Cronus consolidates his power by
imprisoning his non-Titan brothers and by swallowing his own
children. Zeus, his son, in turn dethrones him, and then must fight
the Titans, the dragon, and the Giants to secure his own rule. In
one myth even Zeus is warned that a hypothetical son by Thetis may
defeat him. Power is the primary drive here. But this view of the
world is not really pessimistic, for each generation of deities is
an improvement over the last one. The Olympian gods under Zeus are
the most enlightened generation, and only the ablest survive.

It is thought that the Titans were the old gods of Greece, and that
the gods of the Indo-European invaders superseded them, particularly
Zeus. Yet what is important about this story is that conflict is
shown to be a cosmic principle. By fighting alone does the world
progress, since only in that way can the victors, gods or men,
establish their supremacy. And that supremacy is always subject to
question in the end. Force determines who keeps power. Nevertheless,
this view of the world in terms of conflict gave Greek civilization
an extremely dramatic character.

It is precisely drama that is lacking in the early, Pelasgian

account of the creation. There a female deity is all-important,
perhaps reflecting a matriarchal society. Eurynome is playful in
creating her wind-mate Ophion, and she is vicious in disposing of
him when he claims to be the Creator. She can live without a
masculine god, being self-sufficient. In this myth things seem to
happen accidentally, from Eurynome's birth to the creation of man.
There is no unifying principle at work here beyond that of feminine
playfulness and pique. Given the two stories of the creation, it is
easy to see why the one told by Hesiod achieved dominance, for it
stemmed from a race of fighters.
INDRA AND THE DRAGON

Once the mighty priest Tvashtri, out of dislike for the god Indra,
created a three-headed son to take over Indra's throne. This son was
a pious ascetic who appeared to be mastering the universe with his
three heads, which made Indra uneasy. After futilely tempting
Tvashtri's son with dancing girls, Indra slew the radiant young man
with a thunderbolt and ordered that his three heads be cut off.

Enraged, Tvashtri made a colossal dragon named Vritra to destroy

Indra. This serpent reached up to the heavens and swallowed Indra.
But Indra tickled its throat and leapt out to resume battle. The
dragon proved too strong and Indra had to flee. At length he went to
the god Vishnu, who advised him to compromise with the dragon. The
serpent agreed to peace, provided that Indra did not attack it with
solid or liquid, or attack it by day or night. Indra, however,
nursed his resentment and tried to get around this agreement.

One evening at twilight Indra saw a huge column of foam containing

the god Vishnu, so he hurled this at the dragon, who fell dead. The
gods and men rejoiced at the serpent's death, but Indra bore a great
sin for killing a priest's son.

Once the wise men of India sent Bhrigu the Wise to find out which
god was most worthy of the priests' worship: Brahma, Vishnu, or
Siva. Bhrigu approached Brahma and omitted one of the proper forms
due the god, so Brahma reproached him, accepted Bhrigu's apologies,
and forgave him. Then Bhrigu went to Siva and again neglected to pay
the proper respect, at which Siva nearly burned him to a crisp with
his third eye. Only the most profuse apologies saved Bhrigu from
destruction. Then Bhrigu went to Vishnu's home, where Vishnu lay
asleep on the floor. And Bhrigu kicked Vishnu in the chest,
whereupon Vishnu awoke, asked him if he'd hurt his foot and then
proceeded to massage Bhrigu's foot. Bhrigu then proclaimed Vishnu
the greatest god of all because he conquered with generosity and
kindness.

Analysis

With the early Vedic gods one sees a large element of nature worship
and an attempt to master nature. But even here there is a tendency
to philosophical abstraction. In the myth of Indra and the dragon
one is in a world where might and cunning predominate, and one in
which the power of the priests is enough to threaten the most mighty
god, Indra. Myths in which a sky god overpowers a terrible serpent
are common, but here a strong mixture of priestly arrogance is
evident.

With the Hindu gods and concepts the philosophical strain becomes
dominant, and morality exercises more of a role. In the myth of
Bhrigu and the three gods, one is in a world where generosity and
kindness are more important than reprimands or retaliative force.
LEGEND

Arthur was the first born son of King Uther Pendragon and heir to
the throne. However these were very troubled times and Merlin, a
wise magician, advised that the baby Arthur should be raised in a
secret place and that none should know his true identity.
As Merlin feared, when King Uther died there was great conflict over
who should be the next king. Merlin used his magic to set a sword in
a stone. Written on the sword, in letters of gold, were these
words: "Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone is the rightwise
born king of all England." Of course all the contenders for the
throne took their turn at trying to draw the sword, but none could
succeed. Arthur, quite by chance, withdrew the sword for another to
use in a tournament. Following this he became King.

He gathered Knights around him and fought back against the Saxons
who, since the Romans left Britain, were slowly but surely taking
the country over. After many great battles and a huge victory at
Mount Badon the Saxons' advance was halted.

Arthur's base was at a place called Camelot. Here he built a strong

castle. His knights met at a Round Table. They carried out acts of
chivalry such as rescuing damsels in distress and fought against
strange beasts. They also searched for a lost treasure, which they
believed would cure all ills - this was the 'Quest for the Holy
Grail'.
Under the guidance of Merlin, Arthur had obtained a magical sword
from The Lady Of The Lake. This sword was called 'Excalibur" and
with this weapon he vanquished many foes.

Queen Guinevere, Arthur's beautiful wife brought romance to the

story while his equally beautiful half sister Morgan le Fay added a
dark side.

Unfortunately, as peace settled over the country things turned sour

within the court of Camelot and civil war broke out. In the final
battle at Camlan both Arthur and Mordred, Arthur's traitorous
nephew, were mortally wounded. Arthur was set upon a boat and
floated down river to the isle of Avalon. Here his wounds were
treated by three mysterious maidens. His body was never found and
many say that he rests under a hill with all his knights - ready to
ride forth and save the country again.
Analysis:
When Arthur marries Genevere, her father gives Arthur the Round
Table, at which 150 men can sit. Genevere, who is often present at
the convening of the Round Table, acts as a moral compass for the
knights, rewarding knights who behave well and chastising those who
choose poorly. Malory specifically relates the stories of Sir
Gawain, Sir Tor, and Sir Pellanor as a means of introducing the
concept of chivalry.
Arthur is nearly betrayed by his sister Morgan le Fay, but he is
helped by Nineve, a sorceress who learned her magic powers from
Merlin before killing him. Arthur then fights the Romans when
Emperor Lucius of Rome demands that Arthur bow to him. Although the
war requires several battles, Arthur and his knights win and return
to Guinevere and the other wives. Soon after, Launcelot establishes
himself as the greatest knight in all the world by his virtue,
loyalty, and bravery. At the same time, Sir Gareth, Gawain's
brother, proves valiant in his adventures.
Tristam (also known as Tristan), who is son of King Melyodas de
Lyones and the sister of King Mark of Cornwall, is then introduced,
and his adventures unfold. He kills Sir Marhault to free his uncle
from a debt owed to King Angwyssh of Ireland, and then falls in love
with Isode (also known as Isolde), Angwyssh's daughter. Isode
marries Tristam's uncle Mark, but Tristam and Isode remain lovers.
Tristam is exiled by Mark, which means he can no longer use his true
identity; thus, he fights as The Knight with the Black Shield.
Tristam duels and beats many of Arthur's knights, but is eventually
thrown in prison and becomes ill. He escapes and eventually meets
and fights Launcelot in a duel predicted by Merlin. They become the
best of friends.
Launcelot, who is in love with and completely loyal to Guinevere,
rides one day in search of adventure. He kills a dragon, sees the
Grail, and is tricked into lying with Pellas' daughter Elayne, with
whom he has a son, Galahad. Guinevere, upon hearing of the affair,
has Launcelot banished from court; Launcelot then wanders from place
to place in his grief. Elayne, through her father, heals Launcelot
through the Grail, and he eventually returns joyously to Camelot and
the Round Table.
Launcelot introduces his son, Galahad, to the court, and Galahad
takes the Sege Perilous, the seat at the Round Table that no knight
has been worthy enough to fill. Galahad also draws the sword from
the floating stone, establishing him as the best knight in the
world, but also accepting the sword's curse — that it will later
cause a grievous wound.
Most of the knights then set out separately on Grail Quest. During
the Quest, Launcelot, Percival, and Bors experience deep religious
conversion, while Ector and Gawain are told by a hermit that they
are not pure enough to achieve the Grail Quest. Galahad, Percival,
and Bors meet up and continue the Grail Quest, but they are briefly
parted. Launcelot and Galahad continue to the Grail at Castle
Corbenic, where Launcelot is shown to be unworthy of the Quest. When
Sir Evelake dies after his embrace with Galahad, Galahad is
identified as the knight who will achieve the Grail Quest. Galahad
is made a king who dies shortly thereafter, while Percival becomes a
hermit. Bors returns to King Arthur's court.
Launcelot also returns to the court and continues his love for
Guinevere. After a series of trials, Guinevere is convinced of
Launcelot's love for her. Although Arthur knows of the affair and
overlooks it, he is prompted by Aggravain and Mordred (Arthur's son
by Lot's wife) to take action; Guinevere is sentenced to be burned
at the stake. Launcelot rescues her and takes her to his castle,
Joyous Gard, but in the battle, Launcelot kills Gareth and Gaheris,
who are at the execution but are unarmed. Launcelot returns
Guinevere to Arthur, but Launcelot is banished, along with his
followers. Gawain swears vengeance for the death of his brothers and
insists that Arthur attack Launcelot. Arthur agrees, but while
Arthur and Gawain are away, Mordred makes himself King of England,
claims Guinevere as his wife, and attacks Arthur's army. Gawain is
mortally wounded and warns Arthur in a dream not to continue the
battle. Through a misunderstanding, however, the battle continues;
Arthur kills Mordred but is mortally wounded by him, as Merlin has
prophesied.
THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW SUMMARY
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” tells the story of Ichabod Crane and
his hapless attempt to win the heart and hand ofKatrina Van
Tassel in the context of a comical ghost story. Ichabod comes to
Sleepy Hollow, New York, from his home state of Connecticut, to be
the schoolmaster of the village. Sleepy Hollow is a small, very
quiet town said to be under some kind of enchantment. Its residents
all seem to move a little slower, daydream a little more, and be
more prone to believe in the supernatural. Sleepy Hollow, maybe for
that reason or maybe because its residents are almost all descended
from its original Dutch settlers, has more than its fair share of
supernatural occurrences, or at least stories of them.
Sleepy Hollow’s most famous supernatural phenomenon is the ghost of
the Headless Horseman, said to be a Hessian soldier who lost his
head to a cannon ball during the Revolutionary War. The Horseman is
seen most often riding by the church, where local historians say he
was buried. He is believed to be always in search of his head.
Ichabod is fascinated by this story, being especially interested
(and prone to believe) in tales of the supernatural.
Ichabod is a strict teacher but not a cruel one, doling out his
punishment of the rod only to those who can handle it. Ichabod makes
almost no money, and it is customary in the village for the farmers
whose sons he teaches to feed and board him in rotation. Along with
this, Ichabod makes some extra money teaching singing lessons—he
prides himself greatly on his magnificent voice. This arrangement
keeps him employed and gives him many opportunities to hear ghost
stories from the farmers’ wives and eat meals with the farmers’
daughters. He also has an insatiable hunger and a taste for the
finer things.
Katrina Van Tassel, a beautiful young woman of eighteen, is one of
Ichabod’s students. She is also the only child of Baltus Van Tassel,
one of the more successful farmers in the area. Ichabod is quickly
taken in by her flirtatious charms, but it is when he first visits
her father’s abundant farm that he considers himself truly in love
with her, or at least her likely inheritance.
He quickly sets out to win her hand in marriage, coming by the Van
Tassel farm frequently to woo her. Ichabod is not alone in his
attentions to Katrina, however. Her beauty, charm, and wealth have
entranced many other men in the village, especially the
formidable Brom Van Brunt, also known as Brom Bones. Brom is
notorious for his boisterous personality, love of pranks, and great
skill at horseback riding—all of which make him something of a
village hero.
Brom has already scared off many of Katrina’s other suitors, but
Ichabod is harder to shake, avoiding physical confrontation with
Brom, which is Brom’s main method of intimidation. Without that
option, Brom turns to his next best skill—pranks. He fills the
school house with smoke, trains a dog to follow Ichabod around
howling, and sets many other pranks to frustrate and humiliate
Ichabod.
One day, a messenger comes to the schoolhouse to invite Ichabod to a
party at the Van Tassels’. At this party, he apparently finds
himself the best man in the house, and when the party is over he
stays behind. For some reason, however, Katrina disappoints him.
Ichabod leaves crestfallen.
He finds the path home dark and eerily quiet. He tries to keep
himself from getting too scared, but soon after he has passed the
possibly haunted Major Andre’s tree, he sees a large, dark figure
looming nearby. It does not respond to his call, but as he passes
by, it starts to move and joins him on the path riding a large, dark
horse. Ichabod is greatly disturbed and tries to shake off his
pursuer, but he fails. Finally, he notices that the rider has no
head on his shoulders; the head seems to be sitting on the saddle in
front of the man. Ichabod tries to get his decrepit horse to run
home as fast as it can, but he is not a skilled rider and the horse
resists.
They end up by the church, the scene of most of the stories of the
Headless Horseman, and Ichabod races to the bridge where the ghost
is said to disappear and not follow. Ichabod crosses the bridge and
looks back, but he sees the Horseman, instead of disappearing, hurl
his detached head at him. It knocks Ichabod off of his horse.
The next day, Ichabod’s horse returns to its owner’s farm, but there
is no sign of Ichabod. A search party finds hoof prints and
Ichabod’s hat, with a smashed pumpkin left next to it. Ichabod is
never heard from again in Sleepy Hollow, although later on it seems
that he is alive elsewhere and has told his story. Some of the
townspeople believe that Brom Bones pulled off a great prank—which
put Brom in the final position to marry Katrina—but the old women
and local folklore maintain that he was taken by the Headless
Horseman.
Analysis:
Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the
initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense,
denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the
recipe and add some spice.
In the beginning we get an introduction to the two main characters
and where their lives are. Day is a street criminal who is on the
run from the Republic; he scavenges in the trash for food, steals
from the Republic, and came from one of the poorest sectors of Los
Angeles. June, on the other hand, is a prodigy from a respected
military family. She's graduating from college early and lives in a
big, nice apartment with her brother, who's a captain in the
military. They come from such different areas that it seems like
it'd be impossible for their lives to intersect… right?
Things get complicated when Captain Metias (June's big bro) is
killed while patrolling the hospital one night. The government tells
June that Day did it, so she sets off to hunt him down and bring him
to justice. As June hunts for a boy that she doesn't know, and Day
runs from a government agent that he doesn't know, their paths
intersect and they start to form a friendship. Of course, June
eventually finds out that the boy she's been spending so much time
with (and enjoying kissing) is actually the criminal Day, and she
has to make a difficult decision.
The climax of the story happens when June discovers Day's identity
and calls in the government to come collect him as he's trying to
protect his family. Things do not go as planned—Captain Jameson
orders Thomas to kill Day's mother and they take both John and Eden
(Day's brothers) into custody. The whole event is very dramatic and
sad, and ends with Day injured, devastated, and in prison, while
June starts to feel ambivalent about her part in the Republic's
master plan.
June begins to uncover some disturbing truths through Metias's
diaries. She finds out that her parents were killed by the
government, and that Day didn't kill her brother—Thomas did. Due to
these discoveries, June decides to turn her back on the government
that she's been such a loyal citizen to this whole time and help Day
escape. As soon as this choice is made, she starts planning, letting
Day know, and enlisting the help of Kaede and the other Patriots.
Rip Van Winkle Summary

“Rip Van Winkle” is an American masterpiece of the short story. It

is based on local history but is rooted in European myth and legend.
Irving reportedly wrote it one night in England, in June, 1818,
after having spent the whole day talking with relatives about the
happy times spent in Sleepy Hollow. The author drew on his memories
and experiences of the Hudson River Valley and blended them with Old
World contributions.

“Rip Van Winkle” is such a well-known tale that almost every child
in the United States has read it or heard it narrated at one time or
another. Rip is a simple-minded soul who lives in a village by the
Catskill Mountains. Beloved by the village, Rip is an easygoing,
henpecked husband whose one cross to bear is a shrewish wife who
nags him day and night.

One day he wanders into the mountains to go hunting, meets and

drinks with English explorer Henry Hudson’s legendary crew, and
falls into a deep sleep. He awakens twenty years later and returns
to his village to discover that everything has changed. The
disturbing news of the dislocation is offset by the discovery that
his wife is dead. In time, Rip’s daughter, son, and several
villagers identify him, and he is accepted by the others.

One of Irving’s major points is the tumultuous change occurring over

the twenty years that the story encompasses. Rip’s little Dutch
village had remained the same for generations and symbolized rural
peace and prosperity. On his return, everything has drastically
changed. The village has grown much larger, new houses stand in
place of old ones, and a Yankee hotel occupies the spot where the
old Dutch inn once stood. The people are different, too. Gone are
the phlegmatic burghers, replaced by active, concerned citizens. Rip
returns as an alien to a place that once considered him important;
he discovers that life has passed on without his presence.

Irving makes clear that change is inevitable and that one pays a
huge price by trying to evade it. He also makes it clear in “Rip Van
Winkle” that certain fundamental values may be lost when people
prefer change to stability and are willing to sacrifice everything
for material prosperity. Rip’s return shows him to be completely
disoriented by the march of time.

Irving takes pity on his comical creation, however, and does not
punish him. Instead, Rip is allowed back into the new society and
tolerated for his eccentricities, almost as if he were a curiosity.
Rip has slept through vital political, social, and economic changes,
including the Revolutionary War, and he returns ignorant but
harmless. Irving’s suggestion, then, is that Rip is a perfect image
of America—immature, careless, and above all, innocent—and that may
be why he has become a universal figure.

The recurring theme of financial failure evident in two pieces

preceding “Rip Van Winkle” is also found here, as is the concept of
sterility. Rip awakens twenty years later and discovers that his gun
and his faithful dog are gone. He notes the changes in the village
and sees another Rip Van Winkle character there, has a sudden loss
of identity when he returns, and realizes that there has occurred
the birth of a new nation, with the replacement of King George by
George Washington. Irving emphasizes the comic rather than the
tragic, because Rip turns all the above into a positive affirmation
of himself. He acquires a new identity and has a wondrous tale to
tell of irresponsibility which counterpoints the stress of puritan
ethics.

The tale of “Rip Van Winkle” has found expression in other artistic
media. Five stage plays have been made of the story, beginning in
1829. There have been three operas, several children’s shows, and a
television film by Francis Ford Coppola in 1985. Perhaps the most
famous adaptation was made by noted nineteenth century American
actor Joseph Jefferson III, who played the role of Rip for forty-
five years in a very popular and much-beloved interpretation.
Jefferson’s vehicle proved to be one of America’s most successful
plays of the period. In the theater, it far surpassed in popularity
Irving’s other masterpiece, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
Analysis:
There was an elderly gentleman from New York city, Diedrich
Knickerbocker. He was known for being particularly involved in the
origin and culture of the Dutch settlers in that state. The state,
where the story of Rip Van Winkle began. He had lived in a
miniature, and very old village that might have the very first Dutch
settlers established long-long before the American Revolution began,
while America was still composed of the Thirteen Colonies of Great
Britain.

The short story Rip Van Winkle originally written by Washington

Irving is a short tale that symbolizes many of the significant
traits and values of American mythology to this day. Set back in the
past, the story reflects that a lot of changes can occur as time
goes by, that not only your environment around you can become
different, but your society can too. Throughout the story Rip Van
Winkle, it symbolizes many characteristics of the mythology of a
nation through its location in time, over the course of events, and
the moral lessons conveyed for the whole of the story.

The story’s setting is one huge instance of representing a

mythological tale’s values. The story takes place back in time
around the 19th century in Europe, the time as when Irving has
published the tale. The setting plays a huge role throughout the
story as it as a tool to show readers how drastically things may
change over time. In a lot of mythology, the story takes place in
earlier past periods of time to show more emphasis on the tale
itself. By setting it back in time, Irving reserves the Mythological
value of the Rip Van Winkle and elaborates on some events in history
(Burstein, Andrew). It also helps reader’s experience this feeling
or atmosphere by giving them a little hint of what things were like
back in time.

In addition to the setting, the events that occur within Rip Van
Wrinkle prove to show that the story holds tremendous values to
Mythology. For instance, the main character Rip falls into a deep
sleep for many years and wakes up to practically a whole new world
in front of him. When Rip wakes up, he mentions “I have not slept
here all night” which explains he has been sleeping in that spot for
a very long time. The exaggeration of these years in a deep sleep
reveals its mythological influence throughout the tale. It is
doubtful for a man to fall asleep for years in sleep and wake up.
Furthermore, before Rip fell into sleep, he was from as stated “…a
little village, of great antiquity, having been founded by some of
the Dutch colonists, in the early times of the province…” and he
ended up going back to his village in which was now a “larger and
more populous” city (Irving, Washington et al.). These exaggerated
factors add prominence to the meaning of the story as well,
practically the main plot couldn’t have taken place without the
change in time occurring.

Lastly, one of the major mythological values Rip Van

Wrinkle expresses in its tale is the positive message and outcome it
gives out to the readers. The moral importance of the story is as
mentioned before are the effects of change, and even though some bad
things may occur, there will or can always be a positive outcome. An
instance in this story includes when Rip comes back to the village
which has modernized into a more populous city. At first, Rip felt
as his “heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home
and friends, and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every
answer puzzled him too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time,
and of matters which he could not understand” (Irving, Washington et
al.). As time went on, however, Rip finds himself finally feeling
comfortable with the new environment of his village and he “resumed
his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies,
though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and
preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he
soon grew into great favor” (Irving, Washington et al.). Not only it
represents the change of one’s environment, but their adaptations as
Rip did. Despite little issues, concluding the story with a positive
outcome uncovers and emphasizes even more of mythology’s influence
behind the tale. It benefits the reader’s positively by finishing on
a good note.

Irving’s story shows the importance of the mythology’s

characteristics and how they are used to emphasize the events of a
story as a whole (Burstein, Andrew). Not only does the setting and
major plot of the story have a huge influence on the reader’s point
of view, but also the outcome of the story. Rip Van Wrinkle reveals
that placing a story back in a historical time with individual
events can leave a reader with a feel for the atmosphere of the
story. The story also leaves us with the knowledge of how time
affects life’s changes within a place and its people. The
Mythological values that were contributed by writing this tale
helped emphasize the story’s significance and morals embedded into
it.
FOLKTALES
HOW THE FIRST HEAD WAS TAKEN

One day the Moon, who was a woman named Kabigat, sat out in the yard
making a large copper pot. The copper was still soft and pliable
like clay, and the woman squatted on the ground with the heavy pot
against her knees while she patted and shaped it.

Now while she was working a son of Chal-chal, the Sun, came by and
stopped to watch her mould the form. Against the inside of the jar
she pressed a stone, while on the outside with a wooden paddle
dripping with water she pounded and slapped until she had worked
down the bulges and formed a smooth surface.

The boy was greatly interested in seeing the jar grow larger, more
beautiful, and smoother with each stroke, and he stood still for
some time. Suddenly the Moon looked up and saw him watching her.
Instantly she struck him with her paddle, cutting off his head.

Now the Sun was not near, but he knew as soon as the Moon had cut
off his son's head. And hurrying to the spot, he put the boy's head
back on, and he was alive again.

Then the Sun said to the Moon, "You cut off my son's head, and
because you did this ever after on the earth people will cut off
each other's heads."
DOGEDOG
Tinguian
Dogedog had always been very lazy, and now that his father and
mother were dead and he had no one to care for him, he lived very
poorly. He had little to eat. His house was old and small and so
poor that it had not even a floor. Still he would rather sit all day
and idle away his time than to work and have more things.
One day, however, when the rainy season was near at hand, Dogedog
began thinking how cold he would be when the storms came, and he
felt so sorry for himself that he decided to make a floor in his
house.
Wrapping some rice in a banana leaf for his dinner, he took his long
knife and went to the forest to cut some bamboo. He hung the bundle
of rice in a tree until he should need it; but while he was working
a cat came and ate it. When the hungry man came for his dinner,
there was none left. Dogedog went back to his miserable little house
which looked forlorn to him even, now that he had decided to have a
floor.
The next day he went again to the forest and hung his rice in the
tree as he did before, but again the cat came and ate it. So the man
had to go home without any dinner.
The third day he took the rice, but this time he fixed a trap in the
tree, and when the cat came it was caught.
"Now I have you!" cried the man when he found the cat; "and I shall
kill you for stealing my rice."
"Oh, do not kill me," pleaded the cat, "and I will be of some use to
you."
So Dogedog decided to spare the cat's life, and he took it home and
tied it near the door to guard the house.
Some time later when he went to look at it, he was very much
surprised to find that it had become a cock.
"Now I can go to the cock-fight at Magsingal," cried the man. And he
was very happy, for he had much rather do that than work.
Thinking no more of getting wood for his floor, he started out at
once for Magsingal with the cock under his arm.
As he was crossing a river he met an alligator which called out to
him: "Where are you going, "Dogedog?"
"To the cock-fight at Magsingal," replied the man as he fondly
stroked the rooster.
"Wait, and I will go with you," said the alligator; and he drew
himself out of the water.
The two walking together soon entered a forest where they met a deer
and it asked: "Where are you going, Dogedog?"
"To the cock-fight at Magsingal," said the man.
"Wait and I will go with you," said the deer; and he also joined
them.
By and by they met a mound of earth that had been raised by the
ants, and they would have passed without noticing it had it not
inquired: "Where are you going, Dogedog?"
"To the cock-fight at Magsingal," said the man once more; and the
mound of earth joined them.
The company then hurried on, and just as they were leaving the
forest, they passed a big tree in which was a monkey. "Where are you
going, Dogedog?" shrieked the monkey. And without waiting for an
answer, he scrambled down the tree and followed them.
As the party walked along they talked together, and the alligator
said to Dogedog: "If any man wants to dive into the water, I can
stay under longer than he."
Then the deer, not to be outdone, said: "If any man wants to run, I
can run faster."
The mound of earth, anxious to show its strength, said: "If any man
wants to wrestle, I can beat him."
And the monkey said: "If any man wants to climb, I can go higher."
They reached Magsingal in good time and the people were ready for
the fight to begin. When Dogedog put his rooster, which had been a
cat, into the pit, it killed the other cock at once, for it used its
claws like a cat.
The people brought more roosters and wagered much money, but
Dogedog's cock killed all the others until there was not one left in
Magsingal, and Dogedog won much money. Then they went outside the
town and brought all the cocks they could find, but not one could
win over that of Dogedog.
When the cocks were all dead, the people wanted some other sport, so
they brought a man who could stay under water for a long time, and
Dogedog made him compete with the alligator. But after a while the
man had to come up first. Then they brought a swift runner and he
raced with the deer, but the man was left far behind. Next they
looked around until they found a very large man who was willing to
contend with the mound of earth, but after a hard struggle the man
was thrown. Finally they brought a man who could climb higher than
anyone else, but the monkey went far above him, and he had to give
up.
All these contests had brought much money to Dogedog, and now he had
to buy two horses to carry his sacks of silver. As soon as he
reached home, he bought the house of a very rich man and went to
live in it. And he was very happy, for he did not have to work any
more.
The Carabao and the Shell
Tinguian
One very hot day, when a carabao went into the river to bathe, he
met a shell and they began talking together.
"You are very slow," said the carabao to the shell.
"Oh, no," replied the shell. "I can beat you in a race."
"Then let us try and see," said the carabao.
So they went out on the bank and started to run.
After the carabao had gone a long distance he stopped and called,
"Shell!"
And another shell lying by the river answered, "Here I am!"
Then the carabao, thinking that it was the same shell with which he
was racing, ran on.
By and by he stopped again and called, "Shell!"
And another shell answered, "Here I am!"
The carabao was surprised that the shell could keep up with him. But
he ran on and on, and every time he stopped to call, another shell
answered him. But he was determined that the shell should not beat
him, so he ran until he dropped dead.
DRAMA
Some Men Die Alone

By Herm Sherwood-Sitts
Born 1955, M, from Norwich NY, United States
Author Profile

Some Men Die Alone

Story#1
©2012 By Herm Sherwood-Sitts

The day they put him in the ground, I watched through the wrought
iron fence. No one came to call, because for as long as I had known
him, his blood ran as cold as the rain on that dreary November day.
They yanked the pine box off of the buckboard letting it crash to
the ground. Mud splashed on the neighboring head stone with total
lack of respect. They didn’t know any better for they were just a
couple of drunks, trying to earn some money fer whisky. Didn’t
matter, he was getting what he deserved. He was the cruelest human I
knew and drawing his last breath made this world a better place. The
rain drizzled off the brim of my hat as I watched them throw the
last shovel full of earth onto his grave. I turned my horse around
and met them at the gate. As I reached into my vest to pay them each
two bits, one of the men tipped his hat and said, “sorry about yer’
Pa, son.” I gave them a cold stare and rode towards home.
Soaked to the skin, my ole mare and I worked our way up the mountain
path. She would mildly snort and you could see her breath in the
cold, damp air. After a bit we came to the modest cabin, which for
the last two and a half months we called home.

I took my horse to the barn, unsaddled her, brushed her down and
dried her off. As I covered her back with her blanket, I could hear
the call of the cattle, expecting to be fed and milked. I was twelve
years old and the only one left. Things weren’t much different I
guess. Since Momma died two months ago, the ole man hadn’t talked to
me. When he wasn’t drinking shine, he was miserable or passed out
drunk.
I walked into the two room shack as the rain played a soft soothing
tune on the cedar shake roof. Every fourth note was made by a drip,
which landed in a bucket on the old wood floor. After stoking the
fireplace, I stood there in a daze, not sure of what to do. I
finally walked to the door of their room and sadly glanced around.
This was all that was left of their lives.

Momma’s dresser was the way she left it two months earlier. Her
silver brush and mirror were displayed the way she liked, next to a
small jewelry box. I picked up the small bundle of dry flowers that
she had kept from their wedding. They still held my mother’s scent
and as I closed my eyes, I pictured her beautiful smile. When I laid
the flowers down, there sat her diary. I gently picked it up and
wandered over to the bed. I slid off my leather boots, lit the
kerosene lantern and adjusted the pillows. I pulled Momma’s best
quilt up under my arms as I thumbed for the first page. It was then
that I found out, I didn’t know my stepfather at all.

Second of July, 1833… She wrote… that was the day I met William. I
was a working girl at the River Street Saloon on the outskirts of
what later would be called Fort Benton. I‘m not proud of my
profession, but with an eight year old boy to feed, I did what I had
to do. The fur trading industry has brought with it, foolish
gamblers and whisky bootleggers. My long red hair and well endowed
breast make them an easy mark.

William was different. He was on his way back from Fort McKenzie. He
was a young rugged cowboy, fresh off a successful cattle drive. The
reason I say successful is because the Blackfeet are master cattle
rustlers in these parts.

William took a real shine to me and spent a large amount of his

profits to bed me for the night. He was so handsome and gentle, that
I almost hated to take his money. He offered to pay off my debt at
the saloon, take me away and make an honest woman of me. I told him
I had a son (Johnny) and he adopted him as well.
~Third of July, 1833, our wedding day… We were married in a small
church just outside of town, just me, William, Johnny, the preacher
and his wife. We celebrated with a picnic lunch, next to the Mighty
Missouri River. It was a beautiful day, with sunshine and a summer
breeze.

Things were a little boring as I read each day. Most of her diary
was about mundane things like what she made for supper or how many
tubs of clothes she washed. Their plan was to live at a boarding
house, until they made enough money to head to Kansas City and start
a homestead of their own. William took a job tanning hides for the
American Fur Trading Co. and Momma washed clothes for other people.
I went to a one room school house that was on the edge of the
settlement.

~The seventeenth of October, 1833 read… Johnny and William seem to

be butting heads. William thinks Johnny needs to mind his elders and
do what he’s told.

Johnny says,” William is not his father and he doesn’t have to.”
He’s not use to me having a man in my life. I have news for both, I
have been ill in the mornings and I am sure that another child is on
the way.

~Skipping to The fifteenth of May, 1834 … Rebecca was born today.

She is gorgeous; finally, something that her father and big brother
agree upon.

~Skipping to the seventh of July, 1837 … William has purchased a

parcel of land with a cabin and barn, three miles north of Kansas
City. We are loading the covered buck board with traveling
essentials and a few pieces of furniture that were my grandmothers,
(a small writing desk and a dresser with quilts and linens.) I wish
we could afford to go by steam boat. It would be much easier.
The children are excited, Rebecca now three, with long red hair,
cute freckles and a smile that never ends.
Johnny is now twelve, a young man showing maturity and
responsibility. Though he resents William, he has learned a lot from
him. Johnny has been taught to fish, hunt and how to take care of
livestock, as well as how to plow and plant. Four years of school
has taught him how to read, write, add and subtract. Something that
William doesn’t know how to do.
The eighth of July, 1837 reads… We left at daybreak with the covered
wagon, drawn by a two horse team and two oxen tethered to the back.
We would follow the Missouri river when we could. However, the trail
at times would take us far into the woods and through rugged terrain
to avoid swampy areas. This is only the first day and already we had
to use the oxen to help pull us through the mud. William showed
Johnny the map and he figured we had gone about ten miles today.

~The ninth of July, 1837 reads… We met a rider on horseback today, a

gentleman from Bismarck. As we shared some drinking water with him,
he warned us about traveling alone. There had been reports of Indian
attacks on stage coaches and wagon trains.

~The tenth of July, 1837 reads… Torrential rain today made William
decide we should stay put. He said there was no sense in taking a
chance of one of the horses getting hurt. We parked the wagon under
some large pines. I mended clothing while William and the children
rested most of the day.
The eleventh of July, 1837… About 11:00 am our wagon became stuck in
the mud. As we worked to get it out, six Chippewa Indians watched
from a ridge. After watching us for a while they came down and
surrounded us. I held the children close as William fetched his
rifle. The leader motioned for the braves to push and motioned
William to get up onto the seat of the buckboard. After several
attempts they managed to get us to dry road. William paid them with
a jug of corn squeezings. They waived and we were on our way.

~Skipping to the twenty second of July, 1837… We arrived at Fort

Clark and were met by soldiers. The fort was on quarantine and no
one was allowed in, tired and in need of supplies we kept going.
About a mile or so down the trail we came upon a Mandan Indian camp
that was spread out on both sides of the trail. As we rode slowly
through the smoky, makeshift village, we noticed many of them looked
sickly. I told William we need to stop and see if we could help. He
grabbed my arm and scolded, “You’ll do no such thing!” I did not
speak to him for the rest of the day.

I stopped reading to rest my eyes for a minute. Thinking back, I

could remember sitting in the back of the covered wagon as the
Indian children chased us through their village. One young Indian
girl caught up to us and handed Becky a handful of flowers. Becky
smelled them and handed them back. I also remembered seeing large
piles of buffalo robes that the tribe had brought to trade at Fort
Clark.

I then dosed off, snuggling under Momma’s best quilt.

I woke up in a sweat and it was dark. The kerosene lantern had run
out of fuel. I stumbled to find a candle, lit it and refilled the
lantern. After putting some wood on the fire, I then went to the
barn, fed the horses, two cows and the chickens. While milking the
cows I kept rhythm with the rain and made music into the wooden
bucket. Thinking this was more milk than I could use, I set the
bucket in the spring house to stay cold. Maybe tomorrow I will churn
some butter.

I returned to the house, took off my boots, crawled back under

Momma’s best quilt and continued reading. Now I’m damp and I have
the chills.
Skipping to the twenty fourth of July, 1837… William has been
stopping to make camp earlier in the evening. Because of supplies
being low, he and Johnny have been rabbit hunting and fishing to
keep us nourished.

~Skipping to the twenty eight of July, 1837… We arrive at Washburn

and buy badly needed supplies. William and Johnny trade in our
horses for fresh ones at the town livery stable; while Becky and I
shop for flour, coffee and other essentials.

William takes Becky and me to the Washburn Hotel and treats us to a

nice warm bath, while he and Johnny enjoy a sarsaparilla at the
hotel saloon. It was a great day.

~The twenty ninth of July, 1837… We start out fresh headed for
Bismarck. The trail seems much nicer and every once in a while we
pass another traveler.
Skipping to the second of August, 1837… We arrive at Bismarck, take
a rest and browse at some of the shops.

I am harassed by a drunk that recognizes me from my past. He calls

me a whore and asks me how much? William sends us to the wagon and
defends my honor.
I remember that day well, William whooped the heck out of that drunk
and we left town in a hurry. It must have impressed Mom. She hugged
him for a mile or two.

~Skipping to the fifth of August, 1837… It’s raining today Becky is

running a high fever. She says she is cold and has a head ache. I
wrapped her in my best quilt and held her while riding in the wagon.
William says we can’t stop, for if we do we will run out of supplies
before the next big town (Pierre).

~Skipping to the seventh of August, 1837… The rain has stopped and
now it is very humid. Becky’s fever has not broke, fatigue is
setting in and she has a rash. I’m really getting worried for her.
No one has slept well for two days.
Skipping to the thirteenth of August, 1837… Becky’s rash has turned
into sores. She still has a high fever and is incoherent… she is
barely hanging on.

After dark William carried her out into the river and mercifully
held her under, sending her to the Angeles. He did it to protect
Johnny and me. I could not watch and turned the other way, holding
Johnny and crying uncontrollably. William buried Becky beside the
river and covered her grave with rocks to protect her from the
coyotes and buzzards.

When William returned to the wagon, Johnny attacked him punching,

kicking and crying. William just stood there and took it, letting
Johnny wear himself out. None of us spoke for days.

I couldn’t understand how anyone could do that to their own flesh

and blood. Momma held me tight and as I struggled to look around
her; I saw Becky’s little arms and legs make a weak attempt to
flail, as the last breath of life drained out of her. Until I read
the last entry of Momma’s diary, I had no clue that was what William
was doing. Even though he was trying to save us… I think I still
hate his guts for it!

There was not another entry in her diary for eight days.

~The twenty first of August, 1837, reads… We have made it through

lower South Dakota. The rolling bluffs of golden grain, dotted with
herds of grazing buffalo, made a beautiful sight.
William and Johnny have hardly spoken since Becky’s passing.
We should make it to Sioux City by tomorrow night.

~The twenty second of August, 1837… Sioux City is pretty small and
is mostly populated by Indians. They do have a trading post, but the
prices were high and we could only afford a few supplies.

I haven’t told William I am starting to run a fever and my back and

head is starting to ache.

There were no entries for a long time after that. Momma had become
seriously ill. We made her as comfortable as we could in the back of
the wagon, covered her with her best quilt and kept traveling. We
could see the lights of Omaha, Nebraska City and Fort Leavenworth on
the other side of the Mighty Missouri as we worked our way towards
Kansas City.
Momma pulled through the rash and the scabs, However she ended up
with pneumonia.

~The ninth of September, 1837… We made it to our homestead; it’s as

beautiful as William had promised. The pneumonia has gotten worse
and I am very short of breath. William and Johnny have been waiting
on me hand and foot.
I have asked William to grant me the same mercy as Becky. His eyes
fill with tears and he says he can’t.

Momma died that night. I heard her gasping for air and went to their
room. William was sitting in a chair next to Momma, passed out from
drinking shine. Momma was suffering so… As tears ran down my cheeks,
I took Williams pillow and put Momma to rest. I put William’s pillow
back and fluffed it up a bit so he wouldn’t know.

The next morning, I heard William cry out in pain. After mourning
for about four hours: we buried Momma out back amongst the prairie
flowers.

It took William two and a half months to drink himself to death. I

had him buried in town, because I didn’t feel he deserved to be next
to Momma.
My rash is now blistering and turning to sores. I lay here under
Momma’s best quilt, with a cocked revolver at my side. If the pox
gets too bad, I’ll have to do it myself. After all, Some Men Die
Alone.
STRUCK BY LIGHTNING
By: Herm Sherwood Sitts
Many years ago, my brother in-law, Nuzzie, asked me to go coon
hunting with him. For those not familiar, coon hunting is done at
night, because for the most part raccoons are nocturnal creatures.
The coon hunter’s most prized possession is his dog. The purpose of
the dog is to track, tree and wait for the hunter.
Nuzzie had a prize hound named Bowser. He was a huge Walker (white,
black and tan hound used for hunting). He was fast and powerful,
with a voice that you could hear for miles. In the meantime, Nuzzie
had acquired another dog. I don’t recall her name, but she was about
a year old and she was a Blue Tick.
It was during the week and we were both doing line construction for
a living.
“Let’s take the new dog out tonight by herself and see what she
knows,” said Nuzz.
So we took a ride down an old dirt road surrounded by corn fields.
Nuzz let the Blue Tick out of the Chevy Blazer and we walked her out
into the corn field. Her nose instantly went to the ground and she
was off. Thinking this was a good thing; we sat down and waited for
her to tree. We were sitting there quietly shooting the breeze and
after about forty-five minutes we still hadn’t heard a sound. Just
about then we heard something about four rows behind us. Nuzz turned
and shined his flashlight.
“What the hell,” whined Nuzz?
There, sound asleep and snoring, was the Blue Tick. We laughed and
loaded her up and went home.
The following Saturday we were going to do some serious hunting, so
we brought Bowser and the Blue Tick. It was hot and dry for being in
the fall and most farmers were harvesting corn and oats. Bowser took
off like a shot and the Blue Tick was right behind him. After about
twenty minutes Bowser was hot on a trail, howling and carrying on. A
few minutes later he was treeing. Nuzz slid his rifle up onto his
shoulder and we were off.
Nuzz was well over six feet tall, so it was a challenge for me to
keep up. He often took his three boys with him; “the poor little
guys probably had to run to keep up with ole Nuzz,” I chuckled to
myself.
We crossed a creek and crawled up an embankment to the edge of a
huge field of oats. They were about waist high and ready for
harvest. We could hear the dogs loud and clear, as Nuzz shone his
light across the field. There in the center, was a huge tree and
every once in a while you would see a glimpse of the dogs’ eyes,
reflecting back at us. We worked our way through the oats and came
to the tree.
Nuzz flashed his light all over at the top of the tree, looking for
the coon. After a few minutes he noticed a hollow spot at the
trunk.
“Damn, they must have crawled inside,” said Nuzz.
“Not to worry, Big Buddy!” I said, as I pulled a smoke bomb outta my
pocket.
We set it in the opening of the tree and Nuzz lit it with his
cigarette. Meanwhile the dogs were still pretty excited.
The smoke bomb started spitting sparks like a flair and the smoke
was bellowing out. All of a sudden, the smoke bomb started spinning
around and fell into a hole, down into the roots of the tree. Within
seconds, the roots were glowing on fire. I got on my knees and
started to dig up dirt with my hands, trying to smother out the
fire. Nuzz took off for the creek and filled both of his work boots
with water and hobbled back across the oat field in his stocking
feet. Meanwhile, the dogs were biting and pulling at my pant legs,
trying to get to the coon. Bowser was so strong, that several times
he pulled me away from the tree. About twenty minutes later, we
decided that we had the fire out.
“Man that farmer would have been furious, if we had burnt up his
oats” I sighed.
“You ain’t kiddin’,” answered Nuzz!
We never did get the coon.
The next day I was at the auto parts store and told my friend Doug
that we weren’t too far from his house, coon hunting last night. I
told him the story and we chuckled.
About six o’clock that night my friend Doug gave me a phone call.
“Hey, don’t tell anybody else about that hunting excursion you and
Nuzzy had last night,” he warned.
“Why” I asked with concern.
"Well, the Fire Department is up here putting out a tree fire in the
middle of this oat field. They think it was “Struck By Lightning.”
GRANDPA AND ME
By: Herman Sherwood Sitts
My grandparents have a backyard that’s like an animal sanctuary.
They feed birds, deer, squirrels, raccoons; they train chipmunks and
they also fed a bear. (Yeah, that’s right, a BEAR!) My grandma has
shown me pictures of this bear, which hung around for two summers.
She said Grandpa discovered it one day, while he was mowing the
lawn. The bear was in the backyard standing on his hind legs,
drinking the seed out of a bird feeder. Grandpa tapped on the window
and told Grandma, “There’s a bear in the backyard!”
“Yeah, right,” replied Grandma. She walked to the back of the house
and glanced out the big picture window. Sure enough, there standing
on his hind legs was a young black bear.
Grandma called the game warden and he told her to enjoy him for a
while. He then told her after the seed is gone the bear would move
on. He instructed her to take down the bird feeders and put their
garbage cans in the garage for a couple of days. He explained that
bears, were opportunists and if there wasn’t easy food, they would
not stay around.
“They’re sort of lazy, like Grandpa,” she told me jokingly. She went
on to say that Grandpa thought the bear had left, so he proceeded to
take the bird feeders down. While he was reaching up to undo the
wire that held the feeder, he heard a snort behind him. When he
glanced to see what made the noise, there was the young bear.
Grandpa then very slowly let go of the feeder and walked to the
house.
“Holy shit!” he exclaimed, as he hung onto his chest and shut the
door.
“What is your problem?” asked Grandma, as she came through the
kitchen. Grandpa pointed to the bear sniffing around on the back
deck. He then told Grandma what had happened and they laughed.

Later the bear had left and they thought that was the end of it.
However it was not. The next day, Grandma and Grandpa had come home
from a birthday party. After they had gone from the car to the
house, Grandpa asked, “Did ya notice the bear watching ya?”
“Where?” frowned Grandma. Grandpa then pointed to the embankment in
the back yard. There sitting on his rump, like a panda, was the
young bear.
Grandpa then went out onto the deck and opened up a garbage can,
which was full of sunflower seeds. He then dug up a scoopful of the
shiny black seeds and walked up the hill to a deer feeder. The bear
watched intently, as Grandpa dumped the seeds into the box. He
tapped the side of the feeder with the scoop and called the bear
over. “C’mon Bozo, these are for you,” he said in a gentle
reassuring voice. The bear moseyed over and started eating the
seeds.
“From that day on Grandpa became the bear’s pet,” giggled Grandma.
She said she told Grandpa, that sunflower seeds were too expensive,
so she bought Bozo some dog food. The fussy bear wouldn’t eat the
dog food so Grandpa continued to feed him sunflower seeds.
The bear must have hibernated, because they didn’t see him again
until the spring of 2004. Grandpa and Bozo resumed their friendship,
until one day, Bozo stopped coming around. Grandma said that Grandpa
was pretty bummed out, but she was kind of glad. The bear was
getting braver and braver, and would wait for Grandpa on the back
steps. She knew that it wouldn’t be long, before he would break into
the house or possibly hurt someone. As rumor has it, Bozo fell
asleep on someone’s sun porch and the game wardens shot at him with
rubber bullets, to deter him from being a nuisance.
I guess Grandpa’s love for critters must be a hereditary thing. My
mom has always rescued animals, and I am an animal lover myself.
At the ripe ole age of twenty two, I started a small car dealership
at the edge of town. I deal in mostly fossil fuel burning models.
Most of the newer autos, are either hydrogen, or electric. However
there are still a few million that burn gasoline or diesel. My best
and only mechanic is my cousin Joslyn. (What’s that you say…sounds
like a girl? Well she is a girl and I’m telling ya she’s the best
damn mechanic within 1000 miles!) She can tear down a big block
Chevy and reassemble it with new rings, crank and whatever in ten
hours. Her 2025 Camaro Z28, is the fastest car around. She’s got
drag racing trophies to prove it.
Joslyn and I have been working on a birthday secret for Mom. It’s a
1967, Ford
Mustang, fastback. All we lack is the grill, a tail light and
passenger side mirror.
It was about ten o’clock Thursday morning, the 13th of April, in
2030, when Grandpa pulled in with that damn ole 2002 Ford Ranger.
(Yeah that’s right, the same ole piece of junk he’s had since before
I was born!) It was dragging the tail pipe, smok’n and achugg’n and
the driver’s side tail light was hanging by some wires. More than
likely ‘cause he had backed into something. It was so rusty, that he
had a bungee cord strapped across the box to keep the left and right
fenders from falling off. I had offered to give him a newer truck
off of the lot for free, but the grumpy ole geezer wouldn’t take it.
He’d say, “She’s only got 230,000 miles on her; she’s just getting
broke in.” I didn’t have the balls to tell him that the odometer
hasn’t worked since 2024.
He crawled outta the cab with a box of doughnuts and a Mt Dew,
grabbed his cane and headed for the office door. He was wearing his
fedora and he looked like a seventy-four year old version of Indiana
Jones. It was a fairly new hat, ‘cause Grandma had thrown out his
lucky fishing hat about a month ago. (It had almost caused a divorce
between the two of them.) Uncle Rube would get him going and say,
“Hell, Dad, ya ain’t caught a fish over eight inches long in twenty
four years. Just how lucky was that damn ole hat?” That would make
Gramp sputter and cuss.
He worked his way into my office and settled down in my chair,
behind the desk. I yelled to Joslyn, “Grandpa’s here!” That was our
way of saying it was break time.
Joslyn came in from the garage, gave Gramp a hug and picked out her
doughnut. About that time, our cousin Devon rolled up in his State
Trooper SUV. Dev walked in, leaned over and took a bite outta
Joslyn’s doughnut. In an instant, she slugged him in the shoulder,
hard enough to make him lose his balance. She stuck out her tongue
and disappeared into the garage. Dev looked at Grandpa with a grin,
while rubbing the puffer on his shoulder. Grandpa raised his eye
brows and smiled. “One of these days she’s gonna kick yer ass,” he
said jokingly.
You could hear Jos yell from the garage, “you tell ‘em Gramp.”
“How come you ain’t fish’n today, Gramp?” asked Devon.
Grandpa leaned back in the chair. “Well … yer mom’s got yer dad
planting flowers in their front yard today. Kind’a makes me laugh;
your dad owns a back hoe, a bull dozer and a dump truck, yet I see
him out in the front yard with a shovel in his hand! Probably don’t
know how to use the damn thing!” He chuckled.
“How’s that driver’s side tail light work’n for ya, Gramp?” smiled
Dev. Gramp just grumbled and flipped him the bird.
“Gotta go,” Dev said as he grabbed a doughnut. Gramp gave him a
wink. I gave him a high five and he left.
Grandpa was reading the paper, while I headed out to the garage to
help Joslyn. She had Gramp’s truck up on the lift and was loosening
up the clamps, which held what was left of the tail pipe. About that
time Uncle Rod showed up. “Hey, Dad, would you please light that
torch for me?” asked Joslyn. Uncle Rod pulled a lighter from his
jeans pocket, lit the torch and adjusted it to a sharp blue flame.
He then handed her a face shield, a pair of welding gloves and the
lit torch. Uncle Rod turned and tossed me the lighter. It was chrome
Zippo, with a naked dancing girl on it.
“Cool,” I said with a big grin on my face. “Where did ya get that?”
I blushed.
“Won it in a poker game off of my friend Mike,” answered Uncle Rod.
“You can keep it,” he smiled.
“Thanks, Uncle Rod” I said sliding it into my pocket. (My uncles are
always giving me cool stuff.) He then, went into the office to say
hi to Gramp.
Joslyn cut off what was supposed to be the muffler. It had soup cans
lashing wired to it, to cover up the holes. It landed on the garage
floor in pieces. We looked at each other shaking our heads and
laughing. “What a cheap ole cobber Gramps is,” Joslyn said with a
sigh. She dug through her pile of stock car parts and found an old
cherry bomb muffler and a straight pipe. She held it up to show me
and grinned.
“Oh yeah,” I said laughing. I went over to the parts shelf, got her
some clamps and we proceeded to fix Gramp’s exhaust problem. When we
were done, I let the lift down and the ole Ford creaked like a
dinosaur skeleton. Jos got in and tried to shut the door. She had to
lift and slam it at the same time, to get the door to latch. When
she did, the glove box fell open, spilling out a pile of papers.
Joslyn then proceeded to put them back and noticed they were all
traffic tickets. Thirty four in all, ranging from turning left on a
red light, to speeding. Maybe souping up his exhaust, wasn’t such a
good idea. We decided not to tell Grandma and see what Devon thought
we should do. Before Jos backed Grandpa’s truck out, I duct taped
his tail light in place and gave her the thumbs up. The cherry bomb
muffler made a mellow rumble, as she eased the dinosaur out of the
garage.
We went inside the office to chat with Gramp for a while. Uncle Rod
pulled out of the driveway, gave us a beep and was off.
“How’s the Mustang coming along?” asked Grandpa. Joslyn told him
what we lacked to finish the job. “Well… back where I grew up,
there’s a place called Black Bear Ridge. There’s an old junk yard up
there and if I recall correctly, there’s a couple of old Mustangs in
that pile of scrap. Probably if we took a couple of four wheelers up
there, we could find ‘em. More than likely they ain’t fastbacks, but
what parts ya need; it won’t matter.”
“Really?” I asked in amazement.
“Yeah,” nodded Grandpa.
I went up to Mom and Dad’s house and loaded up two four wheelers.
Grabbed a backpack and headed back to meet Grandpa at the
dealership. Jos grabbed what tools I’d need and loaded them into the
backpack, along with a couple sodas. She was excited, that we might
be able to get the parts. “Don’t forget that I’m leaving for Dover
tonight, won’t be back until Monday morning,” she said.
We could hear Gramps coming up the road with his new muffler,
sounded like Daytona. He came squealing into the parking lot and
parked out back. As he walked over to my Hummer, Jos gave him
another hug.
“Be careful, Old Fart,” she giggled, as Grandpa crawled into the
passenger’s seat. She reached in, buckled the old geezer in and we
were off.
It was about fifty miles, to this place Grandpa called Black Bear
Ridge. Out in the boonies, on some ole cow path, that I’m sure no
one has traveled on since he was here as a kid . We stopped and I
unloaded the four wheelers. As I grabbed my backpack, I instructed
Gramp on how to operate the machine. I knew he had had a motorcycle
license since he was seventeen… but… well, you know Gramps. He put
it into first gear and popped a little wheelie and gave me that
shit-eatin’ grin of his. I just shook my head and motioned him to
lead the way. His driving off road wasn’t much better than his city
driving. I had to stay back a distance, because he was shooting
gravel and swatting me with branches.
When we arrived at the end of the trail, there was nothing but brush
and briers. “We’ll have to hike from here,” said Gramps. After
fifteen minutes of hell and giving up a quart of blood to the
prickers, we started to stumble onto some cars. I jumped up onto the
roof of an old Buick and could see a fairly large junk yard. To the
right of me was a deep ravine, with a winding river running through
it.
“See any Mustangs? “Asked Gramps.
“There’s one over the bank about fifty yards ahead,” I told him. We
worked our way to it and found out by the VIN number it was a ‘68.
The nose of the car was facing up the steep embankment and
surrounded by brush. I told Grandpa, “maybe if we took both tail
lights and installed them on Mom’s car; no one would notice they
were a different year.” He thought that was a good idea.
“The same with the mirrors,” said Grandpa. I worked on taking out
the grill and Gramps proceeded to pry the trunk open, to get to the
tail lights. I could hear him grunt’n and cuss’n and finally, I saw
the trunk open up. However, when it did, out came a big swarm of
white faced bees. He swatted and swore a few seconds, then tumbled
down the steep grade and disappeared. I swiftly got away from the
car and worked my way down the steep terrain.
“Grandpa, are ya OK?” I yelled! I repeated it several times, but got
no reply. Now I was getting worried. I kept working my way until I
was directly below the Mustang. I could see where he had tumbled
through the bushes. I followed the path about ten or fifteen feet,
to the edge of a small cliff. I hung onto a young sapling and leaned
over the cliff, to get a better look. Sure enough there was Grandpa,
lying on a pile of rocks about thirty feet below. “Grandpa, can you
hear me?” I yelled. Still there was no reply. I sat there for a
minute, thinking about what I should do. It would be dark in about
an hour. The Conservation Dept. had released wolves in the
northeast, to help control the varmint problem. If I left to get
help, it would be dark long before I could get back. The
possibilities of wolves, coyotes, or the occasional bear were
likelihood. I couldn’t take a chance on Grandpa being their supper.
The first thing that I had to do was to get down there and see if he
had a pulse.
I had to go down stream about a quarter mile, to get around the
cliff. When I got to Grandpa, there were two chipmunks sitting on
his chest, pulling peanuts from his shirt pocket. I knew this was a
serious situation, but I couldn’t help but laugh. As I got closer
they scurried off. He had an awful gash on his head and from the
position he was laying, it was apparent that his right leg was
broken. His pulse was weak, but at least he was alive. I took my T-
shirt off and tore it into strips. I bandaged Gramps head and made a
splint for his leg. He had several welts on him from the bee stings.
I rolled over a small rock and dug up some mud, which I applied to
the swollen mounds on his face, arms and neck. The bank was too
steep to get him back up to the trail. Our only chance of getting
out was to follow the river. My guess was that we were about three
miles from the main highway.
I was going to have to make a stretcher and drag Grandpa down the
river bed, to the highway. However, in order to do that, I would
need some of the tools from the backpack. I made Grandpa as
comfortable as I could. He was still unconscious and I was having a
hard time keeping cool, calm and collected.
It took me about twenty minutes to get back in front of the Mustang,
where I had left the backpack. The bees had quieted down by now, so
I gently took the backpack and headed away from the vehicle. I
searched the backpack for my cell phone, even though I knew it was
lying on my desk. Grandpa never had one; he could barely operate a
toaster.
I came across an old Chevy Corvair, with the hood missing. It was
the only rear engine model that Chevy made in the sixties. Taking a
pair of pliers, I reached in and stripped some of the wiring
harness. I figured I could use that to tie the stretcher together. I
opened the door and checked for bees. It looked safe, so I proceeded
to take out the bottom half of the back seat. I tugged at it a
couple of times and it finally came loose. As I pulled it out, a big
fat garden snake slithered across my forearm, making me jump and
scream like a girl. It’s a good thing Grandpa didn’t see that, he’da
pissed himself laughing. I got the seat out of the car and decided
to take my pocket knife and skin the material for my stretcher. I
figured I’d better get back to Grandpa; the sun was already starting
to set.
When I reached Grandpa I finished making the stretcher, by lashing
the material to two dead branches. As I went to roll him onto the
stretcher, I noticed more peanut shucks were on his belly. I
searched his flannel shirt and took what was left and put them in my
backpack. Who knows how long we’re gonna be here? I lifted the end
of the stretcher, closest to his head and started down the bank
towards the river. Once at the bottom, I splashed a little water on
Grandpa’s face. There was still no response. I made him comfortable
once more and checked his pulse again. He was still alive.
It was starting to cool off, so I decided to collect some fire wood.
On my way back with my second arm full, I looked upstream at Gramp.
About twenty feet from him, was the hugest black bear that I’ve ever
seen. He was about seven hundred pounds. His muzzle was grayish and
his coat was dull. At first I was stunned and slowly dropped the
fire wood on the ground. I bent down and picked up one piece for a
club and never took my eyes off of the bear. The monster kind of
wandered toward Grandpa with his snout in the air. He was sniffing
around; first left, right and in front. I decided to see what he was
going to do, before charging him. The bear eased his way up to Gramp
and sniffed him all over. He took his nose and gently nudged
Grandpa, as if to wake him up. The bear didn’t have any more luck
waking him, than I did. The head of this creature was enormous. It
was as wide as Grandpa’s torso was long. He sniffed Grandpa a little
more, then stuck his long tongue into the left side of his flannel
shirt and retrieved a candy bar. “How did I miss that? I asked
myself. It must have been in his T-shirt pocket. The bear sat there
on his rump, enjoying his Milky Way. Then it dawned on me, the bear
was sitting like a panda. The crazy story that Grandma had told me
years ago about Bozo was going through my head. The caramel was
sticking to his teeth. He made some funny faces and pawed both sides
of his snout. Then he nudged Gramp a couple more times. After a few
minutes the bear gave up and wandered over to the river. I watched
as he splashed around in a deep hole and pulled out about a twenty-
two inch rainbow trout. The trout was thrashing, but the bear didn’t
have much trouble holding it in his huge jaws. He wandered back to
Grandpa and dropped it next to him. The fish flopped around for a
few seconds and then expired. The bear stuck his head up in the air
and made a loud snort. The air was cool enough to see his breath. He
then turned and disappeared into brush.
I picked up the fire wood and walked to Gramp. I found some dry
grass and twigs. As I lit the fire, I was thankful that Uncle Rod
had given me the lighter earlier in the day. Once the fire was
going, I picked up the trout. By now it was a little sticky, not
slimy. I thought to myself, that it was a nice gesture that the bear
made with the fish, but I’d rather have the candy bar. However, I
cleaned the fish with my pocket knife and washed it in the river. I
didn’t take the skin off with the pliers like Grandpa usually does.
I figured that I would need something to hold the meat together,
while cooking it.
I had my back to Grandpa while I was cooking the trout on a stick.
“How the hell did ya catch that?” I bout jumped outta my skin. The
ole man was awake. I gave him a smile and told him the story.
“Yeah, right,” Gramps said sarcastically. “I might’a been born at
night, but it wasn’t last night! Yer story tellen is getting as good
as mine!” he said, shaking his head. As hard as I tried, he didn’t
believe me. So finally I let it go.

He asked me to help him sit up. He groaned in pain when I did;

because think he has some broken ribs. He took off his flannel shirt
and handed it to me. “Thanks, Gramps,” I said shivering. I was
freezing with no shirt on. Of course his shirt was five sizes too
big. He had large shoulders and Jos always picked on him about his
Buddha Belly.
“Ya might think them six pack abs are somethin’. But ya ain’t a man
till ya got a keg,” he said rubbing his tummy. It was good to see
him joking.
We ate the trout and washed it down with the soda, which Jos had put
in the backpack. We also had a few peanuts for desert. The fish
tasted better than I’d thought it would.
By now, Grandma must be worrying about where Grandpa was. “Did ya
leave a note telling Gram where we were going?” I asked?
“Umm… nope,” replied Gramp. “But I’m sure Joslyn will tell her.”
“Umm… I don’t think so! She was headed for Dover to the races,” I
said. Tipping my head to one side with my hand on my chin, as if to
hint that he should had left Gram a note.
“Where is your cell phone? Mr. High-Tech, Can’t Live Without My,
Blue-Tooth, Black-Berry, Video-Gaming, Computer-Contraption,
grandson? Did you leave your Mom and Dad a note?” he added.
“Oh… that’s good Gramps! You ain’t named one thing, that hasn’t been
outdated for at least ten years,” I giggled. “My phone is still on
my desk where I left it, and no, I did not leave Mom a note!”
“Great! Now we’re probably grounded,” whined Grandpa. “Like I ain’t
got enough problems, with all those traffic tickets,” he mumbled.
“Yeah, what’s up with that?” I asked in a gentle, concerned voice.
“Oh, it’s that damn new deputy Johnson…Johnston, or whatever his
name is. He pulled me over about two weeks ago, acting like somebody
pissed in his cornflakes. He then told me, “I don’t appreciate a
piece of shit like this on my highway,” (referring to the ole
Ranger).

I told him, “Yeah, well my grandson is a cop and he doesn’t like it

either. But ya know somethin’? There ain’t nutt’n either one of you
can do about it!” He then proceeded to write some tickets. After he
handed me five, I flipped him the bird and spun outta there.
Unfortunately, I ran over his foot, and that pissed him off even
more. He pulled me over again and gave me about five more tickets. I
flipped him off again, but this time he was smart enough to step
back away from the vehicle. After that, every time I meet him on the
road, I’d flip him the bird and get a couple more tickets to the
policeman’s ball. A few times it wasn’t him, but his coworkers were
kind enough to write tickets of their own.”
I just looked at him with an irritated stare.
“What? … He started it!” whined Gramps.
About then you could hear footsteps trotting along the gravel river
bed, followed by an eerie howl. Within minutes, we were surrounded
by wolves. “They don’t like fire,” said Gramps. I pulled a stick
from the fire, to see how many of them there were. I counted nine
sets of eyes. The alpha jumped up onto a large piece of drift wood,
as the others started to circle us. The alpha started growling and
showing his teeth. The others soon followed suit. Grandpa pulled out
his jackknife. It wasn’t an easy task, considering the shape he was
in.
“Hand me a couple of those long sticks,” he said pointing to pile of
firewood. I handed him the straightest ones that I could find. He
sharpened the spears and handed one to me. We sat back to back and
waited as the wolves circled and paced. They kept howling, trying to
call for more warriors, but they summoned the wrong beast.
It was the loudest roar that you could imagine. Like a runaway
freight train at top speed, out of the bushes he appeared. When he
got to the center of the ring with us, he was on his hind legs,
towering at least eight feet tall. It was like he knew who was the
alpha and that without him, they were nothing. The alpha lunged off
of the driftwood at the bear’s neck, trying for the jugular. With
one swipe the bear threw the hundred pound canine against the rocky
ravine wall. Without missing a beat the wolf was back attacking,
with some of his posse as well. I jumped up with my spear to help
the bear.
“Stay out of it!” Gramps yelled, grabbing a hold of my pant leg.
Though the bear was getting bit, his hide was probably too thick for
the wolves to hurt him much. The alpha now was bleeding from his
side. You could see streaks where the razor sharp claws had slit him
open. After a few minutes, the alpha retreated and the others
followed, disappearing into the night.
The bear stayed on his hind feet for a little bit, looking in the
direction that the deserters had left. When he returned to all
fours, he glanced over at Gramps. I know this sounds crazy … but the
look on the bears face was, “That’ll teach them to mess with my
pet!” All I could think of was Grandma’s story. I thought, “Could a
black bear live twenty six years? Would he migrate fifty miles?
Would he remember Gramp’s scent?” They were such outrageous
questions, that I didn’t dare to ask Grandpa. After a bit, the bear
walked slowly to the other side of the river. He scratched his back
on a tree, then laid down and went to sleep.
I’d sleep for about twenty minutes at a time, stoke the fire and
check on Grandpa and the bear. It was a long night and the
temperatures got down in the mid-thirties. I don’t know who snores
worse; Gramp’s or the bear.
I awoke to the sounds of splashing and groaning. It was the bear
taking a morning dip in the river. When he got out he rubbed his
snout on a log and then shook off like a wet dog. The spray made a
light rainbow in the morning sunlight. I watched as he turned over
rocks and pawed out crayfish with his mammoth paws. He was crunching
them down like pork rinds.
I looked at my watch and it was about six thirty. I shook Grandpa a
little to wake him up. He opened up one eye and said, “Go back to
sleep Wood Cracker.” When I was two years old I mistakenly told
Gramps there was a Wood Cracker in his back yard. He knew I meant
Woodpecker, but he has never cut me any slack about it. However, if
he could remember that, then his concussion may not be too bad.
“C’mon, Gramps, we got to get moving,” I told him. He tried to
stretch and the painful look on his face was heart wrenching.
“What’s yer plan Sonny?” he asked, holding onto his ribs.
“I’m gonna pull you on this stretcher, down the riverbed to the
highway,” I explained.
“Well … I’m mighty proud of you for wanting to do that for me,
Kiddo… But I think you might better leave me here in paradise, find
your four wheeler and get some help,” he groaned.
“What about the wolves?” I questioned.
“They ain’t gonna bother me in the daylight. Besides I got my
bodyguard over there,” he said, pointing to the bear.
“What if your bodyguard gets hungry and eats your sorry ass?” I
asked in a concerned voice.
“He ain’t gonn’a eat me. If he was, he would have done it long
before now,” growled Gramp.
“Well he probably figures yer so old, that ya would taste like
crap,” I said with a snicker.
He looked at me and smiled. “Now ya sound like Devon,” and gave me
the finger. I got him comfortable again, took the soda bottles to a
small stream that came down the wall of the ravine. I filled them
with fresh spring water and set them next to Gramp. I told him to
take a nap and I would be back with help soon. I gave him a hug and
told him I loved him.
“Love you too, Kid… Be careful,” he said, and he gave me a wink.
It took me until nine o’clock to find the four wheelers. As I headed
back towards the highway, I beeped the horn a few times, hoping
Grandpa could hear me. I worked my way down the rugged trail, making
sure I made no mistakes. Grandpa’s life was in my hands.
When I reached my Hummer, I fired it up and headed down highway 12,
to the nearest payphone. It was a small store, kind of dirty and run
down. The payphone was dead, so I slammed down the receiver and
cussed. About that time, an elderly woman came to the screen door.
“What’s the matter, Child?” she asked.
I told her that I had an emergency and I needed to use a phone
badly.
“Well, come on in here, Hon. You can use my phone,” she said,
holding the door open for me.
“Thank you, I appreciate it,” I said in a sincere voice. As I walked
into the store all, I could think of was the movie, “Deliverance.”
Dirty wood floors, a table with a checker board set up; all it
lacked was dueling banjoes.
“The phone’s there on the counter Sweetie,” she smiled. I wished she
didn’t do that! I think she had three teeth and they weren’t very
close together. Matter of fact, I think she was scarier than the
bear that I had spent last night with. I dialed Devon’s number.
(Yeah, dialed is what I said! 2030 and this place still has a dial
phone! What the hell is this, the Twilight Zone?) Believe it or not,
Devon picked up the phone.
“State Police, how I can help you?” the voice said.
“Dev, it’s me! I need help!”
“Where the hell are you? Is Gramp with ya?” asked Devon.
I proceeded to tell him what had happened. He told me to go back to
the entrance of the trail and wait for him. He said he would take
care of everything, but it would take about two hours to get a
search and rescue team there.
“Just wait for me there, Cuz,” Dev ordered.
When I hung up the phone, the woman looked really concerned. “Where
yer Grandpa is, there is a killer bear in them parts,” she said.
“Nobody… I mean even experienced hunters won’t go up there!” she
exclaimed. She was still going on when I handed her a ten and
thanked her for the use of the phone. As I left, I became more and
more worried about Gramp and that damn bear.
It was one thirty when I heard the first siren. Shortly after,
several State Police vehicles arrived. They had four wheelers, chain
saws, ropes, stretchers, etc. Including Devon, three State Troopers
and two medics followed me to the end of the trail on four wheelers.
I showed them how to get around the cliff, but they just tied off
and rappelled down over it like spiders. I, on the other hand, went
around the cliff.
When I got there, they already had an IV set up. Gramps was asking
if it was steak and lobster?
The medic smiled and asked if he wanted fries with that?
I bent down and whispered to Grandpa, “Where is the bear?”
He put his finger to his lips, for me to be quiet. Devon was
relieved to see that we were sort of ok. Gramps wasn’t out of the
woods yet. (No pun intended.) After the medics got Gramp stabilized,
they hauled his chubby ass up over the cliff. Dev told Grandpa they
should have left him there a few more days; he wouldn’t have weighed
so much. I know Gramp would have flipped him off, but they had his
hands strapped down to his sides. When we got to highway, there was
an ambulance waiting for us, along with Mom, Dad, Grandma, my
girlfriend and the rest of our dysfunctional family.
Uncle Rube and Dad took my four-wheeler to the end of the trail and
retrieved the four-wheeler that Grandpa was using. Meanwhile, Mom
lectured me about not leaving her a note.
The ambulance took Grandpa to the hospital. I went to my
girlfriend’s house showered, ate and passed out.
The next morning we met Devon at the town diner for breakfast. We
had been there only a few minutes, when Joslyn came and joined us.
“Thought you weren’t coming back until Monday?” I asked.
“Dev called me last night,” she said.
Jos told Devon about the tickets in Grandpa’s glove box. I then told
them about Sherriff Johnston. Jos rolled her eyes and Dev spit his
coffee out through his nose.
“I might have a little pull,” he said while cleaning up his coffee.
“For crying out loud, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get him out
of thirty four tickets!” explained Dev.
After breakfast we proceeded to the hospital to see Grandpa. When we
arrived at his room, Gram was sitting in a chair crocheting and
Gramps was in bed snoring. We each gave Gram a hug and asked how he
was.
Grandma said, “They had to put him to sleep and re-break his leg, to
set it. He has three broken ribs and a good sized gash on his head.
Oh yeah… and he apparently has brain damage, because he ain’t smart
enough to leave me a note to tell me where he is!”
Dev snickered, (he loves it when Grandpas is in the dog house.)
It was Sunday morning when Jos and I showed up at Devon’s house,
with two four wheelers and a dirt bike. We told Dev, that we had
bought some bee spray and that we were going back to Black Bear
Ridge to get the Mustang parts. This time Jos told Uncle Rod where
we were headed and Dev told his mom. I, however, could not tell my
mom because it would ruin her birthday secret.
We piled into the Hummer, Jos sat on the console and Dev rode
shotgun. Every time Dev would try to change the radio station, Jos
would smack his hand. When we arrived at the bottom of Black Bear
Ridge, we unloaded the ATVs and gear. I went to the back of the
Hummer and took out a twenty-five pound bag of sunflower seeds and
strapped it to the back of the four-wheeler.
They looked at me kind of weird. “You’ll see,” I said with a grin.
We rode to the top of the ridge. The briers were sort of flattened
down, from all the traffic made while getting Grandpa out of there.
We
were able to reach the junk yard without hiking.
We told Jos to stay back, while we sprayed for bees. Most of the
bees had moved on, because the open trunk did not make a safe haven
for them. We selected our parts and attached them to the luggage
racks of the ATVs.
Jos took three beers out of her cooler, handed one to Dev and one to
me. We led Jos down the slope and showed her where Gramp fell over
the cliff.
“Holy cow!” screeched Jos. “It’s a wonder he’s still alive!” she
exclaimed.
“Well, he probably landed on that hard head of his,” joked Dev. We
all giggled and shook our head yes.
“Hey, I almost forgot. Stay here for a few minutes. I’m not sure
this is going to work, but just watch for me down where the campfire
was,” I said. Jos and Dev sat on the cliff with their legs hanging
over, while I went back to my ATV.
I threw the sack of sunflower seeds over my shoulder and headed
downstream to get around the cliff. After about ten minutes I
arrived at the campsite on the floor of the ravine. When I looked up
to see if they could see me, Joslyn waved to me. I then put my
finger on my lips, for them to be quiet.
“Bozo! … C’mon Bozo! I yelled repeatedly. I tore open the top of the
bag of seeds and yelled for him some more. I was just about to give
up, when I heard some branches snapping.
We could hear the sound of rocks clunking together and a few
splashes in the river. Finally, from around a bush, he came
wandering out. He slowly walked towards me, stopping once in a while
to sniff the air. He could tell I wasn’t alone.
I bent down and patted the sides of the seed sack. “C’mon Bozo these
are for you,” I said in a gentle reassuring voice. He wandered over
to me in full sight of Jos and Dev. I could hear Jos gasp, “Oh…MY
…God!” The enormous bear laid down on his stomach, with both front
paws straddling the seeds. Without hesitation he began chowing down
his meal. His eyes would close, making expressions of enjoyment.
I wanted to give him a big hug, but I knew that a wild animal could
turn on you in a heartbeat.
“This is for saving mine and Grandpa’s life,” I told him. As I
turned and walked away, I thought to myself, “Grandma’s right … I’m
his pet!” Bozo let out a snort and I glanced back. He looked at me
and raised his nose up and down, as if to say good-bye.
“Good-bye Boy,” I whispered.
It was a quiet ride going back home. I told Dev and Jos the whole
story of what had happened. When we came back for Gramp, he had told
me to be quiet about the bear. I wasn’t sure if it was because he
thought no one would believe us, or he did it to protect Bozo. Funny
thing … I myself, wasn’t sure if it was a dream, or if it had really
happened …until I saw Bozo today.
That evening, we all went to Grandpa and Grandma’s house to visit.
Grandpa and Mom were on the back deck. Gramp was sitting in a lawn
chair, letting chipmunks run up and down his cast, while he feed
them peanuts. He had them all named and swore he could tell them
apart by their personalities. However, I don’t think he had a clue.
“Ya know Gramp, New York probably didn’t have a varmint problem,
before you started feeding them all,” joked Dev.
“Just like his father, ain’t he?” Mom smiled looking at Gramp.
Gramp snickered, “He’s a chip off the ole block”.
Jos, Dev and I proceeded in to see Grandma. She was in the living
room crocheting. Dev stopped to see what was in the fridge.
“There are cookies on the counter,” Gram yelled. Dev and I raced and
shoved each other to get to them first.
“Will they ever grow up, Gram?” asked Jos shaking her head.
“Honey, look at yer Grandpa,” Gram sighed. Then they both laughed.
Dev came in the small living room and flopped down in Gramp’s
recliner. I sat on the arm, as Jos walked over and took a photo
album from the book shelf. She then curled up on the couch next to
Gram and opened it up.
“Gram, would you tell us the story about the bear again?” she asked.
This time, we all listened closer than ever before.
She looked over her glasses and smiled. “Well… you know our backyard
is like an animal sanctuary…
 KALINGA COLLEGES OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, INC.
Purok 5, Bulanao, Tabuk City, Kalinga

PORTFOLIO IN LITERARY CRITICISM

SUBMITTED TO:
Ma’am AIGELETH LOIS LUCOB ABBACAN

SUBMITTED BY:
HARLEY AMBASING
 “WHO I AM IN LIFE”
My name is Harley A. Amabasing, I was born on a warm sunny day
in September 04, 1996 in Poblacion, Balbalan, Kalinga. I’m 20 years
of age my parents are Mr. Levy A. Ambasing and Mrs. Inocencia
Ambasing they are all from Balbalan. They blessed with four child I
am the second child among of them. In this moment I live with my
husband, Jess De Jesus also from Balbalan. He is very supportive and
he would do anything for me. I’m here to study because I would like
to pursue my ambition for my successful life in the future.

“WHAT LIFE MEAN TO ME”

Life to me means friends and family who you can trust and
who trusts you.
“Life is no simply to exist, to survive, but to move
ahead, to go up, to achieve and to conquer.”