Mr. Stallings' Eighth Grade English



1342900Short StoriesCollege Prep EditionTable of ContentsWhat Is a Short Story?"The Jigsaw Puzzle" by J.B. StamperLiterary Focus: Plot"Charles" by Shirley JacksonLiterary Focus: Foreshadowing"Three-Ten to Yuma" by Elmore LeonardLiterary Focus: Suspense"Marionettes, Inc." by Ray BradburyLiterary Focus: Conflict"Princess" by Nicholasa MohrLiterary Focus: Climax and Resolution"Good Morning" by Mark HagerLiterary Focus: Irony"Mama's Missionary Money" by Chester HimesLiterary Focus: Character and Characterization“Denton’s Daughter” by Ellen LowenbergLiterary Focus: Round and Flat Characters"Fire!" by John D. MacDonaldLiterary Focus: Static and Dynamic Characters"To Serve Man" Damon KnightLiterary Focus: Motivation"Christmas in Brooklyn" by Betty SmithLiterary Focus: Setting"The Storm" by McKnight MalmarLiterary Focus: Atmosphere"Raymond's Run" by Toni Cade BambaraLiterary Focus: First-Person Point of View"A Secret for Two" by Quentin ReynoldsLiterary Focus: Third-Person Point of View"Three Questions" by Leo TolstoyLiterary Focus: Theme"Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel KeyesLiterary Focus: The Total EffectWhat Is a Short Story?A short story is a brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and usually deals with only a few characters. It can generally be read in one sitting.Small as it is, a short story can contain almost anything. For example, a story can show us events that remind us of our own lives and introduce us to people and places that we recognize. On the other hand, a story can take us to fantastic lands where people and events are like nothing we have ever known before. In either case, a story always communicates ideas about life and human nature.A short story may consist of some or all of the elements in the graphic organizer below. These are the events, people, places, and ideas that an author uses to create a fictional world. Each element has its own role in a story. In most good stories the elements work together so closely that we often cannot talk about one without also mentioning the others. This combination of elements forms a story’s total effect, or the overall impression that a story creates in our minds. We will examine each element in detail throughout this textbook.With every work of literature we read, we must answer three questions: 1) What does it say? This involves accurately interpreting the words and sentences in the story. If there are words we don’t understand, we must learn them. If there are sentences or paragraphs that make no sense, we must break them down until they do. 2) What does it mean? Answering this question means understanding the events and other story elements that the author is trying to communicate. It means pulling together the smaller components -- like the brush strokes of a painting -- until we can see the larger picture or scene that the writer has created. This may involve analyzing various aspects of the story until we can say that we actually comprehend it.3) What does it matter? Truly great stories change us in some way by revealing to us a previously hidden truth about life that we failed to see, by emphasizing a truth about human nature that we often overlook, or by challenging us to see these truths from a different perspective.Many short stories can bring us the most simplistic form of reading pleasure, which is “wish fulfillment” -- putting ourselves in the position of the characters and acting out some fantasy that we are unable to in real life. Other stories can provide us with stretches of entertainment and leave us with a feeling of delight. But for a story to truly be called “literature,” it must transform us in some way, large or small. If we put down a story with the realization that we may never be the same again, we may properly call it a work of literature.As you read the following short stories, think about what their effect is on you, keeping in mind that to give the story a chance to work its magic, you must be an active reader who engages with the text, not a passive reader who simply tries to understand the basic meaning in order to pass a quiz. Be receptive. Submerge yourself in the story’s world. Do not reject a story because you don’t like the characters, it doesn’t end the way you like, there’s not enough action, or the theme differs with your already-held opinions. Allow the story to reveal a brand-new vision to you. In this way you will have a deeper, more moving, and more profound reading experience than ever before.This is how we learn to truly enjoy literature. The Jigsaw Puzzleby ?J.B. Stamper19051190500Judith Bauer Stamper is the author of the Tales for the Midnight Hour series of books. She has also written Polar Bear Patrol and Night Frights. “The Jigsaw Puzzle” (1977) is a work of horror, a genre of fiction whose purpose is to create feelings of fear, dread, repulsion, and terror in the audience. The term’s definition emphasizes the reaction caused by horror, stemming from the Old French word “orror,” meaning “to shudder or to bristle.”It was on the top shelf of an old bookcase, covered with dust and barely visible. Lisa decided she had to find out what it was. Of all the things in the old junk shop, it aroused her curiosity most. She had looked through old books, prints, and postcards for years. Nothing had caught her interest. Now the old box, high and out of reach, intrigued her.She looked around for the old man who ran the store. But he had gone into the back room. She saw a stepladder across the room and brought it over to the bookcase. It shook on the uneven floorboards as she climbed to the top step.Lisa patted her hand along the surface of the top shelf, trying to find the box. The dirt was thick and gritty on the board. Then she touched the box. It was made of cardboard. The cardboard was cold and soft from being in the damp room for such a long time. She lifted the box slowly, trying to steady her balance on the stepladder.As the side of the box reached her eye level, she could read the words: 500 PIECESShe sat the box down on top of the stepladder and climbed down a few steps. Then she blew away some of the dust that had accumulated on the lid. It billowed up around her with a musty, dead odor. But now she could make out a few more words on top of the box:THE STRANGEST JIGSAW PUZZLE IN THE WORLDThere were other words underneath that, but they had been rubbed off the cardboard lid. The big picture on the cover had been curiously damaged. Lisa could make out areas of light and dark. It looked as though the scene might be in a room. But most of the picture had been scratched off the cardboard box, probably by a sharp instrument.The mysterious nature of the jigsaw puzzle made it even more appealing to Lisa. She decided she would buy it. The lid was taped down securely; that probably meant that all the pieces would be there. As she carefully climbed down the stepladder, holding the box in both hands, Lisa smiled to herself. It was quite the sort of thing she had always hoped to discover while rummaging through secondhand stores.Mr. Tuborg, the owner of the store, came out of the back room as she was walking up to his sales desk. He looked curiously at the box when Lisa set it down."And where did you find that?" he asked her.Lisa pointed to where she had set up the stepladder. "It was on top of that bookcase. You could barely see it from the floor.""Well, I've never seen it before, that's for sure," Mr.Tuborg said. "Can't imagine how you found it."Lisa was more pleased than ever about her find. She felt as though the puzzle had been hiding up there, waiting for her to discover it. She paid Mr. Tuborg the twenty-five cents he asked for the puzzle and then wrapped it carefully in the newspapers he gave her to take it home in.As soon as she had climbed the flight of stairs to her room, Lisa cleaned off the big table in the center of the room. She set the box down on it.THE STRANGEST JIGSAW PUZZLE IN THE WORLDLisa read the words again. She wondered what they could mean. How strange could a jigsaw puzzle be? The tape that held the lid down was still strong. Lisa got out a kitchen knife to slice through it. When she lifted the cover off the box, a musty smell came from inside. But the jigsaw pieces all looked in good condition. Lisa picked one up. The color was faded, but the picture was clear. She could see the shape of a finger in the piece. It looked like a woman's finger. Lisa sat down and started to lay out the pieces, top-side up, on the large table. As she took them from the box, she sorted out the flat-edged pieces from the inside pieces. Every so often, she would recognize something in one of the pieces. She saw some blond hair, a windowpane, and a small vase.There was a lot of wood texture in the pieces, plus what looked like wallpaper. Lisa noticed that the wallpaper in the puzzle looked a lot like the wallpaper in her own room. She wondered if her wallpaper was as old as the jigsaw puzzle. It would be an incredible coincidence, but it could be the same. By the time Lisa had all the pieces laid out on the table, it was 6:30. She got up and made herself a sandwich. Already, her back was beginning to hurt a little from leaning over the table. But she couldn't stay away from the puzzle. She went back to the table and set her sandwich down beside her. It was always like that when she did jigsaws. Once she started, she couldn't stop until the puzzle was all put together.She began to sort out the edge pieces according to their coloring. There were dark brown pieces, whitish pieces, the wallpaper pieces, and some pieces that seemed to be like glass--perhaps a window. As she slowly ate her sandwich, Lisa pieced together the border. When she was finished, she knew she had been right about the setting of the picture when she had first seen the puzzle. It was a room. One side of the border was wallpaper. Lisa decided to fill that in first. She was curious about its resemblance to her own wallpaper.28194001000125She gathered all the pieces together that had the blue and lilac flowered design. As she fit the pieces together, it became clear that the wallpaper in the puzzle was identical to the wallpaper in her room. Lisa glanced back and forth between the puzzle and her wall. It was an exact match.By now it was 8:30. Lisa leaned back in her chair.Her back was stiff. She looked over at her window. The night was black outside. Lisa got up and walked over to the window. Suddenly, she felt uneasy, alone in the apartment. She pulled the white shade over the window.She paced around the room once, trying to think of something else she might do other than finish the puzzle. But nothing else interested her. She went back and sat down at the table.Next she started to fill in the lower right-hand corner. There was a rug and then a chair. This part of the puzzle was very dark. Lisa noticed uneasily that the chair was the same shape as one sitting in the corner of her room. But the colors didn't seem exactly the same. Her chair was maroon. The one in the puzzle was in the shadows and seemed almost black.Lisa continued to fill in the border toward the middle. There was more wallpaper to finish on top. The left-hand side did turn out to be a window. Through it, a half moon hung in a dark sky. But it was the bottom on the puzzle that began to bother Lisa. As the pieces fell into place, she saw a picture of a pair of legs, crossed underneath a table. They were the legs of a young woman. Lisa reached down and ran her hand along one of her legs. Suddenly, she had felt as though something was crawling up it, but it must have been her imagination.She stared down at the puzzle. It was almost three quarters done. Only the middle remained. Lisa glanced at the lid to the puzzle box: THE STRANGEST JIGSAW…She shuddered.Lisa leaned back in her chair again. Her back ached. Her neck muscles were tense and strained. She thought about quitting the puzzle. It scared her now.She stood up and stretched. Then she looked down at the puzzle on the table. It looked different from the higher angle. Lisa was shocked by what she saw. Her body began to tremble all over. It was unmistakable---the picture in the puzzle was of her own room. The window was placed correctly in relation to the table. The bookcase stood in its exact spot against the wall. Even the carved table legs were the same....Lisa raised her hand to knock the pieces of the puzzle apart. She didn't want to finish the strangest jigsaw puzzle in the world; she didn't want to find out what the hole in the middle of the puzzle might turn out to be. But then she lowered her hand. Perhaps it was worse not to know. Perhaps it was worse to wait and wonder.Lisa sank back down into the chair at the table. She fought off the fear that crept into the sore muscles on her back. Deliberately, piece by piece, she began to fill in the hole in the puzzle. She put together a picture of a table, on which lay a jigsaw puzzle. This puzzle inside the puzzle was finished. But Lisa couldn't make out what it showed. She pieced together the young woman who was herself. As she filled in the picture, her own body slowly filled with horror and dread. It was all there in the picture ... the vase filled with blue cornflowers, her red cardigan sweater, the wild look of fear in her own face.The jigsaw puzzle lay before her---finished except for two adjoining pieces. They were dark pieces, ones she hadn't been able to fit into the area of the window. Lisa looked behind her. The white blind was drawn over her window. With relief, she realized that the puzzle picture was not exactly like her room. It showed the black night behind the window pane and a moon shining in the sky.With trembling hands, Lisa reached for the second to last piece. She dropped it into one of the empty spaces. It seemed to be half a face, but not a human face. She reached for the last piece. She pressed it into the small hole left in the picture.The face was complete---the face in the window. It was more horrible than anything she had ever seen, or dreamed. Lisa looked at the picture of herself in the puzzle and then back to that face.When she whirled around. The blind was no longer over her window. The night showed black through the windowpane. A half moon hung low in the sky.Lisa screamed.... The face ... it was there, too.Study Questions:Describe three mysterious things about the puzzle that are indicated before Lisa even takes it out of the store.Why doesn’t Lisa know what the picture on the puzzle is going to be?What unusual detail does Lisa notice as she begins working on the puzzle?When does Lisa realize that the picture in the puzzle is of her own room?What do you think might have happened is someone other than Lisa had taken the puzzle home? Why?Literary Focus: PlotIn a short story or novel, a plot is the sequence of events that make up the story. The plot basically is the story, and more specifically, how the story develops, unfolds, and moves in time. Plots are typically made up of five main elements:11143001. Exposition: At the beginning of the story, characters, setting, and the main conflict are typically introduced.2. Rising Action/Suspense: The main character is in crisis and events leading up to facing the conflict begin to unfold. The story becomes complicated.3. Climax: At the peak of the story, a major event occurs in which the main character faces a major enemy, fear, challenge, or other source of conflict. The most action, drama, change, and excitement occurs here.4. Falling Action: The story begins to slow down and work towards its end, tying up loose ends.5. Resolution: Also known as the denouement, the resolution is like a concluding paragraph that resolves any remaining issues and ends the story.These 5 elements are often represented like this:Plots, also sometimes called storylines, include the most significant events of the story and how the characters and their problems change over time.Example 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (By J. K. Rowling)The plot of this story begins when Harry learns that Professor Snape is after the Sorcerer’s Stone. The Professor lets loose a troll, who nearly kills Harry and his friends. In addition, Harry finds out that Hagrid let out the secret of the giant dog to a stranger in return for a dragon, which means that Snape can now reach the Sorcerer’s Stone.Example 2: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)With his Papa away on a cattle drive, 14-year-old Travis Coates gets help from a brave stray dog. Together, they defend the homestead and protect Travis’s mother and little brother. When a plague of hydrophobia threatens the family, Travis makes the difficult decision to kill Old Yeller.Question: In “The Jigsaw Puzzle,” what happens in the exposition? What happens to increase your suspense? What occurs at the climax? Does the story have any falling action or a resolution? If not, what does this tell you about short stories?Charlesby ?Shirley Jackson1200025Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) was an American writer, known primarily for her works of horror and mystery. Over the duration of her writing career, she composed six novels, two memoirs, and more than 200 short stories. Jackson gained significant public attention for her short story "The Lottery", which details a sinister underside to a tranquil American village. In 1959, she published The Haunting of Hill House, a supernatural horror novel widely considered to be one of the best ghost stories ever written. “Charles,” a story of suburban family life, was first published in Mademoiselle magazine in July 1948. The day my son Laurie started kindergarten he renounced corduroy overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt; I watched him go off the first morning with the older girl next door, seeing clearly that an era of my life was ended, my sweet-voiced nursery-school tot replaced by a long trousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave good-bye to me.He came home the same way, the front door slamming open, his cap on the floor, and the voice suddenly became raucous shouting, “Isn’t anybody here?”At lunch he spoke insolently to his father, spilled his baby sister’s milk, and remarked that his teacher said we were not to take the name of the Lord in vain. “How was school today?” I asked, elaborately casual.“All right,” he said.“Did you learn anything?” his father asked.Laurie regarded his father coldly. “I didn’t learn nothing,” he said.“Anything,” I said. “Didn’t learn anything”“The teacher spanked a boy, though,” Laurie said, addressing his bread and butter. “For being fresh,” he added, with his mouth full.“What did he do?” I asked. “Who was it?”Laurie thought. “It was Charles,” he said. “He was fresh. The teacher spanked him and made him stand in a corner. He was awfully fresh.”“What did he do?” I asked again, but Laurie slid off his chair, took a cookie, and left, while his father was still saying, “See here, young man.”The next day Laurie remarked at lunch, as soon as he sat down, “Well, Charles was bad again today.” He grinned enormously and said, “Today Charles hit the teacher.”“Good heavens,” I said, mindful of the Lord’s name, “I suppose he got spanked again?”“He sure did,” Laurie said. “Look up,” he said to his father.“What?” his father said, looking up.“Look down,” Laurie said. “Look at my thumb. Gee, you’re dumb.” He began to laugh insanely.“Why did Charles hit the teacher?” I asked quickly.“Because she tried to make him color with red crayons,” Laurie said. “Charles wanted to color with green crayons so he hit the teacher and she spanked him and said nobody play with Charles but everybody did.”The third day—it was Wednesday of the first week—Charles bounced a see-saw on to the head of a little girl and made her bleed, and the teacher made him stay inside all during recess. Thursday Charles had to stand in a corner during storytime because he kept pounding his feet on the floor. Friday Charles was deprived of blackboard privileges because he threw chalk.On Saturday I remarked to my husband, “Do you think kindergarten is too unsettling for Laurie? All this toughness, and bad grammar, and this Charles boy sounds like such a bad influence.”“It’ll be all right,” my husband said reassuringly. “Bound to be people like Charles in the world. Might as well meet them now as later.”On Monday Laurie came home late, full of news. “Charles,” he shouted as he came up the hill; I was waiting anxiously on the front steps. “Charles,” Laurie yelled all the way up the hill, “Charles was bad again.”“Come right in,” I said, as soon as he came close enough. “Lunch is waiting.”“You know what Charles did?” he demanded, following me through the door. “Charles yelled so in school they sent a boy in from first grade to tell the teacher she had to make Charles keep quiet, and so Charles had to stay after school. And so all the children stayed to watch him.”“What did he do?” I asked.“He just sat there,” Laurie said, climbing into his chair at the table. “Hi, Pop, y’old dust mop.”“Charles had to stay after school today,” I told my husband. “Everyone stayed with him.”“What does this Charles look like?” my husband asked Laurie. “What’s his other name?”“He’s bigger than me,” Laurie said. “And he doesn’t have any rubbers and he doesn’t ever wear a jacket.”Monday night was the first Parent-Teachers meeting, and only the fact that the baby had a cold kept me from going; I wanted passionately to meet Charles’s mother. On Tuesday Laurie remarked suddenly, “Our teacher had a friend come to see her in school today.”“Charles’s mother?” my husband and I asked simultaneously.“Naaah,” Laurie said scornfully. “It was a man who came and made us do exercises, we had to touch our toes. Look.” He climbed down from his chair and squatted down and touched his toes. “Like this,” he said. He got solemnly back into his chair and said, picking up his fork, “Charles didn’t even do exercises.”“That’s fine,” I said heartily. “Didn’t Charles want to do exercises?”“Naaah,” Laurie said. “Charles was so fresh to the teacher’s friend he wasn’t let do exercises.”“Fresh again?” I said. “He kicked the teacher’s friend,” Laurie said. “The teacher’s friend told Charles to touch his toes like I just did and Charles kicked him.”“What are they going to do about Charles, do you suppose?” Laurie’s father asked him. Laurie shrugged elaborately. “Throw him out of school, I guess,” he said.Wednesday and Thursday were routine; Charles yelled during story hour and hit a boy in the stomach and made him cry.On Friday Charles stayed after school again and so did all the other children.With the third week of kindergarten Charles was an institution in our family; the baby was being a Charles when she cried all afternoon; Laurie did a Charles when he filled his wagon full of mud and pulled it through the kitchen; even my husband, when he caught his elbow in the telephone cord and pulled telephone, ashtray, and a bowl of flowers off the table, said, after the first minute, “Looks like Charles.”During the third and fourth weeks it looked like a reformation in Charles; Laurie reported grimly at lunch on Thursday of the third week, “Charles was so good today the teacher gave him an apple.”“What?” I said, and my husband added warily, “You mean Charles?”“Charles,” Laurie said. “He gave the crayons around and he picked up the books afterward and the teacher said he was her helper.”“What happened?” I asked incredulously.“He was her helper, that’s all,” Laurie said, and shrugged.“Can this be true, about Charles?” I asked my husband that night. “Can something like this happen?”“Wait and see,” my husband said cynically. “When you’ve got a Charles to deal with, this may mean he’s only plotting.”He seemed to be wrong. For over a week Charles was the teacher’s helper; each day he handed things out and he picked things up; no one had to stay after school.“The P.T.A. meeting’s next week again,” I told my husband one evening. “I’m going to find Charles’s mother there.”“Ask her what happened to Charles,” my husband said. “I’d like to know.”“I’d like to know myself,” I said.3662363133424On Friday of that week things were back to normal. “You know what Charles did today?” Laurie demanded at the lunch table, in a voice slightly awed. “He told a little girl to say a word and she said it and the teacher washed her mouth out with soap and Charles laughed.”“What word?” his father asked unwisely, and Laurie said,“I’ll have to whisper it to you, it’s so bad.” He got down off his chair and went around to his father. His father bent his head down and Laurie whispered joyfully. His father’s eyes widened.“Did Charles tell the little girl to say that?” he asked respectfully.“She said it twice,” Laurie said. “Charles told her to say it twice.”“What happened to Charles?” my husband asked.“Nothing,” Laurie said. “He was passing out the crayons.”Monday morning Charles abandoned the little girl and said the evil word himself three or four times, getting his mouth washed out with soap each time. He also threw chalk.My husband came to the door with me that evening as I set out for the P.T.A. meeting. “Invite her over for a cup of tea after the meeting,” he said. “I want to get a look at her.”“If only she’s there,” I said prayerfully.“She’ll be there,” my husband said. “I don’t see how they could hold a P.T.A. meeting without Charles’s mother.”At the meeting I sat restlessly, scanning each comfortable matronly face, trying to determine which one hid the secret of Charles. None of them looked to me haggard enough. No one stood up in the meeting and apologized for the way her son had been acting. No one mentioned Charles.After the meeting I identified and sought out Laurie’s kindergarten teacher. She had a plate with a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate cake; I had a plate with a cup of tea and a piece of marshmallow cake. We maneuvered up to one another cautiously, and smiled.“I’ve been so anxious to meet you,” I said. “I’m Laurie’s mother.”“We’re all so interested in Laurie,” she said.“Well, he certainly likes kindergarten,” I said. “He talks about it all the time.”“We had a little trouble adjusting, the first week or so,” she said primly, “but now he’s a fine little helper. With occasional lapses, of course.”“Laurie usually adjusts very quickly,” I said. “I suppose this time it’s Charles’s influence.”“Charles?”“Yes,” I said, laughing, “you must have your hands full in that kindergarten, with Charles.”“Charles?” she said. “We don’t have any Charles in the kindergarten.”Study QuestionsGive four examples of Charle’s poor behavior in school.Give two examples of Laurie’s misbehavior at home.What doubt does Laurie’s mother have about sending Laurie to kindergarten? What is her husband’s opinion?At the PTA meeting, what does the teacher say about Laurie? What does she say about Charles?Who is Charles? Why do you think Laurie tells stories about him?Why do you think Laurie’s parents are misled by his stories and never suspect the truth?Literary Focus: Foreshadowing1142875Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making explicit statements or leaving subtle clues about what will happen later in the text. The Russian author Anton Chekhov summarized foreshadowing when he wrote, "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off." The description of the gun on the wall, in other words, should foreshadow its later use.Some additional key details about foreshadowing:Foreshadowing can be so subtle that it goes unnoticed, often until after the foreshadowed event comes to pass.Often foreshadowing serves to increase the sense of mystery rather than dispel it, by suggesting that some event might occur but not how it will come to pass.Foreshadowing is a useful tool for writers because it helps prepare readers for later scenes, builds a sense of suspense, and makes a work seem to have tied up "loose ends."Example 1: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (by J.K. Rowling)The students have an Herbology lesson with Professor Sprout, who begins by asking the class is they know what “Mandrakes” are, to which Hermione answers, “Mandrake, or Mandragora, is a powerful restorative…It is used to return people who have been transfigured our cursed back to their original state.”While Harry and his classmates attend many classes each day, the author specifically chooses to share this class with her readers. Professor Sprout’s lesson teaches them that one of the Mandrake’s healing properties can bring a cursed (or petrified) person back to their normal state. The author is hinting to the readers that the Mandrakes will be necessary later in the book, foreshadowing that a character (or characters) will be cursed later in the story. Furthermore, it foreshadows that the monster from the Chamber of Secrets is a Basilisk, as this is a beast whose gaze can lead to a person becoming petrified.Example 2: Old Yeller (by Frank Gipson)Early in the book, a visitor warns the kids to beware of hydrophobia. This foreshadows events later in the story when the dog contracts the disease.Question: Identify three specific details that foreshadow the end of the story.Three-Ten to Yumaby Elmore Leonard1219075Elmore John Leonard Jr. (1925-2013) was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. His earliest novels, published in the 1950s, were Westerns, but he went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures."Three-Ten to Yuma" was first published in Dime Western Magazine in March 1953. It is one of the very few Western stories that has been adapted to the screen twice, in 1957 and in 2007. The story is an example of Western fiction, a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century.He had picked up his prisoner at Fort Huachuca shortly after midnight and now, in a silent early morning mist, they approached Contention. The two riders moved slowly, one behind the other.Entering Stockman Street, Paul Scallen glanced back at the open country with the wet haze blanketing its flatness, thinking of the long night ride from Huachuca, relieved that this much was over. When his body turned again, his hand moved over the sawed-off shotgun that was across his lap and he kept his eyes on the man ahead of him until they were near the end of the second block, opposite the side entrance of the Republic Hotel.He said just above a whisper, though it was clear in the silence, “End of the line.”The man turned in his saddle, looking at Scallen curiously. “The jail’s around on Commercial.”“I want you to be comfortable.”Scallen stepped out of the saddle, lifting a Winchester from the boot, and walked toward the hotel’s side door. A figure stood in the gloom of the doorway, behind the screen, and as Scallen reached the steps the screen door opened.“Are you the marshal?”“Yes, sir.” Scallen’s voice was soft and without emotion. “Deputy, from Bisbee.”“We’re ready for you. Two-oh-seven. A corner . . . fronts on Commercial.” He sounded proud of the accommodation.“You’re Mr. Timpey?”The man in the doorway looked surprised. “Yeah, Wells Fargo. Who’d you expect?”“You might have got a back room, Mr. Timpey. One with no windows.” He swung the shotgun on the man still mounted. “Step down easy, Jim.”The man, who was in his early twenties, a few years younger than Scallen, sat with one hand over the other on the saddle horn. Now he gripped the horn and swung down. When he was on the ground his hands were still close together, iron manacles holding them three chain lengths apart. Scallen motioned him toward the door with the stubby barrel of the shotgun.“Anyone in the lobby?”“The desk clerk,” Timpey answered him, “and a man in a chair by the front door.”“Who is he?”“I don’t know. He’s asleep . . . got his brim down over his eyes.”“Did you see anyone out on Commercial?”“No . . . I haven’t been out there.” At first he had seemed nervous, but now he was irritated, and a frown made his face pout childishly.Scallen said calmly, “Mr. Timpey, it was your line this man robbed. You want to see him go all the way to Yuma, don’t you?”“Certainly I do.” His eyes went to the outlaw, Jim Kidd, then back to Scallen hurriedly. “But why all the melodrama? The man’s under arrest—already been sentenced.”“But he’s not in jail till he walks through the gates at Yuma,” Scallen said. “I’m only one man, Mr. Timpey, and I’ve got to get him there.”“Well, darn it . . . I’m not the law! Why didn’t you bring men with you? All I know is I got a wire from our Bisbee office to get a hotel room and meet you here the morning of November third. There weren’t any instructions that I had to get myself deputized a marshal. That’s your job.”“I know it is, Mr. Timpey,” Scallen said, and smiled, though it was an effort. “But I want to make sure no one knows Jim Kidd’s in Contention until after train time this afternoon.”Jim Kidd had been looking from one to the other with a faintly amused grin. Now he said to Timpey, “He means he’s afraid somebody’s going to jump him.” He smiled at Scallen. “That marshal must’ve really sold you a bill of goods.”“What’s he talking about?” Timpey said.Kidd went on before Scallen could answer. “They hid me in the Huachuca lockup ’cause they knew nobody could get at me there . . . and finally the Bisbee marshal gets a plan. He and some others hopped the train in Benson last night, heading for Yuma with an army prisoner passed off as me.” Kidd laughed, as if the idea were ridiculous.“Is that right?” Timpey said.Scallen nodded. “Pretty much right.”“How does he know all about it?”“He’s got ears and ten fingers to add with.”“I don’t like it. Why just one man?”“Every deputy from here down to Bisbee is out trying to scare up the rest of them. Jim here’s the only one we caught,” Scallen explained—then added, “alive.”Timpey shot a glance at the outlaw. “Is he the one who killed Dick Moons?”“One of the passengers swears he saw who did it . . . and he didn’t identify Kidd at the trial.”Timpey shook his head. “Dick drove for us a long time. You know his brother lives here in Contention. When he heard about it he almost went crazy.” He hesitated, and then said again, “I don’t like it.”Scallen felt his patience wearing away, but he kept his voice even when he said, “Maybe I don’t either . . . but what you like and what I like aren’t going to matter a whole lot, with the marshal past Tucson by now. You can grumble about it all you want, Mr. Timpey, as long as you keep it under your breath. Jim’s got friends . . . and since I have to haul him clear across the territory, I’d just as soon they didn’t know about it.”Timpey fidgeted nervously. “I don’t see why I have to get dragged into this. My job’s got nothing to do with law enforcement. . . .”“You have the room key?”“In the door. All I’m responsible for is the stage run between here and Tucson—”Scallen shoved the Winchester at him. “If you’ll take care of this and the horses till I get back, I’ll be obliged to you . . . and I know I don’t have to ask you not to mention we’re at the hotel.”He waved the shotgun and nodded and Jim Kidd went ahead of him through the side door into the hotel lobby. Scallen was a stride behind him, holding the stubby shotgun close to his leg. “Up the stairs on the right, Jim.”Kidd started up, but Scallen paused to glance at the figure in the armchair near the front. He was sitting on his spine with limp hands folded on his stomach and, as Timpey had described, his hat low over the upper part of his face. You’ve seen people sleeping in hotel lobbies before, Scallen told himself, and followed Kidd up the stairs. He couldn’t stand and wonder about it.Room 207 was narrow and high-ceilinged, with a single window looking down on Commercial Street. An iron bed was placed the long way against one wall and extended to the right side of the window, and along the opposite wall was a dresser with wash basin and pitcher and next to it a roughboard wardrobe. An unpainted table and two straight chairs took up most of the remaining space.“Lay down on the bed if you want to,” Scallen said.“Why don’t you sleep?” Kidd asked. “I’ll hold the shotgun.” The deputy moved one of the straight chairs near to the door and the other to the side of the table opposite the bed. Then he sat down, resting the shotgun on the table so that it pointed directly at Jim Kidd sitting on the edge of the bed near the window.He gazed vacantly outside. A patch of dismal sky showed above the frame buildings across the way, but he was not sitting close enough to look directly down onto the street. He said, indifferently, “I think it’s going to rain.”There was a silence, and then Scallen said, “Jim, I don’t have anything against you personally . . . this is what I get paid for, but I just want it understood that if you start across the seven feet between us, I’m going to pull both triggers at once—without first asking you to stop. That clear?”Kidd looked at the deputy marshal, then his eyes drifted out the window again. “It’s kinda cold too.” He rubbed his hands together and the three chain links rattled against each other. “The window’s open a crack. Can I close it?”Scallen’s grip tightened on the shotgun and he brought the barrel up, though he wasn’t aware of it. “If you can reach it from where you’re sitting.”Kidd looked at the windowsill and said without reaching toward it, “Too far.”“All right,” Scallen said, rising. “Lay back on the bed.” He worked his gun belt around so that now the Colt was on his left hip.Kidd went back slowly, smiling. “You don’t take any chances, do you? Where’s your sporting blood?”“Down in Bisbee with my wife and three youngsters,” Scallen told him without smiling, and moved around the table.There were no grips on the window frame. Standing with his side to the window, facing the man on the bed, he put the heel of his hand on the bottom ledge of the frame and shoved down hard. The window banged shut and with the slam he saw Jim Kidd kicking up off of his back, his body straining to rise without his hands to help. Momentarily, Scallen hesitated and his finger tensed on the trigger. Kidd’s feet were on the floor, his body swinging up and his head down to lunge from the bed. Scallen took one step and brought his knee up hard against Kidd’s face.The outlaw went back across the bed, his head striking the wall. He lay there with his eyes open looking at Scallen.“Feel better now, Jim?”Kidd brought his hands up to his mouth, working the jaw around. “Well, I had to try you out,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d shoot.”“But you know I will the next time.”For a few minutes Kidd remained motionless. Then he began to pull himself straight. “I just want to sit up.”Behind the table Scallen said, “Help yourself.” He watched Kidd stare out the window.Then, “How much do you make, Marshal?” Kidd asked the question abruptly.“I don’t think it’s any of your business.”“What difference does it make?”Scallen hesitated. “A hundred and fifty a month,” he said, finally, “some expenses, and a dollar bounty for every arrest against a Bisbee ordinance in the town limits.”Kidd shook his head sympathetically. “And you got a wife and three kids.”“Well, it’s more than a cowhand makes.”“But you’re not a cowhand.”“I’ve worked my share of beef.”“Forty a month and keep, huh?” Kidd laughed.“That’s right, forty a month,” Scallen said. He felt awkward. “How much do you make?”Kidd grinned. When he smiled he looked very young, hardly out of his teens. “Name a month,” he said. “It varies.”“But you’ve made a lot of money.”“Enough. I can buy what I want.”“What are you going to be wanting the next five years?”“You’re pretty sure we’re going to Yuma.”“And you’re pretty sure we’re not,” Scallen said. “Well, I’ve got two train passes and a shotgun that says we are. What’ve you got?”Kidd smiled. “You’ll see.” Then he said right after it, his tone changing, “What made you join the law?”“The money,” Scallen answered, and felt foolish as he said it. But he went on, “I was working for a spread over by the Pantano Wash when Old Nana broke loose and raised trouble up the Santa Rosa Valley. The army was going around in circles, so the Pima County marshal got up a bunch to help out and we tracked Apaches almost all spring. The marshal and I got along fine, so he offered me a deputy job if I wanted it.” He wanted to say that he started for seventy-five and worked up to the one hundred and fifty, but he didn’t.“And then someday you’ll get to be marshal and make two hundred.”“Maybe.”“And then one night a drunk cowhand you’ve never seen will be tearing up somebody’s saloon and you’ll go in to arrest him and he’ll drill you with a lucky shot before you get your gun out.”“So you’re telling me I’m crazy.”“If you don’t already know it.”Scallen took his hand off the shotgun. “Have you figured out yet what my price is?”Kidd looked startled, momentarily, but the grin returned. “No, I haven’t. Maybe you come higher than I thought.”“You don’t have enough money, Jim.”Kidd shrugged. “You’ve treated me pretty good. I just wanted to make it easy on you.”The sun came into the room after a while. Weakly at first, cold and hazy. Then it warmed and brightened and cast an oblong patch of light between the bed and the table. The morning wore on slowly because there was nothing to do and each man sat restlessly thinking about somewhere else, though it was a restlessness within and it showed on neither of them.Most of the time the deputy and the outlaw sat in silence. Once Kidd asked him what time the train left. He told him shortly after three, but Kidd made no comment.Scallen went to the window and looked out at the narrow rutted road that was Commercial Street. He pulled a watch from his vest pocket and looked at it. It was almost noon, yet there were few people about. He wondered about this and asked himself if it was unnaturally quiet for a Saturday noon in Contention . . . or if it were just his nerves. . . .He studied the man standing under the wooden awning across the street, leaning idly against a support post with his thumbs hooked in his belt and his flat-crowned hat on the back of his head. There was something familiar about him. And each time Scallen had gone to the window—a few times during the past hour—the man had been there.He glanced at Jim Kidd lying across the bed, then looked out the window in time to see another man moving up next to the one at the post. They stood together for the space of a minute before the second man turned a horse from the tie rail, swung up, and rode off down the street.The man at the post watched him go and tilted his hat against the sun glare. And then it registered. With the hat low on his forehead Scallen saw him again as he had that morning. The man lying in the armchair . . . as if asleep.He saw his wife, then, and the three youngsters and he could almost feel the little girl sitting on his lap where she had climbed up to kiss him good-bye, and he had promised to bring her something from Tucson. He didn’t know why they had come to him all of a sudden. And after he had put them out of his mind, since there was no room now, there was an upset feeling inside as if he had swallowed something that would not go down all the way. It made his heart beat a little faster.3119438942975Jim Kidd was smiling up at him. “Anybody I know?”“I didn’t think it showed.”“Like the sun going down.”Scallen glanced at the man across the street and then to Jim Kidd. “Come here.” He nodded to the window. “Tell me who your friend is over there.”Kidd half rose and leaned over looking out the window, then sat down again. “Charlie Prince.”“Somebody else just went for help.”“Charlie doesn’t need help.”“How did you know you were going to be in Contention?”“You told that Wells Fargo man I had friends . . . and about the posses chasing around in the hills. Figure it out for yourself. You could be looking out a window in Benson and seeing the same thing.”“They’re not going to do you any good.”“I don’t know any man who’d get himself killed for a hundred and fifty dollars.” Kidd paused. “Especially a man with a wife and young ones. . . .”Men rode into town in something less than an hour later. Scallen heard the horses coming up Commercial, and went to the window to see the six riders pull to a stop and range themselves in a line in the middle of the street facing the hotel. Charlie Prince stood behind them, leaning against the post.Then he moved away from it, leisurely, and stepped down into the street. He walked between the horses and stopped in front of them just below the window. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Jim!”In the quiet street it was like a pistol shot.Scallen looked at Kidd, seeing the smile that softened his face and was even in his eyes. Confidence. It was all over him. And even with the manacles on, you would believe that it was Jim Kidd who was holding the shotgun. “What do you want me to tell him?” Kidd said.“Tell him you’ll write every day.”Kidd laughed and went to the window, pushing it up by the top of the frame. It raised a few inches. Then he moved his hands under the window and it slid up all the way.“Charlie, you go buy the boys a drink. We’ll be down shortly.”“Are you all right?”“Sure I’m all right.”Charlie Prince hesitated. “What if you don’t come down? He could kill you and say you tried to break. . . . Jim, you tell him what’ll happen if we hear a gun go off.”“He knows,” Kidd said, and closed the window. He looked at Scallen standing motionless with the shotgun under his arm. “Your turn, Marshal.”“What do you expect me to say?”“Something that makes sense. You said before I didn’t mean a thing to you personally—what you’re doing is just a job. Well, you figure out if it’s worth getting killed for. All you have to do is throw your guns on the bed and let me walk out the door and you can go back to Bisbee and arrest all the drunks you want. Nobody’s going to blame you with the odds stacked seven to one. You know your wife’s not going to complain. . . .”“You should have been a lawyer, Jim.”The smile began to fade from Kidd’s face. “Come on—what’s it going to be?”The door rattled with three knocks in quick succession. Abruptly the room was silent. The two men looked at each other and now the smile disappeared from Kidd’s face completely.Scallen moved to the side of the door, tiptoeing in his highheeled boots, then pointed his shotgun toward the bed. Kidd sat down.“Who is it?”For a moment there was no answer. Then he heard, “Timpey.”He glanced at Kidd, who was watching him. “What do you want?”“I’ve got a pot of coffee for you.”Scallen hesitated. “You alone?”“Of course I am. Hurry up, it’s hot!”He drew the key from his coat pocket, then held the shotgun in the crook of his arm as he inserted the key with one hand and turned the knob with the other. The door opened and slammed against him, knocking him back against the dresser. He went off balance, sliding into the wardrobe, going down on his hands and knees, and the shotgun clattered across the floor to the window. He saw Jim Kidd drop to the floor for the gun. . . .“Hold it!”A heavyset man stood in the doorway with a Colt pointing out past the thick bulge of his stomach. “Leave that shotgun where it is.” Timpey stood next to him with the coffeepot in his hand. There was coffee down the front of his suit, on the door, and on the flooring. He brushed at the front of his coat feebly, looking from Scallen to the man with the pistol.“I couldn’t help it, Marshal—he made me do it. He threatened to do something to me if I didn’t.”“Who is he?”“Bob Moons . . . you know, Dick’s brother. . . .”The heavyset man glanced at Timpey angrily. “Shut your whining.” His eyes went to Jim Kidd and held there. “You know who I am, don’t you?”Kidd looked uninterested. “You don’t resemble anybody I know.”“You didn’t have to know Dick to shoot him!”“I didn’t shoot that messenger.”Scallen got to his feet, looking at Timpey. “What’s wrong with you?”“I couldn’t help it. He forced me.”“How did he know we were here?”“He came in this morning talking about Dick and I felt he needed some cheering up; so I told him Jim Kidd had been tried and was being taken to Yuma and was here in town . . . on his way. Bob didn’t say anything and went out, and a little later he came back with the gun.”“You fool.” Scallen shook his head wearily.“Never mind all the talk.” Moons kept the pistol on Kidd. “I would’ve found him sooner or later. This way everybody gets saved a long train ride.”“You pull that trigger,” Scallen said, “and you’ll hang for murder.”“Like he did for killing Dick. . . .”“A jury said he didn’t do it.” Scallen took a step toward the big man. “And I’m darned if I’m going to let you pass another sentence.”“You stay put or I’ll pass sentence on you!”Scallen moved a slow step nearer. “Hand me the gun, Bob.”“I’m warning you—get out of the way and let me do what I came for.”“Bob, hand me the gun or I swear I’ll beat you through that wall.”Scallen tensed to take another step, another slow one. He saw Moons’s eyes dart from him to Kidd and in that instant he knew it would be his only chance. He lunged, swinging his coat aside with his hand, and when the hand came up it was holding a Colt. All in one motion. The pistol went up and chopped an arc across Moons’s head before the big man could bring his own gun around. His hat flew off as the barrel swiped his skull and he went back against the wall heavily, then sank to the floor. Scallen wheeled to face the window, thumbing the hammer back. But Kidd was still sitting on the edge of the bed with the shotgun at his feet. The deputy relaxed, letting the hammer ease down. “You might have made it, that time.”Kidd shook his head. “I wouldn’t have got off the bed.” There was a note of surprise in his voice. “You know, you’re pretty good. . . .”At two-fifteen Scallen looked at his watch, then stood up, pushing the chair back. The shotgun was under his arm. In less than an hour they would leave the hotel, walk over Commercial to Stockman, and then up Stockman to the station. Three blocks. He wanted to go all the way. He wanted to get Jim Kidd on that train . . . but he was afraid.He was afraid of what he might do once they were on the street. Even now his breath was short and occasionally he would inhale and let the air out slowly to calm himself. And he kept asking himself if it was worth it.People would be in the windows and the doors, though you wouldn’t see them. They’d have their own feelings and most of their hearts would be pounding . . . and they’d edge back of the door frames a little more. The man out on the street was something without a human nature or a personality of its own. He was on a stage. The street was another world.Timpey sat on the chair in front of the door and next to him, squatting on the floor with his back against the wall, was Moons. Scallen had unloaded Moons’s pistol and placed it in the pitcher behind him. Kidd was on the bed.Most of the time he stared at Scallen. His face bore a puzzled expression, making his eyes frown, and sometimes he would cock his head as if studying the deputy from a different angle.Scallen stepped to the window now. Charlie Prince and another man were under the awning. The others were not in sight.“You haven’t changed your mind?” Kidd asked him seriously.Scallen shook his head.“I don’t understand you. You risk your neck to save my life, now you’ll risk it again to send me to prison.”Scallen looked at Kidd and suddenly felt closer to him than any man he knew. “Don’t ask me, Jim,” he said, and sat down again.After that he looked at his watch every few minutes.At five minutes to three he walked to the door, motioning Timpey aside, and turned the key in the lock. “Let’s go, Jim.” When Kidd was next to him he prodded Moons with the gun barrel. “Over on the bed. Mister, if I see or hear about you on the street before train time, you’ll face an attempted murder charge.” He motioned Kidd past him, then stepped into the hall and locked the door.They went down the stairs and crossed the lobby to the front door, Scallen a stride behind with the shotgun barrel almost touching Kidd’s back. Passing through the doorway he said as calmly as he could, “Turn left on Stockman and keep walking. No matter what you hear, keep walking.”As they stepped out into Commercial, Scallen glanced at the ramada where Charlie Prince had been standing, but now the saloon porch was an empty shadow. Near the corner two horses stood under a sign that said EAT, in red letters; and on the other side of Stockman the signs continued, lining the rutted main street to make it seem narrower. And beneath the signs, in the shadows, nothing moved. There was a whisper of wind along the ramadas. It whipped sand specks from the street and rattled them against clapboard, and the sound was hollow and lifeless. Somewhere a screen door banged, far away.They passed the café, turning onto Stockman. Ahead, the deserted street narrowed with distance to a dead end at the rail station—a single-story building standing by itself, low and sprawling, with most of the platform in shadow. The westbound was there, along the platform, but the engine and most of the cars were hidden by the station house. White steam lifted above the roof, to be lost in the sun’s glare.They were almost to the platform when Kidd said over his shoulder, “Run while you’re still able.”“Where are they?”Kidd grinned, because he knew Scallen was afraid. “How should I know?”“Tell them to come out in the open!”“Tell them yourself.”“Tell them!” Scallen clenched his jaw and jabbed the short barrel into Kidd’s back. “I’m not fooling. If they don’t come out, I’ll kill you!”Kidd felt the gun barrel hard against his spine and suddenly he shouted, “Charlie!”It echoed in the street, but after there was only the silence. Kidd’s eyes darted over the shadowed porches. “Charlie—hold on!”Scallen prodded him up the warped plank steps to the shade of the platform and suddenly he could feel them near. “Tell him again!”“Don’t shoot, Charlie!” Kidd screamed the words.From the other side of the station they heard the trainman’s call trailing off, “. . . Gila Bend. Sentinel, Yuma!”The whistle sounded loud, wailing, as they passed into the shade of the platform, then out again to the naked glare of the open side. Scallen squinted, glancing toward the station office, but the train dispatcher was not in sight. Nor was anyone. “It’s the mail car,” he said to Kidd. “The second to last one.” Steam hissed from the iron cylinder of the engine, clouding that end of the platform. “Hurry it up!” he snapped, pushing Kidd along.Then, from behind, hurried footsteps sounded on the planking, and, as the hiss of steam died away—“Stand where you are!”The locomotive’s main rods strained back, rising like the legs of a grotesque grasshopper, and the wheels moved. The connecting rods stopped on an upward swing and couplings clanged down the line of cars.“Throw the gun away, brother!”Charlie Prince stood at the corner of the station house with a pistol in each hand. Then he moved around carefully between the two men and the train. “Throw it far away, and unhitch your belt,” he said.“Do what he says,” Kidd said. “They’ve got you.”The others, six of them, were strung out in the dimness of the platform shed. Grim faced, stubbles of beard, hat brims low. The man nearest Prince spat lazily.Scallen knew fear at that moment as fear had never gripped him before; but he kept the shotgun hard against Kidd’s spine. He said, just above a whisper, “Jim—I’ll cut you in half!”Kidd’s body was stiff, his shoulders drawn up tightly. “Wait a minute . . .” he said. He held his palms out to Charlie Prince, though he could have been speaking to Scallen.Suddenly Prince shouted, “Go down!”There was a fraction of a moment of dead silence that seemed longer. Kidd hesitated. Scallen was looking at the gunman over Kidd’s shoulder, seeing the two pistols. Then Kidd was gone, rolling on the planking, and the pistols were coming up, one ahead of the other. Without moving Scallen squeezed both triggers of the scattergun.Charlie Prince was going down, holding his hands tight to his chest, as Scallen dropped the shotgun and swung around drawing his Colt. He fired hurriedly. Wait for a target! Words in his mind. He saw the men under the platform shed, three of them breaking for the station office, two going full length to the planks . . . one crouched, his pistol up. That one! Get him quick! Scallen aimed and squeezed the heavy revolver and the man went down. Now get out!Charlie Prince was facedown. Kidd was crawling, crawling frantically and coming to his feet when Scallen reached him. He grabbed Kidd by the collar savagely, pushing him on, and dug the pistol into his back. “Run!”Gunfire erupted from the shed and thudded into the wooden caboose as they ran past it. The train was moving slowly. Just in front of them a bullet smashed a window of the mail car. Someone screamed, “You’ll hit Jim!” There was another shot, then it was too late. Scallen and Kidd leapt up on the car platform and were in the mail car as it rumbled past the end of the station platform.Kidd was on the floor, stretched out along a row of mail sacks. He rubbed his shoulder awkwardly with his manacled hands and watched Scallen, who stood against the wall next to the open door.Kidd studied the deputy for some minutes. Finally he said, “You know, you really earn your hundred and a half.”Scallen heard him, though the iron rhythm of the train wheels and his breathing were loud in his temples. He felt as if all his strength had been sapped, but he couldn’t help smiling at Jim Kidd. He was thinking pretty much the same thing.Study QuestionsWhy is Paul Scallen in the town of Contention? Who is Jimmy Kidd? What is he like?Why do Scallen and Kidd spend time in a hotel room?Who is Mr. Timpey?Who are the men outside? What is their plan?Why does Paul Scallen scuffle with Moon?How does Paul make it safely to the train?What are Kidd’s final words in the story? What does he mean?Literary Focus: Suspense19051190500Suspense is a literary device that authors use to keep their readers’ interest alive throughout the work. It is a feeling of anticipation that something meaningful is about to happen. Authors advance their plots in a story, and keep readers interested, by creating suspense. It is generally a crucial part of what is sometimes called “rising action.”Example 1: Romeo and Juliet (by William Shakespeare)In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare builds suspense by allowing the audience to know things that the characters don't. The audience knows that Juliet has faked her death, but Romeo does not know. The scene where he finds her in the tomb and plans to kill himself is suspenseful.Example 2: Harry Potter (by J.K. Rowling)J.K. Rowling builds suspense in several of the Harry Potter books by having Harry and his friends unravel the details of Voldemort's evil plans a little at a time. For example, Harry often overhears parts of conversations or is allowed by Dumbledore to know just enough to be helpful, but the reader typically doesn't know the entire story until the end.Example 3: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)Suspense is created in a variety of ways. One way is by having the characters face crises. For example, when Old Yeller contracts rabies, the reader feels anxiety or worry about how Travis will deal with the problem. This suspense builds until we know the final outcome.Question: What is the most suspenseful part of “Three-Ten to Yuma”? How does the writer make it suspenseful?Marionettes, Inc.by Ray Bradbury19051190500Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th century American writers, he was mainly known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 and his science fiction collections The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man. The New York Times called him "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream"."Marionettes, Inc." a work of science fiction, was originally published in Startling Stories (March 1949). Science fiction, often called “sci-fi,” is a genre of fiction literature whose content is imaginative, but based in science. It relies heavily on scientific facts, theories, and principles as support for its settings, characters, themes, and plot-lines. They walked slowly down the street at about ten in the evening, talking calmly. They were both about thirty-five, both eminently sober.“But why so early?” said Smith.“Because,” said Braling.“Your first night out in years and you go home at ten o’clock.”“Nerves, I suppose.”“What I wonder is how you ever managed it. I’ve been trying to get you out for ten years for a quiet drink. And now, on the one night, you insist on turning in early.”“Mustn’t crowd my luck,” said Braling.“What did you do, put sleeping powder in your wife’s coffee?”“No, that would be unethical. You’ll see soon enough.”They turned a corner. “Honestly, Braling, I hate to say this, but you have been patient with her. You may not admit it to me, but marriage has been awful for you, hasn’t it?”“I wouldn’t say that.”“It’s got around, anyway, here and there, how she got you to marry her. That time back in 1979 when you were going to Rio --“Dear Rio. I never did see it after all my plans.”“And how she tore her clothes and rumpled her hair and threatened to call the police unless you married her.”“She always was nervous, Smith, understand.”“It was more than unfair. You didn’t love her. You told her as much, didn’t you?”“I recall that I was quite firm on the subject.”“But you married her anyhow.”“I had my business to think of, as well as my mother and father. A thing like that would have killed them.”“And it’s been ten years.”“Yes,” said Braling, his gray eyes steady. “But I think perhaps it might change now. I think what I’ve waited for has come about. Look here.” He drew forth a long blue ticket.“Why, it’s a ticket for Rio on the Thursday rocket!”“Yes, I’m finally going to make it.”“But how wonderful! You do deserve it! But won’t she object? Cause trouble?” Braling smiled nervously. “She won’t know I’m gone. I’ll be back in a month and no one the wiser, except you.Smith sighed. “I wish I were going with you.”“Poor Smith, your marriage hasn’t exactly been roses, has it?”“Not exactly, married to a woman who overdoes it. I mean, after all, when you’ve been married ten years, you don’t expect a woman to sit on your lap for two hours every evening, call you at work twelve times a day and talk baby talk. And it seems to me that in the last month she’s gotten worse. I wonder if perhaps she isn’t just a little simple-minded?”“Ah, Smith, always the conservative. Well, here’s my house. Now, would you like to know my secret? How I made it out this evening?”“Will you really tell?”“Look up, there!” said Braling.They both stared up through the dark air.In the window above them, on the second floor, a shade was raised. A man about thirty-five years old, with a touch of gray at either temple, sad gray eyes, and a small thin mustache looked down at them.“Why, that’s you!” cried Smith.“Sh-h-h, not so loud!” Braling waved upward. The man in the window gestured significantly and vanished.“I must be insane,” said Smith.“Hold on a moment.” They waited.The street door of the apartment opened and the tall spare gentleman with the mustache and the grieved eyes came out to meet them.“Hello, Braling,” he said.“Hello, Braling,” said Braling.They were identical.Smith stared. “Is this your twin brother? I never knew –”“No, no,” said Braling quietly. “Bend close. Put your ear to Braling Two’s chest.”Smith hesitated and then leaned forward to place his head against the uncomplaining ribs. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.“Oh no! It can’t be!”“It is.”“Let me listen again.”Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.Smith staggered back and fluttered his eyelids, appalled. He reached out and touched the warm hands and the cheeks of the thing.“Where’d you get him?”“Isn’t he excellently fashioned?”“Incredible. Where?”“Give the man your card, Braling Two.”Braling Two did a magic trick and produced a white card: MARIONETTES, INC. Duplicate self or friends; new humanoid plastic 2990 models, guaranteed against all physical wear. From $7,600 to our $15,000 de luxe model.“No,” said Smith.“Yes,” said Braling.“Naturally,” said Braling Two.“How long has this gone on?”“I’ve had him for a month. I keep him in the cellar in a toolbox. My wife never goes downstairs, and I have the only lock and key to that box. Tonight I said I wished to take a walk to buy a cigar. I went down cellar and took Braling Two out of his box and sent him back up to sit with my wife while I came on out to see you, Smith.”“Wonderful! He even smells like you: Bond Street and Melachrinos!”“It may be splitting hairs, but I think it highly ethical. After all, what my wife wants most of all is me. This marionette is me to the hairiest detail. I’ve been home all evening. I shall be home with her for the next month. In the meantime another gentleman will be in Rio after ten years of waiting. When I return from Rio, Braling Two here will go back in his box.” Smith thought that over a minute or two. “Will he walk around without sustenance for a month?” he finally asked.“For six months if necessary. And he’s built to do everything—eat, sleep, perspire—everything, natural as natural is. You’ll take good care of my wife, won’t you, Braling Two?”“Your wife is rather nice,” said Braling Two. “I’ve grown rather fond of her.”Smith was beginning to tremble. “How long has Marionettes, Inc., been in business?”“Secretly, for two years.”“Could I—I mean, is there a possibility——” Smith took his friend’s elbow earnestly. “Can you tell me where I can get one, a robot, a marionette, for myself? You will give me the address, won’t you?”“Here you are.”Smith took the card and turned it round and round. “Thank you,” he said. “You don’t know what this means. Just a little respite. A night or so, once a month even. My wife loves me so much she can’t bear to have me gone an hour. I love her dearly, you know, but remember the old poem: ‘Love will fly if held too lightly, love will die if held too tightly.’ I just want her to relax her grip a little bit.”“You’re lucky, at least, that your wife loves you. Hate’s my problem. Not so easy.”“Oh, Nettie loves me madly. It will be my task to make her love me comfortably.”“Good luck to you, Smith. Do drop around while I’m in Rio. It will seem strange, if you suddenly stop calling by, to my wife. You’re to treat Braling Two, here, just like me.”“Right! Good-by. And thank you.”Smith went smiling down the street. Braling and Braling Two turned and walked into the apartment hall.On the crosstown bus Smith whistled softly, turning the white card in his fingers: Clients must be pledged to secrecy, for while an act is pending in Congress to legalize Marionettes, Inc., it is still a felony, if caught, to use one.“Well,” said Smith.Clients must have a mold made of their body and a color index check of their eyes, lips, hair, skin, etc. Clients must expect to wait for two months until their model is finished.Not so long, thought Smith. Two months from now my ribs will have a chance to mend from the crushing they’ve taken. Two months from now my hand will heal from being so constantly held. Two months from now my bruised underlip will begin to reshape itself. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful...He flipped the card over.Marionettes, Inc., is two years old and has a fine record of satisfied customers behind it. Our motto is “No Strings Attached.” Address: 43 South Wesley Drive.The bus pulled to his stop; he alighted, and while humming up the stairs he thought, Nettie and I have fifteen thousand in our joint bank account. I’ll just slip eight thousand out as a business venture, you might say. The marionette will probably pay back my money, with interest, in many ways. Nettie needn’t know. He unlocked the door and in a minute was in the bedroom. There lay Nettie, pale, huge, and piously asleep.2600161190500“Dear Nettie.” He was almost overwhelmed with remorse at her innocent face there in the semidarkness. “If you were awake you would smother me with kisses and coo in my ear. Really, you make me feel like a criminal. You have been such a good, loving wife. Sometimes it is impossible for me to believe you married me instead of that Bud Chapman you once liked. It seems that in the last month you have loved me more wildly than ever before.”Tears came to his eyes. Suddenly he wished to kiss her, confess his love, tear up the card, forget the whole business. But as he moved to do this, his hand ached and his ribs cracked and groaned. He stopped, with a pained look in his eyes, and turned away. He moved out into the hall and through the dark rooms.Humming, he opened the kidney desk in the library and filched the bankbook. “Just take eight thousand dollars is all,” he said. “No more than that.” He stopped. “Wait a minute.”He rechecked the bankbook frantically. “Hold on here!” he cried. “Ten thousand dollars is missing!” He leaped up. “There’s only five thousand left! What’s she done? What’s Nettie done with it? More hats, more clothes, more perfume! Or, wait – I know! She bought that little house on the Hudson she’s been talking about for months, without so much as a by your leave!”He stormed into the bedroom, righteous and indignant. What did she mean, taking their money like this? He bent over her. “Nettie!” he shouted. “Nettie, wake up!”She did not stir. “What’ve you done with my money!” he bellowed.She stirred fitfully. The light from the street flushed over her beautiful cheeks.There was something about her. His heart throbbed violently. His tongue dried.He shivered. His knees suddenly turned to water. He collapsed. “Nettie, Nettie!” he cried. “What’ve you done with my money!”And then, the horrid thought. And then the terror and the loneliness engulfed him. And then the fever and disillusionment. For, without desiring to do so, he bent forward and yet forward again until his fevered ear was resting firmly and irrevocably upon her round pink bosom. “Nettie!” he cried.Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.As Smith walked away down the avenue in the night, Braling and Braling Two turned in at the door to the apartment. “I’m glad he’ll be happy too,” said Braling.“Yes,” said Braling Two abstractedly.“Well, it’s the cellar box for you, B-Two.” Braling guided the other creature’s elbow down the stairs to the cellar.“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” said Braling Two, as they reached the concrete floor and walked across it. “The cellar. I don’t like it. I don’t like that toolbox.”“I’ll try and fix up something more comfortable.”“Marionettes are made to move, not lie still. How would you like to lie in a box most of the time?”“Well –“You wouldn’t like it at all. I keep running. There’s no way to shut me off. I’m perfectly alive and I have feelings.”“It’ll only be a few days now. I’ll be off to Rio and you won’t have to stay in the box. You can live upstairs.”Braling Two gestured irritably. “And when you come back from having a good time, back in the box I go.”Braling said, “They didn’t tell me at the marionette shop that I’d get a difficult specimen.”“There’s a lot they don’t know about us,” said Braling Two. “We’re pretty new. And we’re sensitive. I hate the idea of you going off and laughing and lying in the sun in Rio while we’re stuck here in the cold.”“But I’ve wanted that trip all my life,” said Braling quietly. He squinted his eyes and could see the sea and the mountains and the yellow sand. The sound of the waves was good to his inward mind. The sun was fine on his bared shoulders. The wine was most excellent.“I’ll never get to go to Rio,” said the other man. “Have you thought of that?”“No, I –“And another thing. Your wife.”“What about her?” asked Braling, beginning to edge toward the door.“I’ve grown quite fond of her.”“I’m glad you’re enjoying your employment.” Braling licked his lips nervously.“I’m afraid you don’t understand. I think—I’m in love with her.”Braling took another step and froze. “You’re what?”“And I’ve been thinking,” said Braling Two, “how nice it is in Rio and how I’ll never get there, and I’ve thought about your wife and—I think we could be very happy.”“T-that’s nice.” Braling strolled as casually as he could to the cellar door.“You won’t mind waiting a moment, will you? I have to make a phone call.”“To whom?” Braling Two frowned.“No one important.”“To Marionettes, Incorporated? To tell them to come get me?”“No, no—nothing like that!” He tried to rush out the door. A metalfirm grip seized his wrists. “Don’t run!”“Take your hands off!”“No.”“Did my wife put you up to this?”“No.”“Did she guess? Did she talk to you? Does she know? Is that it?” He screamed. A hand clapped over his mouth.“You’ll never know, will you?” Braling Two smiled delicately. “You’ll never know.”Braling struggled. “She must have guessed; she must have affected you!”Braling Two said, “I’m going to put you in the box, lock it, and lose the key. Then I’ll buy another Rio ticket for your wife.”“Now, now, wait a minute. Hold on. Don’t be rash. Let’s talk this over!”“Good-by, Braling.”Braling stiffened. “What do you mean, ‘good-by’?”Ten minutes later Mrs. Braling awoke. She put her hand to her cheek. Someone had just kissed it. She shivered and looked up. “Why – you haven’t done that in years,” she murmured.“We’ll see what we can do about that,” someone said.Study QuestionsWhat are Braling’s and Smith’s complaints about their wives?Who is Braling Two? What is Braling’s ticket for? What is he planning on doing?What does Smith notice when he looks at his bankbook at home later? What does this mean?What is Braling Two’s reaction when Braling tries to take him back down to the basement?What does Braling Two admit to Braling?How does the story end for Braling?Literary Focus: Conflict1161925In literature, conflict is a literary element that involves a struggle between two opposing forces. Often this conflict is what drives the plot of a story: the reader wants to find out how the conflict will be resolved. A conflict may be internal or external.An internal conflict arises when a character experiences two opposite emotions or desires – usually virtue and vice, or good and evil – inside him. This disagreement causes the character to suffer tension or anxiety. External conflict, on the other hand, is where a character finds himself in struggle with outside forces that hamper his progress. The most common type of external conflict is where a protagonist (main character) fights back against an antagonist (a character who opposes the main character) that impedes his advancement. An external conflict could also occur when a character faces any outside force, such as nature or society.Example 1: Internal Conflict: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)Travis faces an internal conflict when he has to decide whether or not to shoot Old Yeller. One part of him says that he must kill the animal to keep his family members out of danger. Another part of him, however, loves Old Yeller, and doesn’t want to kill him. The reader is held in suspense until the conflict is resolved.Example 2: External Conflict: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)Old Yeller faces an external conflict when the bear tries to attack Little Arliss. Old Yeller fights off the bear to protect Little Arliss. This is a struggle between two outside forces. Question: Identify one external conflict in “Marionettes, Inc.” Identify one internal conflict.PrincessBy Nicholasa Mohr1180975Nicholasa Mohr (b. 1938) is one of the best known Nuyorican writers, born in the United States to Puerto Rican parents. Her works tell of growing up in the Puerto Rican communities of the Bronx and El Barrio and of the difficulties Puerto Rican women face in the United States. “Princess” is a story that describes both of these subjects. It was published in the book El Bronx Remembered in 1975.Can I take Princess for a walk later?" Judy asked. "Please, Don Osvaldo?" "We'll see . . . later," Don Osvaldo said. "Let me finish now with your order." He checked the handwritten list of groceries against the items stacked on the counter. "A quarter pound of salt butter, fifteen cents' worth of fat-back, two pounds of dried red beans . . ."Judy played with Princess as she waited for him to pack the groceries. "Sit . . . sit up, Princess. That's a good girl. Nice. Now shake hands. Give me your paw. Right paw. Left paw. Good. Good." The little dog wagged her tail and licked Judy's hand."O.K., Judy, I got everything your Mama ordered here in the bag.""Thank you, Don Osvaldo; put it on our bill.""I already did," he said, closing a large thick ledger. The gray binding on the ledger was worn, frayed, and filthy with grease spots from constant use. Don Osvaldo would jot down whatever his credit customers bought, including how much it cost. Every name was there in the book, in alphabetical order; a clear record for all to see. At the end of each month, before any more credit was extended, customers were obliged to settle accounts according to the ledger."Can I come back and take Princess for a walk?" Judy asked again."All right," he said."I'm coming back to take you for a walk later," she said to the little dog, and patted her on the head.Princess began to whine and bark after Judy. Don Osvaldo looked at the dog and smiled. "Ner-eida, Nereida," he called into the back of the store.“What is it?" his wife asked."Princess is crying—she wants to go with Judy for a walk.""She's too smart for her own good," his wife said, coming into the store. "Give her something to make her feel better. . . . Go on."Don Osvaldo went over to the meat counter and removed a hunk of boiled ham. Taking a sharp knife, he cut off a small piece and fed it to the dog. Amused, they watched Princess as she chewed the piece of barn, then sat up begging for more."She's so clever," said Dofia Nereida, and patted the dog affectionately.Five years ago a customer had given them the white fluffy-haired puppy, which Dona Nereida had decided to call Princess. Princess was loving and friendly, and showed her gratitude by being obedient. Osvaldo and Nereida Negron lavished all their affection on the little dog and doted on her. They had no children, hobbies, or interests other than their store, Bodega Borinquen, a grocery specializing in tropical foods, which they kept open seven days a week; and Princess. The dog shared the small, sparsely furnished living quarters in the back of the store with her owners. There, she had her own bed and some toys to play with. Dotia Nereida knitted sweaters for Princess and shopped for the fanciest collars and leashes she could find. A child's wardrobe unit had been purchased especially for her.Customers would comment among themselves: "That dog eats steak and they only eat tuna fish.""Princess has better furniture than they have.""I wish my kids ate as well as that mutt. It's not right, you know. God cannot justify this." And so on..Despite all the gossip and complaints about the dog, no one dared say anything openly to Don Osvaldo or Dofia Nereida.Customers had to agree that Princess herself was a friendly little animal, and pleasant to look at. When children came into the store to shop they would pet her, and she was gentle with them, accepting their attention joyfully.Princess was especially fond of Judy, who frequently took her out and taught her tricks. At first, Don Osvaldo and Dona Nereida were worried about letting Judy take Princess for walks. "Hold on to that leash. You mustn't let her get near other dogs; especially those male dogs," they warned. But several months had gone by and Judy and the dog always returned safe and sound. Actually, nei?ther owner liked to leave the store, and they were silently grateful that Judy could take Princess out for some air."Mami, can I go back downstairs and take Prin-cess for a walk?" Judy asked her mother.Her mother had emptied the brown grocery bag and was checking the items."Look at that! Fifteen cents' worth of fatback and look at the tiny piece he sends. Bendito!" She shook her head. "I have to watch that man, and she's no better. Didn't I tell you to check anything that he has to weigh?" Judy looked at her mother, expecting her to complain as always about Don Osvaldo and Dona Nereida. "Because we have to buy on credit, they think they can cheat us. When I have cash I will not buy there. I cannot trust them. They charge much more than any other store, but they can get away with it because we buy on credit. I would like to see him charge a cash-paying customer what he does me!""Mami, can I go to walk Princess now?" Judy asked again."Why do you want to walk that dog? You are always walking that dog. What are you, their ser?vant girl, to walk that stupid dog?""I'm the one who wants to walk her. . . . I love Princess. Please may I—""Go on!" her mother interrupted, waving her hands in a gesture of annoyance.Before her mother could change her mind, Judy quickly left the apartment. Her little brother, An?gel, had had another asthma attack today, and she knew her mother was in a lousy mood. After her father's death, Judy had moved into this neighborhood with her family: her mother, older sister Blanca, older brother William, and little brother Angel. That was three years ago, when she was just eight. The family had been on public assis-tance since almost immediately after her father had died. Her mother was always worried about making ends meet, but she was especially hard to live with whenever Angel got sick.She ran toward the grocery store, anxious to take Princess for her walk. Judy had wanted to have a pet ever since she could remember. It was the one thing that she had always prayed for at Christmas and on her birthday, but her mother absolutely refused. Once she had brought home a stray cat and her little brother Angel had had a severe asthma attack. After that, she was positive that she could never ever have a pet. No matter how she had reasoned, her mother could not be persuaded to change her mind,"I could give the cat my food, Mami. You don't have to spend no money. And during the day I could find a place to keep it until I got home from school .""No. We cannot make ends meet to feed human beings, and I am not going to worry about animals. Besides, there's Angel and his allergies." Her mother always won out.If Papi had lived, maybe things would be differ?ent, Judy often thought. But since she could play with Princess and take her out, that was almost like having her own dog, and she had learned to be content with that much.When Judy arrived at the store, Dona Nereida had Princess all ready."See, Judy," Doila Nereida said, "she's got a new leash—pale-blue with tiny silver studs. She looks good in blue, don't you think so?" she asked. "It goes with her coloring. Her fur is so nice and white."The little dog ran, tugging at the leash, and Judy followed, laughing.Outside in the street, Judy shouted, "Ready, get set . . . go!" Quickly, Judy and Princess began to run, as usual, in the direction of the schoolyard. Once they got there, Judy unleashed Princess and she ran freely, chasing her and some of the other children.They were all used to Princess, and would pet her, run with her, and sometimes even play a game of ball with the little dog. They watched as Princess followed Judy's commands: She could sit up, roll over, play dead, retrieve, and shake hands. Everyone at the schoolyard treated Princess as if she belonged to Judy and asked her permission first before they played or ran with the little dog. And Princess behaved as if she were Judy's dog. She listened and came obediently when Judy called her. After they had finished playing, Judy leashed Princess and they walked back to the store."Did you have a good time?" Doria Nereida asked when they returned. "Come inside with Mama. . . She has a little something for you," she said to Princess.Judy handed the leash to Dona Nereida. She had never been invited inside where Princess lived. Whenever she came back from her walks she waited around, hoping they would ask her in as well, but they never did. No one was invited into the back rooms where Don Osvaldo, Dona Nereida, and Princess lived."Before you leave—Judy, here, have a piece of candy." Dona Nereida opened the cover of a glass display case and removed a small piece of coconut candy that sold for two cents apiece or three for a nickel. She handed it to Judy."Thank you," Judy said, taking the candy. Shedidn't much like it, but she ate it anyway."Osvaldo . . . Osvaldo," Dona Nereida called, "come out here; I have to take Princess inside." Turning to Judy, she said, "Goodbye, Judy, see you later."Judy smiled and left the store. She wished she could see where Princess lived. Shrugging her . shoulders, she said to herself, "Maybe tomorrow they'll ask me in.""There's something wrong with these beans. Smell!" her mother said, handing the can of pork and beans to her children."Whew, yeah!" said Blanca. "They smell funny." She handed the can to William, who agreed, and then to Judy."They smell funny." Judy nodded."Can I smell too?" asked Angel. Judy handed him the can."Peeoowee ... ," he said, making a face. They all laughed."It's not funny," her mother said. "If these beans are rotten we could die." She held up the can. "Look—see that? The can is dented and swollen. Sure, he always gives us inferior mer-chandise. That no-good louse!" She shook her head. "We have to return them, that's all. You go, Judy, bring them back and tell him we want another can that's not spoiled.""I have to walk Princess, Mami; send some-body else.""You have to walk to the store and back here: Never mind Princess. Go on!""Butbe too late then," Judy protested,thinking about her friends in the schoolyard."How would you like not to walk that mutt at all? What if I say that you cannot walk her any?more?" her mother said, looking severely at Judy.Quietly, Judy got up and took the can of beans. "Mami, they are already opened.""Of course. How would I know otherwise if they are rotten? Here is the cover—just place it on top." She put the tin lid back on the opened can. "There . . . don't spill them and come right back here. I have to start supper."3705225552450"Can I walk Princess after I come back?""Yes," her mother said with exasperation. "Just come back with another can of beans!"Judy rushed as quickly as she could, at the same time making sure that she did not spill the contents of the can."Here she is," said Doria Nereida when she saw Judy, "ready to take you out, Princess." As she fastened the leash, the dog barked and jumped, anxious to go out."Dona Nereida, I have to give you something first," Judy said."What?""Here is a can of beans that my brother William brought home before, and they are rotten." She put the can on the counter. "So my mother says could you please give us another can that is not spoiled."Dona Nereida picked up the can and lifted the lid, sniffing the contents. "What's wrong with them?" she asked."They are rotten.""Who says? They smell just fine to me. Wait a minute. Osvaldo! Osvaldo, come out here please!" Dona Nereida called loudly."What do you want? I'm busy." Don Osvaldo came out."Smell these beans. Go on." She handed her husband the opened can.Don Osvaldo sniffed the contents and said, "They are fine. What's wrong?""Judy brought them—her mother wants an-other can. She says they are spoiled, that they are rotten.""Tsk . . . ," Don Osvaldo sighed and shook his head. "They are fine. They don't smell spoiled to me, or rotten. Besides, the can is opened. I can't exchange them if she opened the can already." He put the can back on the counter and covered it with the lid. "Here, take it back to your mother and tell her that there is nothing wrong with those beans. I can't change them."Judy stood there and looked at the couple. She wanted to say that they smelled bad to her, too, but instead she said, "OK, I'll tell her." She picked up the can of beans and returned home."What? Do you mean to tell me that he told you that there is nothing wrong with this can of beans?" Her mother's voice was loud and angry. "I don't believe it! Did he smell them?" she asked Judy."Yes," Judy said. "They both did."Her mother shook her head. "I'm not putting up with this anymore. This is the last time that thieving couple do this to me. Come on, Judy. You come with me. I'm taking back the beans myself. Let's see what he will tell me. You too, William; you come with us, since you were the one that bought the beans.""Can I come too?" asked Angel."No," his mother answered, "stay with Blanca till I get back. I don't want you going up and down the stairs. And you, Blanca, start the rice. I'll be back in a little while."Her mother walked in first, holding the can of beans. Judy and William followed."Don Osvaldo, I would like to return this can of beans," her mother said. Don Osvaldo was seated behind the counter, looking through his ledger. He put the book down."Mrs. Morales, there is nothing wrong with them beans," he said."Did you take a good smell? I sent Judy down before; and I cannot believe that after smelling them, you could refuse to exchange them for another can that is not spoiled!" She put the can on the counter.Dofia Nereida walked in, followed by Princess. When the dog saw Judy, she began to bark and jump up. "Shh . . . ," said Dofia Nereida. "Down! Get down, Princess, you are not going out right now. Maybe later. Down!" Princess sat down obediently, wagging her tail and looking at Judy. "What's happening here, Mrs. Morales?" she asked."It's about these beans. I refuse to accept them. That can is dented and swollen, that's how it got spoiled. Surely you don't expect me to feed this to my children.""Why not?" said Doiia Nereida, "They smell and look perfectly fine to me.""Look, Mrs. Morales," said Don Osvaldo, "you probably opened the can and left it open a long time, and that's why they smell funny to you. But they are not spoiled, and I cannot give you another one or any credit for this.""How could I know they are rotten unless I open up the can? Besides, I did not leave them open a long time. William just bought it here this afternoon," Mrs. Morales said and turned to her son. "Isn't that so, William?""Yes. I got them here and the can was already dented," said William."That doesn't mean anything," said Don Os-valdo. "You people opened them. There's nothing we can do."Mrs. Morales looked at Don Osvaldo and Doha Nereida and smiled, remaining silent. After a moment, she asked, "You expect me to eat this and to feed this to my children?""You can do what you want with those beans," said Don Osvaldo. "It's not my affair.""Will you at least give us some credit?" asked Mrs. Morales."We already told you, no!" said Dofia Nereida. "Listen, you are making a big thing over a can of beans when there is nothing wrong with them."“Would you eat this, then?" asked Mrs. Morales."Of course," said Don Osvaldo."Certainly!" Dona Nereida nodded in agree-ment."O.K.," said Mrs. Morales, smiling, "I'll tell you what: You take them. A present from me to you. Eat them and enjoy them.""All right." Don Osvaldo shrugged his shoulders. "If that's how you feel. It will be your loss. This can is not spoiled.""Well then, I'll tell you what," said Mrs. Mo-rales. "Why don't you feed it to Princess? Let Judy give it to her—a little present from us."Don Osvaldo looked at his wife and she returned his glance, shrugging her shoulders."We are not going to eat them anyway, so why should they go to waste?" said Mrs. Morales. "Go on, Judy, take the beans and feed them to Prin-cess." Turning toward Dotia Nereida, she asked, "Perhaps you could give Judy a little dish?" Dofia Nereida did not answer, and looked with uncertainty at her husband. Mrs. Morales continued; this time she spoke to Don Osvaldo. "Why not? Don Osvaldo, if there is nothing wrong with the beans, then let's give them to Princess. She would probably enjoy them. It would be a treat.""OK," he nodded, "sure. Nereida, get her blue dish from inside. If there is something wrong with the beans, Princess will not eat them."His wife went into the back and returned, holding a bright-blue bowl with a happy white poodle on it."Here, Judy, you do it," said Mrs. Morales, looking at her daughter. "You give it to the dog. She'll take it from you."Dofia Nereida emptied the contents of the can into the bowl and gave it to Judy. Judy set it down on the floor near Princess."Here, girl, here's some beans for you," she said. Quickly, the little dog went over to the bowl and began to eat the beans, wagging her tail."See? Mrs. Morales, Princess is eating them beans. . . . There! Nothing was wrong with them. So you gave them away for nothing.""That's all right, Don Osvaldo," Mrs. Morales responded. "It's not for nothing. Princess is en-joying the beans.""Do you want another can of pork and beans?" asked Don Osvaldo, laughing. "I'm afraid I have to charge you, though!" His wife joined him in laughter as they both watched Princess finish the beans."No, thanks. I'll make do with what I have at home." Mrs. Morales turned to leave the store."Mami," said Judy, "can I walk Princess now?""No," her mother said, "you may not walk her now or later." As Judy followed her mother and brother out of the store, Don Osvaldo and Dofia Nereida could still be heard laughing and commenting."How about tomorrow, Mami? Can I walk Princess tomorrow?" Judy persisted."We'll see . . . tomorrow," her mother answered.At two the next morning, Osvaldo and Nereida Negron were awakened by low whining sounds and grunts. When they got up to investigate, they found that Princess was having convulsions. Frightened, they tried to comfort the little dog by giving her water and then warm milk to drink. They even placed a hot-water bottle in her bed, but nothing seemed to help. The whining became softer and lower, until there was no sound at all. Princess lay in her small bed quietly, her eyes wide open, staring. The only visible sign of life was when her body jumped involuntarily, as if she had hiccups.Don Osvaldo tried to calm his wife; she cried and wrung her hands, on the verge of hysteria. After a while, they decided the best thing to do was to take Princess to a veterinarian. Don Os-valdo found the names of several animal hospitals in the Yellow Pages, and after some telephone calls found one that would take Princess at this time of the morning. They wrapped the dog in a blanket and took a cab to the animal hospital. The doctor examined Princess and told them that her chances of surviving were slim. Whatever she had eaten was already digested and in her blood-stream. However, he promised to do his best and call them, no matter what happened.The Negrons returned to their store at six A.M., and at six-thirty A.M. they received a phone call from the hospital informing them that Princess was dead. For a small fee they offered to dispose of the remains, and Don Osvaldo agreed.Dorm Nereida took to her bed, refusing to get up. Don Osvaldo opened his store a little late that day. Many of his credit customers had been patiently waiting outside; they had no place else to shop.No one seemed to notice that Princess was not in the store. Don Osvaldo waited on his customers in silence, checking the back rooms every once in a while to see how his wife was. She remained in her bed, moaning softly and crying quietly.As usual, that afternoon Judy went to the store to see Princess before going home. She entered and looked around for the little dog. Don Osvaldo was working behind the meat counter."Hi, Don Osvaldo," she said. "Where's Princess?""She's not here.""Is she inside with Dam Nereida?" Judy asked and waited for a response. Don Osvaldo continued his work behind the meat counter, not speaking. Judy felt awkward and stepped up a little closer to the counter so that she could see Don Osvaldo. He was carefully cutting small, neat slices from a large side of beef and stacking them evenly on the other side of the chopping block.After a short while, she said, "I'll be back, then, to walk her later. Goodbye, see you later," and turned to leave."Judy," Don Osvaldo said, "please tell your mother that when she sends for her groceries today, she should come herself." He paused. "Did you hear? Tell your mother to come for her groceries herself!""Yes," Judy replied, and went home.Mrs. Morales entered Don Osvaldo's store accompanied by William and Judy."Be right with you, Mrs. Morales," Don Osvaldo said, and continued his work on the ledger.The store was empty, and Judy looked around for Princess. In spite of her concern, she dared not ask Don Osvaldo about the little dog. Her mother's solemn- attitude and Don Osvaldo's re?quest this afternoon frightened her. For once, she wished her mother had not asked her to come along,Don Osvaldo closed the ledger and looked at Mrs. Morales, staring at her without speaking. Finally, he asked, "Do you want anything? Can I get you something?""No, thank you," Mrs. Morales answered."Nothing?" he asked. "How about you, Judy? Do you want to take Princess for a walk?"Judy looked at her mother, who reached out and pulled her daughter close to her."Do you want me to get her for you, Judy?" Don Osvaldo continued raising his voice loudly. "Do you want to take Princess for a little stroll? Well, answer! Answer!" he yelled.Judy could feel her mother's body tensing up and trembling slightly."What do you want? You sent for me—what is it?" her mother asked."Do you know where she is? Where Princess is? She's dead. Dead. You killed her, that's what you did. You, too, Judy, both of you . . . all of you." Don Osvaldo's voice was angry. "She never did anything to you, to any of you. But you!" He pointed at Mrs. Morales. "You had to give that innocent animal, who never harmed you, something that would kill her, on spite! And you knew it—you knew it!""What do you want?" Mrs. Morales asked in a loud voice. "You have business with me? Tell me, or I'll leave!""Here ... ," Don Osvaldo said and pushed a white sheet of paper across the counter. "I don't want to touch you. Here is your bill. Pay up by the end of the week, or I'll take you to court. You get no more credit here!"Mrs. Morales picked up the bill and examined it carefully. "I see, Don Osvaldo, that you have charged me for the beans." Her voice was shaking and she paused, clearing her throat. "I'm glad, real glad you did. It's a small price to pay for the life of my children. As God will judge!" Mrs. Morales made the sign of the cross. "You will get your money, don't worry, Don Osvaldo. It will be my pleasure."In a moment, Mrs. Morales and her two children left the store.Judy cried that night and on many other nights whenever she remembered Princess. She wished she had never given the beans to Princess. She stopped going to the schoolyard; she didn't know what to tell the kids there.Her mother found a grocery store that sold to credit customers. It was farther away—an extra fifteen-minute walk. They had two cats that Judy enjoyed playing with, but it was not the same.Very often, she would pass by Don Osvaldo's grocery and glance inside, wondering if it had all been a dream and Princess were really in there waiting for her to come and play. She had spoken to several of the kids that shopped there, and all of them told her that the little dog was definitely not in the store. Still, there were times she would walk by and imagine Princess barking and wagging her tail, asking to be taken out to the schoolyard.Two months went by, and one day, as Judy walked by Don Osvaldo's store on the way home, she heard someone call her name."Judy .psst, Judy . . . come over here."She saw Dofia Nereida calling her. "Come over here, Judy. . . I want to talk to you." Judy moved slowly, with some trepidation. "Come on," Dofia Nereida insisted. "I just want to see you a minute."She followed the woman into the store. It was the first time she had set foot inside since the day that Don Osvaldo had spoken to her mother. She could hear her heart pounding, and she wondered what they wanted.Don Osvaldo was busy waiting on a customer, and did not look in her direction."Come on with me," Dolia Nereida whispered. "Come on!" Judy followed as she led her behind the counter and over to the back of the store.They entered a medium-sized room with an old gas stove, a sink, a small refrigerator, and several kitchen cabinets. The room was furnished with an old armchair in need of upholstering and a kitchen table with four chairs."Sit . . . sit down, Judy." They both sat down."I suppose you are wondering why I asked you in," she said. Judy nodded. "It's that . . . I just want to talk to you. About . . . Princess." Dona Nereida lowered her eyes and sighed. "You miss her too, bet." Judy blushed. Being here with Dofia Nereida embarrassed her. "Don't you?""Yes ... ," Judy said."She was so good; such a fine little dog. Almost like a person. We had her for five years. She was so obedient." Dofia Nereida paused and, choking back the tears, wiped her eyes. "It's not the same anymore, you know. And he . . ." She gestured into the store. "He doesn't understand and expects me to forget! I can't. You understand, don't you?"Judy nodded."See—I knew it. I told him. Judy—Judy knows. She loved Princess. She'll understand. I don't want another dog. You see, it wouldn't be fair to Princess. I have all her things, and he wants me to give them away!" She paused. "Would you like to see them? Would you?"Judy shrugged her shoulders, feeling uncom-fortable."Don't be shy. I know you want to see where Princess slept. Come on, now." Dofia Nereida stood up and took Judy into a small adjoining room. It had a large double bed and a dresser. Over in a corner was a child's colorful yellow?and-blue wardrobe unit. Next to it, on the floor, was what appeared to Judy to be a flat kind of wicker basket with a pillow. Inside were a rubber ball, a teething ring, and a toy telephone. "That's her little bed. We bought it at the pet shop on Third Avenue."The room was stuffy and unkempt. Judy tried not to show her displeasure at the way the room smelled."Its been very hard on me." Judy wished that Dofia Nereida would stop talking."Dolia Nereida," Judy said, "I have to go home now. My mother is waiting.""Of course.. What will you think of me?" She led Judy back out through the front. Don Osvaldo was busy looking at his ledger. "Here, Judy. . . ." Dona Nereida reached into the glass display case and took a piece of white coconut candy. "Here.""Thank you," said Judy."I know how you used to like this candy." She smiled."Goodbye," said Judy."Tomorrow. Come back tomorrow, Judy, and we'll talk some more!" She smiled."OK," Judy said, leaving the store. She put the candy in her mouth and decided that she definitely did not like it.As she walked home, she felt strange about what had just happened. The back of the store didn't seem to have anything to do with the Princess she remembered—barking wildly, jumping, running, playing in the schoolyard, and chasing all the kids.Judy made sure that on her way home from school, she did not pass by Don Osvaldo's store the next day, or any other day.Study QuestionsWho is Princess? Describe Judy’s relationship with her.Describe Don and Dona Osvaldo. How do they treat their customers?Why can’t Judy have a pet of her own?Why does Judy’s mother send her to the bodega with a can of beans?Why won’t the Osvaldos exchange or give a refund for the beans?How does Princess come to eat the beans? What happens to her?How does what happens to Princess change Judy? The Osvaldos?Literary Focus: Climax and Resolution-380999152400The climax is the particular point in a story at which the conflict or tension hits the highest point. It is a decisive moment or a “turning point” in a storyline where the rising action or suspense turns around into a falling action. Thus, a climax is the point at which a conflict or crisis reaches its peak, then calls for a resolution or conclusion. The resolution occurs at the end of a story, after the climax, when the loose ends are wrapped up. It presents the final outcome of a story.Example of Climax: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)The climax occurs when Travis is forced to shoot Old Yeller.Example of Resolution: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)The resolution is what happens after Travis shoots the dog. It involves, for example, the emotional turmoil that Travis goes through as a result of Old Yeller's death, a talk from Papa about not letting the bad and unfair things about life take over the good things, Travis riding his new horse, and the speckled puppy's antics making Travis both laugh and cry.Question: Identify the climax of “Princess.” What happens in the story’s resolution?Good MorningBy Mark Hager19051190500Mark Hager (1889-1960) was a Virginia railway clerk and manager for the local railyard. In his spare time, he wrote more than 250 short stories that appeared in a wide range of publications. Hager's stories were written on a used typewriter (originally bought for his children) on the dining room table at his home.“Good Morning” was published in the August 7, 1948 of Collier's Weekly magazine. It is an example of “local colour,” a style of writing derived from the presentation of the features and peculiarities of a particular locality and its inhabitants. It concerned itself mainly with depicting the character of a particular region, concentrating especially upon the peculiarities of dialect, manners, folklore, and landscape that distinguish the area.When I was a boy, I walked through two miles of woods to get to the schoolhouse, and I would take my father's twenty-two rifle with me and hide it in a hollow tree before I got to the schoolhouse and get it as I came home in the evening.One evening, coming from school, I ran into a community uprising at Mr. Epperly's house. Mr. Epperly's cow had gone mad and was bawling lonesome bawls and twisting the young apple-trees out of the ground with her horns, and whole community was demanding that Mr. Epperly's dog, Old Ranger, be shot as Old Ranger had fought and killed the mad dog that bit the cow.Mr. Epperly wanted to know if it wouldn't be safe to put Old Ranger in the stable or some place and keep him penned up until the danger period was over, but the neighbours said no; that Mr. Epperly's might slip and feed him through the cracks and get bit.Mr. Epperly said he could not do it himself, and wanted to know who would volunteer to do it, but none of the men would.Mr. Epperly came to me and said, “Joe, why can't you take him with you through the woods on your way home and do it?"I told Mr. Epperly I did not want to shoot Old Ranger. I saw Mr. Epperly's three kids were already keeping close to the old dog.Mr. Epperly then pulled a one-dollar bill from his pocket."I will give you this dollar bill if you'll do it", he said.I considered. I had never yet had a one-dollar bill all my own and while the idea of shooting Old Ranger did not appeal to me, it did seem like a thing that was demanded by the whole community, and they all put at me to do it, trying to make me feel like a kind of hero, and pointed to the danger to Mr. Epperly's children. Then Mr. Epperly put a piece of clothes-line around Old Ranger's neck and I started with him. The Epperly kids began to cry.As I walked through the woods by the little path, I started looking for a place suitable to shoot a dog and leave him lay. I saw a heavy clump of wild grapevines and I led him down under there and there (tied him) and then got back up in the path. Old Ranger looked at me and whiled and wagged his tail. He wanted to come to me. I recollected always seeing him wherever there was a splash of sunshine in Mr. Epperly's yard when I would pass there and Mr. Epperly's kids would join me for school.I went down and untied Old Ranger and walked on. I came to a place where there was a hickory grove in a little flat where the underbrush was thin. I recollected how Old Ranger liked to go to the hickory groves and tree squirrels. I led Old Ranger down and tied him close to the trunk of a big hickory tree.I started to take aim, but Old Ranger started prancing and looked up the tree. I remembered then hearing Mr. Epperly tell how Old Ranger would do that when he'd tree a squirrel and Mr. Epperly would raise the gun to shoot, and I could not fool Old Ranger like that.Besides, there was too much light and Old Ranger could see me take aim. I decided to wait for the gloom. Soon as the sun dropped a few more feet behind the Wilson Ridge, there would be gloom, and maybe Old Ranger would not see so plainly how I pointed the gun.While I waited for the gloom, the burning started in my pocket. I took the one-dollar bill out. I had a feeling there was something nasty about it.While I thought of that, Old Ranger roared and barked and surged at the cord leash, and when I looked back out the path I saw Mr. Epperly's three kids, but they were running away. They had turned to run when Old Ranger barked. I guessed they had slipped off from their house and followed just to see where I left Old Ranger.The thought struck me that they would run back to their house and tell I had not shot Old Ranger yet, and that would set the folks to worrying again, and I took aim, I thought I had better fire in their hearing. I took aim at Old Ranger, but I could not touch the trigger the way he looked at me and tried to speak, so I fired in the air so the Epperly kids could say they heard the shot.2871788190500I stuck the dollar back in my pocket, went down and hugged Old Ranger around the neck. I knew I would never shoot Old Ranger, I took him and walked on. I got to the edge of our field. I climbed on the gate and sat a long time and considered. I tried to think up how I could explain to my mother why I had brought Old Ranger home with me so that she would not be scared. I could not decide how I could explain with a good face that I had a one-dollar bill in my pocket I had been given to shoot Old Ranger.I remembered where I had seen an empty castor-oil bottle at the edge of the path. It was still there, and I got it and stuck the one-dollar bill in it, and buried the bottle in some soft dirt under the corner of the fence.My mother decided that since I had fired the shot, she would let me keep Old Ranger for a month, with the community thinking he was dead, but it was the hardest month I ever spent.The Epperly kids would not walk with me to school. They would pucker up to cry when they saw me, and the other kids down at the schoolhouse, they would say with a sneer, "What did you buy with your dollar bill?"I could not answer. I could not tell them about the castor-oil bottle under the fence corner or Old Ranger in our stable; the Epperly kids searched the woods on both sides of the path to our house, hunting for the body of Old Ranger, but they would not ask me where I had left him, and the other neighbours spoke of how Old Ranger's great booming voice was missed.Mrs. Epperly was kind to me. I met her in the road one day, and she told me how she had scolded the kids for treating me like that. "But", she added, "if it was to do over, I would not allow it done. The children... Mr. Epperly, too, they're half crazy."Then came the happy morning. "You can take Old Ranger home now, Joe," my mother said. "Been over a month. No danger now."I went to the stable, got Old Ranger, and he roared and licked my face. I shouldered my book strap, and led Old Ranger down the path. I stopped at the fence corner and got the castor-oil bottle with the one dollar bill in it. I had a time trying to hold Old Ranger's mouth shut so I could get in sight of the Epperly house before he barked.At the right place where they could see us when they came running to the front porch, I let Old Ranger have his voice, Old Ranger let go with a great howl that rolled and rocked around the ridges, and the Epperlys came bounding. Mr. and Mrs. Epperly and three kids. They alternated between my neck and Old Ranger's, and I don't know to this day which of us got the most hugging.I handed Mr. Epperly the castor-oil bottle."Why did you do that?" he said."It felt nasty in my pocket," I said.He tried to make me keep it and when I wouldn't he just pitched it towards me and his three kids, and we started for the schoolhouse, feeling rich, with a whole dollar to spend.Study QuestionsWhy does Mr. Epperly want to shoot Old Ranger? Why doesn’t he do it himself?What causes Joe to agree to shoot Old Ranger?What happens when Joe tries to shoot the dog?What does Joe do with the dog when he fails to shoot him?What happens a week later? How do the Epperly children respond?Why doesn’t Joe want to keep the money? What eventually happens to it?Literary Focus: Irony19051190500Irony occurs when there is a difference between the way things seem to be and the way they actually are. In simple words, it is a difference between appearance and reality.There are two basic types of irony: (1) verbal irony, and (2) situational irony. Verbal irony occurs when what someone says is the opposite of what they mean. For example, when in response to a foolish idea, we say, “What a great idea!” this is verbal irony. Situational irony occurs when there is a difference between expectation and reality. In other words, something entirely different happens from what the audience may be expecting, or the final outcome is opposite to what the audience is expecting. Situational irony occurs when, for instance, a man is chuckling at the misfortune of another, even when the same misfortune is, unbeknownst to him, befalling him.Example 1: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)At the beginning of the book, Travis thinks Yeller is a worthless thief and he attempt to get rid of the dog. Later, Travis changes his mind about Old Yeller completely when the dog saves Little Arliss from a bear attack. The irony occurs because the appearance (Old Yeller is a useless cur) is different than the reality (Old Yeller is a loyal and courageous dog).Example 2: “The Gift of the Magi” (By O. Henry)This is an example of situational irony, in which the wife sells her most prized possession – her hair – to get her husband a chain for his pocket watch; and the husband sells his most dear possession – a gold pocket watch – to get his wife fancy combs for her hair. Question: Explain what makes the story “Good Morning” ironic.Mama’s Missionary MoneyBy Chester Himes1161925Chester Himes (1909-1984) was an African-American writer whose novels and stories often reflect his encounters with racism. As an expatriate in Paris, he published a series of black detective novels, including Cotton Comes to Harlem which was turned into a 1970 movie.“Mama’s Missionary Money” was first published in 1949 and was later reprinted in the prestigious anthology Black American Short Stories: A Century of the Best. It is an example of the use of dialect. In literature, “dialect” means a form of writing that shows the accent and way people talk in a particular region. Because of this, it can sometimes risk being offensive to the people being imitated, but when employed carefully, it can provide color and realism to a story. “You Lem-u-welllllll! You-u-uuuu Lem-u-wellllllLLLLLLLL!" Lemuel heard his ma call him. Always wanting him to go to the store. He squirmed back into the corner of the chicken house, out of sight of the yard. He felt damp where he had sat in some fresh chicken manure, and he cursed. Through a chink in the wall he saw his ma come out of the house, shading the sun from her eyes with her hand, looking for him. Let her find Ella, his little sister, or get somebody else. Tired of going to the store all the time. If it wasn't for his ma it was for Miss Mittybelle next door. Most every morning soon's he started out the house here she come to her door. "Lem-u-well, would you lak t' go to t' the sto' for me lak a darlin' lil boy?" Just as soon's he got his glove and started out to play. Why din she just say, "Here, go to the sto'." Why'd she have to come on with that old "would you lak t' go" stuff? She knew his ma 'ud beat the stuffin's outen him if he refused. He watched his ma looking around for him. She didn't call anymore, trying to slip up on him. Old chicken came in the door and looked at him. "Goway, you old tattle tale," he thought, but he was scared to move, scared to breathe. His ma went on off, 'round the house; he saw her going down the picket fence by Miss Mittybelle's sun flowers, going on to the store herself. He got up and peeped out the door, looked around. He felt like old Daniel Boone. Wasn't nobody in sight. He went out in the yard. The dust was deep where the hens had burrowed hollows. It oozed up twixt the toes of his bare feet and felt hot and soft as flour. His long dark feet were dust-powdered to a tan color. The dust was thick on his ankles, thinning up his legs. There were numerous small scars on the black skin. He was always getting bruised or scratched or cut. There were scars on his hands too and on his long black arms.He wondered where everybody was. Sonny done gone fishing with his pa. More like Bubber's ma kept him in 'cause he was feeling a little sick. From over toward Mulberry Street came sounds of yelling and screaming. He cocked his long egg-shaped head to listen; his narrow black face was stolid, black skin dusty dry in the noonday sun. Burrhead was getting a licking. Everybody knew everybody's else's cry. He was trying to tell whether it was Burrhead's ma or pa beating him. Old rooster walked by and looked at him. "Goan, old buzzard!" he whispered, kicking dust at it. The rooster scrambled back, ruffling up, ready to fight. Lemuel went on to the house, opened and shut the screen door softly, and stood for a moment in the kitchen. His ma'd be gone about fifteen minutes. He wiped the dust off his feet with his hands and started going through the house, searching each room systematically, just looking to see what he could find. He went upstairs to his ma's and pa's room, sniffed around in the closet, feeling in the pockets of his pa's Sunday suit, then knelt down and looked underneath the bed. He stopped and peeped out the front window, cautiously pulling back the curtains. Old Mr. Diggen was out in his yard 'cross the street, fooling 'round his fence. His ma wasn't nowhere in sight. He turned back into the room and pulled open the top dresser drawer. There was a big rusty black pocketbook with a snap fastener back in the corner. He poked it with a finger. It felt hard. He lifted it up. It was heavy. He opened it. There was money inside, all kinds of money, nickels and dimes and quarters and paper dollars and even ten dollar bills. He closed it up, shoved it back into the corner, slammed shut the drawer, and ran and looked out the front window. Then he ran and looked out the back window. He ran downstairs and went from room to room, looking out all the windows in the house. No one was in sight. Everybody stayed inside during the hot part of the day. He ran back upstairs, opened the drawer, and got to the pocketbook. He opened it, took out a quarter, closed it, put it away, closed the drawer, ran downstairs and out the back door and across the vacant lot to Mulberry Street. He started downtown, walking fast as he could without running. When he came to the paved sidewalks, they were hot on his feet and he walked half dancing, lifting his feet quickly from the pavement. At the Bijou he handed up his quarter, got a dime in change, and went into the small, hot theatre to watch a gangster film. Pow! Pow! Pow! That was him shooting down the cops. Pow! Pow l Pow!"Where you been all day, Lem-u-well?" his ma asked as she bustled 'round the kitchen fixing supper. 3690938114300"Over tuh the bayou. Fishin'. Me 'n Bluebelly went." His ma backhanded at him but he ducked out of range. "Told you t' call Francis by his name." "Yas'm. Francis, Me 'n Francis." His pa looked up from the hydrant, where he was washing his hands and face. "Ummmmp?" he said. His pa seldom said more than "Ummmmp." It meant most everything. Now it meant did he catch any fish. "Nawsuh," Lemuel said. His little sister, Ella, was setting the table. Lemuel washed his hands and sat down and his pa sat down and said the blessing while his ma stood bowed at the stove. It was very hot in the kitchen and the sun hadn't set. The reddish glow of the late sun came in through the windows, and they sat in the hot kitchen and ate greens and side meat and rice and baked sweet potatoes and drank the potliquor with the corn bread and had molasses and corn bread for dessert. Afterwards Lemuel helped with the dishes, and they went and sat on the porch in the late evening while the people passed and said hello. Nothing was said about the quarter. Next day Lemuel took four dimes, three nickels, and two half dollars. He went and found Burrhead. "What you got beat 'bout yesdiddy?" "Nutton. Ma said I sassed her." "I got some money." Lemuel took the coins from his pocket and showed them."Where you git it?" Burrhead's eyes were big as saucers. "Ne you mind. I got it. Les go tuh the show." "'Gangster Guns' at the Bijou." "I been there. Les go downtown tuh the Grand." On the way they stopped in front of Zeke's Grill. It was too early for the show. Zeke was in his window turning flapjacks on the grill. They were big, round flapjacks, golden brown on both sides, and he'd serve 'em up with butter gobbed between. Lemuel never had no flapjacks like that at home. Burrhead neither. They looked like the best tasting flapjacks in the world. They went inside and had an order, then they stopped at Missus Harris's and each got double ice-cream cones and a bag of peanut brittle. Now they were ready for the show. It was boiling hot way up in the balcony next to the projection room, but what'd they care? They crunched happily away at their brittle and laughed and carried on. . . . "Watch out, man, he slippin' up 'hind yuh." Time to go home Lemuel had a quarter, two nickels, and a dime left. He gave Burrhead the nickels and dime and kept the quarter. That night after supper his ma let him go over to the lot and play catch with Sonny, Bluebelly, and Burrhead. They kept on playing until it was so dark they couldn't see and they lost the ball over in the weeds by the bayou. Next day Lemuel slipped up to his ma's dresser and went into the magic black pocketbook again. He took enough to buy a real big-league ball and enough for him and Burrhead to get some more flapjacks and ice cream too. His ma hadn't said nothing yet. As the hot summer days went by and didn't nobody say nothing at all, he kept taking a little more each day. He and Burrhead ate flapjacks every day. He set up all the boys in the neighborhood to peanut brittle and ice cream and rock candy and took them to the show. Sundays, after he'd put his nickel in the pan, he had coins left to jingle in his pocket, although he didn't let his ma or pa hear him jingling there. All his gang knew he was stealing the money from somewhere. But nobody tattled on him and they made up lies at home so their parents wouldn't get suspicious. Lemuel bought gloves and balls and bats for the team and now they could play regular ball out on the lot all day. His ma noticed the new mitt he brought home and asked him where he got it. He said they'd all been saving their money all summer and had bought the mitt and some balls. She looked at him suspiciously. "Doan you dast let me catch you stealin' nothin', boy." About this time he noticed the magic black bag was getting flat and empty. The money was going. He began getting scared. He wondered how long it was going to be before his ma found out. But he had gone this far, so he wouldn't stop. He wouldn't think about what was going to happen when it was all gone. He was the king of the neighborhood. He had to keep on being king. One night after supper he and his pa were sitting on the porch. Ella was playing with the cat 'round the side. He was sitting on the bottom step, wiggling his toes in the dust. He heard his ma come downstairs. He could tell something was wrong by the way she walked. She came out on the porch. "Isaiah, somebody's tuk all my missionary money," she said. 'Who you reckin it was?" Lemuel held his breath. "Ummmmp!" his pa said. "You reckin it were James?" He was her younger brother who came around sometimes. "Ummmmp! Now doan you worry, Lu'belle. We find it." Lemuel was too scared to look around. His pa didn't move. Nobody didn't say anything to him. After a while he got up. "I'm goin' tuh bed, ma," he said. "Ummmmp!" his pa noticed. Lemuel crawled into bed in the little room he had off the kitchen downstairs. But he couldn't sleep. Later he heard Doris Mae crying from way down the street. He just could barely hear her but he knew it was Doris Mae. Her ma was beating her. He thought Doris Mae's ma was always beating her. Later on he heard his ma and pa go up to bed. All that night he lay half awake, waiting for his pa to come down. He was so scared he just lay there and trembled. Old rooster crowed. The sun was just rising. Clump-clumpclump. He heard his pa's footsteps on the stairs. Clump-clumpclump. It was like the sound of doom. He wriggled down in the bed and pulled the sheet up over his head. He made like he was sleeping. Clump-clump-clump. He heard his pa come into the room. He held his breath. He felt his pa reach down and pull the sheet off him. He screwed his eyes 'round and saw his pa standing tall in mudstained overalls beside the bed, with the cord to his razor strop doubled over his wrist and the strop hanging poised at his side. His pa had on his reformer's look, like he got on when he passed the dance hall over on Elm Street. "Lem-u-well, I give you uh chance tuh tell the truth. What you do with yo' ma's missionary money?" "I didn't take it, pa. I swear I didn', pa." "Ummmmp !" his pa said. Whack! The strap came down. Lemuel jumped off the bed and tried to crawl underneath it. His pa caught him by the arm. Whack! Whack! Whack! went the strap. The sound hurt Lemuel as much as the licks. "Owwwwwww-owwwwwwWWWW!" he began to bawl. All over the neighborhood folks knew that Lemuel was getting a beating. His buddies knew what for. The old folks didn't know yet but they'd know before the day was over. "God doan lak thieves," his pa said, beating him across the back and legs. Lemuel darted toward the door. His pa headed him off. He crawled between his pa's legs, getting whacked as he went through. He ran out to the kitchen. His ma was waiting for him with a switch. He tried to crawl underneath the table. His head got caught in the legs of a chair. His ma started working on his rear with the switch. "MURDER!" he yelled at the top of his voice. "HELP! POLICE! Please, ma, I ain't never gonna steal nothin' else, ma. If you jes let me off this time, ma. I swear, ma." "I'm gonna beat the truth into you," his ma said. "Goma beat out the devil." He pulled out from underneath the table and danced up and down on the floor, trying to dodge the licks aimed at his leg. "He gone, ma! Oh, he gone!" he yelled, dancing up and down, "Dat ol' devil gone, ma! I done tuk Christ Jesus to my heart!" Well, being as he done seen the light, she sighed and let him off. Her missionary money wasn't gone clean to waste nohow if it'd make him mend his stealin' ways. She guessed the heathens would just have to wait another year; as Isaiah always say, they done wanted this long 'n it ain't kilt 'em. The way Lemuel's backsides stung and burned he figured them ol' heathens was better off than they knew 'bout.Study QuestionsHow does Lemuel avoid going to the store for his mother?How does Lemuel find the money? What is the money for?Who says, “Ummmmp!”? What does it mean?Identify three things Lemuel does with the money.Why might Lemuel have kept taking and spending money when he knew he would eventually get caught?How does Lemuel’s father punish him?Literary Focus: Character and Characterization1171450A character is a person (or animal) involved in a story. Each character has certain qualities, or character traits that the reader discovers as the story unfolds. Major characters are the more important characters, and minor characters are less important.Characterization is the personality of a character and the method by which an author reveals that personality. The author may directly state opinions about the characters. Usually the author reveals the character’s personality indirectly, through the character’s own words and actions or through what other other characters say about him or her. Example: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)Travis is characterized by many traits, including his stubbornness. We can see this indirectly in the way he refuses to accept and befriend Old Yeller at first, and only does so after a long period of time. Old Yeller is characterized as loyal and courageous. We see this in the way he repeatedly risks his life to protect the family from danger. Question: What are two character traits of the main character in “Mama’s Missionary Money.” How are these traits shown in the story? Denton’s DaughterBy Ellen Lowenberg19051190500“Denton’s Daughter” was originally published in Seventeen magazine in 1963. It is an example of the use of humor. Humor is a literary tool that intends to induce amusement or laughter. A writer can use different techniques to create humor, including wordplay, slapstick, and especially irony. As you read the story, note how the writer uses irony -- the difference between the way things seem and the way they really are -- to make you chuckle. Humor in literature can be used -- as it is in “Denton’s Daughter” -- to provide a funny and lighthearted look at human behavior.With the lousy marks I was getting last January, I really needed something like Denton's daughter, take it from me.Not that I usually go in for toadying up to people or anything because I don't. Let's put it this way: Mr. Denton was a new teacher, and new teachers are impressionable. I wanted his impression of me to be a good one.It was actually a very big coincidence that Mr. Denton was my history teacher, because that's where I needed it the most. Luck, I mean. I was just about flunking history. As a matter of fact, I was just about flunking almost everything but math, which was what all the other guys were flunking. It isn't that I'm stupid, it's mainly that I don't work overly hard. And I was going through a special slump then, because of Kathy.Which leads me from the subject of school to that of Kathy, which is a prettier one but more of a pain in the neck. Kathy and I have been going steady since the ninth grade. She's cute--blond hair, blue eyes, cute nose, cool figure—you know the type. She's smart, too.Anyway, just about when school started after Christmas vacation, which is when the Dentons moved to town, Kathy and I started having a bunch of little fights. This happens about twice a year, but it always kind of gets me down for a while. It does the same thing to Kathy, I know, because I heard her mother telling my mother that every time we break up Kathy sits around and plays our favorite song on the record player and actually cries. Not that I'd ever expect Kathy to admit it to me. Heck, if I sat around and cried over her, you couldn't drag it out of me. Anyway, my marks were hitting an all-time low, and I didn't know what to do about it. Report cards come out at the end of January, so I had one month to patch things up with Kath and get my marks up. At Clinton Carter High, where I go, we get numerical marks, and if my father saw anything below a seventy, I could see myself grounded for the rest of the year. No car. No lacrosse. No Kathy.So that was the position I was in when the matter of Denton's daughter came up. It all started on Tuesday, when I failed a surprise history quiz. It was practically all dates and names of generals and junk like that. I answered only four questions right, out of ten, and a forty didn't do wonders for my average. As a matter of fact, it brought my average down to sixty-eight. So I thought if I went and told Mr. Denton that I had a strict father, maybe he'd let me do a special report or something to make it up. Not that I usually ask for extra work, but if my father were ever to sign a report with a sixty-eight in history (in addition to Heaven knows what in Latin)—the scene is too awful even to consider.History was last period, so I just kind of walked up to Denton's desk and stood there like an idiot. You could tell he was a new teacher because when he finally looked up he said, "Is there something I can do for you, Carroll?" Nobody ever calls me Carroll. My father used to when he got mad at me, but now he just swears. Truthfully, I'd rather be called any of the various things he calls me than Carroll. It's my father's name, too, and even he thinks it's pretty bad. When you get right down to it, I should never have gotten the name at all; it should have been my eighteen-year-old brother's headache, but he was smart enough to get born the week that my grandfather died, so all he got stuck with was Joseph Patrick after my grandfather. They saved Carroll Clement Junior for me. Just my rotten luck. My brother doesn't even use Joseph Patrick—he goes by J. P. because he thinks it sounds cool—J. P. Fahey. Everybody calls me Buck. I don't know how that got started, but my parents probably thought it up because they were sorry for sticking me with Carroll Clement. At school, most of the teachers call us by our last names, so I'm used to being called Fahey. I don't mind that, and I don't mind Buck, but I can't stand the combination Carroll Fahey, because most of the people I know pronounce it Fay, and then I'm really in for it. Let's face it, Carroll Fay does sound fruity. We pronounce it Fay-hee, two syllables. But back to the original point: you could tell Denton was new at Carter because he called me Carroll."It's about that test we had, sir," I said. I didn't want to get into a long discussion of anything because Kathy goes to Central High, which happens to be right across the street from Carter, and I was supposed to meet her to go to the drugstore for sodas. But I couldn't tell Denton that or else he'd think I wasn't serious about my schoolwork."Sit down, Carroll," he told me, so I did, and then he looked up and smiled at me and really made me feel cruddy. He was acting so nice. That's another way you could tell he was new. He opened up his little black mark book, but I knew he wasn't looking at my marks because he was looking up at the top of the page; there are at least ten guys in my class before the F's."Fahey," I tried to be helpful."Oh, yes, Fahey," he mumbled, and then he did find my marks, because he made kind of a sick face."Carroll, your grades have been rather low this quarter. Now, I see that you made an eighty-four last quarter. Is something the matter?"That clinched it! About his not knowing how Carter teachers usually behave, I mean. Can you feature that; asking me if anything was the matter? Sheesh! That's one thing you don't get much of from teachers, consideration. It was almost enough to make me tell him about Kathy, but I reconsidered; once a teacher, always a teacher."Nothing's exactly the matter, sir, only my father will be very upset if I get a sixty-eight in history and—""I don't give make-up tests, Carroll." He was more on the ball than I thought. "I know you have the ability to do well, Carroll. Frankly, you puzzle me. I could almost believe you don't want to get good grades." I just looked down at my feet. This wasn't going the way I'd planned at all. And Kathy'd be mad because I hadn't showed up yet, and we were on touchy enough ground to begin with."As I said," Mr. Denton went on, "I never give make-up tests. However, we will have a quiz on Thursday on chapters twenty-one and twenty-two in the textbook, and one on Monday on chapter twenty-three. I will average them with the quiz we had today to make a unit test-mark, so if you make a perfect score on both quizzes, the final mark will be an eighty. I think you'll agree that's fair." I couldn't argue, because it was, so I just thanked him and got up to leave."If it's girl-trouble that's bothering you, Carroll, don't worry too much. My daughter Evelyn is going through the same sort of thing." Oh, nuts, I thought. Now he was going to start talking about his family, and you can't walk out while a teacher's talking about anything, especially his family. Kathy would really be burning up. That is, if she was still waiting. She had probably gone home, or, even worse, but more probably, to the drugstore with some other guy."You see, we just moved to town, and Evelyn hasn't met many people yet. I'd really like to see her meet some nice boys and girls—"That was when it hit me. Hard! It was the biggest brainstorm I'd ever had, and that's saying something. It was low-down and sneaky and against all my principles."Mr. Denton, if Evelyn could get to a party or two, she'd probably meet a whole bunch of nice kids. Hey! Why don't I take her to Artie Hoffman's party Saturday night? She'd like the crowd a lot, they're great kids." Oh, was that ever a lousy thing to do! Aside from buttering up Mr. Denton, I knew that everyone expected me to take Kathy Anderson to that party, including Kath. Not that I'd actually asked her, she just figured I would take her. Who else would I take?Evelyn Denton, that's who. Mr. Denton would appreciate it; maybe he'd even appreciate it two points worth on my average. Besides, I'd be nice to his daughter. How could a plan like that be bad?I found out how, about fifteen minutes later, when I met Kathy outside. Denton had thought it over and decided that it would be a good idea. He knew me. He could trust me more than some strange guy he'd never even seen. He gave me his number and I promised to call that night. For a minute there, I actually felt guilty. The guy acted as if I was doing him a favor. He didn't even see through my plan. Not that I wanted him to, but it was taking candy from a baby, and I actually liked the guy. Oh, well, I figured, you know what they say about love and war, and with my marks, my father, and Kathy, this was both.Kathy was waiting in our usual place, and I could tell by that you're-gonna-get-it look on her face that it wasn't going to be exactly fun. What was worse, she plunged right in without giving me a chance to think of anything to say. Not that I usually can think of anything to say to Kathy when she's mad. But I'd have liked the chance."Okay, Buck Fahey," she snarled, pronouncing it Fay just to annoy me, "you're only half an hour late. I'd like you to know that Kenny Allen asked me to go to the drugstore with him, and so did Marty Tanner, but I turned them both down. And would you like to know why?" If she had dripped sarcasm any more, she would've had to wipe her chin. But she kept right on going, full steam ahead. That's one thing you've got to say for Kathy, once she gets wound up, she doesn't stop. Persistent, that's the word I was thinking of. Kathy's persistent."I wanted to stay here to meet you, you rat, so I could tell you what I think of you and your phony excuses for always being late. I don't even want to hear this one, because I'm going straight home, and don't bother calling me tonight because we aren't speaking until at least tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, in case we aren't speaking after tomorrow, you can pick me up at eight-thirty Saturday night.""What for?" I asked like a real idiot. I knew what for as well as I knew my name (which, when you get right k down to it, is enough to remember), but that's the way I am sometimes. Especially with Kath. Stupid. Of course, it made her twice as angry."For Artie Hoffman's party, you stupid lacrosse player. Don't you have any brain hidden in that brawn?" "Oh. Artie's, huh? Well, uh—Kathy, I'm not taking you to Artie’s party because I promised to take my history teacher’s daughter.”"You—what?""Promised to take Denton's daughter. Aw, come on, Kath, have a heart. The poor kid doesn't know anyone in town. It's probably her first date, and it'll be a big kick for her, going out with a lacrosse player and all. She's probably a real drip; you know what teachers' daughters are like. Straight brown hair, braces, long nose, horn-rimmed glasses, stick figure. It'll be awful to have to spend an evening with her after being used to you, but the poor little weirdo deserves a break." I didn't mean to lay it on quite so thick, but it worked. It was that ' picture of poor old board-flat Evelyn Denton, crying because she never had a date, that did it."Are you sure that she's like that, and that you're only doing this as a favor to her father, Bucky? Are you positive?""Absolutely, Kath, I swear. Look, I've got to keep in good with Denton, I don't have a seventy average. If Dad punishes me, we won't be able to meet after school or anything. You know I don't care about this Denton kid—I just pity her.""Welllll—okay. I'll forgive you this time, Buck, but just this time. And if you're not taking me out Saturday night, I'll be free to go to the movies with Marty.""Okay," I said pretty cheerfully. It isn't that I liked the idea of my girl going out with a show-off like Tanner. It's just that I don't usually get off that easy. With Kathy, that is.”That night, I called Evelyn Denton. Her voice didn't sound too bad. Serious, like what you'd expect from a teacher's daughter, but not too bad. I told her to call me Buck because she'd already picked up the Carroll habit from her father. I called Kathy, too, to make sure we were speaking, but she was washing her hair.3248025504825The next afternoon when I went to meet Kathy after school, I was in a pretty good mood; at least I knew that she'd be speaking to me. That was my mistake—getting the idea that Kathy's mood would stay the same for more than five minutes. I could tell that something was wrong from that sneaky way that Kathy was smiling at me. I've only seen that kind of smile a few times before, usually on my father."Hi, Bucky," she said. There was something about that voice—"I called you last night, but you were washing your hair," I said. As you can see, it's more or less a habit, this stalling for time. With Kathy, you have to. It didn't work."Do you know what else I did last night, Bucky dear? Linda Larson came over for a while, and I showed her that picture of you in your lacrosse uniform that I used to carry around in my wallet. So she let me look through her wallet, and I found a picture of a girl in her class, which she very graciously let me borrow to show you." She handed me a color snap of a girl, and—wow! What a looker! Kind of the sophisticated pixie type. Short red hair, big eyes and a figure that you usually can't find on a high school girl. It was all I could do not to whistle a little out of sheer appreciation. Kathy was still being very sweet."Naturally, I asked Linda who she was. Would you like to know who she is, Bucky dear?""Yeah, who is she?" I was trying not to sound too eager, but it wasn't working too well. Kathy just stared at me, so I asked her again."Who is she?""Evelyn Denton, that's who!" she screamed. I nearly passed out."Evelyn Denton? Evelyn—you're kidding! Evelyn Denton?""Yes, Evelyn Denton, and I see no signs of the braces or the lanky brown hair. And what's more, she doesn't strike me as looking like the shy type, socially or otherwise.""But, Kathy—""As a matter of fact, I would say offhand that she looks quite aggressive.""But, Kath—""If you had told me the truth I might not be so angry, but you lied, which definitely proves that there is a lack of trust between the two of us.""But, Kath—""Are you still going to take her out Saturday night?"“Well, yes.”"In that case, I have just one thing to say to you." "But, Kathy—""Go to—Hades, Carroll Clement Fahey Junior!" She turned and tried to walk away the way a movie star would but tripped over her foot and practically fell over, which kind of spoiled the effect. I still had the snap, so I looked at it again.My first thought was, "After a date with this doll, Kathy'll never speak to me again." But then I had this other thought: "After a date with this doll, what do I care?"I thought about Evelyn Denton all afternoon. At eight I called her, then I thought about her the rest of the night. I forgot to study for her father's test, so I got an eighty instead of the hundred I needed, but I figured I was pretty safe. Even Denton wouldn't have the heart to fail a guy who would be practically in the family after Saturday night. Friday night, I called Kathy. I figured that after a couple of days' worth of cooling off she'd be willing to make up, but she was out with Marty Tanner. It burned me up, until I looked at Evelyn's picture. Kathy's a real cute kid and all, but this Evelyn was a queen. A real queen. My best friend David Cade had thought so too, when I'd showed him the picture that day."Jeez, Buck, she's really got it," he said. "What's Kathy gonna say about her? If I even looked at someone like that, Cynthia would pulverize me." I informed him that Kathy had already had her say."Yeah, I can imagine," Dave said kind of pityingly. "But then again, you and that Denton kid could go places." Just then, Cynthia passed, Dave's school ring hanging on a chain around her neck. She tries to wear it a different way each day—sometimes taped up on her finger, sometimes around her neck on a chain, sometimes around her neck on a velvet ribbon. Once I suggested she wear it in her nose like a bull, and she didn't even give me a disgusted look and tell me I could do better than that. It was downright frightening, but I saw that look on her face, and I swear, she looked as if she were thinking it over! She's pretty, a good dancer, but stupid!Anyway, Cynthia came by and said, "Hi, Dave, I want to talk to you later." She walked right by and didn't say anything to me, so I could figure out what had happened. She'd been talking to Kath, who had, of course, told her what a lowdown louse I was, so Cynthia wasn't speaking to me either."Boy, Kathy must really be furious," David said."Aw, Cynthia's just a nut, that's all," I said, not because it had anything to do with the situation, but mostly because, just for that second, I really felt bad about Kathy. Old Dave wasn't even offended because I called his steady a nut. He's used to it.That afternoon, I smiled at Mr. Denton as I left history. I hoped he hadn't forgotten about the two points on my average. I had forgotten that he'd never said a thing about two points on my average.I was nervous Saturday night, but I began feeling better when I got dressed and into the car. I had a pretty long ride out to where the Dentons lived, so I turned on the radio. They were playing this song, Sweet Little Kathy.Do you ever get the feeling that everyone's against you?The Dentons' house was pretty. Little and white. Not what you'd expect a red-headed bombshell to live in, but because it was so incongruous, it fit perfectly. Incongruous—that's a million-dollar word. Someday have to see if I can't fit it into something I say in school. My Latin teacher'd love it.I rang the doorbell, and for a minute I hoped that Denton would open the door, because I was in a very polite mood. A lumpy-looking girl in a black velvet; jumper answered, and I couldn't help thinking that Mr., and Mrs. Denton must really have some mixed-up genes to have a daughter like Evelyn and one like this, too. She wasn't fat, just lumpy looking, and the black velvet jumper made her look worse. She was wearing box heels and her lipstick was too red. The one pretty thing about her was her shiny, blue-black hair, and she had even ruined that by wearing it in a pony tail with plastic hair band. If there's one thing I really hate, it's a girl wearing a plastic hair band."Hi, Buck," the girl said."Hi, Bunky. Where's your sis?""I don't have a sister, just a little brother, and besides, what difference does it make where he is?" She gave me a real peculiar look. "Come on, let's go." I was confused, let me tell you. I was just trying to figure it out as a short, gray-haired woman walked in and smiled at me."You must be Carroll Fahey," she said, actually pronouncing it right. "I'm Mrs. Denton. I've heard so much about you from George." Then she turned around and said to the girl, "Evelyn, dear, don't stay out too late. Have a nice time, and you, too, Carroll."Evelyn! I didn't know which end was up, but I suspected that I was on the wrong one. Suddenly, I noticed the mantelpiece; there, next to a bowl of flowers was a blown-up copy of the picture I'd been worshiping for the past two days."Who's that?" I blurted.Mrs. Denton smiled again. "That's my niece, Evelyn Denton. She and our Evvie were both named after the same grandmother. Do you know her, Carroll?""I've seen her around," I answered.I mean, what else could I say?I still haven't met the beautiful red-headed Evelyn Denton. It seems she goes steady with some Princeton guy. My Evelyn met a boy at the party who's a nut on biology and they've been dating ever since. Kathy didn't speak to me for three weeks. Mr. Denton gave me a sixty-seven in history (the quizzes brought it down one point). He said he was sorry to do it because he had really gotten to like me and I had introduced Evelyn to Lester and all that, but he didn't think personal feelings should enter into grading. Dad hit the ceiling when I brought home my report card and said I couldn't have the car for a month. Which didn't end up much of a punishment because my brother got the measles and, as a final humiliation, I caught them and had a much worse case than my brother.I could say something in summation of this whole mess, but I won't. For once in my life, I won't.Study QuestionsWhy does Buck offer to take out Mr. Denton’s Daughter?What is Kathy’s reaction when Buck tells her he can’t take her to the party because he’s taking Evelyn Denton? Why does her reaction change later?What is Buck’s opinion of Dave’s girlfriend, Cynthia? Why is Buck surprised when he meets Evelyn Denton?What happens to Buck, Kathy, and Evelyn in the resolution of the story?In your opinion, what are three of Buck’s character flaws? Explain.Do you think Buck and Kathy’s relationship will last? Why or why not?Literary Focus: Round and Flat Characters1180975Characters in stories can be either round or flat.A round character has a complex personality. Like real people, they have depth in feelings and passions. A round character has many layers of personality. Writers define a round character fully, both physically and mentally. It is a character with whom the reader can sympathize, associate with, or relate to, as he seems very life-like.A flat character does not have much depth. A flat character is a simple character, having just one or two qualities, which generally remain the same throughout the story. The audience does not know much about these characters, because the writer does not provide detailed information about them.Example: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)Travis is a round character. We know a great deal about his personality, including his likes, dislikes, hopes, and fears. He is a very lifelike character.Bud Searcy is more of a flat character. We know he is lazy and manipulative, but beyond that, we know very little about him.Question: Is Buck a round or flat character? What about Mr. Denton? Explain why for each.Fire! By John D. MacDonald19051190500John D. MacDonald (1916-1986) is famous for his popular detective novels. The hero of many of those novels is detective Travis McGee. MacDonald also wrote more serious stories. His work has been the basis of many movies and television shows. His stories often have exciting action.“Fire!” (published in 1980) is a coming-of-age story. This is a genre of literature that focuses on the growth of a protagonist from youth to adulthood. Coming-of-age stories tend to emphasize dialogue or internal monologue over action, and are often set in the past. Not long ago, coming back home on a night flight, I saw the sullen ember of a distant forest fire In the hills and felt a small twist of anguish, I knew it was the memory of the injustice of my grandfather toward my big brother Paul in a long-ago October. There were seven of us children in all, Now, when we all get together with wives and husbands and children, we end up telling Grandfather stories, marveling at that strange, wild old man who raised us, with our mother acting more as referee than parent. Sometimes we judge him quite mad. At other times we think he was full of wisdom. Perhaps it was both. He never explained. Paul and I can laugh about the fire now.It was a strange October that year. Hot and still and dry, day after day, the sun rising and setting in a weird mist. The creek ran nearly dry. We all lugged water to the growing things and worried about the well. I remember that the three littlest ones, Tom, Nan, and Bunny volunteered to give up washing—as an effort to save water. It was denied. The woodlands which began a half dozen miles north of the farm had dozens of fires. When the winds were right, you could smell the stink of burning forest, a strange dirty stench, somehow frightening.Paul was fifteen that year, and I was twelve. I did the thoughtless, stupid thing on the way back from the creek. I'd gone down there with Paul on a hot Sunday afternoon to see if any fish were trapped in the pools. We were walking back. I had some kitchen matches in my pocket. When out in the wide world I liked to carry one in the corner of my mouth. I felt it gave me a certain devil-may-care air.In those years all small boys knew that if you hold a match in a certain way and throw it downward at a stone or a sidewalk, it will pop and burn. I was not skilled, but I had tried so many times it required no thought. As we passed a gray rock half buried in the dry weeds along the fence line, I hurled my match at it. It struck properly for once. The head popped and bounced into the weeds, and in an instant the sun-paled flames were high and spreading. For once Paul did not take time out to tell me how stupid I was. He yanked his shirt off and began stomping and flailing, and yelled at me to run for help and water.I was a hundred yards from the dooryard. and I think I made as good time and as much noise as a fire engine. In a very short and confusing time. all seven kids and my mother and my grandfather were out there with wet sacks and blankets. It was a very near thing. I think that if there had been eight of us instead of nine, it might have gotten away. As it was, it burned off a very large area.Tom was nine. and as responsible as anv of us, and Grandfather left him out there with a bucket of water and orders to patrol the edges. looking for any spark which could have survived the bank.When we got back to the porch, Grandfather sat down to catch his wind. He had been wonderful out in the pasture. like a great windmill hammering at the flames, yelling at them as he beat them out.“Who was there?" he demanded.That was one area where he had always been predictable. When any punishable offense occurred, Grandfather solved the problem of blame by walloping everyone who had been in the immediate area. Thus we were forever united. policing each other. with no tattletales.Paul and I admitted our presence at the scene, knowing that we would sit down very carefully for the next day or so. The other kids drifted away, and we were left there facing the old man. I remember the black streaks of burned grasses on his big hands. “All right,” he said, “Which one of you did it?”The simple questions surprised us. Without warning, he had changed the rules. Paul had straightened himself slightly and said, “I did it!” He was fifteen. He used a tone of voice we younger ones did not yet dare to use. Grandfather sighed and he looked at me, blue eyes under those angry white brows. I believe I tried to speak. But the thing I had done was so shamefully stupid, I wasted too much time trying to think of a way to confess which would make it believable.Before I could find the beginning words, Grandfather got up and went into the house, Mother trotting along behind him, asking nervous questions.I tried to explain myself to Paul. but he turned away. There was a great silence that night at the supper table. I was an outcast. I wanted the normal punishment. The change of ground rules made me feel lost and sick.Grandfather got up from the table and looked at Paul and said, "I made some arrangements. You are excused from school. You'll get a better look at a fire, boy."Early Monday morning one of the county trucks stopped and picked up Grandfather and Paul. There was a crew of rough, weary men aboard the truck and a crude bunch of tools in a steel drum—axes, shovels, mattocks. I remember Mother pleading with Grandfather, saying, "But he's just a boy!"2776538359561I did not hear his answer. I know now they needed every strong pair of arms they could round up. It was a fearful time in the powder-dry forests. I went off to school with the others. I did not hear much that day in school. I had the horrible vision of Paul encircled by a roar of flames, running and screaming. It was a hor-rible injustice. It was all my fault. I plotted to sneak off that night and join them in the hills. Somehow I would rescue Paul, and everyone would forgive me.When the five of us got home from school, we learned that the well had gone dry. And that too seemed to be my fault. We had used a lot of water fighting that stupid grass fire. Mother got me aside and said, "What do you think we should do?"The question astonished me. It made me realize that with Grandfather and Paul gone, I was the eldest male on the farm. I forgot the feeling of being an outcast. The creek water was sweet. The creek was nearly three hundred yards from the well. Mother had turned off the pump when it had sucked dry.I organized the four eldest of us, Christine, Sheila, Tom, and me, into a water brigade. We scoured out big containers and loaded them on the pickup, and I drove it as close to the creek as I could get it. Then we filled them, bucket by bucket, drove back, and dumped the water into the well. It was very hard work. After several loads, I primed the old pump and started it again. After Tom and Sheila were too exhausted to continue, Christine and I managed two more trips by ourselves.As I lay in my bed that moonlight night, a smell of burning forest came in the window. I was in a soft bed, while Paul and Grandfather were in the hills. There was more penance to do. I could not manage the truck system by myself, but I could carry water. I dressed and went quietly out into the night. I could not guess how many trips I made that night. To?ward the end I could not manage full buckets.I remember sitting on the edge of the well, the dawn rose-gray at the horizon line, opening and closing my aching hands, summon-ing up the will to make yet another trip to the creek. I remember seeing my mother come across the side yard in her robe. She led me back to the house. I can remember fighting tears, and losing just as we reached the steps.The heavy rains began at dawn on Thursday, and before we left for school, Paul and our grandfather were home, dirty, exhausted, walking in a strange dazed, dragging way, as though they were walking up hill. When we came home from school, they were still sleeping. Grandfather got up for supper, but Paul did not, and Mother had me take him up hot soup and milk and apple pie. He told me of digging endless trenches, chopping through thousands of tough forest roots. He showed me his hands. We were friends again, somehow, but in a different way.When I went back downstairs to my place at the table, I found Mother telling Grandmother how well I had managed the water problem. When there was a pause I blurted, "I set that fire Sunday.""Don't interrupt your mother," he said.I sat with my head bowed. I could not eat. When she had finished, Grandfather said, "Mary, if I didn't think the boy could manage, I wouldn't have taken Paul with me."He gave me a rough pat on the shoulder as he left the table. I wore it like medals. And suddenly I was hungry. Grandfather never explained, and we never knew what he would do next. He was as wild and random as the winds that blew.Study QuestionsAccording to the second paragraph, what do the grown children think of Grandfather?In what way does the narrator (the character who tells the story) start a fire? Why does he fail to confess?What punishment does Paul receive from grandfather?What work does the narrator do while Paul and Grandfather are away?What happens after Paul and Grandfather return home?What actions do you think make Grandfather seem “mad”? What actions show his wisdom?Why do you think that Paul and the narrator became friends “in a different way” at the end of the story?Literary Focus: Static and Dynamic CharactersAll characters in a story are either dynamic or static. A static character is one who doesn't undergo any significant change in character, personality or perspective over the course of a story. A dynamic character, in contrast, undergoes a major transition in one or more of these ways.1200025Example 1: Sherlock Holmes (by Arthur ConanDoyle)Sherlock Holmes is one of the most prominent static characters in literature. He maintains his wit, confidence and quirky personality while dealing with adventures and compelling cases, and his personality does not change in any significant way.Example 2: A Christmas Carol (by Charles Dickens)A clear example of a dynamic character is Ebenezer Scrooge. His evolution was dramatic as he went from a miserly scrooge to a generous giver after encounters with three ghosts. Example 3: Harry Potter (by J.K. Rowling)In the famous "Harry Potter" fantasy book series, the title character undergoes a major transformation from being a regular kid to a powerful young wizard who must battle the evil Lord Voldemort. Therefore he is a dynamic character.Example 4: Old Yeller (by James Gipson)Travis is a dynamic character. He transforms from someone who does not like Old Yeller and refuses to accept him into the family to truly loving Old Yeller and feeling great remorse when he has to shoot him. Travis changes in other ways, growing from an uncertain youth to a much more mature young man capable of sustaining his family while his father is away.Question: Is the narrator of “Fire!” a static or dynamic character? What about the grandfather? Explain your answers.To Serve ManBy Damon Knight19051190500Damon Knight was a prolific science fiction writer. He was part of the first wave of literary-minded science fiction writers, joining a group of budding writers in the 1940’s called the Futurians. Their ranks included Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl, who went on to be some of the most influential writers in the field. In his writing, Knight played with the standard themes of science fiction: aliens, apocalyptic wars, robots and space. But his work stood out for its sharp wit.“To Serve Man” first appeared in the magazine Galaxy Science Fiction. In 2001, the story was awarded a Retro Hugo Award as the "Best Short Story of 1951.” It was adapted for use as a 1962 episode of the television series The Twilight Zone. The Kanamit were not very pretty, it’s true. They looked something like pigs and something like people, and that is not an attractive combination. Seeing them for the first time shocked you; that was their handicap. When a thing with the countenance of a fiend comes from the stars and offers a gift, you are disinclined to accept. I don?t know what we expected interstellar visitors to look like -- those who thought about it at all, that is. Angels, perhaps, or something too alien to be really awful. Maybe that?s why we were all so horrified and repelled when they landed in their great ships and we saw what they really were like. The Kanamit were short and very hairy -- thick, bristly brown-gray hair all over their abominably plump bodies. Their noses were snoutlike and their eyes small, and they had thick hands of three fingers each. They wore green leather harnesses and green shorts, but I think the shorts were a concession to our notions of public decency. The garments were quite modishly cut, with slash pockets and half-belts in the back. The Kanamit had a sense of humor, anyhow. There were three of them at this session of the U.N., and I can?t tell you how queer it looked to see them there in the middle of a solemn plenary session -- three fat piglike creatures in green harnesses and shorts, sitting at the long table below the podium, surrounded by the packed arcs of delegates from every nation. They sat correctly upright, politely watching each speaker. Their flat ears drooped over the earphones. Later on, I believe, they learned every human language, but at this time they knew only French and English. They seemed perfectly at ease -- and that, along with their humor, was a thing that tended to make me like them. I was in the minority; I didn?t think they were trying to put anything over. The delegate from Argentina got up and said that his government was interested in the demonstration of a new cheap power source, which the Kanamit had made at the previous session, but that the Argentine government could not commit itself as to its future policy without a much more thorough examination. It was what all the delegates were saying, but I had to pay particular attention to Se?or Valdes, because he tended to sputter and his diction was bad. I got through the translation all right, with only one or two momentary hesitations, and then switched to the Polish-English line to hear how Grigori was doing with Janciewicz. Janciewicz was the cross Grigori had to bear, just as Valdes was mine. Janciewicz repeated the previous remarks with a few ideological variations, and then the Secretary-General recognized the delegate from France, who introduced Dr. Denis Lévêque, the criminologist, and a great deal of complicated equipment was wheeled in. Dr. Lévêque remarked that the question in many people?s minds had been aptly expressed by the delegate from the U.S.S.R. at the preceding session, when he demanded, “What is the motive of the Kanamit? What is their purpose in offering us these unprecedented gifts, while asking nothing in return?” The doctor then said, “At the request of several delegates and with the full consent of our guests, the Kanamit, my associates and I have made a series of tests upon the Kanamit with the equipment which you see before you. These tests will now be repeated.” 3000375171450A murmur ran through the chamber. There was a fusillade of flashbulbs, and one of the TV cameras moved up to focus on the instrument board of the doctor?s equipment. At the same time, the huge television screen behind the podium lighted up, and we saw the blank faces of two dials, each with its pointer resting at zero, and a strip of paper tape with a stylus point resting against it. The doctor?s assistants were fastening wires to the temples of one of the Kanamit, wrapping a canvas-covered rubber tube around his forearm, and taping something to the palm of his right hand. In the screen, we saw the paper tape begin to move while the stylus traced a slow zigzag pattern along it. One of the needles began to jump rhythmically; the other flipped halfway over and stayed there, wavering slightly. “These are the standard instruments for testing the truth of a statement,” said Dr. Lévêque. “Our first object, since the physiology of the Kanamit is unknown to us, was to determine whether or not they react to these tests as human beings do. We will now repeat one of the many experiments which were made in the endeavor to discover this.” He pointed to the first dial. “This instrument registers the subject?s heartbeat. This shows the electrical conductivity of the skin in the palm of his hand, a measure of perspiration, which increases under stress. And this --” pointing to the tape-and-stylus device -- “shows the pattern and intensity of the electrical waves emanating from his brain. It has been shown, with human subjects, that all these readings vary markedly depending upon whether the subject is speaking the truth.” He picked up two large pieces of cardboard, one red and one black. The red one was a square about three feet on a side; the black was a rectangle three and a half feet long. He addressed himself to the Kanama. “Which of these is longer than the other?” “The red,” said the Kanama. Both needles leaped wildly, and so did the line on the unrolling tape. “I shall repeat the question,” said the doctor. “Which of these is longer than the other?” “The black,” said the creature. This time the instruments continued in their normal rhythm. “How did you come to this planet?” asked the doctor. “Walked,” replied the Kanama. Again the instruments responded, and there was a subdued ripple of laughter in the chamber. “Once more,” said the doctor. “How did you come to this planet?” “In a spaceship,” said the Kanama, and the instruments did not jump. The doctor again faced the delegation. “Many such experiments were made,” he said, “and my colleagues and myself are satisfied that the mechanisms are effective. Now -- ” he turned to the Kanama -- “I shall ask our distinguished guest to reply to the question put at the last session by the delegate of the U.S.S.R. -- namely, what is the motive of the Kanamit people in offering these great gifts to the people of Earth?” The Kanama rose. Speaking this time in English, he said, “On my planet there is a saying, There are more riddles in a stone than in a philosopher?s head.? The motives of intelligent beings, though they may at times appear obscure, are simple things compared to the complex workings of the natural universe. Therefore I hope that the people of Earth will understand, and believe, when I tell you that our mission upon your planet is simply this -- to bring you the peace and plenty which we ourselves enjoy, and which we have in the past brought to other races throughout the galaxy. When your world has no more hunger, no more war, no more needless suffering, that will be our reward.” And the needles had not jumped once.The delegate from the Ukraine jumped to his feet, asking to be recognized, but the time was up and the Secretary-General closed the session. I met Grigori as we were leaving the chamber. His face was red with excitement. “Who promoted that circus?” he demanded. “The tests looked genuine to me,” I told him. “A circus!” he said vehemently. “A second-rate farce! If they were genuine, Peter, why was debate stifled?” “There?ll be time for debate tomorrow, surely.” “Tomorrow the doctor and his instruments will be back in Paris. Plenty of things can happen before tomorrow. In the name of sanity, man, how can anybody trust a thing that looks as if it ate a baby?” I was a little annoyed. I said, “Are you sure you?re not more worried about their politics than their appearance?” He said, “Bah,” and went away. The next day reports began to come in from government laboratories all over the world where the Kanamit?s power source was being tested. They were wildly enthusiastic. I don?t understand such things myself, but it seemed that those little metal boxes would give more electrical power than an atomic pile, for next to nothing and nearly forever. And it was said that they were so cheap to manufacture that everybody in the world could have one of his own. In the early afternoon there were reports that seventeen countries had already begun to set up factories to turn them out. The next day the Kanamit turned up with plans and specimens of a gadget that would increase the fertility of any arable land by 60 to 100 percent. It speeded the formation of nitrates in the soil, or something. There was nothing in the newscasts any more but stories about the Kanamit. The day after that, they dropped their bombshell. “You now have potentially unlimited power and increased food supply,” said one of them. He pointed with his three-fingered hand to an instrument that stood on the table before him. It was a box on a tripod, with a parabolic reflector on the front of it. “We offer you today a third gift which is at least as important as the first two.” He beckoned to the TV men to roll their cameras into closeup position. Then he picked up a large sheet of cardboard covered with drawings and English lettering. We saw it on the large screen above the podium; it was clearly legible. “We are informed that this broadcast is being relayed throughout your world,” said the Kanama. “I wish that everyone who has equipment for taking photographs from television screens would use it now.” The Secretary-General leaned forward and asked a question sharply, but the Kanama ignored him. “This device,” he said, “generates a field in which no explosive, of whatever nature, can detonate.” There was uncomprehending silence. The Kanama said, “It cannot now be suppressed. If one nation has it, all must have it.” When nobody seemed to understand, he explained bluntly, “There will be no more war.” That was the biggest news of the millennium, and it was perfectly true. It turned out that the explosions the Kanama was talking about even included gasoline and Diesel explosions. They had simply made it impossible for anybody to mount or equip a modern army. We could have gone back to bows and arrows, of course, but that wouldn?t have satisfied the military. Besides, there wouldn?t be any reason to make war. Every nation would soon have everything. Nobody ever gave another thought to those lie-detector experiments, or asked the Kanamit what their politics were. Grigori was put out; he had nothing to prove his suspicions. I quit my job at the U.N. a few months later, because I foresaw that it was going to die under me anyhow. U.N. business was booming at the time, but after a year or so there was going to be nothing for it to do. Every nation on Earth was well on the way to being completely self supporting; they weren?t going to need much arbitration. I accepted a position as translator with the Kanamit Embassy, and it was there I ran into Grigori again. I was glad to see him, but I couldn?t imagine what he was doing there. “I thought you were on the opposition,” I said. “Don?t tell me you?re convinced the Kanamit are all right.” He looked rather shamefaced. “They?re not what they look, anyhow,” he said. It was as much of a concession as he could decently make, and I invited him down to the embassy lounge for a drink. It was an intimate kind of place, and he grew confidential over the second glass. “They fascinate me,” he said. “I hate them instinctively still -- that hasn?t changed -- but I can evaluate it. You were right, obviously; they mean us nothing but good. But do you know - - ” he leaned across the table -- “the question of the Soviet delegate was never answered.” I am afraid I snorted. “No, really,” he said. “They told us what they wanted to do -- ‘to bring to you the peace and plenty which we ourselves enjoy.’ But they didn?t say why.” “Why do missionaries -- ” “Missionaries be darned!” he said angrily. “Missionaries have a religious motive. If these creatures have a religion, they haven?t once mentioned it. What?s more, they didn?t send a missionary group; they sent a diplomatic delegation -- a group representing the will and policy of their whole people. Now just what have the Kanamit, as a people or a nation, got to gain from our welfare?” I said, “Cultural -- ” “Cultural cabbage soup! No, it?s something less obvious than that, something obscure that belongs to their psychology and not to ours. But trust me, Peter, there is no such thing as a completely disinterested altruism. In one way or another, they have something to gain.” “And that?s why you’re here,” I said. “To try to find out what it is.” “Correct. I wanted to get on one of the ten-year exchange groups to their home planet, but I couldn’t; the quota was filled a week after they made the announcement. This is the next best thing. I?m studying their language, and you know that language reflects the basic assumptions of the people who use it. I?ve got a fair command of the spoken lingo already. It?s not hard, really, and there are hints in it. Some of the idioms are quite similar to English. I?m sure I?ll get the answer eventually.” “More power,” I said, and we went back to work. I saw Grigori frequently from then on, and he kept me posted about his progress. He was highly excited about a month after that first meeting; he said he?d got hold of a book of the Kanamit’s and was trying to puzzle it out. They wrote in ideographs, worse than Chinese, but he was determined to fathom it if it took him years. He wanted my help. Well, I was interested in spite of myself, for I knew it would be a long job. We spent some evenings together, working with material from Kanamit bulletin boards and so forth, and with the extremely limited English-Kanamit dictionary they issued to the staff. My conscience bothered me about the stolen book, but gradually I became absorbed by the problem. Languages are my field, after all. I couldn?t help being fascinated. We got the title worked out in a few weeks. It was How to Serve Man, evidently a handbook they were giving out to new Kanamit members of the embassy staff. They had new ones in, all the time now, a shipload about once a month; they were opening all kinds of research laboratories, clinics and so on. If there was anybody on Earth besides Grigori who still distrusted those people, he must have been somewhere in the middle of Tibet. It was astonishing to see the changes that had been wrought in less than a year. There were no more standing armies, no more shortages, no unemployment. When you picked up a newspaper you didn?t see H-Bomb or Satellite leaping out at you; the news was always good. It was a hard thing to get used to. The Kanamit were working on human biochemistry, and it was known around the embassy that they were nearly ready to announce methods of making our race taller and stronger and healthier -- practically a race of supermen -- and they had a potential cure for heart disease and cancer. I didn?t see Grigori for a fortnight after we finished working out the title of the book; I was on a long-overdue vacation in Canada. When I got back, I was shocked by the change in his appearance. “What on Earth is wrong with you, Grigori?” I asked. “You look like the very devil.” “Come down to the lounge.” I went with him, and he gulped a glass of water as if he needed it. “Come on, man, what?s the matter?” I urged. “The Kanamit have put me on the passenger list for the next exchange ship,” he said. “You, too, otherwise I wouldn?t be talking to you.” “Well,” I said, “but -- ” “They’re not altruists.” I tried to reason with him. I pointed out they?d made Earth a paradise compared to what it was before. He only shook his head. Then I said, “Well, what about those lie-detector tests?” “A farce,” he replied, without heat. “I said so at the time, you fool. They told the truth, though as far as it went.” “And the book?” I demanded, annoyed. “What about that -- How to Serve Man? That wasn?t put there for you to read. They mean it. How do you explain that?” “I?ve read the first paragraph of that book,” he said. “Why do you suppose I haven?t slept for a week?” I said, “Well?” and he smiled a curious, twisted smile. “It’s a cookbook,” he said.Study QuestionsWho are the Kanamit? What do they claim is their mission?What are some of the things the aliens do for the people of Earth?Why does the narrator trust the Kanamit? Why doesn’t Grigori?What are Grigori and the narrator’s jobs? Why is this important to the story?What kind of book does Grigori try to translate? Where did he get it? What does the title translate to?What does Grigori tell the narrator the book is about? How does this explain the book’s title?Literary Focus: MotivationIn literature, “motivation” is defined as the reason behind a character’s specific action or behavior. A character’s motivation is what causes him to act in a certain way or do a certain thing. A character may be motivated to take a job he does not want because he will be unable to buy food otherwise. Batman was motivated to fight criminals because he witnessed his own parents become victims of crime and does not want other people to suffer as he and his parents did. Understanding a character’s motivation for doing something can reveal a great deal about the character’s personality and vice versa.1114300Example: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)Travis’ motivation for shooting Old Yeller was to prevent the dog from transmitting hydrophobia/rabies to his family or other animals.Question: What do the Kanamits claim is their motivation for coming to Earth? What does their real motivation turn out to be? What is Grigori’s motivation for continuing to try to translate the book?Christmas in BrooklynBy Betty Smith19051190500Betty Smith (1904-1972) grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Her family was very poor, and she was able to attend school only until the eighth grade. Late in life she returned to school and became interested in drama and writing. Her most famous book is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a novel based on her own childhood.“Christmas in Brooklyn” (published in 1943) is an excerpt from the novel. It is a story about the struggles of poverty and the need for grim determination in enduring it. Christmas was a charmed time in Brooklyn. It was in the air, long before it came. The first hint of it was Mr. Morton going around the schools teaching Christmas carols, but the first sure sign was the store windows.You have to be a child to know how wonderful is a store window filled with dolls and sleds and other toys. And this wonder came free to Francie. It was nearly as good as actually having the toys to be permitted to look at them through the glass window.Oh, what a thrill there was for Francie when she turned a street corner and saw another store all fixed up for Christmas! Ah, the clean shining window with cotton batting sprinkled with star dust for a carpet! There were flaxen-haired dolls and others which Francie liked better who had hair the color of good coffee with lots of cream in it. Their faces were perfectly tinted and they wore clothes the like of which Francie had never seen on earth. The dolls stood upright in flimsy cardboard boxes. They stood with the help of a bit of tape passed around the neck and ankles and through holes at the back of the box. Oh, the deep blue eyes framed by thick lashes that stared straight into a little girl’s heart and the perfect miniature hands extended, appealingly asking, “Please, won’t you be my mama?” And Francie had never had a doll except a two-inch one that cost a nickel.And the sleds! (Or, as the Williamsburg children called them, the sleighs.) There was a child’s dream of heaven come true! A new sled with a flower someone had dreamed up painted on it—a deep blue flower with bright green leaves—the ebony-black painted runners, the smooth steering bar made of hard wood and gleaming varnish over all! And the names painted on them! “Rosebud!” “Magnolia!” “Snow King!” “The Flyer!” Thought Francie, “If I could only have one of those, I’d never ask God for another thing as long as I live.”There were roller skates made of shining nickel with straps of good brown leather and silvered nervous wheels, tensed for rolling, needing but a breath to start them turning, as they lay crossed one over the other, sprinkled with mica snow on a bed of cloudlike cotton.There were other marvelous things. Francie couldn’t take them all in. Her head spun and she was dizzy with the impact of all the seeing and all the making up of stories about the toys in the shop windows.The spruce trees began coming into the neighborhood the week before Christmas. Their branches were corded to hold back the glory of their spreading and probably to make shipping easier. Vendors rented space on the curb before a store and stretched a rope from pole to pole and leaned the trees against it. All day they walked up and down this one-sided avenue of aromatic leaning trees, blowing on stiff ungloved fingers and looking with bleak hope at those people who paused. A few ordered a tree set aside for the day; others stopped to price, inspect and conjecture. But most came just to touch the boughs and surreptitiously pinch a fingerful of spruce needles together to release the fragrance. And the air was cold and still, and full of the pine smell and the smell of tangerines which appeared in the stores only at Christmas time and the mean street was truly wonderful for a little while.There was a cruel custom in the neighborhood. It was about the trees still unsold when midnight of Christmas Eve approached. There was a saying that if you waited until then, you wouldn’t have to buy a tree; that “they’d chuck ’em at you.” This was literally true.At midnight on the Eve of our dear Saviour’s birth, the kids gathered where there were unsold trees. The man threw each tree in turn, starting with the biggest. Kids volunteered to stand up against the throwing. If a boy didn’t fall down under the impact, the tree was his. If he fell, he forfeited his chance at winning a tree. Only the roughest boys and some of the young men elected to be hit by the big trees. The others waited shrewdly until a tree came up that they could stand against. The little kids waited for the tiny, foot-high trees and shrieked in delight when they won one.On the Christmas Eve when Francie was ten and Neeley nine, Mama consented to let them go down and have their first try for a tree. Francie had picked out her tree earlier in the day. She had stood near it all afternoon and evening praying that no one would buy it. To her joy, it was still there at midnight. It was the biggest tree in the neighborhood and its price was so high that no one could afford to buy it. It was ten feet high. Its branches were bound with new white rope and it came to a sure pure point at the top.The man took this tree out first. Before Francie could speak up, a neighborhood bully, a boy of eighteen known as Punky Perkins, stepped forward and ordered the man to chuck the tree at him. The man hated the way Punky was so confident. He looked around and asked:“Anybody else wanna take a chance on it?”Francie stepped forward. “Me, Mister.”A spurt of derisive laughter came from the tree man. The kids snickered. A few adults who had gathered to watch the fun, guffawed.“Aw g’wan. You’re too little,” the tree man objected.“Me and my brother—we’re not too little together.”She pulled Neeley forward. The man looked at them—a thin girl of ten with starveling hollows in her cheeks but with the chin still baby-round. He looked at the little boy with his fair hair and round blue eyes—Neeley Nolan, all innocence and trust.“Two ain’t fair,” yelped Punky.“Shut your lousy trap,” advised the man who held all power in that hour. “These here kids is got nerve. Stand back, the rest of yous. These kids is goin’ to have a show at this tree.”The others made a wavering lane. Francie and Neeley stood at one end of it and the big man with the big tree at the other. It was a human funnel with Francie and her brother making the small end of it. The man flexed his great arms to throw the great tree. He noticed how tiny the children looked at the end of the short lane. For the split part of a moment, the tree thrower went through a kind of Gethsemane.“Oh, heavens,” his soul agonized, “why don’t I just give ’em the tree, say Merry Christmas and let ’em go. What’s the tree to me? I can’t sell it no more this year and it won’t keep till next year.” The kids watched him solemnly as he stood there in his moment of thought. “But then,” he rationalized, “if I did that, all the other would expect to get ’em handed to ’em. And next year nobody a-tall would buy a tree off of me. They’d all wait to get ’em handed to ’em on a silver plate. I ain’t a big enough man to give this tree away for nothin’. No, I ain’t big enough. I ain’t big enough to do a thing like that. I gotta think of myself and my own kids.” He finally came to his conclusion. “Them two kids is gotta live in this world. They got to get used to it. They got to learn to give and to take punishment. And it ain’t give but take, take, take all the time in this world.” As he threw the tree with all his strength, his heart wailed out, “It’s a rotten, lousy world!”Francie saw the tree leave his hands. There was a split bit of being when time and space had no meaning. The whole world stood still as something dark and monstrous came through the air. The tree came towards her blotting out all memory of her ever having lived. There was nothing—nothing but pungent darkness and something that grew and grew as it rushed at her. She staggered as the tree hit them. Neeley went to his knees but she pulled him up fiercely before he could go down. There was a mighty swishing sound as the tree settled. Everything was dark, green and prickly. Then she felt a sharp pain at the side of her head where the trunk of the tree had hit her. She felt Neeley trembling.2786063800100When some of the older boys pulled the tree away, they found Francie and her brother standing upright, hand in hand. Blood was coming from scratches on Neeley’s face. He looked more like a baby than ever with his bewildered blue eyes and the fairness of his skin made more noticeable because of the clear red blood. But they were smiling. Had they not won the biggest tree in the neighborhood? Some of the boys hollered “Horray!” A few adults clapped. The tree man eulogized them by screaming,“And now get out of here with your tree, you lousy kids.”It wasn’t easy dragging that tree home. They had to pull it inch by inch. They were handicapped by a boy who ran alongside yelping, “Free ride! All aboard!” who’d jump on and make them drag him along. But he got sick of the game eventually and went away.In a way, it was good that it took them so long to get the tree home. It made their triumph more drawn out. Francie glowed when she heard a lady say, “I never saw such a big tree!” A man called after them, “You kids musta robbed a bank to buy such a big tree.” The cop on their corner stopped them, examined the tree, and solemnly offered to buy it for ten cents—fifteen cents if they’d delivered it to his home. Francie nearly burst with pride although she knew he was joking. She said she wouldn’t sell it for a dollar, even. He shook his head and said she was foolish not to grab the offer. He went up to a quarter but Francie kept smiling and shaking her head, “no.”It was like acting in a Christmas play where the setting was a street corner and the time, a frosty Christmas Eve and the characters, a kind cop, her brother and herself. Francie knew all the dialogue. The cop gave his lines right and Francie picked up her cues happily and the stage directions were the smiles between the spoken lines.They had to call up to Papa to help them get the tree up the narrow stairs. Papa came running down. To Francie’s relief, he ran down straight and not sidewise which proved that he was still sober.Papa’s amazement at the size of the tree was flattering. He pretended to believe that it wasn’t theirs. Francie had a lot of fun convincing him although she knew all the while that the whole thing was make-believe. Papa pulled in front and Francie and Neeley pushed in back and they began forcing the big tree up the three narrow flights of stairs. Johnny was so excited that he started singing, not caring that it was rather late at night. He sang “Holy Night.” The narrow walls took up his clear sweet voice, held it for a breath and gave it back with doubled sweetness. Doors creaked open and families gathered on the landings, pleased and amazed at the something unexpected being added to that moment of their lives.They set the tree up in the front room after spreading a sheet to protect the carpet of pink roses from falling pine needles. The tree stood in a big tin bucket with broken bricks to hold it upright. When the rope was cut away, the branches spread out to fill the whole room. They draped over the piano and it was so that some of the chairs stood among the branches. There was no money to buy tree decorations or lights. But the great tree standing there was enough. The room was cold. It was a poor year, that one—too poor for them to buy the extra coal for the front room stove. The room smelled cold and clean and aromatic. Every day, during the week the tree stood there, Francie put on her sweater and zitful cap and went in and sat under the tree. She sat there and enjoyed the smell and the dark greenness of it.Study QuestionsWhat is the neighborhood custom involving Christmas trees on Christmas Eve? Who usually volunteers to try for the big tree?What happens to Francie and Neeley when the tree vendor throws the tree at them? What does Francie feel as they drag the tree home?What is there no money to buy for the tree? What does Francie do every day of Christmas week?Based on the details given in the story about the Christmas tree “chucking,” what character traits would you say Francie displays?What details make the last paragraph surprising and touching?Literary Focus: Setting1161925Setting is an environment or surrounding in which an event or story takes place. It may provide particular information about placement and timing, such as New York, America, in the year 1820. Setting could be simply descriptive, like a lonely cottage on a mountain. Social conditions, historical time, geographical locations, weather, immediate surroundings, and timing are all different aspects of setting.Example: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)The novel’s setting is in the late 1860’s in the fictional town of Salt Licks, Texas, on the Coates’ family ranch. Question: Describe the setting of “Christmas in Brooklyn.” Why is the setting important to the story?The StormBy McKnight Malmar19051190500Writer McNight Malmar (1903-1985) had her short story “The Storm” adapted several times including for the television show “Thriller.” A decade after the Thriller episode, Elizabeth Montgomery (“Bewitched”) starred as the wife in the TV movie, “The Victim.” The story first appeared in the February 1944 issue of Good Housekeeping. “The Storm” can be seen as an example of a mystery story. Mystery is a genre of literature whose stories focus on a puzzling crime, situation, or circumstance that needs to be solved. The term comes from the Latin mysterium, meaning “a secret thing.” Mysteries can focus on both supernatural and non-supernatural topics. Many mystery stories involve what is called a “whodunit” scenario, meaning the mystery revolves around the uncovering of a culprit or criminal, but not always. As in the case of “The Storm,” they sometimes focus on a character’s attempt to make sense of a baffling situation. When a mystery story contains a high degree of suspense, danger, or horror (like “The Storm”), it is often called a “thriller.”She inserted her key in the lock and turned the knob. The March wind snatched the door out of her hand and slammed it against the wall. It took strength to close it against the pressure of the gale, and she had no sooner closed it than the rain came in a pounding downpour, beating noisily against the windows as if trying to follow her in. She could not hear the taxi as it started up and went back down the road.She breathed a sigh of thankfulness at being home again and in time.In rain like this, the crossroads always were flooded. Half an hour later her cab could not have got through the rising water, and there was no alternative route.There was no light anywhere in the house. Ben was not home, then. As she turned on the lamp by the sofa she had a sense of anticlimax. All the way home-she had been visiting her sister-she had seen herself going into a lighted house, to Ben, who would be sitting by the fire with his paper. She had taken delight in picturing his happy surprise at seeing her, home a week earlier than he had expected her. She had known just how his round face would light up, how his eyes would twinkle behind his glasses, how he would catch her by the shoulders and look down into her face to see the changes a month had made in her, and then kiss her resoundingly on both cheeks, like a French general bestowing a decoration. Then she would make coffee and find a piece of cake, and they would sit together by the fire and talk.But Ben wasn't here. She looked at the clock on the mantel and saw it was nearly ten. Perhaps he had not planned to come home tonight, as he was not expecting her; even before she had left he frequently was in the city all night because business kept him too late to catch the last train. If he did not come soon, he would not be able to make it at all.She did not like the thought. The storm was growing worse. She could hear the wild lash of the trees, the whistle of the wind around the corners of the little house. For the first time she regretted this move to the far suburbs. There had been neighbors at first, a quarter-mile down the road; but they moved away several months ago, and now their house stood empty.She had thought nothing of the lonesomeness. It was perfect here--for two. She had taken such pleasure in fixing up her house--her very own house--and caring for it that she had not missed company other than Ben. But now, alone and with the storm trying to batter its way in, she found it frightening to be so far away from other people. There was no one this side of the crossroads; the road that passed the house wandered past farmland into nothingness in the thick woods a mile farther on.She hung her hat and her coat in the closet and went to stand before the hall mirror to pin up the soft strands of hair that the wind had loosened.She did not really see the pale face with its blunt nose, the slender, almost childish figure in its grown-up black dress, or the big brown eyes that looked back at her.She fastened the last strands into the pompadour and turned away from the mirror. Her shoulders drooped a little. There was something childlike about her, like a small girl craving protection, something immature and yet appealing, in spite of her plainness. She was thirty-one and had been married for fifteen months. The fact that she had married at all still seemed a miracle to her.Now she began to walk through the house, turning on lights as she went.Ben had left it in fairly good order. There was very little trace of an untidy masculine presence; but then, he was a tidy man. She began to realize that the house was cold. Of course, Ben would have lowered the thermostat. He was very careful about things like that. He would not tolerate waste.No wonder it was cold; the thermostat was set at fifty-eight. She pushed the little needle up to seventy, and the motor in the cellar starred so suddenly and noisily that it frightened her for a moment.She went into the kitchen and made some coffee. While she waited for it to drip she began to prowl around the lower floor. She was curiously restless and could not relax. Yet it was good to be back again among her own things, in her own home. She studied the living-room with fresh eyes. Yes, it was a pleasant room even though it was small. The bright, flowered chintzes on the furniture and at the windows were cheerful and pretty, and the lowboy she had bought three months ago was just right for the middle of the long wall. But her plants, set so bravely along the window sill, had died. Ben had forgotten to water them, in spite of all her admonitions and now they added to the depression that was beginning to blur out all the pleasure of homecoming.She returned to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee, wishing that Ben would come home to share it with her. She carried her cup into the living-room and set it on the small, round table beside Ben's special big chair. The furnace was still mumbling busily, sending up heat, but she was colder than ever. She shivered and got an old jacket of Ben's from the closet and wrapped it around her before she sat down.The wind hammered at the door and the windows, and the air was full of the sound of water, racing in the gutters, pouring from the leaders, thudding on the roof. Listening, she wished for Ben almost feverishly. She never had felt so alone. And he was such a comfort. He had been so good about her going for this long visit, made because her sister was ill. He had seen to everything and had put her on the train with her arms loaded with books and candy and fruit. She knew those farewell gifts had meant a lot to him--he didn't spend money easily. To be quite honest, he was a little close.But he was a good husband. She sighed unconsciously, not knowing it was because of youth and romance missed. She repeated it to herself, firmly, as she sipped her coffee. He was a good husband. Suppose he was ten years older than she, and a little set in his ways; a little--perhaps--dictatorial at times, and moody. He had given her what she thought she wanted, security and a home of her own; if security were not enough, she could not blame him for it.Her eye caught a shred of white protruding under a magazine on the table beside her. She put out a hand toward it, yet her fingers were almost reluctant to grasp it. She pulled it out nevertheless and saw that it was, as she had known instinctively, another of the white envelopes. It was empty, and it bore, as usual, the neat, typewritten address: Benj. T. Willsom, Esq., Wildwood Road, Fairport, Conn. The postmark was New York City. It never varied.She felt the familiar constriction about the heart as she held it in her hands. What these envelopes contained she never had known. What she did know was their effect on Ben. After receiving one--one came every month or two--he was irritable, at times almost ugly. Their peaceful life together fell apart. At first she had questioned him, had striven to soothe and comfort him; but she soon had learned that this only made him angry, and of late she had avoided any mention of them. For a week after one came they shared the same room and the same table like two strangers, in a silence that was morose on his part and a little frightened on hers.This one was postmarked three days before. If Ben got home tonight he would probably be cross, and the storm would not help his mood. Just the same she wished he would come.She tore the envelope into tiny pieces and tossed them into the fireplace.The wind shook the house in its giant grip, and a branch crashed on the roof. As she straightened, a movement at the window caught her eye.She froze there, not breathing, still half-bent toward the cold fireplace, her hand still extended. The glimmer of white at the window behind the sheeting blur of rain had been--she was sure of it--a human face. There had been eyes. She was certain there had been eyes staring in at her. The wind's shout took on a personal, threatening note. She was rigid for a long time, never taking her eyes from the window. But nothing moved there now except the water on the windowpane; beyond it there was blackness, and that was all. The only sounds were the thrashing of the trees, the roar of water, and the ominous howl of the wind.She began to breathe again, at last found courage to turn out the light and go to the window. The darkness was a wall, impenetrable and secret, and the blackness within the house made the storm close in, as if it were a pack of wolves besieging the house. She hastened to put on the light again.She must have imagined those staring eyes. Nobody could be out on a night like this. Nobody. Yet she found herself terribly shaken.If only Ben would come home. If only she were not so alone.She shivered and pulled Ben's coat tighter about her and told herself she was becoming a morbid fool. Nevertheless, she found the aloneness intolerable. Her ears strained to hear prowling footsteps outside the windows. She became convinced that she did hear them, slow and heavy. Perhaps Ben could be reached at the hotel where he sometimes stayed. She no longer cared whether her homecoming was a surprise to him. She wanted to hear his voice. She went to the telephone and lifted the receiver.The line was quite dead.The wires were down, of course.She fought panic. The face at the window had been an illusion, a trick of the light reflected on the sluicing pane; and the sound of footsteps was an illusion, too. Actual ones would be inaudible in the noise made by the wild storm. Nobody would be out tonight. Nothing threatened her, really. The storm was held at bay beyond these walls, and in the morning the sun would shine again.The thing to do was to make herself as comfortable as possible and settle down with a book. There was no use going to bed--she couldn't possibly sleep. She would only lie there wide awake and think of that face at the window, hear the footsteps.She would get some wood for a fire in the fireplace. She hesitated at the top of the cellar stairs. The light, as she switched it on, seemed insufficient; the concrete wall at the foot of the stairs was dank with moisture and somehow gruesome. And wind was chilling her ankles. Rain was beating in through the outside door to the cellar, because that door was standing open.The inner bolt sometimes did not hold, she knew very well. If it had not been carefully closed, the wind could have loosened it. Yet the open door increased her panic. It seemed to argue the presence of something less impersonal than the gale. It took her a long minute to nerve herself to go down the steps and reach out into the darkness for the doorknob.In just that instant she was soaked; but her darting eyes could find nothing outdoors but the black, wavering shapes of the maples at the side of the house. The wind helped her and slammed the door resoundingly. She jammed the bolt home with all her strength and then tested it to make sure it would hold. She almost sobbed with the relief of knowing it to be firm against any intruder.She stood with her wet clothes clinging to her while the thought came that turned her bones to water. Suppose--suppose the face at the window had been real, after all. Suppose its owner had found shelter in the only shelter to be had within a quarter-mile--this cellar.She almost flew up the stairs again, but then she took herself firmly in hand. She must not let herself go. There had been many storms before; just because she was alone in this one, she must not let morbid fancy run away with her. But she could not throw off the reasonless fear that oppressed her, although she forced it back a little. She began to hear again the tread of the prowler outside the house. Although she knew it to be imagination, it was fearfully real-the crunch of feet on gravel, slow, persistent, heavy, like the patrol of a sentinel.She had only to get an armful of wood. Then she could have a fire, she could have light and warmth and comfort. She would forget these terrors.The cellar smelled of dust and old moisture. The beams were fuzzed with cobwebs. There was only one light, a dim one in the corner. A little rivulet was running darkly down the wall and already had formed a foot-square pool on the floor.The woodpile was in the far corner away from the light. She stopped and peered around. Nobody could hide here. The cellar was too open, the supporting stanchions too slender to hide a man.The oil burner went off with a sharp click. Its mutter, she suddenly realized, had had something human and companionable about it. Nothing was down here with her now but the snarl of the storm.She almost ran to the woodpile. Then something made her pause and turn before she bent to gather the logs.What was it? Not a noise. Something she had seen as she hurried across that dusty floor. Something odd.She searched with her eyes. It was a spark of light she had seen, where no spark should be.An inexplicable dread clutched at her heart. Her eyes widened, round and dark as a frightened deer's. Her old trunk that stood against the wall was open just a crack; from the crack came this tiny pinpoint of reflected light to prick the cellar's gloom.She went toward it like a woman hypnotized. It was only one more insignificant thing, like the envelope on the table, the vision of the face at the window, the open door. There was no reason for her to feel smothered in terror.Yet she was sure she had not only closed, but clamped the lid on the trunk; she was sure because she kept two or three old coats in it, wrapped in newspapers and tightly shut away from moths.Now the lid was raised perhaps an inch. And the twinkle of light was still there.She threw back the lid.For a long moment she stood looking down into the trunk, while each detail of its contents imprinted itself on her brain like an image on a film. Each tiny detail was indelibly clear and never to be forgotten.She could not have stirred a muscle in that moment. Horror was a black cloak thrown around her, stopping her breath, hobbling her limbs.Then her face dissolved into formlessness. She slammed down the lid and ran up the stairs like a mad thing. She was breathing again, in deep, sobbing breaths that tore at her lungs. She shut the door at the top of the stairs with a crash that shook the house; then she turned the key. Gasping she clutched one of the sturdy maple chairs by the kitchen table and wedged it under the knob with hands she could barely control.2495550838200The wind took the house in its teeth and shook it as a dog shakes a rat.Her first impulse was to get out of the house. But in the time it took to get to the front door she remembered the face at the window.Perhaps she had not imagined it. Perhaps it was the face of a murderer--a murderer waiting for her out there in the storm; ready to spring on her out of the dark.She fell into the big chair, her huddled body shaken by great tremors.She could not stay here--not with that thing in her trunk. Yet she dared nor leave. Her whole being cried out for Ben. He would know what to do. She closed her eyes, opened them again, rubbed them hard. The picture still burned into her brain as if it had been etched with acid. Her hair, loosened, fell in soft straight wisps about her forehead, and her mouth was slack with terror.Her old trunk had held the curled-up body of a woman.She had not seen the face; the head had been tucked down into the hollow of the shoulder, and a shower of fair hair had fallen over it. The woman had worn a red dress. One hand had rested near the edge of the trunk, and on its third finger there had been a man's ring, a signet bearing the raised figure of a rampant lion with a small diamond between its paws. It had been the diamond that caught the light. The little bulb in the corner of the cellar had picked out this ring from the semidarkness and made it stand out like a beacon.She never would be able to forget it. Never forget how the woman looked: the pale, luminous flesh of her arms; her doubled-up knees against the side of the trunk, with their silken covering shining softly in the gloom; the strands of hair that covered her face. . .Shudders continued to shake her. She bit her tongue and pressed her hand against her jaw to stop the chattering of her teeth. The salty taste of blood in her mouth steadied her. She tried to force herself to be rational, to plan; yet all the time the knowledge that she was imprisoned with the body of a murdered woman kept beating at her nerves like a flail.She drew the coat closer about her, trying to dispel the mortal cold that held her. Slowly something beyond the mere fact of murder, of death, began to penetrate her mind. Slowly she realized that beyond this fact there would be consequences. That body in the cellar was not an isolated phenomenon; some train of events had led to its being there and would follow its discovery there.There would be policemen.At first the thought of policemen was a comforting one; big, brawny men in blue, who would take the thing out of her cellar, take it away so she never need think of it again.Then she realized it was her cellar--hers and Ben's; and policemen are suspicious and prying. Would they think she killed the woman? Could they be made to believe she never had seen her before?Or would they think Ben had done it? Would they take the letters in the white envelopes, and Ben's absences on business, and her own visit to her sister, about which Ben was so helpful, and out of them build a double life for him? Would they insist that the woman had been a discarded mistress, who had hounded him with letters until out of desperation he had killed her?That was a fantastic theory, really; but the police might do that.They might.Now a sudden new panic invaded her. The dead woman must be taken out of the cellar, must be hidden. The police must never connect her with this house.Yet the dead woman was bigger than she herself was; she could never move her.Her craving for Ben became a frantic need. If only he would come home!Come home and take that body away, hide it somewhere so the police could not connect it with this house. He was strong enough to do it.Even with the strength to move the body by herself she would not dare do it, because there was the prowler--real or imaginary--outside the house. Perhaps the cellar door had not been open by chance. Or perhaps it had been, and the murderer, seeing it so welcoming, had seized the opportunity to plant the evidence of his crime upon the Willsoms' innocent shoulders. She crouched there, shaking. It was as if the jaws of a great trap had closed on her: on one side the storm and the silence of the telephone, on the other the presence of the prowler and of that still, cramped figure in her trunk. She was caught between them, helpless.As if to accent her helplessness, the wind stepped up its shriek and a tree crashed thunderously out in the road. She heard glass shatter.Her quivering body stiffened like a drawn bow. Was it the prowler attempting to get in? She forced herself to her feet and made a round of the windows on the first floor and the one above. All the glass was intact, staunchly resisting the pounding of the rain.Nothing could have made her go into the cellar to see if anything had happened there.The voice of the storm drowned out all other sounds, yet she could not rid herself of the fancy that she heard footsteps going round and round the house, that eyes sought an opening and spied upon her.She pulled the shades down over the shiny black windows. It helped a little to make her feel more secure, more sheltered; but only a very little. She told herself sternly that the crash of glass had been nothing more than a branch blown through a cellar window.The thought brought her no comfort--just the knowledge that it would not disturb that other woman. Nothing could comfort her now but Ben's plump shoulder and his arms around her and his neat, capable mind planning to remove the dead woman from this house. A kind of numbness began to come over her, as if her capacity for fear were exhausted. She went back to the chair and curled up in it. She prayed mutely for Ben and for daylight.The clock said half-past twelve.She huddled there, not moving and not thinking, not even afraid, only numb for another hour. Then the storm held its breath for a moment, and in the brief space of silence she heard footsteps on the walk--actual footsteps, firm and quick and loud. A key turned in the lock. The door opened and Ben came in.He was dripping, dirty, and white with exhaustion. But it was Ben. Once she was sure of it she flung herself on him, babbling incoherently of what she had found.He kissed her lightly on the cheek and took her arms down from around his neck. "Here, here, my dear. You'll get soaked. I'm drenched to the skin." He removed his glasses and handed them to her, and she began to dry them for him. His eyes squinted at the light. "I had to walk in from the crossroads. What a night!" He began to strip off rain boots and coat and shoes. "You'll never know what a difference it made, finding the place lighted. Lord, but it's good to be home." She tried again to tell him of the past hours, but again he cut her short."Now, wait a minute, my dear. I can see you're bothered about something. Just wait until I get into some dry things; then I'll come down and we'll straighten it out. Suppose you rustle up some coffee and toast. I'm done---the whole trip out was a nightmare, and I didn't know if I'd ever make it from the crossing. I've been hours." He did look tired, she thought with concern. Now that he was back, she could wait. The past hours had taken on the quality of a nightmare, horrifying but curiously unreal. With Ben here, so solid and commonplace and cheerful, she began to wonder if the hours were a nightmare. She even began to doubt the reality of the woman in the trunk, although she cou]d see her as vividly as ever. Perhaps only the storm was real.She went to the kitchen and began to make fresh coffee. The chair, still wedged against the kitchen door, was a reminder of her terror. Now that Ben was home it seemed silly, and she put it back in its place by the table.He came down very soon, before the coffee was ready. How good it was to see him in that old gray bathrobe of his, his hands thrust into its pockets. How normal and wholesome he looked with his round face rubbed pink by a rough towel and his hair standing up in damp little spikes around his bald spot. She was almost shamefaced when she told him of the face at the window, the open door, and finally of the body in the trunk. None of it, she saw quite clearly now, could possibly have happened.Ben said so, without hesitation. But he came to put an arm around her, "You poor child, The storm scared you to death, and I don't wonder. It's given you the horrors." She smiled dubiously, "Yes, I'm almost beginning to think so, Now that you're back, it seems so safe. But-but you will look in the trunk, Ben? I've got to know. I can see her so plainly, How could I imagine a thing like that?" He said indulgently, "Of course I'll look, if it will make you feel better. I'll do it now. Then I can have my coffee in peace." He went to the cellar door and opened it and snapped on the light. Her heart began to pound once more, a deafening roar in her ears. The opening of the cellar door opened, again, the whole vista of fear: the body, the police, the suspicions that would cluster about her and Ben, The need to hide this evidence of somebody's crime.She could not have imagined it; it was incredible that she could have believed, for a minute, that her mind had played such tricks on her, In another moment Ben would know it, too.She heard the thud as he threw back the lid of the trunk. She clutched at the back of a chair, waiting for his voice. It came in an instant.She could not believe it. It was as cheerful and reassuring as before, He said, "There's nothing here but a couple of bundles, Come take a look." Nothing!Her knees were weak as she went down the stairs, down into the cellar again. It was still musty and damp and draped with cobwebs. The rivulet was still running down the wall, but the pool was larger now. The light was still dim.It was just as she remembered it except that the wind was whistling through a broken window and rain was splattering in on the bits of shattered glass on the floor. The branch lying across the sill had removed every scrap of glass from the frame and left not a single jagged edge.Ben was standing by the open trunk, waiting for her, His stocky body was a bulwark, "See," he said, "there's nothing, Just some old clothes of yours, I guess." She went to stand beside him, Was she losing her mind? Would she, now, see that crushed figure in there, see the red dress and the smooth shining knees, when Ben could not? And the ring with the diamond between the lion's paws?Her eyes looked, almost reluctantly, into the trunk, "It is empty!" There were the neat, newspaper-wrapped packages she had put away so carefully, just as she had left them deep in the bottom of the trunk, And nothing else.She must have imagined the body. She was light with the relief the knowledge brought her, and yet confused and frightened, too. If her mind could play such tricks, if she could imagine anything so gruesome in the complete detail with which she had seen the dead woman in the trunk, the thought of the future was terrifying. When might she not have another such hallucination?The actual, physical danger did not exist, however, and never existed, The threat of the law hanging over Ben had been based on a dream."I--dreamed it all, I must have," she admitted, "Yet it was so horribly clear and I wasn't asleep," Her voice broke, "I thought--oh, Ben, I thought-" "What did you think, my dear?" His voice was odd, not like Ben's at all, It had a cold cunning edge to it.He stood looking down at her with an immobility that chilled her more than the cold wind that swept in through the broken window. She tried to read his face, but the light from the little bulb was too weak. It left his features shadowed in broad, dark planes that made him look like a stranger, and somehow sinister.She said, "I--" and faltered, He still did not move, but his voice hardened. "What was it you thought?" She backed away from him. He moved, then, It was only to take his hands from his pockets to stretch his arms toward her; but she stood for an instant staring at the thing that left her stricken, with a voiceless scream forming in her throat.She was never to know whether his arms had been outstretched to take her within their shelter or to clutch at her white neck. For she turned and lied, stumbling up the stairs in a mad panic of escape.He shouted, "Janet! Janet!" His steps were heavy behind her. He tripped on the bottom step and fell on one knee and cursed.Terror lent her strength and speed. She could not be mistaken, Although she had seen it only once, she knew that on the little finger of his left hand there had been the same, the unmistakable ring the dead woman had worn.The blessed wind snatched the front door from her and flung it wide, and she was out in the safe, dark shelter of the storm.Study QuestionsWhere has Janet been? Why does she come home early?What is the house like when she gets home? Why?What does Janet hear? What caused the sound?What does she see in the basement?Describe the letters Ben regularly receives. How does he respond to them?When Ben escorts her to the basement, what has changed?What does she see on Ben’s hand that terrifies her? Why does it frighten her? What does she do?Literary Focus: Atmosphere1190500Atmosphere is a type of feeling that readers get from a story based on details such as setting. Atmosphere refers to emotions or feelings an author conveys to readers through description of objects and settings, such as in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter tales, in which she spins a whimsical and enthralling atmosphere. Atmosphere may vary throughout a story. Some people refer to atmosphere as the story’s “mood.”Example: “The Raven” (by Edgar Allan Poe)At the beginning of the poem, the narrator is sitting alone reading weird books and thinking of his dead lover in a dark room at midnight when a mysterious knocking happens at his door. Immediately an atmosphere of dread, mystery, gloom, and horror is established by these details.Question: What is the overall atmosphere of “The Storm”? Identify three details that help to establish it.Raymond’s RunBy Toni Cade Bambara1161925Toni Cade Bambara (1939-1995) was a writer, civil-rights activist, and teacher who wrote about the concerns of the African-American community. She was reared by her mother in Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Queens, NY. She was a frequent lecturer and teacher at universities and worked to raise black American consciousness and pride. In the 1970s she was active in both the black liberation and the women’s movements.Bambara’s fiction, which is set in the rural South as well as the urban North, is written in dialect and presents sharply drawn characters whom she portrayed with affection. "Raymond's Run" was first published in the collection Gorilla, My Love in 1971. I don’t have much work to do around the house like some girls. My mother does that. And I don’t have to earn my pocket money by hustling; George runs errands for the big boys and sells Christmas cards. And anything else that’s got to get done, my father does. All I have to do in life is mind my brother Raymond, which is enough. Sometimes I slip and say my little brother Raymond. But as any fool can see he’s much bigger and he’s older too. But a lot of people call him my little brother cause he needs looking after cause he’s not quite right. And a lot of smart mouths got lots to say about that too, especially when George was minding him. But now, if anybody has anything to say to Raymond, anything to say about his big head, they have to come by me. And I don’t play the dozens or believe in standing around with somebody in my face doing a lot of talking. I much rather just knock you down and take my chances even if I am a little girl with skinny arms and a squeaky voice, which is how I got the name Squeaky. And if things get too rough, I run. And as anybody can tell you, I’m the fastest thing on two feet. There is no track meet that I don’t win the first place medal. I used to win the twenty-yard dash when I was a little kid in kindergarten. Nowadays, it’s the fifty-yard dash. And tomorrow I’m subject to run the quarter-meter relay all by myself and come in first, second, and third. The big kids call me Mercury cause I’m the swiftest thing in the neighborhood. Everybody knows that—except two people who know better, my father and me. He can beat me to Amsterdam Avenue with me having a two fire hydrant headstart and him running with his hands in his pockets and whistling. But that’s private information. Cause can you imagine some thirty-five-year-old man stuffing himself into shorts to race little kids? So as far as everyone’s concerned, I’m the fastest and that goes for Gretchen, too, who has put out the tale that she is going to win the first-place medal this year. Ridiculous. In the second place, she’s got short legs. In the third place, she’s got freckles. In the first place, no one can beat me and that’s all there is to it. I’m standing on the corner admiring the weather and about to take a stroll down Broadway so I can practice my breathing exercises, and I’ve got Raymond walking on the inside close to the buildings, cause he’s subject to fits of fantasy and starts thinking he’s a circus performer and that the curb is a tightrope strung high in the air. And sometimes after a rain he likes to step down off his tightrope right into the gutter and slosh around getting his shoes and cuffs wet. Then I get hit when I get home. Or sometimes if you don’t watch him he’ll dash across traffic to the island in the middle of Broadway and give the pigeons a fit. Then I have to go behind him apologizing to all the old people sitting around trying to get some sun and getting all upset with the pigeons fluttering around them, scattering their newspapers and upsetting the waxpaper lunches in their laps. So I keep Raymond on the inside of me, and he plays like he’s driving a stage coach which is O.K. by me so long as he doesn’t run me over or interrupt my breathing exercises, which I have to do on account of I’m serious about my running, and I don’t care who knows it.Now some people like to act like things come easy to them, won’t let on that they practice. Not me. I’ll high-prance down 34th Street like a rodeo pony to keep my knees strong even if it does get my mother uptight so that she walks ahead like she’s not with me, don’t know me, is all by herself on a shopping trip, and I am somebody else’s crazy child. Now you take Cynthia Procter for instance. She’s just the opposite. If there’s a test tomorrow, she’ll say something like, “Oh, I guess I’ll play handball this afternoon and watch television tonight,” just to let you know she ain’t thinking about the test. Or like last week when she won the spelling bee for the millionth time, “A good thing you got ‘receive,’ Squeaky, cause I would have got it wrong. I completely forgot about the spelling bee.” And she’ll clutch the lace on her blouse like it was a narrow escape. Oh, brother. But of course when I pass her house on my early morning trots around the block, she is practicing the scales on the piano over and over and over and over. Then in music class she always lets herself get bumped around so she falls accidentally on purpose onto the piano stool and is so surprised to find herself sitting there that she decides just for fun to try out the ole keys. And what do you know—Chopin’s waltzes just spring out of her fingertips and she’s the most surprised thing in the world. A regular prodigy. I could kill people like that. I stay up all night studying the words for the spelling bee. And you can see me any time of day practicing running. I never walk if I can trot, and shame on Raymond if he can’t keep up. But of course he does, cause if he hangs back someone’s liable to walk up to him and get smart, or take his allowance from him, or ask him where he got that great big pumpkin head. People are so stupid sometimes. So I’m strolling down Broadway breathing out and breathing in on counts of seven, which is my lucky number, and here comes Gretchen and her sidekicks: Mary Louise, who used to be a friend of mine when she first moved to Harlem from Baltimore and got beat up by everybody till I took up for her on account of her mother and my mother used to sing in the same choir when they were young girls, but people ain’t grateful, so now she hangs out with the new girl Gretchen and talks about me like a dog; and Rosie, who is as fat as I am skinny and has a big mouth where Raymond is concerned and is too stupid to know that there is not a big deal of difference between herself and Raymond and that she can’t afford to throw stones. So they are steady coming up Broadway and I see right away that it’s going to be one of those Dodge City scenes cause the street ain’t that big and they’re close to the buildings just as we are. First I think I’ll step into the candy store and look over the new comics and let them pass. But that’s chicken and I’ve got a reputation to consider. So then I think I’ll just walk straight on through them or even over them if necessary. But as they get to me, they slow down. I’m ready to fight, cause like I said I don’t feature a whole lot of chit-chat, I much prefer to just knock you down right from the jump and save everybody a lotta precious time. “You signing up for the May Day races?” smiles Mary Louise, only it’s not a smile at all. A dumb question like that doesn’t deserve an answer. Besides, there’s just me and Gretchen standing there really, so no use wasting my breath talking to shadows. “I don’t think you’re going to win this time,” says Rosie, trying to signify with her hands on her hips all salty, completely forgetting that I have whupped her behind many times for less salt than that. “I always win cause I’m the best,” I say straight at Gretchen who is, as far as I’m concerned, the only one talking in this ventriloquist-dummy routine. Gretchen smiles, but it’s not a smile, and I’m thinking that girls never really smile at each other because they don’t know how and don’t want to know how and there’s probably no one to teach us how, cause grown-up girls don’t know either. Then they all look at Raymond who has just brought his mule team to a standstill. And they’re about to see what trouble they can get into through him. “What grade you in now, Raymond?” “You got anything to say to my brother, you say it to me, Mary Louise Williams of Raggedy Town, Baltimore.” “What are you, his mother?” sasses Rosie. “That’s right, Fatso. And the next word out of anybody and I’ll be their mother too.” So they just stand there and Gretchen shifts from one leg to the other and so do they. Then Gretchen puts her hands on her hips and is about to say something with her freckle-face self but doesn’t. Then she walks around me looking me up and down but keeps walking up Broadway, and her sidekicks follow her. So me and Raymond smile at each other and he says, “Gidyap” to his team and I continue with my breathing exercises, strolling down Broadway toward the ice man on 145th with not a care in the world cause I am Miss Quicksilver herself. 37338001209675I take my time getting to the park on May Day because the track meet is the last thing on the program. The biggest thing on the program is the May Pole dancing, which I can do without, thank you, even if my mother thinks it’s a shame I don’t take part and act like a girl for a change. You’d think my mother’d be grateful not to have to make me a white organdy dress with a big satin sash and buy me new white baby-doll shoes that can’t be taken out of the box till the big day. You’d think she’d be glad her daughter ain’t out there prancing around a May Pole getting the new clothes all dirty and sweaty and trying to act like a fairy or a flower or whatever you’re supposed to be when you should be trying to be yourself, whatever that is, which is, as far as I am concerned, a poor Black girl who really can’t afford to buy shoes and a new dress you only wear once a lifetime cause it won’t fit next year. I was once a strawberry in a Hansel and Gretel pageant when I was in nursery school and didn’t have no better sense than to dance on tiptoe with my arms in a circle over my head doing umbrella steps and being a perfect fool just so my mother and father could come dressed up and clap. You’d think they’d know better than to encourage that kind of nonsense. I am not a strawberry. I do not dance on my toes. I run. That is what I am all about. So I always come late to the May Day program, just in time to get my number pinned on and lay in the grass till they announce the fifty-yard dash. I put Raymond in the little swings, which is a tight squeeze this year and will be impossible next year. Then I look around for Mr. Pearson, who pins the numbers on. I’m really looking for Gretchen, if you want to know the truth, but she’s not around. The park is jam-packed. Parents in hats and corsages and breast-pocket handkerchiefs peeking up. Kids in white dresses and light-blue suits. The parkees unfolding chairs and chasing the rowdy kids from Lenox as if they had no right to be there. The big guys with their caps on backwards, leaning against the fence swirling the basketballs on the tips of their fingers, waiting for all these crazy people to clear out the park so they can play. Most of the kids in my class are carrying bass drums and glockenspiels and flutes. You’d think they’d put in a few bongos or something for real like that. Then here comes Mr. Pearson with his clipboard and his cards and pencils and whistles and safety pins and 50 million other things he’s always dropping all over the place with his clumsy self. He sticks out in a crowd because he’s on stilts. We used to call him Jack and the Beanstalk to get him mad. But I’m the only one that can outrun him and get away, and I’m too grown for that silliness now. “Well, Squeaky,” he says, checking my name off the list and handing me number seven and two pins. And I’m thinking he’s got no right to call me Squeaky, if I can’t call him Beanstalk. “Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker,” I correct him and tell him to write it down on his board. “Well, Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker, going to give someone else a break this year?” I squint at him real hard to see if he is seriously thinking I should lose the race on purpose just to give someone else a break. “Only six girls running this time,” he continues, shaking his head sadly like it’s my fault all of New York didn’t turn out in sneakers. “That new girl should give you a run for your money.” He looks around the park for Gretchen like a periscope in a submarine movie. “Wouldn’t it be a nice gesture if you were . . . to ahhh . . .” I give him such a look he couldn’t finish putting that idea into words. Grownups got a lot of nerve sometimes. I pin number seven to myself and stomp away, I’m so burnt. And I go straight for the track and stretch out on the grass while the band winds up with “Oh, the Monkey Wrapped His Tail Around the Flag Pole,” which my teacher calls by some other name. The man on the loudspeaker is calling everyone over to the track and I’m on my back looking at the sky, trying to pretend I’m in the country, but I can’t, because even grass in the city feels hard as sidewalk, and there’s just no pretending you are anywhere but in a “concrete jungle” as my grandfather says. The twenty-yard dash takes all of two minutes cause most of the little kids don’t know no better than to run off the track or run the wrong way or run smack into the fence and fall down and cry. One little kid, though, has got the good sense to run straight for the white ribbon up ahead so he wins. Then the second-graders line up for the thirty-yard dash and I don’t even bother to turn my head to watch cause Raphael Perez always wins. He wins before he even begins by psyching the runners, telling them they’re going to trip on their shoelaces and fall on their faces or lose their shorts or something, which he doesn’t really have to do since he is very fast, almost as fast as I am. After that is the forty-yard dash which I used to run when I was in first grade. Raymond is hollering from the swings cause he knows I’m about to do my thing cause the man on the loudspeaker has just announced the fifty-yard dash, although he might just as well be giving a recipe for angel food cake cause you can hardly make out what he’s sayin for the static. I get up and slip off my sweat pants and then I see Gretchen standing at the starting line, kicking her legs out like a pro. Then as I get into place I see that ole Raymond is on line on the other side of the fence, bending down with his fingers on the ground just like he knew what he was doing. I was going to yell at him but then I didn’t. It burns up your energy to holler. Every time, just before I take off in a race, I always feel like I’m in a dream, the kind of dream you have when you’re sick with fever and feel all hot and weightless. I dream I’m flying over a sandy beach in the early morning sun, kissing the leaves of the trees as I fly by. And there’s always the smell of apples, just like in the country when I was little and used to think I was a choo-choo train, running through the fields of corn and chugging up the hill to the orchard. And all the time I’m dreaming this, I get lighter and lighter until I’m flying over the beach again, getting blown through the sky like a feather that weighs nothing at all. But once I spread my fingers in the dirt and crouch over the Get on Your Mark, the dream goes and I am solid again and am telling myself, Squeaky you must win, you must win, you are the fastest thing in the world, you can even beat your father up Amsterdam if you really try. g And then I feel my weight coming back just behind my knees then down to my feet then into the earth and the pistol shot explodes in my blood and I am off and weightless again, flying past the other runners, my arms pumping up and down and the whole world is quiet except for the crunch as I zoom over the gravel in the track. I glance to my left and there is no one. To the right, a blurred Gretchen, who’s got her chin jutting out as if it would win the race all by itself. And on the other side of the fence is Raymond with his arms down to his side and the palms tucked up behind him, running in his very own style, and it’s the first time I ever saw that and I almost stop to watch my brother Raymond on his first run. But the white ribbon is bouncing toward me and I tear past it, racing into the distance till my feet with a mind of their own start digging up footfuls of dirt and brake me short. Then all the kids standing on the side pile on me, banging me on the back and slapping my head with their May Day programs, for I have won again and everybody on 151st Street can walk tall for another year. “In first place . . .” the man on the loudspeaker is clear as a bell now. But then he pauses and the loudspeaker starts to whine. Then static. And I lean down to catch my breath and here comes Gretchen walking back, for she’s overshot the finish line too, huffing and puffing with her hands on her hips taking it slow, breathing in steady time like a real pro and I sort of like her a little for the first time. “In first place . . .” and then three or four voices get all mixed up on the loudspeaker and I dig my sneaker into the grass and stare at Gretchen who’s staring back, we both wondering just who did win. I can hear old Beanstalk arguing with the man on the loudspeaker and then a few others running their mouths about what the stopwatches say. Then I hear Raymond yanking at the fence to call me and I wave to shush him, but he keeps rattling the fence like a gorilla in a cage like in them gorilla movies, but then like a dancer or something he starts climbing up nice and easy but very fast. And it occurs to me, watching how smoothly he climbs hand over hand and remembering how he looked running with his arms down to his side and with the wind pulling his mouth back and his teeth showing and all, it occurred to me that Raymond would make a very fine runner. Doesn’t he always keep up with me on my trots? And he surely knows how to breathe in counts of seven cause he’s always doing it at the dinner table, which drives my brother George up the wall. And I’m smiling to beat the band cause if I’ve lost this race, or if me and Gretchen tied, or even if I’ve won, I can always retire as a runner and begin a whole new career as a coach with Raymond as my champion. After all, with a little more study I can beat Cynthia and her phony self at the spelling bee. And if I bugged my mother, I could get piano lessons and become a star. And I have a big rep as the baddest thing around. And I’ve got a roomful of ribbons and medals and awards. But what has Raymond got to call his own? So I stand there with my new plans, laughing out loud by this time as Raymond jumps down from the fence and runs over with his teeth showing and his arms down to the side, which no one before him has quite mastered as a running style. And by the time he comes over I’m jumping up and down so glad to see him—my brother Raymond, a great runner in the family tradition. But of course everyone thinks I’m jumping up and down because the men on the loudspeaker have finally gotten themselves together and compared notes and are announcing, “In first place—Miss Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker.” (Dig that.) “In second place—Miss Gretchen P. Lewis.” And I look over at Gretchen wondering what the “P” stands for. And I smile. Cause she’s good, no doubt about it. Maybe she’d like to help me coach Raymond; she obviously is serious about running, as any fool can see. And she nods to congratulate me and then she smiles. And I smile. We stand there with this big smile of respect between us. It’s about as real a smile as girls can do for each other, considering we don’t practice real smiling every day, you know, cause maybe we too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of respect . . . you know . . . like being people.Study QuestionsWhat nickname have the big kids given Squeaky? Why?Why does Squeaky feel the May Pole dance is a waste of time?Describe Squeaky’s reaction when she sees Raymond running parallel to her in the race.What are some differences between Squeaky and Gretchen? What are some similarities?Who wins the race? How does Squeaky respond? How does Gretchen respond?How do the events in the story change the way Squeaky views competition? Literary Focus: First-Person Point of View1161925“Point of view” refers to the perspective that the narrator holds in relation to the events of the story (the narrator is who is telling the story). The three primary points of view are first person, in which the narrator tells a story from their own perspective ("I went to the store"); second person, in which the narrator tells a story about you, the reader or viewer ("You went to the store"); and third person, in which the narrator tells a story about other people ("He went to the store"). Each point of view creates a different experience for the reader, because, in each point of view, different types and amounts of information are available to the reader about the story's events and characters.In first-person point of view, the narrator is actually a character in the story and tells the story from his or her own perspective. You can easily recognize first person by its use of the pronouns "I" or "We." First person offers the author a great way to give the reader direct access to a particular character's thoughts, emotions, voice, and way of seeing the world—their point of view about the main events of the story. The choice of which character gets to have first person point of view can dramatically change a story, as shown in this simple scenario of a thief snatching a lady's purseThief's point of view: "I was desperate for something to eat. Judging by her expensive-looking shoes, I figured she could afford to part with her purse."Victim's point of view: "He came out of nowhere! Too bad for him, though: I only had five dollars in my bag."Example 1: The Sun Also Rises (by Ernest Hemingway)In this book, the author employs the first person point of view by telling the story through the perspective of a character in the novel. Here’s an example: “I could picture it. I have a habit of imagining the conversations between my friends. We went out to the Cafe Napolitain to watch the evening crowd on the Boulevard.” The use of two first person pronouns, “I” and “we,” gives these lines the quality of having a first person point of view. The reader can feel like he or she is hearing the dialogue directly from the character.Example 2: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)This book is told from the first-person point of view of Travis. Here is an example: "He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks. That's how much I'd come to think of the big yeller dog." Question: Who is the narrator of “Raymond’s Run”? Is this a first or third person narrator? How do you know?A Secret for TwoBy Quentin Reynolds19051190500Quentin James Reynolds (1902-1965) grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He studied law and then went into journalism. During World War II Reynolds became famous as a war correspondent, covering the battle fronts in North Africa and Europe. He was also a sportswriter and an author of short stories.“A Secret for Two” is one of his best known short stories. It tells the story of Pierre, a Canadian milkman, who kept the same route for 30 years, and his faithful horse, Joseph. It was first published in 1940.Montreal is a very large city, but, like all large cities, it has some very small streets. Streets, for instance, like Prince Edward Street, which is only four blocks long, ending in a cul de sac. No one knew Prince Edward Street as well as did Pierre Dupin, for Pierre had delivered milk to the families on the street for thirty years now.During the past fifteen years the horse which drew the milk wagon used by Pierre was a large white horse named Joseph. In Montreal, especially in that part of Montreal which is very French, the animals, like children, are often given the names of saints. When the big white horse first came to the Provincale Milk Company he didn't have a name. They told Pierre that he could use the white horse henceforth. Pierre stroked the softness of the horse`s neck; he stroked the sheen of its splendid belly and he looked into the eyes of the horse.“This is a kind horse, a gentle and a faithful horse,” Pierre said, “and I can see a beautiful spirit shining out of the eyes of the horse. I will name him after good St. Joseph, who was also kind and gentle anf faithful and a beautiful spirit.”Within a year Joseph knew the milk route as well as Pierre. Pierre used to boast that he didn't need reins – he never touched them. Each morning Pierre arrived at the stables of the Provincale Milk Company at five o'clock. The wagon would be loaded and Joseph hitched to it. Pierre would call “Bon jour, vieille ami,” as he climbed into his seat and Joseph would turn his head and the other drivers would smile and say that the horse would smile at Pierre. Then Jacques, the foreman, would say, “All right, Pierre, go on,” and Pierre would call softly to Joseph, “Avance, mon ami,” and this splendid combination would stalk proudly down the street.The wagon, without any direction from Pierre, would roll three blocks down St. Catherine Street, then turn right two blocks along Roslyn Avenue; then left, for that was Prince Edward Street. The horse would stop at the first house, allow Pierre perhaps thirty seconds to get down from his seat and put a bottle of milk at the front door and would then go on, skipping two houses and stopping at the third. So down the length of the street. Then Joseph, still without any direction from Pierre, would turn around and come back along the other side. Yes, Joseph was a smart horse.Pierre would boast at the stable of Joseph`s skill. “I never touch the reins. “He knows just where to stop. Why, a blind man could handle my route with Joseph pulling the wagon.”So it went for years – always the same. Pierre and Joseph both grew old together, but gradually, not suddenly. Pierre’s huge walrus mustache was pure white now and Joseph didn’t lift his knees so high or raise his head as much. Jacques, the foreman of the stables, never noticed that they were both getting old until Pierre appeared one morning carrying a heavy walking stick.“Hey, Pierre”, Jacques laughed. “Maybe you got the gout, hey?”“Mais oui, Jacques,” Pierre said a bit uncertainly. “One grows old. One’s legs get tired.”“You should teach that horse to carry the milk to the front door for you,” Jacques told him, “He does everything else.”He knew every one of the forty families he served on Prince Edward Street. The cooks knew that Pierre could neither read nor write, so instead of following the usual custom of leaving a note in an empty bottle if an additional quart of milk was needed they would sing out when they heard the rumble of his wagon wheels over the cobbled street, “Bring an extra quart this morning, Pierre.”“So you have company for dinner tonight,” he would call back gaily.Pierre had a remarkable memory. When he arrived at the stable he’d always remember to tell Jacques, “The Paquins took an extra quart this morning; the Lemoines bought a pint of cream.”2462213257175Jacques would note these things in a little book he always carried. Most of the drivers had to make out the weekly bills and collect the money, but Jacques, liking Pierre, had always excused him from this task. All Pierre had to do was to arrive at five in the morning, walk to his wagon, which was always in the same spot at the curb, and deliver his milk. He returned some two hours later, got down stiffly from his seat, called a cherry “Au revoir” to Jacques, and then limped slowly down the street.One morning the president of the Provincale Milk Company came to inspect the early morning deliveries. Jacques pointed Pierre out to him and said: “Watch how he talks to that horse. See how the horse listens and how he turns his head toward Pierre? See the look in that horse’s eyes? You know, I think those two share a secret. I have often noticed it. It is as though they both sometimes chuckle at us as they go off on their route. Pierre is a good man, Monsieur President, but he gets old. Would it be too bold of me to suggest that he be retired and be given perhaps a small pension?” he added anxiously.“But of course,” the president laughed. “I know his record. He has been on this route now for thirty years and never once has there been a complaint. Tell him it is time he rested. His salary will go on just the same.”But Pierre refused to retire. He was panic-stricken at the thought of not driving Joseph every day. “We are two old men,” he said to Jacques. “Let us wear out together. When Joseph is ready to retire – then I, too, will quit.”Jacques, who was a kind man, understood. There was something about Pierre and Joseph which made a man smile tenderly. It was as though each drew some hidden strength from the other. When Pierre was sitting in his seat, and when Joseph was hitched to the wagon, neither seemed old. But when they finished their work, then Pierre would limp down the street slowly, seeming very old indeed, and the horse’s head would drop and he would walk very wearily to his stall.Then one morning Jacques had dreadful news for Pierre when he arrived. It was a cold morning and still pitch-dark. The air was like iced wine that morning and the snow which had fallen during the night glistened like a million diamonds piled together.Jacques said, “Pierre, your horse, Joseph, did not wake up this morning. He was very old, Pierre, he was twenty-five and that is like being seventy-five for a man.”“Yes,” Pierre said slowly. “Yes. I am seventy. And I cannot see Joseph again.”“Of course you can,” Jacques soothed. “He is over in his stall, looking very peaceful. Go over and see him.”Pierre took one step forward, then turned. “No... no... you don’t understand, Jacques.”Jacques clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll find another horse just as good as Joseph. Why, in a month you’ll teach him to know your route as well as Joseph did. We’ll...”The look in Pierre’s eyes stopped him. For years Pierre had worn a heavy cap, the peak of which came low over his eyes, keeping the bitter morning wind out of them. Now Jacques looked into Pierre’s eyes and he saw something which startled him. He saw a dead, lifeless look in them. The eyes were mirroring the grief that was in Pierre’s heart and his soul. It was as though his heart and soul had died.“Take today off, Pierre,” Jacques said, but already Pierre was hobbling off down the street, and had one been near one would have seen tears streaming down his cheeks and have heard half-smothered sobs. Pierre walked to the corner and stepped into the street. There was a warning yell from the driver of a huge truck that was coming fast and there was the scream of brakes, but Pierre apparently heard neither.Five minutes later an ambulance driver said, “He’s dead. He was killed instantly.”Jacques and several of the milk-wagon drivers had arrived and they looked down at the still figure.“I couldn’t help it,” the driver of the truck protested, “he walked right into my truck. He never saw it, I guess. Why, he walked into it as though he was blind.”The ambulance doctor bent down. “Blind? Of course the man was blind. See those cataracts? This man has been blind for five years. “He turned to Jacques, “You say he worked for you? Didn’t you know he was blind?”“No... no...” Jacques said, softly. “None of us knew. Only one knew – a friend of his named Joseph... It was a secret, I think, just between those two.”Study QuestionsWhat is Pierre’s job? Who is Joseph and how does he get his name?In the sixth paragraph, what boast does Pierre make about Joseph?What does the company president offer Pierre? What is Pierre’s answer?What eventually happens to Joseph? What happens to Pierre?What does the ambulance doctor reveal about Pierre?Why do you think Pierre keeps his problem a secret? What does this behavior suggest about him?Literary Focus: Third-Person Point of View1209550In third-person point of view, the narrator is someone (or some entity) who is not a character in the story being told. Some even say that the narrator is the author himself or herself, but this isn’t necessarily the case. Third-person point of view uses the pronouns "he," "she," and "they," to refer to all the characters. It is the most common point of view in writing, as it gives the writer a considerable amount of freedom to focus on different people, events, and places without being limited within the consciousness of a single character.There are two key types of third-person point of view: 1. Omniscient, in which the narrator knows all of the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the story.2. Limited, in which the narrator does not have an omniscient, unlimited perspective, but may have access to the thoughts and feelings of one character, or none at all.Example 1: Pride and Prejudice (by Jane Austen)Like many classic novels, it is told from the third-person point of view. Here's a passage from the book: "When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him. 'He is just what a young man ought to be,' said she, 'sensible, good-humored, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! So much ease, with such perfect good breeding!'"Example 2: Harry Potter (by J.K. Rowling)J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is written with Harry as the focus but from the point of view of someone observing him and those around him.Question: What point of view did the author of “A Secret for Two” use? If third person, is it limited or omniscient? How do you know? If it was the other, what difference would it have made to the story?The Three QuestionsBy Leo Tolstoy1171450Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian author of realistic fiction and one of the world’s greatest novelists. He received multiple nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Nobel Peace Prize, and the fact that he never won is a major Nobel prize controversy. Tolstoy is best known for his two longest works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, which are commonly regarded as among the finest novels ever written. In the 1870s he experienced a profound spiritual awakening, as outlined in his work A Confession. He became a fervent Christian anarchist and pacifist, and his ideas had a profound impact on such pivotal figures as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr."The Three Questions" was first published in 1885 as part of the collection What Men Live By, and Other Tales. The story takes the form of a parable, which is a brief story that illustrates an instructive lesson or principle. A parable differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, whereas parables have human characters.It once occurred to a certain king that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he might undertake.And this thought having occurred to him, he had it proclaimed throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to anyone who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was the most important thing to do.And learned men came to the king, but they all answered his questions differently.In reply to the first question, some said that to know the right time for every action, one must draw up in advance a table of days, months, and years, and must live strictly according to it. Only thus, said they, could everything be done at its proper time. Others declared that it was impossible to decide beforehand the right time for every action, but that, not letting oneself be absorbed in idle pastimes, one should always attend to all that was going on, and then do what was most needful. Others, again, said that however attentive the king might be to what was going on, it was impossible for one man to decide correctly the right time for every action, but that he should have a council of wise men who would help him to fix the proper time for everything.But then again others said there were some things which could not wait to be laid before a council, but about which one had at once to decide whether to undertake them or not. But in order to decide that, one must know beforehand what was going to happen. It is only magicians who know that; and, therefore, in order to know the right time for every action, one must consult magicians.Equally various were the answers to the second question. Some said the people the king most needed were his councilors; others, the priests; others, the doctors; while some said the warriors were the most necessary.To the third question, as to what was the most important occupation, some replied that the most important thing in the world was science. Others said it was skill in warfare; and others, again, that it was religious worship.All the answers being different, the king agreed with none of them, and gave the reward to none. But still wishing to find the right answers to his questions, he decided to consult a hermit, widely renowned for his wisdom.The hermit lived in a wood which he never quitted, and he received none but common folk. So the king put on simple clothes and, before reaching the hermit’s cell, dismounted from his horse. Leaving his bodyguard behind, he went on alone.When the king approached, the hermit was digging the ground in front of his hut. Seeing the king, he greeted him and went on digging. The hermit was frail and weak, and each time he stuck his spade into the ground and turned a little earth, he breathed heavily.The king went up to him and said: “I have come to you, wise hermit, to ask you to answer three questions: How can I learn to do the right thing at the right time? Who are the people I most need, and to whom should I, therefore, pay more attention than to the rest? And, what affairs are the most important and need my first attention?”3429000666750The hermit listened to the king, but answered nothing. He just spat on his hand and recommenced digging.“You are tired,” said the king, “let me take the spade and work awhile for you.”“Thanks!” said the hermit, and, giving the spade to the king, he sat down on the ground.When he had dug two beds, the king stopped and repeated his questions. The hermit again gave no answer, but rose, stretched out his hand for the spade, and said:“Now rest awhile – and let me work a bit.”But the king did not give him the spade, and continued to dig. One hour passed, and another. The sun began to sink behind the trees, and the king at last stuck the spade into the ground, and said:“I came to you, wise man, for an answer to my questions. If you can give me none, tell me so, and I will return home.”“Here comes someone running,” said the hermit. “Let us see who it is.”The king turned round and saw a bearded man come running out of the wood. The man held his hands pressed against his stomach, and blood was flowing from under them. When he reached the king, he fell fainting on the ground, moaning feebly. The king and the hermit unfastened the man’s clothing. There was a large wound in his stomach. The king washed it as best he could, and bandaged it with his handkerchief and with a towel the hermit had. But the blood would not stop flowing, and the king again and again removed the bandage soaked with warm blood, and washed and re-bandaged the wound. When at last the blood ceased flowing, the man revived and asked for something to drink. The king brought fresh water and gave it to him. Meanwhile the sun had set, and it had become cool. So the king, with the hermit’s help, carried the wounded man into the hut and laid him on the bed. Lying on the bed, the man closed his eyes and was quiet; but the king was so tired from his walk and from the work he had done that he crouched down on the threshold, and also fell asleep – so soundly that he slept all through the short summer night.When he awoke in the morning, it was long before he could remember where he was, or who was the strange bearded man lying on the bed and gazing intently at him with shining eyes.“Forgive me!” said the bearded man in a weak voice, when he saw that the king was awake and was looking at him.“I do not know you, and have nothing to forgive you for,” said the king.“You do not know me, but I know you. I am that enemy of yours who swore to revenge himself on you, because you executed his brother and seized his property. I knew you had gone alone to see the hermit, and I resolved to kill you on your way back. But the day passed and you did not return. So I came out from my ambush to find you, and came upon your bodyguard, and they recognized me, and wounded me. I escaped from them, but should have bled to death had you not dressed my wound. I wished to kill you, and you have saved my life. Now, if I live, and if you wish it, I will serve you as your most faithful slave, and will bid my sons do the same. Forgive me!”The king was very glad to have made peace with his enemy so easily, and to have gained him for a friend, and he not only forgave him, but said he would send his servants and his own physician to attend him, and promised to restore his property.Having taken leave of the wounded man, the king went out into the porch and looked around for the hermit. Before going away he wished once more to beg an answer to the questions he had put. The hermit was outside, on his knees, sowing seeds in the beds that had been dug the day before.The king approached him and said, “For the last time, I pray you to answer my questions, wise man.”“You have already been answered!” said the hermit, still crouching on his thin legs, and looking up at the king, who stood before him.“How answered? What do you mean?” asked the king.“Do you not see?” replied the hermit. “If you had not pitied my weakness yesterday, and had not dug these beds for me, but had gone your way, that man would have attacked you, and you would have repented of not having stayed with me. So the most important time was when you were digging the beds; and I was the most important man; and to do me good was your most important business. Afterwards, when that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if you had not bound up his wounds he would have died without having made peace with you. So he was the most important man, and what you did for him was your most important business. Remember then: there is only one time that is important – now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary person is the one with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with anyone else: and the most important affair is to do that person good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life.”Study QuestionsWhat three things does the King desire to know? Why does he want to know them?Why doesn’t the king give a reward to those who answer his questions? Who does the king finally decide to find to seek the answers?What is the hermit doing when the king finds them? How does the king help the hermit?Who is the bearded man that came running out of the woods? What has happened to him? How does the king help?What answers does the king discover to his questions?Why do you think the hermit refuses to answer the king when he initially asks?Literary focus: Theme1180975A story’s theme is its underlying truth or message about life. It is important not to confuse the theme of a literary work with its subject (or topic). The subject acts as a foundation for a literary work, while a theme is an opinion expressed on the subject. For example, a writer may choose a subject of war for his story, and the theme may be his view that war is a curse for humanity. Usually, it is up to the readers to explore the theme of a literary work by analyzing characters, plot, and other literary devices.Theme can be stated or implied. When stated, the lesson about life is written out in the story, like at the end of the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare” when the author, Aesop, writes, “Plodding wins the race.” Usually, however, the theme is only implied, which means it is only suggested by the story, not directly stated. In this case, it is up to the reader to determine the story’s theme.A story may have only one theme, but frequently multiple themes can be inferred, which tends to enrich the reader’s experience even further.Because the theme is a message about life, it cannot be articulated with only a word or phrase. It must be written as a complete sentence. For example, “friendship” is not a theme (it is a subject or topic). “True friendship means staying loyal to your friends,” however, might be the theme of a story.A story’s theme is expressed as a generalization. This means that it can apply to most anyone, no matter who they are. For example, the theme “True love can overcome many obstacles” is true of most, if not all, people. The statement, “Naval commanders have to make difficult decisions,” however, only applies to a very small number of people -- naval commanders -- and therefore would not be a story’s theme. Example: Old Yeller (by Fred Gipson)In this book, the reader can infer a number of themes, but one that is revealed by examining the character of Travis and his response to shooting Old Yeller might be, “Making difficult choices helps people to grow and mature.”Question: What is the theme of “Three Questions”? Is it stated or implied? How do you know?Flowers for AlgnernonBy Daniel Keyes19051190500Daniel Keyes (1927-2014) was an American author best known for his Hugo award-winning short story and Nebula award-winning novel Flowers for Algernon. Born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, at age 17, he joined the U.S. Maritime Service. He obtained a degree in psychology from Brooklyn College, and after a stint in fashion photography, he earned a Master's Degree in Literature at night while teaching English in New York City public schools during the day and writing on weekends. He went on to teach writing at the college level.The short story and subsequent novel, “Flowers for Algernon”, was initially published in the April 1959 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The expanded novel was published in 1966 and has been adapted several times for other media, most prominently as the 1968 film Charly. Both the novel and the short story are written in an epistolary style, meaning they are presented as a series of documents (in this case “progress reports”). The usual form of an epistolary story is through letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings, blogs, and other documents are sometimes used. The version presented here is Keye’s original short story. progris riport 1-martch 5, 1965 Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey thing that happins to me from now on, I dont know why but he says its importint so they will see if they will use me. I hope they use me. Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Charlie Gordon. I am 37 years old. I have nuthing more to rite now so I will close for today. progris riport 2-martch 6 I had a test today. I think I faled it. And I think maybe now they wont use me. What happind is a nice young man was in the room and he had some white cards and ink spillled all over them. He sed Charlie what do vo see on this card. I was very skared even tho I had my rabits foot in my pockit because when I was a kid I always faled tests in school and I spillled ink to. I told him I saw a inkblot. He said yes and it made me feel good. I thot that was all but when I got up to go he said Charlie we are not thrn yet. Then I dont remember so good but he wantid me to say what was in the ink. I dint see nuthing in the ink but he said there was picturs there other pepul saw some picturs. I couldnt see any picturs. I reely tryed. I held the card close up and then far away. Then I said if I had my glases I coud see better I usally only ware my glases in the movies or TV but I said they are in the closit in the hall. I got them. Then I said let me see that card agen I bet Ill find it Now. I tryed hard but I only saw the ink. I told him maybe I need new glases. He rote something down on a paper and I got skared of faling the test. I told him it was a very nice inkblot with littel points all around the edges. He looked very sad so that wasnt it. I said please let me try agen. Ill get it in a few minits becaus Im not so fast sometimes. Im a slow reeder too in Miss Kinnians class for slow adtilts but I'm trying very hard. He gave me a chance with another card that had 2 kinds of ink spilled on it red and blue. He was very nice and talked slow like Miss Kinnian does and he explaned it to me that it was a raw shok. He said pepul see things in the ink. I said show me where. He said think. I told him I think a inkblot but that wasn't rite eather. He said what does it remind you-pretend something. I closed mv eves for a long time to pretend. I told him I pretend a fowutan pen with ink leeking all over a table cloth.I don't think I passed the raw shok test progris riport 3-martch 7 Dr Strauss and Dr Nemur say it dont matter about the inkblots. They said that maybe they will still use me. I said Miss Kinnian never gave me tests like that one only spelling and reading. They said Miss Kinnian told that I was her bestist pupil in the adult nite school becaus I tryed the hardist and I reely wantid to lern. They said how come you went to the adult nite scool all by yourself Charlie. How did you find it. I said I asked pepul and sum body told me where I shud go to lern to read and spell good. They said why did you want to. I told them becaus all my life I wantid to be smart and not dumb. But its very hard to be smart. They said you know it will probly be tempirery. I said yes. Miss Kinnian told me. I dont care if it herts. Later I had more crazy tests today. The nice lady who gave it to me told me the name and I asked her how do you spell it so I can rite it my progris riport. THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST. I dont know the frist 2 words but I know what test means. You got to pass it or you get bad marks. This test lookd easy becaus I could see the picturs. Only this time she dint want me to tell her the picturs. That mixd me up. She said make up storys about the pepul in the picturs. I told her how can you tell storys about pepul you never met. I said why shud I make up lies. I never tell lies any more becaus I always get caut. She told me this test and the other one the raw-shok was for getting personality. I laffed so hard. I said how can you get that thing from inkblots and fotos. She got sore and put her picturs away. I don't care. It was sily. I gess I faled that test too. Later some men in white coats took me to a difernt part of the hospitil and gave me a game to play. It was like a race with a white mouse. They called the mouse Algernon. Algernon was in a box with a lot of twists and turns like all kinds of walls and they gave me a pencil and a paper with lines and lots of boxes. On one side it said START and on the other end it said FINISH. They said it was amazed and that Algernon and me had the same amazed to do. I dint see how we could have the same amazed if Algernon had a box and I had a paper but I dint say' nothing. Anyway there wasnt time because the race started. One of the men had a watch he was trying to hide so I wouldnt see it so I tryed not to look and that made me nervus. Anyway that test made me feel worser than all the others because they' did it over 10 times with different amazeds and Algernon won every time. I dint know that mice were so smart, Maybe thats because Algernon is a white mouse. Maybe white mice are smarter than other mice. progris riport 4-Mar 8 Their going to use me! Im so excited I can hardly write. Dr Nemur and Dr Strauss had a argament about it first. Dr Nemur was in the office when Dr Strauss brot me in. Dr Nemur was worryed about using me but Dr Strauss told him Miss Kinnian rekemmended me the best from all the people who she was teaching. I like Miss Kinnian becaus shes a very smart teacher. And she said Charlie your going to have a second chance. If you volunteer for this experament you mite get smart. They dont know if it will be perminint but theirs a chance. Thats why I said ok even when I was scared because she said it was an operashun. She said dont be scared Charlie you done so much with so little I think you deserv it most of all. So I got scaird when Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss argud about it. Dr. Strauss said I had something that was very good. He said I had a good motor-vation. I never even knew I had that. I felt proud when he said that not every body with an eye-q of 68 had that thing. I dant know what it is or where I got it but he said Algernon had it too. Algernons motor-vation is the cheese they put in his box. But it cant be that because I didn't eat any cheese this week. Then he told Dr Nemur something I dint understand so while they were talking I wrote down some of the words. He said Dr. Nemur I know Charlie is not what you had in mind as the first of your new brede of intelek** (couldnt get the word) superman. But most people of his low ment** are host** and uncoop** they are usually dull apath** and hard to reach. He has a good natcher hes intristed and eager to please. Dr Nemur said remember he will be the first human beeng ever to have his intelijence tripled by surgicle meens. Dr. Strauss said exakly. Look at how well hes lerned to read and write for his low mentel age its as grate an acheve** as you and I lerning einstines therey of **vity without help. That shows the inteness motor-vation. Its comparat** a tremen** achev** I say we use Charlie. I dint get all the words but it sounded like Dr Strauss was on my side and like the other one wasnt. Then Dr Nemur nodded he said all right maybe your right. We will use Charlie. When he said that I got so exited I jumped up and shook his hand for being so good to me. I told him thank you doc you wont be sorry for giving me a second chance. And I mean it like I told him. After the operashun Im gonna try to be smart. Im gonna try awful hard. progris riport 5-Mar 10 Im skared. Lots of the nurses and the people who gave me the tests came to bring me candy and wish me luck. I hope I have luck. I got my rabits foot and my lucky penny. Only a black cat crossed me when I was comming to the hospitil. Dr Strauss says dont be supersitis Charlie this is science. Anyway Im keeping my rabits foot with me. I asked Dr Strauss if Ill beat Algernon in the race after the operashun and he said maybe. If the operashun works Ill show that mouse I can be as smart as he is. Maybe smarter. Then Ill be abel to read better and spell the words good and know lots of things and be like other people. I want to be smart like other people. If it works perminint they will make everybody smart all over the wurld. They dint give me anything to eat this morning. I dont know what that eating has to do with getting smart. Im very hungry and Dr. Nemur took away my box of candy. That Dr Nemur is a grouch. Dr Strauss says I can have it back after the operashun. You cant eat befor a operashun.... progress report 6-Mar 15 The operashun dint hurt. He did it while I was sleeping. They took off the bandijis from my head today so I can make a PROG- RESS REPORT. Dr. Nemur who looked at some of my other ones says I spell PROGRESS wrong and told me how to spell it and REPORT too. I got to try and remember that. I have a very bad memary for spelling. Dr Strauss says its ok to tell about all the things that happin to me but he says I should tell more about what I feel and what I think. When I told him I dont know how to think he said try. All the time when the bandijis were on my eyes I tryed to think. Nothing happened. I dont know what to think about. Maybe if I ask him he will tell me how I can think now that Im supposed to get smart. What do smart people think about. Fancy things I suppose. I wish I knew some fancy things alredy. progress report 7-mar 19 Nothing is happining. I had lots of tests and different kinds of races with Algernon. I hate that mouse. He always beats me. Dr. Strauss said I got to play those games. And he said some time I got to take those tests over again. Those inkblots are stupid. And those pictures are stupid too. I like to draw a picture of a man and a woman but I wont make up lies about people. I got a headache from trying to think so much. I thot Dr Strauss was my frend but he dont help me. He dont tell me what to think or when Ill get smart. Miss Kinnian dint come to see me. I think writing these progress reports are stupid too. progress report 8-Mar 23 Im going back to work at the factory. They said it was better I shud go back to work but I cant tell anyone what the operashun was for and I have to come to the hospitil for an hour evry night after work. They are gonna pay me mony every month for learning to be Smart. Im glad Im going back to work because I miss my job and all my frends and all the fun we have there. Dr Strauss say's I shud keep writing things down but I dont have to do it every day just when I think of something or something speshul happins. He says dont get discoridged because it takes time and it happins slow. He say's it took a long time with Algernon before he got 3 times smarter than he was before. Thats why Algernon beats me all the time because he had that operashun too. That makes me feel better. I coud probly do that amazed faster than a reglar mouse. Maybe some day Ill beat him. That would be something. So far Algernon looks smart perminent. Mar 25 (I dont have to write PROGRESS REPORT on top any more just when I hand it in once a week for Dr Nemur. I just have to put the date on. That saves time) We had a lot of fun at the factory today. Joe Carp said hey look where Charlie had his operashun what did they do Charlie put some brains in. I was going to tell him but I remembered Dr Strauss said no. Then Frank Reilly said what did you do Charlie forget your key and open your door the hard way. That made me laff. Their really my friends and they like me. Sometimes somebody will say hey look at Joe or Frank or George he really pulled a Charlie Gordon. I dont know why they say that but they always laff. This morning Amos Borg who is the 4 man at Donnegans used my name when he shouted at Ernie the office boy. Ernie lost a packige. He said Ernie for pete sake what are you trying to be a Charlie Gordon. I dont understand why he said that. Mar 28 Dr Strauss came to my room tonight to see why I dint come in like I was suppose to. I told him I dont like to race with Algernon any more. He said I dont have to for a while but I shud come in. He had a present for me. I thot it was a little television but it wasnt. He said I got to turn it on when I go to sleep. I said your kidding why shud I turn it on when Im going to sleep. Who ever herd of a thing like that. But he said if I want to get smart I got to do what he says. I told him I dint think I was going to get smart and he puts his hand on my sholder and said Charlie you dont know it yet but your getting smarter all the time. You wont notice for a while. I think he was just being nice to make me feel good because I dont look any Smarter. Oh yes I almost forgot. I asked him when I can go back to the class at Miss Kinnians school. He said I wont go their. He said that soon Miss Kinnian will come to the hospitil to start and teach me speshul. Mar 29 That crazy TV kept up all night. How can I sleep with something yelling crazy things all night in my ears. And the nutty pictures. Wow. I don't know what it says when Im up so how am I going to know when Im sleeping. Dr Strauss says its ok. He says my brains are lerning when I sleep and that will help me when Miss Kinnian starts my lessons in the hospitl (only I found out it isn't a hospitil its a labatory.) I think its all crazy. If you can get smart when your sleeping why do people go to school. That thing I don't think will work. I use to watch the late show and the late late show on TV all the time and it never made me smart. Maybe you have to sleep while you watch it. progress report 9-April 3 Dr Strauss showed me how to keep the TV turned low so now I can sleep. I don't hear a thing. And I still dont understand what it says. A few times I play it over in the morning to find out what I lerned when I was sleeping and I don't think so. Miss Kinnian says Maybe its another langwidge. But most times it sound american. It talks faster then even Miss Gold who was my teacher in 6 grade. I told Dr. Strauss what good is it to get smart in my sleep. I want to be smart when Im awake. He says its the same thing and I have two minds. Theres the subconscious and the conscious (thats how you spell it). And one dont tell the other one what its doing. They dont even talk to each other. Thats why I dream. And boy have I been having crazy dreams. Wow. Ever since that night TV. The late late late show. I forgot to ask him if it was only me or if everybody had those two minds. (I just looked up the word in the dictionary Dr Strauss gave me. The word is subconscious. adj. Of the nature of mental operations yet not present in consciousness; as, subconscious conflict of de- sires.) There's more but I still dont know what it means. This isnt a very good dictionary for dumb people like me. Anyway the headache is from the party. My friends from the factery Joe Carp and Frank Reilly invited me to go to Muggsys Saloon for some drinks. I don't like to drink but they said we will have lots of fun. I had a good time. Joe Carp said I shoud show the girls how I mop out the toilet in the factory and he got me a mop. I showed them and everyone laffed when I told that Mr. Donnegan said I was the best janiter he ever had because I like my job and do it good and never miss a day except for my operashun. I said Miss Kinnian always said Charlie be proud of your job because you do it good. Everybody laffed and we had a good time and they gave me lots of drinks and Joe said Charlie is a card when hes potted. I dont know what that means but everybody likes me and we have fun. I cant wait to be smart like my best friends Joe Carp and Frank Reilly. I dont remember how the party was over but I think I went out to buy a newspaper and coffe for Joe and Frank and when I came back there was no one their. I looked for them all over till late. Then I dont remember so good but I think I got sleepy or sick. A nice cop brot me back home Thats what my landlady Mrs Flynn says. But I got a headache and a big lump on my head. I think maybe I fell but Joe Carp says it was the cop they beat up drunks some times. I don't think so. Miss Kinnian says cops are to help people. Anyway I got a bad headache and Im sick and hurt all over. I dont think Ill drink anymore. April 6 I beat Algernon! I dint even know I beat him until Burt the tester told me. Then the second time I lost because I got so exited I fell off the chair before I finished. But after that I beat him 8 more times. I must be getting smart to beat a smart mouse like Algernon. But I dont feel smarter. I wanted to race Algernon some more but Burt said thats enough for one day. They let me hold him for a minit. Hes not so bad. Hes soft like a ball of cotton. He blinks and when he opens his eyes their black and pink on the eges. I said can I feed him because I felt bad to beat him and I wanted to be nice and make friends. Burt said no Algernon is a very specshul mouse with an operashun like mine, and he was the first of all the animals to stay smart so long. He told me Algernon is so smart that every day he has to solve a test to get his food. Its a thing like a lock on a door that changes every time Algernon goes in to eat so he has to lern something new to get his food. That made me sad because if he couldnt lern he woud be hungry. I don't think its right to make you pass a test to eat. How woud Dr Nemur like it to have to pass a test every time he wants to eat. I think Ill be friends with Algernon. April 9 Tonight after work Miss Kinnian was at the laboratory. She looked like she was glad to see me but scared. I told her dont worry Miss Kinnian Im not smart yet and she laffed. She said I have confidence in you Charlie the way you struggled so hard to read and right better than all the others. At werst you will have it for a littel wile and your doing something for science. We are reading a very hard book. Its called Robinson Crusoe about a man who gets merooned on a dessert Iland. Hes smart and figers out all kinds of things so he can have a house and food and hes a good swimmer. Only I feel sorry because hes all alone and has no frends. But I think their must be somebody else on the iland because theres a picture with his funny umbrella looking at footprints. I hope he gets a frend and not be lonly. April 10 Miss Kinnian teaches me to spell better. She says look at a word and close your eyes and say it over and over until you remember. I have lots of truble with through that you say threw and enough and tough that you dont say enew and tew. You got to say enuff and tuff. Thats how I use to write it before I started to get smart. Im confused but Miss Kinnian says theres no reason in spelling. Apr 14 Finished Robinson Crusoe. I want to find out more about what happens to him but Miss Kinnian says thats all there is. Why. Apr 15 Miss Kinnian says Im lerning fast. She read some of the Progress Reports and she looked at me kind of funny. She says Im a fine person and Ill show them all. I asked her why. She said never mind but I shouldnt feel bad if I find out everybody isnt nice like I think. She said for a person who god gave so little to you done more then a lot of people with brains they never even used. I said all my friends are smart people but there good. They like me and they never did anything that wasnt nice. Then she got something in her eye and she had to run out to the ladys room. Apr 16 Today, I lerned, the comma, this is a comma (,) a period, with a tail, Miss Kinnian, says its importent, because, it makes writing, better, she said, somebody, coud lose, a lot of money, if a comma, isnt, in the, right place, I dont have, any money, and I dont see, how a comma, keeps you, from losing it. Apr 17 I used the comma wrong. Its punctuation. Miss Kinnian told me to look up long words in the dictionary to lern to spell them. I said whats the difference if you can read it anyway. She said its part of your education so now on Ill look up all the words Im not sure how to spell. It takes a long time to write that way but I only have to look up once and after that I get it right. You got to mix them up, she showed? me" how to mix! them (and now; I can! mix up all kinds" of punctuation, in! my writing? There, are lots! of rules? to lern; but Im gettin'g them in my head. One thing I like about, Dear Miss Kinnian: (thats the way it goes in a business letter if I ever go into business) is she, always gives me' a reason" when--I ask. She's a gen'ius! I wish I cou'd be smart" like, her; (Punctuation, is; fun!) Apr 18 What a dope I am! I didn't even understand what she was talking about. I read the grammar book last night and it explanes the whole thing. Then I saw it was the same way as Miss Kinnian was trying to tell me, but I didn't get it. Miss Kinnian said that the TV working in my sleep helped out. She and I reached a plateau. Thats a flat hill. After I figured out how punctuation worked, I read over all my old Progress Reports from the beginning. Boy, did I have crazy spelling and punctuation! I told Miss Kinnian I ought to go over the pages and fix all the mistakes but she said, "No, Charlie, Dr. Nemur wants them just as they are. That's why he let you keep them after they were photostated, to see your own progress. You're coming along fast, Charlie." That made me feel good. After the lesson I went down and played with Algernon. We don't race any more. April 20 I feel sick inside. Not sick like for a doctor, but inside my chest it feels empty like getting punched and a heartburn at the same time. I wasn't going to write about it, but I guess I got to, because its important. Today was the first time I ever stayed home from work. Last night Joe Carp and Frank Reilly invited me to a party. There were lots of girls and some men from the factory. I remem- bered how sick I got last time I drank too much, so I told Joe I didn't want anything to drink. He gave me a plain coke instead. We had a lot of fun for a while. Joe said I should dance with Ellen and she would teach me the steps. I fell a few times and I couldn't understand why because no one else was dancing besides Ellen and me. And all the time I was tripping because somebody's foot was always sticking out. Then when I got up I saw the look on Joe's face and it gave me a funny feeling in my stomack. "He's a scream," one of the girls said. Everybody was laughing. "Look at him. He's blushing. Charlie is blushing." "Hey, Ellen, what'd you do to Charlie? I never saw him act like that before." I didn't know what to do or where to turn. Everyone was looking at me and laughing and I felt naked. I wanted to hide. I ran outside and I threw up. Then I walked home. It's a funny thing I never knew that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around all the time to make fun of me. Now I know what it means when they say "to pull a Charlie Gordon." I'm ashamed. progress report 11 April 21 Still didn't go into the factory. I told Mrs. Flynn my landlady to call and tell Mr. Donnegan I was sick. Mrs. Flynn looks at me very funny lately like she's scared. I think it's a good thing about finding out how everybody laughs at me. I thought about it a lot. It's because I'm so dumb and I don't even know when I'm doing something dumb. People think it's funny when a dumb person can't do things the same way they can. Anyway, now I know I'm getting smarter every day. I know punctuation and I can spell good. I like to look up all the hard words in the dictionary and I remember them. I'm reading a lot now, and Miss Kinnian says I read very fast. Sometimes I even understand what I'm reading about, and it stays in my mind. There are times when I can close my eyes and think of a page and it all comes back like a picture. Besides history, geography and arithmetic, Miss Kinnian said I should start to learn foreign languages. Dr. Strauss gave me some more tapes to play while I sleep. I still don't understand how that conscious and unconscious mind works, but Dr. Strauss says not to worry yet. He asked me to promise that when I start learning college subjects next week I wouldn't read any books on psychology-that is, until he gives me permission. I feel a lot better today, but I guess I'm still a little angry that all the time people were laughing and making fun of me because I wasn't so smart. When I become intelligent like Dr. Strauss says, with three times my I.Q. of 68, then maybe I'll be like everyone else and people will like me. I'm not sure what an I.Q. is, Dr. Nemur said it was something that measured how intelligent you were--like a scale in the drug- store weighs pounds. But Dr. Strauss had a big argument with him and said an I.Q. didn't weigh intelligence at all. He said an I.Q. showed how much intelligence you could get, like the numbers on the outside of a measuring cup. You still had to fill the cup up with Stuff. Then when I asked Burt, who gives me my intelligence tests and works with Algernon, he said that both of them were wrong (only I had to promise not to tell them he said so). Burt says that the I.Q. measures a lot of different things including some of the things you learned already, and it really isn't any good at all. So I still don't know what I.Q. is except that mine is going to be over 200 soon. I didn't want to say anything, but I don't see how if they don't know what it is, or where it is--I don't see how they know how much of it you've got. Dr. Nemur says I have to take a Rorshach Test tomorrow. I wonder what that is. April 22 I found out what a Rorshach is. It's the test I took before the operation--the one with the inkblots on the pieces of cardboard. I was scared to death of those inkblots. I knew the man was going to ask me to find the pictures and I knew I couldn't. I was thinking to myself, if only there was some way of knowing what kind of pictures were hidden there. Maybe there weren't any pictures at all. Maybe it was just a trick to see if I was dumb enough to look for something that wasn't there. Just thinking about that made me sore at him. "All right, Charlie," he said, "you've seen these cards before. Remember?" "Of course I remember." The way I said it, he knew I was angry, and he looked surprised. "Yes, of course. Now I want you to look at this. What might this be? What do you see on this card? People see all sorts of things in these inkblots. Tell me what it might be for you-what it makes you think of." I was shocked. That wasn't what I had expected him to say. "You mean there are no pictures hidden in those inkblots?" He frowned and took off his glasses. "What?" "Pictures. Hidden in the inkblots. Last time you told me everyone could see them and you wanted me to find them too." He explained to me that the last time he had used almost the exact same words he was using now. I didn't believe it, and I still have the suspicion that he misled me at the time just for the fun of it. Unless--I don't know any more--could I have been that feeble- minded? We went through the cards slowly. One looked like a pair of bats tugging at something. Another one looked like two men fencing with swords. I imagined all sorts of things. I guess I got carried away. But I didn't trust him any more, and I kept turning them around, even looking on the back to see if there was anything there I was supposed to catch. While he was making his notes, I peeked out of the corner of my eye to read it. But it was all in code that looked like this: WF+A DdF-Ad orig. WF-A SF + obj The test still doesn't make sense to me. It seems to me that anyone could make up lies about things that they didn't really imagine? Maybe I'll understand it when Dr. Strauss lets me read up on psychology. April 25 I figured out a new way to line up the machines in the factory, and Mr. Donnegan says it will save him ten thousand dollars a year in labor and increased production. He gave me a $25 bonus. I wanted to take Joe Carp and Frank Reilly out to lunch to celebrate, but Joe said he had to buy some things for his wife, and Frank said he was meeting his cousin for lunch. I guess it'll take a little time for them to get used to the changes in me. Everybody seems to be frightened of me. When I went over to Amos Borg and tapped him, he jumped up in the air. People don't talk to me much any more or kid around the way they used to. It makes the job kind of lonely. April 27 I got up the nerve today to ask Miss Kinnian to have dinner with me tomorrow night to celebrate my bonus. At first she wasn't sure it was right, but I asked Dr. Strauss and he said it was okay. Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur don't seem to be getting along so well. They're arguing all the time. This evening I heard them shouting. Dr. Nemur was saying that it was his experi- ment and his research, and Dr. Strauss shouted back that he contributed just as much, because he found me through Miss Kinnian and he performed the operation. Dr. Strauss said that someday thousands of neurosurgeons might be using his technique all over the world. Dr. Nemur wanted to publish the results of the experiment at the end of the month. Dr. Strauss wanted to wait a while to be sure. Dr. Strauss said Dr. Nemur was more interested in the Chair of Psychology at Princeton than he was in the experiment. Dr. Nemur said Dr. Strauss was nothing but an opportunist trying to ride to glory on his coattails. When I left afterwards, I found myself trembling. I don't know why for sure, but it was as if I'd seen both men clearly for the first time. I remember hearing Burt say Dr. Nemur had a shrew of a wife who was pushing him all the time to get things published so he could become famous. Burt said that the dream of her life was to have a big shot husband. April 28 I don't understand why I never noticed how beautiful Miss Kinnian really is. She has brown eyes and feathery brown hair that comes to the top of her neck. She's only thirty-four! I think from the beginning I had the feeling that she was an unreachable genius--and very, very old. Now, every time I see her she grows younger and more lovely. We had dinner and a long talk. When she said I was coming along so fast I'd be leaving her behind, I laughed. "It's true, Charlie. You're already a better reader than I am. You can read a whole page at a glance while I can take in only a few lines at a time. And you remember every single thing you read. I'm lucky if I can recall the main thoughts and the general meaning." "I don't feel intelligent. There are so many things I don't Understand." She took a sip of water and I refilled her glass. "You've got to be a little patient. You're accomplishing in days and weeks what it takes normal people to do in a lifetime. That's what makes it so amazing. You're like a giant sponge now, soaking things in. Facts, figures, general knowledge. And soon you'll begin to connect them, too. You'll see how different branches of learning are related. There are many levels, Charlie, like steps on a giant ladder that take you tip higher and higher to see more and more of the world around yoti. "I can see only a little bit of that, Charlie, and I won't go much higher than I am now, but you'll keep climbing up and up, and see more and more, and each step will open new worlds that you never even knew existed." She frowned. "I hope . . . I just hope--" "What?" "Never mind, Charles. I just hope I wasn't wrong to advise you to go into this in the first place." I laughed. "How could that be? It worked, didn't it? Even Algernon is still smart." We sat there silently for a while and I knew what she was thinking about as she watched me toying with the chain of my rabbit's foot and my keys. I didn't want to think of that possibility any more than elderly people want to think of death. I knew that this was only the beginning. I knew what she meant about levels because I'd seen some of them already. The thought of leaving her behind made me sad. I'm in love with Miss Kinnian. progress report 12 April 30 I've quit my job with Donnegan's Plastic Box Company. Mr. Donnegan insisted it would be better for all concerned if I left. What did I do to make them hate me so? The first I knew of it was when Mr. Donnegan showed me the petition. Eight hundred names, everyone in the factory, except Fanny Girden. Scanning the list quickly, I saw at once that hers was the only missing name. All the rest demanded that I be fired. Joe Carp and Frank Reilly wouldn't talk to me about it. No one else would either, except Fanny. She was one of the few people I'd known who set her mind to something and believed it no matter what the rest of the world proved, said or did-and Fanny did not believe that I should have been fired. She had been against the petition on principle and despite the pressure and threats she'd held out. "Which don't mean to say," she remarked, "that I don't think there's something mighty strange about you, Charlie. Them chang- es. I don't know. You used to be a good, dependable, ordinary man--not too bright maybe, but honest. Who knows what you done to yourself to get so smart all of a sudden. Like everybody around here's been saying, Charlie, it's not right." "But how can you say that, Fanny? What's wrong with a man becoming intelligent and wanting to acquire knowledge and under- standing of the world around him?" She stared down at her work and I turned to leave. Without looking at me, she said: "It was evil when Eve listened to the snake and ate from the tree of knowledge. It was evil when she saw that she was naked. If not for that none of us would ever have to grow old and sick, and die." Once again, now, I have the feeling of shame burning inside me. This intelligence has driven a wedge between me and all the people I once knew and loved. Before, they laughed at me and despised me for my ignorance and dullness; now, they hate me for my knowledge and understanding. What in heaven’s name do they want of me? They've driven me out of the factory. Now I'm more alone than ever before. May 15 Dr. Strauss is very angry at me for not having written any progress reports in two weeks. He's justified because the lab is now paying me a regular salary. I told him I was too busy thinking and reading. When I pointed out that writing was such a slow process that it makes me impatient with my poor handwriting, he suggested I learn to type. It's much easier to write now because I can type seventy-five words a minute. Dr. Strauss continually reminds me of the need to speak and write simply so people will be able to understand me. I'll try to review all the things that happened to me during the last two weeks. Algernon and I were presented to the American Psychological Association sitting in convention with the World Psychological Association. We created quite a sensation. Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss were proud of us. I suspect that Dr. Nemur, who is sixty--ten years older than Dr. Strauss--finds it necessary to see tangible results of his work. Undoubtedly the result of pressure by Mrs. Nemur. Contrary to my earlier impressions of him, I realize that Dr. Nemur is not at all a genius. He has a very good mind, but it struggles tinder the spectre of self-doubt. He wants people to take him for a genius. Therefore, it is important for him to feel that his work is accepted by the world. I believe that Dr. Nemur was afraid of further delay because he worried that someone else might make a discovery along these lines and take the credit from him. Dr. Strauss on the other hand might be called a genius, although I feel that his areas of knowledge are too limited. He was educated in the tradition of narrow specialization; the broader aspects of background were neglected far more than necessary-even for a Neurosurgeon. I was shocked to learn that the only ancient languages he could read were Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and that he knows almost nothing of mathematics beyond the elementary levels of the calcu- lus of variations. When he admitted this to me, I found myself almost annoyed. It was as if he'd hidden this part of himself in order to deceive me, pretending--as do many people I've discovered--to be what he is not. No one I've ever known is what he appears to be on the surface. Dr. Nemur appears to be uncomfortable around me. Sometimes when I try to talk to him, he just looks at me strangely and turns away. I was angry at first when Dr. Strauss told me I was giving Dr. Nemur an inferiority complex. I thought he was mocking me and I'm oversensitive at being made fun of. How was I to know that a highly respected psychoexperimen- talist like Nemur was unacquainted with Hindustani and Chinese? It's absurd when you consider the work that is being done in India and China today in the very field of his study. I asked Dr. Strauss how Nemur could refute Rahajamati's attack on his method and results if Nemur couldn't even read them in the first place. That strange look on Dr. Strauss' face can mean only one of two things. Either he doesn't want to tell Nemur what they're saying in India, or else--and this worries me--Dr. Strauss doesn't know either. I must be careful to speak and write clearly and simply so that people won't laugh. May 18 I am very disturbed. I saw Miss Kinn ian last night for the first time in over a week. I tried to avoid all discussions of intellectual concepts and to keep the conversation on a simple, everyday level, but she just stared at me blankly and asked me what I meant about the mathematical variance equivalent in Dorber- mann s Fifth Concerto. When I tried to explain she stopped me and laughed. I guess I got angry, but I suspect I'm approaching her on the wrong level. No matter what I try to discuss with her, I am unable to communicate. I must review Vrostadt's equations on Levels of Semantic Progres- sion. I find that I don't communicate with people much any more. I’m thankful for books and music and things I can think about. I am alone in my apartment at Mrs. Flynn's boardinghouse most of the time and seldom speak to anyone. May 20 I would not have noticed the new dishwasher, a boy. of about sixteen, at the corner diner where I take my evening meals if not for the incident of the broken dishes. They crashed to the floor, shattering and sending bits of white china under the tables. The boy stood there, dazed and frightened, holding the empty tray in his hand. The whistles and catcalls from the customers (the cries of "hey, there go the profits!" ... "Mazel Tov!". . . and "well, he didn't work here very long which invariably seem to follow the breaking of glass or dishware in a public restaurant) all seemed to confuse him. When the owner came to see what the excitement was about, the boy cowered as if he expected to be struck and threw up his arms as if to ward off the blow. "All right! All right, you dope," shouted the owner, "don't just stand there! Get the broom and sweep that mess up. A broom . . . a broom, you idiot! It's in the kitchen. Sweep up all the pieces." The boy saw that he was not going to be punished. His frightened expression disappeared and he smiled and hummed as he came back with the broom to sweep the floor. A few of the rowdier customers kept up the remarks, amusing themselves at his expense. "Here, sonny, over here there's a nice piece behind you...." "C'mon, do it again." "He's not so dumb. It's easier to break'em than to wash'em. . ." As his vacant eyes moved across the crowd of amused onlook- ers, he slowly mirrored their smiles and finally broke into an uncertain grin at the joke which he obviously did not understand. I felt sick inside as I looked at his dull, vacuous smile, the wide, bright eyes of a child, uncertain but eager to please. They were laughing at him because he was mentally retarded. And I had been laughing at him too. Suddenly, I was furious at myself and all those who were smirking at him. I jumped up and shouted, "Shut up! Leave him alone! It's not his fault he can't understand. He can't help what lie is! But for God's sake . . . he's still a human being!" The room grew silent. I cursed myself for losing control and creating a scene. I tried not to look at the boy as I paid my check and walked out without touching my food. I felt ashamed for both of us. How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibility, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes--how such people think nothing of abusing a man born with low intelligence. It infuriated me to think that not too long ago, I like this boy, had foolishly played the clown. And I had almost forgotten. I'd hidden the picture of the old Charlie Gordon from myself because now that I was intelligent it was something that had to be pushed out of my mind. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. I was just like him! Only a short time ago, I learned that people laughed at me. Now I can see that unknowingly I joined with them in laughing at myself. That hurts most of all. I have often reread my progress reports and seen the illiteracy, the childish naivete, the mind of low intelligence peering from a dark room, through the keyhole, at the dazzling light outside. I see that even in my dullness I knew that I was inferior, and that other people had something I lacked-something denied me. In my mental blindness, I thought that it was somehow connected with the ability to read and write, and I was sure that if I could get those skills I would automatically have intelligence too. Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men. A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows of hunger. This then is what I was like, I never knew. Even with my gift of intellectual awareness, I never really knew. This day was good for me. Seeing the past more clearly, I have decided to use my knowledge and skills to work in the field of increasing human intelligence levels. Who is better equipped for this work? Who else has lived in both worlds? These are my people. Let me use my gift to do something for them. Tomorrow, I will discuss with Dr. Strauss the manner in which I can work in this area. I may be able to help him work out the problems of widespread use of the technique which was used on me. I have several good ideas of my own. There is so much that might be done with this technique. If I could be made into a genius, what about thousands of others like myself? What fantastic levels might be achieved by using this technique on normal people? Or geniuses? There are so many doors to open. I am impatient to begin. progress report 13 May 23 It happened today. Algernon bit me. I visited the lab to see him as I do occasionally, and when I took him out of his cage, he snapped at my hand. I put him back and watched him for a while. He was unusually disturbed and vicious. May 24 Burt, who is in charge of the experimental animals, tells me that Algernon is changing. He is less co-operative; he refuses to run the maze any more; general motivation has decreased. And he hasn't been eating. Everyone is upset about what this may mean. May 25 They've been feeding Algernon, who now refuses to work the shifting-lock problem. Everyone identifies me with Algernon. in a way we're both the first of our kind. They're all pretending that Algernon's behavior is not necessarily significant for me. But it's hard to hide the fact that some of the other animals who were used in this experiment are showing strange behavior. Dr. Strauss and Dr. Nemur have asked me not to come to the lab any more. I know what they're thinking but I can't accept it. I am going ahead with my plans to carry their research forward. With all due respect to both of these fine scientists, l am well aware of their limitations. If there is an answer, I'll have to find it out for myself. Suddenly, time has become very important to me. May 29 I have been given a lab of my own and permission to go ahead with the research. I'm on to something. Working day and night. I've had a cot moved into the lab. Most of my writing time is spent on the notes which I keep in a separate folder, but from time to time I feel it necessary to put down my moods and my thoughts out of sheer habit. I find the calculus of intelligence to be a fascinating study. Here is the place for the application of all the knowledge I have acquired. In a sense it's the problem I've been concerned with all my life. May 31 Dr. Strauss thinks I'm working too hard. Dr. Nemur says I'm trying to cram a lifetime of research and thought into a few weeks. I know I should rest, but I'm driven on by something inside that won't let me stop. I've got to find the reason for the sharp regression in Algernon. I've got to know if and when it will happen to me.June 4LETTER TO DR. STRAUSS (copy) Dear Dr. Strauss: Under separate cover I am sending you a copy of my report entitled, "The Algernon-Gordon Effect: A Study of Structure and Function of Increased Intelligence," which I would like to have you read and have published. As you see, my experiments are completed. I have included in my report all of my formulae, as well as mathematical analysis in the appendix. Of course, these should be verified. Because of its importance to both you and Dr. Nemur (and need I say to myself, too?) I have checked and rechecked my results a dozen times in the hope of finding an error. I am sorry to say the results must stand. Yet for the sake of science, I am grateful for the little bit that I here add to the knowledge of the function of the human mind and of the laws governing the artificial increase of human intelligence. I recall your once saying to me that an experimental failure or the disproving of a theory was as important to the advance- ment of learning as a success would be. I know now that this is true. I am sorry, however, that my own contribution to the field must rest upon the ashes of the work of two men I regard so highly. Yours truly, Charles Gordon encl.:rept. June 5 I must not become emotional. The facts and the results of my experiments are clear, and the more sensational aspects of my own rapid climb cannot obscure the fact that the tripling of intelligence by the surgical technique developed by Drs. Strauss and Nemur must be viewed as having little or no practical applica- bility (at the present time) to the increase of human intelligence. As I review the records and data on Algernon, I see that although he is still in his physical infancy, he has regressed mentally. Motor activity is impaired; there is a general reduction of glandular activity; there is an accelerated loss of coordination. There are also strong indications of progressive amnesia. As will be seen by my report, these and other physical and mental deterioration syndromes can be predicted with statistically significant results by the application of my formula. The surgical stimulus to which we were both subjected has resulted in an intensification and acceleration of all mental pro- cesses. The unforeseen development, which I have taken the liberty of calling the Algernon-Gordon Effect, is the logical extension of the entire intelligence speed-up. The hypothesis here proven may be described simply in the following terms: Artificially increased intelligence deteriorates at a rate of time directly proportional to the quantity of the increase. I feel that this, in itself, is an important discovery. As long as I am able to write, I will continue to record my thoughts in these progress reports. It is one of my few pleasures. However, by all indications, my own mental deterioration will be very rapid. I have already begun to notice signs of emotional instability and forgetfulness, the first symptoms of the burnout. June 10 Deterioration progressing. I have become absentminded. Algernon died two days ago. Dissection shows my predictions were right. His brain had decreased in weight and there was a general smoothing out of cerebral convolutions as well as a deepening and broadening of brain fissures. I guess the same thing is or will soon be happening to me. Now that it's definite, I don't want it to happen. I put Algernon's body in a cheese box and buried him in the back yard. I cried. June 15 Dr. Strauss came to see me again. I wouldn't open the door and I told him to go away. I want to be left to myself. I have become touchy and irritable. I feel the darkness closing in. It's hard to throw off thoughts of suicide. I keep telling myself how important this introspective journal will be. It's a strange sensation to pick up a book that you've read and enjoyed just a few months ago and discover that you don't remember it. I remembered how great I thought John Milton was, but when I picked up Paradise Lost I couldn't understand it at all. I got so angry I threw the book across the room. I've got to try to hold on to some of it. Some of the things I've learned. Oh, God, please don't take it all away. June 19 Sometimes, at night, I go out for a walk. Last night I couldn't remember where I lived. A policeman took me home. I have the strange feeling that this has all happened to me before--a long time ago. I keep telling myself I'm the only person in the world who can describe what's happening to me. June 21 Why can't I remember? I've got to fight. I lie in bed for days and I don't know who or where I am. Then it all comes back to me in a flash. Fugues of amnesia. Symptoms of senility--second childhood. I can watch them coming on. It's so cruelly logical. I learned so much and so fast. Now my mind is deteriorating rapidly. I won't let it happen. I'll fight it. I can't help thinking of the boy in the restaurant, the blank expression, the silly smile, the people laughing at him. No--please--not that again. . . June 22 I'm forgetting things that I learned recently. It seems to be following the classic pattern--the last things learned are the first things forgotten. Or is that the pattern? I'd better look it up Again.... I reread my paper on the Algemon-Gordon Effect and I get the strange feeling that it was written by someone else. There are parts I don't even understand. Motor activity impaired. I keep tripping over things, and it becomes increasingly difficult to type. June 23 I've given up using the typewriter completely. My co- ordination is bad. I feel that I'm moving slower and slower. Had a terrible shock today. I picked up a copy of an article I used in my research, Krueger's Uber Psychische Ganzheit, to see if it would help me understand what I had done. First I thought there was something wrong with my eyes. Then I realized I could no longer read German. I tested myself in other languages. All gone. June 30 A week since I dared to write again. It's slipping away like sand through my fingers. Most of the books I have are too hard for me now. I get angry with them because I know that I read and understood them just a few weeks ago. I keep telling myself I must keep writing these reports so that somebody will know what is happening to me. But it gets harder to form the words and remember spellings. I have to look up even simple words in the dictionary now and it makes me impatient with myself. Dr. Strauss comes around almost every day, but I told him I wouldn't see or speak to anybody. He feels guilty. They all do. But I don't blame anyone. I knew what might happen. But how it hurts. July 7 I don't know where the week went. Todays Sunday I know because I can see through my window people going to church. I think I stayed in bed all week but I remember Mrs. Flynn bringing food to me a few times. I keep saying over and over Ive got to do something but then I forget or maybe its just easier not to do what I say Im going to do. I think of my mother and father a lot these days. I found a picture of them with me taken at a beach. My father has a big ball under his arm and my mother is holding me by the hand. I dont remember them the way they are in the picture. All I remember is my father drunk most of the time and arguing with mom about Money. He never shaved much and he used to scratch my face when he hugged me. My mother said he died but Cousin Miltie said he heard his mom and dad say that my father ran away with another woman. When I asked my mother she slapped my face and said my father was dead. I don't think I ever found out which was true but I don't care much. (He said he was going to take me to see cows on a farm once but he never did. He never kept his promises. . .) July 10 My landlady Mrs Flynn is very worried about me. She says the way I lay around all day and dont do anything I remind her of her son before she threw him out of the house. She said she doesnt like loafers. If Im sick its one thing, but if Im a loafer thats another thing and she wont have it. I told her I think Im sick. I try to read a little bit every day, mostly stories, but sometimes I have to read the same thing over and over again because I dont know what it means. And its hard to write. I know I should look up all the words in the dictionary but its so hard and Im so tired all the time. Then I got the idea that I would only use the easy words instead of the long hard ones. That saves time. I put flowers on Algernons grave about once a week. Mrs Flynn thinks I'm crazy to put flowers on a mouses grave but I told her that Algernon was special. July 14 Its sunday again. I dont have anything to do to keep me busy now because my television set is broke and I dont have any money to get it fixed. (I think I lost this months check from the lab. I dont remember) I get awful headaches and asperin doesnt help me much. Mrs Flynn knows Im really sick and she feels very sorry for me. Shes a wonderful woman whenever someone is sick. July 22 Mrs Flynn called a strange doctor to see me. She was afraid I was going to die. I told the doctor I wasnt too sick and that I only forget sometimes. He asked me did I have any friends or relatives and I said no I dont have any. I told him I had a friend called Algernon once but he was a mouse and we used to run races together. He looked at me kind of funny like he thought I was crazy. He smiled when I told him I used to be a genius. He talked to me like I was a baby and he winked at Mrs Flynn. I got mad and chased him out because he was making fun of me the way they all used to. July 24 I have no more money and Mrs. Flynn says I got to go to work somewhere and pay the rent because I havent paid for over two months. I dont know any work but the job I used to have at Donnegans Plastic Box Company. I dont want to go back there because they all knew me when I was smart and maybe theyll laugh at me. But I dont know what else to do to get money. July 25 I was looking at some of my old progress reports and its very funny but I cant read what I wrote. I can make out some of the words but they dont make sense. Miss Kinnian came to the door but I said go away I dont want to see you. She cried and I cried too but I wouldn't let her in because I didn't want her to laugh at me. I told her I didn't like her any more. I told her I didn't want to be smart any more. Thats not true. I still love her and I still want to be smart but I had to say that so shed go away. She gave Mrs Flynn money to pay the rent. I dont want that. I got to get a job. Please . . . please let me not forget how to read and write. . July 27 Mr Donnegan was very nice when I came back and asked him for my old job of janitor. First he was very suspicious but I told him what happened to me then he looked very sad and put his hand on my shoulder and said Charlie Gordon you got guts. Everybody looked at me when I came downstairs and started working in the toilet sweeping it out like I used to. I told myself Charlie if they make fun of you dont get sore because you remember their not so smart as you once thot they were. And besides they were once your friends and if they laughed at you that doesnt mean anything because they liked you too. One of the new men who came to work there after I went away made a nasty crack he said hey Charlie I hear your a very smart fella a real quiz kid. Say something intelligent. I felt bad but Joe Carp came over and grabbed him by the shirt and said leave him alone you lousy cracker or Ill break your neck. I didnt expect Joe to take my part so I guess hes really my friend. Later Frank Reilly came over and said Charlie if anybody bothers you or trys to take advantage you call me or Joe and we will set em straight. I said thanks Frank and I got choked up so I had to turn around and go into the supply room so he wouldnt see me cry. Its good to have friends. July 28 I did a dumb thing today I forgot I wasnt in Miss Kinnians class at the adult center any more like I used to be. I went in and sat down in my old seat in the back of the room and she looked at me funny and she said Charles. I dint remember she ever called me that before only Charlie so I said hello Miss Kinnian Im redy for my lesin today only I lost my reader that we was using. She startid to cry and run out of the room and everybody looked at me and I saw they wasnt the same pepul who used to be in my class. Then all of a sudden I remembered some things about the operashun and me getting smart and I said holy smoke I reely pulled a Charlie Gordon that time. I went away before she come back to the Room. Thats why Im going away from New York for good. I dont want to do nothing like that agen. I dont want Miss Kinnian to feel sorry for me. Evry body feels sorry at the factery and I dont want that eather so Im going someplace where nobody knows that Charlie Gordon was once a genus and now he cant even reed a book or rite good. Im taking a cuple of books along and even if I cant reed them Ill practise hard and maybe I wont forget every thing I lerned. If I try reel hard maybe Ill be a littel bit smarter than I was before the operashun. I got my rabits foot and my luky penny and may'be they will help me. If you ever reed this Miss Kinnian dont be sorry for me Im glad I got a second chanse to be smart becaus I lerned a lot of things that I never even new were in this world and Im grateful that I saw it all for a little bit. I dont know why Im dumb agen or what I did wrong maybe its becaus I dint try hard enuff. But if I try and practis very hard maybe Ill get a little smarter and know what all the words are. I remember a littel bit how nice I had a feeling with the blue book that has the torn cover when I red it. Thats why Im gonna keep trying to get smart so I can have that feeling agen. Its a good feeling to know things and be smart. I wish I had it rite now if I did I would sit down and reed all the time. Anyway I bet Im the first dumb person in the world who ever found out something importent for sience. I remember I did something but I dont remember what. So I gess its like I did it for all the dumb pepul like me. Good-by Miss Kinnian and Dr Strauss and evreybody. And P.S. please tell Dr Nemur not to be such a grouch when pepul laff at him and he would have more frends. Its easy to make frends if you let pepul laff at you. Im going to have lots of frends where I go. P.P.S. Please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard.... Study QuestionsWho is Miss Kinnian? Why does she tell the doctors about Charlie?According to progress report four, what is the experiment and operation that Charlie will undergo? What does Miss Kinnian warn Charlie about it?Why does Charlie say he hates Algernon? Why is Algernon not a normal mouse?Give two examples of how the factory workers treat Charlie. What does Charlie realize about them on April 20?Why does Charlie quit his job?What happens at the diner? As a result, what does Charlie realize about “the old Charlie”?According to his report on May 20, in what way does Charlie decide to use his new intelligence?On June 5 what happens to Algernon? What does this mean for Charlie?When Charlie returns to his job, in what way do the other workers treat him?At the end of the story, what does Charlie decide to keep trying? Why?Why do you think the factory workers sign the petition against Charlie? Why do they change at the end of the story?Why do you think Charlie cries after burying Algernon?Which of Charlie’s personality traits remain the same during the story? Which traits change?Literary Focus: The Total EffectWhen we read a good story, we are caught up in the world that it creates. We want to find out what will happen in the plot. We begin to think of the characters as people whom we know. We step into the setting in which the story occurs. We try to understand the theme.1114300The more we enter into a story, the more we enjoy it. We can enter into a story more fully if we become aware of each element in it. If we are active, alert readers, we will notice each twist in the plot. We will pick up more information about the characters, setting, and theme. We will also see how these elements all work together to create a total effect, the story’s overall impact.Different people will notice different things in any story. However, an active reader will always think about the individual elements and their total effect.Question: How would you describe the total effect of “Flowers for Algernon”? Take into account all five elements of a short story (plot, character, setting, point of view, and theme). ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download