trees surrounded them at once, for they left the lake behind them,
entering the tangled bush beyond. The beast, Hyde noticed, obviously
picked the easiest track for him to follow; for obstacles that meant
nothing to the four-legged expert, yet were difficult for a man, were
carefully avoided with an almost uncanny skill, while yet the general
direction was accurately kept. Occasionally there were windfalls to be
surmounted; but though the wolf bounded over these with ease, it was
always waiting for the man on the other side after he had laboriously
climbed over. Deeper and deeper into the heart of the lonely forest
they penetrated in this singular fashion, cutting across the arc of
the lake's crescent, it seemed to Hyde; for after two miles or so, he
recognized the big rocky bluff that overhung the water at its northern
end. This outstanding bluff he had seen from his camp, one side of it
falling sheer into the water; it was probably the spot, he imagined,
where the Indians held their medicine-making ceremonies, for it stood
out in isolated fashion, and its top formed a private plateau not easy
of access. And it was here, close to a big spruce at the foot of the
bluff upon the forest side, that the wolf stopped suddenly and for
the first time since its appearance gave audible expression to its
feelings. It sat down on its haunches, lifted its muzzle with open
jaws, and gave vent to a subdued and long-drawn howl that was more like
the wail of a dog than the fierce barking cry associated with a wolf.
By this time Hyde had lost not only fear, but caution, too; nor, oddly
enough, did this warning howl revive a sign of unwelcome emotion in
him. In that curious sound he detected the same message that the eyes
conveyed--appeal for help. He paused, nevertheless, a little startled,
and while the wolf sat waiting for him, he looked about him quickly.
There was young timber here; it had once been a small clearing,
evidently. Ax and fire had done their work, but there was evidence to
an experienced eye that it was Indians and not white men who had once
been busy here. Some part of the medicine ritual, doubtless, took place
in the little clearing, thought the man, as he advanced again toward
his patient leader. The end of their queer journey, he felt, was close
at hand.
He had not taken two steps before the animal got up and moved very
slowly in the direction of some low bushes that formed a clump just
beyond. It entered these, first looking back to make sure that its
companion watched. The bushes hid it; a moment later it emerged again.
Twice it performed this pantomime, each time, as it reappeared,
standing still and staring at the man with as distinct an expression of
appeal in the eyes as an animal may compass, probably. Its excitement,
meanwhile, certainly increased, and this excitement was, with equal
certainty, communicated to the man. Hyde made up his mind quickly.
Gripping his ax tightly, and ready to use it at the first hint of
malice, he moved slowly nearer to the bushes, wondering with something
of a tremor what would happen.
If he expected to be startled, his expectation was at once fulfilled;
but it was the behavior of the beast that made him jump. It positively
frisked about him like a happy dog. It frisked for joy. Its excitement
was intense, yet from its open mouth no sound was audible. With a
sudden leap, then, it bounded past him into the clump of bushes,
against whose very edge he stood and began scraping vigorously at the
ground. Hyde stood and stared, amazement and interest now banishing all
his nervousness, even when the beast, in its violent scraping, actually
touched his body with its own. He had, perhaps, the feeling that he was
in a dream, one of those fantastic dreams in which things may happen
without involving an adequate surprise; for otherwise the manner of
scraping and scratching at the ground must have seemed an impossible
phenomenon. No wolf, no dog certainly, used its paws in the way those
paws were working. Hyde had the odd, distressing sensation that it was
hands, not paws, he watched. And yet, somehow, the natural, adequate
surprise he should have felt, was absent. The strange action seemed not
entirely unnatural. In his heart some deep hidden spring of sympathy
and pity stirred instead. He was aware of pathos.
The wolf stopped in its task and looked up into his face. Hyde acted
without hesitation then. Afterward he was wholly at a loss to explain
his own conduct. It seemed he knew what to do, divined what was asked,
expected of him. Between his mind and the dumb desire yearning through
the savage animal there was intelligent and intelligible communication.
He cut a stake and sharpened it, for the stones would blunt his
ax-edge. He entered the clump of bushes to complete the digging his
four-legged companion had begun. And while he worked, though he did not
forget the close proximity of the wolf, he paid no attention to it;
often his back was turned as he stooped over the laborious clearing
away of the hard earth; no uneasiness or sense of danger was in him
any more. The wolf sat outside the clump and watched the operations.
Its concentrated attention, its patience, its intense eagerness, the
gentleness and docility of the gray, fierce, and probably hungry brute,
its obvious pleasure and satisfaction, too, at having won the human to
its mysterious purpose--these were colors in the strange picture that
Hyde thought of later when dealing with the human herd in his hotel
again. At the moment he was aware chiefly of pathos and affection. The
whole business was, of course, not to be believed, but that discovery
came later, too, when telling it to others.
The digging continued for fully half an hour before his labor was
rewarded by the discovery of a small whitish object. He picked it up
and examined it--the finger-bone of a man. Other discoveries then
followed quickly and in quantity. The cache was laid bare. He collected
nearly the complete skeleton. The skull, however, he found last, and
might not have found at all but for the guidance of his strangely
alert companion. It lay some few yards away from the central hole
now dug, and the wolf stood nuzzling the ground with its nose before
Hyde understood that he was meant to dig exactly in that spot for it.
Between the beast's very paws his stake struck hard upon it. He scraped
the earth from the bone and examined it carefully. It was perfect,
save for the fact that some wild animal had gnawed it, the teeth-marks
being still plainly visible. Close beside it lay the rusty iron head of
a tomahawk. This and the smallness of the bones confirmed him in his
judgment that it was the skeleton not of a white man, but of an Indian.
During the excitement of the discovery of the bones one by one, and
finally of the skull, but, more especially, during the period of
intense interest while Hyde was examining them, he had paid little,
if any, attention to the wolf. He was aware that it sat and watched
him, never moving its keen eyes for a single moment from the actual
operations, but of sign or movement it made none at all. He knew that
it was pleased and satisfied, he knew also that he had now fulfilled
its purpose in a great measure. The further intuition that now came to
him, derived, he felt positive, from his companion's dumb desire, was
perhaps the cream of the entire experience to him. Gathering the bones
together in his coat, he carried them, together with the tomahawk, to
the foot of the big spruce where the animal had first stopped. His leg
actually touched the creature's muzzle as he passed. It turned its
head to watch, but did not follow, nor did it move a muscle while he
prepared the platform of boughs upon which he then laid the poor worn
bones of an Indian who had been killed, doubtless, in sudden attack or
ambush, and to whose remains had been denied the last grace of proper
tribal burial. He wrapped the bones in bark; he laid the tomahawk
beside the skull; he lit the circular fire round the pyre, and the blue
smoke rose upward into the clear bright sunshine of the Canadian autumn
morning till it was lost among the mighty trees far overhead.
In the moment before actually lighting the little fire he had turned
to note what his companion did. It sat five wards away, he saw, gazing
intently, and one of its front paws was raised a little from the
ground. It made no sign of any kind. He finished the work, becoming
so absorbed in it that he had eyes for nothing but the tending and
guarding of his careful ceremonial fire. It was only when the platform
of boughs collapsed, laying their charred burden gently on the
fragrant earth among the soft wood ashes, that he turned again, as
though to show the wolf what he had done, and seek, perhaps, some look
of satisfaction in its curiously expressive eyes. But the place he
searched was empty. The wolf had gone.
He did not see it again; it gave no sign of its presence anywhere; he
was not watched. He fished as before, wandered through the bush about
his camp, sat smoking round his fire after dark, and slept peacefully
in his cozy little tent. He was not disturbed. No howl was ever audible
in the distant forest, no twig snapped beneath a stealthy tread, he saw
no eyes. The wolf that behaved like a man had gone forever.
It was the day before he left that Hyde, noticing smoke rising from
the shack across the lake, paddled over to exchange a word or two with
the Indian, who had evidently now returned. The redskin came down to
meet him as he landed, but it was soon plain that he spoke very little
English. He emitted the familiar grunts at first; then bit by bit Hyde
stirred his limited vocabulary into action. The net result, however,
was slight enough, though it was certainly direct:
“You camp there?” the man asked, pointing to the other side.
“Yes.”
“Wolf come?”
“Yes.”
“You see wolf?”
“Yes.”
The Indian stared at him fixedly a moment, a keen, wondering look upon
his coppery, creased face.
“You 'fraid wolf?” he asked after a moment's pause.
“No,” replied Hyde, truthfully. He knew it was useless to ask questions
of his own, though he was eager for information. The other would have
told him nothing. It was sheer luck that the man had touched on the
subject at all, and Hyde realized that his own best rôle was merely
to answer, but to ask no questions. Then, suddenly, the Indian became
comparatively voluble. There was awe in his voice and manner.
“Him no wolf. Him big medicine wolf. Him spirit wolf.”
Whereupon he drank the tea the other had brewed for him, closed his
lips tightly, and said no more. His outline was discernible on the
shore, rigid and motionless, an hour later, when Hyde's canoe turned
the corner of the lake three miles away, and landed to make the
portages up the first rapid of his homeward stream.
It was Morton who, after some persuasion, supplied further details
of what he called the legend. Some hundred years before, the tribe
that lived in the territory beyond the lake began their annual
medicine-making ceremonies on the big rocky bluff at the northern end;
but no medicine could be made. The spirits, declared the chief medicine
man, would not answer. They were offended. An investigation followed.
It was discovered that a young brave had recently killed a wolf, a
thing strictly forbidden, since the wolf was the totem animal of the
tribe. To make matters worse, the name of the guilty man was Running
Wolf. The offense being unpardonable, the man was cursed and driven
from the tribe:
“Go out. Wander alone among the woods, and if we see you, we slay you.
Your bones shall be scattered in the forest, and your spirit shall not
enter the Happy Hunting Grounds till one of another race shall find and
bury them.”
“Which meant,” explained Morton, laconically, his only comment on the
story, “probably forever.”
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS
1. Show that the suggestions of the supernatural rise with
cumulative power.
2. How does the author make the setting contribute to the effect of
the story?
3. What is the character of the hero?
4. Why did the author make the hero a solitary character?
5. Why is the author so slow in introducing the wolf?
6. What is the hero's attitude toward the supernatural?
7. How does the hero's attitude toward the supernatural affect the
reader?
8. Point out the various means by which the author makes the story
seem true.
9. What is the character of the wolf?
10. Why does the author hold the story of the legend until the last?
11. Did Hyde believe the wolf was a “spirit-wolf”?
12. Divide the story into a series of important incidents.
13. Show how style contributes to effect.
SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION
1. The Haunted House 11. The Dancing Squirrels
2. Mysterious Footprints 12. Footsteps at Night
3. A Strange Echo 13. The Lost Cemetery
4. Warned in Time 14. The Woman in Black
5. A Haunting Dream 15. The Dead Patriot
6. My Great-Grandfather 16. The Cat That Came Back
7. The Old Grave 17. The Church Bell
8. The Ruined Church 18. The Old Battlefield
9. Tap! Tap! Tap! 19. The Indians' Camp
10. Prophetic Birds 20. The Hessian's Grave
DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING
If you are to imitate _Running Wolf_ successfully you must first
think of a story of the supernatural, a simple, easily-understood
story that will have a foundation of fact, and that will appear to be
reasonable in its use of the supernatural. Then, without introducing
your story immediately, show how a person who knows nothing of
it takes part in a series of events that lead him to understand the
story.
Make the setting of your story one that will contribute strongly to the
central effect. Do not give any definite explanation of the events that
you narrate. Give your reader such an abundance of suggestion that he
will be led to infer a supernatural explanation.
Hold until the last the basic story on which you found your entire
narration.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] A reference to Genesis 10:9, where Nimrod is called “a mighty
hunter before the Lord.”
THE BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
HOW I FOUND AMERICA
By ANZIA YEZIERSKA
_In 1896 Miss Yezierska came from Plotzk in Russian Poland, where
she was born. After hard experiences in a “sweat shop” she became
a teacher of cooking. She is the author of_ Hungry Hearts. _Her
dialect stories, strongly realistic and touching, appear in many
magazines._
=An autobiography is a straightforward story of the life of the
writer. An autobiographical essay is a meditation on the events in
one's own life.=
=_How I Found America_ is an autobiographical essay. It does
not tell the story of the writer's life: it tells the writer's
thoughts preceding and after her arrival in America. As in all
good essays, the subject is much greater than the writer. The
meditation is purely personal, but it stirs a response in every
thoughtful reader. It asks and answers the questions: “What do
oppressed foreigners think America to be?” “What do immigrants find
America to be?” “How can we make immigrants into the most helpful
Americans?”=
=The anecdotes that make the parts of the essay are as graphic as
so many bold drawings. The principal sections of the essay are
as distinct as the chapters of a book. At all times this essay
concerns the question, “What is it to be an American?”=
=In some respects this particular essay is like a musical
composition; for it begins with a sort of prelude, rises through
a series of movements, and culminates in a triumphant close,
the whole composition being marked by the presence of a strong
motif--the exaltation of the true spirit of America.=
Every breath I drew was a breath of fear, every shadow a stifling
shock, every footfall struck on my heart like the heavy boot of the
Cossack. On a low stool in the middle of the only room in our mud hut
sat my father, his red beard falling over the Book of Isaiah, open
before him. On the tile stove, on the benches that were our beds, even
on the earthen floor, sat the neighbors' children, learning from him
the ancient poetry of the Hebrew race. As he chanted, the children
repeated:
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted,
And every mountain and hill shall be made low,
And the crooked shall be made straight,
And the rough places plain,
And the glory of God shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together.
Undisturbed by the swaying and chanting of teacher and pupils, old
Kakah, our speckled hen, with her brood of chicks, strutted and pecked
at the potato-peelings that fell from my mother's lap as she prepared
our noon meal.
I stood at the window watching the road, lest the Cossack come upon us
unawares to enforce the ukase of the czar, which would tear the last
bread from our mouths: “No _chadir_ [Hebrew school] shall be held in a
room used for cooking and sleeping.”
With one eye I watched ravenously my mother cutting chunks of black
bread. At last the potatoes were ready. She poured them out of an iron
pot into a wooden bowl and placed them in the center of the table.
Instantly the swaying and chanting ceased. The children rushed forward.
The fear of the Cossack was swept away from my heart by the fear that
the children would get my potato, and deserting my post, with a shout
of joy I seized my portion and bit a huge mouthful of mealy delight.
At that moment the door was driven open by the blow of an iron heel.
The Cossack's whip swished through the air. Screaming, we scattered.
The children ran out--our livelihood with them.
“_Oi weh!_” wailed my mother, clutching at her breast, “is there a God
over us and sees all this?”
With grief-glazed eyes my father muttered a broken prayer as the
Cossack thundered the ukase: “A thousand-ruble fine, or a year in
prison, if you are ever found again teaching children where you're
eating and sleeping.”
“_Gottunieu!_” then pleaded my mother, “would you tear the last skin
from our bones? Where else should we be eating and sleeping? Or
should we keep _chadir_ in the middle of the road? Have we houses with
separate rooms like the czar?”
Ignoring my mother's protests, the Cossack strode out of the hut. My
father sank into a chair, his head bowed in the silent grief of the
helpless.
My mother wrung her hands.
“God from the world, is there no end to our troubles? When will the
earth cover me and my woes?”
I watched the Cossack disappear down the road. All at once I saw the
whole village running toward us. I dragged my mother to the window to
see the approaching crowd.
“_Gevalt!_ what more is falling over our heads?” she cried in alarm.
Masheh Mindel, the water-carrier's wife, headed a wild procession.
The baker, the butcher, the shoemaker, the tailor, the goatherd, the
workers in the fields, with their wives and children pressed toward us
through a cloud of dust.
Masheh Mindel, almost fainting, fell in front of the doorway.
“A letter from America!” she gasped.
“A letter from America!” echoed the crowd as they snatched the letter
from her and thrust it into my father's hands.
“Read, read!” they shouted tumultuously.
My father looked through the letter, his lips uttering no sound. In
breathless suspense the crowd gazed at him. Their eyes shone with
wonder and reverence for the only man in the village who could read.
Masheh Mindel crouched at his feet, her neck stretched toward him to
catch each precious word of the letter.
To my worthy wife, Masheh Mindel, and to my loving son, Sushkah
Feivel, and to my darling daughter, the apple of my eye, the pride
of my life, Tzipkeleh!
Long years and good luck on you! May the blessings from heaven fall
over your beloved heads and save you from all harm!
First I come to tell you that I am well and in good health. May I
hear the same from you!
Secondly, I am telling you that my sun is beginning to shine
in America. I am becoming a person--a business man. I have for
myself a stand in the most crowded part of America, where people
are as thick as flies and every day is like market-day at a fair.
My business is from bananas and apples. The day begins with my
push-cart full of fruit, and the day never ends before I can
count up at least two dollars' profit. That means four rubles.
Stand before your eyes, I, Gedalyah Mindel, four rubles a day;
twenty-four rubles a week!
“Gedalyah Mindel, the water-carrier, twenty-four rubles a week!” The
words leaped like fire in the air.
We gazed at his wife, Masheh Mindel, a dried-out bone of a woman.
“Masheh Mindel, with a husband in America, Masheh Mindel the wife of a
man earning twenty-four rubles a week! The sky is falling to the earth!”
We looked at her with new reverence. Already she was a being from
another world. The dead, sunken eyes became alive with light. The worry
for bread that had tightened the skin of her cheek-bones was gone. The
sudden surge of happiness filled out her features, flushing her face
as with wine. The two starved children clinging to her skirts, dazed
with excitement, only dimly realized their good fortune in the envious
glances of the others. But the letter went on:
Thirdly, I come to tell you, white bread and meat I eat every day,
just like the millionaires. Fourthly, I have to tell you that I am
no more Gedalyah Mindel. _Mister_ Mindel they call me in America.
Fifthly, Masheh Mindel and my dear children, in America there are
no mud huts where cows and chickens and people live all together.
I have for myself a separate room, with a closed door, and before
any one can come to me, he must knock, and I can say, “Come in,” or
“Stay out,” like a king in a palace. Lastly, my darling family and
people of the village of Sukovoly, there is no czar in America.
My father paused. The hush was stifling. “No czar--no czar in America!”
Even the little babies repeated the chant, “No czar in America!”
In America they ask everybody who should be the President. And I,
Gedalyah Mindel, when I take out my citizen's papers, will have as
much to say who shall be our next President as Mr. Rockefeller,
the greatest millionaire. Fifty rubles I am sending you for your
ship-ticket to America. And may all Jews who suffer in Golluth
from ukases and pogroms live yet to lift up their heads like me,
Gedalyah Mindel, in America.
Fifty rubles! A ship-ticket to America! That so much good luck should
fall on one head! A savage envy bit us. Gloomy darts from narrowed
eyes stabbed Masheh Mindel. Why should not we, too, have a chance to
get away from this dark land! Has not every heart the same hunger for
America, the same longing to live and laugh and breathe like a free
human being? America is for all. Why should only Masheh Mindel and her
children have a chance to the New World?
Murmuring and gesticulating, the crowd dispersed. Every one knew every
one else's thought--how to get to America. What could they pawn? From
where could they borrow for a ship-ticket?
Silently, we followed my father back into the hut from which the
Cossack had driven us a while before. We children looked from mother to
father and from father to mother.
“_Gottunieu!_ the czar himself is pushing us to America by this last
ukase.” My mother's face lighted up the hut like a lamp.
“_Meshugeneh Yideneh!_” admonished my father. “Always your head in
the air. What--where--America? With what money? Can dead people lift
themselves up to dance?”
“Dance?” The samovar and the brass pots reëchoed my mother's laughter.
“I could dance myself over the waves of the ocean to America.”
In amazed delight at my mother's joy, we children rippled and chuckled
with her. My father paced the room, his face dark with dread for the
morrow.
“Empty hands, empty pockets; yet it dreams itself in you--America,” he
said.
“Who is poor who has hopes on America?” flaunted my mother.
“Sell my red-quilted petticoat that grandmother left for my dowry,” I
urged in excitement.
“Sell the feather-beds, sell the samovar,” chorused the children.
“Sure, we can sell everything--the goat and all the winter things,”
added my mother. “It must be always summer in America.”
I flung my arms around my brother, and he seized Bessie by the curls,
and we danced about the room, crazy with joy.
“Beggars!” said my laughing mother. “Why are you so happy with
yourselves? How will you go to America without a shirt on your back,
without shoes on your feet?”
But we ran out into the road, shouting and singing:
“We'll sell everything we got; we're going to America. White bread and
meat we'll eat every day in America, in America!”
That very evening we brought Berel Zalman, the usurer, and showed him
all our treasures, piled up in the middle of the hut.
“Look! All these fine feather-beds, Berel Zalman!” urged my mother.
“This grand fur coat came from Nijny[28] itself. My grandfather bought
it at the fair.”
I held up my red-quilted petticoat, the supreme sacrifice of my
ten-year-old life. Even my father shyly pushed forward the samovar.
“It can hold enough tea for the whole village,” he declared.
“Only a hundred rubles for them all!” pleaded my mother, “only enough
to lift us to America! Only one hundred little rubles!”