&&000 CANADIAN SCHOOLBOOKS                                                                    CA307.TXT
GRADE 7, books used in the 1930 1945
Sampled by dph in Toronto 9-10 dec 03
1st edited by dph 19 dec 03
RE-EDITED BY DPH 20 JUNE 2005
&&111

Fairy tales, novels, essays, books of travel and history, and magazines well filled with news of
the world and gossipy articles are thumbed by the blind until the raised letters are worn down.
Books of a gloomy or dry character are likely to repose on the top shelf until the dust takes
possession of them. The blind are keenly alive to what is joyous. Their books are necessarily few,
and most of them should be delightful and entertaining..
After we had touched our presents to our hearts' content, we romped and frolicked as long as the
little ones could go, and longer. If you had looked in on our merriment and had never seen blind
children at play before, you might have been surprised that in our wildest whirlings we did not
run into the tree, or knock over a chair, or fall into the fire that burned on the hearth. I think we
must have looked like any other group of merry children. You would have learned that the way to
make the blind happy at =Christmas and all the time is to treat them as far as possible like other
persons. They do not like to be continually reminded of their blindness, set aside and neglected,
or even waited on too much.
Had you been our guest, you would have received a gift from the sightless, for they have one
precious gift for the world. In their misfortune they are often happy, and in that they bring
happiness to those who see. Shall any seeing man dare to be sad at =Christmas or permit a little
child to be other than merry and light-hearted? What can excuse the seeing from the duty and
privilege of happiness while the blind child joins so merrily in the jubilee?
=TinyTim was glad to be at church on =Christmas because he thought the sight of him might
remind folk who it was that gave the lame power to walk. Even so the blind may remind their
seeing brethren who it was that opened the blinded eyes, unstopped the deaf ears, gave health to
the sick and knowledge to the ignorant, and declared that mightier things even than these shall be
fulfilled.



 It had been a long noon-hour by the time =Crack had come to the end, for the clock pointed to
half-past two. But when it was over, we knew our teacher, and he knew us. We had seen the
movements of the story reflected in the changing colors of his eyes and the sympathetic
movements of his lips; and in our faces he had seen the wonder that he above all others knew.
My story comes to a conclusion now. In our confidence in our teacher, even boys like =Tom
=Harris and myself, rude country youths, did not hesitate to speak of things we liked and
disliked. A box of books arrived at school one day, discards from a city library, which the teacher
had requested for us; and when he suggested that perhaps we might take our turn at telling the
story of the ones we liked best, we no longer thought it silly.
"How about a club?" =TomHarris suggested it. And club it was. =Crack, naturally, was the first
president, and we had as little difficulty in choosing the name for it as in choosing a president.
"Book Club," "Literary Society," "Story Club" were at first spoken of, but when little =Annie.
=Billings said, "I think it's the =Cracker-JackClub," why, of course, that was the name of it.
Speaking of =Annie reminds me that I have forgotten all about the girls in the school. Somehow
or another we did not think much about girls as girls. We seemed to take them for granted. They
played our games with us and became as enthusiastic as we about the =Cracker-JackClub.
Most things that I remember to have learned in school can be traced to the =Cracker-JackClub.
Recently I have spent some months in reading about those odd people, the =Tibetans, who dwell
beyond the chimney-tops of =Asia, and I am sure the interest that led me to them can be traced to
the stories of =GenghisKhan, who came like scorching fire out of the =East. Such stories moved
the blackboards and the wooden walls of our schoolroom back beyond the
=GenghisKhan. 


 From that day and hour =BobFraser would have slain anyone offering to make trouble for the
master. =ArchibaldMunro's rule was firmly established.
He was just and impartial in all his decisions, and absolute in his control; besides, he had the rare
faculty of awakening in his pupils an enthusiasm for work inside the school and for sports
outside.
.But now he was holding himself in, and with set teeth keeping back the pain. The week had been
long and hot and trying, and this day had been the worst of all. Through the little dirty panes of
the uncurtained windows the hot sun had poured itself in a flood of quivering light all the long
day. Only an hour remained of the day, but that hour was to the master the hardest of all the
week. The big boys were droning lazily over their books; the little boys, at the desks just below
the master's desk, were bubbling over with spirits-spirits of whose origin there was no reasonable
ground for doubt.
Suddenly =HughieMurray, the minister's boy, a very special imp, held up his hand.
"Well, =Hughie," said the master, for the tenth time within the hour replying to the signal.
"Spelling-match!"
The master hesitated. It would be a vast relief, but it was shirking a little. On all sides, however,
hands went up in support of =Hughie's proposal, and, having hesitated, he felt he must surrender
or become terrifying at once.
"Very well," he said; "=MargaretAird and =ThomasFinch will act as captains." At once there was
a gleeful hubbub. Slates and books were slung into desks.
"Order! or no spelling -match." The alternative was awful enough to quiet even the impish
=Hughie, who knew the tone carried no idle threat, and who loved a spelling match with all the
ardour of his little fighting soul.
The captains took their places on each side of the school, and with careful deliberation began the
selecting of their teams, scanning anxiously the rows of faces looking at the.

=Goliath?"
"That's the dog," answered =Watson, with a laugh. "You and =Goliath ought to meet =David and
=Goliath!"
If =Watson had mentioned the dog earlier in the conversation, I might have shied at his
hospitality. I may as well confess at once that I do not like dogs, and am afraid of them. Of. some
things I am not afraid; there have been occasions when my courage was not to be doubted-for
example, the night I secured the burglar in my diningroom and held him until the police came; or
the day I had an interview with a young bull in the middle of a pasture, where there was not so
much as a burdock leaf to fly to; with my red-silk pocket-handkerchief I deployed him as coolly
as if I had been a professional matador. I state these unadorned facts in no vain-glorious mood. If
that burglar had been a collie, or that bull a bull-terrier, I should have collapsed on the spot.
"So you keep a dog?" I remarked carelessly.
"Yes," returned =Watson. "What is a country-place without a dog?"
I said to myself, "I know what a country-place is with a dog. It's a place I should prefer to avoid."
But as I had accepted the invitation, and as =Watson was to pick me up at =GreenLodge station
and see me safely into the house, I said no more.
Living as he did on a lonely road, and likely at any hour of the night to have a burglar or two drop
in on him, it was proper that =Watson should have a dog on the grounds. I remember his keeping
at =Cambridge a bull-pup that was the terror of the neighborhood. He had his rooms outside the
college-yard in order that he might reside with this fiend.
A good mastiff or a good collie-if there are any good collies and good mastiffs-is perhaps a
necessity to exposed country-houses; but what is the use of allowing him to lie around loose on
the landscape, as is generally done? He ought to be chained up until midnight.



It seemed certain to me that something unusual and adventurous was about to happen-and if it
did not happen off-hand, why 1 was there to make it happen! When I went in to breakfast (do you
know the fragrance of broiling bacon when you have worked for an hour before breakfast on a
morning of zero weather? If you do not, consider that heaven still has gifts in store for you!)
when I went in to breakfast, I fancied that =Harriet looked preoccupied, but I was too busy just
then (hot corn muffins) to make an inquiry, and I knew by experience that the best solvent of
secrecy is patience.
"=David," said =Harriet, presently, "the cousins can't come!"
"Can't come!" I exclaimed.
"Why, you act as if you were delighted."
"No, well, yes," I said, "I knew that some extra
ordinary adventure was about to happen!"
"Adventure! It's a cruel disappointment, I was all
ready for them."
=Harriet," I said, "adventure is just what we make it. And aren't we to have the =Scotch Preacher
and his wife?"
"But I've got such a good dinner."
"Well," I said, "there are no two ways about it : it must be eaten! You may depend upon me to do
my duty."
"We'll have to send out into the highways and compel them to come in," said =Harriet ruefully.
I had several choice observations I should have liked to make upon this problem, but =Harriet
was plainly not listening; she sat with her eyes fixed reflectively on the coffee-pot. I watched her
for a moment, then I remarked.
"There aren't any."
=Davie," she exclaimed, "how did you know what I was thinking about?"
"I merely wanted to show you," I said, "that my genius is not properly appreciated in my own
household.


down and bide quiet for a bittie," she said, and coaxed him to sew a. piece of his kettle-holder, or
knit the garter that was as black as only a child's grimy little hands could make it.
When spring came, it brought new life to little Louis, and the long nights of pain and cold winter
days were forgotten, as he played about the garden of his grandfather's manse at =Colinton. Like
the flowers, he began to lift up his head and grow strong in the sunshine. It was a different world
to him when the sun shone and the sky was blue, and the splendid colours of the flowers made
his days a rainbow riot of delight. There was no more lying in bed, no more coughs and wakeful
nights, but instead, long warm summer days spent in the garden, or down by the river, where
there was the joy of =Louis's heart-a mill.
There were cousins there too, in the sunny garden, ready to play all the games that =Louis
invented, to lie behind the bushes with toy guns watching for a drove of antelopes to go by, to be
shipwrecked sailors on a desert island, where the only food to be had to keep them from
starvation was buttercups, and even to eat those buttercups and suffer the effects rather than spoil
the pretending game.
When those sunny summer days came to an end and =Louis went back to =HeriotRow, he had a
companion with him now who made even the gray days cheerful. His cousin, =RobertAlan
=Stevenson, spent a whole winter with him, and together they lived in a make-believe world of
their own. Disagreeable things were turned into delightful plays, and even their meals were
interesting. Instead of having to eat up a plateful of uninteresting porridge for breakfast, the
magic of make-believe turned it into a foreign land, covered with snow (which was the sugar, of
course) or an island that was threatened by the encroaching sea (that was the cream) ; and the
excitement of seeing the dry land disappearing or the snow mountains being cleared was so
entrancing that the porridge was eaten up before.



There was scarce anyone stirring save a few drowsy burghers whom it behoved to be attending to
their business in the early morn. I kept my cloak well over my face, for I did not relish the notion
of being recognized by anyone on my errand.
Now, from the college gardens there stretches down to the great canal a most beautiful
pleasaunce, all set with flower beds and fountains. Beyond this again is a more rugged land-a
grove with great patches of grass in it, and here it was that gentlemen of the =Scots regiment
were wont to settle their differences. The morning had been chosen as the time when it was less
likely that some interloping busybody might interrupt us.
In time we came to the spot which the others had fixed on. There I found my men already waiting
me; my cousin stripped to his sark and small-clothes, with his blade glimmering as he felt its
edge; his companions muffled up in heavy cloaks and keeping guard over =Gilbert's stripped
garments. They greeted me shortly as I came up, so without more ado I took off my coat and vest,
and gave them into my servant's keeping. Then, going up to my opponent, I took his hand.
"Let there be no malice between us, =Gilbert," said I. "I was rash maybe, but I am here to give
account of my rashness."
"So be it, cousin," he said, as he took my hand coldly. We both stepped back a pace and crossed
swords, and in a trice we had fallen to.
My first thought, and I am not ashamed to confess it, when I felt my steel meet the steel of my
foe, was one of arrant and tumultuous fear. I had never before crossed swords with anyone in
deadly hatred; and in my case the thing was the harder, for my feeling against my cousin was not
so violent a passion as to make me heedless of aught else.  Before me, behind the back of my
antagonist, the thick =Underwood was already filled with the twittering of birds,


through a window in the lower room; and we measured the heap, as I am a christened man,
seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high, of silver bars, and each bar between a
thirty and forty pound weight. And says Captain =Drake: `There, my lads of =Devon, I've
brought you to the mouth of the world's treasure-house, and it's your own fault now if you don't
sweep it out as empty as a stock-fish."'
"Why didn't you bring some of them home, then, Mr =Oxenham?"
"Why weren't you there to help to carry them? We would have brought 'em away, safe enough,
and young =Drake and I had broke the door abroad already, but Captain =Drake goes off in a
dead faint; and when we came to look, he had a wound in his leg you might have laid three
fingers in, and his boots were full of blood, and had been for an hour or more; but the heart of
him was that, that he never knew it till he dropped, and then his brother and I got him to the
boats, he kicking and struggling, and bidding us let him go on with the fight, though every step
he took in the sand was in a pool of blood; and so we got off.
"And tell me, wasn't it worth more to save him than the dirty silver? for silver we can get again,
brave boys. There's more fish in the sea than ever came out of it, and more silver in =Nombrede
=Dios than would pave all the streets in the west country ; but of such captains as =FrankyDrake,
Heaven never makes but one at a time; and if we lose him, good-bye to =England's luck, say I,
and who don't agree, let him choose his weapons, and I'm his man."
He who delivered this harangue was a tall and sturdy personage, with a florid, black-bearded
face, and bold, restless dark eyes, who leaned, with crossed legs and arms akimbo, against the
wall of the house; and seemed in the eyes of the school-boy a very magnifico-some prince or
duke at least. He was dressed in a suit of crimson velvet, a little the.


All these words, pronounced in a tone of majesty suited to the high rank and no less
distinguished
character of =Coeur-de-Lion, the yeomen at once kneeled down before him, and at the same time
tendered their allegiance, and implored pardon for their offences.
"Rise, my friends," said =Richard, in a gracious tone, looking on them with a countenance in
which his habitual good-humour had already conquered the blaze of hasty resentment, and whose
features retained no mark of the late desperate conflict, excepting the flush arising from
exertion,-"arise," he said, "my friends! Your misdemeanours, whether in forest or field, have
been atoned by the loyal services you rendered my distressed subjects before the walls of
=Torquilstone, and the rescue you have this day afforded to your sovereign. Arise, my liegemen,
and be good subjects in future.And you, brave =Locksley" "Call me no longer =Locksley, my
=Liege, but know me under the name which, I fear, fame has blown too widely not to have
reached even your royal ears  I am =RobinHood of =SherwoodForest."
"King of Outlaws, and Prince of good fellows!" said the King, "who has not heard a name that
has been borne as far as =Palestine? But be assured, brave Outlaw, that no deed done in our
absence, and in the turbulent times to which it has given rise, shall be remembered to your
disadvantage."


the villains to the earth with my lance, =Wamba, if they offered us any impediment."
"But what if there were four of them?"
"They should drink of the same cup," answered the Knight.
"What if six," continued =Wamba, "and we as we now are, barely two-would you not remember
=Locksley's horn?"
"What! sound for aid," exclaimed the Knight, "against a score of such rascals as these, whom
one good knight could drive before him, as the wind drives the withered leaves?"
"No then," said =Wamba, "I will pray you for a close sight of that same horn that hath so
powerful a breath."
The Knight undid the clasp of the baldric, and indulged his fellow-traveler, who immediately
hung the bugle round his own neck.
"=Tra-lira-la," said he, whistling the notes; "no, I know my gamut as well as another."
"How mean you, knave?" said the Knight; "restore me the bugle."
"Content you, Sir Knight, it is in safe keeping. When =Valour and =Folly travel, =Folly should
bear the horn, because she can blow the best.
"No but, rogue," said the =BlackKnight, "this exceeds your licence. Beware you tamper not with
my patience."
"Urge me not with violence, Sir Knight," said the =Jester, keeping at a distance from the
impatient champion, "or  =Folly will show a clean pair of heels, and leave =Valor to find out his
way through the wood as best he may."
"No, you have hit me there," said the Knight; "and sooth to say, I have little time to jangle with
you. Keep the horn as you will, but let us proceed on our journey."
"You will not harm me, then?" said =Wamba.
"I tell you no, you knave!"
Aye, but pledge me your knightly word for it," continued Wamba as he approached with great
caution.
"My knightly word I pledge; only come on with thy foolish self."



This selection is taken from the volume entitled =LostintheFog in =TheBrotherhoodoftheWhite
=Cross, a series of books for boys. =DeMille, who died in 1880, was a =NewBrunswicker by
birth and lived for the greater part of his life in =SaintJohn. During his later years he was a
professor in =Dalhousie University, =Halifax. His books for boys are still popular, especially the
series mentioned above and The =YoungDodgeClub, a similar series.


Of all the rivers that flow into the =BayofFundy none is more remarkable than the =Petitcodiac.
At high tide it is full mighty stream; at low tide it is empty, a channel of mud forty miles long;
and the intervening periods are marked by the furious flow of ascending or descending waters.
And now, as the boys sat there looking out upon the expanse of mud before them, they became
aware of a dull, low, booming sound that came up from a far-distant point, and seemed like the
voice of many waters sounding from the storm-vexed bay outside. There was no moon, but the
light was sufficient to enable them to see the exposed riverbed, far over to the shadowy outline of
the opposite shore. Here, where in the morning a mighty ship had floated, nothing could now
float; but the noise that broke upon their ears told them of the return of the waters that now were
about to pour onward with resistless might into the empty channel, and send successive waves far
along into the heart of the land.
"What is that noise?" asked =Bruce. "It grows louder and louder."
"That," said =Bart, "is the bore of the =Petitcodiac." "Have you ever seen it?"
"Never. I've heard of it often, but have never seen it."
But their words were interrupted now by the deepening thunder of the approaching waters.
Toward the quarter whence the sound arose they turned their heads involuntarily. At first they
could see nothing through the gloom.


I hope he will be so good
As to favour us with a little music. Sometimes he will,
And sometimes he just obstinately won't.
Come, come, =Perlino,! Sing, if it please you, sing!

And after some further persuasion, you will suspect me of romancing, but upon my word,
=Perlino consented. Clinging to =Susanna's thumb, he threw back his head, opened his bill, and
poured forth his crystal song,-a thin, bright, crystal rill, swift-flowing, winding in delicate
volutions. And how his green little bosom throbbed !
"Isn't it incredible?" =Susanna whispered. "It is wonderful to feel him. His whole body is beating
like a heart." And when his song was finished, she bent toward him, and never, never so
softly-touched the top of his green head with her lips.
"And now fly away, birds, back to your affairs," she said. "Goodbye until tomorrow."
She rose, and there was an instant whir of fluttering wings.
"Shall we walk?" she said to =Anthony. She shook her frock to dust the last grains of bird-seed
from it. "If we stay here, they will think there is more to come; and they've had quite sufficient
for one day."
She put up her sunshade, and they turned back into the pathway.
"You find me speechless," said =Anthony. "Of course, it hasn't really happened. But how-how do
you produce so strong an illusion of reality? I could have sworn I saw a green finch feeding from
your hand. I could have sworn I saw him cling there and heard him sing his song."
Susanna, under her white sunshade, laughed softly, victoriously.



charger; but finally he gave the required permission, resolving to furnish him with a worthier
steed as soon as possible by taking the horse of the first discourteous knight whom he met.
When all was ready, they set off together one night, without taking leave of their families, and
rode steadily on, so that by daybreak they were beyond the reach of pursuit. =SanchoPanza sat
his ass like a patriarch, carrying with him his saddle-bags and leather bottle; and all his thoughts
were of the Isle which his master had promised him. =DonQuixote was lost in loftier meditations
until he was roused from his reverie by the voice of his squire, who said: "I hope your Grace has
not forgotten the Isle which I was to have, for I shall know well how to govern it, however big it
may be."
"As to that," replied =DonQuixote, "you need have no fear; I shall only be complying with an
ancient and honourable custom of knights-errant, and, indeed, I purpose to improve on their
practice, for, instead of waiting, as they often did, until thou art worn out in my service, I shall
seek the first occasion to bestow on thee this gift; and it may be that before a week has passed
thou wilt be crowned king of that Isle."
"Well," said =Sancho, "if this miracle should come to pass, my good wife =Joan will be a queen
and my sons your princes."
"Who doubts it?" answered =DonQuixote.
"I do," rejoined =Sancho. "My =Joan a queen! No, if it rained crowns, I don't believe that one
would ever settle on my dame's head. Believe me, your Honor, she's not worth three farthings as
a queen; she might manage as a countess, though that would be hard enough."
"Think not so meanly of thyself, =Sancho," said =DonQuixote gravely. "Marquis is the very least
title which I intend for you, if you will be content with that."
"That I will, and heaven bless your Honor," said Sancho heartily. "I will take what you give and
be thankful. 


to the chief, they struck the water with their strong paddles, and the light craft sped out over the
dark surface, leaving a long line of white-fringed eddying holes behind. The hurrying wind was
with them, and the canoe rushed like a terrified thing for the distant shore. The tough ash paddles
bent like withes, but the iron-nerved men drew them through the seething waves with unabated
strength, and in the early morning light reached the farther shore.
Two days later, when her father and her lover returned, =Madrine was about her household
duties, showing no trace of unusual adventure. Dejectedly they told her of their long fruitless
journey to the encampment, which they found absolutely deserted, and devoid of even a fur to
pay them for their exertions. Someone, they said, had warned the Indians of the project, and
throughout the village there were many conjectures as to how the news could have been carried
to them. But no one suspected =Madrine. The storm and high tides had destroyed and carried off
much property, and this accounted satisfactorily for the loss of her canoe.
The old moon quickly wore away, and all else was forgotten in the preparations for Madrine's
coming marriage. No one thought of =Indians on the wedding day, and when the gay procession
wound its way from the parish church to the new house, great was the surprise to see on the steps
in front of the door =Madrine's old canoe, newly ornamented and filled with valuable furs and
useful articles of bark and wicker-work, with only the =Micmac totem on the bow to show from
whence it came. Why the =Indians should, at such a time as this, send presents of such value, and
how they could have found the missing canoe, no one knew but =Madrine, and she kept her
secret.
Some years later, when peace was concluded again with the =Indians, she told her father and her
husband the story of that venturesome voyage across the Basin.  The long silence that she kept
made it almost as much of a wonder to her as to the two men, who for the first time knew why
they.


Willingly, noble =Saladin," answered =Richard; and looking around for something whereon to
exercise his strength, he saw a steel mace held by one of the attendants, the handle being of the
same metal, and about an inch and a half in diameter. This he placed on a. block of wood.
The glittering broadsword, wielded by both his hands, rose aloft to the King's left shoulder,
circled round his head, descended with the sway of some terrific engine, and the bar of iron
rolled on the ground in two pieces, as a woodsman would sever a sapling with a hedging-bill.
"By the head of the Prophet, a most wonderful blow!" said the =Soldan, critically and accurately
examining the iron bar which had been cut asunder; and the blade of the sword was so well
tempered as to exhibit not the least token of having suffered by the feat it had performed. He then
took the King's hand, and looking on the size and muscular strength which it exhibited, laughed
as he placed it beside his own, so lank and thin, so inferior in brawn and sinew.
"Ay, look well," said =DeVaux in =English, "it will be long before your long jackanape's fingers
do such a feat with your fine gilded reaping-hook there."
"Silence, =DeVaux," said =Richard; "by Our Lady, he understands or guesses thy meaning-be not
so broad, I pray thee."
The =Soldan, indeed, presently said, "Something I would fain attempt-though wherefore should
the weak show their inferiority in presence of the strong? Yet each land hath its own exercises,
and this may be new to the Melech Ric." So saying, he took from the floor a cushion of silk and
down, and placed it upright on one end. "Can thy weapon, my brother, sever that cushion?" he
said to King =Richard.
"No, surely," replied the King; "no sword on earth, were it the =Excalibur of King =Arthur, can
cut that which opposes no steady resistance to the blow."
"Mark, then," said =Saladin; and tucking up the sleeve of his gown, showed his arm, thin indeed
and spare, but. 



"There!" said the groom, as he looked at him, half admiringly, half-sorrowfully, "with sixteen
stone on his back, he'll trot fourteen miles in one hour, with your nine stone, some two and a half
more, ay, and clear a six-foot wall at the end of it."
"I'm half afraid," said I.  "I had rather you would ride him.?
"I'd rather so, too, if he would let me; but he remembers the blow. Now, don't be afraid, young
master, he's longing to go out himself. He's been trampling with his feet these three days, and I
know what that means; he'll let anybody ride him. but myself, and thank them; but to me he says,
`No! you struck me.' "
"But," said I, "where's the saddle?"
"Never mind the saddle; if you are ever to be a frank rider you must begin without a saddle;
besides, if he felt a saddle, he would think you don't trust him, and leave you to yourself. Now,
before you mount, make his acquaintance-see there, how he kisses you and licks your face; and
see how he lifts his foot, that's to shake hands. You may trust him, now you are on his back at
last; mind how you hold the bridle gently, gently! It's not four pair of hands like yours can hold
him if he wishes to be off. Mind what I tell you-leave it all to him."
Off went the cob at a slow and gentle trot, too fast, however, for so inexperienced a rider. I soon
felt myself sliding off, the animal perceived it too, and instantly stood stone still till I had righted
myself ; and now the groom came up: "When you feel yourself going," said he, "don't lay hold of
the mane, that's no use; .mane never yet saved man from falling, no more than straw from
drowning; it's his sides you must cling to with your calves and feet, till you learn to balance
yourself. That's it, now aboard with you; you'll be a regular rough-rider by the time you come
back."
And so it proved; I followed the directions of the groom, and the cob gave me every assistance.
How easy is riding, 



An estray from the =Polar North, he had been blown far out to sea in a hurricane. Taking refuge
on a small iceberg, he had been carried south till the berg, suddenly breaking up, had forced him
to dare the long landward flight. The last of his strength had barely taken him to the refuge of this
perch upon the ribs of the wreck.
At last he opened. his immense yellow eyes. Revolving his round, catlike head very slowly upon
his shoulders, as if it were moved by clock-work, he surveyed his strange surroundings. The
conspicuousness of his perch and the intensity of the sunlight were distasteful to him. Lifting his
wide wings, he hopped down into the interior of the wreck, which was half-filled with mud and
debris. Here, though the side-planking was all fallen away so that prying eyes could see through,
there was yet a sort of seclusion, with some shadow to ease his dazzled eyes.
Having recovered from his exhaustion, the =GrayVisitor became conscious of the pangs of his
famine. He sat motionless as before, but now with all his senses on the alert. His ears caught a
chorus of rustlings, squeaks, and rushes, which told him that the neighbouring depths of the grass
were crowded with the mouse folk and their kindred. At one point the grass-fringe came so close
to the wreck that its spears were thrusting in between the ribs. The =GrayVisitor hopped over to
this point, and waited hopefully, like a cat at a frequented mouse-hole. He had been but a few
moments settled in his ambush when a fat water-rat came ambling into the wreck at the other end
of the keel. Keen as were the rat's eyes, they did not notice the ghost-gray figure sitting up like a
post beside the grass-fringe. The Visitor waited till the rat should come within reach of an
unerring pounce. His sinews stiffened themselves in tense readiness. Then something like a
brown wedge dropped out of the sky. There was a choked squeal, and the rat lay motionless
under the talons of a mottled brown marsh hawk, which fell instantly to tearing its victim.


nor a vendor of silver, tarry not at my door; I have no time for beggars."
As we trotted off, I called back, "I do not sell silver, nor do I buy gold, but when my elephant
grows up, he will have such tusks that you will cast eyes of envy on them. But this elephant will
live more than one hundred and twenty-five years, and you shall be dead by then, and so there
will be no chance of soiling his ivory by buying thy gold."
We walked on very silently through the city, and then of a sudden a pack of dogs were upon us.
We knew not whence they had come. =Kari was as dignified as a mountain; he never noticed
them, but the less attention he paid to them, the more audacious the dogs grew. They came after
us, and I did not know what to do, as I did not even have a stone to throw at them. In a few
moments, we were hemmed in by packs of dogs. Quickly now, =Kari turned round and in an
instant lifted a dog into the air with his trunk. As the dog would have been dashed into bits, I
yelled into his ear, "Brother, brother, do not kill him, but let him down gently, he will not bite
you."
At this moment the dog gave such a terrible cry of pain as the trunk was coming down that Kari
stopped and slowly brought him to the ground. The dog, however, was already dead; the pressure
of the trunk had killed him, and the other dogs, seeing his fate, had already run away.
=Kari walked rapidly out of the city, and I was heartsick. He went straight to the river-bank and
with great difficulty walked down the steps of the =Ghaut and buried all except his trunk in the
water. He stood there, knowing that I knew that he had done something wrong, and he was trying
to cleanse himself of it. I, too, took my bath.
Late in the afternoon, we went back and found =Kopee still sitting on the same tree and looking
for us, as the caravan had left long ago. Judging by the banana peels under the trees, we realized
he had had his dinner. =Kari and I were very hungry, and we were both sick of the city.


&&000