BROWN WOLF and Other Jack London Stories E-Book

Jack London

• Herausgeber: SoTo
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

With the Stories: BROWN WOLF - THAT SPOT - TRUST - ALL GOLD CANYON - THE STORY OF KEESH - NAM-BOK THE UNVERACIOUS - YELLOW HANDKERCHIEF - MAKE WESTING - THE HEATHEN - THE HOBO AND THE FAIRY - „JUST MEAT“ - A NOSE FOR THE KING

Leseprobe

BROWN WOLF

and

Other Jack London Stories

As chosen by

Franklin K. Mathiews

Stories

Titel

INTRODUCTION

BROWN WOLF

THAT SPOT

TRUST

ALL GOLD CANYON

THE STORY OF KEESH

NAM-BOK THE UNVERACIOUS

YELLOW HANDKERCHIEF

MAKE WESTING

THE HEATHEN

THE HOBO AND THE FAIRY

„JUST MEAT“

A NOSE FOR THE KING

Impressum

INTRODUCTION

Boys delight in men who have had adventures, and when they are privileged to read of such exploits in thrilling story form, that is the „seventh heaven“ for them. Such a „boys‘ man“ was Jack London, whose whole life was one of stirring action on land and sea. Gifted as a story teller, he wrote books almost without end. Some of them, „The Call of the Wild,“ „The Sea Wolf“ and „White Fang,“ have already been recognized as fine books for boys. Others, volumes of short stories, contain many of like interest, possessing the same qualities that have made the other and longer stories so acceptable as juveniles.

Effort has been made by the editor to bring together in one volume a number of such stories, not for the reason alone that there might be another Jack London book for boys, but also in order to add to our juvenile literature a volume likely „to be chewed and digested,“ as Bacon says, a book worthy „to be read whole, and with diligence and attention.“ For my belief is that boys read altogether too few of such books. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say, have too few opportunities to read such books, because so often we fail to see how quick in their reading their minds are to grasp the more difficult, and how keen and competent their conscience to draw the right conclusion when situations are presented wherein men err so grievously.

It is hoped the stories presented will serve to exercise both the boy‘s mind and conscience; that seeing and feeling life and nature as Jack London saw and felt it—the best and the worst in human nature, with the Infinite always near and from whom there is no escape—seeing and feeling such things boys will develop the emotional muscles of the spirit, have opened up new windows to their imaginations, and withal add some line or color to their life‘s ideals.

FRANKLIN K. MATHIEWS,

Chief Scout Librarian, Boy Scouts of America.

BROWN WOLF

She had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass, in order to put on her overshoes, and when she emerged from the house found her waiting husband absorbed in the wonder of a bursting almond-bud. She sent a questing glance across the tall grass and in and out among the orchard trees.

„Where‘s Wolf?“ she asked.

„He was here a moment ago.“ Walt Irvine drew himself away with a jerk from the metaphysics and poetry of the organic miracle of blossom, and surveyed the landscape. „He was running a rabbit the last I saw of him.“

„Wolf! Wolf! Here, Wolf!“ she called, as they left the clearing and took the trail that led down through the waxen-belled manzanita jungle to the county road.

Irvine thrust between his lips the little finger of each hand and lent to her efforts a shrill whistling.

She covered her ears hastily and made a wry grimace.

„My! for a poet, delicately attuned and all the rest of it, you can make unlovely noises. My eardrums are pierced. You outwhistle——“

„Orpheus.“

„I was about to say a street-arab,“ she concluded severely.

„Poesy does not prevent one from being practical—at least it doesn‘t prevent me. Mine is no futility of genius that can‘t sell gems to the magazines.“

He assumed a mock extravagance, and went on:

„I am no attic singer, no ballroom warbler. And why? Because I am practical. Mine is no squalor of song that cannot transmute itself, with proper exchange value, into a flower-crowned cottage, a sweet mountain-meadow, a grove of redwoods, an orchard of thirty-seven trees, one long row of blackberries and two short rows of strawberries, to say nothing of a quarter of a mile of gurgling brook.“

„Oh, that all your song-transmutations were as successful!“ she laughed.

„Name one that wasn‘t.“

„Those two beautiful sonnets that you transmuted into the cow that was accounted the worst milker in the township.“

„She was beautiful——“ he began.

„But she didn‘t give milk,“ Madge interrupted.

„But she was beautiful, now, wasn‘t she?“ he insisted.

„And here‘s where beauty and utility fall out,“ was her reply. „And there‘s the Wolf!“