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Favorite Stories

Compiled by Andrew Gottlieb

September, 2017 Edition

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Contents

Dead Man’s Path By Chinua Achebe………………………………………………………..…2

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson………………………………….…………………………......6

Saboteur by Ha Jin………………………………………………………………………..…...15

The White Circle by John Bell Clayton…………………………………………………….….24

The Gift of The Magi by O. Henry……………………….........................................................28

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant…………………………………………………………34

The Pie by Gary Soto……………………………………………………………….…….……41

Thank You, Ma'am by Langston Hughes……………………………………………..…..……43

Coco by Guy de Maupassant……………………………………………………………….......46

The Piece of String by Guy de Maupassant………………………………………………....…49

The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin………….…………………………………….….……55

After Twenty Years by O’Henry………………………………………………………...…..…58

The Lady or The Tiger………………………………………………………………….....……60

The First Thing the Baby Did Wrong by Donald Barthelme……………………………..…….65

Other Stories……………………………………………………………………………....…….67

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Why is it important to respect tradition?

What are the consequences of rejecting other people’s customs and beliefs?

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Dead Man’s Path

[1953] 1972

By Chinua Achebe

Michael Obi's hopes were fulfilled much earlier than he had expected. He was appointed

headmaster of Ndume Central School in January 1949. It had always been an unprogressive

school, so the Mission authorities decided to send a young and energetic man to run it. Obi

accepted this responsibility with enthusiasm.

He had many wonderful ideas and this was an opportunity to put them into practice. He had had

sound secondary school education which designated him a "pivotal teacher" in the official

records and set him apart from the other headmasters in the mission field. He was outspoken in

his condemnation of the narrow views of these older and often less educated ones. "We shall

make a good job of it, shan't we?" he asked his young wife when

they first heard the joyful news of his promotion.

"We shall do our best," she replied. "We shall have such beautiful gardens and everything will be

just modern and delightful . . . "

In their two years of married life she had become completely infected by his passion for "modern

methods" and his denigration of "these old and superannuated people in the teaching field who

would be better employed as traders in the Onitsha market." She began to see herself already as

the admired wife of the young headmaster, the queen of the school. The wives of the other

teachers would envy her position. She would set the fashion in everything . . . Then, suddenly, it

occurred to her that there might not be other wives. Wavering between hope and fear, she asked

her husband, looking anxiously at him.

"All our colleagues are young and unmarried," he said with enthusiasm which for once she did

not share. "Which is a good thing," he continued.

"Why?"

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"Why? They will give all their time and energy to the school."

Nancy was downcast. For a few minutes she became skeptical about the new school; but it was

only for a few minutes. Her little personal misfortune could not blind her to her husband's happy

prospects. She looked at him as he sat folded up in a chair. He was stoop shouldered and looked

frail. But he sometimes surprised people with sudden bursts of physical energy. In his present

posture, however, all his bodily strength seemed to have retired behind his deepset eyes, giving

them an extraordinary power of penetration. He was only twenty-six, but looked thirty or more.

On the whole, he was not unhandsome.

"A penny for your thoughts, Mike," said Nancy after a while, imitating the woman's magazine

she read.

"I was thinking what a grand opportunity we've got at last to show these people how a school

should be run."

Ndume School was backward in every sense of the word. Mr. Obi put his whole life into the

work, and his wife hers too. He had two aims. A high standard of teaching was insisted upon,

and the school compound was to be turned into a place of beauty. Nancy's dream gardens came

to life with the coming of the rains, and blossomed. Beautiful hibiscus and all Amanda hedges in

brilliant red and yellow marked out the carefully tended school compound from the rank

neighborhood bushes.

One evening as Obi was admiring his work he was scandalized to see an old woman from

the village hobble right across the compound, through a marigold flowerbed and the hedges.

On going up there he found faint signs of an almost disused path from the village across the

school compound to the bush on the other side.

"It amazes me," said Obi to one of his teachers who had been three years in the school, "that you

people allowed the villagers to make use of this footpath. It is simply incredible." He shook his

head.

"The path," said the teacher apologetically, "appears to be very important to them. Although it is

hardly used, it connects the village shrine with their place of burial."

"And what has that got to do with the school?" asked the headmaster.

"Well, I don't know," replied the other with a shrug of the shoulders.

"But I remember there was a big row some time ago when we attempted to close it."

"That was some time ago. But it will not be used now," said Obi as he walked away. "What will

the Government Education Officer think of this when he comes to inspect the school next week?

The villagers might, for all I know, decide to use the schoolroom for a pagan ritual during the

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inspection." Heavy sticks were planted closely across the path at the two places where it entered

and left the school premises. These were further strengthened with barbed wire.

Three days later the village priest of Ani called on the headmaster. He was an old man and

walked with a slight stoop. He carried a stout walking stick which he usually tapped on the floor,

by way of emphasis, each time he made a new point in his argument.

"I have heard," he said after the usual exchange of cordialities, "that our ancestral footpath has

recently been closed . . .”

"Yes," replied Mr. Obi. "We cannot allow people to make a highway of our school compound."

"Look here, my son," said the priest bringing down his walking stick, "this path was here before

you were born and before your father was born. The whole life of this village depends on it.

Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it. But most important, it is the path

of children coming in to be born . . .”

Mr. Obi listened with a satisfied smile on his face. "The whole purpose of our school," he said

finally, "is to eradicate just such beliefs as that. Dead men do not require footpaths. The whole

idea is just fantastic. Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas."

"What you say may be true," replied the priest, "but we follow the practices of our fathers. If you

reopen the path we shall have nothing to quarrel about. What I always say is: let the hawk perch

and let the eagle perch." He rose to go.

"I am sorry," said the young headmaster. "But the school compound cannot be a thoroughfare.

It is against our regulations. I would suggest your constructing another path, skirting our

premises. We can even get our boys to help in building it. I don't suppose the ancestors will find

the little detour too burdensome."

"I have no more words to say," said the old priest, already outside. Two days later a young

woman in the village died in childbed. A diviner was immediately consulted and he prescribed

heavy sacrifices to propitiate ancestors insulted by the fence.

Obi woke up next morning among the ruins of his work. The beautiful hedges were torn up not

just near the path but right round the school, the flowers trampled to death and one of the school

buildings pulled down . . . That day, the white Supervisor came to inspect the school and wrote a

nasty report on the state of the premises but more seriously about the "tribal war situation

developing between the school and the village, arising in part from the misguided zeal of the new

headmaster."

AUTHOR'S PERSPECTIVE

Chinua Achebe

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Modern Africa as the Crossroads of Culture 1980 I have always been fond of stories and

intrigued by language.—first Igbo, spoken with such eloquence by the old men of the village,

and later English, which I began to learn at about the age of eight. I don't know for certain, but

I have probably spoken more words in Igbo than English but I have definitely written more

words in English than Igbo. Which I think makes me perfectly bilingual. Some people have

suggested that I should be better off writing in Igbo. Sometimes they seek to drive the point

home by asking me in which language I dream. When I reply that I dream in both languages they

seem not to believe it. More recently I have heard an even more potent and metaphysical

version of the question: In what language do you have an orgasm? That should settle the matter

if I knew.

We lived at the crossroads of cultures. We still do today; but when I was a boy one could see and

sense the peculiar quality and atmosphere of it more clearly. I am not talking about all that

rubbish we hear of the spiritual void and mental stresses that Africans are supposed to have, or

the evil forces and irrational passions prowling through Africa's heart of darkness. We know the

racist mystique behind a lot of that stuff and should merely point out that those who prefer to see

Africa in those lurid terms have not themselves demonstrated any clear superiority in sanity or

more competence in coping with life. But still the crossroads does have a certain dangerous

potency; dangerous because a man might perish there wrestling with multiple headed spirits, but

also he might be lucky and return to his people with the boon of prophetic vision.

On one arm of the cross we sang hymns and read the Bible night and day. On the other my

father's brother and his family, blinded by heathenism, offered food to idols. That was how it was

supposed to be anyhow. But I knew without knowing why that it was too simple a way to

describe what was going on. Those idols and that food had a strange pull on me in spite of my

being such a thorough little Christian that often at Sunday services at the height of the grandeur

of "Te Deum Laudamus" I would have dreams of a mantle of gold falling on me as the choir of

angels drowned our mortal song and the voice of God Himself thundering: This is my beloved

son in whom I am well pleased.

Yet, despite those delusions of divine destiny I was not past taking my little sister to our

neighbor's house when our parents were not looking and partaking of heathen festival meals. I

never found their rice and stew to have the flavor of idolatry. I was about ten then. If anyone

likes to believe that I was torn by spiritual agonies or stretched on the rack of my ambivalence,

he certainly may suit himself. I do not remember any undue distress. What I do remember is a

fascination for the ritual and the life on the other arm of the crossroads. And I believe two things

were in my favor—that curiosity, and the little distance imposed between me and it by the

accident of my birth. The distance becomes not a separation but a bringing together like the

necessary backward step which a judicious viewer may take in order to see a canvas steadily and

fully.

Hopes and Impediments

______________________________________________________________________________

Write about some of the traditions you respect.

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People tend to follow rituals and customs without questioning them.

What is the result of not questioning what we do?

_____________________________________________________________________________

THE LOTTERY BY SHIRLEY JACKSON

The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the

flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village

began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some

towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June

20th, but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery

took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o’clock in the morning and still be through in

time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.

The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling

of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before

they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books

and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys

soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones

and Dickie Delacroix—the villagers pronounced this name “Dellacroy”—eventually made a

great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys.

The girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the

very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.

Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain,

tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their

jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses

and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of

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gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began

to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times.

Bobby Martin ducked under his mother’s grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of

stones. His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his place between his

father and his oldest brother.

The lottery was conducted—as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program—

by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced,

jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for him because he had no

children and his wife was a scold. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box,

there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called. “Little late

today, folks.” The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three-legged stool, and the

stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The

villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mr.

Summers said, “Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?” there was a hesitation before two

men. Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool

while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.

The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting

on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was

born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked

to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the

present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had

been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the

lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was

allowed to fade off without anything’s being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by

now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original

wood color, and in some places faded or stained.

Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr.

Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had

been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper

substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr.

Summers had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the

population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use

something that would fit more easily into the black box. The night before the lottery, Mr.

Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then

taken to the safe of Mr. Summers’ coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to

take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one

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place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves’s barn and another year underfoot

in the post office. And sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.

There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open.

There were the lists to make up–of heads of families, heads of households in each family,

members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers

by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had

been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant

that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used

to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the

people, but years and years ago this p3rt of the ritual had been allowed to lapse. There had been,

also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to use in addressing each person who

came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it was felt

necessary only for the official to speak to each person approaching. Mr. Summers was very good

at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the black

box, he seemed very proper and important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the

Martins.

Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Mrs.

Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders,

and slid into place in the back of the crowd. “Clean forgot what day it was,” she said to Mrs.

Delacroix, who stood next to her, and they both laughed softly. “Thought my old man was out

back stacking wood,” Mrs. Hutchinson went on, “and then I looked out the window and the kids

was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running. ” She dried her

hands on her apron, and Mrs. Delacroix said, “You’re in time, though. They’re still talking away

up there. “

Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children

standing near the front. She tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to make

her way through the crowd. The people separated good-humoredly to let her through: two or

three people said, in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, “Here comes your,

Missus, Hutchinson,” and “Bill, she made it after all. ” Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband,

and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully. “Thought we were going to have to

get on without you, Tessie. ” Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, “Wouldn’t have me leave m’dishes

in the sink, now, would you, Joe?” and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred

back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson’s arrival.

“Well, now.” Mr. Summers said soberly, “guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we

can go back to work. Anybody ain’t here?”

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“Dunbar.” several people said. “Dunbar. Dunbar. “

Mr. Summers consulted his list. “Clyde Dunbar.” he said. “That’s right. He’s broke his leg,

hasn’t he? Who’s drawing for him?”

“Me. I guess,” a woman said, and Mr. Summers turned to look at her. “Wife draws for her

husband.” Mr. Summers said. “Don’t you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?” Although

Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the

business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. Mr. Summers waited with

an expression of polite interest while Mrs. Dunbar answered.

“Horace’s not but sixteen yet.” Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. “Guess I gotta fill in for the old

man this year. “

“Right.” Sr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, “Watson

boy drawing this year?”

A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. “Here,” he said. “I’m drawing for my mother and me.”

He blinked his eyes nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like

“Good fellow, lack. ” and “Glad to see your mother’s got a man to do it. “

“Well,” Mr. Summers said, “guess that’s everyone. Old Man Warner make it?”

“Here,” a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded.

A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the list. “All

ready?” he called. “Now, I’ll read the names–heads of families first–and the men come up and

take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until

everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?”

The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions: most of them

were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and

said, “Adams.” A man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward. “Hi. Steve. ” Mr.

Summers said, and Mr. Adams said. “Hi. Joe. ” They grinned at one another humorlessly and

nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it

firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd, where he stood

a little apart from his family, not looking down at his hand.

“Allen.” Mr. Summers said. “Anderson… Bentham. “

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“Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries any more.” Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs.

Graves in the back row.

“Seems like we got through with the last one only last week. “

“Time sure goes fast” Mrs. Graves said.

“Clark… Delacroix. “

“There goes my old man.” Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath while her husband

went forward.

“Dunbar,” Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to the box while one of the women

said. “Go on, Janey,” and another said, “There she goes. “

“We’re next.” Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves came around from the side of the

box, greeted Mr. Summers gravely and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through

the crowd there were men holding the small folded papers in their large hand, turning them over

and over nervously Mrs. Dunbar and her two sons stood together, Mrs. Dunbar holding the slip

of paper.

“Harburt… Hutchinson. “

“Get up there, Bill,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near her laughed.

“Jones. “

“They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the

north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery. “

Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s

good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves,

nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about Lottery in June,

corn be heavy soon. ‘ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and

acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Joe

Summers up there joking with everybody. “

“Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Adams said.

“Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools. “

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“Martin.” And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. “Overdyke… Percy. “

“I wish they’d hurry,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. “I wish they’d hurry.”

“They’re almost through,” her son said.

“You get ready to run tell Dad,” Mrs. Dunbar said.

Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from

the box. Then he called, “Warner. “

“Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,” Old Man Warner said as he went through the

crowd. “Seventy-seventh time. “

“Watson.” The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, “Don’t be nervous,

Jack,” and Mr. Summers said, “Take your time, son. “

“Zanini. “

After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers, holding his slip of

paper in the air, said, “All right, fellows. ” For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of

paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saving. “Who is it?,”

“Who’s got it?,” “Is it the Dunbars?,” “Is it the Watsons?” Then the voices began to say, “It’s

Hutchinson. It’s Bill,” “Bill Hutchinson’s got it. “

“Go tell your father,” Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.

People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring

down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly, Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. “You

didn’t give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn’t fair!”

“Be a good sport, Tessie,” Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, “All of us took the same

chance. “

“Shut up, Tessie,” Bill Hutchinson said.

“Well, everyone,” Mr. Summers said, “that was done pretty fast, and now we’ve got to be

hurrying a little more to get done in time.” He consulted his next list. “Bill,” he said, “you draw

for the Hutchinson family. You got any other households in the Hutchinsons?”

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“There’s Don and Eva,” Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. “Make them take their chance!”

“Daughters draw with their husbands’ families, Tessie,” Mr. Summers said gently. “You know

that as well as anyone else. “

“It wasn’t fair,” Tessie said.

“I guess not, Joe,” Bill Hutchinson said regretfully. “My daughter draws with her husband’s

family; that’s only fair. And I’ve got no other family except the kids. “

“Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it’s you,” Mr. Summers said in explanation,

“and as far as drawing for households is concerned, that’s you, too. Right?”

“Right,” Bill Hutchinson said.

“How many kids, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked formally.

“Three,” Bill Hutchinson said.

“There’s Bill, Jr., and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me. “

“All right, then,” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you got their tickets back?”

Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. “Put them in the box, then,” Mr. Summers

directed. “Take Bill’s and put it in. “

“I think we ought to start over,” Mrs. Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. “I tell you it

wasn’t fair. You didn’t give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that. “

Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box, and he dropped all the papers but

those onto the ground, where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.

“Listen, everybody,” Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her.

“Ready, Bill?” Mr. Summers asked, and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance around at his

wife and children, nodded.

“Remember,” Mr. Summers said, “take the slips and keep them folded until each person has

taken one. Harry, you help little Dave. ” Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came

willingly with him up to the box. “Take a paper out of the box, Davy,” Mr. Summers said. Davy

put his hand into the box and laughed. “Take just one paper.” Mr. Summers said. “Harry, you

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hold it for him.” Mr. Graves took the child’s hand and removed the folded paper from the tight

fist and held it while little Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.

“Nancy next,” Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as

she went forward switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box “Bill, Jr. ,” Mr.

Summers said, and Billy, his face red and his feet overlarge, near knocked the box over as he got

a paper out. “Tessie,” Mr. Summers said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around defiantly,

and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her.

“Bill,” Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the box and felt around, bringing his

hand out at last with the slip of paper in it.

The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, “I hope it’s not Nancy,” and the sound of the whisper

reached the edges of the crowd.

“It’s not the way it used to be,” Old Man Warner said clearly. “People ain’t the way they used

to be.”

“All right,” Mr. Summers said. “Open the papers. Harry, you open little Dave’s. “

Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd as he held it

up and everyone could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill, Jr., opened theirs at the same time,

and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above

their heads.

“Tessie,” Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at Bill

Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.

“It’s Tessie,” Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. “Show us her paper, Bill. “

Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black

spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the

coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.

“All right, folks.” Mr. Summers said. “Let’s finish quickly. “

Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still

remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were

stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box Delacroix

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selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs. Dunbar.

“Come on,” she said. “Hurry up. “

Mrs. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said, gasping for breath. “I can’t run at all.

You’ll have to go ahead and I’ll catch up with you. “

The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.

Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out

desperately as the villagers moved in on her. “It isn’t fair,” she said. A stone hit her on the side

of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone.” Steve Adams was in

the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him.

“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

______________________________________________________________________________

Write about some of the customs or rituals you know about.

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How can we know when it’s right or wrong to show compassion for someone?

When is revenge justifiable?

______________________________________________________________________________

Saboteur by Ha Jin

Mr. Chiu and his bride were having lunch in the square before Muji Train Station. On the table

between them were two bottles of soda spewing out brown foam, and two paper boxes of rice

and sauteed cucumber and pork. "Let's eat," he said to her, and broke the connected ends of the

chopsticks. He picked up a slice of streaky pork and put it into his mouth. As he was chewing,

a few crinkles appeared on his thin jaw. To his right, at another table two railroad policemen

were drinking tea and laughing; it seemed that the stout, middle-aged man was telling a joke to

his young comrade, who was tall and of athletic build. Now and again they would steal a glance

at Mr. Chiu's table. The air smelled of rotten melon. A few flies kept buzzing above the couple's

lunch.

Hundreds of people were rushing around to get on the platform or to catch buses to downtown.

Food and fruit vendors were crying for customers in lazy voices. About a dozen young women,

representing the local hotels, held up placards which displayed the daily prices and words as

large as a palm, like Free Meals, Air-Conditioning, and On the River. In the center of the

square stood a concrete statue of Chairman Mao, at whose feet peasants were napping with their

backs on the warm granite and with their faces toward the sunny sky. A flock of pigeons perched

on the chairman's raised hand and forearm.

The rice and cucumber tasted good and Mr. Chiu was eating unhurriedly. His sallow face

showed exhaustion. He was glad that the honeymoon was finally over and that he and his bride

were heading for Harbin. During the two weeks' vacation, he had been worried about his liver

because three months ago he had suffered from acute hepatitis; he was afraid he might have a

relapse. But there had been no severe symptom, despite his liver being still big and tender. On

the whole he was pleased with his health, which could even endure the strain of a honeymoon;

indeed, he was on the course of recovery. He looked at his bride, who took off her wire glasses,

kneading the root of her nose with her fingertips. Beads of sweat coated her pale cheeks.

"Are you all right, sweetheart?" he asked.

"I have a headache. I didn't sleep well last night."

"Take an aspirin, will you?"

16

"It's not that serious. Tomorrow is Sunday and I can sleep longer. Don't worry."

As they were talking, the stout policeman at the next table stood up and threw a bowl of tea in

their direction. Both Mr. Chiu's and his bride's sandals were wet instantly.

"Hooligan!" she said in a low voice.

Mr. Chiu got to his feet and said out loud, "Comrade policeman, why did you do this?"

He stretched out his right foot to show the wet sandal.

"Do what?" the stout man asked huskily, glaring at Mr. Chiu while the young fellow was

whistling.

"See, you dumped water on our feet."

"You're lying. You wet your shoes yourself."

"Comrade policeman, your duty is to keep order, but you purposely tortured us common citizens.

Why violate the law you are supposed to enforce?" As Mr. Chiu was speaking, dozens of people

began gathering around.

With a wave of his hand, the man said to the young fellow,

"Let's get hold of him!"

They grabbed Mr. Chiu and clamped handcuffs around his wrists. He cried, "You can't do this to

me. This is utterly unreasonable."

"Shut up!" The man pulled out his pistol. "You can use your tongue at our headquarters."

The young fellow added, "You're a saboteur, you know? You're disrupting public order."

The bride was too terrified to say anything coherent. She was a recent college graduate, had

majored in fine arts, and had never seen the police make an arrest. All she could say now was,

"Oh please, please! "

The policemen were pulling Mr. Chiu, but he refused to go with them, holding the corner of the

table and shouting, "We have a train to catch. We already bought the tickets."

The stout man punched him in the chest. "Shut up. Let your ticket expire." With the pistol butt he

chopped Mr. Chiu's hands, which at once released the table. Together the two men were

dragging him away to the police station.

17

Realizing he had to go with them, Mr. Chiu turned his head and shouted to his bride, "Don't wait

for me here. Take the train. If I'm not back by tomorrow morning, send someone over to get me

out."

She nodded, covering her sobbing mouth with her palm. After removing his shoelaces, they

locked Mr. Chiu into a cell in the back of the Railroad Police Station. The single window in the

room was blocked by six steel bars; it faced a spacious yard in which stood a few pines. Beyond

the trees two swings hung from an iron frame, swaying gently in the breeze. Somewhere in the

building a cleaver was chopping rhythmically. There must be a kitchen upstairs, Mr. Chiu

thought. He was too exhausted to worry about what they would do to him, so he lay down on the

narrow bed, with his eyes shut. He wasn't afraid.

The Cultural Revolution was over already, and recently the Party had been propagating the idea

that all citizens were equal before the law. The police ought to be a law-abiding model for

common people. As long as he remained coolheaded and reasoned with them, they might not

harm him.

Late in the afternoon he was taken to the Interrogation Bureau on the second floor. On his way

there, in the stairwell, he ran into the middle-aged policeman who had manhandled him. The man

grinned, rolling his bulgy eyes and pointing his fingers at him like firing a pistol. Egg of a

tortoise! Mr. Chiu cursed mentally. The moment he sat down in the office, he burped, his palm

shielding his mouth. In front of him, across a long desk, sat the chief of the bureau and a donkey-

faced man. On the glass desktop was a folder containing information on his case. He felt it

bizarre that in just a matter of hours they had accumulated a small pile of writing about him.

On second thought he began to wonder whether they had kept a file on him all the time. How

could this have happened? He lived and worked in Harbin, more than three hundred miles away,

and this was his first time in Muji City. The chief of the bureau was a thin, bald man, who looked

serene and intelligent. His slim hands handled the written pages in the folder like those of a

lecturing scholar. To Mr. Chiu's left sat a young scribe, with a clipboard on his knee and a black

fountain pen in his hand.

"Your name?" the chief asked, apparently reading out the question from a form.

"Chiu Maguang."

"Age?"

"Thirty-four."

"Profession?"

''Lecturer."

"Work unit?"

"Harbin University."

18

"Political status?"

"Communist Party member."

The chief put down the paper and began to speak. "Your crime is sabotage, although it hasn't

induced serious consequences yet. Because you are a Party member, you should be punished

more. You have failed to be a model for the masses and you-"

"Excuse me, sir," Mr. Chiu cut him off.

"What?"

"I didn't do anything. Your men are the saboteurs of our social order. They threw hot tea on my

feet and my wife's feet. Logically speaking, you should criticize them, if not punish them."

"That statement is groundless. You have no witness. How could I believe you?" the chief said

matter-of-factly. "'This is my evidence." He raised his right hand. "Your man hit my fingers with

a pistol."

"That can't prove how your feet got wet. Besides, you could hurt your fingers by yourself."

"But I told the truth!" Anger flared up in Mr. Chiu. "Your police station owes me an apology.

My train ticket has expired, my new leather sandals are ruined, and I am late for a conference in

the provincial capital. You must compensate me for the damage and losses. Don't mistake me for

a common citizen who would tremble when you sneeze. I'm a scholar, a philosopher, and an

expert in dialectical materialism. If necessary, we will argue about this in the Northeastern Daily,

or we will go to the highest People's Court in Beijing. Tell me, what's your name?" He got

carried away by his harangue, which was by no means trivial and had worked to his advantage

on numerous occasions.

"Stop bluffing us," the donkey-faced man broke in. "We have seen a lot of your kind. We can

easily prove you are guilty. Here are some of the statements given by the eyewitnesses."

He pushed a fewsheets of paper toward Mr. Chiu. Mr. Chiu was dazed to see the different

handwritings, which all stated that he had shouted in the square to attract attention and

refused to obey the police. One of the witnesses had identified herself as a purchasing agent

from a shipyard in Shanghai. Something stirred in Mr. Chiu' s stomach, a pain rising to his ribs.

He gave out a faint moan.

"Now, you have to admit you are guilty," the chief said. "Although it's a serious crime, we won't

punish you severely, provided you write out a self-criticism and promise that you won't disrupt

public order again. In other words, whether you will be released will depend on your attitude

toward this crime."

"You're daydreaming," Mr. Chiu cried. "I won't write a word, because I'm innocent. I demand

that you provide me with a letter of apology so I can explain to my university why I'm late."

19

Both the interrogators smiled with contempt. "Well, we've never done that," said the chief, taking

a puff at his cigarette.

"Then make this a precedent."

"It's unnecessary. We are pretty certain that you will comply with our wishes." The chief blew

a column of smoke at Mr. Chiu's face. At the tilt of the chief's head, two guards stepped forward

and grabbed the criminal by the arms.

Mr. Chiu meanwhile went on saying, "I shall report you to the provincial administration. You'll

have to pay for this! You are worse than the Japanese military police." They dragged him out of

the room.

After dinner, which consisted of a bowl of millet porridge, a corn bun, and a piece of pickled

turnip, Mr. Chiu began to have a fever, shaking with a chill and sweating profusely. He knew

that the fire of anger had got into his liver and that he was probably having a relapse. No

medicine was available, because his briefcase had been left with his bride. At home it would

have been time for him to sit in front of their color TV, drinking jasmine tea and watching the

evening news. It was so lonesome in here. The orange bulb above the single bed was the only

source of light, which enabled the guards to keep him under surveillance at night. A moment ago

he had asked them for a newspaper or a magazine to read, but they had turned him down.

Through the small opening on the door noises came in. It seemed that the police on duty were

playing poker or chess in a nearby office; shouts and laughter could be heard now and then.

Meanwhile, an accordion kept coughing from a remote corner in the building.

Looking at the ballpoint and the letter paper left for him by the guards when they took him back

from the Interrogation Bureau, Mr. Chiu remembered the old saying, "When a scholar runs into

soldiers, the more he argues, the muddier his point becomes." How ridiculous this whole thing

was. He ruffled his thick hair with his fingers. He felt miserable, massaging his stomach

continually. To tell the truth, he was more upset than frightened, because he would have

to catch up with his work once he was back home-a paper that was to meet the publishing

deadline next week, and two dozen books he ought to read for the courses he was going to teach

in the fall.

A human shadow flitted across the opening. Mr. Chiu rushed to the door and shouted through the

hole, "Comrade guard, comrade guard !"

"What do you want?" a voice rasped.

"I want you to inform your leaders that I'm very sick. I have heart disease and hepatitis. I may die

here if you keep me like this without medication."

"No leader is on duty on the weekend. You have to wait till Monday."

"What? You mean I'll stay in here tomorrow?"

20

"Yes."

"Your station will be held responsible if anything happens to

me.

"We know that. Take it easy, you won't die."

It seemed illogical that Mr. Chiu slept quite well that night, though the light above his head had

been on all the time, and the straw mattress was hard and infested with fleas. He was afraid of

ticks, mosquitoes, cockroaches-any kind of insect but fleas and bedbugs. Once in the

countryside, where his school's faculty and staff had helped the peasants harvest crops for a

week, his colleagues had joked about his flesh, which they said must have tasted nonhuman to

fleas. Except for him, they were all afflicted with hundreds of bites.

More amazing now, he felt he didn't miss his bride a lot. He even enjoyed sleeping alone,

perhaps because the honeymoon had tired him out and he needed more rest. The back yard was

quiet on Sunday morning. Pale sunlight streamed through the pine branches. A few sparrows

were jumping on the ground, catching caterpillars and ladybugs. Holding the steel bars, Mr. Chiu

inhaled the morning air, which smelled meaty. There must be a restaurant or a delicatessen

nearby. He reminded himself that he should take this detention with ease. A sentence that

Chairman Mao had written to a hospitalized friend rose in his mind: "Since you are already in

here, you may as well stay and make the best of it."

His desire for peace of mind originated from his fear that his hepatitis might get worse. He tried

to remain unperturbed. However, he was sure that his liver was swelling up, since the fever still

persisted. For a whole day he lay in bed, thinking about his paper onthe nature of contradictions.

Time and again he was overwhelmed by anger, cursing aloud, "A bunch of thugs'!" He swore

that once he was out, he would write an article about this experience.

He had better find out some of the policemen's names. It turned out to be a restful day for the

most part; he was certain that his university would send somebody to his rescue. All he should

do now was remain calm and wait patiently. Sooner or later the police would have to release

him, although they had no idea that he might refuse to leave unless they wrote him an apology.

Damn those hoodlums, they had ordered more than they could eat! When he woke up on

Monday morning, it was already light.

Somewhere a man was moaning; the sound came from the back yard. After a long yawn, and

kicking off the tattered blanket, Mr. Chiu climbed out of bed and went to the window. In the

middle of the yard, a young man was fastened to a pine, his wrists handcuffed from behind

around the trunk. He was wriggling and swearing loudly, butthere was no sign of anyone else in

the yard. He looked familiar to Mr. Chiu. Mr. Chiu squinted his eyes to see who it was. To his

astonish- ment, he recognized the man, who was Fenjin, a recent graduate from the Law

Department at Harbin University. Two years ago Mr. Chiu had taught a course in Marxist

materialism, in which Fenjin had been enrolled. Now, how on earth had this young devil landed

here? Then it dawned on him that Fenjin must have been sent over by his bride. What a stupid

woman! What a bookworm, who knew only how to read foreign novels. He had expected that

she would talk to the school's security section, which would for sure send a cadre here. Fenjin

21

held no official position; he merely worked in a private law firm that had just two lawyers; in

fact, they had little business except for some detective work for men and women who suspected

their spouses of having extramarital affairs.

Mr. Chiu was overcome with a wave of nausea. Should he call out to let his student know he was

nearby? He decided not to, because he didn't know what had happened. Fenjin must have

quarreled with the police to incur such a punishment. Yet, this would not have occurred if Fenjin

hadn't come to his rescue. So no matter what, Mr. Chiu had to do something. But what could he

do?

It was going to be a scorcher. He could see purple steam shimmering and rising from the ground

among the pines. Poor devil, he thought, as he raised a bowl of corn glue to his mouth, sipped,

and took a bite of a piece of salted celery. When a guard came to collect the bowl and the

chopsticks, Mr. Chiu asked him what had happened to the man in the back yard. "He called our

boss 'bandit,"' the guard said. "He claimed he was a lawyer or something. An arrogant son of a

rabbit."

Now it was obvious that Mr. Chiu had to do something to help his rescuer. Before he could

figure out a way, a scream broke out in the back yard. He rushed to the window and saw a tall

policeman standing before Fenjin, an iron bucket on the ground. It was the same young fellow

who had arrested Mr. Chiu in the square two days before. The man pinched Fenjin's nose, then

raised his hand, which stayed in the air for a few seconds, then slapped the lawyer across

the face. As Fenjin was groaning, the man lifted up the bucket and poured the water on his head.

"This will keep you from getting sunstroke, boy. I'll give you some more every hour," the man

said loudly.

Fenjin kept his eyes shut, yet his wry face showed that he was struggling to hold back from

cursing the policeman or that he was probably sobbing in silence. He sneezed, then raised his

face and shouted, "Let me go take a piss."

"Oh yeah?" the man bawled. "Pee in your pants."

Still Mr. Chiu didn't make any noise, holding the steel bars with both hands, his fingers white.

The policeman turned and glanced at the cell's window; his pistol, partly holstered, glittered in

the sun. With a snort he spat his cigarette butt to the ground and stamped it into the dust.

Then the door opened and the guards motioned Mr. Chiu to come out. Again they took him

upstairs to the Interrogation Bureau. The same men were in the office, though this time the scribe

was sitting there empty-handed. At the sight of Mr. Chiu the chief said,"Ah, here you are. Please

be seated."

After Mr. Chiu sat down, the chief waved a white silk fan and said to him, "You may have seen

your lawyer. He's a young man without manners, so our director had him taught a crash lesson in

the back yard."

"It's illegal to do that. Aren't you afraid to appear in a newspaper?"

22

"No, we are not, not even on TV. What else can you do? We are not afraid of any story you

make up. We call it fiction. What we do care is that you cooperate with us; that's to say, you

must admit your crime."

"What if I refuse to cooperate?"

"Then your lawyer will continue his education in the sunshine." A swoon swayed Mr. Chiu, and

he held the arms of the chair to steady himself. A numb pain stung him in the upper stomach and

nauseated him, and his head was throbbing. He was sure that the hepatitis was finally attacking

him. Anger was flaming up in his chest, his throat was tight and clogged. The chief resumed,

"As a matter of fact, you don't have to write out your self-criticism. We had your crime described

clearly here. What we need is just your signature."

Holding back his rage, Mr. Chiu said, "Let me look at that." With a smirk the donkey-faced man

handed him a sheet, which carried these words: "I hereby admit that on July 13 I disrupted

public order at Muji Train Station, and that I refused to listen to reason when the railroad police

issued their warning. Thus I myself am responsible for my arrest. After two days' detention,

I have realized the reactionary nature of my crime. From now on, I shall continue to educate

myself with all my effort and shall never commit this kind of crime again." A voice started

screaming in Mr. Chiu's head, "Lie, lie!" But he shook his head and forced the voice away.

He asked the chief, "If I sign this, will you release both my lawyer and me?"

"Of course, we'll do that." The chief was drumming his fingers on the blue folder-their file on

him. Mr. Chiu signed his name and put his thumbprint under his

signature.

"Now you are free to go," the chief said with a smile, and handed him a piece of paper to wipe

his thumb with.

Mr. Chiu was so sick that he didn't stand up from the chair at the first try. Then he doubled his

effort and rose to his feet. He staggered out of the building to meet his lawyer in the back yard.

In his chest he felt as though there were a bomb. If he were able to, he would have razed the

entire police station and eliminated all their families. Though he knew he could do nothing like

that, he made up his mind to do something.

"Sorry about this torture, Fenjin," Mr. Chiu said when they met.

"It doesn't matter. They are savages." The lawyer brushed a patch of dirt off his jacket with his

trembling fingers. Water was still dribbling from the bottoms of his trouser legs.

"Let's go now," the teacher said.

The moment they came out of the police station, Mr. Chiu caught sight of a tea stand.

He grabbed Fenjin' s arm and walked over to the old woman at the table. "Two bowls of black

tea," he said and handed her a one-yuan note. After the first bowl, they each had another one.

Then they set out for the train station. But before they walked fifty yards, Mr. Chiu insisted on

23

eating a bowl of tree-ear soup at a food stand. Fenjin agreed. He told his teacher, "Don't treat me

like a guest."

"No, I want to eat something myself."

As if dying of hunger, Mr. Chiu dragged his lawyer from restaurant to restaurant near the police

station, but at each place he ordered no more than two bowls of food. Fenjin wondered why his

teacher wouldn't stay at one place and eat his fill. Mr. Chiu bought noodles, wonton, eight-grain

porridge, and chicken soup, respectively, at four restaurants. While eating, he kept saying

through his teeth, “If only I could kill all the bastards!" At the last place he merely took a few

sips of the soup without tasting the chicken cubes and mushrooms. Fenjin was baffled by his

teacher, who looked ferocious and muttered to himself mysteriously, and whose jaundiced face

was covered with dark puckers. For the first time Fenjin thought of Mr. Chiu as an ugly man.

Within a month over eight hundred people contracted acute hepatitis in Muji. Six died of the

disease, including two children. Nobody knew how the epidemic had started.

______________________________________________________________________________

Write about a time when you wanted to take revenge.

24

What are the problems that arise from the idea of owning things?

What is the importance of learning to share things with others?

______________________________________________________________________________

The White Circle by John Bell Clayton

AS SOON AS I SAW ANVIL SQUATTING UP IN THE TREE LIKE some hateful creature

that belonged in trees I knew I had to take a beating and I knew the kind of beating it would be.

But still I had to let it be that way because this went beyond any matter of courage or shame.

The tree was mine. I want no doubt about that. It was a seedling that grew out of the slaty bank

beside the dry creek-mark across the road from the house, and the thirteen small apples it had

borne that year were the thirteen most beautiful things on this beautiful earth. The day I was

twelve Father took me up to the barn to look at the colts—Saturn, Jupiter, Devil, and Moon

kissed, the whiteface. Father took a cigar out of his vest pocket and put one foot on the bottom

plank of the fence and leaned both elbows on the top of the fence and his face looked quiet and

pleased and proud and I liked the way he looked because it was as if he had a little joke or

surprise that would turn out nice for me.

“Tucker,” Father said presently, “I am not unaware of the momentousness of this day. Now there

are four of the finest colts in Augusta County; if there are four any finer anywhere in Virginia I

don’t know where you’d find them unless Arthur Hancock over in Albemarle would have them.”

Father took one elbow off the fence and looked at me. “Now do you suppose,” he asked, in that

fine, free, good humor, “that if I were to offer you a little token to commemorate this occasion

you could make a choice?

“Yes sir,” I said.

25

“Which one? Father asked. “Devil? He’s wild.”

“No sir,” I said. “I would like to have the apple tree below the gate.”

Father looked at me for at least a minute. You would have to understand his pride in his colts to

understand the way he looked. But at twelve how could I express how I felt? My setting such

store in having the tree as my own had something to do with the coloring of the apples as they

hung among the green leaves; it had something also to do with their ripening, not in autumn

when the world was full of apples, but in midsummer when you wanted them; but it had more to

do with a way of life that had come down through the generations. I would have given one of the

apples to Janie. I would have made of it a ceremony. While I would not have said the words,

because at twelve you have no such words, I would have handed over the apple with something

like this in mind: Janie, I want to give you this apple. It came from my tree. The tree stands on

my father’s land. Before my father had the land it belonged to his father, and before that it

belonged to my great-grandfather. It’s the English family land. It’s almost sacred. My possession

of this tree forges of me a link in this owning ancestry that must go back clear beyond Moses

and all the old Bible folks.”

Father looked at me for that slow, peculiar minute in our lives. “All right, son,” he said. “The

tree is yours in fee simple to bargain, sell, and convey or to keep and nurture and eventually hand

down to your heirs or assigns forever unto eternity. You have a touch of poetry in your soul and

that fierce, proud love of the land in your heart; when you grow up I hope you don’t drink too

much.” I didn’t know what he meant by that but the tree was mine and now there perched Anvil,

callously munching one of my thirteen apples and stowing the rest inside his ragged shirt until it

bulged out in ugly lumps. I knew the apples pressed cold against his hateful belly and to me the

coldness was a sickening evil.

I picked a rock up out of the dust of the road and tore across the creek bed and said, “All right,

Anvil—climb down!” Anvil’s milky eyes batted at me under the strangely fair eyebrows. There

was not much expression on his face.

“Yaannh!”he said. “You stuck-up little priss, you hit me with that rock.

You just do!”

26

“Anvil,” I said again, “climb down. They’re my apples.”

Anvil quit munching for a minute and grinned at me. “You want an apple? I’ll give you one.

Yaannh!” He suddenly cocked back his right arm and cracked me on the temple with the

half-eaten apple.

“Let’s find a nest of young pigeons.”

“All right,” I lied. “I know where there’s a nest. But one game of prisoner’s base first.”

“You don’t know where there’s any pigeon nest,” Anvil said.

“You wouldn’t have the nerve to throw them up against the barn if you did.”

“Yes, I would too,” I protested. “Now let’s play one game of prisoner’s base. Get in the circle

and shut your eyes and start countin’.”

“Oh, all right,” Anvil agreed wearily. “Let’s get it over with and find the pigeons. Ten, ten,

double ten, forty-five—”

“Right in the middle of the circle,” I told him. “And count slow. How’m I goin’ to hide if you

count that way?”

Anvil now counted more slowly. “Five, ten, fifteen—” I gave Anvil one last vindictive look and

sprang up the stationary ladder and swung out on the trip rope of the unpredictable hayfork with

all my puny might. The fork’s whizzing descent was accompanied by that peculiar ripping noise.

Anvil must have jumped instinctively. The fork missed him by several feet.

For a moment Anvil stood absolutely still. He turned around and saw the fork, still shimmering

from its impact with the floor. His face became exactly the pale green of the carbide we burned

in our acetylene lighting plant at the house. Then he looked at me, at the expression on my face,

and his Adam’s apple bobbed queerly up and down, and a little stream of water trickled down his

right trouser leg and over his bare foot.

27

“You tried to kill me,” he said thickly.

He did not come toward me. Instead, he sat down. He shook his head sickly. After a few sullen,

bewildered moments he reached into his shirt and began hauling out my apples one by one. “You

can have your stinkin’ old apples,” he said. “You’d do that for a few dried-up little apples. Your

old man owns everything in sight. I ain’t got nothin’. Go ahead and keep your stinkin’ old

apples.” He got to his feet and slowly walked out of the door.

Since swinging off the trip rope I had neither moved nor spoken. For a moment more I stood

motionless and voiceless and then I ran over and grabbed up the nine apples that were left and

called, “Anvil! Anvil!”

He continued across the field without even pausing. I yelled, “Anvil! Wait, I’ll give them to

you.”

Anvil climbed the fence without looking back and set off down the road toward the store.

Every few steps he kicked his wet trouser leg.

Three sparrows flew out of the door in a dusty chattering spiral. Then there was only the image

of the hayfork shimmering and terrible in the great and growing and accusing silence and

emptiness of the barn.

____________________________________________________________________________

Write about the importance of sharing. Tell a story about a time when you shared something

with someone else or someone shared something with you.

28

What do you care most about when you buy or receive a gift?

Do you feel that it’s the thought that counts?

The Gift of the Magi By O. Henry

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it in the smallest pieces of

money - pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by negotiating with the men at the market

who sold vegetables and meat. Negotiating until one's face burned with the silent knowledge of

being poor. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day

would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but sit down and cry. So Della cried. Which led to the thought

that life is made up of little cries and smiles, with more little cries than smiles.

Della finished her crying and dried her face. She stood by the window and looked out unhappily

at a gray cat walking along a gray fence in a gray back yard. Tomorrow would be Christmas

Day, and she had only one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy her husband Jim a gift. She had

been saving every penny she could for months, with this result.

Jim earned twenty dollars a week, which does not go far. Expenses had been greater than she had

expected. They always are. Many a happy hour she had spent planning to buy something nice for

him. Something fine and rare -- something close to being worthy of the honor of belonging to

Jim.

There was a tall glass mirror between the windows of the room. Suddenly Della turned from the

window and stood before the glass mirror and looked at herself. Her eyes were shining, but her

face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Quickly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to

its full length.

29

Their two most valuable possessions

Now, Mr. and Mrs. James Dillingham Young had two possessions which they valued. One was

Jim's gold time piece, the watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was

Della's hair.

Had the Queen of Sheba lived in their building, Della would have let her hair hang out the

window to dry just to reduce the value of the queen's jewels.

So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, shining like a brown waterfall. It reached below her

knees and made itself almost like a covering for her. And then quickly she put it up again. She

stood still while a few tears fell on the floor.

She put on her coat and her old brown hat. With a quick motion and brightness still in her eyes,

she danced out the door and down the street.

Della at Madame Sofronie's Shop

30

Where she stopped the sign read: "Madame Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." Della ran up the

steps to the shop, out of breath.

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take your hat off and let us have a look at it."

Down came the beautiful brown waterfall of hair.

"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the hair with an experienced hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Della.

The next two hours went by as if they had wings. Della looked in all the stores to choose a gift

for Jim.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. It was a chain -- simple

round rings of silver. It was perfect for Jim's gold watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that

it must be for him. It was like him. Quiet and with great value. She gave the shopkeeper

twenty-one dollars and she hurried home with the eighty-seven cents that was left.

When Della arrived home she began to repair what was left of her hair. The hair had been ruined

by her love and her desire to give a special gift. Repairing the damage was a very big job.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny round curls of hair that made her look

wonderfully like a schoolboy. She looked at herself in the glass mirror long and carefully.

31

Della looking at her short hair

"If Jim does not kill me before he takes a second look at me," she said to herself, "he'll say I look

like a song girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?"

At seven o'clock that night the coffee was made and the pan on the back of the stove was hot and

ready to cook the meat.

Jim was never late coming home from work. Della held the silver chain in her hand and sat near

the door. Then she heard his step and she turned white for just a minute. She had a way of saying

a little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God,

make him think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in. He looked thin and very serious. Poor man, he was only

twenty-two and he had to care for a wife. He needed a new coat and gloves to keep his hands

warm.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a dog smelling a bird. His eyes were fixed upon

Della. There was an expression in them that she could not read, and it frightened her. It was not

anger, nor surprise, nor fear, nor any of the feelings that she had been prepared for. He simply

looked at her with a strange expression on his face. Della went to him.

"Jim, my love," she cried, "do not look at me that way. I had my hair cut and sold because I

could not have lived through Christmas without giving you a gift. My hair will grow out again. I

just had to do it. My hair grows very fast. Say 'Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let us be happy. You

do not know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I have for you."

"You have cut off your hair?" asked Jim, slowly, as if he had not accepted the information even

after his mind worked very hard.

32

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Do you not like me just as well? I am the same person

without my hair, right?

Jim looked about the room as if he were looking for something.

"You say your hair is gone?" he asked.

"You need not look for it," said Della. "It is sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It is Christmas

Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it was cut for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,"

she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall

I put the meat on, Jim?"

Jim seemed to awaken quickly and put his arms around Della. Then he took a package from his

coat and threw it on the table.

"Do not make any mistake about me, Dell," he said. "I do not think there is any haircut that could

make me like my girl any less. But if you will open that package you may see why you had me

frightened at first."

Jim looking at the chain Della gave him

White fingers quickly tore at the string and paper. There was a scream of joy; and then, alas! a

change to tears and cries, requiring the man of the house to use all his skill to calm his wife.

For there were the combs -- the special set of objects to hold her hair that Della had wanted ever

since she saw them in a shop window. Beautiful combs, made of shells, with jewels at the edge --

just the color to wear in the beautiful hair that was no longer hers. They cost a lot of money, she

knew, and her heart had wanted them without ever hoping to have them. And now, the beautiful

combs were hers, but the hair that should have touched them was gone.

But she held the combs to herself, and soon she was able to look up with a smile and say,

"My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

33

Then Della jumped up like a little burned cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful gift. She happily held it out to him in her open hands. The

silver chain seemed so bright.

"Isn't it wonderful, Jim? I looked all over town to find it. You will have to look at the time a

hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

Instead of obeying, Jim fell on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head

and smiled.

"Dell," said he, "let us put our Christmas gifts away and keep them a while. They are too nice to

use just right now. I sold my gold watch to get the money to buy the set of combs for your hair.

And now, why not put the meat on."

The magi were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Baby Jesus. They

invented the art of giving Christmas gifts. Being wise, their gifts were wise ones. And here I

have told you the story of two young people who most unwisely gave for each other the greatest

treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days, let it be said that of all who

give gifts, these two were the wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

______________________________________________________________________________

Write about a time when you gave or received a special gift.

34

How does what we value most affect the way we feel about ourselves and how we live our lives?

_____________________________________________________________________________

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into

a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known,

understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married

off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never

been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for

women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family.

their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of

rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.

She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the

poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of

which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her.

The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-

broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with

Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches

sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast

saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and

small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who

were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings.

When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite

her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch

broth! What could be better?" she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling

the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food

served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one

trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.

She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that

she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive

and sought after.

She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so

keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and

misery.

***

35

One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in his hand.

" Here's something for you," he said.

Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these words:

"The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau request the pleasure of the company of

Monsieur and Madame Loisel at the Ministry on the evening of Monday, January the 18th."

Instead of being delighted, as her-husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the

table, murmuring:

"What do you want me to do with this?"

"Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased. You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had

tremendous trouble to get it. Every one wants one; it's very select, and very few go to the clerks.

You'll see all the really big people there."

She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: "And what do you suppose I am to

wear at such an affair?"

He had not thought about it; he stammered:

"Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me...."

He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. Two

large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth.

"What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you?" he faltered.

But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, wiping her wet

cheeks:

"Nothing. Only I haven't a dress and so I can't go to this party. Give your invitation to some

friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I shall."

He was heart-broken.

"Look here, Mathilde," he persisted. :What would be the cost of a suitable dress, which you

could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?"

She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and also wondering for how large a sum

she could ask without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror

from the careful-minded clerk.

At last she replied with some hesitation:

"I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it on four hundred francs."

He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun, intending to

get a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some friends who went lark-

shooting there on Sundays.

36

Nevertheless he said: "Very well. I'll give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really nice

dress with the money."

The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy and anxious. Her dress

was ready, however. One evening her husband said to her:

"What's the matter with you? You've been very odd for the last three days."

"I'm utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear," she replied. "I shall

look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to the party."

"Wear flowers," he said. "They're very smart at this time of the year. For ten francs you could get

two or three gorgeous roses."

She was not convinced.

"No . . . there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women."

"How stupid you are!" exclaimed her husband. "Go and see Madame Forestier and ask her to

lend you some jewels. You know her quite well enough for that."

She uttered a cry of delight.

"That's true. I never thought of it."

Next day she went to see her friend and told her her trouble.

Madame Forestier went to her dressing-table, took up a large box, brought it to Madame Loisel,

opened it, and said:

"Choose, my dear."

First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross in gold and gems, of

exquisite workmanship. She tried the effect of the jewels before the mirror, hesitating, unable to

make up her mind to leave them, to give them up. She kept on asking:

"Haven't you anything else?"

"Yes. Look for yourself. I don't know what you would like best."

Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her heart began to

beat covetousIy. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her

high dress, and remained in ecstasy at sight of herself.

Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish:

"Could you lend me this, just this alone?"

"Yes, of course."

She flung herself on her friend's breast, embraced her frenziedly, and went away with her

treasure. The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest

woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with happiness. All the men

37

stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her. All the Under-Secretaries of

State were eager to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her.

She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph

of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal

homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear

to her feminine heart.

She left about four o'clock in the morning. Since midnight her husband had been dozing in a

deserted little room, in company with three other men whose wives were having a good time. He

threw over her shoulders the garments he had brought for them to go home in, modest everyday

clothes, whose poverty clashed with the beauty of the ball-dress. She was conscious of this and

was anxious to hurry away, so that she should not be noticed by the other women putting on their

costly furs.

Loisel restrained her.

"Wait a little. You'll catch cold in the open. I'm going to fetch a cab."

But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended-the staircase. When they were out in the

street they could not find a cab; they began to look for one, shouting at the drivers whom they

saw passing in the distance.

They walked down towards the Seine, desperate and shivering. At last they found on the quay

one of those old nightprowling carriages which are only to be seen in Paris after dark, as though

they were ashamed of their shabbiness in the daylight.

It brought them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they walked up to their own

apartment. It was the end, for her. As for him, he was thinking that he must be at the office at ten.

She took off the garments in which she had wrapped her shoulders, so as to see herself in all her

glory before the mirror. But suddenly she uttered a cry. The necklace was no longer round her

neck!

"What's the matter with you?" asked her husband, already half undressed.

She turned towards him in the utmost distress.

"I . . . I . . . I've no longer got Madame Forestier's necklace. . . ."

He started with astonishment.

"What! . . . Impossible!"

They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of the coat, in the pockets, everywhere. They

could not find it.

"Are you sure that you still had it on when you came away from the ball?" he asked.

"Yes, I touched it in the hall at the Ministry."

"But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall."

38

"Yes. Probably we should. Did you take the number of the cab?"

"No. You didn't notice it, did you?"

"No."

They stared at one another, dumbfounded. At last Loisel put on his clothes again.

"I'll go over all the ground we walked," he said, "and see if I can't find it."

And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, lacking strength to get into bed, huddled

on a chair, without volition or power of thought.

Her husband returned about seven. He had found nothing.

He went to the police station, to the newspapers, to offer a reward, to the cab companies,

everywhere that a ray of hope impelled him.

She waited all day long, in the same state of bewilderment at this fearful catastrophe.

Loisel came home at night, his face lined and pale; he had discovered nothing.

"You must write to your friend," he said, "and tell her that you've broken the clasp of her

necklace and are getting it mended. That will give us time to look about us."

She wrote at his dictation.

***

By the end of a week they had lost all hope.

Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

"We must see about replacing the diamonds."

Next day they took the box which had held the necklace and went to the jewellers whose name

was inside. He consulted his books.

"It was not I who sold this necklace, Madame; I must have merely supplied the clasp."

Then they went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for another necklace like the first, consulting

their memories, both ill with remorse and anguish of mind.

In a shop at the Palais-Royal they found a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like

the one they were looking for. It was worth forty thousand francs. They were allowed to have it

for thirty-six thousand.

They begged the jeweller not tO sell it for three days. And they arranged matters on the

understanding that it would be taken back for thirty-four thousand francs, if the first one were

found before the end of February.

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs left to him by his father. He intended to borrow the

rest.

39

He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here,

three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with

usurers and the whole tribe of money-lenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his

existence, risked his signature without even knowing it he could honour it, and, appalled at the

agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the prospect of every

possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down

upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her in a

chilly voice:

"You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it."

She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the substitution, what

would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief?

***

Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. From the very first she played

her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it. The servant was

dismissed. They changed their flat; they took a garret under the roof.

She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the

plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the

dirty linen, the shirts and dish-cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she

took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get

her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a

basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.

Every month notes had to be paid off, others renewed, time gained.

Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant's accounts, and often at night

he did copying at twopence-halfpenny a page.

And this life lasted ten years.

At the end of ten years everything was paid off, everything, the usurer's charges and the

accumulation of superimposed interest.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of

poor households. Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her hands were red. She spoke

in a shrill voice, and the water slopped all over the floor when she scrubbed it. But sometimes,

when her husband was at the office, she sat down by the window and thought of that evening

long ago, of the ball at which she had been so beautiful and so much admired.

What would have happened if she had never lost those jewels. Who knows? Who knows? How

strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed to ruin or to save!

40

One Sunday, as she had gone for a walk along the Champs-Elysees to freshen herself after the

labours of the week, she caught sight suddenly of a woman who was taking a child out for a

walk. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still attractive.

Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And

now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?

She went up to her.

"Good morning, Jeanne."

The other did not recognise her, and was surprised at being thus familiarly addressed by a poor

woman.

"But . . . Madame . . ." she stammered. "I don't know . . . you must be making a mistake."

"No . . . I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered a cry.

"Oh! . . . my poor Mathilde, how you have changed! . . ."

"Yes, I've had some hard times since I saw you last; and many sorrows . . . and all on your

account."

"On my account! . . . How was that?"

"You remember the diamond necklace you lent me for the ball at the Ministry?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Well, I lost it."

"How could you? Why, you brought it back."

"I brought you another one just like it. And for the last ten years we have been paying for it. You

realise it wasn't easy for us; we had no money. . . . Well, it's paid for at last, and I'm glad indeed."

Madame Forestier had halted.

"You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"

"Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike."

And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred

francs! . . . "

_____________________________________________________________________________

Write about something that is valuable or important to you.

41

Why can doing something wrong be fun?

Do you think people would steal if there were no laws against it?

_____________________________________________________________________________

The Pie By Gary Soto

I knew enough about hell to stop me from stealing. I was holy in almost every bone. Some days I

recognized the shadows of angels flopping on the backyard grass, and other days I heard faraway

messages in the plumbing that howled underneath the house when I crawled there looking for

something to do.

But boredom made me sin. Once, at the German Market, I stood before a rack of pies, my sweet

tooth gleaming and the juice of guilt wetting my underarms. I gazed at the nine kinds of pie,

pecan and apple being my favorites, although cherry looked good, and my dear, fat-faced

chocolate was always a good bet. I nearly wept trying to decide which to steal and, forgetting the

flowery dust priests give off, the shadow of angels and the proximity of God howling in the

plumbing underneath the house, sneaked a pie behind my coffee lid Frisbee and walked to the

door, grinning to the bald grocer whose forehead shone with a window of light.

“No one saw,” I muttered to myself, the pie like a discus in my hand, and hurried across the

street, where I sat on someone’s lawn. The sun wavered between the branches of a yellowish

sycamore. A squirrel nailed itself high on the trunk, where it forked into two large bark-scabbed

limbs. Just as I was going to work my cleanest finger into the pie, a neighbor came out to the

porch for his mail. He looked at me, and I got up and headed for home. I raced on skinny legs to

my block, but slowed to a quick walk when I couldn’t wait any longer. I held the pie to my nose

and breathed in its sweetness. I licked some of the crust and closed my eyes as I took a small

bite.

In my front yard, I leaned against a car fender and panicked about stealing the apple pie. I knew

an apple got Eve in deep trouble with snakes because Sister Marie had shown us a film about

Adam and Eve being cast into the desert, and what scared me more than falling from grace was

being thirsty for the rest of my life. But even that didn’t stop me from clawing a chunk from the

pie tin and pushing it into the cavern of my mouth. The slop was sweet and gold-colored in the

afternoon sun. I laid more pieces on my tongue, wet finger-dripping pieces, until I was finished

and felt like crying because it was about the best thing I had ever tasted. I realized right there and

then, in my sixth year, in my tiny body of two hundred bones and three or four sins, that the best

things in life came stolen. I wiped my sticky fingers on the grass and rolled my tongue over the

corners of my mouth. A burp perfumed the air.

I felt bad not sharing with Cross-Eyed Johnny, a neighbor kid. He stood over my shoulder and

asked, “Can I have some?” Crust fell from my mouth, and my teeth were bathed with the jam-

like filling. Tears blurred my eyes as I remembered the grocer’s forehead. I remembered the

42

other pies on the rack, the warm air of the fan above the door and the car that honked as I crossed

the street without looking.

“Get away,” I had answered Cross-Eyed Johnny. He watched my fingers greedily push big

chunks of pie down my throat. He swallowed and said in a whisper, “Your hands are dirty,” then

returned home to climb his roof and sit watching me eat the pie by myself. After a while, he

jumped off and hobbled away because the fall had hurt him.

I sat on the curb. The pie tin glared at me and rolled away when the wind picked up. My face

was sticky with guilt. A car honked, and the driver knew. Mrs. Hancock stood on her lawn,

hands on hip, and she knew. My mom, peeling a mountain of potatoes at the Redi-Spud factory,

knew. I got to my feet, stomach taut, mouth tired of chewing, and flung my Frisbee across the

street, its shadow like the shadow of an angel fleeing bad deeds. I retrieved it, jogging slowly. I

flung it again until I was bored and thirsty.

I returned home to drink water and help my sister glue bottle caps onto cardboard, a project for

summer school. But the bottle caps bored me, and the water soon filled me up more than the pie.

With the kitchen stifling with heat and lunatic flies, I decided to crawl underneath our house and

lie in the cool shadows listening to the howling sound of plumbing. Was it God? Was it Father,

speaking from death, or Uncle with his last shiny dime? I listened, ear pressed to a cold pipe, and

heard a howl like the sea. I lay until I was cold and then crawled back to the light, rising from

one knee, then another, to dust off my pants and squint in the harsh light. I looked and saw the

glare of a pie tin on a hot day. I knew sin was what you took and didn’t give back.

from A Summer Life, 1990

______________________________________________________________________________

The protagonist says that he learned that “the best things in life came stolen.” Why did he feel

this way? Can you understand how he felt?

Write about how it feels to break rules.

43

How can we know when it’s right to forgive someone?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Thank You, Ma'am

by Langston Hughes

She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but hammer and nails. It had

a long strap, and she carried it slung across her shoulder. It was about eleven o’clock at night,

and she was walking alone, when a boy ran up behind her and tried to snatch her purse. The strap

broke with the single tug the boy gave it from behind. But the boy’s weight and the weight of the

purse combined caused him to lose his balance so, instead of taking off full blast as he had

hoped, the boy fell on his back on the sidewalk, and his legs flew up. The large woman simply

turned around and kicked him right square in his blue-jeaned sitter. Then she reached down,

picked the boy up by his shirt front, and shook him until his teeth rattled.

After that the woman said, “Pick up my pocketbook, boy, and give it here.” She still held him.

But she bent down enough to permit him to stoop and pick up her purse. Then she said, “Now

ain’t you ashamed of yourself?”

Firmly gripped by his shirt front, the boy said, “Yes’m.”

The woman said, “What did you want to do it for?”

The boy said, “I didn’t aim to.”

She said, “You a lie!”

By that time two or three people passed, stopped, turned to look, and some stood watching.

“If I turn you loose, will you run?” asked the woman.

“Yes’m,” said the boy.

“Then I won’t turn you loose,” said the woman. She did not release him.

“I’m very sorry, lady, I’m sorry,” whispered the boy.

“Um-hum! And your face is dirty. I got a great mind to wash your face for you. Ain’t you got

nobody home to tell you to wash your face?”

“No’m,” said the boy.

“Then it will get washed this evening,” said the large woman starting up the street, dragging the

frightened boy behind her. He looked as if he were fourteen or fifteen, frail and willow-wild, in

tennis shoes and blue jeans. The woman said, “You ought to be my son. I would teach you right

from wrong. Least I can do right now is to wash your face. Are you hungry?”

44

“No’m,” said the being dragged boy. “I just want you to turn me loose.”

“Was I bothering you when I turned that corner?” asked the woman.

“No’m.”

“But you put yourself in contact with me,” said the woman. “If you think that that contact is not

going to last awhile, you got another thought coming. When I get through with you, sir, you are

going to remember Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones.”

Sweat popped out on the boy’s face and he began to struggle. Mrs. Jones stopped, jerked him

around in front of her, put a half-nelson about his neck, and continued to drag him up the street.

When she got to her door, she dragged the boy inside, down a hall, and into a large kitchenette

furnished room at the rear of the house. She switched on the light and left the door open. The boy

could hear other roomers laughing and talking in the large house. Some of their doors were open,

too, so he knew he and the woman were not alone. The woman still had him by the neck in the

middle of her room. She said, “What is your name?”

“Roger,” answered the boy.

“Then, Roger, you go to that sink and wash your face,” said the woman, whereupon she turned

him loose—at last. Roger looked at the door—looked at the woman—looked at the door—and

went to the sink. Let the water run until it gets warm,” she said. “Here’s a clean towel.”

“You gonna take me to jail?” asked the boy, bending over the sink.

“Not with that face, I would not take you nowhere,” said the woman. “Here I am trying to get

home to cook me a bite to eat and you snatch my pocketbook! Maybe, you ain’t been to your

supper either, late as it be. Have you?”

“There’s nobody home at my house,” said the boy.

“Then we’ll eat,” said the woman, “I believe you’re hungry—or been hungry—to try to snatch

my pockekbook.”

“I wanted a pair of blue suede shoes,” said the boy.

“Well, you didn’t have to snatch my pocketbook to get some suede shoes,” said Mrs. Luella

Bates Washington Jones. “You could of asked me.”

“M’am?”

The water dripping from his face, the boy looked at her. There was a long pause. A very long

pause. After he had dried his face and not knowing what else to do dried it again, the boy turned

around, wondering what next. The door was open. He could make a dash for it down the hall.

He could run, run, run, run, run! The woman was sitting on the day-bed. After a while she said,

45

“I were young once and I wanted things I could not get.” There was another long pause.

The boy’s mouth opened. Then he frowned, but not knowing he frowned. The woman said,

“Um-hum! You thought I was going to say but, didn’t you? You thought I was going to say, but I

didn’t snatch people’s pocketbooks. Well, I wasn’t going to say that.”

Pause. Silence. “I have done things, too, which I would not tell you, son—neither tell God, if he

didn’t already know. So you set down while I fix us something to eat. You might run that comb

through your hair so you will look presentable.”

In another corner of the room behind a screen was a gas plate and an icebox. Mrs. Jones got up

and went behind the screen. The woman did not watch the boy to see if he was going to run now,

nor did she watch her purse which she left behind her on the day-bed. But the boy took care to sit

on the far side of the room where he thought she could easily see him out of the corner of her

eye, if she wanted to. He did not trust the woman not to trust him. And he did not want to be

mistrusted now.

“Do you need somebody to go to the store,” asked the boy, “maybe to get some milk or

something?”

“Don’t believe I do,” said the woman, “unless you just want sweet milk yourself. I was going to

make cocoa out of this canned milk I got here.”

“That will be fine,” said the boy.

She heated some lima beans and ham she had in the icebox, made the cocoa, and set the table.

The woman did not ask the boy anything about where he lived, or his folks, or anything else that

would embarrass him. Instead, as they ate, she told him about her job in a hotel beauty-shop that

stayed open late, what the work was like, and how all kinds of women came in and out, blondes,

red-heads, and Spanish. Then she cut him a half of her ten-cent cake.

“Eat some more, son,” she said.

When they were finished eating she got up and said, “Now, here, take this ten dollars and buy

yourself some blue suede shoes. And next time, do not make the mistake of latching onto my

pocketbook nor nobody else’s—because shoes come by devilish like that will burn your feet.

I got to get my rest now. But I wish you would behave yourself, son, from here on in.”

She led him down the hall to the front door and opened it. “Good-night! Behave yourself, boy!”

she said, looking out into the street.

The boy wanted to say something else other than “Thank you, m’am” to Mrs. Luella Bates

Washington Jones, but he couldn’t do so as he turned at the barren stoop and looked back at the

large woman in the door. He barely managed to say “Thank you” before she shut the door. And

he never saw her again.

____________________________________________________________________________

Write about a forgiveness and compassion. Can you remember a time when you forgave

someone or someone forgave you?

46

Why are people cruel? Are people who do cruel things necessarily cruel people?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Coco by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

Throughout the whole countryside the Lucas farm, was known as "the Manor." No one knew

why. The peasants doubtless attached to this word, "Manor," a meaning of wealth and of

splendor, for this farm was undoubtedly the largest, richest and the best managed in the whole

neighborhood.

The immense court, surrounded by five rows of magnificent trees, which sheltered the delicate

apple trees from the harsh wind of the plain, inclosed in its confines long brick buildings used for

storing fodder and grain, beautiful stables built of hard stone and made to accommodate thirty

horses, and a red brick residence which looked like a little chateau.

Thanks for the good care taken, the manure heaps were as little offensive as such things can be;

the watch-dogs lived in kennels, and countless poultry paraded through the tall grass.

Every day, at noon, fifteen persons, masters, farmhands and the women folks, seated themselves

around the long kitchen table where the soup was brought in steaming in a large, blue-flowered

bowl.

The beasts-horses, cows, pigs and sheep-were fat, well fed and clean. Maitre Lucas, a tall man

who was getting stout, would go round three times a day, overseeing everything and thinking of

everything.

A very old white horse, which the mistress wished to keep until its natural death, because she

had brought it up and had always used it, and also because it recalled many happy memories,

was housed, through sheer kindness of heart, at the end of the stable.

A young scamp about fifteen years old, Isidore Duval by name, and called, for convenience,

Zidore, took care of this pensioner, gave him his measure of oats and fodder in winter, and in

summer was supposed to change his pasturing place four times a day, so that he might have

plenty of fresh grass.

The animal, almost crippled, lifted with difficulty his legs, large at the knees and swollen above

the hoofs. His coat, which was no longer curried, looked like white hair, and his long eyelashes

gave to his eyes a sad expression.

When Zidore took the animal to pasture, he had to pull on the rope with all his might, because it

walked so slowly; and the youth, bent over and out of breath, would swear at it, exasperated at

having to care for this old nag.

47

The farmhands, noticing the young rascal's anger against Coco, were amused and would

continually talk of the horse to Zidore, in order to exasperate him. His comrades would make

sport with him. In the village he was called Coco-Zidore.

The boy would fume, feeling an unholy desire to revenge himself on the horse. He was a thin,

long-legged, dirty child, with thick, coarse, bristly red hair. He seemed only half-witted, and

stuttered as though ideas were unable to form in his thick, brute-like mind.

For a long time he had been unable to understand why Coco should be kept, indignant at seeing

things wasted on this useless beast. Since the horse could no longer work, it seemed to him

unjust that he should be fed; he revolted at the idea of wasting oats, oats which were so

expensive, on this paralyzed old plug. And often, in spite of the orders of Maitre Lucas, he would

economize on the nag's food, only giving him half measure. Hatred grew in his confused,

childlike mind, the hatred of a stingy, mean, fierce, brutal and cowardly peasant.

When summer came he had to move the animal about in the pasture. It was some distance away.

The rascal, angrier every morning, would start, with his dragging step, across the wheat fields.

The men working in the fields would shout to him, jokingly:

"Hey, Zidore, remember me to Coco."

He would not answer; but on the way he would break off a switch, and, as soon as he had moved

the old horse, he would let it begin grazing; then, treacherously sneaking up behind it, he would

slash its legs. The animal would try to escape, to kick, to get away from the blows, and run

around in a circle about its rope, as though it had been inclosed in a circus ring. And the boy

would slash away furiously, running along behind, his teeth clenched in anger.

Then he would go away slowly, without turning round, while the horse watched him disappear,

his ribs sticking out, panting as a result of his unusual exertions. Not until the blue blouse of the

young peasant was out of sight would he lower his thin white head to the grass.

As the nights were now warm, Coco was allowed to sleep out of doors, in the field behind the

little wood. Zidore alone went to see him. The boy threw stones at him to amuse himself. He

would sit down on an embankment about ten feet away and would stay there about half an hour,

from time to time throwing a sharp stone at the old horse, which remained standing tied before

his enemy, watching him continually and not daring to eat before he was gone.

This one thought persisted in the mind of the young scamp: "Why feed this horse, which is no

longer good for anything?" It seemed to him that this old nag was stealing the food of the others,

the goods of man and God, that he was even robbing him, Zidore, who was working.

Then, little by little, each day, the boy began to shorten the length of rope which allowed the

horse to graze.

The hungry animal was growing thinner, and starving. Too feeble to break his bonds, he would

stretch his head out toward the tall, green, tempting grass, so near that he could smell, and yet so

far that he could not touch it.

48

But one morning Zidore had an idea: it was, not to move Coco any more. He was tired of

walking so far for that old skeleton. He came, however, in order to enjoy his vengeance. The

beast watched him anxiously. He did not beat him that day. He walked around him with his

hands in his pockets. He even pretended to change his place, but he sank the stake in exactly the

same hole, and went away overjoyed with his invention.

The horse, seeing him leave, neighed to call him back; but the rascal began to run, leaving him

alone, entirely alone in his field, well tied down and without a blade of grass within reach.

Starving, he tried to reach the grass which he could touch with the end of his nose. He got on his

knees, stretching out his neck and his long, drooling lips. All in vain. The old animal spent the

whole day in useless, terrible efforts. The sight of all that green food, which stretched out on all

sides of him, served to increase the gnawing pangs of hunger.

The scamp did not return that day. He wandered through the woods in search of nests.

The next day he appeared upon the scene again. Coco, exhausted, had lain down. When he saw

the boy, he got up, expecting at last to have his place changed.

But the little peasant did not even touch the mallet, which was lying on the ground. He came

nearer, looked at the animal, threw at his head a clump of earth which flattened out against the

white hair, and he started off again, whistling.

The horse remained standing as long as he could see him; then, knowing that his attempts to

reach the near-by grass would be hopeless, he once more lay down on his side and closed his

eyes.

The following day Zidore did not come.

When he did come at last, he found Coco still stretched out; he saw that he was dead.

Then he remained standing, looking at him, pleased with what he had done, surprised that it

should already be all over. He touched him with his foot, lifted one of his legs and then let it

drop, sat on him and remained there, his eyes fixed on the grass, thinking of nothing. He returned

to the farm, but did not mention the accident, because he wished to wander about at the hours

when he used to change the horse's pasture. He went to see him the next day. At his approach

some crows flew away. Countless flies were walking over the body and were buzzing around it.

When he returned home, he announced the event. The animal was so old that nobody was

surprised. The master said to two of the men:

"Take your shovels and dig a hole right where he is."

The men buried the horse at the place where he had died of hunger. And the grass grew thick,

green and vigorous, fed by the poor body.

______________________________________________________________________________

Write about a time when you saw someone being cruel.

What do you think made this person act as he or she did?

49

How can you tell when someone is lying? Can you really be sure that you’re right?

_____________________________________________________________________________

The Piece of String by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

Along all the roads around Goderville the peasants and their wives were coming toward the

burgh because it was market day. The men were proceeding with slow steps, the whole body

bent forward at each movement of their long twisted legs; deformed by their hard work, by the

weight on the plow which, at the same time, raised the left shoulder and swerved the figure, by

the reaping of the wheat which made the knees spread to make a firm "purchase," by all the slow

and painful labors of the country. Their blouses, blue, "stiff-starched," shining as if varnished,

ornamented with a little design in white at the neck and wrists, puffed about their bony bodies,

seemed like balloons ready to carry them off. From each of them two feet protruded.

Some led a cow or a calf by a cord, and their wives, walking behind the animal, whipped its

haunches with a leafy branch to hasten its progress. They carried large baskets on their arms

from which, in some cases, chickens and, in others, ducks thrust out their heads. And they

walked with a quicker, livelier step than their husbands. Their spare straight figures were

wrapped in a scanty little shawl pinned over their flat bosoms, and their heads were enveloped in

a white cloth glued to the hair and surmounted by a cap.

Then a wagon passed at the jerky trot of a nag, shaking strangely, two men seated side by side

and a woman in the bottom of the vehicle, the latter holding onto the sides to lessen the hard

jolts.

In the public square of Goderville there was a crowd, a throng of human beings and animals

mixed together. The horns of the cattle, the tall hats, with long nap, of the rich peasant and the

headgear of the peasant women rose above the surface of the assembly. And the clamorous,

shrill, screaming voices made a continuous and savage din which sometimes was dominated by

the robust lungs of some countryman's laugh or the long lowing of a cow tied to the wall of a

house.

All that smacked of the stable, the dairy and the dirt heap, hay and sweat, giving forth that

unpleasant odor, human and animal, peculiar to the people of the field.

Maître Hauchecome of Breaute had just arrived at Goderville, and he was directing his steps

toward the public square when he perceived upon the ground a little piece of string. Maître

Hauchecome, economical like a true Norman, thought that everything useful ought to be picked

up, and he bent painfully, for he suffered from rheumatism. He took the bit of thin cord from the

ground and began to roll it carefully when he noticed Maître Malandain, the harness maker, on

the threshold of his door, looking at him. They had heretofore had business together on the

50

subject of a halter, and they were on bad terms, both being good haters. Maître Hauchecome was

seized with a sort of shame to be seen thus by his enemy, picking a bit of string out of the dirt.

He concealed his "find" quickly under his blouse, then in his trousers' pocket; then he pretended

to be still looking on the ground for something which he did not find, and he went toward the

market, his head forward, bent double by his pains.

He was soon lost in the noisy and slowly moving crowd which was busy with interminable

bargainings. The peasants milked, went and came, perplexed, always in fear of being cheated,

not daring to decide, watching the vender's eye, ever trying to find the trick in the man and the

flaw in the beast.

The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, had taken out the poultry which lay

upon the ground, tied together by the feet, with terrified eyes and scarlet crests.

They heard offers, stated their prices with a dry air and impassive face, or perhaps, suddenly

deciding on some proposed reduction, shouted to the customer who was slowly going away: "All

right, Maître Authirne, I'll give it to you for that."

Then little by little the square was deserted, and the Angelus ringing at noon, those who had

stayed too long scattered to their shops.

At Jourdain's the great room was full of people eating, as the big court was full of vehicles of all

kinds, carts, gigs, wagons, dumpcarts, yellow with dirt, mended and patched, raising their shafts

to the sky like two arms or perhaps with their shafts in the ground and their backs in the air.

Just opposite the diners seated at the table the immense fireplace, filled with bright flames, cast a

lively heat on the backs of the row on the right. Three spits were turning on which were

chickens, pigeons and legs of mutton, and an appetizing odor of roast beef and gravy dripping

over the nicely browned skin rose from the hearth, increased the jovialness and made

everybody's mouth water.

All the aristocracy of the plow ate there at Maître Jourdain's, tavern keeper and horse dealer, a

rascal who had money.

The dishes were passed and emptied, as were the jugs of yellow cider. Everyone told his affairs,

his purchases and sales. They discussed the crops. The weather was favorable for the green

things but not for the wheat.

Suddenly the drum beat in the court before the house. Everybody rose, except a few indifferent

persons, and ran to the door or to the windows, their mouths still full and napkins in their hands.

After the public crier had ceased his drumbeating he called out in a jerky voice, speaking his

phrases irregularly:

"It is hereby made known to the inhabitants of Goderville, and in general to all persons present at

the market, that there was lost this morning on the road to Benzeville, between nine and ten

o'clock, a black leather pocketbook containing five hundred francs and some business papers.

The finder is requested to return same with all haste to the mayor's office or to Maître Fortune

Houlbreque of Manneville; there will be twenty francs reward."

51

Then the man went away. The heavy roll of the drum and the crier's voice were again heard at a

distance.

Then they began to talk of this event, discussing the chances that Maître Houlbreque had of

finding or not finding his pocketbook.

And the meal concluded. They were finishing their coffee when a chief of the gendarmes

appeared upon the threshold.

He inquired:

"Is Maître Hauchecome of Breaute here?"

Maître Hauchecome, seated at the other end of the table, replied:

"Here I am."

And the officer resumed:

"Maître Hauchecome, will you have the goodness to accompany me to the mayor's office?

The mayor would like to talk to you."

The peasant, surprised and disturbed, swallowed at a draught his tiny glass of brandy, rose and,

even more bent than in the morning, for the first steps after each rest were specially difficult, set

out, repeating: "Here I am, here I am."

The mayor was awaiting him, seated on an armchair. He was the notary of the vicinity, a stout,

serious man with pompous phrases.

"Maître Hauchecome," said he, "you were seen this morning to pick up, on the road to

Benzeville, the pocketbook lost by Maître Houlbreque of Manneville."

The countryman, astounded, looked at the mayor, already terrified by this suspicion resting on

him without his knowing why.

"Me? Me? Me pick up the pocketbook?"

"Yes, you yourself."

"Word of honor, I never heard of it."

"But you were seen."

"I was seen, me? Who says he saw me?"

"Monsieur Malandain, the harness maker."

The old man remembered, understood and flushed with anger.

"Ah, he saw me, the clodhopper, he saw me pick up this string here, M'sieu the Mayor." And

rummaging in his pocket, he drew out the little piece of string.

But the mayor, incredulous, shook his head.

52

"You will not make me believe, Maître Hauchecome, that Monsieur Malandain, who is a man

worthy of credence, mistook this cord for a pocketbook."

The peasant, furious, lifted his hand, spat at one side to attest his honor, repeating:

"It is nevertheless the truth of the good God, the sacred truth, M'sieu the Mayor. I repeat it on my

soul and my salvation."

The mayor resumed:

"After picking up the object you stood like a stilt, looking a long while in the mud to see if any

piece of money had fallen out."

The good old man choked with indignation and fear.

"How anyone can tell--how anyone can tell--such lies to take away an honest man's reputation!

How can anyone---"

There was no use in his protesting; nobody believed him. He was confronted with Monsieur

Malandain, who repeated and maintained his affirmation. They abused each other for an hour.

At his own request Maître Hauchecome was searched; nothing was found on him.

Finally the mayor, very much perplexed, discharged him with the warning that he would consult

the public prosecutor and ask for further orders.

The news had spread. As he left the mayor's office the old man was surrounded and questioned

with a serious or bantering curiosity in which there was no indignation. He began to tell the story

of the string. No one believed him. They laughed at him.

He went along, stopping his friends, beginning endlessly his statement and his protestations,

showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he had nothing.

They said:

"Old rascal, get out!"

And he grew angry, becoming exasperated, hot and distressed at not being believed, not knowing

what to do and always repeating himself.

Night came. He must depart. He started on his way with three neighbors to whom he pointed out

the place where he had picked up the bit of string, and all along the road he spoke of his

adventure.

In the evening he took a turn in the village of Breaute in order to tell it to everybody. He only

met with incredulity.

It made him ill at night.

The next day about one o'clock in the afternoon Marius Paumelle, a hired man in the employ of

Maître Breton, husbandman at Ymanville, returned the pocketbook and its contents to Maître

Houlbreque of Manneville.

53

This man claimed to have found the object in the road, but not knowing how to read, he had

carried it to the house and given it to his employer.

The news spread through the neighborhood. Maître Hauchecome was informed of it. He

immediately went the circuit and began to recount his story completed by the happy climax.

He was in triumph.

"What grieved me so much was not the thing itself as the lying. There is nothing so shameful as

to be placed under a cloud on account of a lie."

He talked of his adventure all day long; he told it on the highway to people who were passing by,

in the wineshop to people who were drinking there and to persons coming out of church the

following Sunday. He stopped strangers to tell them about it. He was calm now, and yet

something disturbed him without his knowing exactly what it was. People had the air of joking

while they listened. They did not seem convinced. He seemed to feel that remarks were being

made behind his back.

On Tuesday of the next week he went to the market at Goderville, urged solely by the necessity

he felt of discussing the case.

Malandain, standing at his door, began to laugh on seeing him pass. Why?

He approached a farmer from Crequetot who did not let him finish and, giving him a thump in

the stomach, said to his face:

"You big rascal."

Then he turned his back on him.

Maître Hauchecome was confused; why was he called a big rascal?

When he was seated at the table in Jourdain's tavern he commenced to explain "the affair."

A horse dealer from Monvilliers called to him:

"Come, come, old sharper, that's an old trick; I know all about your piece of string!"

Hauchecome stammered:

"But since the pocketbook was found."

But the other man replied:

"Shut up, papa, there is one that finds and there is one that reports. At any rate you are mixed

with it."

The peasant stood choking. He understood. They accused him of having had the pocketbook

returned by a confederate, by an accomplice.

He tried to protest. All the table began to laugh.

He could not finish his dinner and went away in the midst of jeers.

54

He went home ashamed and indignant, choking with anger and confusion, the more dejected that

he was capable, with his Norman cunning, of doing what they had accused him of and ever

boasting of it as of a good turn. His innocence to him, in a confused way, was impossible to

prove, as his sharpness was known. And he was stricken to the heart by the injustice of the

suspicion.

Then he began to recount the adventures again, prolonging his history every day, adding each

time new reasons, more energetic protestations, more solemn oaths which he imagined and

prepared in his hours of solitude, his whole mind given up to the story of the string. He was

believed so much the less as his defense was more complicated and his arguing more subtle.

"Those are lying excuses," they said behind his back.

He felt it, consumed his heart over it and wore himself out with useless efforts. He wasted away

before their very eyes.

The wags now made him tell about the string to amuse them, as they make a soldier who has

been on a campaign tell about his battles. His mind, touched to the depth, began to weaken.

Toward the end of December he took to his bed.

He died in the first days of January, and in the delirium of his death struggles he kept claiming

his innocence, reiterating:

"A piece of string, a piece of string--look--here it is, M'sieu the Mayor."

______________________________________________________________________________

Write about a time when you thought someone was lying or when someone thought

you were lying.

55

Are marriages or romantic relationships always as happy as they appear to be?

_____________________________________________________________________________

The Story of An Hour

By Kate Chopin

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to

her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half

concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the

newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's

name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a

second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the

sad message.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to

accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms.

When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no

one follow her.

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed

down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the

new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was

crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly,

and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled

one above the other in the west facing her window.

56

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a

sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to

sob in its dreams.

She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain

strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on

one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a

suspension of intelligent thought.

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did

not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching

toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was

approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her

two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word

escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: "free, free, free!" The

vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and

bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted

perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again

when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with

love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long

procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her

arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There

would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women

believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a

cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of

illumination.

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And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love,

the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she

suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! "Free! Body and soul free!" she kept

whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for

admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are

you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."

"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that

open window.

Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all

sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was

only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.

She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish

triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped

her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the

bottom.

Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little

travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene

of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's

piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.

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Write about an unhappy relationship you have had or one you know about.

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Do friendships remain the same over time? How do they change?

After Twenty Years By O’Henry

The cop moved along the street, looking strong and important. This was the way he always

moved. He was not thinking of how he looked. There were few people on the street to see him. It

was only about ten at night, but it was cold. And there was a wind with a little rain in it.

He stopped at doors as he walked along, trying each door to be sure that it was closed for the

night. Now and then he turned and looked up and down the street. He was a fine-looking cop,

watchful, guarding the peace.

People in this part of the city went home early. Now and then you might see the lights of a shop

or of a small restaurant. But most of the doors belonged to business places that had been closed

hours ago.

“You were successful in the West, weren’t you?” asked the cop.

“I surely was! I hope Jimmy has done half as well. He was a slow mover. I’ve had to fight for

my success. In New York a man doesn’t change much. In the West you learn how to fight for

what you get.”

The cop took a step or two.

“I’ll go on my way,” he said. “I hope your friend comes all right. If he isn’t here at ten, are you

going to leave?”

“I am not!” said the other. “I’ll wait half an hour, at least. If Jimmy is alive on earth, he’ll be here

by that time. Good night, officer.”

“Good night,” said the cop, and walked away, trying doors as he went.

There was now a cold rain falling and the wind was stronger. The few people walking along that

street were hurrying, trying to keep warm. And at the door of the shop stood the man who had

come a thousand miles to meet a friend. Such a meeting could not be certain. But he waited.

About twenty minutes he waited, and then a tall man in a long coat came hurrying across the

street. He went directly to the waiting man.

“Is that you, Bob?” he asked, doubtfully.

“Is that you, Jimmy Wells?” cried the man at the door.

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The new man took the other man’s hands in his. “It’s Bob! It surely is. I was certain I would find

you here if you were still alive. Twenty years is a long time. The old restaurant is gone, Bob. I

wish it were here, so that we could have another dinner in it. Has the West been good to you?”

“It gave me everything I asked for. You’ve changed, Jimmy. I never thought you were so tall.”

“Oh, I grew a little after I was twenty.”

“Are you doing well in New York, Jimmy?”

“Well enough. I work for the city. Come on, Bob, We’ll go to a place I know, and have a good

long talk about old times.”

The two men started along the street, arm in arm. The man from the West was beginning to tell

the story of his life. The other, with his coat up to his ears, listened with interest. At the corner

stood a shop bright with electric lights. When they came near, each turned to look at the other’s

face. The man from the West stopped suddenly and pulled his arm away.

“You’re not Jimmy Wells,” he said. “Twenty years is a long time, but not long enough to change

the shape of a man’s nose.”

“It sometimes changes a good man into a bad one,” said the tall man. “You’ve been under arrest

for ten minutes, Bob. Chicago cops thought you might be coming to New York. They told us to

watch for you. Are you coming with me quietly? That’s wise. But first here is something I was

asked to give you. You may read it here at the window. It’s from a cop named Wells.”

The man from the West opened the little piece of paper. His hand began to shake a little as he

read.

“Bob: I was at the place on time. I saw the face of the man wanted by Chicago cops. I didn’t

want to arrest you myself. So I went and got another cop and sent him to do the job.

JIMMY.”

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Write about a friend you have known for a long time or a friend you met after not having seen

him or her for a long time.

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What are some of the difficult choices we have to make in life and how do we make them?

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The Lady or The Tiger Frank Stockton

In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas, though somewhat

polished and sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid,

and untrammeled, as became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant

fancy, and, withal, of an authority so irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into

facts. He was greatly given to self-communing, and, when he and himself agreed upon anything,

the thing was done. When every member of his domestic and political systems moved smoothly

in its appointed course, his nature was bland and genial; but, whenever there was a little hitch,

and some of his orbs got out of their orbits, he was blander and more genial still, for nothing

pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight and crush down uneven places.

Among the borrowed notions by which his barbarism had become semified was that of the

public arena, in which, by exhibitions of manly and beastly valor, the minds of his subjects were

refined and cultured.

But even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted itself. The arena of the king was

built, not to give the people an opportunity of hearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to

enable them to view the inevitable conclusion of a conflict between religious opinions and

hungry jaws, but for purposes far better adapted to widen and develop the mental energies of the

people. This vast amphitheater, with its encircling galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen

passages, was an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was punished, or virtue rewarded, by the

decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance.

When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient importance to interest the king, public

notice was given that on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would be decided in the

king's arena, a structure which well-deserved its name, for, although its form and plan were

borrowed from afar, its purpose emanated solely from the brain of this man, who, every

barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which he owed more allegiance than pleased his fancy,

and who engrafted on every adopted form of human thought and action the rich growth of his

barbaric idealism.

When all the people had assembled in the galleries, and the king, surrounded by his court,

sat high up on his throne of royal state on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a door beneath

him opened, and the accused subject stepped out into the amphitheater. Directly opposite him, on

the other side of the enclosed space, were two doors, exactly alike and side by side. It was the

duty and the privilege of the person on trial to walk directly to these doors and open one of them.

He could open either door he pleased; he was subject to no guidance or influence but that of the

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aforementioned impartial and incorruptible chance. If he opened the one, there came out of it a

hungry tiger, the fiercest and most cruel that could be procured, which immediately sprang upon

him and tore him to pieces as a punishment for his guilt. The moment that the case of the

criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were clanged, great wails went up from the hired

mourners posted on the outer rim of the arena, and the vast audience, with bowed heads and

downcast hearts, wended slowly their homeward way, mourning greatly that one so young and

fair, or so old and respected, should have merited so dire a fate.

But, if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth from it a lady, the most

suitable to his years and station that his majesty could select among his fair subjects, and to this

lady he was immediately married, as a reward of his innocence. It mattered not that he might

already possess a wife and family, or that his affections might be engaged upon an object of his

own selection; the king allowed no such subordinate arrangements to interfere with his great

scheme of retribution and reward. The exercises, as in the other instance, took place

immediately, and in the arena. Another door opened beneath the king, and a priest, followed by a

band of choristers, and dancing maidens blowing joyous airs on golden horns and treading an

epithalamic measure, advanced to where the pair stood, side by side, and the wedding was

promptly and cheerily solemnized. Then the gay brass bells rang forth their merry peals, the

people shouted glad hurrahs, and the innocent man, preceded by children strewing flowers on his

path, led his bride to his home.

This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administering justice. Its perfect fairness is

obvious. The criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady; he opened either

he pleased, without having the slightest idea whether, in the next instant, he was to be devoured

or married. On some occasions the tiger came out of one door, and on some out of the other. The

decisions of this tribunal were not only fair, they were positively determinate: the accused person

was instantly punished if he found himself guilty, and, if innocent, he was rewarded on the spot,

whether he liked it or not. There was no escape from the judgments of the king's arena.

The institution was a very popular one. When the people gathered together on one of the great

trial days, they never knew whether they were to witness a bloody slaughter or a hilarious

wedding. This element of uncertainty lent an interest to the occasion which it could not otherwise

have attained. Thus, the masses were entertained and pleased, and the thinking part of the

community could bring no charge of unfairness against this plan, for did not the accused person

have the whole matter in his own hands?

This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as his most florid fancies, and with a soul

as fervent and imperious as his own. As is usual in such cases, she was the apple of his eye, and

was loved by him above all humanity. Among his courtiers was a young man of that fineness of

blood and lowness of station common to the conventional heroes of romance who love royal

maidens. This royal maiden was well satisfied with her lover, for he was handsome and brave to

a degree unsurpassed in all this kingdom, and she loved him with an ardor that had enough of

barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong. This love affair moved on happily for

many months, until one day the king happened to discover its existence. He did not hesitate nor

waver in regard to his duty in the premises. The youth was immediately cast into prison, and a

day was appointed for his trial in the king's arena. This, of course, was an especially important

occasion, and his majesty, as well as all the people, was greatly interested in the workings and

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development of this trial. Never before had such a case occurred; never before had a subject

dared to love the daughter of the king. In after years such things became commonplace enough,

but then they were in no slight degree novel and startling.

The tiger-cages of the kingdom were searched for the most savage and relentless beasts, from

which the fiercest monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks of maiden youth and

beauty throughout the land were carefully surveyed by competent judges in order that the young

man might have a fitting bride in case fate did not determine for him a different destiny. Of

course, everybody knew that the deed with which the accused was charged had been done. He

had loved the princess, and neither he, she, nor any one else, thought of denying the fact; but the

king would not think of allowing any fact of this kind to interfere with the workings of the

tribunal, in which he took such great delight and satisfaction. No matter how the affair turned

out, the youth would be disposed of, and the king would take an aesthetic pleasure in watching

the course of events, which would determine whether or not the young man had done wrong in

allowing himself to love the princess.

The appointed day arrived. From far and near the people gathered, and thronged the great

galleries of the arena, and crowds, unable to gain admittance, massed themselves against its

outside walls. The king and his court were in their places, opposite the twin doors, those fateful

portals, so terrible in their similarity.

All was ready. The signal was given. A door beneath the royal party opened, and the lover of

the princess walked into the arena. Tall, beautiful, fair, his appearance was greeted with a low

hum of admiration and anxiety. Half the audience had not known so grand a youth had lived

among them. No wonder the princess loved him! What a terrible thing for him to be there!

As the youth advanced into the arena he turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king, but he

did not think at all of that royal personage. His eyes were fixed upon the princess, who sat to the

right of her father. Had it not been for the moiety of barbarism in her nature it is probable that

lady would not have been there, but her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent

on an occasion in which she was so terribly interested. From the moment that the decree had

gone forth that her lover should decide his fate in the king's arena, she had thought of nothing,

night or day, but this great event and the various subjects connected with it. Possessed of more

power, influence, and force of character than any one who had ever before been interested in

such a case, she had done what no other person had done - she had possessed herself of the secret

of the doors. She knew in which of the two rooms, that lay behind those doors, stood the cage of

the tiger, with its open front, and in which waited the lady. Through these thick doors, heavily

curtained with skins on the inside, it was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come

from within to the person who should approach to raise the latch of one of them. But gold, and

the power of a woman's will, had brought the secret to the princess.

And not only did she know in which room stood the lady ready to emerge, all blushing and

radiant, should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was. It was one of the fairest and

loveliest of the damsels of the court who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth,

should he be proved innocent of the crime of aspiring to one so far above him; and the princess

hated her. Often had she seen, or imagined that she had seen, this fair creature throwing glances

of admiration upon the person of her lover, and sometimes she thought these glances were

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perceived, and even returned. Now and then she had seen them talking together; it was but for a

moment or two, but much can be said in a brief space; it may have been on most unimportant

topics, but how could she know that? The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her eyes to

the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her

through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled

behind that silent door.

When her lover turned and looked at her, and his eye met hers as she sat there, paler and

whiter than any one in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her, he saw, by that power of quick

perception which is given to those whose souls are one, that she knew behind which door

crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the lady. He had expected her to know it. He

understood her nature, and his soul was assured that she would never rest until she had made

plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other lookers-on, even to the king. The only hope for the

youth in which there was any element of certainty was based upon the success of the princess in

discovering this mystery; and the moment he looked upon her, he saw she had succeeded, as in

his soul he knew she would succeed.

Then it was that his quick and anxious glance asked the question: "Which?" It was as plain to

her as if he shouted it from where he stood. There was not an instant to be lost. The question was

asked in a flash; it must be answered in another.

Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight,

quick movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but his was fixed on

the man in the arena.

He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked across the empty space. Every heart

stopped beating, every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably upon that man. Without

the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it.

Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady ?

The more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer. It involves a study of the

human heart which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find

our way. Think of it, fair reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself,

but upon that hot-blooded, semi-barbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined

fires of despair and jealousy. She had lost him, but who should have him?

How often, in her waking hours and in her dreams, had she started in wild horror, and covered

her face with her hands as she thought of her lover opening the door on the other side of which

waited the cruel fangs of the tiger!

But how much oftener had she seen him at the other door! How in her grievous reveries had

she gnashed her teeth, and torn her hair, when she saw his start of rapturous delight as he opened

the door of the lady! How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that

woman, with her flushing cheek and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her

forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of recovered life; when she had heard the glad shouts

from the multitude, and the wild ringing of the happy bells; when she had seen the priest, with

his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man and wife before her very eyes;

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and when she had seen them walk away together upon their path of flowers, followed by the

tremendous shouts of the hilarious multitude, in which her one despairing shriek was lost and

drowned!

Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of

semi-barbaric futurity?

And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood!

Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of

anguished deliberation. She had known she would be asked, she had decided what she would

answer, and, without the slightest hesitation, she had moved her hand to the right.

The question of her decision is one not to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to

presume to set myself up as the one person able to answer it. And so I leave it with all of you:

Which came out of the opened door - the lady, or the tiger?

_____________________________________________________________________________

Write about some of the difficult choice you have made and how you made them.

65

What are the problems parents have teaching their children to follow rules?

Are the rules always necessary?

____________________________________________________________________________

The First Thing the Baby Did Wrong By Donald Barthelme

The first thing the baby did wrong was to tear pages out of her books. So we made a rule that

each time she tore a page out of a book she had to stay alone in her room for four hours, behind

the closed door. She was tearing out about a page a day, in the beginning, and the rule worked

fairly well, although the crying and screaming from behind the closed door were unnerving. We

reasoned that that was the price you had to pay, or part of the price you had to pay. But then as

her grip improved she got to tearing out two pages at a time, which meant eight hours alone in

her room, behind the closed door, which just doubled the annoyance for everybody. But she

wouldn't quit doing it. And then as time went on we began getting days when she tore out three

or four pages, which put her alone in her room for as much as sixteen hours at a stretch,

interfering with normal feeding and worrying my wife. But I felt that if you made a rule you had

to stick to it, had to be consistent, otherwise they get the wrong idea. She was about fourteen

months old or fifteen months old at that point. Often, of course, she'd go to sleep, after an hour or

so of yelling, that was a mercy. Her room was very nice, with a nice wooden rocking horse and

practically a hundred dolls and stuffed animals. Lots of things to do in that room if you used

your time wisely, puzzles and things. Unfortunately sometimes when we opened the door we'd

find that she'd torn more pages out of more books while she was inside, and these pages had to

be added to the total, in fairness. The baby's name was Born Dancin'. We gave the baby some of

our wine, red, whites and blue, and spoke seriously to her. But it didn't do any good.

I must say she got real clever. You'd come up to her where she was playing on the floor, in those

rare times when she was out of her room, and there'd be a book there, open beside her, and you'd

inspect it and it would look perfectly all right. And then you'd look closely and you'd find a page

that had one little corner torn, could easily pass for ordinary wear-and-tear but I knew what she'd

done, she'd torn off this little corner and swallowed it. So that had to count and it did. They will

go to any lengths to thwart you. My wife said that maybe we were being too rigid and that the

baby was losing weight. But I pointed out to her that the baby had a long life to live and had to

live in a world with others, had to live in a world where there were many, many rules, and if you

couldn't learn to play by the rules you were going to be left out in the cold with no character,

shunned and ostracized by everyone. The longest we ever kept her in her room consecutive was

eighty-eight hours, and that ended when my wife took the door off its hinges with a crowbar

even though the baby still owed us twelve hours because she was working off twenty five pages.

I put the door back on its hinges and added a big lock, one that opened only if you put a magnetic

card in a slot, and I kept the card.

But things didn't improve. The baby would come out of her room like a bat out of hell and rush

to the nearest book, Goodnight Moon or whatever, and begin tearing pages out of it hand over

66

fist. I mean there'd be thirty-four pages of Goodnight Moon on the floor in ten seconds. Plus the

covers. I began to get a little worried. When I added up her indebtedness, in terms of hours, I

could see that she wasn't going to get out of her room until 1992, if then. Also, she was looking

pretty wan. She hadn't been to the park in weeks. We had more or less of an ethical crisis on our

hands.

I solved it by declaring that it was all right to tear pages out of books, and moreover, that it was

all right to have torn pages out of books in the past. That is one of the satisfying things about

being a parent-you've got a lot of moves, each one good as gold. The baby and I sit happily on

the floor, side by side, tearing pages out of books, and sometimes, just for fun, we go out on the

street and smash a windshield together.

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Write about a time when someone was telling you to follow the rules or you were telling

someone else.

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Other Stories:

Kafka (cares of a family man, before the law, the emperor, knock at the manor gate)

Donald Barthelme (the school, some of us had been threatening our friend Colby, jaws, the baby,

city of churches, the balloon, the policemans ball)

The Lady with A Lap Dog by Anton Chekhov

Sunny’s Blues by James Baldwin

Pictor’s Metamorphosis by Herman Hesse

“The Cask of Amontillado“ by Edgar Allan Poe (Gothic style)

“The Lost ‘Beautifulness’” by Anzia Yezierska’s short story (Early 1900s)

“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”

by Gabriel García Márquez (Magic Realism)

“Two Kinds” by Amy Tan (Culture and parent-children relationship)

Big Black Good Man by Richard Wright- deals with prejudice and how prejudices misrepresent

good people.

A Hunger Artist by Frank Kafka. - fascinating psychological read.

One of my favorites, Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Nightingale and The Rose by Oscar Wilde