My Katie could no abide the noise of ut, but must scream an’ flutter an’ go runnun’ for the mudmost o’ a featherbed.

Never yet hov I heard the answer tull the why o’ like, God alone hoz thot answer. You an’

me be mortal an’ we canna know. Enough for us tull know what we like an’ what we duslike. I like - thot uz the first word an’ the last. An’ behind thot like no men can go an’ find the why o’

ut. I like Samuel, an’ I like ut well. Ut uz a sweet name, an’ there be a rollun’ wonder un the sound o’ ut thot passes onderstandun’.”

SAMUEL

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The twilight deepened, and in the silence I gazed upon that splendid dome of a forehead which time could not mar, at the width between the eyes, and at the eyes themselves - clear, outlooking,

and wide-seeing. She rose to her feet with an air of dismissing me, saying -

“Ut wull be a dark walk home, an’ there wull be more thon a sprunkle o’ wet un the sky.”

“Have you any regrets, Margaret Henan?” I asked, suddenly and without forethought.

She studied me a moment.

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“Aye, thot I no ha’ borne another son.”

“And you would . . .?” I faltered.

“Aye, thot I would,” she answered. “Ut would ha’ been hus name.”

I went down the dark road between the hawthorn hedges puzzling over the why of like, repeating

Samuel to myself and aloud and listening to the rolling wonder in its sound that had charmed her

soul and led her life in tragic places. Samuel! There was a rolling wonder in the sound. Aye, there was!

AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH

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1

An Odyssey of the North

By Jack London

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AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH

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2

THE SLEDS were singing their eternal lament to the creaking of the harnesses and the tinkling bells of the leaders; but the men and dogs were tired and made no sound. The trail was heavy with new-fallen snow, and they had come far, and the runners, burdened with flint-like quarters of frozen moose, clung tenaciously to the unpacked surface and held back with a stubbornness almost human. Darkness was coming on, but there was no camp to pitch that night. The snow fell gently through the pulseless air, not in flakes, but in tiny Page 36

frost crystals of delicate design. It was very warm,--barely ten below zero,--and the men did

not mind. Meyers and Bettles had raised their ear-flaps, while Malemute Kid had even taken off his mittens.

The dogs had been fagged out early in the afternoon, but they now began to show new vigor. Among the more astute there was a certain restlessness,--an impatience at the restraint of the traces, an indecisive quickness of movement, a sniffing of snouts and pricking of ears. These became incensed at their more phlegmatic brothers, urging them on with numerous sly nips on their hinder-quarters. Those, thus chidden, also contracted and helped spread the contagion. At last, the leader of the foremost sled uttered a sharp whine of satisfaction, crouching lower in the snow and throwing himself against the collar. The rest followed suit. There was an ingathering of back-bands, a tightening of traces; the sleds leaped forward, and the men clung to the gee-poles, violently accelerating the uplift of their

feet that they might escape going under the runners. The weariness of the day fell from them, and they whooped encouragement to the dogs.