Tag: Learning

Learning!

Learning is the process of acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences. 

Evidence that knowledge has occurred may see changes in behavior from simple to complex, from moving a finger to skill in synthesizing information, or a change in attitude.

The ability to know possess by humans, animals, and some machines. There is also evidence of some kind of knowledge in some plants.

Some learn immediately, induced by a single event (e.g. being burn by a hot stove), but much skill and knowledge accumulate from repeat experiences.

The changes induced by knowledge often last a lifetime, and it is hard to distinguish known material that seems to be “lost” from that which cannot retrieve.

Definition of learning for Students
1: the act of a person who gains knowledge or skill Travel is a learning experience.
2: knowledge or skill gained from teaching or study. They’re people of great knowledge.
-@ilearnlot.
  • A Bad Business

    A Bad Business

    A Bad Business

    Dear Learner, The Short Story by Anton Chekhov

    WHO goes there?”

    No answer. The watchman sees nothing, but through the roar of the wind and the trees distinctly hears someone walking along the avenue ahead of him. A March night, cloudy and foggy, envelopes the earth, and it seems to the watchman that the earth, the sky, and he himself with his thoughts are all merged together into something vast and impenetrably black. He can only grope his way.

    “Who goes there?” the watchman repeats, and he begins to fancy that he hears whispering and smothered laughter. “Who’s there?”

    “It’s I, friend . . .” answers an old man’s voice.

    “But who are you?”

    “I . . . a traveller.”

    “What sort of traveller?” the watchman cries angrily, trying to disguise his terror by shouting. “What the devil do you want here? You go prowling about the graveyard at night, you ruffian!”

    “You don’t say it’s a graveyard here?”

    “Why, what else? Of course it’s the graveyard! Don’t you see it is?”

    “O-o-oh . . . Queen of Heaven!” there is a sound of an old man sighing. “I see nothing, my good soul, nothing. Oh the darkness, the darkness! You can’t see your hand before your face, it is dark, friend. O-o-oh. . .”

    “But who are you?”

    “I am a pilgrim, friend, a wandering man.”

    “The devils, the nightbirds. . . . Nice sort of pilgrims! They are drunkards . . .” mutters the watchman, reassured by the tone and sighs of the stranger. “One’s tempted to sin by you. They drink the day away and prowl about at night. But I fancy I heard you were not alone; it sounded like two or three of you.”

    “I am alone, friend, alone. Quite alone. O-o-oh our sins. . . .”

    The watchman stumbles up against the man and stops.

    “How did you get here?” he asks.

    “I have lost my way, good man. I was walking to the Mitrievsky Mill and I lost my way.”

    “Whew! Is this the road to Mitrievsky Mill? You sheepshead! For the Mitrievsky Mill you must keep much more to the left, straight out of the town along the high road. You have been drinking and have gone a couple of miles out of your way. You must have had a drop in the town.”

    “I did, friend . . . Truly I did; I won’t hide my sins. But how am I to go now?”

    “Go straight on and on along this avenue till you can go no farther, and then turn at once to the left and go till you have crossed the whole graveyard right to the gate. There will be a gate there. . . . Open it and go with God’s blessing. Mind you don’t fall into the ditch. And when you are out of the graveyard you go all the way by the fields till you come out on the main road.”

    “God give you health, friend. May the Queen of Heaven save you and have mercy on you. You might take me along, good man! Be merciful! Lead me to the gate.”

    “As though I had the time to waste! Go by yourself!”

    “Be merciful! I’ll pray for you. I can’t see anything; one can’t see one’s hand before one’s face, friend. . . . It’s so dark, so dark! Show me the way, sir!”

    “As though I had the time to take you about; if I were to play the nurse to everyone I should never have done.”

    “For Christ’s sake, take me! I can’t see, and I am afraid to go alone through the graveyard. It’s terrifying, friend, it’s terrifying; I am afraid, good man.”

    “There’s no getting rid of you,” sighs the watchman. “All right then, come along.”

    The watchman and the traveller go on together. They walk shoulder to shoulder in silence. A damp, cutting wind blows straight into their faces and the unseen trees murmuring and rustling scatter big drops upon them. . . . The path is almost entirely covered with puddles.

    “There is one thing passes my understanding,” says the watchman after a prolonged silence — “how you got here. The gate’s locked. Did you climb over the wall? If you did climb over the wall, that’s the last thing you would expect of an old man.”

    “I don’t know, friend, I don’t know. I can’t say myself how I got here. It’s a visitation. A chastisement of the Lord. Truly a visitation, the evil one confounded me. So you are a watchman here, friend?”

    “Yes.”

    “The only one for the whole graveyard?”

    There is such a violent gust of wind that both stop for a minute. Waiting till the violence of the wind abates, the watchman answers:

    “There are three of us, but one is lying ill in a fever and the other’s asleep. He and I take turns about.”

    “Ah, to be sure, friend. What a wind! The dead must hear it! It howls like a wild beast! O-o-oh.”

    “And where do you come from?”

    “From a distance, friend. I am from Vologda, a long way off. I go from one holy place to another and pray for people. Save me and have mercy upon me, O Lord.”

    The watchman stops for a minute to light his pipe. He stoops down behind the traveller’s back and lights several matches. The gleam of the first match lights up for one instant a bit of the avenue on the right, a white tombstone with an angel, and a dark cross; the light of the second match, flaring up brightly and extinguished by the wind, flashes like lightning on the left side, and from the darkness nothing stands out but the angle of some sort of trellis; the third match throws light to right and to left, revealing the white tombstone, the dark cross, and the trellis round a child’s grave.

    “The departed sleep; the dear ones sleep!” the stranger mutters, sighing loudly. “They all sleep alike, rich and poor, wise and foolish, good and wicked. They are of the same value now. And they will sleep till the last trump. The Kingdom of Heaven and peace eternal be theirs.”

    “Here we are walking along now, but the time will come when we shall be lying here ourselves,” says the watchman.

    “To be sure, to be sure, we shall all. There is no man who will not die. O-o-oh. Our doings are wicked, our thoughts are deceitful! Sins, sins! My soul accursed, ever covetous, my belly greedy and lustful! I have angered the Lord and there is no salvation for me in this world and the next. I am deep in sins like a worm in the earth.”

    “Yes, and you have to die.”

    “You are right there.”

    “Death is easier for a pilgrim than for fellows like us,” says the watchman.

    “There are pilgrims of different sorts. There are the real ones who are God-fearing men and watch over their own souls, and there are such as stray about the graveyard at night and are a delight to the devils. . . Ye-es! There’s one who is a pilgrim could give you a crack on the pate with an axe if he liked and knock the breath out of you.”

    “What are you talking like that for?”

    “Oh, nothing . . . Why, I fancy here’s the gate. Yes, it is. Open it, good man.

    The watchman, feeling his way, opens the gate, leads the pilgrim out by the sleeve, and says:

    “Here’s the end of the graveyard. Now you must keep on through the open fields till you get to the main road. Only close here there will be the boundary ditch — don’t fall in. . . . And when you come out on to the road, turn to the right, and keep on till you reach the mill. . . .”

    “O-o-oh!” sighs the pilgrim after a pause, “and now I am thinking that I have no cause to go to Mitrievsky Mill. . . . Why the devil should I go there? I had better stay a bit with you here, sir. . . .”

    “What do you want to stay with me for?”

    “Oh . . . it’s merrier with you! . . . .”

    “So you’ve found a merry companion, have you? You, pilgrim, are fond of a joke I see. . . .”

    “To be sure I am,” says the stranger, with a hoarse chuckle. “Ah, my dear good man, I bet you will remember the pilgrim many a long year!”

    “Why should I remember you?”

    “Why I’ve got round you so smartly. . . . Am I a pilgrim? I am not a pilgrim at all.”

    “What are you then?”

    “A dead man. . . . I’ve only just got out of my coffin. . . . Do you remember Gubaryev, the locksmith, who hanged himself in carnival week? Well, I am Gubaryev himself! . . .”

    “Tell us something else!”

    The watchman does not believe him, but he feels all over such a cold, oppressive terror that he starts off and begins hurriedly feeling for the gate.

    “Stop, where are you off to?” says the stranger, clutching him by the arm. “Aie, aie, aie . . . what a fellow you are! How can you leave me all alone?”

    “Let go!” cries the watchman, trying to pull his arm away.

    “Sto-op! I bid you stop and you stop. Don’t struggle, you dirty dog! If you want to stay among the living, stop and hold your tongue till I tell you. It’s only that I don’t care to spill blood or you would have been a dead man long ago, you scurvy rascal. . . . Stop!”

    The watchman’s knees give way under him. In his terror he shuts his eyes, and trembling all over huddles close to the wall. He would like to call out, but he knows his cries would not reach any living thing. The stranger stands beside him and holds him by the arm. . . . Three minutes pass in silence.

    “One’s in a fever, another’s asleep, and the third is seeing pilgrims on their way,” mutters the stranger. “Capital watchmen, they are worth their salary! Ye-es, brother, thieves have always been cleverer than watchmen! Stand still, don’t stir. . . .”

    Five minutes, ten minutes pass in silence. All at once the wind brings the sound of a whistle.

    “Well, now you can go,” says the stranger, releasing the watchman’s arm. “Go and thank God you are alive!”

    The stranger gives a whistle too, runs away from the gate, and the watchman hears him leap over the ditch.

    With a foreboding of something very dreadful in his heart, the watchman, still trembling with terror, opens the gate irresolutely and runs back with his eyes shut.

    At the turning into the main avenue he hears hurried footsteps, and someone asks him, in a hissing voice: “Is that you, Timofey? Where is Mitka?”

    And after running the whole length of the main avenue he notices a little dim light in the darkness. The nearer he gets to the light the more frightened he is and the stronger his foreboding of evil.

    “It looks as though the light were in the church,” he thinks. “And how can it have come there? Save me and have mercy on me, Queen of Heaven! And that it is.”

    The watchman stands for a minute before the broken window and looks with horror towards the altar. . . . A little wax candle which the thieves had forgotten to put out flickers in the wind that bursts in at the window and throws dim red patches of light on the vestments flung about and a cupboard overturned on the floor, on numerous footprints near the high altar and the altar of offerings.

    A little time passes and the howling wind sends floating over the churchyard the hurried uneven clangs of the alarm-bell. . . .!

    A Bad Business

  • The Lottery

    The Lottery

    The Lottery

    Short Story 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 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 he 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 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?”

    “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. “

    “Seems like there’s no time at all between lotteries anymore. ” 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 anymore, live hat 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. “

    “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?”

    “There are 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 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 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.

    The Lottery

  • Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories About Life

    Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories About Life

    Motivational and Inspiring 5 Short Stories About Life; When life has got you in a slump, turn to these inspirational short stories. Not only is reading them like getting an internet hug for the soul, but they just may spark an idea or a change in you for the better. Read on and get ready how to keep a smile yourself.

    Here is the article to explain, 5 best Short Story for Life – Motivational and Inspiring.

    The following few Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories below are;

    1. Everyone Has a Story in Life

    A 24-year-old boy seeing out from the train’s window shouted…!

    “Dad, look the trees are going behind!”
    Dad smiled and a young couple sitting nearby; looked at the 24-year old’s childish behavior with pity, suddenly he again exclaimed…

    “Dad, look the clouds are running with us!”

    The couple couldn’t resist and said to the old man…!

    “Why don’t you take your son to a good doctor?” The old man smiled and said…“I did and we are just coming from the hospital, my son was blind from birth, he just got his eyes today.”

    Every single person on the planet has a story. Don’t judge people before you truly know them. The truth might surprise you.

    2. Shake off Your Problems

    A man’s favorite donkey falls into a deep precipice. He can’t pull it out no matter how hard he tries. He, therefore, decides to bury it alive.

    The soil pore onto the donkey from above. The donkey feels the load, shakes it off, and steps on it. More soil pours.

    It shakes it off and steps up. The more the load was poured, the higher it rose. By noon, the donkey was grazing in green pastures.

    After much shaking off (of problems) And stepping up (learning from them), One will graze in GREEN PASTURES.

    3. The Elephant Rope

    As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at any time, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

    He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to getaway. “Well,” the trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them, and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they condition to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

    The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

    Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

    Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life. This is the best Inspiring Short Stories.

    4. Potatoes, Eggs, and Coffee Beans

    Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.

    Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot, and ground coffee beans in the third pot.

    He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing.

    After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl, He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl.

    He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup. Turning to her he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?”

    “Potatoes, eggs, and coffee,” she hastily replied.

    “Look closer,” he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

    “Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

    continue…

    He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity– the boiling water.

    However, each one reacted differently.

    The potato went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak.

    The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard.

    However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

    “Which are you,” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean? “

    Moral: In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is what happens within us.

    Which one are you?

    5. A Dish of Ice Cream

    In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.

    “How much is an ice cream sundae?”

    “50 cents,” replied the waitress.

    The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it.

    “How much is a dish of plain ice cream?” he inquired. Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient.

    “35 cents,” she said brusquely.

    The little boy again counted the coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream,” he said.

    The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and departed.

    When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw.

    There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were 15 cents – her tip.

    Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories About Life
    5 Motivational and Inspiring Short Stories About Life.
  • Motivational Short Stories for Business Success

    Motivational Short Stories for Business Success

    Motivational Short Stories for Business; 4 best Short Story of Motivational for Start Business. Succeeding in business is no easy feat. It’s too easy to let business knock you down. Instead of throwing in the towel when there is a business problem, pick yourself back up, buckle down, and get to work.

    Best 4 Motivational Short Stories make you strong for Business.

    These motivational stories prove that with a little hard work, any amount of business success is possible.

    1. Colonel Sanders – Kentucky Fried Chicken:

    Once, there was an older man, who was broke, living in a tiny house and owned a beat up car. He was living off of $99 social security checks. At 65 years of age, he decide things had to change. So he thought about what he had to offer. His friends raved about his chicken recipe. He decided that this was his best shot at making a change.

    Old man left Kentucky and traveled to different states to try to sell his recipe. He told restaurant owners that he had a mouthwatering chicken recipe. He offered the recipe to them for free, just asking for a small percentage on the items sold. Sounds like a good deal, right?

    Unfortunately, not to most of the restaurants. He heard NO over 1000 times. Even after all of those rejections, he didn’t give up. He believed his chicken recipe was something special. He got rejected 1009 times before he heard his first yes.

    With that one success, Colonel Hart-land Sanders changed the way Americans eat chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken, popularly known as KFC, was born.

    Remember, never give up and always believe in yourself in spite of rejection.

    2. The Obstacle in our Path – Thanh_Min:

    This Short Story written by Thanh_Min; There once was a very wealthy and curious king. This king had a huge boulder placed in the middle of a road. Then he hid nearby to see if anyone would try to remove the gigantic rock from the road.

    The first people to pass by were some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers. Rather than moving it, they simply walked around it. A few loudly blamed the King for not maintaining the roads. Not one of them tried to move the boulder.

    Finally, a peasant came along. His arms were full of vegetables. When he got near the boulder, rather than simply walking around it as the others had, the peasant put down his load and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. It took a lot of effort but he finally succeeded.

    The peasant gathered up his load and was ready to go on his way when he say a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The peasant opened the purse. The purse was stuffed full of gold coins and a note from the king. The king’s note said the purse’s gold was a reward for moving the boulder from the road.

    The king showed the peasant what many of us never understand: every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

    3. Value:

    A popular speaker started off a seminar by holding up a $20 bill. A crowd of 200 had gathered to hear him speak. He asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?”

    200 hands went up.

    He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He crumpled the bill up.

    He then asked, “Who still wants it?”

    All 200 hands were still raised.

    “Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?” Then he dropped the bill on the ground and stomped on it with his shoes.

    He picked it up, and showed it to the crowd. The bill was all crumpled and dirty.

    “Now who still wants it?”

    All the hands still went up.

    “My friends, I have just showed you a very important lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, life crumples us and grinds us into the dirt. We make bad decisions or deal with poor circumstances. We feel worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special – Don’t ever forget it!

    4. A Very Special Bank Account:

    Imagine you had a bank account that deposited $86,400 each morning. The account carries over no balance from day to day, allows you to keep no cash balance, and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you had failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every dollar each day!

    We all have such a bank. Its name is Time. Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever time you have failed to use wisely. It carries over no balance from day to day. It allows no overdraft so you can’t borrow against yourself or use more time than you have. Each day, the account starts fresh. Each night, it destroys an unused time. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, it’s your loss and you can’t appeal to get it back.

    There is never any borrowing time. You can’t take a loan out on your time or against someone else’s. The time you have is the time you have and that is that. Time management is yours to decide how you spend the time, just as with money you decide how you spend the money. It is never the case of us not having enough time to do things, but the case of whether we want to do them and where they fall in our priorities.

    Motivational Short Stories for Business
    Motivational Short Stories for Business; Image from Online.
  • A Common Man

    A Common Man

    A Common Man

    Moral Short Story for Learn

    Once upon a time, Raj is a middle-aged man. Although he was born in a poor family, he was raised well by his father and mother. His father owned a welding shop and used to work for more than 12 hours a day so that his family could lead a comfortable life.

    However, Raj’s father could not earn sufficient money to provide a decent life to his family. Raj was an average student in school and used to score around 70 percent marks. Raj’s dream was to become a doctor. Since his marks weren’t very high, he could not get the desired course that he wanted to study. Instead, he joined a bachelor’s degree course, completed the course successfully, and got a job in a company.

    While his life was going on with no dramatic change, his father continued to work in his welding shop, so that he did not have to depend on Raj. After getting a permanent job, Raj’s parents wanted him to marry. He got married to a girl from his native town, and at the same time was also promoted in his job. After a few years, his wife gave birth to beautiful twin boys.

    Later, Raj began to earn a handsome salary and started to live luxuriously. He bought a new house and a new car. Some of the luxuries were really unnecessary. Although his company provided him with a car, Raj purchased a new car!

    After an extravagant life that spanned almost 6 to 7 years, Raj was neither able to manage all the household expenses, nor pay for the children’s education and other basic necessities.

    It so happened that Raj’s father fell sick, and as a result, could not continue his work in the welding shop. He requested Raj to give some money for his treatment and other household expenses.

    Raj, who was already suffering from financial crisis, shouted at his parents and told them that he had no money to provide. He complained to his parents, “You never sent me to a big school. I was not provided with expensive clothes. You rarely fed me with my favorite food. I was not able to taste different varieties of food. When I got low marks you didn’t have enough money to provide me with private tuition, and it took me more than 10 years to get settled. Now, while I am again struggling for money, you are not doing anything to help me, but instead are a burden to me! So, please don’t come to me again.”

    His parents were left shattered.

    After a week, while Raj was on an official tour, he met a small boy aged about 10 years selling toys. The boy requested Raj to buy something. Raj asked the boy why he was selling toys instead of studying. The boy replied, “My father met with an accident a year ago and he lost one hand. He cannot work now. My mother works as a maid in a few houses. I’m helping my parents by selling these toys. I go to school in the morning and sell toys in the evenings. I work for 3 hours a day and study at night!”

    Raj purchased a few toys from the little boy. He thought about what the boy had said. He realized that he had been wrong in the way he treated his parents. He had learned a lesson from the small boy. At a very small age, this boy was helping his parents, but Raj, in order to meet the demands of his lavish lifestyle, had neglected his parents.

    So, what can we learn from Raj and this poor, small boy?

    A Common Man

  • Skip the EGO and Start Learning

    Skip the EGO and Start Learning

    Skip the EGO and Start Learning

    Moral Short Story in Hindi for Learn

    धरती पर जन्म लेने के साथ ही सीखने की प्रक्रिया प्रारंभ हो जाती है ज्यों हम बड़े होते जाते हैं, सीखने की प्रक्रिया भी विस्तार लेती जाती है, जल्द ही हम उठना, बैठना, बोलना, चलना सीख लेते हैं। इस बड़े होने की प्रक्रिया के साथ ही कभी-कभी हमारा अहंकार हमसे अधिक बड़ा हो जाता है और तब हम सीखना छोड़कर गलतियां करने लगते हैं। यह अंहकार हमारे विकास मार्ग को अवरूद्ध कर देता है इस बात की चर्चा करते हुए मुझे एक वाकिया याद आ रहा है जिसकी चर्चा यहाँ करना अच्छा होगा।

    एक बार की बात है रूस के ऑस्पेंस्की नाम के महान विचारक एक बार संत गुरजियफ से मिलने उनके घर गए। दोनों में विभिन्न् विषयों पर चर्चा होने लगी। ऑस्पेंस्की ने संत गुरजियफ से कहा, यूं तो मैंने गहन अध्ययन और अनुभव के द्वारा काफी ज्ञान अर्जित किया है, किन्तु मैं कुछ और भी जानना चाहता हूं। आप मेरी कुछ मदद कर सकते हैं? गुरजियफ को मालूम था कि ऑस्पेंस्की अपने विषय के प्रकांड विद्वान हैं, जिसका उन्हें थोड़ा घमंड भी है अतः सीधी बात करने से कोई काम नहीं बनेगा। इसलिए उन्होंने कुछ देर सोचने के बाद एक कोरा कागज उठाया और उसे ऑस्पेंस्की की ओर बढ़ाते हुए बोले- ”यह अच्छी बात है कि तुम कुछ सीखना चाहते हो। लेकिन मैं कैसे समझूं कि तुमने अब तक क्या-क्या सीख लिया है और क्या-क्या नहीं सीखा है। अतः तुम ऐसा करो कि जो कुछ भी जानते हो और जो कुछ भी नहीं जानते हो, उन दोनों के बारे में इस कागज पर लिख दो। जो तुम पहले से ही जानते हो उसके बारे में तो चर्चा करना व्यर्थ है और जो तुम नहीं जानते, उस पर ही चर्चा करना ठीक रहेगा।”

    बात एकदम सरल थी, लेकिन ऑस्पेंस्की के लिए कुछ मुश्किल। उनका ज्ञानी होने का अभिमान धूल-धूसरित हो गया। ऑस्पेंस्की आत्मा और परमात्मा जैसे विषय के बारे में तो बहुत जानते थे, लेकिन तत्व-स्वरूप और भेद-अभेद के बारे में उन्होंने सोचा तक नहीं था। गुरजियफ की बात सुनकर वे सोच में पड़ गए। काफी देर सोचने के बाद भी जब उन्हें कुछ समझ में नहीं आया तो उन्होंने वह कोरा कागज ज्यों का त्यों गुरजियफ को थमा दिया और बोले- श्रीमान मैं तो कुछ भी नहीं जानता। आज आपने मेरी आंखे खोल दीं। ऑस्पेंस्की के विनम्रतापूर्वक कहे गए इन शब्दों से गुरजियफ बेहद प्रभावति हुए और बोले – ”ठीक है, अब तुमने जानने योग्य पहली बात जान ली है कि तुम कुछ नहीं जानते। यही ज्ञान की प्रथम सीढ़ी है। अब तुम्हें कुछ सिखाया और बताया जा सकता है। अर्थात खाली बर्तन को भरा जा सकता है, किन्तु अहंकार से भरे बर्तन में बूंदभर ज्ञान भरना संभव नहीं। अगर हम खुद को ज्ञान को ग्रहण करने के लिए तैयार रखें तो ज्ञानार्जन के लिये सुपात्र बन सकेंगे। ज्ञानी बनने के लिए जरूरी है कि मनुष्य ज्ञान को पा लेने का संकल्प ले और वह केवल एक गुरू से ही स्वयं को न बांधे बल्कि उसे जहां कहीं भी अच्छी बात पता चले, उसे ग्रहण करें।”

    Skip the EGO and Start Learning

  • The Three Thieves

    The Three Thieves

    Moral Short Story in Hindi for Learn

    बहुत दिनों की बात है। किसी शहर में रमन, घीसा और राका तीन चोर रहते थे। तीनों को थोड़ा-थोड़ा विद्या का ज्ञान था। तीनों चोरों को विधा का ज्ञान प्राप्त होने के कारण बहुत घमण्ड था। विद्या द्वारा तीनों चोर शहर में बड़े-बड़े लोहे की तिजोरियों को तोड़ देते थे और बैंकों को लूट लिया करते थे। इस तरह तीनों चोरों ने शहर के लोगों की नाक में दम कर रखा था।

    एक बार तीनों चोरों ने एक बड़े बैंक में डकैती करके सारा माल उड़ा दिया। तब पुलिस को खबर हुई तो तीनों चोरों को पकड़ने के लिए तलाश करने लगी। मगर तीनों चोर पास ही के एक घने जंगल में भाग गए।

    तीनों चोरों ने देखा कि जंगल में बहुत-सी हड्डियां बिखरी पड़ी हैं। रमन ने अनुमान लगाकर कहा- ”ये तो किसी शेर की हड्डियां हैं। मैं चाहूं तो सभी हड्डियों को अपनी विद्या के ज्ञान द्वारा जोड़ सकता हूं।” घीसा को भी विद्या का घमंड था सो, वह बोला – ”अगर ये शेर की हड्डियां हैं तो मैं इनको अपनी विधा द्वारा शेर की खाल तैयार कर उसमें डाल सकता हूं।” रमन और घीसा की बात सुनकर राका का भी घमण्ड उमड़ पड़ा और उसने कहा – ”तुम दोनों इतना काम कर सकते हो तो मैं भी अपनी विद्या द्वारा इसमें प्राण डाल सकता हूं।”

    तीनों चोर अपनी विद्या का प्रयोग करने लगे। कुछ देर बाद रमन ने सारी हड्डियों को जोड़ दिया और घीसा ने शेर की हुबहू जान जान डाल दी। थोड़ी देर में तीनों चोर सामने एक जीवित भयानक शेर को देखकर थर-थर कांपने लगे। मगर शेर के पेट में तो एक दाना नहीं था। वह भूख के मारे गरजता हुआ तीनों चोरों पर हमला कर बैठा और मारकर खा गया। शेर मस्त होकर घने जंगल की ओर चल दिया।

    What are You Learn this Short Story?

    दोस्तों, इस कहानी से हमें यही शिक्षा मिलती है कि कभी घमण्ड नहीं करना चाहिए। घमण्डी को हमेशा दुख का ही सामना करना पड़ता है। यदि तीनों चोर अपनी विद्या का घमण्ड न करते तो उन्हें जान से हाथ न धोने पड़ते। हमें अपनी विद्या का प्रयोग सोच-समझकर करना चाहिए।

    The Three Thieves

  • According to Their Lights

    According to Their Lights

    According to Their Lights

    Short Story by O. Henry

    Somewhere in the depths of the big city, where the unquiet dregs are forever being shaken together, young Murray and the Captain had met and become friends. Both were at the lowest ebb possible to their fortunes; both had fallen from at least an intermediate Heaven of respectability and importance, and both were typical products of the monstrous and peculiar social curriculum of their overweening and bumptious civic alma mater.

    The captain was no longer a captain. One of those sudden moral cataclysms that sometimes sweep the city had hurled him from a high and profitable position in the Police Department, ripping off his badge and buttons and washing into the hands of his lawyers the solid pieces of real estate that his frugality had enabled him to accumulate. The passing of the flood left him low and dry. One month after his dishabilitation a saloon-keeper plucked him by the neck from his free-lunch counter as a tabby plucks a strange kitten from her nest, and cast him asphaltward. This seems low enough. But after that he acquired a pair of cloth top, button Congress gaiters and wrote complaining letters to the newspapers. And then he fought the attendant at the Municipal Lodging House who tried to give him a bath. When Murray first saw him he was holding the hand of an Italian woman who sold apples and garlic on Essex street, and quoting the words of a song book ballad.

    Murray’s fall had been more Luciferian, if less spectacular. All the pretty, tiny little kickshaws of Gotham had once been his. The megaphone man roars out at you to observe the house of his uncle on a grand and revered avenue. But there had been an awful row about something, and the prince had been escorted to the door by the butler, which, in said avenue, is equivalent to the impact of the avuncular shoe. A weak Prince Hal, without inheritance or sword, he drifted downward to meet his humorless Falstaff, and to pick the crusts of the streets with him.

    One evening they sat on a bench in a little downtown park. The great bulk of the Captain, which starvation seemed to increase–drawing irony instead of pity to his petitions for aid–was heaped against the arm of the bench in a shapeless mass. His red face, spotted by tufts of vermilion, week-old whiskers and topped by a sagging white straw hat, looked, in the gloom, like one of those structures that you may observe in a dark Third avenue window, challenging your imagination to say whether it be something recent in the way of ladies’ hats or a strawberry shortcake. A tight-drawn belt–last relic of his official spruceness–made a deep furrow in his circumference. The Captain’s shoes were buttonless. In a smothered bass he cursed his star of ill-luck.

    Murray, at his side, was shrunk into his dingy and ragged suit of blue serge. His hat was pulled low; he sat quiet and a little indistinct, like some ghost that had been dispossessed.

    “I’m hungry,” growled the Captain–“by the top sirloin of the Bull of Bashan, I’m starving to death. Right now I could eat a Bowery restaurant clear through to the stovepipe in the alley. Can’t you think of nothing, Murray? You sit there with your shoulders scrunched up, giving an imitation of Reginald Vanderbilt driving his coach–what good are them airs doing you now? Think of some place we can get something to chew.”

    “You forget, my dear Captain,” said Murray, without moving, “that our last attempt at dining was at my suggestion.”

    “You bet it was,” groaned the Captain, “you bet your life it was. Have you got any more like that to make–hey?”

    “I admit we failed,” sighed Murray. “I was sure Malone would be good for one more free lunch after the way he talked baseball with me the last time I spent a nickel in his establishment.”

    “I had this hand,” said the Captain, extending the unfortunate member–“I had this hand on the drumstick of a turkey and two sardine sandwiches when them waiters grabbed us.”

    “I was within two inches of the olives,” said Murray. “Stuffed olives. I haven’t tasted one in a year.”

    “What’ll we do?” grumbled the Captain. “We can’t starve.”

    “Can’t we?” said Murray quietly. “I’m glad to hear that. I was afraid we could.”

    “You wait here,” said the Captain, rising, heavily and puffily to his feet. “I’m going to try to make one more turn. You stay here till I come back, Murray. I won’t be over half an hour. If I turn the trick I’ll come back flush.”

    He made some elephantine attempts at smartening his appearance. He gave his fiery mustache a heavenward twist; he dragged into sight a pair of black-edged cuffs, deepened the crease in his middle by tightening his belt another hole, and set off, jaunty as a zoo rhinoceros, across the south end of the park.

    When he was out of sight Murray also left the park, hurrying swiftly eastward. He stopped at a building whose steps were flanked by two green lights.

    “A police captain named Maroney,” he said to the desk sergeant, “was dismissed from the force after being tried under charges three years ago. I believe sentence was suspended. Is this man wanted now by the police?”

    “Why are ye asking?” inquired the sergeant, with a frown.

    “I thought there might be a reward standing,” explained Murray, easily. “I know the man well. He seems to be keeping himself pretty shady at present. I could lay my hands on him at any time. If there should be a reward–”

    “There’s no reward,” interrupted the sergeant, shortly. “The man’s not wanted. And neither are ye. So, get out. Ye are frindly with um, and ye would be selling um. Out with ye quick, or I’ll give ye a start.”

    Murray gazed at the officer with serene and virtuous dignity.

    “I would be simply doing my duty as a citizen and gentleman,” he said, severely, “if I could assist the law in laying hold of one of its offenders.”

    Murray hurried back to the bench in the park. He folded his arms and shrank within his clothes to his ghost-like presentment.

    Ten minutes afterward the Captain arrived at the rendezvous, windy and thunderous as a dog-day in Kansas. His collar had been torn away; his straw hat had been twisted and battered; his shirt with ox-blood stripes split to the waist. And from head to knee he was drenched with some vile and ignoble greasy fluid that loudly proclaimed to the nose its component leaven of garlic and kitchen stuff.

    “For Heaven’s sake, Captain,” sniffed Murray, “I doubt that I would have waited for you if I had suspected you were so desperate as to resort to swill barrels. I”–

    “Cheese it,” said the Captain, harshly. “I’m not hogging it yet. It’s all on the outside. I went around on Essex and proposed marriage to that Catrina that’s got the fruit shop there. Now, that business could be built up. She’s a peach as far as a Dago could be. I thought I had that senoreena mashed sure last week. But look what she done to me! I guess I got too fresh. Well there’s another scheme queered.”

    “You don’t mean to say,” said Murray, with infinite contempt, “that you would have married that woman to help yourself out of your disgraceful troubles!”

    “Me?” said the Captain. “I’d marry the Empress of China for one bowl of chop suey. I’d commit murder for a plate of beef stew. I’d steal a wafer from a waif. I’d be a Mormon for a bowl of chowder.”

    “I think,” said Murray, resting his head on his hands, “that I would play Judas for the price of one drink of whiskey. For thirty pieces of silver I would”–

    “Oh, come now!” exclaimed the Captain in dismay. “You wouldn’t do that, Murray! I always thought that Kike’s squeal on his boss was about the lowest-down play that ever happened. A man that gives his friend away is worse than a pirate.”

    Through the park stepped a large man scanning the benches where the electric light fell.

    “Is that you, Mac?” he said, halting before the derelicts. His diamond stickpin dazzled. His diamond-studded fob chain assisted. He was big and smooth and well fed. “Yes, I see it’s you,” he continued. “They told me at Mike’s that I might find you over here. Let me see you a few minutes, Mac.”

    The Captain lifted himself with a grunt of alacrity. If Charlie Finnegan had come down in the bottomless pit to seek him there must be something doing. Charlie guided him by an arm into a patch of shadow.

    “You know, Mac,” he said, “they’re trying Inspector Pickering on graft charges.”

    “He was my inspector,” said the Captain.

    “O’Shea wants the job,” went on Finnegan. “He must have it. It’s for the good of the organization. Pickering must go under. Your testimony will do it. He was your ‘man higher up’ when you were on the force. His share of the boodle passed through your hands. You must go on the stand and testify against him.”

    “He was”–began the Captain.

    “Wait a minute,” said Finnegan. A bundle of yellowish stuff came out of his inside pocket. “Five hundred dollars in it for you. Two-fifty on the spot, and the rest”–

    “He was my friend, I say,” finished the Captain. “I’ll see you and the gang, and the city, and the party in the flames of Hades before I’ll take the stand against Dan Pickering. I’m down and out; but I’m no traitor to a man that’s been my friend.” The Captain’s voice rose and boomed like a split trombone. “Get out of this park, Charlie Finnegan, where us thieves and tramps and boozers are your betters; and take your dirty money with you.”

    Finnegan drifted out by another walk. The Captain returned to his seat.

    “I couldn’t avoid hearing,” said Murray, drearily. “I think you are the biggest fool I ever saw.”

    “What would you have done?” asked the Captain.

    “Nailed Pickering to the cross,” said Murray.

    “Sonny,” said the Captain, huskily and without heat. “You and me are different. New York is divided into two parts–above Forty-second street, and below Fourteenth. You come from the other part. We both act according to our lights.”

    An illuminated clock above the trees retailed the information that it lacked the half hour of twelve. Both men rose from the bench and moved away together as if seized by the same idea. They left the park, struck through a narrow cross street, and came into Broadway, at this hour as dark, echoing and de-peopled as a byway in Pompeii.

    Northward they turned; and a policeman who glanced at their unkempt and slinking figures withheld the attention and suspicion that he would have granted them at any other hour and place. For on every street in that part of the city other unkempt and slinking figures were shuffling and hurrying toward a converging point–a point that is marked by no monument save that groove on the pavement worn by tens of thousands of waiting feet.

    At Ninth street a tall man wearing an opera hat alighted from a Broadway car and turned his face westward. But he saw Murray, pounced upon him and dragged him under a street light. The Captain lumbered slowly to the corner, like a wounded bear, and waited, growling.

    “Jerry!” cried the hatted one. “How fortunate! I was to begin a search for you to-morrow. The old gentleman has capitulated. You’re to be restored to favor. Congratulate you. Come to the office in the morning and get all the money you want. I’ve liberal instructions in that respect.”

    “And the little matrimonial arrangement?” said Murray, with his head turned sidewise.

    “Why.–er–well, of course, your uncle understands–expects that the engagement between you and Miss Vanderhurst shall be”–

    “Good night,” said Murray, moving away.

    “You madman!” cried the other, catching his arm. “Would you give up two millions on account of”–

    “Did you ever see her nose, old man?” asked Murray, solemnly.

    “But, listen to reason, Jerry. Miss Vanderhurst is an heiress, and”–

    “Did you ever see it?”

    “Yes, I admit that her nose isn’t”–

    “Good night!” said Murray. “My friend is waiting for me. I am quoting him when I authorize you to report that there is ‘nothing doing.’ Good night.”

    A wriggling line of waiting men extended from a door in Tenth street far up Broadway, on the outer edge of the pavement. The Captain and Murray fell in at the tail of the quivering millipede.

    “Twenty feet longer than it was last night,” said Murray, looking up at his measuring angle of Grace Church.

    “Half an hour,” growled the Captain, “before we get our punk.”

    The city clocks began to strike 12; the Bread Line moved forward slowly, its leathern feet sliding on the stones with the sound of a hissing serpent, as they who had lived according to their lights closed up in the rear.

    According to Their Lights

  • The Cook’s Wedding

    The Cook’s Wedding

    The Cook’s Wedding

    Short Story by Anton Chekhov

    GRISHA, a fat, solemn little person of seven, was standing by the kitchen door listening and peeping through the keyhole. In the kitchen, something extraordinary, and in his opinion never seen before, was taking place. A big, thick-set, red-haired peasant, with a beard, and a drop of perspiration on his nose, wearing a cabman’s full coat, was sitting at the kitchen table on which they chopped the meat and sliced the onions. He was balancing a saucer on the five fingers of his right hand and drinking tea out of it and crunching sugar so loudly that it sent a shiver down Grisha’s back. Aksinya Stepanovna, the old nurse, was sitting on the dirty stool facing him, and she, too, was drinking tea. Her face was grave, though at the same time it beamed with a kind of triumph. Pelageya, the cook, was busy at the stove and was apparently trying to hide her face. And on her face, Grisha saw a regular illumination: it was burning and shifting through every shade of color, beginning with a crimson purple and ending with a deathly white. She was continually catching hold of knives, forks, bits of wood, and rags with trembling hands, moving, grumbling to herself, making a clatter, but in reality doing nothing. She did not once glance at the table at which they were drinking tea, and to the questions put to her by the nurse, she gave jerky, sullen answers without turning her face.

    “Help yourself, Danilo Semyonitch,” the nurse urged him hospitably. “Why do you keep on with tea and nothing but tea? You should have a drop of vodka!”

    And nurse put before the visitor a bottle of vodka and a wine-glass, while her face wore a very wily expression.

    “I never touch it. . . . No . . .” said the cabman, declining. “Don’t press me, Aksinya Stepanovna.”

    “What a man! . . . A cabman and not drink! . . . A bachelor can’t get on without drinking. Help yourself!”

    The cabman looked askance at the bottle, then at nurse’s wily face, and his own face assumed an expression no less cunning, as much as to say, “You won’t catch me, you old witch!”

    “I don’t drink; please excuse me. Such a weakness does not do in our calling. A man who works at a trade may drink, for he sits at home, but we cabmen are always in view of the public. Aren’t we? If one goes into a pothouse one finds one’s horse gone; if one takes a drop too much it is worse still; before you know where you are you will fall asleep or slip off the box. That’s where it is.”

    “And how much do you make a day, Danilo Semyonitch?”

    “That’s according. One day you will have a fare for three roubles, and another day you will come back to the yard without a farthing. The days are very different. Nowadays our business is no good. There are lots and lots of cabmen as you know, hay is dear, and folks are paltry nowadays and always contriving to go by tram. And yet, thank God, I have nothing to complain of. I have plenty to eat and good clothes to wear, and . . . we could even provide well for another. . .” (the cabman stole a glance at Pelageya) “if it were to their liking. . . .”

    Grisha did not hear what was said further. His mamma came to the door and sent him to the nursery to learn his lessons.

    “Go and learn your lesson. It’s not your business to listen here!”

    When Grisha reached the nursery, he put “My Own Book” in front of him, but he did not get on with his reading. All that he had just seen and heard aroused a multitude of questions in his mind.

    “The cook’s going to be married,” he thought. “Strange — I don’t understand what people get married for. Mamma was married to papa, Cousin Verotchka to Pavel Andreyitch. But one might be married to papa and Pavel Andreyitch after all: they have gold watch-chains and nice suits, their boots are always polished; but to marry that dreadful cabman with a red nose and felt boots. . . . Fi! And why is it nurse wants poor Pelageya to be married?”

    When the visitor had gone out of the kitchen, Pelageya appeared and began clearing away. Her agitation still persisted. Her face was red and looked scared. She scarcely touched the floor with the broom, and swept every corner five times over. She lingered for a long time in the room where mamma was sitting. She was evidently oppressed by her isolation, and she was longing to express herself, to share her impressions with some one, to open her heart.

    “He’s gone,” she muttered, seeing that mamma would not begin the conversation.

    “One can see he is a good man,” said mamma, not taking her eyes off her sewing. “Sober and steady.”

    “I declare I won’t marry him, mistress!” Pelageya cried suddenly, flushing crimson. “I declare I won’t!”

    “Don’t be silly; you are not a child. It’s a serious step; you must think it over thoroughly, it’s no use talking nonsense. Do you like him?”

    “What an idea, mistress!” cried Pelageya, abashed. “They say such things that . . . my goodness. . . .”

    “She should say she doesn’t like him!” thought Grisha.

    “What an affected creature you are. . . . Do you like him?”

    “But he is old, mistress!”

    “Think of something else,” nurse flew out at her from the next room. “He has not reached his fortieth year; and what do you want a young man for? Handsome is as handsome does. . . . Marry him and that’s all about it!”

    “I swear I won’t,” squealed Pelageya.

    “You are talking nonsense. What sort of rascal do you want? Anyone else would have bowed down to his feet, and you declare you won’t marry him. You want to be always winking at the postmen and tutors. That tutor that used to come to Grishenka, mistress . . . she was never tired of making eyes at him. O-o, the shameless hussy!”

    “Have you seen this Danilo before?” mamma asked Pelageya.

    “How could I have seen him? I set eyes on him to-day for the first time. Aksinya picked him up and brought him along . . . the accursed devil. . . . And where has he come from for my undoing!”

    At dinner, when Pelageya was handing the dishes, everyone looked into her face and teased her about the cabman. She turned fearfully red, and went off into a forced giggle.

    “It must be shameful to get married,” thought Grisha. “Terribly shameful.”

    All the dishes were too salt, and blood oozed from the half-raw chickens, and, to cap it all, plates and knives kept dropping out of Pelageya’s hands during dinner, as though from a shelf that had given way; but no one said a word of blame to her, as they all understood the state of her feelings. Only once papa flicked his table-napkin angrily and said to mamma:

    “What do you want to be getting them all married for? What business is it of yours? Let them get married of themselves if they want to.”

    After dinner, neighbouring cooks and maidservants kept flitting into the kitchen, and there was the sound of whispering till late evening. How they had scented out the matchmaking, God knows. When Grisha woke in the night he heard his nurse and the cook whispering together in the nursery. Nurse was talking persuasively, while the cook alternately sobbed and giggled. When he fell asleep after this, Grisha dreamed of Pelageya being carried off by Tchernomor and a witch.

    Next day there was a calm. The life of the kitchen went on its accustomed way as though the cabman did not exist. Only from time to time nurse put on her new shawl, assumed a solemn and austere air, and went off somewhere for an hour or two, obviously to conduct negotiations. . . . Pelageya did not see the cabman, and when his name was mentioned she flushed up and cried:

    “May he be thrice damned! As though I should be thinking of him! Tfoo!”

    In the evening mamma went into the kitchen, while nurse and Pelageya were zealously mincing something, and said:

    “You can marry him, of course — that’s your business — but I must tell you, Pelageya, that he cannot live here. . . . You know I don’t like to have anyone sitting in the kitchen. Mind now, remember. . . . And I can’t let you sleep out.”

    “Goodness knows! What an idea, mistress!” shrieked the cook. “Why do you keep throwing him up at me? Plague take him! He’s a regular curse, confound him! . . .”

    Glancing one Sunday morning into the kitchen, Grisha was struck dumb with amazement. The kitchen was crammed full of people. Here were cooks from the whole courtyard, the porter, two policemen, a non-commissioned officer with good-conduct stripes, and the boy Filka. . . . This Filka was generally hanging about the laundry playing with the dogs; now he was combed and washed and was holding an ikon in a tinfoil setting. Pelageya was standing in the middle of the kitchen in a new cotton dress, with a flower on her head. Beside her stood the cabman. The happy pair were red in the face and perspiring and blinking with embarrassment.

    “Well . . . I fancy it is time,” said the non-commissioned officer, after a prolonged silence.

    Pelageya’s face worked all over and she began blubbering. . . .

    The soldier took a big loaf from the table, stood beside nurse, and began blessing the couple. The cabman went up to the soldier, flopped down on his knees, and gave a smacking kiss on his hand. He did the same before nurse. Pelageya followed him mechanically, and she too bowed down to the ground. At last the outer door was opened, there was a whiff of white mist, and the whole party flocked noisily out of the kitchen into the yard.

    “Poor thing, poor thing,” thought Grisha, hearing the sobs of the cook. “Where have they taken her? Why don’t papa and mamma protect her?”

    After the wedding, there was singing and concertina-playing in the laundry till late evening. Mamma was cross all the evening because nurse smelt of vodka, and owing to the wedding there was no one to heat the samovar. Pelageya had not come back by the time Grisha went to bed.

    “The poor thing is crying somewhere in the dark!” he thought. “While the cabman is saying to her ‘shut up!’ ”

    Next morning the cook was in the kitchen again. The cabman came in for a minute. He thanked mamma, and glancing sternly at Pelageya, said:

    “Will you look after her, madam? Be a father and a mother to her. And you, too, Aksinya Stepanovna, do not forsake her, see that everything is as it should be . . . without any nonsense. . . . And also, madam, if you would kindly advance me five roubles of her wages. I have got to buy a new horse-collar.”

    Again a problem for Grisha: Pelageya was living in freedom, doing as she liked, and not having to account to anyone for her actions, and all at once, for no sort of reason, a stranger turns up, who has somehow acquired rights over her conduct and her property! Grisha was distressed. He longed passionately, almost to tears, to comfort this victim, as he supposed, of man’s injustice. Picking out the very biggest apple in the store-room he stole into the kitchen, slipped it into Pelageya’s hand, and darted headlong away.

    The Cook's Wedding

  • The Fish

    The Fish

    The Fish

    Short Story by Anton Chekhov

    A SUMMER morning. The air is still; there is no sound but the churring of a grasshopper on the river bank, and somewhere the timid cooing of a turtle-dove. Feathery clouds stand motionless in the sky, looking like snow scattered about. . . . Gerassim, the carpenter, a tall gaunt peasant, with a curly red head and a face overgrown with hair, is floundering about in the water under the green willow branches near an unfinished bathing shed. . . . He puffs and pants and, blinking furiously, is trying to get hold of something under the roots of the willows. His face is covered with perspiration. A couple of yards from him, Lubim, the carpenter, a young hunchback with a triangular face and narrow Chinese-looking eyes, is standing up to his neck in water. Both Gerassim and Lubim are in shirts and linen breeches. Both are blue with cold, for they have been more than an hour already in the water.

    “But why do you keep poking with your hand?” cries the hunchback Lubim, shivering as though in a fever. “You blockhead! Hold him, hold him, or else he’ll get away, the anathema! Hold him, I tell you!”

    “He won’t get away. . . . Where can he get to? He’s under a root,” says Gerassim in a hoarse, hollow bass, which seems to come not from his throat, but from the depths of his stomach. “He’s slippery, the beggar, and there’s nothing to catch hold of.”

    “Get him by the gills, by the gills!”

    “There’s no seeing his gills. . . . Stay, I’ve got hold of something. . . . I’ve got him by the lip. . . He’s biting, the brute!”

    “Don’t pull him out by the lip, don’t — or you’ll let him go! Take him by the gills, take him by the gills. . . . You’ve begun poking with your hand again! You are a senseless man, the Queen of Heaven forgive me! Catch hold!”

    “Catch hold!” Gerassim mimics him. “You’re a fine one to give orders. . . . You’d better come and catch hold of him yourself, you hunchback devil. . . . What are you standing there for?”

    “I would catch hold of him if it were possible. But can I stand by the bank, and me as short as I am? It’s deep there.”

    “It doesn’t matter if it is deep. . . . You must swim.”

    The hunchback waves his arms, swims up to Gerassim, and catches hold of the twigs. At the first attempt to stand up, he goes into the water over his head and begins blowing up bubbles.

    “I told you it was deep,” he says, rolling his eyes angrily. “Am I to sit on your neck or what?”

    “Stand on a root . . . there are a lot of roots like a ladder.” The hunchback gropes for a root with his heel, and tightly gripping several twigs, stands on it. . . . Having got his balance, and established himself in his new position, he bends down, and trying not to get the water into his mouth, begins fumbling with his right hand among the roots. Getting entangled among the weeds and slipping on the mossy roots he finds his hand in contact with the sharp pincers of a crayfish.

    “As though we wanted to see you, you demon!” says Lubim, and he angrily flings the crayfish on the bank.

    At last his hand feels Gerassim’ s arm, and groping its way along it comes to something cold and slimy.

    “Here he is!” says Lubim with a grin. “A fine fellow! Move your fingers, I’ll get him directly . . . by the gills. Stop, don’t prod me with your elbow. . . . I’ll have him in a minute, in a minute, only let me get hold of him. . . . The beggar has got a long way under the roots, there is nothing to get hold of. . . . One can’t get to the head . . . one can only feel its belly . . . . kill that gnat on my neck — it’s stinging! I’ll get him by the gills, directly. . . . Come to one side and give him a push! Poke him with your finger!”

    The hunchback puffs out his cheeks, holds his breath, opens his eyes wide, and apparently has already got his fingers in the gills, but at that moment the twigs to which he is holding on with his left hand break, and losing his balance he plops into the water! Eddies race away from the bank as though frightened, and little bubbles come up from the spot where he has fallen in. The hunchback swims out and, snorting, clutches at the twigs.

    “You’ll be drowned next, you stupid, and I shall have to answer for you,” wheezes Gerassim.” Clamber out, the devil take you! I’ll get him out myself.”

    High words follow. . . . The sun is baking hot. The shadows begin to grow shorter and to draw in on themselves, like the horns of a snail. . . . The high grass warmed by the sun begins to give out a strong, heavy smell of honey. It will soon be midday, and Gerassim and Lubim are still floundering under the willow tree. The husky bass and the shrill, frozen tenor persistently disturb the stillness of the summer day.

    “Pull him out by the gills, pull him out! Stay, I’ll push him out! Where are you shoving your great ugly fist? Poke him with your finger — you pig’s face! Get round by the side! get to the left, to the left, there’s a big hole on the right! You’ll be a supper for the water-devil! Pull it by the lip!”

    There is the sound of the flick of a whip. . . . A herd of cattle, driven by Yefim, the shepherd, saunter lazily down the sloping bank to drink. The shepherd, a decrepit old man, with one eye and a crooked mouth, walks with his head bowed, looking at his feet. The first to reach the water are the sheep, then come the horses, and last of all the cows.

    “Push him from below!” he hears Lubim’s voice. “Stick your finger in! Are you deaf, fellow, or what? Tfoo!”

    “What are you after, lads?” shouts Yefim.

    “An eel-pout! We can’t get him out! He’s hidden under the roots. Get round to the side! To the side!”

    For a minute Yefim screws up his eye at the fishermen, then he takes off his bark shoes, throws his sack off his shoulders, and takes off his shirt. He has not the patience to take off his breeches, but, making the sign of the cross, he steps into the water, holding out his thin dark arms to balance himself. . . . For fifty paces he walks along the slimy bottom, then he takes to swimming.

    “Wait a minute, lads!” he shouts. “Wait! Don’t be in a hurry to pull him out, you’ll lose him. You must do it properly!”

    Yefim joins the carpenters and all three, shoving each other with their knees and their elbows, puffing and swearing at one another, bustle about the same spot. Lubim, the hunchback, gets a mouthful of water, and the air rings with his hard spasmodic coughing.

    “Where’s the shepherd?” comes a shout from the bank. “Yefim! Shepherd! Where are you? The cattle are in the garden! Drive them out, drive them out of the garden! Where is he, the old brigand?”

    First men’s voices are heard, then a woman’s. The master himself, Andrey Andreitch, wearing a dressing-gown made of a Persian shawl and carrying a newspaper in his hand, appears from behind the garden fence. He looks inquiringly towards the shouts which come from the river, and then trips rapidly towards the bathing shed.

    “What’s this? Who’s shouting?” he asks sternly, seeing through the branches of the willow the three wet heads of the fishermen. “What are you so busy about there?”

    “Catching a fish,” mutters Yefim, without raising his head.

    “I’ll give it to you! The beasts are in the garden and he is fishing! . . . When will that bathing shed be done, you devils? You’ve been at work two days, and what is there to show for it?”

    “It . . . will soon be done,” grunts Gerassim; summer is long, you’ll have plenty of time to wash, your honour. . . . Pfrrr! . . . We can’t manage this eel-pout here anyhow. . . . He’s got under a root and sits there as if he were in a hole and won’t budge one way or another . . . .”

    “An eel-pout?” says the master, and his eyes begin to glisten. “Get him out quickly then.”

    “You’ll give us half a rouble for it presently if we oblige you. . . . A huge eel-pout, as fat as a merchant’s wife. . . . It’s worth half a rouble, your honour, for the trouble. . . . Don’t squeeze him, Lubim, don’t squeeze him, you’ll spoil him! Push him up from below! Pull the root upwards, my good man . . . what’s your name? Upwards, not downwards, you brute! Don’t swing your legs!”

    Five minutes pass, ten. . . . The master loses all patience.

    “Vassily!” he shouts, turning towards the garden. “Vaska! Call Vassily to me!”

    The coachman Vassily runs up. He is chewing something and breathing hard.

    “Go into the water,” the master orders him. “Help them to pull out that eel-pout. They can’t get him out.”

    Vassily rapidly undresses and gets into the water.

    “In a minute. . . . I’ll get him in a minute,” he mutters. “Where’s the eel-pout? We’ll have him out in a trice! You’d better go, Yefim. An old man like you ought to be minding his own business instead of being here. Where’s that eel-pout? I’ll have him in a minute. . . . Here he is! Let go.”

    “What’s the good of saying that? We know all about that! You get it out!”

    But there is no getting it out like this! One must get hold of it by the head.”

    “And the head is under the root! We know that, you fool!”

    “Now then, don’t talk or you’ll catch it! You dirty cur!”

    “Before the master to use such language,” mutters Yefim. “You won’t get him out, lads! He’s fixed himself much too cleverly!”

    “Wait a minute, I’ll come directly,” says the master, and he begins hurriedly undressing. “Four fools, and can’t get an eel-pout!”

    When he is undressed, Andrey Andreitch gives himself time to cool and gets into the water. But even his interference leads to nothing.

    “We must chop the root off,” Lubim decides at last. “Gerassim, go and get an axe! Give me an axe!”

    “Don’t chop your fingers off,” says the master, when the blows of the axe on the root under water are heard. “Yefim, get out of this! Stay, I’ll get the eel-pout. . . . You’ll never do it.”

    The root is hacked a little. They partly break it off, and Andrey Andreitch, to his immense satisfaction, feels his fingers under the gills of the fish.

    “I’m pulling him out, lads! Don’t crowd round . . . stand still. . . . I am pulling him out!”

    The head of a big eel-pout, and behind it its long black body, nearly a yard long, appears on the surface of the water. The fish flaps its tail heavily and tries to tear itself away.

    “None of your nonsense, my boy! Fiddlesticks! I’ve got you! Aha!”

    A honied smile overspreads all the faces. A minute passes in silent contemplation.

    “A famous eel-pout,” mutters Yefim, scratching under his shoulder-blades. “I’ll be bound it weighs ten pounds.”

    “Mm! . . . Yes,” the master assents. “The liver is fairly swollen! It seems to stand out! A-ach!”

    The fish makes a sudden, unexpected upward movement with its tail and the fishermen hear a loud splash . . . they all put out their hands, but it is too late; they have seen the last of the eel-pout.

    The Fish