Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Abundance Dec 26 Organization

Go to Abundance for more selections, including other original pieces by Dane Allred and his audio versions of many famous short stories and poems called Literature Out Loud, plus lots more!!

Click on the player to hear the audio from the episode.

This is the entire episode from Dec. 26th called Organization. The program "Abundance" included the following episodes:

Colorblind -- a limerick

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Dane Allred -- They're Not Mad at Us

Character Central -- W.C. Fields, Forrest Gump and Leo

Rules of Engagement -- Chemical Hazards

Bright Space -- Work

Literature Out Loud -- The Romance of a Busy Broker by O. Henry

The Aged Aged Man by Lewis Carroll

The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson

Dane Allred's Partly-colored Dreamcoat -- Accepting Difference

Full text of each piece with accompanying audio is available at Podbean. See grouped episodes for details.


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Monday, December 27, 2010

The Aged Aged Man by Lewis Carroll

Go to Literature Out Loud -- Poems for a complete list of all poems available at Literature Out Loud.



Click on the player to hear an audio version of this poem.

The Aged Aged Man

by Lewis Carroll

I'll tell thee everything I can;
There's little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
"Who are you, aged man?" I said,
"And how is it you live?"
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said, "I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men," he said,
"Who sail on stormy seas;
And that's the way I get my bread,
A trifle; if you please."

But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one's whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, "Come, tell me how you live!"
And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale:
He said, "I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland's Macassar-Oil,
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil."

But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue:
"Come, tell me how you live," I cried,
"And what it is you do!"

He said, "I hunt for haddocks' eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.

"I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of hansom-cabs.
And that's the way" (he gave a wink)
"By which I get my wealth,
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honour's noble health."

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now, if e'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know,
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo,
That summer evening long ago
A-sitting on a gate.

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The Romance of a Busy Broker by O.Henry / William Sydney Porter

Go to Literature Out Loud -- Short Stories for a complete list of all short stories available at Literature Out Loud.
Click on the player to hear an audio version of this short story.



The Romance of a Busy Broker

by O.Henry / William Sydney Porter


Pitcher, confidential clerk in the office of Harvey Maxwell, broker, allowed a look of mild interest and surprise to visit his usually expressionless countenance when his employer briskly entered at half past nine in company with his young lady stenographer. With a snappy "Good-morning, Pitcher," Maxwell dashed at his desk as though he were intending to leap over it, and then plunged into the great heap of letters and telegrams waiting there for him.

The young lady had been Maxwell's stenographer for a year. She was beautiful in a way that was decidedly unstenographic. She forewent the pomp of the alluring pompadour. She wore no chains, bracelets or lockets. She had not the air of being about to accept an invitation to luncheon. Her dress was grey and plain, but it fitted her figure with fidelity and discretion. In her neat black turban hat was the gold-green wing of a macaw. On this morning she was softly and shyly radiant. Her eyes were dreamily bright, her cheeks genuine peachblow, her expression a happy one, tinged with reminiscence.

Pitcher, still mildly curious, noticed a difference in her ways this morning. Instead of going straight into the adjoining room, where her desk was, she lingered, slightly irresolute, in the outer office. Once she moved over by Maxwell's desk, near enough for him to be aware of her presence.

The machine sitting at that desk was no longer a man; it was a busy New York broker, moved by buzzing wheels and uncoiling springs.

"Well--what is it? Anything?" asked Maxwell sharply. His opened mail lay like a bank of stage snow on his crowded desk. His keen grey eye, impersonal and brusque, flashed upon her half impatiently.

"Nothing," answered the stenographer, moving away with a little smile.

"Mr. Pitcher," she said to the confidential clerk, “did Mr. Maxwell say anything yesterday about engaging another stenographer?"

"He did," answered Pitcher. "He told me to get another one. I notified the agency yesterday afternoon to send over a few samples this morning. It's 9.45 o'clock, and not a single picture hat or piece of pineapple chewing gum has showed up yet."

"I will do the work as usual, then," said the young lady, "until someone comes to fill the place." And she went to her desk at once and hung the black turban hat with the gold-green macaw wing in its accustomed place.

He who has been denied the spectacle of a busy Manhattan broker during a rush of business is handicapped for the profession of anthropology. The poet sings of the "crowded hour of glorious life." The broker's hour is not only crowded, but the minutes and seconds are hanging to all the straps and packing both front and rear platforms.

And this day was Harvey Maxwell's busy day. The ticker began to reel out jerkily its fitful coils of tape, the desk telephone had a chronic attack of buzzing. Men began to throng into the office and call at him over the railing, jovially, sharply, viciously, excitedly. Messenger boys ran in and out with messages and telegrams. The clerks in the office jumped about like sailors during a storm. Even Pitcher's face relaxed into something resembling animation.

On the Exchange there were hurricanes and landslides and snowstorms and glaciers and volcanoes, and those elemental disturbances were reproduced in miniature in the broker's offices. Maxwell shoved his chair against the wall and transacted business after the manner of a toe dancer. He jumped from ticker to 'phone, from desk to door with the trained agility of a harlequin.

In the midst of this growing and important stress the broker became suddenly aware of a high-rolled fringe of golden hair under a nodding canopy of velvet and ostrich tips, an imitation sealskin sacque and a string of beads as large as hickory nuts, ending near the floor with a silver heart. There was a self-possessed young lady connected with these accessories; and Pitcher was there to construe her.

"Lady from the Stenographer's Agency to see about the position," said Pitcher.

Maxwell turned half around, with his hands full of papers and ticker tape.

"What position?" he asked, with a frown.

"Position of stenographer," said Pitcher. "You told me yesterday to call them up and have one sent over this morning."

"You are losing your mind, Pitcher," said Maxwell. "Why should I have given you any such instructions? Miss Leslie has given perfect satisfaction during the year she has been here. The place is hers as long as she chooses to retain it. There's no place open here, madam. Countermand that order with the agency, Pitcher, and don't bring any more of 'em in here."

The silver heart left the office, swinging and banging itself independently against the office furniture as it indignantly departed. Pitcher seized a moment to remark to the bookkeeper that the "old man" seemed to get more absent-minded and forgetful every day of the world.

The rush and pace of business grew fiercer and faster. On the floor they were pounding half a dozen stocks in which Maxwell's customers were heavy investors. Orders to buy and sell were coming and going as swift as the flight of swallows. Some of his own holdings were imperiled, and the man was working like some high-geared, delicate, strong machine--strung to full tension, going at full speed, accurate, never hesitating, with the proper word and decision and act ready and prompt as clockwork. Stocks and bonds, loans and mortgages, margins and securities--here was a world of finance, and there was no room in it for the human world or the world of nature.

When the luncheon hour drew near there came a slight lull in the uproar.

Maxwell stood by his desk with his hands full of telegrams and memoranda, with a fountain pen over his right ear and his hair hanging in disorderly strings over his forehead. His window was open, for the beloved janitress Spring had turned on a little warmth through the waking registers of the earth.

And through the window came a wandering--perhaps a lost--odor--a delicate, sweet odor of lilac that fixed the broker for a moment immovable. For this odor belonged to Miss Leslie; it was her own, and hers only.

The odor brought her vividly, almost tangibly before him. The world of finance dwindled suddenly to a speck. And she was in the next room--twenty steps away.

"By George, I'll do it now," said Maxwell, half aloud. "I'll ask her now. I wonder I didn't do it long ago."

He dashed into the inner office with the haste of a short trying to cover. He charged upon the desk of the stenographer.

She looked up at him with a smile. A soft pink crept over her cheek, and her eyes were kind and frank. Maxwell leaned one elbow on her desk. He still clutched fluttering papers with both hands and the pen was above his ear.

"Miss Leslie," he began hurriedly, "I have but a moment to spare. I want to say something in that moment. Will you he my wife? I haven't had time to make love to you in the ordinary way, but I really do love you. Talk quick, please--those fellows are clubbing the stuffing out of Union Pacific."

"Oh, what are you talking about?" exclaimed the young lady. She rose to her feet and gazed upon him, round-eyed.

"Don't you understand?" said Maxwell, restively. "I want you to marry me. I love you, Miss Leslie. I wanted to tell you, and I snatched a minute when things had slackened up a bit. They're calling me for the 'phone now. Tell 'em to wait a minute, Pitcher. Won't you, Miss Leslie?"

The stenographer acted very queerly. At first she seemed overcome with amazement; then tears flowed from her wondering eyes; and then she smiled sunnily through them, and one of her arms slid tenderly about the broker's neck.

"I know now," she said, softly. "It's this old business that has driven everything else out of your head for the time. I was frightened at first. Don't you remember, Harvey? We were married last evening at 8 o'clock in the Little Church around the Corner."


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Bright Space -- Work

Go to Abundance for more selections by Dane Allred, including other episodes from Bright Space, plus lots more!!Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece.

Bright Space

Work


by Dane Allred

As we work side by side
Trying to get back to that Bright Space
We all shared
We organize ourselves to do our best
We try to experience all there is
So when we go back we will know all there is to know.

I circle in my sphere
Completing my tasks
And you complete yours
While circling in your sphere
And sometimes our paths cross

When we meet in this way we find we are doing the same work
Working in our own way
But accomplishing the same thing.

We recognize that Brightness for a moment
And remember that we must remember all of this
So when we are together again
We can share all that we have learned.

You must do those things you are to do.
I have my list as well.
But unknown to us is how our works
Will complement each other
When all is done that must be done.

You and I will have many stories to share
And we will remember the time our spheres connected
For a moment
And we recalled the Bright Space
That Bright Space we left to be here on our own
When all we had ever known was being together.

We came here to find out what we could never know together
And will return to share
And again we will be all there ever was, ever is, or ever will be.

Pay attention to those moments when our worlds coalesce
Remember that Bright Place which still connects us.
And then we will go our separate ways again.

You work in your place
I work in mine
But the work is important
It all works together even though it seems random
It might seem unimportant
It is the most important thing we can do.

Though there seems no order in what we do
Though chaos seems to dominate all we see
Our plan to find out all we ever could
Brings us closer to being together in that Bright Space again.


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Chemical Hazards

Go to Abundance for more selections by Dane Allred, including other episodes from Rules of Engagement, plus lots more!!
Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece.


CHEMICAL HAZARDS


I guess one of the reasons I don't take my injuries too seriously is that I have seen real suffering up close. Anything I have been through is nothing compared to the pain and stress of cancer treatment. I don't think I could put on as brave a face as my wife when she had cancer fifteen years ago.

The bone cancer was discovered. She went through two major surgeries and the recovery process, and was now missing parts of three of her ribs. But the worst was yet to come.

Chemotherapy is designed to kill cancer cells lurking in your body, but it almost kills the patient, too. She was on a special protocol designed by the top doctors in the world, and after the first treatment she was so sick she almost quit.

We called the doctors and they decided she could probably get by on a reduced dose, but she would still have to go through six courses of treatment.

Even getting ready for the chemotherapy involved surgery. She had to have a sub-dermal catheter which would stay in her body for the course of treatment. It looked like a doctor's stethoscope end, and they buried it under her skin just below her right clavicle. It was a bump about an inch around, and when they wanted to administer the chemotherapy, they would strap a fanny pack full of the chemicals to her hip and run a tube from it to her catheter. She would then go back to school and teach the rest of the day as the chemical coursed through her body.

Here's the strangest thing anyone said to us during the chemotherapy ordeal. Since she would be carrying around the treatment with her during the day, the oncology nurse said, "Don't get this on your skin."

The nurse was worried she may spring a leak during the day and have the chemicals get on bare skin. Now think about this for a moment. During chemotherapy you are pumping deadly chemicals throughout your body which are not supposed to get on your skin?

It made us both laugh out loud. It seemed so insane that this was the way where you could kill cancer, by almost killing the patient.

Getting the chemo was the easy part. Enduring the effects was so hard that Debbie wanted to quit several times, and almost couldn't make it through the entire treatment.

After the first treatment, her hair fell out. It would come out in clumps into her hand, and she just tossed it into the garbage can. By the end of the week she was mostly bald. The hairdresser shaved off the rest.

Guys can have a bald head and no one thinks anything about it. But as soon as I see a bald woman I now think chemotherapy. I even think this if I see a woman wearing a scarf which completely covers her head. But the good news is that Debbie has a beautiful bald head.

The chemotherapy treatments would so devastate Debbie's body that sometimes she would need to go to the hospital for fluids and monitoring. She would also sometimes need to get Nupogen treatments to boost her white blood cells.

Here's a strange medical twist. If you are getting chemotherapy, you can't get the treatment if your white blood count is too low, which is one of the purposes of chemotherapy. So if the chemotherapy is working, your white blood count goes down. But if it gets too low, you can't get the treatment.

So cancer patients get a treatment to raise their white blood cell count, so they can go back in later and get chemotherapy which will lower their white blood count again. There must be an easier way to do this.

One time Debbie had an especially bad reaction to the fourth or fifth treatment. She was in the hospital in a lot of pain, and I think the staff had given her too much morphine. She was struggling to breathe, and several times she stopped breathing.

I would gently shake her and tell her to keep breathing. There was equipment in the room which would have alerted the nurses if I hadn't been there, but it was one moment in this miserable process when I felt like I was actually helping.

About the only other thing I could do was give her ice chips when she was in the hospital, which ended up being 10 or more trips. The doctors and nurses did a great job, organized and prepared in a way which is truly amazing to see.

When I think about the advances in science, medicine, and technology, I can’t wait to see what the future will bring. Join me as we journey into a future of possibilities.


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Sunday, December 26, 2010

W.C. Fields, Forrest Gump and Leo on Character Central

Go to Abundance for more selections, including other original pieces by Dane Allred and his audio versions of many famous short stories and poems called Literature Out Loud, plus lots more!!

Click on the player for an audio version of this piece.
Leo
Character Central, this is Leo speakin’. Who you lookin’ for?
Dane
Could I speak to W.C. Fields please?
Leo
Just a minute. W.C.?
Forrest
You need to go to the bathroom?
Leo
No, not the water closet, you moron. Go get W.C. Fields.
Forrest
Okay Lieutenant Dan.
Leo
Stop calling me Lieutenant Dan! Just go get the old drunk.
Forrest
Yes sir, drill sergeant sir!
Leo
That nut is goin’ drive me crazy. Can I tell Mr. Fields whom is calling?
Dane
Yes, I’m Dane Allred calling for Abundance.
Leo
Abundance? You ain’t gonna get no abundance here, pally.
Dane
No, the program is called Abundance.
Leo
Oh yeah, that crazy guy who goes on and on about all the good t’ings in life.
Dane
Yes, that’s me, Dane Allred.
Leo
Well, I got your Abundance right here! Who is dis being billed to?
Dane
Can you use the same card as last time?
Leo
Let me look. Abundance, abundance, use Bill Gates lost credit card?
Dane
That would be fine.

Leo
Gotcha. Here’s W.C. Fields. But don’t talk too long cause I ain’t gonna stand here and prop him up. He’s pretty wobbly today.
Dane
Okay.
Leo
And thank you for using Character Central, your source for the formerly famous. Here’s the phone, you old booze-hound.
W.C.
Thank you my good man. It’s not a fit night out for man nor beast.
Dane
Is this W.C. Fields?
W.C.
Speaking. And how can I help you my good man?
Dane
Well, today on Abundance we are talking about organization. Do you have any organizational tips for my audience?
W.C.
Ornamentation? I’m in favor of it.
Dane
No, organization.
W.C.
Oh, organization. That reminds me, a woman drove me to drink and I never even had the decency to thank her.
Dane
So you’re suggesting making a list of people to thank? Any other suggestions?
W.C.
I never drink water because of the disgusting things fish do in it. Water; that’s the stuff that rusts pipes. Excuse me for a moment, I must have a drink of breakfast.
Dane
You don’t drink water at all?
W.C.
I never drink water. I’m afraid it may become habit-forming.
Dane
Well, speaking of habits, do you foresee a time you will ever stop drinking alcohol?
W.C.
Now don't say you can't swear off drinking; it's easy. I've done it a thousand times.
Dane
You have quit drinking before. Was there an organized program?
W.C.
Yes. Once during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.
Dane
Any other times you’ve quit?
W.C.
Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water.
Dane
Do you have any other preferences you’d like to share with us?
W.C.
On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.
Dane
You don’t like living there at Character Central?
W.C.
No. Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
Dane
But, really, Philadelphia. I’ve never heard you speak well of that town.
W.C.
I once spent a year in Philadelphia. I think it was a Sunday.
Dane
Seriously?
W.C.
Oh, yes. Last week, I went to Philadelphia, but it was closed.
Dane
So, Mr. Fields, any other advice for our listeners about trying to get organized?
W.C.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it.
Dane
Well, that is sound advice. Thank you W.C. Fields for speaking with us today on Abundance.
W.C.
I thought we were talking about ornamentation.
Dane
No, we’re focusing on organization on the program called Abundance. I believe in celebrating the abundance all around us.
W.C.
A man’s gotta believe in something, and I believe I’ll have another drink. And like I say, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull. Good day to you, Mr. Gates.
Dane
No, its Dane Allred, we just use this card I found…
Music interruption.
Dane
Thanks to Mr. W.C. Fields who joined us today on Abundance from Character Central.
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Colorblind -- a limerick by Dane Allred

Go to Abundance for more selections, including other original pieces by Dane Allred and his audio versions of many famous short stories and poems called Literature Out Loud, plus lots more!!Click on the player to hear an audio version of this limerick.

Colorblind
by Dane Allred

So organizing’s over-rated
What if my pants and socks aren’t mated
Green, lemon, red, scarlet
Grey, crimson, violet
Aren’t colors equally created?

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Romeo and Julia by August Strindberg

Go to Literature Out Loud -- Short Stories for a complete list of all short stories available at Literature Out Loud.



Click on the player to hear an audio version of this short story.

Romeo And Julia

by August Strindberg



One evening the husband came home with a roll of music under his arm and said to his wife:

"Let us play duets after supper!"

"What have you got there?" asked his wife.

"’Romeo and Julia’, arranged for the piano. Do you know it?"

"Yes, of course I do," she replied, "but I don't remember ever having seen it on the stage."

"Oh! It's splendid! To me it is like a dream of my youth, but I've only heard it once, and that was about twenty years ago."

After supper, when the children had been put to bed and the house lay silent, the husband lighted the candles on the piano. He looked at the lithographed title-page and read the title: Romeo and Julia.

"This is Gounod's most beautiful composition," he said, "and I don't believe that it will be too difficult for us."

As usual his wife undertook to play the treble and they began. D major, common time, “allegro giusto”.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?" asked the husband, when they had finished the overture.

"Y--es," admitted the wife, reluctantly.

"Now the martial music," said the husband; "it is exceptionally fine. I can remember the splendid choruses at the Royal Theatre."

They played a march.

"Well, wasn't I right?" asked the husband, triumphantly, as if he had composed "Romeo and Julia" himself.

"I don't know; it rather sounds like a brass band," answered the wife.

The husband's honour and good taste were involved; he looked for the Moonshine Aria in the fourth act. After a little searching he came across an aria for soprano. That must be it.

And he began again.

Tram-tramtram, tram-tramtram, went the bass; it was very easy to play.

"Do you know," said his wife, when it was over, "I don't think very much of it."

The husband, quite depressed, admitted that it reminded him of a barrel organ.

"I thought so all along," confessed the wife.

"And I find it antiquated, too. I am surprised that Gounod should be out of date, already," he added dejectedly. "Would you like to go on playing? Let's try the Cavatina and the Trio; I particularly remember the soprano; she was divine."

When they stopped playing, the husband looked crestfallen and put the music away, as if he wanted to shut the door on the past.

"Let's have a glass of beer," he said. They sat down at the table and had a glass of beer.

"It's extraordinary," he began, after a little while, "I never realised before that we've grown old, for we really must have vied with Romeo and Julia as to who should age faster. It's twenty years ago since I heard the opera for the first time. I was a newly fledged undergraduate then, I had many friends and the future smiled at me. I was immensely proud of the first down on my upper lip and my little college cap, and I remember as if it were to-day, the evening when Fritz, Phil and myself went to hear this opera. We had heard 'Faust' some years before and were great admirers of Gounod's genius. But Romeo beat all our expectations. The music roused our wildest enthusiasm. Now both my friends are dead. Fritz, who was ambitious, was a private secretary when he died, Phil a medical student; I who aspired to the position of a minister of state have to content myself with that of a regimental judge. The years have passed by quickly and imperceptibly. Of course I have noticed that the lines under my eyes have grown deeper and that my hair has turned grey at the temples, but I should never have thought that we had travelled so far on the road to the grave."

"Yes, my dear, we've grown old; our children could teach us that. And you must see it in me too, although you don't say anything."

"How can you say that!"

"Oh! I know only too well, my dear," continued the wife, sadly; "I know that I am beginning to lose my good looks, that my hair is growing thin, that I shall soon lose my front teeth...."

"Just consider how quickly everything passes away"--interrupted her husband. "It seems to me that one grows old much more rapidly now-a-days, than one used to do. In my father's house Haydn and Mozart were played a great deal, although they were dead long before he was born. And now --now Gounod has grown old-fashioned already! How distressing it is to meet again the ideals of one's youth under these altered circumstances! And how horrible it is to feel old age approaching!"

He got up and sat down again at the piano; he took the music and turned over the pages as if he were looking for keepsakes, locks of hair, dried flowers and ends of ribbon in the drawer of a writing-table. His eyes were riveted on the black notes which looked like little birds climbing up and down a wire fencing; but where were the spring songs, the passionate protestations, the jubilant avowals of the rosy days of first love? The notes stared back at him like strangers; as if the memory of life's spring-time were grown over with weeds.

Yes, that was it; the strings were covered with dust, the sounding board was dried up, the felt worn away.

A heavy sigh echoed through the room, heavy as if it came from a hollow chest, and then silence fell.

"But all the same, it is strange," the husband said suddenly, "that the glorious prologue is missing in this arrangement. I remember distinctly that there was a prologue with an accompaniment of harps and a chorus which went like this."

He softly hummed the tune, which bubbled up like a stream in a mountain glen; note succeeded note, his face cleared, his lips smiled, the lines disappeared, his fingers touched the keys, and drew from them melodies, powerful, caressing and full of eternal youth, while with a strong and ringing voice he sang the part of the bass.

His wife started from her melancholy reverie and listened with tears in her eyes.

"What are you singing?" she asked, full of amazement.

"Romeo and Julia! Our Romeo and our Julia!"

He jumped up from the music stool and pushed the music towards his astonished wife.

"Look! This was the Romeo of our uncles and aunts, this was--read it--Bellini! Oh! We are not old, after all!"

The wife looked at the thick, glossy hair of her husband, his smooth brow and flashing eyes, with joy.

"And you? You look like a young girl. We have allowed old Bellini to make fools of us. I felt that something was wrong."

"No, darling, I thought so first."

"Probably you did; that is because you are younger than I am."

"No, you...."

And husband and wife, like a couple of children, laughingly quarrel over the question of which of them is the elder of the two, and cannot understand how they could have discovered lines and grey hairs where there are none.

Bright Space -- Pain and Suffering

Go to Abundance for more selections by Dane Allred, including other episodes from Bright Space, plus lots more!!


Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece.

Pain and Suffering

We were once together in that bright space
But now we spin in our separate spheres
Sometimes distracted by pain
Other times worried by the suffering we endure ourselves
Or the problems others face.

When we look at one another
Really look deeply at that other person
And consider the difficulties they may be undergoing
We may wonder if there is a way we can help
With all the trouble we seem to encounter in our own lives.

But the lesson from that Bright Space is that we are all on this journey together.
You are learning what you need to learn,
And I am here to help you learn.

But I am also experiencing all the joy and sweetness,
Suffering and pain contained in this world.
And you are here to help me make it back to that Bright Space
Where we all will share all that has been learned.

Pain, trouble, suffering, and distress
Are all a part of this experience we desired
A desire so strong we left the Bright Place
So we could be all that ever was, ever is, and ever will be.

We will also experience all the joy, beauty, and happiness
Offered us in this wondrous place.
We are here together now
Trying our best to learn all we can.
And we are here together now
To help each other learn all we can.

When we look closely at that other person
No matter who, or when or where
We can still feel that connection
And know we are here for each other.

I can help you
You can help me
And when we decide to unite and work together
Heal together
Rejoice together
There is nothing we cannot overcome
There is no obstacle to stand in our way
And we will understand
We are learning all there is to learn,
And we cannot do it on our own.

Reach out today and see that connection
We once shared
That we now share
With everyone, everywhere.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Sheepherder Translation

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Sheepherder Translation

As per usual, I got stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. I am trying to get to a stand of pine trees to cut into pine poles and posts. I had backed down the road in the beautiful mountains of Utah at the ripe age of 17, and put my left rear tire into mid-air on the dirt road. My truck was belching blue smoke, and the sheepherder nearby thought there might be a fire. As he rode up on his horse, I have never been so glad to see another human being. There really is no desperation quite like being stuck in the top of the mountains, especially when you think no one else who can help you is closer than 50 miles away. The old man listened patiently to my stupidity, and then said he thought if he tied his rope to the back of the truck, his horse could pull the rear end of my truck back onto the road.

I was out of ideas and welcomed the help. He was right. As he pulled the rope backwards with his horse, I put the truck in reverse and one cloud of blue smoke later I was back on the road. I jumped out to thank him and he invited me to come to his trailer for coffee.

This man had just saved my life, and I was obligated to at least spend a little time with him as payment. A sheepherder goes up to the mountain in the spring and has little human contact the entire summer, mostly just getting supplies from his employer and going to town once in a while. It would have been the height of rudeness to refuse his hospitality, especially after his rescue of me and my truck.

I decided to play it by ear and at least show the respect of spending some time with him.

The very first thing he did was pour the coffee and hand it to me with a smile.

I found out that this man was from Colorado, and that he had two sons who drove trucks for some company up there. After we talked for a few more minutes. He confessed to me that he didn't read English all that well. Spanish was his native language.

He pulled out a letter and asked me if I would read it to him. He indicated that a girl he had met at a dance in town a couple of weeks ago had sent it to him (what would the address be?) and he couldn't read it.

He asked if I would read it for him.

He had rescued me from the mountain. He had offered the hospitality of coffee in his trailer. It didn't seem like an outlandish request, but remember, this is a personal letter from a woman to a man.

I had no idea if there would be suggestive or other language in the letter, but I decided I better read it to him and then excuse myself - before he had me write a reply.

It was actually a sweet moment after all. The woman wrote to him about how she had enjoyed his company and hoped she would see him again. The awkwardness of the situation seemed to fade, but for anyone else who may have happened by, they would have seen a young man reading a love letter to an old man while they sat having coffee in a sheepherder's trailer. I can still see it in my mind.

The old man sat there patiently listening while I read the words of a woman that he couldn't read himself. It was so personal and so involved that I found myself detaching from the situation and ignoring the words. I vanished from the scene and it was just this old man and a woman who cared for each other communicating in the only way they could.

I finished the letter and stood abruptly. I was uncomfortable, but the old man was only grateful. We had helped each other out, and the debt was paid. I excused myself and thanked him for the help and the hospitality, and I never saw him again.

We spent perhaps 30 or 40 minutes together, but this memory is one that will always warm my heart. I think it is only when we are reaching out to one another to help in any way we can that we fully live. Even if it is just reading a love note to someone who can't read it. Or just pulling some dumb kid's truck back onto the road with your horse.

I wonder why it's the little things like this that make us feel truly a part of humanity. Good luck on your next dirt road.

Negotiations -- a limerick by Dane Allred



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Negotiations
by Dane Allred

The best kind of negotiations
And the various machinations
Is where each side thinks
The other deal stinks
And they got the best obligations.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Abundance Movement Dec 5

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This is the complete episode of "Abundance" called "Movement" from December 5th.


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The Touch of The Master's Hand by Myra Brooks Welch

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The Touch of The Master's Hand

by Myra Brooks Welch

It was battered and scarred,
And the auctioneer thought it
Hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
But he held it up with a smile.
"What am I bid, good people", he cried,
"Who starts the bidding for me?"
"One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?"
"Two dollars, who makes it three?"

"Three dollars once, three dollars twice,
Going for three". . . but no!
From the room far back a gray-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow;
Then wiping the dust from the old violin,
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet,
As sweet as an angel sings.

The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said "What now am I bid for this old violin?"
As he held it aloft with its bow.
"One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?"
"Two thousand, Who makes it three?"
"Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone", said he.

The people cheered, but some of them cried,
"We do not quite understand.
What changed its worth?" Swift came the reply:
"The touch of the Master's hand."
And many a man with life out of tune,
And battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd
Much like the old violin.

A "mess of pottage," a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on,
He's going once, and going twice -
He's going - and almost gone!
But the MASTER comes, and the foolish crowd,
Never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul, and the change that's wrought
By the touch of the MASTER'S hand.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Bright Space -- Unity

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Bright Space
by Dane Allred


Unity
There is a brightness we can feel when we work in unity.
The space between us becomes brighter
We feel more as one
The work draws us together in a way
Nothing else can produce.

Working side by side with another someone
A someone we knew from the bright space
But had forgotten
Had lost
And had to rediscover again
Brings back that light we knew with that someone.

That someone we turned to in that long ago and far away
And said to each other,
“We are together now,
And we are all that ever is, ever was, or ever will be.”

But we both knew there was another way
For us to learn all there is to know
To experience all there is.

Alone, apart from each other, we could explore and discover all we could not know
If we stayed in that bright space together.

So now, as I stand by you, and you stand by me,
We are apart, but are still one.
That bright space is in me
And that bright space is in you.
And we feel the connection we had lost.

The recognition of that light we see in each other’s eyes,
That we see in the eyes of everyone who is anyone who is anywhere
Sparks that light again
And as we toil we remember
We are here to help each other learn all we can
We are here to learn all we can
We are striving to learn all there is to learn
As we spin in our separate spheres
Until that time we rejoin with that bright space
And are as one again.

All experience
All sadness
All happiness
All joy
All things will be joined again as one

And then we will truly feel the unity
The oneness we feel now when working side by side
On this marble we call Earth
Which speeds through space
Carrying all of us to that final destination.

That bright space where we will be one.

Minds in Ferment by Anton Chekhov

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Minds in Ferment
by Anton Chekhov

The earth was like an oven. The afternoon sun blazed with such energy that even the thermometer hanging in the excise officer's room lost its head: it ran up to 112.5 and stopped there, irresolute. The inhabitants streamed with perspiration like overdriven horses, and were too lazy to mop their faces.
Two of the inhabitants were walking along the market-place in front of the closely shuttered houses. One was Potcheshihin, the local treasury clerk, and the other was Optimov, the agent, for many years a correspondent of the Son of the Fatherland newspaper. They walked in silence, speechless from the heat. Optimov felt tempted to find fault with the local authorities for the dust and disorder of the market-place, but, aware of the peace-loving disposition and moderate views of his companion, he said nothing.

In the middle of the market-place Potcheshihin suddenly halted and began gazing into the sky.

"What are you looking at?"

"Those starlings that flew up. I wonder where they have settled. Clouds and clouds of them. . . . If one were to go and take a shot at them, and if one were to pick them up . . . and if . . . They have settled in the Father Prebendary's garden!"

"Oh no! They are not in the Father Prebendary's, they are in the Father Deacon's. If you did have a shot at them from here you wouldn't kill anything. Fine shot won't carry so far; it loses its force. And why should you kill them, anyway? They're birds destructive of the fruit, that's true; still, they're fowls of the air, works of the Lord. The starling sings, you know. . . . And what does it sing, pray? A song of praise. . . . 'All ye fowls of the air, praise ye the Lord.' No. I do believe they have settled in the Father Prebendary's garden."

Three old pilgrim women, wearing bark shoes and carrying wallets, passed noiselessly by the speakers. Looking enquiringly at the gentlemen who were for some unknown reason staring at the Father Prebendary's house, they slackened their pace, and when they were a few yards off stopped, glanced at the friends once more, and then fell to gazing at the house themselves.

"Yes, you were right; they have settled in the Father Prebendary's," said Optimov. "His cherries are ripe now, so they have gone there to peck them."

From the garden gate emerged the Father Prebendary himself, accompanied by the sexton. Seeing the attention directed upon his abode and wondering what people were staring at, he stopped, and he, too, as well as the sexton, began looking upwards to find out.

"The father is going to a service somewhere, I suppose," said Potcheshihin. "The Lord be his succour!"

Some workmen from Purov's factory, who had been bathing in the river, passed between the friends and the priest. Seeing the latter absorbed in contemplation of the heavens and the pilgrim women, too, standing motionless with their eyes turned upwards, they stood still and stared in the same direction.

A small boy leading a blind beggar and a peasant, carrying a tub of stinking fish to throw into the market-place, did the same.

"There must be something the matter, I should think," said Potcheshihin, "a fire or something. But there's no sign of smoke anywhere. Hey! Kuzma!" he shouted to the peasant, "what's the matter?"

The peasant made some reply, but Potcheshihin and Optimov did not catch it. Sleepy-looking shopmen made their appearance at the doors of all the shops. Some plasterers at work on a warehouse near left their ladders and joined the workmen.

The fireman, who was describing circles with his bare feet, on the watch-tower, halted, and, after looking steadily at them for a few minutes, came down. The watch-tower was left deserted. This seemed suspicious.

"There must be a fire somewhere. Don't shove me! You damned swine!"

"Where do you see the fire? What fire? Pass on, gentlemen! I ask you civilly!"

"It must be a fire indoors!"

"Asks us civilly and keeps poking with his elbows. Keep your hands to yourself! Though you are a head constable, you have no sort of right to make free with your fists!"

"He's trodden on my corn! Ah! I'll crush you!"

"Crushed? Who's crushed? Lads! a man's been crushed!

"What's the meaning of this crowd? What do you want?"

"A man's been crushed, please your honour!"

"Where? Pass on! I ask you civilly! I ask you civilly, you blockheads!"

"You may shove a peasant, but you daren't touch a gentleman! Hands off!"

"Did you ever know such people? There's no doing anything with them by fair words, the devils! Sidorov, run for Akim Danilitch! Look sharp! It'll be the worse for you, gentlemen! Akim Danilitch is coming, and he'll give it to you! You here, Parfen? A blind man, and at his age too! Can't see, but he must be like other people and won't do what he's told. Smirnov, put his name down!"

"Yes, sir! And shall I write down the men from Purov's? That man there with the swollen cheek, he's from Purov's works."

"Don't put down the men from Purov's. It's Purov's birthday to-morrow."

The starlings rose in a black cloud from the Father Prebendary's garden, but Potcheshihin and Optimov did not notice them. They stood staring into the air, wondering what could have attracted such a crowd, and what it was looking at.

Akim Danilitch appeared. Still munching and wiping his lips, he cut his way into the crowd, bellowing:

"Firemen, be ready! Disperse! Mr. Optimov, disperse, or it'll be the worse for you! Instead of writing all kinds of things about decent people in the papers, you had better try to behave yourself more conformably! No good ever comes of reading the papers!"

"Kindly refrain from reflections upon literature!" cried Optimov hotly. "I am a literary man, and I will allow no one to make reflections upon literature! though, as is the duty of a citizen, I respect you as a father and benefactor!"

"Firemen, turn the hose on them!"

"There's no water, please your honour!"

"Don't answer me! Go and get some! Look sharp!"

"We've nothing to get it in, your honour. The major has taken the fire-brigade horses to drive his aunt to the station.

"Disperse! Stand back, damnation take you! Is that to your taste? Put him down, the devil!"

"I've lost my pencil, please your honour!"

The crowd grew larger and larger. There is no telling what proportions it might have reached if the new organ just arrived from Moscow had not fortunately begun playing in the tavern close by. Hearing their favourite tune, the crowd gasped and rushed off to the tavern.

So nobody ever knew why the crowd had assembled, and Potcheshihin and Optimov had by now forgotten the existence of the starlings who were innocently responsible for the proceedings.

An hour later the town was still and silent again, and only a solitary figure was to be seen -- the fireman pacing round and round on the watch-tower.

The same evening Akim Danilitch sat in the grocer's shop drinking limonade gaseuse and brandy, and writing:

"In addition to the official report, I venture, your Excellency, to append a few supplementary observations of my own. Father and benefactor! In very truth, but for the prayers of your virtuous spouse in her salubrious villa near our town, there's no knowing what might not have come to pass. What I have been through to-day I can find no words to express. The efficiency of Krushensky and of the major of the fire brigade are beyond all praise! I am proud of such devoted servants of our country! As for me, I did all that a weak man could do, whose only desire is the welfare of his neighbour; and sitting now in the bosom of my family, with tears in my eyes I thank Him Who spared us bloodshed! In absence of evidence, the guilty parties remain in custody, but I propose to release them in a week or so. It was their ignorance that led them astray!"

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Fighting Words

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Fighting Words

If you check in the Bible, one of the first jobs for Adam was naming the animals. Mark Twain said it this way, “I think Adam was at his level best when he was naming the creatures.” Adam named the animals before Eve was created, and this is probably so he would not be corrected. I like that old sexist joke, “If there is man talking in the woods, and there is no woman around to correct him, is he still wrong?” Of course the answer from the ladies is “yes”.

I’m not sure when I became such an avid promoter of names. Names can tell us quite a bit about the status of this thing, or that thing, or this person or that society. We label with names, but we also use these handles to identify ourselves and make sense of our world. I am very passionate about knowing the names of other people, especially my students. I make them learn each other’s names. I test them on it. I do my best to always try to use their names when I see them, and as I practice more, I get better at identifying them.

So what’s the big deal? Someone once said the most beautiful sound in the universe is the sound of our own names. Think about it. It validates you as a person. It means someone else has acknowledged you exist. And they want to let you know they know you are here. What sweeter sound could there be?

Knowing someone else’s name shows you care. Not knowing their name is a kind of snub. We can overcome this by pretending we know their name. But it really isn’t the same as the real, live use of the name of another person.

One time I was glad I knew one of my student’s names. This particular student was a little disturbed, and in a public school, we accept all kinds of people. Some students are being treated by psychologists or other mental health professionals, but does that mean we don’t let them get an education? It’s another reason I like teaching in public schools. If the student isn’t a danger to others, all of us can learn some interesting things about each others. Sometimes we discover a student doesn’t belong in school, and they are taken from school.

While this person who shall remain nameless seemed to get along with his fellow students, I had no idea another student was harassing him. It had reached a point where he took matters into his own hands, and one day, pulled out a knife and threatened the other student.

I am sitting at the front of the room and see at the back of the room what I thought was an otherwise passive student pointing a knife at one of my other students. I have a couple of choices, but when something like this happens, you don’t always have a chance to weigh your options. I immediately shouted his name and demanded he bring the knife to me, at the front of the class.

Think about how stupid this is for a response. Instead of calmly walking to the back and handling the situation in a calm manner, I shouted. I also told him to walk the knife up to the front of the class, which would cause him to pass several other students on the way to the front. Luckily, he was only mad at the person standing four or five feet away from him, and he instantly obeyed, walking the knife to the front of the room and placing it in my hand. He didn’t stab anyone else, and he didn’t stab me, and we quietly walked down to the office together.

Sometimes things work out when we know the right names to shout. But the more important concept I’m trying to communicate here is that without names, we walk around saying, “Hey, you!” to other people. I don’t think he would have brought the knife to me if I had done that.

I have been in other student scuffles, and sometimes even knowing the name and the students doesn’t help. I’ve broken up girl fights where one of the combatants was a student of mine, and I knew her very well. The problem with girl fights is they tend to get so emotional they don’t know what they are doing, and she ended up hitting me a couple of times. She even bled on one of my best shirts.

The last girl fight I got hit in the face and didn’t even know it. Some of my other students who were passively watching told me I got hit, but I don’t remember it.

Maybe if had known her name, I could have asked her why she hit me.

Road Runner

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Road Runner

Most of our barriers in life are mental. We create them, feed them, keep them growing and prospering in our heads. I’ve run four marathons, though those who were watching the race will tell you I was jogging. And sometimes walking.

But I didn’t get to the end of my fourth marathon by standing up one day and saying “I will run a marathon tomorrow.” I thought I could barely run a mile when I was in junior high. I had been being excused to go down to the high school track and “train” for the high school team, which meant of course I went and played on the high jump pit. It didn’t prepare me to run, but it was fun while it lasted.

Unfortunately, I was signed up to run the mile. I had never run a mile, but there’s no way I’m going to admit this to the coach. So, like an idiot, I line up with everyone else and completely embarrass myself. The guy who was supposed to finish behind me was smarter than me; he quit. So when I ran across the finish line and someone shouted, “Hey, the race is over”; he was right. I collapsed on the side of the track and found out I was hyperventilating. It’s interesting to float 3 feet off the ground. I never ran another step until ten years later.

I was twenty-five and some friends from California were in town. They were taking a week-long “Fitness for Life” class and invited me to run in a 5K race with them on Saturday. My mind put up the obstruction about the junior high race, but I was now mature enough to tell myself, “I am not my past.”

I agreed to run with them, but needed to do some work in the five days before the race. I found out a 5K is 3.1 miles. I got in my car and measured how far I had to run away from my house to equal 3.1 miles by the time I returned. I also measured where the first half-mile was.

That night, I ran a mile.

I was surprised, since I had told myself for ten years I couldn’t run a mile. I don’t remember how long it took or how slowly I ran. I only remember I ran a mile.

I decided this must be a fluke, and rested for a day. Then I ran another mile, walked a mile, and ran another mile. Now I had run two miles in one day, and walked another. I even felt like I could do more, but I didn’t want to push it. I wanted to save something for Saturday.

I showed up for the race unsure if I could really run 3.1 miles without stopping. I decided to go very slowly, and hope for the best. With four miles of training under my belt, I started my first race. It was a beautiful summer day with a crispness to the early morning air. I tried to focus on the road, ignore what my mind was telling me – that I was being an idiot – and simply plodded along.

People passed me by, but I didn’t care. I passed a couple of people. I made it the first mile, then the second mile. For the first time in my life, I had run two miles in a row. There was no stopping me now.

I never stopped jogging. I even had a little energy left at the end of the race to sprint ahead of the sixty year old lady in front of me and beat her. But I couldn’t keep up with the ten year old that passed us both at the finish line.

It didn’t matter. I had done something I was positive I couldn’t do, and it began a chapter in my life I am still exploring. Every time I hear that nagging voice tell me, “You can’t”, I think back to that modest beginning race, and how after about ten years and many, many shorter races, I ran a marathon. Then another. And another. I ran my slowest marathon ever just two months ago.

We are all in our own private races, and most of the challenges we face are against ourselves, though we may tell ourselves we are competing against someone else. Think of it this way. When I ran my first marathon, I was in my thirties. Guess what age bracket most of the winners of marathons are in? That’s right. In the last Olympic marathon a 38 year old woman set a new world’s record.

So I will never take first place in a marathon. Does that stop me? Only if I tell myself I can’t. But the secret is, I know I can.

Quickness of Movement -- a limerick by Dane Allred

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Quickness of Movement

“Why is it we can move so quicklies?’

Says Old Pete, on a couch, at his ease.

Says I, “It’s what we grew,

Me and you in order to,

Avoid our responsibilities.”

Yearn and Learn -- a limerick by Dane Allred

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Yearn and Learn

While some matches are made for burning

Some matches are simply a yearning

If he wants the she

But she don’t want he

He may learn that yearning means spurning.

Abundance Learning November 28th

This is the complete episode of Abundance called "Learning" from November 28th.



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The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry / William Sydney Porter

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The Ransom of Red Chief


by O. Henry

It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in Alabama -- Bill Driscoll and myself -- when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, "during a moment of temporary mental apparition"; but we didn't find that out till later.

There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.

Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in Western Illinois with. We talked it over on the front steps of the hotel. Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities; therefore and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things. We knew that Summit couldn't get after us with anything stronger than constables and maybe some lackadaisical bloodhounds and a diatribe or two in the Weekly Farmers' Budget. So, it looked good.

We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the color of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would melt down for a ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But wait till I tell you.

About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with a dense cedar brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave. There we stored provisions. One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset's house. The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at a kitten on the opposite fence.

"Hey, little boy!" says Bill, "would you like to have a bag of candy and a nice ride?"

The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.

"That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars," says Bill, climbing over the wheel.

That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. We took him up to the cave and I hitched the horse in the cedar brake. After dark I drove the buggy to the little village, three miles away, where we had hired it, and walked back to the mountain.

Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features. There was a burning behind the big rock at the entrance of the cave, and the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two buzzard tailfeathers stuck in his red hair. He points a stick at me when I come up, and says:

"Ha! Cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the terror of the plains?

"He's all right now," says Bill, rolling up his trousers and examining some bruises on his shins. "We're playing Indian. We're making Buffalo Bill's show look like magic-lantern views of Palestine in the town hall. I'm Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief's captive, and I'm to be scalped at daybreak. By Geronimo! That kid can kick hard."

Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive, himself. He immediately christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that, when his braves returned from the warpath, I was to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun.

Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and gravy, and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something like this:

"I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet 'possum once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot's aunt's speckled hen's eggs. Are there any real Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What makes your nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don't like girls. You dassent catch toads unless with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges round? Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got six toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can't. How many does it take to make twelve?"

Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and pick up his stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a war-whoop that made Old Hank the Trapper shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized from the start.

"Red Chief," says I to the kid, "would you like to go home?"

"Aw, what for?" says he. "I don't have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won't take me back home again, Snake-eye, will you?"

"Not right away," says I. "We'll stay here in the cave a while."

"All right!" says he. "That'll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life."

We went to bed about eleven o'clock. We spread down some wide blankets and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren't afraid he'd run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching: "Hist! pard," in mine and Bill's ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.

Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They weren't yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yalps, such as you'd expect from a manly set of vocal organs -- they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill's chest, with one hand twined in Bill's hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing, bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Bill's scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.

I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that moment, Bill's spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn't nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.

"What you getting up so soon for, Sam?" asked Bill.

"Me?" says I. "Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would rest it."

"You're a liar!" says Bill. "You're afraid. You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid he'd do it. And he would, too, if he could find a match. Ain't it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?"

"Sure," said I. "A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre."

I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. "Perhaps," says I to myself, "it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have home away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves!" says I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast.

When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a cocoanut.

"He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back," explained Bill, "and the mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun about you, Sam?

I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument. "I'll fix you," says the kid to Bill. "No man ever yet struck the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!"

After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped around it out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding it.

"What's he up to now?" says Bill, anxiously. "You don't think he'll run away, do you, Sam?"

"No fear of it," says I. "He don't seem to be much of a home body. But we've got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don't seem to be much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance; but maybe they haven't realized yet that he's gone. His folks may think he's spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbours. Anyhow, he'll be missed today. Tonight we must get a message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars for his return."

Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might have emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.

I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead rock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind his left ear. He loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.

By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: "Sam, do you know who my favorite Biblical character is?"

"Take it easy," says I. "You'll come to your senses presently."

"King Herod," says he. "You won't go away and leave me here alone, will you, Sam?"

I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.

"If you don't behave," says I, "I'll take you straight home. Now, are you going to be good, or not?"

"I was only funning," says he sullenly. "I didn't mean to hurt Old Hank. But what did he hit me for? I'll behave, Snake-eye, if you won't send me home, and if you'll let me play the Black Scout to-day."

"I don't know the game," says I. "That's for you and Mr. Bill to decide. He's your playmate for the day. I'm going away for a while, on business. Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once."

I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and told him I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from the cave, and find out what I could about how the kidnapping had been regarded in Summit. Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid.

"You know, Sam," says Bill, "I've stood by you without batting an eye in earthquakes, fire and flood -- in poker games, dynamite outrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He's got me going. You won't leave me long with him, will you, Sam?"

"I'll be back some time this afternoon," says I. "You must keep the boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we'll write the letter to old Dorset."

Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while Red Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. "I ain't attempting," says he, "to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we're dealing with humans, and it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I'm willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the difference up to me."

So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that ran this way:



Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:

We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is useless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large bills for his return; the money to be left at midnight tonight at the same spot and in the same box as your reply -- as hereinafter described. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary messenger tonight at half-past eight o'clock. After crossing Owl Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite the third tree, will be found a small pasteboard box. The messenger will place the answer in this box and return immediately to Summit.

If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, you will never see your boy again.

If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do not accede to them no further communication will be attempted.

TWO DESPERATE MEN.



I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I was about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:

"Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was gone."

"Play it, of course," says I. "Mr. Bill will play with you. What kind of a game is it?"

"I'm the Black Scout," says Red Chief, "and I have to ride to the stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I'm tired of playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout."

"All right," says I. "It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Bill will help you foil the pesky savages."

"What am I to do?" asks Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.

"You are the hoss," says Black Scout. "Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?"

"You'd better keep him interested," said I, "till we get the scheme going. Loosen up."

Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a rabbit's when you catch it in a trap.

"How far is it to the stockade, kid?" he asks, in a husky manner of voice.

"Ninety miles," says the Black Scout. "And you have to hump yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!"

The Black Scout jumps on Bill's back and digs his heels in his side.

"For Heaven's sake," says Bill, "hurry back, Sam, as soon as you can. I wish we hadn't made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you quit kicking me or I'll get up and warm you good."

I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the post-office and store, talking with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One whiskerando says that he hears Summit is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset's boy having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrier would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.

When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found. I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but there was no response.

So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await developments.

In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wobbled out into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill stopped, took off his hat and wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.

"Sam," says Bill, "I suppose you'll think I'm a renegade, but I couldn't help it. I'm a grown person with masculine proclivities and habits of self-defense, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times," goes on Bill, "that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came a limit."

"What's the trouble, Bill?" I asks him.

"I was rode," says Bill, "the ninety miles to the stockade, not barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats. Sand ain't a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try to explain to him why there was nothin' in holes, how a road can run both ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I've got to have two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized.

"But he's gone" -- continues Bill -- "gone home. I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I'm sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to the madhouse."

Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing content on his rose-pink features.

"Bill," says I, "there isn't any heart disease in your family, is there?

"No," says Bill, "nothing chronic except malaria and accidents. Why?"

"Then you might turn around," says I, "and have a look behind you."

Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the round and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him is soon as he felt a little better.

I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree under which the answer was to be left -- and the money later on -- was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a gang of constables should be watching for anyone to come for the note they could see him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road. But no, sirree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.

Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle, locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the fence-post, slips a folded piece of paper into it and pedals away again back toward Summit.

I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the woods, and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the lantern and read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:



Two Desperate Men.

Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands. You had better come at night, for the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn't be responsible for what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.

Very respectfully,

EBENEZER DORSET.



"Great pirates of Penzance!" says I; "of all the impudent -- "

But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.

"Sam," says he, "what's two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We've got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain't going to let the chance go, are you?"

"Tell you the truth, Bill," says I, "this little he ewe lamb has somewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take him home, pay the ransom and make our get-away."

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

It was just twelve o'clock when we knocked at Ebenezer s front door. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into Dorset's hand.

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

"How long can you hold him?" asks Bill.

"I'm not as strong as I used to be," says old Dorset, "but I think I can promise you ten minutes."

"Enough," says Bill. "In ten minutes I shall cross the Central, Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for the Canadian border."

And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as I am, he was a good mile and a half out of Summit before I could catch up with him.