Two Little Savages | Page 3

everything; but he dared not. His home training
was all of the crushing kind. He picked on the most curious of the small
birds in the window--a Sawwhet Owl then grit his teeth and walked in.
How frightfully the cowbell on the door did clang! Then there
succeeded a still more appalling silence, then a step and the great man
himself came.
"How--how--how much is that Owl?"
"Two dollars."

Yan's courage broke down now. He fled. If he had been told ten cents,
it would have been utterly beyond reach. He scarcely heard what the
man said. He hurried out with a vague feeling that he had been in
heaven but was not good enough to stay there. He saw nothing of the
wonderful things around him.

II
Spring
Yan, though not strong, revelled in deeds of brawn. He would rather
have been Samson than Moses--Hercules than Apollo. All his tastes
inclined him to wild life. Each year when the spring came, he felt the
inborn impulse to up and away. He was stirred through and through
when the first Crow, in early March, came barking over-head. But it
fairly boiled in his blood when the Wild Geese, in long, double,
arrow-headed procession, went clanging northward. He longed to go
with them. Whenever a new bird or beast appeared, he had a singular
prickling feeling up his spine and his back as though he had a mane that
was standing up. This feeling strengthened with his strength.
All of his schoolmates used to say that they "liked" the spring, some of
the girls would even say that they "dearly loved" the spring, but they
could not understand the madness that blazed in Yan's eyes when
springtime really came--the flush of cheek--the shortening breath--the
restless craving for action--the chafing with flashes of rebellion at
school restraints--the overflow of nervous energy--the bloodthirst in his
blood--the hankering to run--to run to the north, when the springtime
tokens bugled to his every sense.
Then the wind and sky and ground were full of thrill. There was
clamour everywhere, but never a word. There was stirring within and
without. There was incentive in the yelping of the Wild Geese; but it
was only tumult, for he could not understand why he was so stirred.
There were voices that he could not hear--messages that he could not
read; all was confusion of tongues. He longed only to get away.

"If only I could get away. If--if--Oh, God!" he stammered in torment of
inexpression, and then would gasp and fling himself down on some
bank, and bite the twigs that chanced within reach and tremble and
wonder at himself.
Only one thing kept him from some mad and suicidal move--from
joining some roving Indian band up north, or gypsies nearer--and that
was the strong hand at home.

III
His Adjoining Brothers
Yan had many brothers, but only those next him in age were important
in his life. Rad was two years older--a strong boy, who prided himself
on his "common sense." Though so much older, he was Yan's inferior
at school. He resented this, and delighted in showing his muscular
superiority at all opportunities. He was inclined to be religious, and was
strictly proper in his life and speech. He never was known to smoke a
cigarette, tell a lie, or say "gosh" or "darn." He was plucky and
persevering, but he was cold and hard, without a human fiber or a drop
of red blood in his make-up. Even as a boy he bragged that he had no
enthusiasms, that he believed in common sense, that he called a spade a
spade, and would not use two words where one would do. His
intelligence was above the average, but he was so anxious to be thought
a person of rare sagacity and smartness, unswayed by emotion, that
nothing was too heartless for him to do if it seemed in line with his
assumed character. He was not especially selfish, and yet he pretended
to be so, simply that people should say of him significantly and
admiringly: "Isn't he keen? Doesn't he know how to take care of
himself?" What little human warmth there was in him died early, and
he succeeded only in making himself increasingly detested as he grew
up.
His relations to Yan may be seen in one incident.

Yan had been crawling about under the house in the low wide
cobwebby space between the floor beams and the ground. The
delightful sensation of being on an exploring expedition led him farther
(and ultimately to a paternal thrashing for soiling his clothes), till he
discovered a hollow place near one side, where he could nearly stand
upright. He at once formed one of his schemes--to make a secret, or at
least a private, workroom here.