Audiobook Demo - Excerpt from \"Call of the Wild\"
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Middle Aged (35-54)Transcript
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The Call of the Wild by Jack London chapter one. Buck did not read the newspapers or he would have known the trouble was brewing, not alone for himself but for every tidewater dog strong of muscle and with warm long hair from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men groping in the Arctic darkness had found a yellow metal and because steam ship and transportation companies were booming, the find thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs with strong muscles by which to toil and furry coats to protect them from the frost buck. Lived at a big house in the sun kissed Santa Clara Valley. Judge Miller's place. It was called, it stood back from the road half hidden among the trees through which glimpses could be caught of the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached by gravel driveways which wound about through wide spreading lawns and under the interlacing bows of tall po at the rear. Things were even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great stables where a dozen grooms and boys held forth rows of vine clad servants cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards and berry patches. Then there was the pumping plant for the Artesian Well, and the big cement tank where Judge Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot afternoon. And over this Great Domain buck ruled here he was born and here he had lived the four years of his life. It was true. There were other dogs there could not be but other dogs on so vast a place. But they did not count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels or lived obscurely in the recesses of the house. After the fashion of Toots, the Japanese pug or Isabelle, the Mexican hairless strange creatures that rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground. On the other hand, there were the fox terriers, a score of them at least who yelped, fearful promises at Toots and Isabelle looking out of the windows at them and protected by a legion of house maids armed with brooms and mops. But Buck was neither house dog nor kennel dog. The whole realm was his. He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the judge's sons. He escorted Molly and Alice, the judge's daughters on long twilight or early morning rambles on wintry nights, he lay at the judge's feet before the roaring library fire. He carried the judge's grandsons on his back or rolled them in the grass and guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard and even beyond where the paddocks were and the berry patches among the terriers, he stalked imperiously and toots and Isabelle, he utterly ignored for he was King king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller's place. Humans included his father, Elmo, a huge saint Bernard had been the judge's inseparable companion and Buck Bid fair to follow in the way of his father. He was not so large. He weighed only £140 for his mother's shep had been a Scotch shepherd dog. Nevertheless, £140 to which was added, the dignity that comes of good living and universal respect enabled him to carry himself in right royal fashion. During the four years since his puppy hood, he had lived the life of a seated aristocrat. He had a fine pride in himself was even a trifle egotistical as a country gentleman sometimes became because of their insular situation. But he had saved himself by not becoming a mere pampered house dog hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept down the fat and hardened his muscles. And to him as to the cold tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic and a health preserver and this was the manner of dog buck was in the fall of 18 97 when the Klondike strike dragged men from all over the world into the Frozen North. But Buck did not read the newspapers and he did not know that Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers was an undesirable acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness, faith in a system. And this made his damnation certain for to play a system requires money while the wages of a gardener's helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and numerous progeny. The judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers Association and the boys were busy organizing an athletic club on the memorable night of Manuel's treachery. No one saw him and Buck go off through the orchard on what buck imagined was merely a stroll. And with the exception of a solitary man, no one saw them arrive at the little flag station known as College Park. This man talked with Manuel and money chinked between them. You might wrap up the goods before you deliver them. The stranger said, gruffly and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope around buck's neck under the collar, twist it and you'll choke him. Plenty said Manuel and the stranger grunted. Already affirmative buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity to be sure it was an unwanted performance, but he had learned to trust in men. He knew and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own. But when the ends of the rope were placed in the stranger's hands. He growled menacingly. He had merely intimated his displeasure in his pride, believing that to intimate was to command. But to his surprise, the rope tightened around his neck, shutting off his breath in quick rage. He sprang at the man who met him halfway, grappled him close by the throat and with a DEA twist, threw him over on his back. Then the rope tightened mercilessly while buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his great chest, panting fly. Never in all his life had he been so vilely treated and never in all his life had he been so angry but his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the two men threw him into the baggage car.