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 | The Call of the Wild Ebook | |
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 | |  | | E-book Category: Classic
E-book Title: The Call of the Wild
Author: Jack London
Book Description: Into the Primitive
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have
known that 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 steamship 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 graveled
driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and
under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. At the rear
things were on 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 Miler's boys took their morning plunge and kept
cool in the hot afternoon.
And over this great demesne 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 but be
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 Ysabel, 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 Ysabel looking out of the windows at
them and protected by a legion of housemaids 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;I he escorted Mollie 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 Ysabel 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 St. 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
one hundred and forty pounds--for his mother, Shep, had been a
Scotch shepherd dog. Nevertheless, one hundred and forty
pounds, 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
puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat; he had
a fine pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as
country gentlemen sometimes become 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.More... | |
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