The Call Of The Wild
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: London, Jack
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 178611
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 1
subject: buck
subject: dogs
subject: thornton
subject: man
subject: day
subject: known
subject: trouble
subject: brewing
subject: london
subject: jack
subject: call
subject: wild
subject: american
subject: literature
type: text
local mirror: london-call-203.txt
concordance: http://infomotions.com/alex/cgi-bin/concordance.pl
plain html: london-call-203.htm
sort title: Call Of The Wild, The
full text: 1903 THE CALL OF THE WILD by Jack London CHAPTER ONE. Into the Primitive. Old longings nomadic leap, Chafing at custom's chain; Again from its brumal sleep Wakens the ferine strain. BUCK DID NOT READ THE newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing not alone for himself, but for every tide-water 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 gravelled driveways which wound about through widespreading 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 out-houses, long grape arbours, 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 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…