Thursday - You are to read and analyze the three stories using CAPS to summarize them.
Characters
Action
Problem
Solution
Also study the poetry terms for tomorrow's test.
Excerpt from Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone by James Baldwin
I went down again. My heart and I went down again. I was aware of her hand. I was aware of my breathing. I could no longer see it, but I was aware of her face.
"Barbara. My dear Barbara."
"My dearest Leo. Please be still."
And she's right, I thought. There is nothing more to be said. All we can do now is just hold on. That was why she held my hand. I recognized this as love--recognized it very quietly and, for the first time, without fear. My life, that desperately treacherous labyrinth, seemed to fall where there had been no light before. I began to see myself in others. I began for a moment to apprehend how Christopher must sometimes have felt. Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it. However great the private disasters to which love may lead, love itself is strikingly and mysteriously impersonal; it is a reality which is not altered by anything one does. Therefore, one does many things, turns the key in the lock over and over again, hoping to be locked out. Once locked out, one will never again be forced to encounter in the eyes of a stranger who loves him the impenetrable truth concerning the stranger, oneself, who is loved. And yet--one would prefer, after all, not to be locked out. One would prefer, merely, that the key unlocked a less stunningly unusual door.
The door to my maturity. This phrase floated to the top of my mind. The light that fell backward on that life of mine revealed a very frightened man--a very frightened boy. The light did not fall on me, on me were I lay now. I was left in darkness, my face could not be seen. In that darkness I encountered a scene from another nightmare I had had as a child. In this nightmare there is a book--a great, heavy book with an illustrated cover. The cover shows a dark, squalid alley, all garbage cans and dying cats, and windows like empty eyesockets. The beam of a flashlight shines down the alley, at the end of which I am fleeing, clutching something. the title of the book in my nightmare is, We Must Not Find Him, For He Is Lost.
When Caleb, my older brother, was taken from me and sent to prison, I watched, from the fire escape of our East Harlem tenement, the walls of an old and massive building, far, far away and set on a hill, and with green vines running up and down the walls, and with windows flashing like signals in the sunlight. I watched that building, I say, with a child's helpless and stricken attention, waiting for my brother to come out of there. I did not know how to get to the building. If I had I would have slept in the shadow of those walls, and I told no one of my vigil or of my certain knowledge that my brother was imprisoned in that place. I watched that building for many years. Sometimes, when the sunlight flashed on the windows, I was certain that my brother was signaling to me and I waved back. When we moved from that particular tenement (into another one) I screamed and cried because I was certain that now my brother would no longer be able to find me. Alas, he was not there; the building turned out to be City College; my brother was on a prison farm in the Deep South, working the fields.
I went down again. My heart and I went down again. I was aware of her hand. I was aware of my breathing. I could no longer see it, but I was aware of her face.
Black Snake and the Eggs
by Phillip Martin
© 1990
"My eggs!" cried Chicken. "One of my eggs is missing! Yesterday I had twelve eggs and today there are only eleven."
As Chicken fled her nest to find Rooster, she had no idea that she was about to lose more eggs. Just out of view of the nest, the thief patiently waited for Chicken to leave her eggs again. Black Snake crept slowly and quietly up to the nest. He eyed the eggs and quickly swallowed one.
Black Snake smiled to himself. His plan had been so simple and had worked so well. He swallowed another egg. It slid far down his long throat before his muscles crushed the fragile shell. "I'll be back later for another delicious egg, Chicken," hissed Black Snake as he slithered away. "Thank you for another fine meal."
Meanwhile, the frantic chicken lead Rooster back to her nest. "Why would someone take one of my eggs?" she clucked.
"Are you sure you counted correctly? Maybe you just thought you saw eleven eggs?" suggested Rooster.
From the expression on Chicken's face, Rooster knew he shouldn't have asked that question. She glared at him and said, "You know I can count. See for yourself. How many eggs are in my nest?"
"One, two, three," began Rooster. He frowned and stopped counting out loud.
"What's the matter now?" questioned Chicken. "Are you afraid to admit you're wrong?"
"No, it's nothing like that at all," responded Rooster. "Something is very wrong here. There are only nine eggs."
"What? Nine Eggs!" cried Chicken. "What is happening? Who would do this to me?"
The next few days were just terrible for Chicken. She worried constantly about her remaining eggs. She tried to stay with her eggs at all times but it wasn't possible to always be with them. Sometimes she had to leave to get food or take care of her other chicks. No matter why she left, the same thing always happened. One or two eggs disappeared each time.
"Someone is watching me very closely," cried the chicken. "He knows exactly where I am at each moment of the day. I only have three remaining eggs."
"Although I cannot prove anything," comforted Rooster, "I think it must be Black Snake who is stealing your eggs. He's patient enough to watch you a long time, and we all know how he loves to eat eggs."
Just the thought of Black Snake eating her eggs made Chicken shudder. She had heard stories of how he swallowed eggs and then crushed them further down his long slender neck. She knew Rooster was probably correct.
"I must hurry back to my nest," declared Chicken, realizing how long she had talked to Rooster. She rushed to her eggs, but it was too late. Two more eggs had vanished. "Rooster!" she cried. "Come help me. I only have one egg left."
Rooster came quickly. "You know, it is very likely that Black Snake will steal your last egg tomorrow," he warned. "Unless we are able to trap him, this will only continue every time you have eggs."
"Yes, it's true," cried Chicken, "but what can we do? How can we possibly stop Black Snake?"
"I have a plan," whispered Rooster. "I think we will not be bothered by him much longer."
The next morning, Chicken continued guarding her last egg as if everything were normal. From a distance, Black Snake didn't realize that a deadly trap had been set for him.
Chicken left her nest for only the shortest moment when Black Snake slithered out of hiding. In no time at all, he swallowed the final egg. It slid down his throat easily. But, when his muscles squeezed the egg, it did not break. It only became firmly lodged in his throat cutting off his air supply.
Black Snake twisted and turned trying to crush the egg or loosen it so he could breathe. By the time Chicken returned with Rooster, the struggle was over. Black Snake would steal no more eggs. He was dead.
"I'm sure he died never knowing why that egg didn't crush," crowed Rooster.
"How could he have known," clucked Chicken, "that the egg was hard boiled?"
The Rabbit Steals the Elephant's Dinner.
A Central African Tale
Kalulu the rabbit was one day watching the children of Soko the monkey playing in the trees, and saw one monkey reach out his tail and catch his brother round the neck, holding him a helpless prisoner in mid-air.
Kalulu thought that this was splendid, and though he had no long tail, he could twist forest creepers into a noose. During the next few days numbers of animals were caught in this way and held fast in the forest thickets, only escaping with difficulty. They thought that it was only an accident, but had they known, it was Kalulu who was experimenting with his noose.
At last Polo the elephant decided to make a new village, and, being king of the animals, he called every living thing in the forest to come and help him build it.
All came with the exception of Kalulu. He had caught a whiff from the delicious beans which Polo's wives were cooking for his dinner, and when the beans were cold Kalulu came out of the bushes and ate them up.
Polo was furious when he reached home and found that his beans had been stolen. Whoever could have taken his dinner?
Next day he told the lion to lie in wait nearby, and to pounce upon the thief if one appeared. Now Kalulu was hiding in the bushes and heard the plan, so he spent that night in twisting a big noose, which he set in a side path close to the cooking pots.
Next morning, when the animals had gone to work on the new village, Kalulu strolled out into the open and began to eat Polo's beans, with one eye on the place where he knew that the lion was hiding. Having finished his meal Kalulu ran off, when, as he expected, Ntambo the lion leapt out in pursuit. Kalulu bolted through the noose that he had set, and when Ntambo followed he was caught and swung into mid-air, where he wriggled and squirmed till evening, when the animals returned to the village and set him loose. Ntambo was too ashamed to say that he had been fooled by a little rabbit, so simply said that some unknown animal had ensnared him.
Next day Mbo the buffalo was set to watch the beans of his chief, but Kalulu had set a great noose between two palm trees. When Kalulu had finished his meal of the chief's beans and was strolling away, the buffalo burst out at him, but the rabbit ran between the two palm trees, and when the buffalo followed he was caught by the noose and swung into mid-air, where he wriggled and squirmed till evening, when the animals returned to set him loose.
Mbo the buffalo was so ashamed that he would not say how he had been outwitted, merely remarking that there must be some misdoer dwelling among them.
The leopard, the lynx, the wart-hog and the hunting dog were all fooled in the same way, and still Kalulu stole Polo's daily bowl of beans.
At last Nkuvu the tortoise, wiser than the rest, went privately to King Polo the elephant and said, "If your wives will smear me with salt and put me into your dinner of beans tomorrow, I will catch the thief."
Next day Nkuvu was secretly smeared with salt and hidden in the beans. The worthless rabbit again determined to get his dinner without working for it, and having set his noose, he sauntered up to the cooking pots when all the animals were out at work and began to eat. He thought that the beans were even nicer than usual. They were so deliciously salty. But before Kalulu could finish, Nkuvu had bitten tightly on to his foot.
The rabbit screamed, he pleaded, he threatened and offered bribes, but all to no purpose. Nkuvu said nothing, but simply held on to Kalulu's foot, and when the animals returned from the building of the new village Kalulu was still a prisoner.
At once the animals saw who the thief really was, and they determined to pay him back exactly as he had treated them. For six days he had to do without any dinner, and every day they went off to work leaving Kalulu tied by a noose to a tree. By the time that this punishment was finished the rabbit was so thin that the animals took pity on him and let him go, warning him that it was better to work for his food than to steal it, and that though a thief may escape for a time, he will at last surely be caught.
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