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[Assistant] Think, I need to think. Andy, it's late there. I think the best thing you could do is get some sleep. Take a little time to think things over. Of course I knew you'd want to come home right away, because it's the kind of person you are. But keep in mind that for right now, Lily is not conscious.


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[Assistant] Her doctor assured me that the chances are excellent that she'll come out of this in the next 48 to 72 hours. Her body is using this as an extended and deeper sleep to help itself heal. But nothing is certain, he added softly. And if she does come out of it?


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[Assistant] I'm assuming she could have all sorts of brain damage and horrible paralysis and things like that. Oh my god, I can't stand it. They said that she is responsive to stimuli in her feet and legs, which is a good indication that there's no paralysis. But there's a lot of swelling around her head, and it won't be possible to know anything for sure until she comes out of this. We just need to wait.


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[Assistant] Do you mind if I take a seat? He asked. Help yourself.


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[Assistant] He made himself comfortable, neither crowding me nor sitting too far away.


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[Assistant] I'm glad you could come. I mean, it's not much, but the food's good. Are you hungry? Actually, I'm starved. Surfing'll do that. Do you surf?


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[Assistant] No, but spending time in the ocean always makes me hungry. I'll remember that from being on vacation as a kid. We used to go to pineapple shores every summer. You been there? Only once I had all I needed here. Yeah, I suppose you did. He motioned to my board. You like the longboards, huh?


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[Assistant] I like them both, but the waves here are better suited for the long ones. You need to ride in the Pacific to really enjoy a shortboard.


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[Assistant] Have you been there? Hawaii, Bali, New Zealand, places like that, I've ridden there the ultimate.


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[Assistant] Not yet, I said, surprised he'd know about them. One day maybe.


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[Assistant] A log crackled, sending small sparks up to the sky. I brought my hands together, knowing it was my turn. I hear you're here to build some homes for the poor. Did Savannah tell you that? Yeah, that's the plan anyway.


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[Assistant] They're for a couple of really deserving families and hopefully they'll be in their own homes by the end of July. That's a good thing you're doing. Which is not just me. But hey, I wanted to ask you something. Let me guess, you want me to volunteer? He laughed.


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[Assistant] No, nothing like that. That's funny though, I've heard that before. People see me coming and usually they run the other way. I guess I'm way too easy to read.


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[Assistant] Anyway, I know it's a long shot, but I was wondering if you knew my cousin. He's stationed at Fort Bragg.


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[Assistant] No, that's the Air Force base, but I'm relatively close, why? Well, I was in Frankfurt last December.


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[Assistant] I spent Christmas there with my family. That's where we're originally from. My grandparents still live there. Small world. Have you learned any German? Nah, I bet. Me neither.


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[Assistant] The sad thing is my parents are fluent and I've heard it at home for years and I even took a class in it before I went. But I just didn't get it, you know.


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[Assistant] He had an open, honest face and despite myself, I liked him. Hey, can I get you anything? He asked. Savannah's taking care of it.


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[Assistant] I should have guessed, perfect hostess and all that, always has been. She said you two grew up together? He nodded.


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[Assistant] I got the impression by the way he said, special, that his feelings ran a little deeper than he was letting on.


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[Assistant] But unlike Randy, he didn't seem at all jealous about the fact that she'd invited me here.


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[Assistant] Before I could puzzle over it, Savannah appeared on the stairs and stepped onto the sand. I see you met Tim, she said, nodding.


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[Assistant] In one hand were two plates with chicken, potato salad and chips. In the other were two cans of Diet Pepsi.


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[Assistant] Yeah, well, I just wanted to come over and thank him for what he did. Tim explained. Then decided to bore him with my family stories. Good. I was hoping you two would have a chance to meet.


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[Assistant] She held up her hands, like Tim she ignored the fact that I was shirtless.


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[Assistant] The food's ready. Would you like my plate, Tim? I can go up and get another. No, I'll get it, Tim said, standing. Thanks, though. I'll let you two dig in. He brushed the sand from his shorts. Hey, it was nice meeting you, John. If you're in the area again tomorrow, whenever, you're always welcome. Thanks. Nice meeting you, too. A moment later, Tim was heading up the stairs.


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[Assistant] He didn't look back, merely called out a friendly hello to someone going in the opposite direction, then bounded up the rest of the way.


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[Assistant] In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.


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[Assistant] Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. He didn't say anymore.


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[Assistant] But we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way. And I understood that he meant a great deal more than that.


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[Assistant] In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments. A habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran boars. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and detach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person.


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[Assistant] And so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician. Because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild unknown men.


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[Assistant] Most of the confidences were unsought. Frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon.


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[Assistant] For the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious oppressions.


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[Assistant] Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.


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[Assistant] I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth.


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[Assistant] And after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit.


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[Assistant] Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on.


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[Assistant] When I came back from the East last autumn, I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever.


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[Assistant] I want to know more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction. Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn,


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[Assistant] If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him. Some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life. As if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes 10,000 miles away.


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[Assistant] This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impression ability which is dignified under the name of the creative temperament. It was an extraordinary gift for hope.


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[Assistant] A romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No, Gatsby turned out all right at the end. It is what preyed on Gatsby.


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[Assistant] What foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.


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[Assistant] My family have been prominent well-to-do people in this middle western city for three generations. The Caraways are something of a clan.


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[Assistant] And we have a tradition that we're descended from the dukes of Baklu.


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[Assistant] But the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother, who came here in 51, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.


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[Assistant] I never saw this great uncle, but I'm supposed to look like him, with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father's office.


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[Assistant] I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless.


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[Assistant] Instead of being the warm center of the world,


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[Assistant] The middle west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe. So I decided to go east and learn the bond business.


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[Assistant] Everybody I knew was in the bond business, and I suppose they could support one more single man.


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[Assistant] All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me and finally said why yes, with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring of 22.


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[Assistant] The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees. So when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea.


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[Assistant] He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month


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[Assistant] But at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog. Or at least I had him for a few days until he ran away.


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[Assistant] And an old dodge, and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.


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[Assistant] It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man more recently arrived than I stopped me on the road.


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[Assistant] How do you get to West Egg Village? he asked helplessly. I told him.


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[Assistant] And as I walked on, I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.


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[Assistant] And so, with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer. There was so much to read, for one thing.


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[Assistant] And so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air.


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[Assistant] I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Mycenus knew.


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[Assistant] And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college.


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[Assistant] One year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News.


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[Assistant] And now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the well-rounded man. This isn't just an epigram.


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[Assistant] It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender, riotous island which extends itself due east of New York, and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land.


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[Assistant] Twenty miles from the city, a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound.


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[Assistant] But their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead, to the wingless or more arresting phenomenon as their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size. I lived at West Egg, the, well, the less fashionable of the two.


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[Assistant] Though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only 50 yards from the sound.


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[Assistant] And squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season.


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[Assistant] The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard. It was a factual imitation of some hotel de vie in Normandy with a tower on one side spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy and a marble swimming pool in more than 40 acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby's mansion.


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[Assistant] Or rather, as I didn't know, Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore.


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[Assistant] But it was a small eyesore and it had been overlooked. So I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn,


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[Assistant] And the consoling proximity of millionaires, all for $80 a month.


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[Assistant] Across the courtesy bay, the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water. And the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans.


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[Assistant] Daisy was my second cousin, once removed, and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war, I spent two days with them in Chicago.


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[Assistant] Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven.


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[Assistant] A national figure, in a way. One of those men who reach such an acute, limited excellence at 21 that everything afterwards savors of anti-climax.


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[Assistant] His family were enormously wealthy, even in college. His freedom with money was a matter for reproach.


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[Assistant] But now he left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away.


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[Assistant] For instance, he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest.


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[Assistant] It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that. Why they came east, I don't know.


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[Assistant] They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together.


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[Assistant] This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it.


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[Assistant] I had no sight into Daisy's heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever, seeking a little wistfully


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[Assistant] I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all.


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[Assistant] Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful, red and white Georgian colonial mansion overlooking the bay.


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[Assistant] The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick walks and burning gardens, finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run.


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[Assistant] The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm, windy evening, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.


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[Assistant] He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner.


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[Assistant] Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face.


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[Assistant] And gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward.


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[Assistant] Not even the effeminate swank of his writing clothes could hide the enormous power of that body.


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[Assistant] He seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage. A cruel body.


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[Assistant] His speaking voice, a gruff, husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed.


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[Assistant] There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people who you liked. And there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.


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[Assistant] Now don't think my opinion on these matters is final, he seemed to say, just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are. We were in the same senior society, and while we were nev-


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[Assistant] But I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh defiant wistfulness of his own. We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch. I've got a nice place here.


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[Assistant] He said, his eyes flashing about restlessly, turning me around by one arm he moved a broad, flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half-acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motorboat that bumped the tide offshore.


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[Assistant] It belonged to the main, the oil man. He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. We'll go inside.


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[Assistant] We walked through a high hallway into a bright, rosy colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end.


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[Assistant] The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house.


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[Assistant] A breeze blew through the room, blue curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.


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[Assistant] The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch, on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.


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[Assistant] I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall.


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[Assistant] Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor. The younger of the two was a stranger to me.


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[Assistant] She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it, which was quite likely to fall.


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[Assistant] She saw me out of the corner of her eyes. She gave no hint of it. Indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in. The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise.


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[Assistant] She leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression. Then she laughed. An absurd, charming little laugh. And I laughed too, and came forward into the room.


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[Assistant] I'm paralyzed with happiness. She laughed again as if she said something very witty.


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[Assistant] And held my hand for a moment looking up into my face promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had.


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[Assistant] She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker.


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[Assistant] I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her. An irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.


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[Assistant] At any rate, Miss Baker's lips fluttered. She nodded at me, almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again. The object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright.


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[Assistant] Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned attribute from me.


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[Assistant] I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely, with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright, passionate mouth.


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[Assistant] But there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget.


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[Assistant] A promise that she had done gay exciting things just a while since, and that there were gay exciting things hovering in the next hour.


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[Assistant] I told her how I had stomped off in Chicago for a day on my way east and how a dozen people had sent their love through me. Do they miss me? She cried ecstatically.


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[Assistant] The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a morning wreath, and there's a persistent wail all night along the north shore.


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[Assistant] How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom, tomorrow! Then she added irrelevantly, You ought to see the baby. I'd like to.


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[Assistant] She's asleep. She's three years old. Haven't you ever seen her? Never. Well, you aren't to see her. She's


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[Assistant] You will, I answered shortly, you will if you stay in the East. Oh, I'll stay in the East, don't you worry, he said, glancing at Daisy, and then back at me as if he were alert for something more. I'd be a goddamn fool to live anywhere else.


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[Assistant] At this point, Miss Baker said, absolutely. With such suddenness that I started. It was the first word she had uttered since I came into the room.


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[Assistant] Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.


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[Assistant] I'm stiff, she complained. I've been lying on that sofa forever, as long as I can remember.


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[Assistant] Don't look at me, Daisy retorted. I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.


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[Assistant] No thanks, said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry. I'm absolutely in training.


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[Assistant] Her host looked at her incredulously. You are! He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. How you ever get anything done is beyond me.


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[Assistant] I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey, sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite, reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face.


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[Assistant] It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.


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[Assistant] You live in West Egg, she remarked contemptuously. I know somebody there. I don't know a single- You must know Gatsby. Gatsby, demanded Daisy. What Gatsby?


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[Assistant] Before I could reply that he was my neighbor, dinner was announced. Wedging his tense arm, imperatively undermined, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though we were moving a checker to another square.


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[Assistant] Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women proceeded us out into a rosy-colored porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.


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[Assistant] Why candles? objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year.


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[Assistant] We ought to plan something, yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed. All right, said Daisy. What'll we plan? She turned to me helplessly. What do people plan?


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[Assistant] Before I could answer, her eyes fastened with an odd expression on her little finger. Look, she complained I heard it. We all looked. The knuckle was black and blue.


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[Assistant] You did it, Tom, she said accusingly. I know you didn't mean to, but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a- I hate that word, hulking, objected Tom Crossley, even in kidding. Hulking, insisted Daisy.


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[Assistant] Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively, and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire.


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[Assistant] They were here, and they accepted Tom and me making only a polite, pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained.


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[Assistant] They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away.


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[Assistant] It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.


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[Assistant] You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy. I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. Can't you talk about crops or something?


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[Assistant] I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way.


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[Assistant] Civilizations going to pieces, broke out Tom violently. I've got to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read the rise of the colored empires by this man Goddard? Why, no, I answered rather surprised by his tone.


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[Assistant] Well, it's a fine book and everybody ought to read it. The idea is, if we don't look out, the white race will be, will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff, it's been proved.


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[Assistant] Tom's getting very profound, said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. He reads deep books with long words in them.


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[Assistant] Got to beat them down, whispered Daisy, Winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.


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[Assistant] You want to live in California, began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair. This idea is that we're Nordics. I am and you are and you are and, after an infinitesimal hesitation, he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again.


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[Assistant] And we've produced all the things that go to make civilization. Oh, science and art and all that, you see?


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[Assistant] There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him anymore. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch, Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.


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[Assistant] I'll tell you a family secret, she whispered enthusiastically. It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose? That's why I came over tonight.


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[Assistant] Things went from bad to worse, suggested Miss Baker. Yes, things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.


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[Assistant] For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face. Her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened. Then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.


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[Assistant] The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside.


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[Assistant] As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.


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[Assistant] I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a, of a rose, an absolute rose, doesn't he?


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[Assistant] She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation. An absolute rose? This was untrue. I'm not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing.


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[Assistant] But a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words.


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[Assistant] And suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.


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[Assistant] Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance, consciously devoid of meaning,


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[Assistant] I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said shh in a warning voice.


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[Assistant] A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence,


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[Assistant] Sank down, mounted excitedly and then ceased altogether. This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor, I said. Don't talk! I want to hear what happens. Is something happening? I inquired innocently.


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[Assistant] You mean to say you don't know? said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. I thought everybody knew. I don't. Why? she said hesitantly. Tom's got some woman in New York. Got some woman? I repeated blankly. Miss Baker nodded.


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[Assistant] Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress, and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table. It couldn't be helped, cried Daisy with tense gaiety.


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[Assistant] She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me and continued.


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[Assistant] I looked outdoors for a minute, and it's very romantic outdoors.


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[Assistant] There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line.


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[Assistant] Very romantic, he said, and then miserably to me.


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[Assistant] If it's light enough after dinner, I wanna take you down to the stables. The telephone rang inside startlingly.


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[Assistant] And as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom, the subject of the stables, in fact, all subjects, vanished into air.


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[Assistant] Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table, I remember the candles being lit again pointlessly.


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[Assistant] And I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone and yet to avoid all eyes.


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[Assistant] I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind.


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[Assistant] To a certain temperament, the situation might have seemed intriguing. My own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.


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[Assistant] Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.


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[Assistant] We don't know each other very well, Nick, she said suddenly. Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding. I wasn't back from the war. That's true, she hesitated. Well...


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[Assistant] I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything. Evidently she had reason to be.


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[Assistant] I waited but she didn't say any more and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter. I suppose she talks and eats and everything. Oh yes, she looked at me absently. Listen Nick, let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear? Very much. It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about things.


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[Assistant] Well, she was less than an hour old, and Tom was god knows where.


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[Assistant] I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl.


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[Assistant] She told me it was a girl and so I turned my head away and wept.


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[Assistant] That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.


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[Assistant] You see, I think everything's terrible anyhow, she went on in a convinced way. Everybody thinks so, the most advanced people.


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[Assistant] And I know I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.


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[Assistant] The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy.


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[Assistant] As though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited.


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[Assistant] And sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face.


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[Assistant] As if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.


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[Assistant] Inside the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch, and she read aloud to him from the Saturday evening post the words murmurous and uninflected running together in a soothing tune.


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[Assistant] The lamplight bright on his boots and dull on the autumn leaf yellow of her hair Glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms


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[Assistant] When we came in, she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.


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[Assistant] To be continued, she said, tossing the magazine on the table in our very next issue.


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[Assistant] Her body asserted itself with the restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.


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[Assistant] Ten o'clock, she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling, time for this good girl to go to bed.


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[Assistant] Jordan's going to play in the tournament tomorrow, explained Daisy, over at Westchester. Oh! You're Jordan Baker!


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[Assistant] I knew now why her face was familiar. Its pleasing, contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rhodogravure pictures of the sporting life at Ashfield and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her, too. A critical, unpleasant story. But what was I had forgotten long ago? Good night, she said softly. Wake me at eight, won't you? If you'll get up. I will. Good night, Mr. Caraway. See you anon. Of course you will, confirmed Daisy.


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[Assistant] Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick's going to look after her, aren't you, Nick?


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[Assistant] She's going to spend lots of weekends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her. Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence. Is she from New York? I asked quickly. From Louisville.


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[Assistant] A white girlhood was passed together there. A beautiful white... Did you give Nick a little heart-to-heart talk on the veranda? demanded Tom suddenly. Did I? she looked at me.


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[Assistant] I can't seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race.


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[Assistant] Yes, I'm sure we did. It sort of crept up on us, and first thing you know, don't believe everything you hear, Nick, he advised me. I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home.


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[Assistant] They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light.


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[Assistant] As I started my motor, Daisy peremptorily called, Wait! I forgot to ask you something, and it's important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out west.


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[Assistant] That's right, corroborated Tom kindly. We heard that you were engaged. It's a libel. I'm too poor.


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[Assistant] Insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. We heard it from three people, so it must be true.


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[Assistant] Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn't even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the bans was one of the reasons I had come east.


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[Assistant] You can't stop going with an old friend on account of rumours.


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[Assistant] And on the other hand, I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.


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[Assistant] Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich. Nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away.


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[Assistant] It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms, but apparently there were no such intentions in her head.


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[Assistant] As for Tom, the fact that he had some woman in New York was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book.


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[Assistant] Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas, as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.


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[Assistant] Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages where new red gas pumps sat out in pools of light.


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[Assistant] When I reached my estate at West Egg, I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard.


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[Assistant] The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees, and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone.


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[Assistant] Fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor's mansion.


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[Assistant] And was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars.


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[Assistant] Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself.


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[Assistant] Come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens. I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn't call to him.


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[Assistant] For he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone. He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way. And far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward and distinguished nothing.


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[Assistant] Except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock, when I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again, in the unquiet darkness.


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[Assistant] Although the winning of the cups and the money was a big event in my life, it didn't change my hunting any. I was out after the ringtails every night.


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[Assistant] I had been hunting the river bottoms hard for about three weeks.


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[Assistant] On that night, I decided to go back to the cyclone timber country.


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[Assistant] I had barely reached the hunting ground when my dog struck a trail. Old Dan opened up first.


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[Assistant] They struck the trail on a ridge and then dropped down into a deep canyon up the other side and broke out into some flats.


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[Assistant] I could tell that the scent was hot from their steady balling three times they treed the animal.


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[Assistant] Every time I came close to the tree the animal would jump and the race would be on. After a while I knew it wasn't a coon. I decided it was a bobcat.


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[Assistant] I didn't like to have my dogs treat the big cats for their fur wasn't any good and all I could expect was two cut up hounds.


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[Assistant] They could kill the largest bobcat in the hills and had on several occasions, but to me it was useless. The only good I could see in killing one was getting rid of a vicious predatory animal.


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[Assistant] The fourth time they treed, they were on top of a mountain.


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[Assistant] After the long chase I figured the animal was winded and would stay in the tree. In a trot I started to them.


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[Assistant] As I neared the tree, little Anne came to me, reared up and whined. By her actions, I knew something was wrong. I stopped.


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[Assistant] In the moonlight, I could see old Dan sitting on his haunches, staring up at the tree and bawling.


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[Assistant] The tree had lots of dead leaves on it. I knew it was a large white oak because it is one of the last trees in the mountains to lose its leaves. Old man kept bawling.


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[Assistant] Then he did something he had never done before. For seconds his deep voice was still and silence settled over the mountains.


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[Assistant] My eyes wandered from the tree to him. His lips were curled back and he snarled as he stared into the dark foliage of the tree.


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[Assistant] His teeth gleamed white in the moonlight. The hair on his neck and along his back stood on end. A low deep rumbling growl rolled from his throat.


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[Assistant] I was scared and I called to him. I wanted to get away from there. Again I called, but it was no use. He wouldn't leave the tree, for in his veins flowed the breeded blood of a hunting hound. In his fighting heart, there was no fear.


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[Assistant] I set the lantern down and tightened my grip on the handle of the axe.


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[Assistant] Slowly I started walking toward him. I thought if I can get close enough to him, I can grab his collar.


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[Assistant] I kept my eyes on the tree as I edged forward. Little Anne stayed by my side. She too was watching the tree. Then I saw them. Two burning yellow eyes staring at me from the shattery foliage of the tree. I stopped, petrified with fear.


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[Assistant] The deep bang bold dance stopped and again the silence closed in.


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[Assistant] I could make out the bulk of a large animal crouched on a huge branch close to the trunk of the big tree. Then it moved. I heard the scratch of razor sharp claws on the bark. It stood up and moved out of the shadows onto the limb.


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[Assistant] I saw it clearly as it passed between the moon and me. I knew what it was. It was the devil cat of the Ozarks. The mountain lion.


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[Assistant] The silence was shattered by one long loud ball from old Dan. I never heard my dog ball like that. It was different. His voice rang out over the mountains, loud and clear. The vibration of the deep tones rolled in the silence of the frosty night, on and on, out over the flats, down in the canyons, and died away in the rim rocks, like the cry of a lost soul. Old Dan had voiced his challenge to the devil cat.


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[Assistant] There was a low cough and a deep growl from the lion. I saw him crouch. I knew what was coming.


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[Assistant] My hands felt hot and sweaty on the smooth ash handle of the axe.


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[Assistant] With a blood curdling scream, he sprang from the tree with claws outspread and long yellow fangs bared.


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[Assistant] The impact of the two bodies threw the lion off balance. Little Anne darted in. Her aim was true. I heard the snap of her steel trap jaws as they closed on his throat.


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[Assistant] With a squall of pain and rage, the big cat rolled over on his side, dragging little Anne with him. His right paw reached out and curved over her shoulder. Skin used tightened and razor sharp claws dug inward. With a cry of pain, she loosened her hold. I saw the blood squirting from a deep wound in her shoulder. She ignored it and bored back into the fight.


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[Assistant] There in the flinty hills of the Ozarks, I fought for the lives of my dogs. I fought with the only weapon I had, the sharp cutting blade of a double-bitted axe. Screaming like a madman with tears running down my face, I hacked and chopped at the big snarling mountain cat.


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[Assistant] I never saw my dogs when they got between the lion and me, but they were there, side by side. They rose up from the ground as one. They sailed straight into those jaws of death, their small red bodies taking the ripping, slashing claws meant for me.


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[Assistant] I was in the middle of it all, falling, screaming, crying, and hacking away at every opportunity. I had cut the big cat several times, blood showed red on the bit of the axe, but as yet I had not gotten in the fatal lick.


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[Assistant] I knew it had to be soon for my dogs were no match against the razor sharp claws and the long yellow fangs.


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[Assistant] Down the side of the mountain the terrible fight went on, down to the very bottom of the canyon. The big cat had old Dan by the throat. I knew he was seeking to cut the all-important vein, the jugular. At the pitiful bawl of old Dan, little Anne, throwing caution to the wind, ran in and sank her teeth in the lion's tough neck.


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[Assistant] With her claws digging into the mountain soil, she braced herself and started pulling. The muscles in her small legs knotted and quivered. She was trying hard to pull the devil cat's fangs from the throat of old Dan.


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[Assistant] In the rays of a bright Ozark moon, I could see clearly. For an instant, I saw the broad back of the big cat. I saw the knotty bulge of steel-bound muscle. The piston-like jerk of the deadly hind claws, trying for the downward stroke that could disembowel a dog.


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[Assistant] My aim was true. Behind the shoulders and the broad muscular back, the heavy blades sank with a sickening sound.


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[Assistant] The keen edge cleaved through the tough skin. It seemed a hiss as it sliced its way through bone and gristle.


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[Assistant] I left the axe where it was, sunk to the eye in the back of the devil cat.


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[Assistant] He loosened his hold on the throat of old Dan. With a scream of pain, he reared up on his hind legs and started pawing the air. Little Anne dangled from his neck, still holding on. Her eyes were shut tight and her small feet were digging and clawing at the body.


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[Assistant] In a bright red mist it rained out over the underbrush and rattled like sleet on the white oak leaves.


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[Assistant] In a boxer's stance, he stood and clawed the air. His clitted eyes turned green with hate.


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[Assistant] I stood in the trance and stared back at the ghastly scene.


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[Assistant] The breath of life was slowly leaving him. He was dying on his feet, but refusing to go down.


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[Assistant] My axe handle stuck straight out from his back, blood gushing from the mortal wound glistened in the moonlight. A shudder ran through his body.


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[Assistant] He tried once again to scream, blood gurgled in his throat. It was the end of the trail for the scourge of the mountains.


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[Assistant] No more will he scream his challenge from the rim rocks to the valley below.


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[Assistant] The small harmless calves and the young colts would be safe from his silent stalk. He fell toward me.


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[Assistant] It seemed that with his last effort he was still trying to get at me.


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[Assistant] As his heavy body struck the ground, something exploded in my head. I knew no more.


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[Assistant] When I came to, I was sitting down. It was silent and still.


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[Assistant] A bird disturbed by the fight started chirping far up on the side of the mountain. A small winter breeze rustled some dead leaves in the deep canyon.


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[Assistant] A cold, crawling chill crept over my body. I looked over at the lion.


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[Assistant] My dogs were still glued to his lifeless body. In his dying convulsions, the axe had become dislodged from the wound it lay there in the moonlight covered with blood. My numb brain started working.


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[Assistant] I thought of another time the axe had been covered with blood.


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[Assistant] I don't know why I thought of Reuben Pritchard at that time, or why I thought of these words I had often heard. There is a little good in all evil.


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[Assistant] I examined her body. She was cut in several places, but nothing fatal.


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[Assistant] Maybe he could remember the night in the cave when he was a pup, how the big cat had screamed and how he had bawled back at him. I took hold of his hind legs and tried to pull him loose. It was no use.


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[Assistant] He knew that the hold he had was a deadly one and he wasn't gonna let go. I tried to tell him.


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[Assistant] It was all over that the lion was dead to turn loose as I wanted to see how badly he was hurt.


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[Assistant] He couldn't understand and wouldn't even open his eyes. He was determined to hold on until the body turned cold and stiff.


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[Assistant] With my axe handle I pried apart his locked jaws.


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[Assistant] Holding onto his collar, I led him off to one side. I couldn't turn him loose as I knew if I did he would go back to the lion. With one hand, I started examining him. I ran my fingers through the short red hair.


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[Assistant] I could feel the quivering muscles and the hot sweaty skin. He was a bloody mess. His long velvety ears were shredded.


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[Assistant] His entire body was a mass of deep raw red wounds.


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[Assistant] On both sides of his rib carriage, the sharp claws had laid the flesh open to the bone. His friendly old face was pitiful to see.


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[Assistant] A razor sharp claw had ripped down on an angle across his right eye. It was swollen shut. I wondered if he would ever see from that eye again.


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[Assistant] Blood dripped from his wounds and fell on the white oak leaves. I saw he was bleeding to death.


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[Assistant] With tears running down my cheeks, I did the only thing a hunter could do. I raked the leaves away and let his blood drip on the black mountain soil.


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[Assistant] With my axe in one hand and holding onto his collar with the other, we climbed out of the canyon. I knew if I could get him far enough away from the lion, he wouldn't go back.


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[Assistant] On reaching the top, I saw the yellow glow of my lantern. I turned old Dan loose and walked over and picked it up.


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[Assistant] Not knowing exactly where I was, I looked down out of the mountains to get my bearings.


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[Assistant] Beyond the foothills and fields I could see the long, white, crooked line of stream marking the river's course.


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[Assistant] Following this snake-like pattern with my eyes, in no time I knew exactly where I was, for I knew every bend in the river.


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[Assistant] Anxious to get home so I could take care of my dogs, I turned to call to them.


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[Assistant] Little Anne was close by. She was sitting down licking at the wound in her shoulder. I saw the shadowy form of old Dan sniffing around the tree where the lion had been treed.


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[Assistant] As I stood and watched him in the moonlight, my heart swelled with pride.


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[Assistant] In the lantern light I could see the mud cake wounds. Clearly, the bleeding had almost stopped. I felt much better. Little Anne came over. I knelt down and put my arms around them.


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[Assistant] I knew that if it hadn't been for their loyalty and unselfish courage


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[Assistant] I would have probably been killed by the slashing claws of the devil cat.


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[Assistant] Come on, let's go home so I can take care of those wounds.


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[Assistant] At first I thought it was a bird or a night hawk. I stood still and listened. I glanced at little Anne. She was looking behind me. I turned around and looked for old Dan. He was nowhere in sight.


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[Assistant] The cry came again, low and pitiful.


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[Assistant] Instantly little Anne started back the way we had come. I followed as fast as I could run.


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[Assistant] I found old Dan lying on his side, pleading for help. What I saw was almost more than I could stand.


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[Assistant] There, tangled in the low branches of a huckleberry bush were the entrails of my dog. With a gasping cry, I knelt down by his side. I knew what had happened.


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[Assistant] Far back in the soft belly, the slashing razor sharp claws of the lion had cut into the hollow. In my inspections, I had overlooked the wound.


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[Assistant] His entrails had worked out and had become entangled in the bush. The forward motion of his body had done the rest. He whimpered as I laid my hand on his head. A warm red tongue flicked out at it. With tears in my eyes, I started talking to him. Hang on, boy. I said, everything will be all right. I'll take care of you.


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[Assistant] With trembling hands I unwound the entrails from the bush.


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[Assistant] With my handkerchief I wiped away the gravel, leaves, and pine needles. With fingers that shook, I worked the entrails back into the wound.


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[Assistant] Knowing that I couldn't carry him and the axe and lantern, I stuck the axe deep in the side of a white oak tree.


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[Assistant] Old Dan was taken care of first. Very gently, Mama worked the entrails out, and in a pan of warm soapy water, washed them clean of the pine needles, leaves, and grit.


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[Assistant] I only knew what I was doing, Mama said as she worked. I'd feel better. With gentle hands, she worked the entrails back through the openings.


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[Assistant] The wound was sewn up and bandaged with a clean white cloth.


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[Assistant] Little Anne wasn't hard to doctor, I held her head while mama cleaned her wounds with peroxide.


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[Assistant] Feeling the bite of the strong liquid, she whined and licked at my hands. It's alright little girl, I said, you'll be well in no time.


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[Assistant] Hearing a whimper, I turned around. There in the doorway to the room stood my sister.


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[Assistant] I could tell by the looks on their faces that they had been watching for some time. They looked pitiful standing there in their long white gowns. I felt sorry for them. Will little Anne be alright? My older sister asked. Yes, I said. She'll be alright. She only had one bad wound and we've taken care of that. Oh, Dan's for bad, isn't he? She said. I nodded my head. How bad is it? She asked. It's bad, I said.


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[Assistant] You girls get back in bed. You take a death of coal being up like this in your bare feet. Mommy, the little one said, God won't let old Dan die. Will he? I don't think so, honey, mama said. Now, off to bed. They turned and walked slowly back to their room. The way your dogs are cut up, papa said. It must have been a terrible fight. It was, papa, I said. I never saw anything like it.


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[Assistant] Little Anne wouldn't have fought the lion if it hadn't been for old Dan. All she was doing was helping him.


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[Assistant] He wouldn't quit, he'd just stay right in there till the end. I even had to pry his jaws loose from the lion's throat after the lion was dead. Glancing at old Dan Papa said, it's in his blood, Billy. He's the hunting hound and the best one I ever saw. He only has two loves, you and hunting. It's all he knows. If it hadn't been for them, Papa, I said, I probably wouldn't be here now.


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[Assistant] I told them how the lion had leaped at me and how my dogs had gotten between him and me.


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[Assistant] They were so close together, I said, when they came up off the ground they looked just like one.


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[Assistant] I don't know, she stopped. I just don't know. To think how close you came to being killed. I don't think I can stand anymore.


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[Assistant] Now and now, Papa said, as he walked over and put his arms around her. Don't go all to pieces, it's all over. Let's be thankful and do our best for old Dan. Do you think he'll die, Papa? I asked. I don't know, Billy. Papa said, shaking his head.


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[Assistant] He's lost an awful lot of blood and he's a mighty sick dog. All we can do now is wait and see. Our wait wasn't long. My dog's breathing grew faster and faster and there was a terrible rattling in his throat. I knelt down and laid his head in my lap. Old Dan must have known he was dying just before he drew one last sigh and the feeble thump of his tail.


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[Assistant] At first I couldn't believe my dog was dead. I started talking to him. Please don't die, Dan. I said, don't leave me now. I looked to mama for help.


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[Assistant] Her face was as white as the bark on a sycamore tree, and the hurt in her eyes tore at my heart. She opened her mouth to say something, but words wouldn't come out.


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[Assistant] Feeling as cold as an Arctic wind, I got up and stumbled to a chair. Mama came over and said something. Her words were only a murmur in my ears.


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[Assistant] Very gently, Papa picked old Dan up in his arms and carried him out to the porch. When he came back in the house, he said, Well, we did all we could do, but I guess it wasn't enough.


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[Assistant] I've never seen my father and mother look so tired and weary as they did on that night.


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[Assistant] I wouldn't think too much about this if I were you. It's not good to hurt like that. I believe I'd just try to forget it. Besides, you still have little land.


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[Assistant] I wasn't even thinking about little Ann at that moment. I knew she was alright. I'm thankful that I still have her. I said, but how can I forget old Dan? He gave his life for me. That's what he did. Just laid down his life for me. How can I ever forget something like that? Mama said,


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[Assistant] It's been a terrible night for all of us. Let's go to bed and try to get some rest. Maybe we'll all feel better tomorrow. No, Mama, I said. You and Papa go on to bed. I think I'll stay up for a while. I couldn't sleep anyway.


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[Assistant] Long after my mother and father had retired, I sat by the fire trying to think, and couldn't. I felt numb all over. I knew my dog was dead, but I couldn't believe it, I didn't want to. One day they were both alive and happy, and that night, just like that, one of them was dead.


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[Assistant] I got to my feet and ran on and on down through our fields of shocked corn until I fell face down on the rivers bank.


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[Assistant] Coming up through our barn lot, I saw my father feeding our stock. He came over and said, breakfast is about ready. I don't want any breakfast, Papa, I said. I'm not hungry and I have a job to do. I'll have to bury my dog. I'll tell you what, he said. I'm not going to be very busy today, so let's have a good breakfast and then I'll help you. No, Papa, I said.


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[Assistant] I'll take care of it. You go and eat breakfast. Tell mom I'm not hungry. I saw a hurt look in my father's eyes. Shaking his head he turned and walked away.


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[Assistant] From rough pine slabs, I made a box for my dog.


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[Assistant] With strips of burlap and corn shucks, I padded the inside.


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[Assistant] Up on the hillside, at the foot of a beautiful red oak tree, I dug his grave.


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[Assistant] There, where the wild mountain flowers would grow in the spring, I laid them away.


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[Assistant] I had a purpose in burying my dog up there on the hillside. It was a beautiful spot.


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[Assistant] From there, one could see the country for miles. The long, white, crooked line of the river.


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[Assistant] The tall, thick timber of the bottoms, the sycamore, birch and box elder.


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[Assistant] I thought perhaps that on moonlight nights old Dan would be able to hear the deep voices of the hounds as they rolled out of the river bottoms on the frosty air.


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[Assistant] After the last shovel of dirt was patted in place, I sat down and let my mind drift back.


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[Assistant] Through the years, I thought of the old Casey bacon powder can.


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[Assistant] And the first time I saw my pups in the box at the depot.


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[Assistant] I thought of the fifty dollars, the nickels and dimes and the fishermen and blackberry patches. I looked at his grave, and with tears in my eyes, I voiced these words. You were worth it, old friend, and a thousand times over. In my heart, I knew that there in the grave lay a man's best friend.


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[Assistant] Two days later, when I came in from the bottoms where my father and I were clearing land, my mother said, Billy, you had better look after your dog. She won't eat. I started looking for her. I went to the barn, the corn crib, and looked under the porch. I called her name. There was no use. I rounded up my sisters and asked if they had seen little Anne.


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[Assistant] The youngest one said she had seen a go down into the garden. I went there calling her name. She wouldn't answer my call. I was about to give up and then I saw her.


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[Assistant] She had wiggled her way far back under the thorny limbs of a blackberry bush in the corner of the garden. I talked to her and tried to coax her out. She wouldn't budge. I got down on my knees and crawled back to her. As I did, she raised her head and looked at me. Her eyes told the story.


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[Assistant] I thought perhaps she had a wound I had overlooked. I felt and probed with my fingers. I could find nothing. My father came and looked at her. He shook his head and said, Billy, it's no use. The life has gone out of her. She has no will to live. He turned and walked away. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't.


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[Assistant] Eggs and rich cream. I made a liquid. I pried her mouth open and poured it down. She responded to nothing I did.


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[Assistant] I carried her to the porch and later in the same place I had lain the body of old Dan. I covered her with gunny sacks. All through the night I would get up and check on her.


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[Assistant] Next morning I took warm fresh milk and again I opened her mouth and fed her. It was a miserable day for me. At noon it was the same. My dog had just given up. There was no will to live. That evening when I came in from the field she was gone.


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[Assistant] I hurried to my mother. Mama told me she had seen her go up the hollow from the house, so weak she could hardly stand.


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[Assistant] I went up to the head of it still calling her name and praying she would come to me.


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[Assistant] I climbed out onto the flats, looking, searching and calling. There was no use. My dog was gone.


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[Assistant] I had a thought, a ray of hope. I just knew I'd find her at the grave of old Dan. I hurried there.


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[Assistant] I found her lying on her stomach, her hind legs stretched out straight, and her front feet folded back under her chest. She had laid her head on his grave. I saw the trail where she had dragged herself through the leaves. The way she lay there, I thought she was alive. I called her name. She made no movement.


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[Assistant] With the last ounce of strength in her body, she had dragged herself to the grave of old Dan. Kneeling down by her side, I reached out and touched her. There was no response, no whimpering cry or friendly wag of her tail. My little dog was dead.


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[Assistant] I laid her head in my lap and with tear-filled eyes gazed up into the heavens. In a choking voice, I asked, why did they have to die? Why must I hurt so? What have I done wrong?


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[Assistant] I heard a noise behind me. It was my mother. She sat down and put her arm around me. You've done no wrong, Billy, she said.


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[Assistant] I know this seems terrible and I know how it hurts but at one time or another everyone suffers. Even the good lord suffered while he was here on earth. I know mama, I said, but I can't understand. It was bad enough when old Dan died. Now little Ann is gone, both of them. Gone. Just like that.


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[Assistant] Billy, you haven't lost your dogs altogether, mama said. You'll always have their memory. Besides, you can have some more dogs. I rebelled at this. I don't want any more dogs, I said.


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[Assistant] I won't ever want another dog. They wouldn't be like old Dan and little Ann.


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[Assistant] We all feel that way, Billy, she said. I do especially.


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[Assistant] They fulfilled a prayer that I thought would never be answered. I don't believe in prayers anymore, I said.


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[Assistant] I prayed for my dogs and now look, both of them are dead.


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[Assistant] Mama was silent for a moment, and then in a gentle voice she said, Billy, sometimes


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[Assistant] It's hard to believe that things like this can happen, but there's always an answer. When you're older, you'll understand better. No I won't, I said. I don't care if I'm a hundred years old. I never understand why my dogs had to die.


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[Assistant] As if she were talking to someone far away, I heard her say in a low voice, I don't know what to say. I can't seem to find the right words.


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[Assistant] Looking up to her face I saw that her eyes were flooded with tears. Mama, please don't cry, I said. I didn't mean what I said.


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[Assistant] I know you didn't, she said as she squeezed me up tight. It's just your way of fighting back. I heard the voice of my father calling to us from the house.


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[Assistant] No, I don't think you should do that, Mama said. Your sisters will go off to pieces. Let's make her comfortable here.


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[Assistant] Raking some dead leaves into a pile she picked little Anne up and laid her in them. Taking off my coat I spread it over her body. I dreaded to think of what I had to do on the morrow. My father and sisters were waiting for us on the port


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[Assistant] Mama told them a sad story. My sisters broke down and started crying. They ran to Mama and buried their faces in her long cotton dress. Papa came over and laid his hand on my shoulder. Billy, he said.


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[Assistant] There are times in a boy's life when he has to stand up like a man. This is one of those times. I know what you're going through and how it hurts, but there's always an answer.


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[Assistant] The good Lord has a reason for everything He does.


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[Assistant] Just what we're having for supper, Mama said as we turned to enter the house. Your favorite, Billy. Sweet potato pie. You like that, won't you? I nodded my head but my heart wasn't in it.


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[Assistant] Papa didn't follow us into the kitchen. He turned and entered his bedroom. When he came into the room, he had a small shoe box in his hand.


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[Assistant] I recognized the box by the bright blue ribbon tied around it. Mama kept her valuables in it. A silence settled over the room.


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[Assistant] Walking to the head of the table, Papa set the box down and started untying the ribbon.


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[Assistant] His hands were trembling as he fumbled with the knot.


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[Assistant] With the lid off, he reached in and started lifting out bundles of money.


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[Assistant] After stacking them in a neat pile, he raised his head and looked straight at me. Billy, he said, you know how your mother has prayed.


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[Assistant] Because of your dogs, her prayers have been answered.


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[Assistant] Remember Billy said a prayer when he asked for his pups, and, and there were your prayers. Billy got his pups.


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[Assistant] Through those dogs your prayers were answered. Yes, I'm sure it is a miracle. If he gave them to me, why did he take them away? I asked. I think there's an answer for that too, Papa said.


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[Assistant] You see, Billy, your mother and I had decided not to separate you from your dogs. We knew how much you loved them.


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[Assistant] We decided that when we moved to town, we'd leave you here with your grandpa for a while. He needs help anyway.


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[Assistant] But I guess the good lord didn't want that to happen. He doesn't like to see families split up. That's why they were taken away.


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[Assistant] Let us give thanks for our food and for all the wonderful things God has done for us.


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[Assistant] I'll say a special prayer and ask him to help Billy. I barely heard what Papa had to say. During the meal I could tell that no one was enjoying the food.


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[Assistant] As soon as it was over, I went to my room and lay down on the bed. Mama came in. Why don't you go to bed, she said, and get a good night's sleep. You'll feel better tomorrow. No, I won't, Mama, I said. I'll have to bury little Anne tomorrow. I know, she said, and she turned my covers down. I'll help if you want me to. No, Mama, I said. I don't want anyone to help. I'd rather do it all by myself.


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[Assistant] Billy, you're always doing things by yourself, mama said. That's not right. Everyone needs help sometime in his life. I know, mama, I said. But, please, not this time.


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[Assistant] Ever since my dogs were puppies, we've always been together. Just us three.


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[Assistant] Long after the rest of the family had gone to bed, I lay staring into the darkness, trying to think and not able to.


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[Assistant] Sometime in the night I got up, tiptoed to my window and looked out at my doghouse.


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[Assistant] The many times I had lain in my bed and listened to the squeaking of the door as my dogs went in and out.


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[Assistant] I didn't know I was crying until I felt the tears roll down my cheeks.


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[Assistant] Mama must have heard me get up. She came in and put her arms around me. Billy, she said in a quavering voice. You just have to stop this. You're going to make yourself sick and I don't think I can stand any more of it. I can't mama, I said. It hurts so much. I just can't. I don't want you to feel bad just because I do. I can't help it Billy, she said. Come now and get back in bed. I'm afraid you'll catch cold.


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[Assistant] After she had tucked me in, she sat on the bed for a while, as if she were talking to the darkness. I heard her say, if only there was some way I could help something I could do. No one could help mama, I said. No one can bring my dogs back. I know, she said as she got up to leave the room, but there must be something there just has to be.


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[Assistant] After mama had left the room, I buried my face in my pillow and cried myself to sleep.


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[Assistant] Each nail I drove in the rough pine boards caused the knot in my throat to get bigger and bigger. My sisters came to help. They


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[Assistant] I also buried part of my life along with my dog.


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[Assistant] Remembering a sandstone ledge I had seen while prowling the woods, I went there. I picked out a nice stone and carried it back to the graves.


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[Assistant] Then with painstaking care, I carved their names deep in its red surface. As I stood looking at the two graves,


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[Assistant] But I couldn't. I was still hurting and still had that empty feeling. I went to Mama and had a talk with her. Mama? I asked. Do you think God made a heaven for all good dogs? Yes, she said. I'm sure he did. Do you think he made a place for dogs to hunt? You know, just like we have here on our place with


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[Assistant] He put far more things up there than we have here. Yes, I'm sure he did.


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[Assistant] I was thinking this over when mama came up to me and started tucking my shirt in. Do you feel better now? She asked.


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[Assistant] It still hurts, mama, I said as I buried my face in her dress. But I do feel a little better. I'm glad, she said as she patted my head. I don't like to see my little boy hurt like this.


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[Assistant] Where are you stationed? She asked. In Germany. I'm home on leave for a couple of weeks to visit my dad. And you're from the mountains, I take it? She glanced at me in surprise. Lenore. She studied me. Let me guess, my accent, right? You think I sound like I'm from the sticks, don't you? Not at all. Well, I am. From the sticks, I mean.


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[Assistant] I grew up in a log cabin and everything, and yes, I know I have an accent, but I've been told that some people find it charming. Randy seemed to think so. It slipped out before I could catch myself. In the awkward silence, she ran a hand through her hair. Randy seems like a nice young man, she remarked after a bit, but I don't know him that well.


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[Assistant] I don't really know most of the people in the house all that well, except for Tim and Susan. She waved a mosquito away.


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[Assistant] You'll meet Tim later, he's a great guy. You'll like him, everybody does. And you're all down here on vacation for a week?


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[Assistant] A month actually, but no, it's not really a vacation. We're volunteering. You've heard of Habitat for Humanity, right? We're down here to help build a couple of houses. My family's been involved in it for years.


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[Assistant] Over her shoulder, the house seemed to be coming to life in the darkness.


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[Assistant] More people had materialized, the music had been turned up, and every now and then I could hear laughter.


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[Assistant] Brad, Susan, and Randy were already surrounded by a group of coeds drinking beer and looking less like do-gooders than college kids trolling for a good time and a chance to hook up with someone of the opposite sex.


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[Assistant] She must have noticed my expression and followed my gaze.


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[Assistant] We don't start until Monday. They'll find that soon enough that it's not all fun and games.


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[Assistant] I didn't say anything. You didn't have to. But you're right. For most of them it's their first time working with Habitat and they're just doing it so they have something different to put on their resume when they graduate. They have no idea how much work is actually involved.


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[Assistant] In the end though, all that matters is that the houses get built and they will. They always do. You've done this before. Every summer since I was 16.


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[Assistant] I used to do it with our church, but when I went off to Chapel Hill we started a group there. Well, actually, Tim started it. He's from Lenore too. He just graduated and he'll start on his master's degree this fall. I've known him forever.


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[Assistant] Instead of spending the summer working odd jobs at home or doing internships, we thought we could offer students a chance to make a difference.


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[Assistant] Everyone chips in for the house and pays their own expenses for the month, and we don't charge anything for the labor we do on the houses. That's why it was so important that I get my bag back. I wouldn't have been able to eat all month. I'm sure they wouldn't have let you starve. I know, but it wouldn't be fair. They're already doing something worthy, and that's more than enough. I could feel my feet slipping in the sand. Why Wilmington? I asked.


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[Assistant] I mean, why come here to build houses instead of somewhere like Lenore or Raleigh?


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[Assistant] Because of the beach, you know how people are, it's hard enough to get students to volunteer their time for a month. But it's easier if it's in a place like this.


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[Assistant] And the more people you have, the more you can do. 30 people signed up this year.


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[Assistant] I nodded, conscious of how close together we were walking. And you graduated too? No, I'll be a senior, and I'll major in special education if that's your next question. It was. I figured, when you're in college, that's what everyone asks you. Everyone asks me if I like being in the army. Do you? I don't know. She laughed, and the sound was so melodic that I knew I wanted to hear it again.


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[Assistant] And the lights from the houses outlined along the dunes reminded me of bright jack-o-lanterns.


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[Assistant] Do you mind if I ask what led you to join the army? Given that you don't know whether you like it or not.


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[Assistant] It took me a second to figure out how to answer that, and I shifted my surfboard to my other arm.


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[Assistant] I think it's safest to say that at the time I needed to. She waited for me to add more, but when I didn't, she simply nodded.


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[Assistant] I bet you're glad to be back home for a little while, she said, without a doubt. I bet your father's glad too, huh? I think so. He is, I'm sure he's very proud of you. I got a better grip on the board, thinking about it. I hope so. You sound like you're not certain. You'd have to meet my dad to understand. He's not much of a talker.


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[Assistant] I could see the moonlight reflected in her dark eyes and her voice was soft when she spoke. He doesn't have to talk to be proud of you. He might be the kind of father who shows it in other ways. I thought about that, hoping it was true.


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[Assistant] While I considered it, there was a loud scream from the house and I caught sight of a couple of coeds near the fire.


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[Assistant] One of the guys had his arms wrapped around a girl and was pushing her forward. She was laughing and fighting him off.


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[Assistant] Brad and Susan were snuggling together nearby, but Randy had vanished.


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[Assistant] But I generally try to stay positive and healthy and see the bright side of everything.


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[Assistant] I wake up at 6 everyday, even though I start work at 9am.


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[Assistant] Because I generally hate feeling rushed and waking up early prevents that. I like to take my time getting things done. I usually read the news and catch up on email.


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[Assistant] I try to maintain the same bedtime schedule every day.


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[Assistant] But sometimes I find myself crawling into bed around midnight.


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[Assistant] I do feel sleepy every now and then. But I usually drink a coffee and keep going on.


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[Assistant] I generally can't focus well in the afternoon and evening. I'd rather just relax.


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[Assistant] You're really lucky then. Do you keep the same schedule on the weekends too?


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[Assistant] I try to keep the same schedule on weekends as on weekdays. But occasionally, I wake up later.


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[Assistant] I love going for walks like this, especially when the weather is so nice. I often listen to music and dance at home.


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[Assistant] Sometimes I just sit on the sofa and read a book or watch TV.


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[Assistant] Once in a while, I go singing with my friends at this little karaoke bar downtown.


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[Assistant] Really? Maybe we could go together at the karaoke bar one day.


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[Assistant] I hardly ever go to the gym, but I have an active lifestyle.


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[Assistant] I usually cycle to work. I rarely use buses or subways.


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[Assistant] Sometimes I take the stairs instead of the elevator.


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[Assistant] I take two bags at a time, and go up and down several times.


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[Assistant] In the evening I normally do the dishes, dust or mop. I use housework as a substitute for sport.


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[Assistant] I was eating at odd times, consuming junk and oily food. I had heavy meals almost every evening. I hardly ever ate a salad or fruits.


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[Assistant] I was eating while the TV was on and would end up overeating and feeling sick. I almost never did any exercises. I frequently felt exhausted.


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[Assistant] So I finally pulled myself together and made some changes. I am rarely tired anymore. I have much more energy for my job now.


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[Assistant] Your lifting weights— the first time feels easy, but each lift takes more and more effort until you can't continue. Inside your arms, the muscles responsible for the lifting have become unable to contract. Why do our muscles get fatigued?


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[Assistant] We often blame lactic acid or running out of energy, but these factors alone don't account for muscle fatigue. There's another major contributor— the muscle's ability to respond to signals from the brain.


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[Assistant] To understand the roots of muscle fatigue, it helps to know how a muscle contracts in response to a signal from a nerve. These signals travel from the brain to the muscles in a fraction of a second via long, thin cells called motor neurons.


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[Assistant] On the other side, charged particles, or ions, line the muscle cell's membrane, potassium on the inside, and sodium on the outside.


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[Assistant] In response to a signal from the brain, the motor neuron releases acetylcholine, which triggers pores on the muscle cell membrane to open. Sodium flows in, and potassium flows out. The flux of these charged particles is a crucial step for muscle contraction.


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[Assistant] The change in charge creates an electrical signal called an action potential that spreads through the muscle cell, stimulating the release of calcium that's stored inside it.


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[Assistant] This flood of calcium causes the muscle to contract by enabling proteins buried in the muscle fibers to lock together and ratchet towards each other, pulling the muscle tight. The energy used to power the contraction comes from a molecule called ATP.


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[Assistant] ATP also helps pump the ions back across the membrane afterward, resetting the balance of sodium and potassium on either side.


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[Assistant] This whole process repeats every time a muscle contracts.


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[Assistant] With each contraction, energy in the form of ATP gets used up.


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[Assistant] Waste products like lactic acid are generated, and some ions drift away from the muscle's cell membrane, leaving a smaller and smaller group behind. Though muscle cells use up ATP as they contract repeatedly, they are always making more.


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[Assistant] But eventually, over the course of repeated contractions, there may not be sufficient concentrations of potassium, sodium, or calcium ions immediately available near the muscle cell membrane to reset the system properly.


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[Assistant] So even if the brain sends a signal, the muscle cell can't generate the action potential necessary to contract.


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[Assistant] Even when ions like sodium, potassium, or calcium are depleted in or around the muscle cell, these ions are plentiful elsewhere in the body. With a little time, they will flow back to the areas where they're needed, sometimes with the help of active sodium and potassium pumps.


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[Assistant] So if you pause and rest, muscle fatigue will subside as these ions replenish throughout the muscle.


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[Assistant] The more regularly you exercise, the longer it takes for muscle fatigue to set in each time. That's because the stronger you are, the fewer times this cycle of nerve signal from the brain to contraction in the muscle has to be repeated to lift a certain amount of weight.


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[Assistant] Fewer cycles means slower ion depletion. So as your physical fitness improves, you can exercise for longer at the same intensity.


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[Assistant] Many muscles grow with exercise, and larger muscles also have bigger stores of ATP and a higher capacity to clear waste, pushing fatigue even farther into the future.


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[Assistant] Now, find out how to make your muscles bigger and stronger with this video.


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[Assistant] Good afternoon. There's a medical revolution happening all around us.


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[Assistant] And it's one that's going to help us conquer some of society's most dreaded conditions, including cancer. And the revolution is called androgenesis.


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[Assistant] And it's based on the process that our bodies use to grow blood vessels. So why should we care about blood vessels?


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[Assistant] Well, the human body is literally packed with them. 60,000 miles worth in a typical adult. End to end, that would form a line that would circle the earth twice.


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[Assistant] The smallest blood vessels are called capillaries. We've got 19 billion of them in our bodies. And these are the vessels of life.


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[Assistant] And as I'll show you, they can also be the vessels of death.


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[Assistant] They line air sacs for gas exchange. In muscle, they corkscrew so that muscles can contract without cutting off circulation.


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[Assistant] And we get most of these blood vessels when we're actually still in the womb.


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[Assistant] And what that means is that as adults, blood vessels don't normally grow. Except in a few special circumstances.


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[Assistant] In women, blood vessels grow every month to build the lining of the uterus.


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[Assistant] During pregnancy, they form the placenta, which connects mom and baby. And after injury,


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[Assistant] Blood vessels actually have to grow under the scab in order to heal a wound. And this is actually what it looks like. Hundreds of blood vessels all growing towards the center of the wound.


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[Assistant] And it does this through an elaborate and elegant system of checks and balances, stimulators and inhibitors of androgenesis, such that when we need a brief burst of blood vessels, the body can do this by releasing stimulators, proteins called androgenic factors, that act as natural fertilizer and stimulate new blood vessels to sprout.