[00:00.00]Text Love of Life
[00:05.69]Two men walked slowly,one after the other,through the shallow water of a stream
[00:13.24]All they could see were stones and earth.
[00:18.31]The stream ran cold over their feet.
[00:23.28]They had blanket packs on their backs.
[00:27.53]They had guns,but no bullets;matches,but no food.
[00:33.88]Suddenly the man who followed fell over a stone.
[00:40.05]He hurt his foot badly and called:"Hey,Bill,I've hurt my foot."
[00:47.49]Bill continued straight on without looking back.
[00:52.77]The man was alone in the empty land,but he was not lost.
[00:59.82]He knew the way to their camp,where he would find food and bullets.
[01:06.27]He struggled to his feet and limped on.
[01:10.84]Bill would be waiting for him there,
[01:15.10]and together they would go south to the Hudson Bay Company.
[01:20.95]He had not eaten for two days.
[01:25.81]Often he stopped to pick some small beries and put them into his mouth.
[01:32.66]The berries were tasteless,and did not satisfy,
[01:38.30]but he knew he must eat them.
[01:42.14]In the evening he built a fire and slept like a dead man.
[01:48.30]When he woke up,the man took out a small sack.
[01:53.45]It weighed fifteen pounds.
[01:57.71]He's wasn't sure if he could carry it any longer.But he couldn't leave it behind.
[02:04.19]He had to take it with him.
[02:07.95]He put it back into his pack,rose to his feet and staggered on.
[02:14.79]His foot hurt,but it was nothing compared with his hunger,
[02:20.85]which made him go on until darkness fell.
[02:25.89]His blanket was wet,but he knew only that he was hungry.
[02:32.06]Through his restless sleep he dreamed of banquets and of food.
[02:38.90]The man woke up cold and sick,and found himself lost.
[02:45.56]But the small sack was still with him.
[02:50.71]As he dragged himself along,the sack became heavier and heavier.
[02:57.27]The man opened the sack,which was full of small pieces of gold.
[03:04.11]He left half the gold on a rock.
[03:09.07]Eleven days passed,days of rain and cold.
[03:15.74]One day he found the bones of a deer.
[03:20.59]There was no meat on them.
[03:24.12]The man broke the bones and he sucked and chewed on them like an animal.
[03:31.17]Would be,too,be bones tomorrow? And why not?This was life.Only life hurt.
[03:41.44]There was no hurt in death.
[03:45.59]To die was to sleep.Then why was he not ready to die?
[03:52.86]He,as a man,no longer stove.
[03:57.90]It was the life in him,unwilling to die,that drove him on.
[04:05.26]One morning he woke up beside a river.
[04:09.70]Slowly he followed it with his with his eyes and
[04:13.96]saw it emptying into a shining sea.
[04:18.93]When he saw a ship on the sea,he closed his eyes.
[04:24.88]He knew there could be no ship,no sea,in this land.
[04:31.65]A vision,he told himself.
[04:35.91]He heard a noise behind him,and turned around.
[04:40.58]A wolf,old and sick,was coming slowly toward him.
[04:47.56]The man turned back,but the sea and the ship were still there.
[04:54.61]He didn't understand.
[04:58.68]Had he been walking north,away from the camp,toward the sea?
[05:04.93]He stood up and started slowly toward the ship,
[05:10.39]knowing full well the sick wolf was following him.
[05:16.03]In the afternoon,he found some bones of a man.
[05:21.88]Beside the bones was a small sack of gold,like his own.
[05:28.83]So Bill had carried his gold to the end.
[05:34.11]He would carry Bill's gold to the ship.
[05:39.25]Ha--Ha!He would have the last laugh on Bill.
[05:46.02]His laughing sounded like the low cry of an animal.
[05:52.65]The wolf cried back.The man stopped suddenly and turned away.
[05:59.60]How could he laugh about Bill's bones and take his gold?
[06:06.45]The man was very sick,now.He crawled about,on hands and knees.
[06:14.18]He had lost everything--his blanket,his gun,and his gold.
[06:21.75]Only the wolf stayed with him hour after hour.
[06:27.32]At last he could go on no further.He fell.
[06:32.28]The wolf came close to him,but the man was ready.
[06:37.84]He got on top of the wolf and held its mouth closed.
[06:43.17]The he bit it with his last strength.
[06:48.63]The wolf's blood streamed into his mouth.
[06:53.91]Only love of life gave him enough strength.
[06:59.37]He held the wolf with his teeth and killed it,
[07:04.54]then he fell on his back and slept.
[07:09.27]The men on the ship saw a strange object lying on the beach.
[07:15.51]It was moving toward them--perhaps twenty feet an hour.
[07:22.17]The men went over to look and could hardly believe it was a man.
[07:30.04]Three weeks later,when the man felt better,he told them his story.
[07:37.48]But there was one strange thing
[07:42.05]--he seemed to be afraid that there wasn't enough food on the ship.
[07:48.90]The men also noticed that he was getting fat.
[07:53.65]They gave him less food,but still he grew fatter with each day.
[08:00.91]Then one day they saw him put a lot of bread under his shirt.
[08:07.68]They examined his bed and found food under his blanket.
[08:14.05]Then men understood.He would recover from it,they said. |