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THE WOLF'S LONG HOWL

by Stanley Waterloo

1899






CONTENTS


  THE WOLF'S LONG HOWL
  AN ULM
  THE HAIR OF THE DOG THAT BIT HIM
  THE MAN WHO FELL IN LOVE
  A TRAGEDY OF THE FOREST
  THE PARASANGS
  LOVE AND A TRIANGLE
  AN EASTER ADMISSION
  PROFESSOR MORGAN'S MOON
  RED DOG'S SHOW WINDOW
  MARKHAM'S EXPERIENCE
  THE RED REVENGER
  A MURDERER'S ACCOMPLICE
  A MID-PACIFIC FOURTH
  LOVE AND A LATCH-KEY
  CHRISTMAS 200,000 B.C.
  THE CHILD
  THE BABY AND THE BEAR
  AT THE GREEN TREE CLUB
  THE RAIN-MAKER
  WITHIN ONE LIFE'S SPAN




THE WOLF'S LONG HOWL


George Henry Harrison, though without living near kinfolk, had never
considered himself alone in the world. Up to the time when he became
thirty years of age he had always thought himself, when he thought of
the matter at all, as fortunate in the extent of his friendships. He was
acquainted with a great many people; he had a recognized social
standing, was somewhat cleverer than the average man, and his instincts,
while refined by education and experience, were decidedly gregarious and
toward hearty companionship. He should have been a happy man, and had
been one, in fact, up to the time when this trustworthy account begins;
but just now, despite his natural buoyancy of spirit, he did not count
himself among the blessed.

George Henry wanted to be at peace with all the world, and now there
were obstacles in the way. He did not delight in aggressiveness, yet
certain people were aggressive. In his club--which he felt he must soon
abandon--he received from all save a minority of the members a hearty
reception, and in his club he rather enjoyed himself for the hour,
forgetting that conditions were different outside. On the streets he met
men who bowed to him somewhat stiffly, and met others who recognized him
plainly enough, but who did not bow. The postman brought daily a bunch
of letters, addressed in various forms of stern commercial handwriting
to George Henry Harrison, but these often lay unopened and neglected on
his desk.

To tell the plain and unpleasant truth, George Henry Harrison had just
become a poor man, a desperately poor man, and already realized that it
was worse for a young man than an old one to rank among those who have
"seen better days." Even after his money had disappeared in what had
promised to be a good investment, he had for a time maintained his
place, because, unfortunately for all concerned, he had been enabled to
get credit; but there is an end to that sort of thing, and now, with his
credit gone after his money, he felt his particular world slipping from
him. He felt a change in himself, a certain on-creeping paralysis of his
social backbone. When practicable he avoided certain of his old friends,
for he could see too plainly written on their faces the fear that he was
about to request a trifling loan, though already his sense of honor,
when he considered his prospects, had forced him to cease asking favors
of the sort. There were faces which he had loved well which he could not
bear to see with the look of mingled commiseration and annoyance he
inspired.

And so it came that at this time George Henry Harrison was acquainted
chiefly with grief--with the wolf at his door. His mail, once blossoming
with messages of good-will and friendliness, became a desert of duns.

"Why is it," George Henry would occasionally ask himself--there was no
one else for him to talk to--"why is it that when a man is sure of his
meals every day he has endless invitations to dine out, but that when
those events are matters of uncertainty he gets not a bidding to the
feast?" This question, not a new one, baffling in its mystery and
chilling to the marrow, George Henry classed with another he had heard
somewhere: "Who is more happy: the hungry man who can get nothing to
eat, or the rich man with an overladen table who can eat nothing?" The
two problems ran together in his mind, like a couple of hounds in leash,
during many a long night when he could not shut out from his ears the
howling of the wolf. He often wondered, jeering the while at his own
grotesque fancy, how his neighbors could sleep with those mournful yet
sinister howlings burdening the air, but he became convinced at last
that no one heard the melancholy solo but himself.

"'The wolf's long howl on Oonalaska's shore' is not in it with that of
mine," said George Henry--for since his coat had become threadbare his
language had deteriorated,