E-text prepared by Al Haines
by
WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT and ZAMIN KI DOST
Garden City New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1920
Copyright, 1920, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation
into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian
Copyright, 1919, by the Curtis Publishing Company
Zamin Ki Dost is a title given to one who lived in India manyyears—from the time when she was little more than a child. The taleof tales would be her own story. Her name is
I THE GOOD GREY NERVE
II SON OF POWER
III SON OF POWER (Continued)
IV THE MONKEY GLEN
V THE MONKEY GLEN (Continued)
VI JUNGLE LAUGHTER
VII THE HUNTING CHEETAH
VIII THE MONSTER KABULI
IX THE MONSTER KABULI (Continued)
X HAND-OF-A-GOD
XI ELEPHANT CONCERNS
XII BLUE BEAST
XIII NEELA DEO, KING OF ALL ELEPHANTS
XIV NEELA DEO, KING OF ALL ELEPHANTS (Continued)
XV THE LAIR
XVI FEVER BIRDS
The Good Grey Nerve
His name was Sanford Hantee, but you will hear that only occasionally,for the boys of the back streets called him Skag, which "got" himsomewhere at once. That was in Chicago. He was eleven years old, whenhe wandered quite alone to Lincoln Park Zoo, and the madness took him.
A silent madness. It flooded over him like a river. If any one hadnoticed, it would have appeared that Skag's eyes changed. Always hequite contained himself, but his lips stirred to speech even less afterthat. He didn't pretend to go to school the next day; in fact, thespell wasn't broken until nearly a week afterward, when the keeper ofthe Monkey House pointed Skag out to a policeman, saying the boy hadbeen on the grounds the full seven open hours for four straight daysthat he knew of.
Skag wasn't a liar. He had never "skipped" school before, but the Zoohad him utterly. He was powerless against himself. Some bigger force,represented by a truant officer, was necessary to keep him away fromthose cages. His father got down to business and gave him abeating—much against that good man's heart. (Skag's father was aNorthern European who kept a fruit-store down on Waspen street—amildly-flavoured man and rotund. His mother was a Mediterranean woman,who loved and clung.)
But Skag went back to the Zoo. For three days more he went, remainedfrom opening to closing time. He seemed to fall into deepabsorptions—before tigers and monkeys especially. He didn't hear whatwent on around him. He did not appear to miss his lunch. You had totouch his shoulder to get his attention. The truant officer did this.It all led dismally to the Reform School from which Skag ran away.
He was gone three weeks and wouldn't have come back then, except hisheart hurt about his mother. He felt the truth—that she was slowlydying without him. After that for awhile he kept away from theanimals, because his mother loved and clung and cried, when he grewsilently cold with revolt against a life not at all for him, or hotwith hatred against the Reform School. Those were ragged months in