Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment — John Shaqi
Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great ExperimentGibbs, George
General
Paradise Garden: The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment
Gibbs, George
Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Satire
His left arm was bitten twice and his neck and shoulder badly torn,
but he had not whimpered, nor did he now when I bathed and cauterized
his wounds. Whatever pain he felt, he made no sign, and I knew that by
inference my night-talks by the campfire had borne fruit. Old
Christopher, the butler, to whom the Great Experiment was a mystery,
hovered in the background with towels and lotions, timidly
reproachful, until Jerry laughed at him and sent him to bed, muttering
something about the queer goings on at Horsham Manor.
This incident is related to show that Jerry had more courage than most
boys of his years. Part of it was inherent, of course, but most of it
was born of the habit, learned early, to be sure of himself in any
emergency. There was little doubt in my mind that there was some of
the stuff in Jerry of which heroes are made. I thought so then, for I
was proud of my handiwork. I did not know, alas! to what tests my
philosophy and John Benham's were to be subjected. All of which goes
to show that in running counter to human nature the wisest plans, the
greatest sagacity, are as chaff before the winds of destiny. But to
continue:
The following summer Jerry gave further proofs of his presence of mind
in an accident of which I was the victim. For while trudging with
Jerry along a rocky hillside I stepped straight into the death trap of
a rattlesnake. He struck me below the knee, and we were a long way
from help. But the boy was equal to the emergency. Quite coolly he
killed the snake with a club. I fortunately kept my head and directed
him, though he knew just what to do. With his hunting knife he cut my
trouser leg away and double gashed my leg where the fangs had entered,
then sucked the wound and spat out the poison until the blood had
ceased to flow. Then he quickly made a tourniquet of his handkerchief
and fastened it just above the wound, and, making me comfortable, he
ran the whole distance to the house, bringing a motor car and help in
less than an hour. There isn't the slightest doubt that Jerry saved my
life on this occasion just as the following winter I saved him from
death at the horns of a mad buck deer.
You will not wonder therefore that the bond of affection and reliance
was strong between us. I gave Jerry of the best that was in me, and in
return I can truly say that not once did he disappoint me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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