The call of the wild
jack london
chapter 1
buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with
warm, long hair, from puget sound to san diego because men, groping in the arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation
companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the northland. these men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with
strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed santa clara valley. judge miller's place, it was called. it stood back from the road, half hidden among the trees, through
which glimpses could be caught of the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides. the house was approached by graveled driveways which wound about
through wide spreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. at the rear things were on even a more spacious scale than at the front. there were
great stables, where a dozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors, green
pastures, orchards, and berry patches. then there was the pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where judge miller's boys took their morning
plunge and kept cool in the hot afternoon
and over this great domain buck ruled. here he was born, and here he had lived the four years of his life. it was true, there were other dogs. there could not but be
other dogs on so vast a place, but they did not count. they came and went resided in the populous kennels, or lived obscurely in the recesses of the house after the
fashion of toots, the japanese pug, or ysabel, the mexican hairless-strange creatures that rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground. on the other hand, there
were the fox terriers, a score of them at least, who yelped fearful promises at toots and ysabel looking out of the windows at them and protected by a legion of
housemaids armed with brooms and mops.
but buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. the whole realm was his. he plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the judge's sons; he escorted
mollie and alice, the judge's daughters, on long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay at the judge's feet before the roaring library fire; he carried
the judge's grandsons on his back, or rolled them in the grass, and guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard, and even
beyond, where the paddocks were, and the berry patches. among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and toots and ysabel he utterly ignored, for he was king-king
over all creeping crawling flying things of judge miller's place, humans included.
the author's use of the words "strange creatures" in reference to toots and ysabel suggests (5 points)
a. they are buck's sworn enemies
b. they are not liked by the household staff
c. they are very different from buck
d. they do not fit in the setting at all