#425 Devil Bird- Henry Dumas

#425 Devil Bird- Henry Dumas

This is a strong biblical allegory. God and Devil have come to visit to fight for the grandfather’s soul. Only they are not there to fight each other, they are partners ready to take the soul from this world to the next.

They decide the battle to be over a game of cards. Their fate lies in their own hands, literally: “you shall deal your own hand.”

“You will learn that you get no second chances in this game. Mistakes are costly.”

The story gets frantic as God and the Devil change rules, change clothes, change form. Our lives are not entirely our own.

Notable Passage: “Love is the ultimate rule…if you love the game, there is no rule."

Rating: 8-8-9-9 Total= 34

#398 Children of the Sun

#398 Children of the Sun

Even tough kids gets sad at the dying of a dog. Jubal, Nathan, Hoodoo, and Lance take Nathan’s dog into the woods to bury him. They are silent and reflective. At times they almost fall into their normal jovial, juvenile behavior, but are struck at the seriousness of the situation.

“As…we stood there trying to pretend we were grownups having a very proper funeral, something…caught us and halted us, drained us of all the horseplay and laughing and made us look at what we were really doing. How could  a group of kids know about the terror and pain of dying…and yet we did know, we did sense something.”

Rating: 8-7-8-8 Total= 31

#377 Rope of Wind- Henry Dumas

#377 Rope of Wind- Henry Dumas

The dust swirled like a rope of wind behind the white men’s car. Just like a noose it usually meant death for this community. Johnny B. witnesses the Reverend being taken by the car. He runs after it, tracking the red taillights like evil eyes in the dark. He is the witness, the messenger.

“And the car appeared and reappeared like some phantom teasing him, and soon his mind lost track of time and his body became fixed, rigid, in step with some unltimate purpose that he had ordained for himself—indeed, that had been foreordained for him. Johnny B. was to be the messenger of the blood. The spirit surviving in each generation and appearing in the young. He ran on…”

Rich, meaningful, and inspiring as always.

Rating: 9-8-9-9 Total= 35

#346 The University of Man- Henry Dumas

#346 The University of Man- Henry Dumas

A watchmaker has learned all there is to his craft. His knowledge has ended.  His precise work has left him stagnant and hungry for learning. “I am run down, tired of chasing the same speck of dust away, weary of winding myself up each morning, tired of squeezing time into metal boxes.”

What follows is a vision quest, in the vein of Voltaire’s Candide or Zadig. At times he seems like a fool or a rube, but he knows that his path is leading him to something:

“It is the quest for knowledge that is holy, not the knowledge itself.”

He meets a man digging near a canal. This man is pure, he is intent, and he is undeterred. Thus the town resents him. Man is afraid of those who try to change the flow of the river. They engage in a conversation, like one of Plato’s dialogues. The topic is knowledge and education.

This story here is what makes Dumas special.

Notable Passage: “The greatest tool of education is the soul. The truly educated man is like a giant stylus etching in the sands of the earth. As he walks, words and songs flow behind him.”

Rating: 10-10-10-10 Total= 40

#334 Scout- Henry Dumas

#334 Scout- Henry Dumas

There are such great stories in this collection, Echo Tree, I probably wont be able to get to all of them. However, before I get to Scout, I would like to make mention of a great short parable called The Eagle the Dove and the Blackbird. Like most of Dumas’ work, it is meaningful, well-crafted and beautiful prose.

Scout is about a young man retelling a story about his youth. He is confused, frantic, and un-prepared. He is loved, mocked, taken advantage of, robbed, and taken-in. That’s a full day. As he deals with his own problems, time marches on.

“Harlem has changed”

“Toward progress…the progress of death.”

Notable Passage: “It takes time to teach yourself. It takes time to break the chains inside us. We waste too much of our time of foolishness.”

Rating: 7-8-7-8 Total= 30

#313 The Marchers- Henry Dumas

#313 The Marchers- Henry Dumas

As always, Dumas delivers a powerful piece, this one a parable about power, protest, and freedom. As marchers gather, and speakers speak, a prisoner is roused from servitude, and darkness and despair.

“In the dome the silence was stirred by the sound of legions of feet marching. The rumble sifted through the years. The prisoner heard…and waited.”

“Outside, the cheers grew louder. The dome trembled. Specks of dust leaped up from centuries of rest and wandered like souls in limbo. Suddenly a passion seized the prisoner.”

“From the ground he came up slowly, as if he were a lost seed in a sunless cave, a seed that had sprouted into a pale limp stalk trying to suck a bit of precious sunlight into its impoverished leaves.”

“Today was a great day. Freedom had come to them…at least for a while…the marching of their feet was the song of their freedom.”

But the story comes with a warning, that all freedom doesn’t last as long as its only in a march. Shackles aren’t actually broken and centuries of oppression aren’t wiped away because of one day of exuberance. As hope fades, the prisoner falls back into darkness.

Rating: 9-9-10-8 Total= 36