Word For The Day 12/24/02

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of “word for the day”. Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the “word of the day”; in a sentence. The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day. The Review threads are linked for your edification. ;-) Practice makes perfect.....post on....

If you want to be on the WFTD Ping List, please let me know. I will be taking names all week and adding them to my new list. I scrapped the old list because of concerns raised on a thread about people be adding to lists without asking to be. Thank you for understanding.

Full of or expressing high-spirited merriment; light-hearted; pleasant, cheering, delightful

Etymology: Jocund is from Old French jocond, from Latin jucundus, pleasant, agreeable, delightful, from juvo, juvare, to please, to delight.

Here's a little Christmas Card for xshub.

"You ain't going to take him out now?" the driver asked.

"Sure," the man replied, driving the hatchet into the crate for a pry.

There was an instantaneous scattering of the four men who had carried it in, and from safe perches on top the wall they
prepared to watch the performance.

Buck rushed at the splintering wood, sinking his teeth into it, surging and wrestling with it. Wherever the hatchet fell on the
outside, he was there on the inside, snarling and growling, as furiously anxious to get out as the man in the red sweater was
calmly intent on getting him out.

"Now, you red-eyed devil," he said, when he had made an opening sufficient for the passage of Buck's body. At the same
time he dropped the hatchet and shifted the club to his right hand.

And Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself together for the spring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter
in his blood-shot eyes. Straight at the man he launched his one hundred and forty pounds of fury, surcharged with the pent
passion of two days and nights. In mid air, just as his jaws were about to close on the man, he received a shock that
checked his body and brought his teeth together with an agonizing clip. He whirled over, fetching the ground on his back and
side. He had never been struck by a club in his life, and did not understand. With a snarl that was part bark and more
scream he was again on his feet and launched into the air. And again the shock came and he was brought crushingly to the
ground. This time he was aware that it was the club, but his madness knew no caution. A dozen times he charged, and as
often the club broke the charge and smashed him down.

After a particularly fierce blow, he crawled to his feet, too dazed to rush. He staggered limply about, the blood flowing from
nose and mouth and ears, his beautiful coat sprayed and flecked with bloody slaver. Then the man advanced and
deliberately dealt him a frightful blow on the nose. All the pain he had endured was as nothing compared with the exquisite
agony of this. With a roar that was almost lionlike in its ferocity, he again hurled himself at the man. But the man, shifting
the club from right to left, coolly caught him by the under jaw, at the same time wrenching downward and backward. Buck
described a complete circle in the air, and half of another, then crashed to the ground on his head and chest.

For the last time he rushed. The man struck the shrewd blow he had purposely withheld for so long, and Buck crumpled up
and went down, knocked utterly senseless.

"He's no slouch at dog-breakin', that's wot I say," one of the men on the wall cried enthusiastically.

"Druther break cayuses any day, and twice on Sundays," was the reply of the driver, as he climbed on the wagon and
started the horses.

Buck's senses came back to him, but not his strength. He lay where he had fallen, and from there he watched the man in
the red sweater.

" 'Answers to the name of Buck,' " the man soliloquized, quoting from the saloon-keeper's letter which had announced the
consignment of the crate and contents. "Well, Buck, my boy," he went on in a genial voice, "we've had our little ruction, and
the best thing we can do is to let it go at that. You've learned your place, and I know mine. Be a good dog and all 'll go well
and the goose hang high. Be a bad dog, and I'll whale the stuffin' outa you. Understand?"

As he spoke he fearlessly patted the head he had so mercilessly pounded, and though Buck's hair involuntarily bristled at
touch of the hand, he endured it without protest. When the man brought him water he drank eagerly, and later bolted a
generous meal of raw meat, chunk by chunk, from the man's hand.

He was beaten (he knew that); but he was not broken. He saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a
club. He had learned the lesson, and in all his after life he never forgot it. That club was a revelation. It was his introduction
to the reign of primitive law, and he met the introduction halfway. The facts of life took on a fiercer aspect; and while he
faced that aspect uncowed, he faced it with all the latent cunning of his nature aroused. As the days went by, other dogs
came, in crates and at the ends of ropes, some docilely, and some raging and roaring as he had come; and, one and all, he
watched them pass under the dominion of the man in the red sweater. Again and again, as he looked at each brutal
performance, the lesson was driven home to Buck: a man with a club was a lawgiver, a master to be obeyed.

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