Question

What is similar about the story the teacher reads and what happens to the two characters?

a. The teacher and King Cyrus both own horses.
b. Cyrus and the soldier don’t trust each other at first.
c. The teacher and the boy are the same ages as King Cyrus and the soldier.
d. The men in the story become friends, and the teacher and the
boy become friends.

Answer 1

@tester97

Answer 2

@kayceejones1

Answer 3

i didnt read that story

Answer 4

In his many journeyings among strangers the boy had learned to sniff out danger and spot orneriness quickly. Now, for the first time in his life away from home, he wasn’t feared. The lean elderly man with snow-white hair, wearing Sunday clothes, came down the steps. “This pipe is always falling,” he said as he picked it up and put it back in place. “I need to wire it up.”


“I just wanted to wash my hand. It’s got dried blood on it where I hurt my fingers.”


“You should have run home.”


“I don’t live in these parts.”


“Here, I’ll hold your book, and I’ll pump for you.” And the mellow eyes of the man began to search the boy for answers, answers that could be found without asking questions.


“We need warm, soapy water,” the teacher said. “I live right close. Wait ‘til I get my papers and lock the door, and I’ll take you home and fix it.”


The boy wanted to follow the man into the schoolhouse and see what it was like inside, but by the time he got to the steps, the man was back again, locking the door. “I usually put the school in order after the children leave,” he said, “but I’ll do it in the morning before they get here.”


At the edge of the school lot the man took the road that led away from the town. They walked without much talk, and the boy began to wish the man would ask him a lot of questions. When they had passed several cabins, each farther from the other as they went, the man turned off the road and said, “We’re home. I live here alone. Have lived alone for a long time.” Fingering the small wire hook on the neatly whitewashed gate which led into a yard that was green, the teacher stopped talking.


A cabin with a gate and green grass in the yard is almost a big house, the boy thought as he followed the man.


Inside the gate the man went along the fence, studying some plants tied up to stakes. He began to talk again, not to the boy, but to a plant that was smaller than the others. “You’ll make it, little one, but it’ll take time to get your roots set again.”


The boy looked at the white-haired old man leaning over like he was listening for the plant to answer him. “He’s conjured,” the boy whispered to himself. “Lots of old folks is conjured or addled.” He moved backward to the gate, thinking he’d better run away. “Conjured folks can conjure you,” the boy’s mother always said, “if you get yourself plain carried off by their soft spell-talk.”


But before the boy could trouble his mind anymore, the man straightened up and began talking to him. “Some animal dug under the roots and tore them loose from the earth. It was wilted badly and might have died. But I reset it, and I water it every day. It’s hard to reset a plant if it’s wilted too much; the life has gone out of it. But this one will be all right. I see new leaves startin’.”


“What grows on it?” the boy asked, thinking it must be something good to eat if somebody cared that much about a plant.


“It’s only a flower,” the man said. “I’ll water it when the earth has cooled a little. If you water a plant when the earth is too warm, it shocks the roots.”


Inside the cabin the man started a fire in the cookstove and heated water. As he washed the boy’s hand with a soft white rag, he said, “You musta slammed these fingers in a awful heavy door or gate.” Before the boy could answer, the teacher began to talk about the plant he must remember to water.


He don’t wanta know nothin’ about me, the boy thought.


“When I saw your book, I thought you were coming to enroll for school. But you don’t live in these parts, you say.”


“I found the book in a trash barrel. It has words like I ain’t used to readin’. I can read store-sign words and some newspaper words.”


“This is a wonderful book,” said the teacher. “It was written by a man named Montaigne, who was a soldier. But he grew tired of being a soldier and spent his time studying and writing. He also liked to walk on country roads.”


The teacher lit two lamps. The boy had never seen two lamps burning in the same room. They made the room as bright as daylight.


“People should read his writings,” the man continued. “But few do. He is all but forgotten.” But the boy did not hear. He was thinking of a cabin that had two lamps, both lit at the same time, and two stoves, one to cook on and one to warm by.


The man sat in a chair between two tables that held the lamps. There were books on the tables too, and there were shelves filled not with pans and dishes, but with books. The mellow eyes of the man followed the boy’s puzzled glances as they studied the strange warm world in which he had suddenly found himself.


“I will read you a little story from your book.” The boy watched as the fingers of the man turned the pages one way and then the other until he found what he wanted to read.


“This is a very short story about a king named Cyrus, who wanted to buy the prize horse that belonged to one of his soldiers. Cyrus asked him how much he would sell the horse for, or whether he would exchange him for a kingdom. The soldier said he would not sell his prize horse and he would not exchange him for a kingdom, but that he would willingly give up his horse to gain a friend. . . . .But now I have told you the whole story so there’s no use for me to read it.”


“You’ve been a powerful good friend to take me in like this,” the boy said at last. “My fingers don’t hurt no more.”


“I am your friend,” said the man. “So while I heat some water to soak your hand and make your cot for the night, you tell me all about yourself.”


“I had a father and a dog named Sounder,” the boy began. . . .

Answer 5

is that the story

Answer 6

yes @kayceejones1

Answer 7

im thinking d