The Little Orphan Coyote

Lansing Becket Bryan

Box 2

My sister Lansing was 8 and a half years old when she began writing poetry and short stories for school. Dad was impressed enough with her work that he shared them with friends.
I want to take this moment to share with Lansing and my readers the pride Dad felt about her creativity:

From two letters to Peter Neill

January 11, 1973

The children are due home from school in any minute. Lansing wrote the most beautiful poem yesterday Not just paternal pride, either. It was quite dazzling complete with repeated last line.


February 28, 1973

I will close with a short story written by Lansing. The only help I gave her was making sure when she wrote "he" we knew who "he" was:

The Little Orphan Coyote

Once there was a beautiful, beautiful mountain and there was a coyote. He was a month old and his mother had died at 23 and his father at 28. One day the sun came out and the mountain looked just beautiful when the sun came out. So the orphan coyote went out hunting some mice. He was too young to hunt deer and big things. After he hunted down the mice he ate them and he went and took exercise with his friend. And then he asked his friend if he could live with him, And his friend said he would have to check with his mother and father. So he did. And his mother and father said No. But at night his friend packed his suitcase, his toothpaste and all the things he needed and went to live with his little orphan coyote friend. And they were never lonely again.

I never did find that poem, but you can see what I mean about her ability to write. It's very exciting."

On Saint's 4th Grade Poetry Recital May 1973

From a collection of letters to friends found in Box #3. This one from June of 1973 recalls the poetry recital we all had to do for Mrs Cunningham's class.

"The first boy did Maurice Sendak's "Chicken Soup With Rice" and all the other boys, waiting their turns squirmed in agony so that all the metal seats in the rooms sounded, I suppose, rather like the breaking up of those old ships in the Taiwan Harbor. But God it was funny.
They'd get up there with their jaw muscles working, faltering, flushing , racing through the first stanza since they were the only ones they were really sure of and then doom because the line would come which he wouldn't know. And you knew the boy was thinking two or three lines ahead of what he was saying and the adams apple would start bobbling, they eyes rolling, slight tears springing up and then that awful silence which would s t r e t c h o n endlessly until the teacher would prompt.
Saint's friend Nick Cudahy got up on stage and squared off as though the poem were his mortal enemy, delivered in a fighter's crouch, attacked each stanza by grabbing it at the throat..
And then Saint, doing Robert L. Stevenson's "Land of Nod" squirming like a snake, not daring to look at his classmates, eyes fixed on an owl poster at the back of the room, made it through without blowing a line, then sagged against the back of the wall, wiped his hand across the brow and sighed "I did it!" which met with great laughter and applause."