DOCTOR—What wasn't a dream?
COTTONTAIL—Last Tuesday evening I was sitting in this room, quietly readingThe Evening Post, when suddenly something tore the ceiling away, and down from above there came ten horrible pink tentacles and seized me in an iron grasp. Then something stabbed me with some sharp instrument. I was too frightened to move for several minutes, but when I looked up the ceiling was back in place as if nothing had touched it. I felt around for the wound, but the only thing I could find, was a tiny scratch that seemed so small I might have had it some time without noticing it. I couldn't be sure it was a wound. In fact, I tried to make myselfbelieve that the whole thing was all a dream, until I was taken sick to-night. Now I'm afraid that the sword, or whatever it was that stabbed me, must have been poisoned.
DR.CONY(sharply)—Let me look at your tongue. (Cottontail complies.) Seems all right. Hold out your hands. Spread your fingers. (He studies the patient for a moment.) Nothing much the matter there. (Producing pen and paper.) If it was only March now I'd know what to say. Let's see what we can find out about hereditary influence. Father and mother living?
COTTONTAIL—I had no father or mother. I came out of a trick hat in a vaudeville act.
DR.CONY—That makes it a little more difficult, doesn't it? Do you happen to remember what sort of a hat?
COTTONTAIL(a little proudly)—It was quite a high hat.
DR.CONY—Yes, it would be. What color?
COTTONTAIL—Black and shiny.
DR.CONY—That seems normal enough. I'm afraid there's nothing significant there. (Anxiously.) No fixed delusions? You don't think you're Napoleon or the White Rabbit or anything like that, do you? Do you feel like growling or biting anybody?
COTTONTAIL—Of course not. There's nothing the matter with my brain.
DR.CONY—Perhaps you went to sleep and dreamed it all.
COTTONTAIL—No, I distinctly saw the ceiling open and I felt the stab very sharply. I couldn't possibly have been asleep. I was reading a most interesting dramatic review inThe Evening Post.
DR.CONY—But you weren't stabbed in the big toe, now, were you?
COTTONTAIL—Well, no.
DR.CONY—And you will admit that the ceiling's just the same as it ever was?
COTTONTAIL—It looks the same from here. I haven't called any workmen in yet to examine it.
DR.CONY—Take my advice and don't. Just let's keep the matter between ourselves and forget it. I'm afraid you've been working too hard. Drop your business. Do a little light reading, and after a bit maybe I'd like to have you go to a show. Something with songs and bunny-hugging and jokes and chorus girls. None of this birth control stuff. I don't see how any self-respecting rabbit could go to a play like the one I saw last night. (He goes to his instrument case and produces a stethoscope.)
DR.CONY—Have you had your heart examined lately?
COTTONTAIL(visibly nervous)—No.
DR.CONY—Any shortness of breath or palpitation?
COTTONTAIL—I don't think so.
DR.CONY—If that's a vest you have on, take it off. There, now. (He stands in front of Cottontail with his stethoscope poised in the air. Cottontail is trembling. Dr. Cony allows the hand holding the stethoscope to drop to his side and remarks provocatively), I'll bet you Maranville doesn't hit .250 this season.
COTTONTAIL(amazed)—Really, sir, I never bet. No, never. I don't know what you are talking about, anyway.
DR.CONY—That's all right, that's all right. Don't agitate yourself. Just a little professional trick. I wanted to calm you down. Now (he makes a hurried examination), Mr. Cottontail, I don't want you to run. I don't want you to climb stairs. Avoid excitement and don't butter your parsnips. Fine words are just as good, no matter what anybody may tell you, and they don't create fatty tissue. Of course, you've got to have some exercise. You might play a little golf. Say, about three holes a day.
COTTONTAIL(sadly)—Three holes?
DR.CONY—Yes, that will be enough.
COTTONTAIL(musing)—It's a little tough, doctor. I can still remember the day I won my "H" at dear old Hassenpfeffer in the 'cross-country run. I had the lungs and the legs then. Even now I can feel the wind on my face as I came across the meadow and up that last, long hill. They were cheering for me to come on. I can tell you I just leaped along. It was nothing atall for me. If I'd sprinted just a bit sooner I could have been first in a hop. Anyhow, I was second. There was nobody ahead of me but the Tortoise. (Cheerlessly) Three holes of golf a day!
DR.CONY—Come, come, sir, be a rabbit. There's no cheating nature, you know. You had your fun, and now you must pay.
COTTONTAIL—What's the matter with me?
DR.CONY—Plain, old-fashioned gout.
COTTONTAIL—What does that come from?
DR.CONY(with evident relish)—From too much ale or porter or claret or burgundy or champagne or sherry or Rhine Wine or Clover Clubs or Piper Heidsieck or brandy or Bronxes or absinthe or stingers, but the worst of all and the best of all is port wine.
COTTONTAIL(horrified)—You mean it comes from drinking?
Dr. Cony—In all my twenty-five years of professional practice I have never known a case of gout without antecedent alcoholism.
COTTONTAIL(much relieved)—Well, then, it can't be gout. I've never taken a drink in my life.
Dr. Cony—In all my twenty-five years of professional experience I've never made an incorrect diagnosis. It is gout.
COTTONTAIL—But I'm president of the Bone Dry Prohibition Union.
Dr. Cony—The more shame to you, sir.
COTTONTAIL—What shall I do?
DR.CONY—Obey my instructions implicitly. A good many doctors will tell you that they can't cure gout. Undoubtedly they are right. They can't. But I can. Only you simply must stop drinking. Cutting down and tapering off to ten or twelve drinks a day won't do. You must stop absolutely. No liquor at all. Do you understand? Not a drop, sir.
COTTONTAIL(his nose violently palpitating with emotion)—I never took a drink in my life. I'm president of the Bone Dry Prohibition Union. I was just sitting quietly readingThe Evening Post—
DR.CONY—Save that story for your bone-dry friends. I have nothing to do with your past life. I'm not judging you. It's nature that says the alcoholic must pay and pay and pay. I'm only concerned now with the present and the future, and the present is that you're suffering from alcoholism manifested in gout, and the future is that you'll die if you don't stop drinking.
COTTONTAIL—I tell you I promised my Sunday school teacher when I was a boy that I would always be a Little Light Bearer, and that I would never take a drink if I lived to be a hundred.
DR.CONY—Don't worry, you won't live that long, and don't take on so. You're not the first one that's had his fun and then been dragged up by the heels forit. Cheer up. Remember the good times that are gone. Life can't be all carrots, you know.
COTTONTAIL—But I never had any good times.
DR.CONY—Oh, yes, you did, I'll warrant you. There must have been many merry nights as the bottle passed around the table. (With evident gusto) Maybe there was a rousing song—"When Leeks Are Young in Springtime"—or something like that, and I wouldn't be surprised if now and again there was some fluffy little miss to sing soprano to your bass. Youth! Youth! To be young, a rabbit and stewed. (Quoting reminiscently) "A leaf of lettuce underneath the bough." After all, salad days are the best days. I never meet an old rabbit with gout but I take off my hat and say, "Sir, you have lived."
COTTONTAIL(wildly)—It's not true. I never lived like that. I never took a drink in my life. You can ask anybody. Nobody ever saw me take a drink.
DR.CONY—That's bad. You solitary drunkards are always the hardest to handle. But you've simply got to stop. You must quit drinking or die, that's all there is to it.
COTTONTAIL—This is terrible. It must have been that poisoned sword. I tell you, I was just sitting here quietly, readingThe Evening Post—
DR.CONY—My dear sir, please rid yourself right away of the alcoholic's habit of confusing cause andeffect. He thinks he's sick because green elephants are walking on him, while, as a matter of fact, green elephants are walking on him because he's sick. It's terribly simple, when you stop to figure it out.
COTTONTAIL—You don't think I saw any pink monster come through the ceiling?
DR.CONY—On the contrary, I'm sure you did. But the point is, you mustn't see him again, and the only way to avoid seeing him is to quit drinking. Your fun's done. Now, be a good patient and tell me you'll stop drinking—
COTTONTAIL—I tell you I never had any fun. I never had any fun—
DR.CONY—Well, strictly speaking, it isn't the fun that hurts you, it's the rum. You must stop, even if you hate the stuff. Do you understand?
COTTONTAIL(hysterical)—I can't stop, I can't stop; I never started, I can't stop—
DR.CONY—Very well, sir, I must insist on taking the only measure that will save your life. (He steps to the door and calls) Mrs. Cottontail, will you come here immediately?
(Enter Mrs. Cottontail.)
COTTONTAIL—My dear—
DR.CONY—If you please, madame. Let me explain first. You can have it out with your husband later. I'm sorry to tell you, Mrs. Cottontail, that your husbandhas gout. He has contracted it from excessive drinking. You knew, of course, that he was a heavy drinker?
MRS.COTTONTAIL(surprised, but not in the least incredulous)—I couldn't go so far as to say I knew it.
DR.CONY—He must stop or he'll die.
COTTONTAIL(rapidly and wildly)—I can explain everything, my dear. The doctor's all wrong. The whole trouble is somebody pulled the roof off the other day and stabbed me with a poisoned sword. I was right here in this room. I was just quietly readingThe Evening Post. I knew no good would come of our moving into this new apartment house, with its fancy wire and green paint and free food, and all the rest of it.
DR.CONY(to Mrs. Cottontail, who aids him in ignoring the patient)—You can see for yourself, madame, just how rational he is. I leave him in your care, Mrs. Cottontail. Don't let him out of your sight. Try and find out where he gets his liquor. If he pleads with you for a drink, be firm with him. Follow him everywhere. Make him obey. It won't be hard in his enfeebled condition. I'll be around to-morrow. (To Cottontail) Remember, one drink may be fatal.
(Exit Dr. Cony.)
COTTONTAIL—My dear, it was a pink monster, with an enormous dagger. It lifted off the ceiling—
MRS.COTTONTAIL—Peter, can't you even be temperate in your lies?
COTTONTAIL(sinking helplessly in his chair)—My dear, I was just sitting quietly, readingThe Evening Post—
MRS.COTTONTAIL—You brute! I always had a feeling you were too good to be true.
COTTONTAIL(feebly and hopelessly)—I was just sitting, readingThe Evening Post(his voice trails off into nothingness. He sits motionless, huddled up in the chair. Suddenly he speaks again, but it is a new voice, strangely altered.) Mopsy, give meThe Sun.
MRS.COTTONTAIL(looking at him in amazement)—What do you say?
COTTONTAIL(His muscles relax. His eyes stare stupidly. He speaks without sense or expression)—The Sun! The Sun! The Evening Sun!
(He is quite mad.)
(Curtain.)
THEscene is a sickroom. It is probably in a hospital, for the walls are plain and all the corners are eliminated in that peculiar circular construction which is supposed to annoy germs. The shades are down and the room is almost dark. A doctor who has been examining the sick man turns to go. The nurse at his side looks at him questioningly.
THEDOCTOR(briskly)—I don't believe he'll last out the day. If he wakes or seems unusually restless, let me know. There's nothing to do.
He goes out quietly, but quickly, for there is another man down at the end of the corridor who is almost as sick. The nurse potters about the room for a moment or two, arranging whatever things it is that nurses arrange. She exits l. c., or, in other words, goes out the door. There is just a short pause in the dark, quiet room shut out from all outside noises and most outside light. When the steam pipes are not clanking only the slow breathing of the man on the bed can be heard. Suddenly a strange thing happens.
The door does not open or the windows, but there is unquestionably another man in the room. It couldn't have been the chimney, because there isn't any. Possibly it is an optical illusion, but the newcomer seemsjust a bit indistinct for a moment or so in the darkened room. Quickly he raises both the window shades, and in the rush of bright sunlight he is definite enough in appearance. Upon better acquaintance it becomes evident that it couldn't have been the chimney, even if there had been one. The visitor is undeniably bulky, although extraordinarily brisk in his movements. He has a trick which will develop later in the scene of blushing on the slightest provocation. At that his color is habitually high. But this round, red, little man, peculiarly enough, has thin white hands and long tapering fingers, like an artist or a newspaper cartoonist. Very possibly his touch would be lighter than that of the nurse herself. At any rate, it is evident that he walks much more quietly. This is strange, for he does not rise on his toes, but puts his feet squarely on the ground. They are large feet, shod in heavy hobnail boots. No one but a golfer or a day laborer would wear such shoes.
The hands of the little, round, red man preclude the idea that he is a laborer. The impression that he is a golfer is heightened by the fact that he is dressed loudly in very bad taste. In fact, he wears a plaid vest of the sort which was brought over from Scotland in the days when clubs were called sticks. The man in the gaudy vest surveys the sunshine with great satisfaction. It reaches every corner of the room, or rather it would but for the fact that the corners havebeen turned into curves. A stray beam falls across the eyes of the sick man on the bed. He wakes, and, rubbing his eyes an instant, slowly sits up in bed and looks severely at the fat little man.
THESICKMAN(feebly, but vehemently)—No, you don't. I won't stand for any male nurse. I want Miss Bluchblauer.
THEFATMAN—I'm not a nurse, exactly.
THESICKMAN—Who are you?
THEFATMAN(cheerfully and in a matter of fact tone)—I'm Death.
THESICKMAN(sinking back on the bed)—That rotten fever's up again. I'm seeing things.
THEFATMAN(almost plaintively)—Don't you believe I'm Death? Honest, I am. I wouldn't fool you. (He fumbles in his pockets and produces in rapid succession a golf ball, a baseball pass, a G string, a large lump of gold, a receipted bill, two theater tickets and a white mass of sticky confection which looks as though it might be a combination of honey and something—milk, perhaps)—I've gone and left that card case again, but I'm Death, all right.
THESICKMAN—What nonsense! If you really were I'd be frightened. I'd have cold shivers up and down my spine. My hair would stand on end like the fretful porcupine. I'm not afraid of you. Why, when Sadie Bluchblauer starts to argue about the war she scares me more than you do.
THEFATMAN(very much relieved and visibly brighter)—That's fine. I'm glad you're not scared. Now we can sit down and talk things over like friends.
THESICKMAN—I don't mind talking, but remember I know you're not Death. You're just some trick my hot head's playing on me. Don't get the idea you're putting anything over.
THEFATMAN—But what makes you so sure I'm not Death?
THESICKMAN—Go on! Where's your black cloak? Where's your sickle? Where's your skeleton? Why don't you rattle when you walk?
THEFATMAN(horrified and distressed)—Why should I rattle? What do I want with a black overcoat or a skeleton? I'm not fooling you. I'm Death, all right.
THESICKMAN—Don't tell me that. I've seen Death a thousand times in the war cartoons. And I've seen him on the stage—Maeterlinck, you know, with green lights and moaning, and that Russian fellow, Andreyeff, with no light at all, and hollering. And I've seen other plays with Death—lots of them. I'm one of the scene shifters with the Washington Square Players. This isn't regular, at all. There's more light in here right now than any day since I've been sick.
THEFATMAN—I always come in the light. Be a good fellow and believe me. You'll see I'm right lateron. I wouldn't fool anybody. It's mean.
THESICKMAN(laughing out loud)—Mean! What's meaner than Death? You're not Death. You're as soft and smooth-talking as a press agent. Why, you could go on a picnic in that make-up.
THEFATMAN(almost soberly)—I've been on picnics.
THESICKMAN—You're open and above board. Death's a sneak. You've got a nice face. Yes; you've got a mighty nice face. You'd stop to help a bum in the street or a kid that was crying.
THEFATMAN—I have stopped for beggars and children.
THESICKMAN—There, you see; I told you. You're kind and considerate. Death's the cruellest thing in the world.
THEFATMAN(very much agitated)—Oh, please don't say that! It isn't true. I'm kind; that's my business. When things get too rotten I'm the only one that can help. They've got to have me. You should hear them sometimes before I come. I'm the one that takes them off battlefields and out of slums and all terribly tired people. I whisper a joke in their ears, and we go away, laughing. We always go away laughing. Everybody sees my joke, it's so good.
THESICKMAN—What's the joke?
THEFATMAN—I'll tell it to you later.
Enter the Nurse. She almost runs into the Fat Man,but goes right past without paying any attention. It almost seems as if she cannot see him. She goes to the bedside of the patient.
THENURSE—So, you're awake. You feel any more comfortable?
The Sick Man continues to stare at the Fat Man, but that worthy animated pantomime indicates that he shall say nothing of his being there. While this is on, the Nurse takes the patient's temperature. She looks at it, seems surprised, and then shakes the thermometer.
THESICKMAN(eagerly)—I suppose my temperature's way up again, hey? I've been seeing things this afternoon and talking to myself.
THENURSE—No; your temperature is almost normal.
THESICKMAN(incredulously)—Almost normal?
THENURSE—Yes; under a hundred.
She goes out quickly and quietly. The Sick Man turns to his fat friend.
THESICKMAN—What do you make of that? Less than a hundred. That oughtn't to make me see things; do you think so?
THEFATMAN—Well, I'd just as soon not be called a thing. Up there I'm called good old Death. Some of the fellows call me Bill. Maybe that's because I'm always due.
THESICKMAN—Rats! Is that the joke you promised me?
THEFATMAN(pained beyond measure)—Oh, that was just a little unofficial joke. The joke's not like that. I didn't make up the real one. It wasn't made up at all. It's been growing for years and years. A whole lot of people have had a hand in fixing it up—Aristophanes and Chaucer and Shakespeare, and Mark Twain and Rabelais—
THESICKMAN—Did that fellow Rabelais get in—up there?
THEFATMAN—Well, not exactly, but he lives in one of the most accessible parts of the suburb, and we have him up quite often. He's popular on account of his after-dinner stories. What I might call his physical humor is delightfully reminiscent and archaic.
THESICKMAN—There won't be any bodies, then?
THEFATMAN—Oh, yes, brand new ones. No tonsils or appendixes, of course. That is, not as a rule. We have to bring in a few tonsils every year to amuse our doctors.
THESICKMAN—Any shows?
THEFATMAN—I should say so. Lots of 'em, and all hits. In fact, we've never had a failure (provocatively). Now, what do you think is the best show you ever saw?
THESICKMAN(reminiscently)—Well, just about the best show I ever saw was a piece called "Fair and Warmer," but, of course, you wouldn't have that.
THEFATMAN—Of course, we have. The fellow before last wanted that.
THESICKMAN(truculently)—I'll bet you haven't got the original company.
THEFATMAN(apologetically)—No, but we expect to get most of them by and by. Nell Gwyn does pretty well in the lead just now.
THESICKMAN(shocked)—Did she get in?
THEFATMAN—No, but Rabelais sees her home after the show. We don't think so much of "Fair and Warmer." That might be a good show for New York, but it doesn't class with us. It isn't funny enough.
THESICKMAN(with rising interest)—Do you mean to say you've got funnier shows than "Fair and Warmer"?
THEFATMAN—We certainly have. Why, it can't begin to touch that thing of Shaw's called "Ah, There, Annie!"
THESICKMAN—What Shaw's that?
THEFATMAN—Regular Shaw.
THESICKMAN—A lot of things must have been happening since I got sick. I hadn't heard he was dead. At that I always thought that vegetable truck was unhealthy.
THEFATMAN—He isn't dead.
THESICKMAN—Well, how about this "Ah, There, Annie!"? He never wrote that show down here.
THEFATMAN—But he will.
THESICKMAN(enormously impressed)—Do you get shows there before we have them in New York?
THEFATMAN—I tell you we get them before they're written.
THESICKMAN(indignantly)—How can you do that?
THEFATMAN—I wish you wouldn't ask me. The answer's awfully complicated. You've got to know a lot of higher math. Wait and ask Euclid about it. We don't have any past and future, you know. None of that nuisance about keeping shall and will straight.
THESICKMAN—Well, I must say that's quite a stunt. You get shows before they're written.
THEFATMAN—More than that. We get some that never do get written. Take that one of Ibsen's now, "Merry Christmas"—
THESICKMAN(fretfully)—Ibsen?
THEFATMAN—Yes, it's a beautiful, sentimental little fairy story with a ghost for the hero. Ibsen just thought about it and never had the nerve to go through with it. He was scared people would kid him, but thinking things makes them so with us.
THESICKMAN—Then I'd think a sixty-six round Van Cortlandt for myself.
THEFATMAN—You could do that. But why Van Cortlandt? We've got much better greens on our course. It's a beauty. Seven thousand yards long and I've made it in fifty-four.
THESICKMAN(suspiciously)—Did you hole out on every green or just estimate?
THEFATMAN(stiffly)—The score is duly attested. I might add that it was possible because I drove more than four hundred yards on nine of the eighteen holes.
THESICKMAN—More than four hundred yards? How did you do that?
THEFATMAN—It must have been the climate, or (thoughtfully) it may be because I wanted so much to drive over four hundred yards on those holes.
THESICKMAN(with just a shade of scorn)—So that's the trick. I guess nobody'd ever beat me on that course; I'd just want the ball in the hole in one every time.
THEFATMAN(in gentle reproof)—No, you wouldn't. Where you and I are going pretty soon we're all true sportsmen and nobody there would take an unfair advantage of an opponent.
THESICKMAN—Before I go I want to know something. There's a fellow in 125th Street's been awful decent to me. Is there any coming back to see people here? (A pause.)
THEFATMAN—I can't explain to you yet, but it's difficult to arrange that. Still, I wouldn't say that there never were any slumming parties from beyond the grave.
THESICKMAN(shivering)—The grave! I'd forgotten about that.
THEFATMAN—Oh, you won't go there, and, what's more, you won't be at the funeral, either. I wish I could keep away from them. I hate funerals. They make me mad. You know, they say "Oh, Death, where is thy sting?" just as if they had a pretty good hunch I had one around me some place after all. And you know that other—"My friends, this is not a sad occasion," but they don't mean it. They keep it sad. They simply won't learn any better. I suppose they'd be a little surprised to know that you were sitting watching Radbourne pitch to Ed. Delehanty with the bases full and three balls and two strikes called. Two runs to win and one to tie.
THESICKMAN—Will Radbourne pitch?
THEFATMAN—Sure thing.
THESICKMAN—And, say, will Delehanty bust that ball?
THEFATMAN—Make it even money and bet me either way.
THESICKMAN—I don't want to wait any longer. Tell me that joke of yours and let's go.
The light softens a little. The room is almost rose color now. It might be from the sunset. The Fat Man gently pushes the head of the Sick Man back on the pillow. Leaning over, he whispers in his ear briefly and the Sick Man roars with laughter. As his laughter slackens a little The Fat Man says, "I'll meet you in the press box," and then before you know it he's gone.The Sick Man is still laughing, but less loudly. People who did not know might think it was gasping. The Nurse opens the door and is frightened. She loudly calls "Doctor! Doctor!" and runs down the corridor. The Sick Man gives one more chuckle and is silent. The curtains at one of the windows sway slightly. Of course, it's the breeze.
(Curtain.)
THEresponsibilities of a book reviewer, always heavy, sometimes assume a gravity which makes it quite impossible for them to be borne on any single pair of shoulders. We have received a letter to-day upon which so much depends that we hesitate to answer without requesting advice from readers. It is from a young man in Pittsburgh who identifies himself merely by the initials X. Q., which we presume to be fictitious. He writes as follows:
"As a reader of the book columns ofThe TribuneI am humbly requesting your assistance in the matter of a little experiment that I desire to perform. I find myself highly enamored of a superlatively attractive young lady who has, however, one apparent drawback to me. That lies in the fact that she has never cultivated a taste for really worth while reading. Such reading to me is one of the greatest of life's pleasures. Now, my idea is this: that this reading taste may be developed by the reading of a number of the best books in various lines. I have decided upon an experiment wherein a list of fifty books shall be furnished by you and a serious attempt made by the young lady to read them. When she has completed this reading I shall ask her to make a thoroughly frank statement as towhether a reading habit has been cultivated which will enable her to enjoy good literature. I would appreciate very much your furnishing me a list of fifty of the very best books which you consider suitable for the experiment which I have in mind. The lady in question has read but little, but has completed the regulation high school course and in addition has taken two years at one of the recognized girls' schools of the country."
Obviously, the making of such a list involves a responsibility which we do not care to assume. We do not like to risk the possibility that our own particular literary prejudices might rear a barrier between two fond hearts. After all, as somebody has said, fond hearts are more than Conrads. However, we do venture the suggestion that if the young man's intentions are honorable, fifty books is far too great a number for the experiment which he has in mind. We have known many a young couple to begin life with no possession to their name but a common fondness for the poems of W. E. Henley. We have known others to marry on Kipling and repent on Shaw.
Of course, it would be a great deal easier for us to advise the young man if we knew just what sort of a wife he wanted. If she likesDombey and SonandLittle Dorritit seems to us fair to assume that she will be able to do a little plain mending and some of the cooking. On the other hand, if her favorite author isMay Sinclair, we rather think it would be well to be prepared to provide hired help from the beginning. Should she prefer Eleanor H. Porter, we think there would be no danger in telling the paperhangers to do the bedroom in pink. After all, if she is a thoroughgoing follower of Pollyanna and the glad game, you don't really need any wall paper at all. It would still be her duty to be glad about it.
But we are afraid that some of this is frivolous and beside the point, and we assume that the young man truly wants serious advice to help him in the solution of his problem. Since marriage is at best a gamble, we advise him earnestly not to compromise his ardor with any dreary round of fifty books. Let him chance all on a single volume. And what shall it be? Personally, we have always been strongly attracted by persons who likedJoan and Peter, but we know that there are excellent wives and mothers who find this particular novel of Wells's dreary stuff. There are certain dislikes which might well serve as green signals of caution. A young man, we think, should certainly go slow if she does not likeAn Inland Voyage, orVirginibus Puerisque, orThe Ebb TideorSentimental Tommy. He should take thought and ask himself repeatedly, "Is this really love?" if she confesses a distaste forTono Bungay, orFar from the Madding Crowd, orCæsar and Cleopatra. And if she can find no interest inConrad in Quest of His Youth, orMary OlivierorHuckleberry Finn, let him by all means stipulate a long engagement. But if she dislikesAlice in Wonderlandlet the young man temporize no more. It is then his plain duty to tell her that he has made a mistake and that what he took for love was no more than the passing infatuation of physical passion.
JOHNROACHSTRATONdied and went to his appointed kingdom where he immediately sought an audience with the ruler of the realm.
"Let New York be destroyed," shouted Dr. Straton as he pushed his way into the inner room. The king was engaged at the moment in watching a sparrow fall to earth and motioned the visitor to compose himself in silence, but there was an urgency in the voice and manner of the man from earth which would not be denied. "Smite them hip and thigh," said Dr. Straton and the king looked down at him and asked, "Is the necessity immediate?"
"Delay not thy wrath," said Dr. Straton, "for to-day on thy Sabbath sixty thousand men, women, and children of New York have gathered together to watch a baseball game."
The ruler of the realm looked and saw that 11,967 persons were watching the Yankees and the White Sox at the Polo Grounds.
"A good husky tidal wave would confound them," urged Straton, but the king shook his head.
"Remember the judgment you heaped upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah," suggested Straton.
The ruler of the realm nodded without enthusiasm."I remember," he said, "but as I recollect it didn't do much good."
Dr. Straton's bright hopefulness faded and the king hastened to reassure him. "We can think up something better than that," he said, and had the visitor been an observant man he might have noticed that the streets of the kingdom were paved with tact. "Now there was the Tower of Babel," said the ruler of the realm reflectively, "that was a creative idea. That was a doom which persisted because it had ingenuity as well as power. That's what we need now."
Suddenly there dawned in the face of the king an idea, and it seemed to Dr. Straton as if he were standing face to face with a sunrise. The doctor lowered his eyes and he saw that the men and the women Sabbath breakers of New York were all upon their feet and shouting, though to his newly immortal senses the din came feebly. "Now," he said, with an exultation which caused him to slip into his old pulpit manner, "let 'em have it."
But the king with keener vision than Dr. Straton, saw that it was the ninth inning, the score tied, runners on first and second, and Babe Ruth coming to bat. "The time has not come," said the king, and he pushed the doctor gently and made him give ground a little. And they waited until two strikes had been pitched and three balls. The next one would have cut the heart of the plate, but Babe Ruth swung and theball rose straight in the air. Up and up it came until it disappeared from the view of all the players and spectators and even of the umpires. Soon a mighty wrangle began. Miller Huggins claimed a home run and Kid Gleason argued that the ball was foul. The umpires waited for an hour and then, as the ball had not yet come down, Dineen was forced to make a decision and shouted "Foul!" while the crowd booed. One of the pop bottles injured him rather badly and there was a riot for which it was necessary to call out the reserves. Everybody went home disgruntled and a month later the Lusk bill abolishing Sunday baseball was passed.
And all the time the ball continued to rise until suddenly the king, thrusting out his left hand, caught it neatly and slipped it into his pocket. It was not a conventional pocket, for there were planets in it and ever-lasting mercy and other things. For a long time Dr. Straton had been awed into silence by the mighty miracle, but now he spoke, reverently but firmly.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but you will observe that there is a sign in the baseball park which says 'All balls batted out of the diamond remain the property of the New York Baseball Club and should be thrown back!'"
The ruler of the realm smiled. "You forget," he answered, "that if I threw the ball back from this great height it might strike a man and kill him, it might crashthrough a huge office building, it might even destroy the Calvary Baptist Church."
Then for the first time a touch of sharpness came into the voice of Dr. Straton. "All that is immaterial," he said. "I think I know my theology well enough to understand that law is law and right is right, come what may."
"Oh, but it's not nearly as simple as all that," remonstrated the king. "There are right things which are so harsh and unpleasant that they become wrong; and wrong things which are, after all, so jolly that it's hard not to call them right. Why, sometimes I have to stop a fraction of a century myself to reach a decision. It's terribly complicated. The problem is infinite. No mere man, quick or dead, has any right to be dogmatic about it."
"Come, come," said Dr. Straton, and now there was nothing but anger in his voice, "I've heard all those devilish arguments before. When I came here I thought you were God and that this was Heaven. I know now that there's been a mistake. God is no mollycoddle."
He turned on his heel and started to walk away before he remembered that he was a Southern gentleman as well as a clergyman and bowed stiffly, once. Then he went to the edge of the kingdom and jumped. Where he landed it would be hard to say. Only a carefully trained theologian could tell.
ONCEthere lived near Bethlehem a man named Simon and his wife Deborah. And Deborah dreamed a curious dream, a dream so vivid that it might better be called a vision. It was not yet daybreak, but she roused her husband and told him that an angel had come to her in the vision and had said, as she remembered it, "To-morrow night in Bethlehem the King of the World will be born." The rest was not so vivid in Deborah's mind, but she told Simon that wise men and kings were already on their way to Bethlehem, bringing gifts for the wonder child.
"When he is born," she said, "the wise men and the kings who bring these gifts will see the stars dance in the heavens and hear the voices of angels. You and I must send presents, too, for this child will be the greatest man in all the world."
Simon objected that there was nothing of enough value in the house to take to such a child, but Deborah replied, "The King of the World will understand." Then, although it was not yet light, she got up and began to bake a cake, and Simon went beyond the town to the hills and got holly and made a wreath. Later in the day husband and wife looked over all their belongings, but the only suitable gift they could findwas one old toy, a somewhat battered wooden duck that had belonged to their eldest son, who had grown up and married and gone away to live in Galilee. Simon painted the toy duck as well as he could, and Deborah told him to take it and the cake and the wreath of holly and go to Bethlehem. "It's not much," she said, "but the King will understand."
It was almost sunset when Simon started down the winding road that led to Bethlehem. Deborah watched him round the first turn and would have watched longer except that he was walking straight toward the sun and the light hurt her eyes. She went back into the house and an hour had hardly passed when she heard Simon whistling in the garden. He was walking very slowly. At the door he hesitated for almost a minute. She looked up when he came in. He was empty handed.
"You haven't been to Bethlehem," said Deborah.
"No," said Simon.
"Then, where is the cake, and the holly wreath, and the toy duck?"
"I'm sorry," said Simon, "I couldn't help it somehow. It just happened."
"What happened?" asked Deborah sharply.
"Well," said Simon, "just after I went around the first turn in the road I found a child sitting on that big white rock, crying. He was about two or three years old, and I stopped and asked him why he wascrying. He didn't answer. Then I told him not to cry like that, and I patted his head, but that didn't do any good. I hung around, trying to think up something, and I decided to put the cake down and take him up in my arms for a minute. But the cake slipped out of my hands and hit the rock, and a piece of the icing chipped off. Well, I thought, that baby in Bethlehem won't miss a little piece of icing, and I gave it to the child and he stopped crying. But when he finished he began to cry again. I just sort of squeezed another little piece of icing off, and that was all right, for a little while; but then I had to give him another piece, and things went on that way, and all of a sudden I found that there wasn't any cake left. After that he looked as if he might cry again, and I didn't have any more cake and so I showed him the duck and he said 'Ta-ta.' I just meant to lend him the duck for a minute, but he wouldn't give it up. I coaxed him a good while, but he wouldn't let go. And then a woman came out of that little house and she began to scold him for staying out so late, and so I told her it was my fault and I gave her the holly wreath just so she wouldn't be mad at the child. And after that, you see, I didn't have anything to take to Bethlehem, and so I came back here."
Deborah had begun to cry long before Simon finished his story, but when he had done she lifted up her head and said, "How could you do it, Simon? Thosepresents were meant for the King of the World, and you gave them to the first crying child you met on the road."
Then she began to cry again, and Simon didn't know what to say or do, and it grew darker and darker in the room and the fire on the hearth faded to a few embers. And that little red glow was all there was in the room. Now, Simon could not even see Deborah across the room, but he could still hear her sobbing. But suddenly the room was flooded with light and Deborah's sobbing broke into a great gulp and she rushed to the window and looked out. The stars danced in the sky and from high above the house came the voice of angels saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."
Deborah dropped to her knees in a panic of joy and fear. Simon knelt beside her, but first he said, "I thought maybe that the baby in Bethlehem wouldn't mind so very much."
MARCH1, 1919.—"Do you know how to keep the child from crying?" began the prospectus. "Do you know how always to obtain cheerful obedience?" it continued. "To suppress the fighting instinct? To teach punctuality? Perseverance? Carefulness? Honesty? Truthfulness? Correct pronunciation?"
We pondered. Obviously, our rejoinder must be: "In reply to questions NOS. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 the answer is in the negative."
The prospectus said that all this would be easy if you bought the book.
"Instead of a hardship," the advertisement said, "child training becomes a genuine pleasure, as the parent shares every confidence, every joy and every sorrow of the child, and at the same time has its unqualified respect. This is a situation rarely possible under the old training methods. And what a source of pride now as well as in after years! To have children whose every action shows culture and refinement—perfect little gentlemen and gentlewomen."
This gave us pause. After all, we were not certain that we wanted a little gentleman who washed behind the ears, wore blue velvet and took his baths witha broad "a." We felt that he might expect too much from us. It might cramp our style to live with a person entirely truthful, punctual, persevering, honest and careful. Also, we were a little abashed about sharing confidences. The privilege of becoming a confidant would involve a return in kind, and it would not be a fair swap. It seemed to us that the confessions of the truthful, honest, careful and persevering child could never be half so interesting as our own.
We were also a little bit discouraged over the promise to suppress the fighting instinct. We did not feel qualified for the job of making it up to him by chastising the parents of the various boys along the block who drubbed him. And yet we were not entirely dissuaded until we read something of the manner in which the new method should be applied. It was hard to thrust aside the knowledge of how to keep the child from crying. But, then, the book said: "No matter whether your child is still in the cradle or is eighteen years old, this course will show how to apply the right methods at once. You merely take up the particular trait, turn to the proper page and apply the lessons to the child. You are told exactly what to do."
It wasn't that we were afraid that somebody else around the house might get hold of the book and turn it on us. That risk we might have faced. But a quotation from Abraham Lincoln in the prospectus itself brought complete disillusion. "All that I am and allthat I ever hope to be I owe to my mother." That's what Abraham Lincoln said, according to the prospectus. It seemed, perhaps, like halving the proper acknowledgments, and yet it lay in the right direction. But what of the punctual, persevering and truthful child brought up under the new method? We could see only one acknowledgment open to him. We pictured his first inaugural address, and seemed to hear him say: "All that I am to-day I owe to Professor Tunkhouser's book onThe Training of Children. If I am honest you have only to look on page 29 to know the reason. It is true that I have persevered to gain this high office, and why should I not, seeing that I was cradled in page 136?"
Of course, if he had not overlooked the chapter on proper gratitude he might upon maturity return the purchase price of Professor Tunkhouser's volume. That seemed almost the most to be expected.
And so we let him cry, and are going on in the old, careless way, hoping to be able, unscientifically enough, to lick a working amount of truth and general virtue into him at such time as that becomes necessary. However, we did write to the publisher to ask him if by any chance he had a book along the same lines about Airedale puppies.
JUNE5, 1919.—"Izzie gonna teachie itty cutums English or not?" asks Prudence Brandish in effect inher bookMother Love in Action, and proceeds to protest vigorously against the practice of bringing up children on baby talk. It is true that parents deserve part of the blame, but babies ought to be made to realize that some of the responsibility is theirs. Often they talk the jargon themselves without any encouragement whatever. Indeed, they have been known to cling to muddled words and phrases in spite of the soundest reasoning which all their parents could bring to bear on the matter. H. 3rd, for instance, has been told repeatedly that the word is "button," and yet he goes on calling it "bur" or "but" or something like that.
We feel very strongly that he should get it straight, because it is the only word he knows. He tried "moma" and "dayday" for a while, but abandoned them when he seemed to sense opposition against his attempt to use them broadly enough to include casual friends and total strangers. R., who comes from Virginia, could not be made to abandon a narrow-minded point of view about H.'s conception of his relation to the ashman.
"But" seems much more elastic and does not involve the child in questions of race prejudice and other problems which he does not fully comprehend as yet. The round disks on a coat are "buts," and H. seems satisfied that so are doorknobs and ears and noses. He is, to be sure, not quite content that all shouldbe sewn on so firmly. There seems to be no limit to his conception of the range of his one word "but." If he could get his hands on the Washington Monument or the peak of the Matterhorn, we feel sure that he would also classify these as buttons.
Much may be done with one word if it be used cosmically in this way. For the sake of H. we have been trying to develop a theory that all the problems of the world may be stated in terms of buttons. We intend to point out to him that if he finds a gentleman with two buttons on either hip to which suspenders are attached, he may safely set him down as a conservative. If, in addition, the gentleman wears another gold button tightly wedged into a starched collar just below his chin he may be classified as an exponent of a high protective tariff and a Republican majority in the Senate. From gentlemen with no buttons, either at the hips or the neck, he may expect to hear about the soviet experiment in Russia and the status of free speech in America.
We intend to tell H. that he is not far wrong in his attempt to limit language to the one word "but" or "bur," since all the world struggles in religion, in politics and in economics are between those who believe in buttoning up life a little tighter and those who would cut away all fastenings and let gravity do its worst or best. However, we have told him fairly and squarely that we will not let him in on this simplifyingand comforting short cut to knowledge until he can make the word come out clearly and distinctly—"button."
SEPTEMBER3, 1919.—H. 3rd lay back in his carriage with his arms folded across his stomach and said nothing. I tried to make conversation. I pointed out objects of interest, but met no response. He smiled complacently and was silent. Even carefully rehearsed bits of dialogue such as "Who's a good boy?" to which the answer is "Me," and "Is your face dirty," to which the answer is "No," failed to move him to speech. I tried him in new lands with strange sights and pointed out the camels, and buffaloes and rhinoceri of the zoo, hoping that he would identify some one of them in his all-embracing "dog," which serves for every member of the four-footed family. But still he smiled complacently and was silent. I began to feel as if I were an Atlantic City negro wheeling a tired business man down the Boardwalk.
Suddenly the possible value of suggestion came to me, and I turned to the right and finally brought up at the foot of Shakespeare's statue in the mall. And here again I sought to interest him in the English language. "Man," said I, rather optimistically, pointing to the bronze. H. 3rd looked intently, and taking his hands from his stomach answered "Boy." "Man," I repeated. "Boy," said H. 3rd. And so the argumentcontinued for some time without progress being made by either side. At last I stopped. Is it possible, I thought, that in this curious statue the sculptor has succeeded in giving some suggestion of "sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child," which is communicated to H. 3rd and fails to reach me? I looked again and gave up this theory for one more simple and rational. Without question it was the doublet and hose which confused him. Never, I suppose, had the child seen me, or the janitor, or the iceman or any of his adult male friends clad in close fitting tights such as Shakespeare wore. And then I looked at the doublet. No, there was no denying that in this particular statue it appeared uncommonly like a diaper.
SEPTEMBER5, 1919.—W. H. Hudson points the way to an interesting field of speculation in one of the early chapters ofFar Away and Long Ago, in which he speaks of his mother.
"When I think of her," he writes, "I remember with gratitude that our parents seldom punished us, and never, unless we went too far in our domestic dissensions or tricks, even chided us. This, I am convinced, is the right attitude for parents to observe, modestly to admit that nature is wiser than they are, and to let their little ones follow, as far as possible, the bent of their own minds, or whatever it is that they have in place of minds. It is the attitude of the sensible hentoward her ducklings, when she has had frequent experience of their incongruous ways, and is satisfied that they know best what is good for them; though, of course, their ways seem peculiar to her, and she can never entirely sympathize with their fancy for going into the water. I need not be told that the hen is, after all, only stepmother to her ducklings, since I am contending that the civilized woman—the artificial product of our self-imposed conditions—cannot have the same relation to her offspring as the uncivilized woman really has to hers. The comparison, therefore, holds good, the mother with us being practically stepmother to children of another race; and if she is sensible, and amenable to nature's teaching, she will attribute their seemingly unsuitable ways and appetites to the right cause, and not to a hypothetical perversity or inherent depravity of heart, about which many authors will have spoken to her in many books:
The very dim race memory of old tribal and even primitive life which is in all of us is much stronger in children than in grown-ups. They are closer to the past than their elders, and although we hear a great deal about maternal instinct, it is probable that it is a much slighter and more limited thing than the instinct of a young child.
I have noticed, for instance, that without any help from me H. 3rd has learned to fall with amazing skill. He can trip over the edge of the carpet, do a somersault ending on the point of his nose and come up smiling, unless some grown-up makes him aware of his danger by crying out in horror. He did not copy it from me. I have never even undertaken to teach him by precept or illustration. The difficult trick of relaxing in midair is his own contribution. He cannot be said to have learned it. He seems always to have had it. At the age of eight months he pitched headlong out of his carriage and landed on top of his head without so much as ruffling his feelings. It may be fantastic, but I rather think that his skill in preparing for the bump by a complete relaxation of every muscle is a legacy from some ancestor back in the days when knowing how to fall was of vital importance, since even the best of us might, upon special occasions, miscalculate the distance from branch to branch.
So strong is my faith in the child's superior memory of primitive life that if the hallboy were to call me up on the telephone to-morrow to say that there was an ichthyosaurus downstairs who wanted to see me, I would not think of deciding what to do about it without first consulting H. 3rd.
Curiously enough, Hudson relates one incident which might well be cited in support of the theory that thechild is equipped at birth with certain protective instincts, but he passes it over with a different explanation. He says that on a certain afternoon his baby sister, who could scarcely walk, was left alone in a room, and suddenly came toddling to the door shrieking "ku-ku," an Argentine word for danger, which was almost her single articulate possession. Her parents rushed into the room and found a huge snake coiled up in the middle of the rug. The child had never seen a snake before, and there was much speculation as to how she knew it was dangerous.
"It was conjectured," writes Hudson, "that she had made some gesture to push it away when it came onto the rug, and that it had reared its head and struck viciously at her."
It seems to us that a much more plausible explanation lies in the theory that this child who had never seen a snake profited from some old racial memory of the danger of serpents.
Unfortunately, under modern conditions some restrictions must be put on the liberty of small children. I have been told that a child knows instinctively that he must not put his hand into a fire, but he has no age-grounded instinct not to touch a radiator. Still, it might be fair to say that in most New York apartment houses none of them would be hot enough to hurt him much. I can testify that children of less than two years of age are not equipped with any inheritedprotective knowledge about matches, pins, cigarette stubs, $5 bills, or even those of larger denominations; bits of glass, current newspapers or magazines, safety razor blades (for which, of course, there is an excuse, since the adjective may well mislead a child), watches or carving knives. But all these articles are too recent to come within the scope of inherited primitive knowledge.
DECEMBER17, 1919.—We read Floyd Dell'sWere You Ever a Child?to-day and found him remarking: "People talk about children being hard to teach and in the next breath deplore the facility with which they acquire the 'vices.' That seems strange. It takes as much patience, energy and faithful application to become proficient in a vice as it does to learn mathematics. Yet consider how much more popular poker is than equations! But did a schoolboy ever drop in on a group of teachers who had sat up all night parsing, say, a sentence in Henry James, or seeing who could draw the best map of the North Atlantic states? And when you come to think of it, it seems extremely improbable that any little boy ever learned to drink beer by seeing somebody take a tablespoonful once a day."
Most of this is true. The only trouble with all the new theories about bringing up children is that it leaves the job just as hard as ever.
We believe in the new theories for all that. They work, we think, but, like most worth while things, they are not always easy. For instance, H. 3rd came into the parlor the other day carrying the carving knife. Twenty years ago I could have taken it away and spanked him, but then along came the psychologists with their talk of breaking the child's will, and sensible people stopped spanking. Ten years ago I could have said, "Put down that carving knife or you'll make God feel very badly. In fact, you'll make dada feel very badly. You'll make dada cry if you don't obey him." But then the psychoanalysts appeared and pointed out that there was danger in that. In trying to punish the child by making him feel that his evil acts directly caused suffering to the parent there was an unavoidable tendency to make the child identify himself with the parent subconsciously. That might lead to all sorts of ructions later on. The child might identify himself so completely with his father that in later life he would use his shirts and neckties as if they were his own.
Of course, I might have gone over to H. 3rd and, after a short struggle, taken the carving knife away from him by main force, but that would have made him mad. He would at length have suppressed his anger and right away a complex would begin in his little square head.
Picture him now at thirty—he has neuralgia. Somebody mentions the theory of blind abscesses andhe has all his teeth pulled out. No good comes of it. He goes to a psychoanalyst and the doctor begins to ask questions. He asks a great many over a long period of time. Eventually he gets a clue. He finds that when H. 3rd was eight years old he dreamed three nights in succession of stepping on a June bug.
"Was it a large, rather fat June bug?" asks the doctor carelessly, as if the answer was not important.
"Yes," says H. 3rd, "it was."
"That June bug," says the doctor, "was a symbol of your father. When you were twenty months old he took a Carving knife away from you and you have had a suppressed anger at him ever since. Now that you know about it your neuralgia will disappear."
And the neuralgia would go at that. But by that time I'd be gone and nothing could be done about this suppressed feud of so many years' standing. My mind went through all these possibilities and I decided it would be simpler and safer to let H. 3rd keep the carving knife as long as he attempted nothing aggressive. A wound is not so dangerous as a complex.
"And, anyhow," I thought, "if he can make that carving knife cut anything he's the best swordsman in the flat."
DECEMBER20, 1919.—Our attitude toward H. 3rd and the carving knife turns out to have been all wrong. We received a letter from Floyd Dell to-day in whichhe points out that no Freudian could possibly approve our policy of non-interference. Mr. Dell says we should have used force to the utmost.
"Psychoanalytically speaking," he writes, "I think you were wrong about H. 3rd and the carving knife. There is really no Freudian reason why, when he came carrying it into the parlor, you should not have gone over to him and, 'after a short struggle,' taken it away from him by main force. Of course, that would have made him mad. But what harm would that have done?... Unless, of course, you had previously represented yourself to him as a Divine and Perfect Being. In that case his new conception of you as a big bully would have had to struggle with his other carefully implanted and nourished emotions—and his sense of the injustice of your behavior might have been 'repressed.'
"But you know quite well that you are not a Divine and Perfect Being, and, if you consider it for a moment from the child's point of view, you will concede that his emotional opinion of you under such circumstances, highly colored as it is, has its justification. When you yourself want something very much (whether you are entitled to it or not) and when some one (however righteously) keeps you from getting it, how do you feel? But you know that you live in a world in which such things happen. H. 3rd has still to learn it, and if he learns it at his father's knee he isjust that much ahead. The boys at school will teach it to him, anyway. The fact is, parents are unwilling that their children should hate them, however briefly, healthily and harmlessly.
"The Victorian parent spanked his offspring and commanded them to love him any way. The modern parent refrains from spanking (for good reasons) and hopes the child will love him. The Freudian parent does not mind if his children do hate him once or twice a day, so long as they are not ashamed of doing so. If H. 3rd swats his father in an enraged struggle to keep possession of the precious carving knife he is expressing and not repressing his emotions. And so long as he has done his best to win he is fairly well content to lose. What a child doesn't like is to have to struggle with a big bully that he mustn't (for mysterious reasons) even try to lick! The privilege of fighting with one's father, even if it does incidentally involve getting licked, is all that a healthy child asks for. Never fear, the time will come when he can lick you; and awaiting that happy time will give him an incentive for growing up. Quite possibly you don't want him to grow up; but that is only another of the well-known weaknesses of parents!"
DECEMBER22, 1919.—Concerning H. 3rd and the carving knife I am gratified to find support for my position from Dr. Edward Hiram Reede, the well-knownWashington neurologist, who finds that from the point of view of H. 3rd there was soundness in my policy of non-interference.
"Speaking for him," he writes, "I commend your action. Urged as he is by the two chief traits of childhood, at the present time—curiosity and imitation—I see no reason for direct coercion. So long as the modern child is environed by a museum, as the modern home appears, his curiosity must always be on edge, and if each new goal of curiosity is wrested from him by the usual 'Don't!' or the more ancient struggle for possession instead of by a transference of interest, then the contest will be interminable.
"H. 3rd by right of experience looks upon the armamentarium of the kitchen as his indisputable possessions and can hardly be expected to except a carver. The deification of the parent occurs in accord with the ancestor worship of primitive forebears, and the father will remain the god to the child so long as observation daily reveals the parent as a worker of miracles. Parental self-canonization is not at all necessary to produce this."
DECEMBER23, 1919.—Recently, a reader wrote to inform us that in her opinion we were a "semi-Bolshevist," and added, "your style is cramped by this demi-semi attitude, and your stuff seems a little grotesque both to conservatives and radicals." Thisseemed fair comment to us and we confessed frankly that we were not a conservative and on clear and pleasant days not quite a radical. This business of sticking to the middle of the road, with perhaps a slight slant to the left, seems ever so difficult. One is ambushed and potted at from either side. Seemingly, even in our confession we have again offended, for Miss Mora M. Deane writes:
"As it happens I have just read your comment on my letter; and since you have turned out to be merely an egotist who twists an adverse criticism to his own advantage, I must now add to my letter that part which I lopped off considerately. This precisely because I did not know you were an egotist. The deleted part which originally closed the letter follows:
"At any rate I have lately heard intelligent persons from both camps saying, 'Heywood Broun is responsible for my going to see some pretty rotten plays and for reading some stupid books.'
"I myself should like to warn you against letting Heywood 3rd ever read Floyd Dell's book. The very idea of his advising about children leaves a bad taste in the mouth. You'll be sorry some day if you ever take him seriously."
Of course, Miss Deane does wisely to let us have the deletion. First impulses are usually sound.
And in one respect Miss Deane has scored more heavily than she could well have realized. Her warningthat I should protect H. 3rd from radical literature touches an impending tragedy in my life. Almost by intuition Miss Deane seems to realize that the child and I are not in agreement in our political opinions. Of the fifteen or twenty words in which H. 3rd is proficient one is "mine" and another is "gimme." When he goes to the park he wears a naval uniform with the insignia of an ensign on his left arm. There is gold braid on his cap. Moreover, H. 3rd has in his own right two Liberty bonds, a card of thrift stamps, a rocking-horse, a railroad, a submarine, three picture books, an automobile and a Noah's ark. Any effort to socialize a single one of these holdings is met by a protest so violent that I cannot help but realize that the child's sense of property rights is strongly developed. That is, his own property rights, for he is often inclined to dispute my title to cigarette stumps, safety razor blades and carving knives.