Chapter XXV (4)

When it comes to the juvenile page of the newspaper, the need of censorship is acute. Some of the daily journals, which are properly proud of their own ethical standards and of the influence of their editorial columns, have no moral compunction in leaving to a syndicate the preparation of the children’s page or the colored supplements. Otherwise careful and conscientious parents will turn over to their children, without examination, sheets of vulgar, grotesque, badly drawn, and badly colored pictures on unworthy themes, the chief influence of which is to glorify sheer mischief and bad manners. Many protests have been made against these by public associations and in some quarters there has been improvement, but the censorship of thoughtful and mature minds would still find much to condemn.

In what is selected for the children let us make a plea for the best poetry. A world is all before us where to choose, and if the interpretation of masterpieces of verse be not pedagogic, but sympathetic, the resources of pleasure thus available are rich and enduring. The parsing and analysis of Pope’s “Essay on Man” may so spoil one’s taste for that writer as to obscure the sublimity of his “Universal Prayer.” America more than any other country cultivates, and needs to cultivate, the love of poetry. Here we are confronted with materialism as a daily spectacle.

Things are in the saddle,
And ride mankind.

We need every stimulus to the imagination, every spur to spirituality, every rhythm of harmony. We need not only music itself but the music that is in poetry. The arts are, so to speak, fighting for their lives, and a brave fight it is. We need them to uplift and crown and glorify democracy, and we shall produce greater poetry as there is a deeper love and appreciation of the great poetry that exists. It is, therefore, no small service to the future of America to instil in our young people a respect and love for poetry. We find these suggestive lines in the autobiography of Charles Darwin:

If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some
poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps
the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active
through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and
may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the
moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT ON WAR AND ARBITRATION

THE year 1912, by its manifestations of internal violence, its external wars, and by its hardly less disquieting rumors of wars, has afforded from time to time the pretext for much cynical satire at the expense of the advocates of peace and arbitration. A strange sort of beginning of the millennium this, it is said, which has witnessed Italy’s year-long war with Turkey; the old Balkan wounds reopened, with the religious issue involved; China aflame with bloody revolt against her Manchu dynasty; Mexico in the throes of a rebellion little less than civil war; turbulent Cuba barely escaping American intervention, actually exercised in Nicaragua; Morocco the bone of contention of two snarling powers; and withal Great Britain and Germany like open powder-magazines exposed to the peril of a careless smoker--a year, moreover, that has seen strikes of unusual acerbity in England and in Massachusetts, and the unearthing of such vast conspiracies against life and property as the one executed by the McNamaras and their associates and the other avowed by the Industrial Workers of the World. The threat of the latter to raze the Salem jail is matched by the intention of McNamara, recently revealed, to blow up the Panama Canal. As a climax of horror comes the attempt of a disordered mind to assassinate Colonel Roosevelt. Surely, at first glance one might think that the wild beast in man has lately come to the surface to a surprising and disheartening extent.

It would be futile to claim that this sinister impression is entirely offset by the fact that some of these events have aspects of self-restraint and progress; that China, through her overturn, is making the way toward freedom and self-government; that Cuba has again shown that she is learning the same lessons; that the responsible conservative forces of England, France, and Germany have refused to follow the hotheads who talk lightly of war. There remain in human nature, modern or barbarian, primal impulses of hatred, violence, and lawlessness.

It is one of the most important functions of education, government, and religion to subdue these impulses, and this can be done, in part, by turning their force into new channels. Through Tesla’s discovery and invention the natural turbulence of the mountain stream, even that of Niagara itself, is electrically utilized to do the work of the world at a great distance. It is the aim of the inventive resources of philanthropy to do something similar with the wild and waste forces of humanity itself. Wise benevolence is increasingly occupied with imposing not only upon others, but upon ourselves, restraints without which we should revert to the brute. Sometimes this is done by solemn formalities like the Constitution of the United States; sometimes the compact is the tacit one of civilization involved in the establishment and observance of law. This it is now sought to extend to nations, by the agreement to enlarge the limits of judicial arbitration which already exist in every modern country, and thus through men and peoples of advanced ideas of justice to affect those more backward. Because of this great opportunity to uplift the world, those in authority are under obligation--a sort of _noblesse oblige_--to hold their own country to its highest standards of conduct, internal or international.

Whatever the croakers may say, there is no relapse from the sentiment in favor of arbitration and peace. There have been righteous rebellions, and probably there will be others, but there are many wars based on territorial aggression or trivial or fancied wrongs which may be prevented by an appeal to an international court. Compulsory this appeal must be, by our consent in the cool air of wisdom: but along with humanity at large we shall be the gainer. Arbitration is a shorter cut to justice than war has ever been.

At this time of the recurrence of the festival of the Prince of Peace, it is becoming to the Christian world to renew its faith in the power of love to cast out hatred, of good-will to accomplish the uplifting of humanity through sympathy and opportunity. Such a vast work demands the ultimate release of the forces now held in readiness for international wars. Prevent by arbitration the causes of such wars, and you divert colossal waste forces--including the constant anxieties of the people--to the real and crying need of the times.

GIVING AWAY THE NATION’S PROPERTY

THE NEEDLESS INVASION OF THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

ON the twenty-fifth of November there is to be a hearing before the Secretary of the Interior to receive and consider the report of a board of army engineers to determine whether or not there is any other adequate source of water-supply for San Francisco than the beautiful Hetch-Hetchy Valley, which the city desires to submerge for a reservoir. This valley, as our readers know, is a part of the great Yosemite National Park, and lies eighteen miles north of the Yosemite Valley, just over the divide, so to speak. The representatives of the city have already acknowledged before the Public Lands Committee of the Senate that they could find an adequate supply of pure water “anywhere along the Sierra,” to the north of the valley--“if,” as they said, “we would pay for it!” The mainspring of the assault upon the people’s National Park--and, if it shall succeed, it will be but the first of many similar assaults on other parks--is the desire to get something for nothing. The public interest in resisting the attempt is to save from destruction one of the most wonderful of the Sierra gorges, which a good wagon road would make an integral part of the Yosemite trip. It remains to be seen whether any amount of speciousness, any elaborate and misleading volume of argument will be able to obscure the main issue--the wanton invasion of the people’s greatest park.

We believe that the Roosevelt administration had no more legal or moral right to divert a part of this National Park from the purposes for which it was created, as was done by the Garfield grant, than it would have had to give away the nation’s coal-fields in Alaska. The Sierra Club, contending with the unlimited financial resources of San Francisco, has yet presented a “brief” which riddles the arguments of the city’s case.

That fable teaches that the time to save the rest of our great scenery is before it is largely visited, for then it will become to the advantage of some “interest” to divert it from the use of posterity.

EDITORIAL NOTE: CONTRIBUTIONS DESIRED

The Editor of ~The Century~ invites the offer of contributions to the
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For the “Lighter Vein” Department contributions are invited of
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ON MAGIC CASEMENTS

... “Magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery-lands forlorn.”

--~Keats~, “_Ode to a Nightingale_.”

_From a Seeker after the Ideal House, Recommending the Latest Thing in Windows_

_Margaret Dear_:

Enjoy our new home? Indeed I do, as much as you enjoy “Parva sed Apta.” Yet I confess to a little restlessness at times, such as Browning’s _Juan_ in “Fifine” felt over his “honest civic house.” I want to cut away, and to wander foot-loose and free. And if it weren’t for the magic casement--don’t you want to hear about the magic casement?

The architect’s assistant proposed it, a young fellow with irregular eyebrows and a nice smile. You would like him. We had been talking windows, and he asked me all of a sudden:

“Since you like the type, sha’n’t I put a magic casement in your study? We sometimes find it a very acceptable little addition in suburban building.”

I gasped, and seized on a familiar phrase. “Will it add materially to the cost?” I inquired.

“No, not materially,” he answered. “And it would harmonize capitally with the study.”

For many a day after we moved I forgot all about the conversation and the casement. You know what it is to get settled. The dining-room flue wouldn’t draw, and our invaluable but expansive Maggie grumbled because she had to turn sidewise to get up the narrow back stairs, and to arrange family and furniture absorbed my energies. But a day came finally when I shut myself in the study for a bout of work. A set of examination blue-books had come in from my college classes, and my mood was grim. I learned that the “Shepheard’s Calendar” consisted of twelve pastoral decalogues, and that Ariel’s song was intended to “guide Hamlet to his shipwrecked father,” or, as another student suggested, “to lead Minerva on.” Most of the papers were equally stupid and less funny. My muscles were aching, for the furniture had been heavy. As for my heart, here I was starting life afresh and receiving felicitations in a pretty new house, but life seemed over. Well, dear, never mind that; but you will understand. You know what narrow house guarded by two tall cypresses is always before my eyes.

Suddenly I noticed the casement. I never had tried the patent spring.

It opened at a touch. I had expected to look out on Mr. Baker’s hen-yard; but I didn’t. There was instead a wide stretch of tumbling seas--splendid, perilous seas, gray and fierce, with glints of silver at the horizon, and great waves racing inland and breaking in sheets of foam below! As I leaned out and drew deep breaths of salty, foamy air, I saw a dim sweep of coast through the spray.

The moving waters at their priest-like task
Of pure ablution

were plain enough; but were those “human shores” or the forlorn coasts of faery-land?

“Please, Miss, the butcher,” called Maggie’s voice behind me, and I shut the window and ran down-stairs as though I had never heard of tired muscles or heart. When I got back to blue-books, it was amazing how brilliantly the students were writing.

When I next opened the casement the sea was moony-calm, and a nightingale was singing outside in balm-laden air. Mr. Baker’s hen-yard, viewed from the next window, never varied, but let me tell you that out of a magic casement one does not see the same sight twice. I did not let myself open it often. When I was leaning from it I forgot the passage of time, and you can’t imagine how “jobs” crowded last winter. But if, while I worked, I left a crack ajar, and this grew to be rather a habit, the air that came in kept me fresh and fit, so that I have never carried my work so easily.

One day--inside, I remember, it was bleak winter twilight--there was an island rising from the sea. The tremulous waters were tinged with the first promise of dawn. A planet on the horizon glowed red. Though the heavens elsewhere were clear, the summit of the mountain isle was veiled in drifting mists, like tears; yet behind the mists the sun seemed to be shining on level reaches of springlike verdure, which caught the longing of the heart, yet stilled all longing with an exceeding peace. As the dawn brightened, I could discern two figures on the low sands at the base of the hill, and presently, speeding across the waters faster than flight of bird, appeared a spark, glowing as though the planet had left the sky. Faint shining grew at sides and center, till I could see the vesture and the two wings, serving as sails, of an angel whose face was as the morning star. If you had only been there! Of the blessed folk who filled the ship, some looked affrighted, some exceeding glad; and though I could not clearly hear the chant they sang, one voice sweet above the rest, I knew it to be a song of deliverance. Do you remember our Dante readings under the pines? All that day there was absolution in the air.

But there was none on that other day when sky and sea blazed blue fire, thunder-caps lay pearled in the west, and a high-pooped ship dropped anchor beneath my window. Sea-weary serving-folk in medieval garb, went ashore by ones and twos, while a knight in green array and a most fair lady lay talking on the deck. Now and again he touched a harp, with skill, I thought, seeking languidly to please her; but she looked on him in distaste. Then a page brought them liquid from a crystal flask of curious fashioning, and the two drank thirstily, for it was hot. Then they gazed startled on each other with changed eyes. The thunder-caps rolled up, and I heard them speak in troubled, riddling words of “aimer” and “la mer,” and I shut the window lest I prove indiscreet. Besides, the air was stifling.

It was not always sea that greeted me. You can imagine the pleasure of opening in harsh March weather on the cool depths of a summer forest, where the angel face of a sleeping girl in white nun’s habit made a sunshine in the shade! My worries rolled away as I watched joyous wood-folk--fauns, satyrs, and fair hamadryads--caper and dance through the forest, and saw them, awestruck at her sweet holiness, bend their knees before her, grinning gently, and crown her with garlands. In that same wood, when the moon was risen, I saw star-crossed lovers misled by faery pranks, and the queen of faery herself beguiled. But the next evening my window gave on a blasted, treeless heath, where weird women lay in wait for two doomed soldiers.

One of the best things I got from the window was a glimpse of Utopia. Several of us had spent the day trying to organize relief in a mill town where a three-cornered strike was going on, and the regular unions, the employers, and the I. W. W. were involved in a hideous wrangle-tangle. It was worse than any of our old settlement experiences. I came back sick at heart and touched the casement spring, afraid that I couldn’t see out for the smart in my eyes. But there lay Utopia before me. Yes, dear, Utopia.

Did it? I dared not be sure. Past the rear gardens of the pleasant houses a clear river ran sweetly, just as Sir Thomas More had said, and through the wide street passed comely, alert citizens, full of grave, friendly cheer. But might there not be slums and strikers round the corner? The power of faith was blurred in me that night.

Just then a man who carried a kit of carpenters’ tools, whistling as he walked, looked up and waved his cap. It was young Stanton of our economics department. He was always tinkering at his house, but it looked odd to see him carry a kit on the public way.

“Good morning. Isn’t Utopia the greatest ever?” he cried. “My lectures are over; I’m off to help with those new houses around the bend.”

“Is this real Utopia?” I asked eagerly.

He nodded.

“I perceive, however, that the inhabitants have not changed their nature,” he laughed. “You have your old skeptical mind.”

“If it’s Utopia,” I retorted, “why in the name of common sense are you still lecturing on economics?”

“The wonder is how I lectured on it in the old days,” he replied. “I was like a professor of harmony, with nothing to expound but discords. Now we have a symphonic whole to study and even fuller harmonies to evolve. The department is the largest in the college.”

“Have pity on my skeptical mind,” I pleaded. “Give me a sign that Utopia is here.”

He motioned to the passing people.

“Why, look!” he said.

And I was satisfied: for never could there have been that serenity of eye had one factory been left exploiting the labor of children, one sweat-shop, or one malcontent. Yet even while I watched, a woman, dressed in black, passed, sobbing bitterly. Tears? In Utopia?

“We are still on the earth, you know,” said Stanton, gently; “we are not exempt from tears.”

* * * * *

~Not~ long after I met the architect’s assistant. I had been worrying somewhat. I was troubled about the price of the magic casement, even though he had said that it would not add materially to the cost of the house. He caught the same train as I to town by a flying jump at the last minute. He was scurrying by, but I pulled his coat and made him sit down.

“I hope the house is satisfactory?” he asked.

“Very, on the whole,” I replied. “The door-panels warp, but no house is perfect. I want to ask you about the price of the magic casement. It was not included in the specifications, and I am anxious to settle for it.”

He wriggled, looking annoyed.

“If you like it, you ought not to haggle about the price,” he said.

“I shall not haggle,” I replied with spirit; “but if the window is as expensive as I fear, perhaps you wouldn’t mind being paid on the instalment plan.”

“If I had not supposed you perfectly solvent, I should never have put that casement in,” he returned.

“You had strict instructions to avoid all luxuries,” I said with indignation, for I was frightened. “You knew that I was living on a salary and that I had to mortgage in order to build. However, I am not complaining. I am willing to pay heavily for the casement, for it certainly is a shipshape affair.”

“That’s better talk,” said the assistant. “Now, as a matter of fact, you’ve paid already. The contract for magic casements is to the effect that the article is paid for by use. It runs, ‘For so much value received in vision, equivalent price in use, thus and so.’ I knew you could pay cash for that window.”

To pay by using! Now, Margaret, did you ever hear of anything like that! “How uncommon,” I protested. “How absurd!”

“Nobody would suppose that you had a look into Utopia lately,” he sighed.

“We’re not in Utopia,” I argued.

“Are you so sure?” he asked; and looking at him, I found I wasn’t.

“People are dull,” he complained ruefully. “Of course they are in Utopia the minute they believe themselves there.” As he talked, I was noticing that ruffled hair of his and those queer, triangular, merry eyebrows.

“Does your firm approve your way of doing business?” I asked.

“They have nothing to do with magic casements. Those are a little specialty of my own which I put in now and then for a suitable client like yourself.”

“Who are you, anyway?” I cried; and with a flourish he handed me a card engraved in the latest style. Mr. Robert Goodfellow was the name it bore. The wind from the train window blew the hair from his ears.

“Robin!” I shouted.

“At your service,” he laughed. “You see, I adapt myself to the times. There’s no use playing helter-skelter pranks on systematic Americans. They get their cream by a separator, so they never put out bowls of milk for me; the chores are done by machinery; and if I prowl about the kitchen by night, I get nervous prostration for fear some one will turn on the electricity. So I went in for scientific efficiency, and studied for the professions. I have lots of fun. But you people who live in steam heat are so afraid of drafts that hardly anybody will let me put in a magic casement. I was really grateful to you for giving me the chance. Hello! Here we are at Back Bay! Good-by!”

There’s my story. Now, may I not send Robin to give you a magic casement in “Parva sed Apta”? I am sure he would not mind the journey. But I suspect you may have one already; Robin and you were always on good terms.

Lovingly yours,
_Vida D. Scudder_.

AN AFTER-DINNER STORY

BY BADDELEY BOARDMAN

A REMINISCENCE OF MARION CRAWFORD

Many visitors to Rome will remember the German book-store on the Piazza di Spagna, kept by Herr S----, of whom a story is told which throws a backward light upon the apparently troublesome activities, as a boy, of a distinguished American novelist. Herr S----, who had been established in Rome as a bookseller almost a lifetime, once met in his store another elderly gentleman, who said:

“Isn’t it fine, Mr. S----, about Frank Crawford?”

“Fine about Frank Crawford? Vot you mean?”

“Why, about his book--a great success. Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you read it?”

“Read his pook? No. Frank Crawford ride a pook? Imbossible!”

“Oh, yes; no doubt of it. Giuseppe,”--calling a salesman,--“let me have a copy of ‘Mr. Isaacs,’ please.”

When the volume was brought to the incredulous bookseller, he held it at arm’s-length, looking at it curiously as he turned it from side to side and from end to end; then he cautiously examined the title-page, with its “--th edition,” which he greeted with a guttural “Huh!” Next he turned to the last page, and read the concluding sentence with another grunt of astonishment. Then he dipped into the volume in two or three places, and finally, satisfied that he was not being deceived, handed back the book to Giuseppe without looking at him, and said:

“Vell, vell! dot brooves dot you must neffer trown a poy.”

THOUGHTS, DECEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH

BY DEEMS TAYLOR

’Tis Christmas eve. The very air
Seems charged to-night, seems subtly thrilled
By glad previsions of a rare,
Strange happiness, yet unfulfilled.
I sense this thing, and still my heart
Is numb, lethargic, dead. I hold
Myself from all the world apart.
The Christmas spirit leaves me cold.

Below me, in the frosty street,
I hear the city’s muffled song
Of carnival--the tramp of feet,
The voices of the passing throng.
I watch them as they hurry by
In kind confusion, faces bright
With Christmas comradeship; but I--
I am not one of them to-night.

Each hastens, in that host below,
To choose the gifts that shall delight
Another on the morrow. No,
I am not one of them to-night.
The laughing crowd, the siren call
Of blazing shops that beckon; nay,
Untouched, unmoved, I hear it all:
I did _my_ shopping yesterday!

EMMY JANE’S CHRISTMAS

BY JULIA B. TENNEY

Mawnin’, Miss Johnson. Is yer out doin’ yer Chris’mas shoppin’? You sure is de forehandestest pusson I eber did see. Here ’t is five whole days ’fore Chris’mas, an’ you ’most frough gettin’ ready.

What’s we goin’ ter do? Why, jes as usu’l, an’ dat’s good ’nough fer we. You see, we spends Chris’mas day sorter foragin’ roun’ ’mongst de white folks, an’ c’llectin’ things tergether, an’ ketchin’ ’em Chris’mas gif’; den de nex’ day we all has _our_ Chris’mas.

What? We ain’t got it on de right date? What’s dat got to do wid de ’joyment ob it, I’d like to know? An’, anyhow, no one doan’ know fer sure what is de right date nohow, ’ca’se dere ain’t no one erlivin’ now what was erlive when Chris’mas started in on us, an’ if dere was, I wouldn’ b’lieve him nohow, ’ca’se he’d be too ole ter trus’ his mem’ry. So one day’s as good as anudder, an’ maybe better. Dis here way suits _me_, an’ it saves er lot ob trouble an’ hard wuk, not ter speak ob de money.

Dis is de way we wuks it, an’ ’scusin’ de walkin’ roun’ an’ totin de load home, it ain’t no trouble ’t all.

We ’vides de city up into pahts. I takes de av’nues, ’Lindy teks de lengthways streets, li’le Polly Ann an’ John Andrew de cross streets, an’ Jeemes William--my ole man--de gen’lemen’s clubs. We all has our own way ob doin’ it, but we all gits de things.

Jeemes William he jes stan’s near de do’ ob de club-houses wid his hat in his han’, an’ as de gen’men goes in, he says ter all ob de sassy-lookin’ ones, “Chris’mas gif’, Gen’al,” an’ p’ints ter de army-button what he foun’ in de White Lot, an’ what he puts in his buttonhole on dese ’casions. Den as de South’rn gen’men goes in, he hol’s dat li’le ’Federate flag ober de button an’ says, “Chris’mas gif’, Massa.” An’ I’ve knowed him ter come home wid as much as twelve dollars in his pocket jes f’om his good manners; dey is so skase nowerdays, wid all dis passle ob young niggers growin’ up roun’ here, dat de white folks is willin’ ter pay high fer ’em when dey do come ’cross ’em.

’Lindy she puts on dat black alpacky frock of hern an’ er white collar an’ a starched white ap’on, an’ she takes de rich-lookin’ houses an’ rings de bells, an’ asks kin she hope out wid de extra wuk jes fur er tas’e oh de Chris’mas-time, an’ dat fetches some one ’fore she’s made more ’n five or six tries, an’ den she jes lays herse’f out ter please de white folks, an’ ebery endurin’ one ob dem gibs her sumpen ’nudder what dey doan’ want an’ what somebody else done gib _dem_, an as ’Lindy mos’ in gen’al picks out de big famblies, dere ain’t no mean showin’ f’om her.

Polly Ann an’ John Andrew dey sings “I’s er-rovin’ li’le darky all de way f’om Alabam’” an’ some yudder sech chunes un’er de winders, an’ folks t’rows dem pennies an’ nickels, an’ lots ob ’em gibs ’em cakes an’ or’nges an’ candy an’ de like er dat.

Me? How do I git my share? Now yer’ll laugh! Jeemes William say’, “No one wouldn’t thunk er sech er thing ’cep’in’ you, Emmy Jane,” but I ain’t nuss nine li’le white chillun, ’sides thirteen ob my own piccaninnies, countin’ de halves an’ de dade ones, an’ not learn nothin’ ter hope me ’long in dis world.

I jes puts on er clean purple caliker frock an’ er stiff white ap’on wid er white handkuchief roun’ my neck, an’ I ties er colored handkuchief ober my h’ad ter make our kind er white folks ’member de days when we all uster be jes like one fambly, an’ laugh an’ cry togeder, an’ dat’s how come it dat I done foun’ out so many ob de quality.

What I do ’sides dress up like ole times? Well, all de endurin’ year I saves up all de putty fedders f’om de tu’keys an’ chickens an’ geese an’ sech, an’ I gets me er ball ob red cord fer five cents, an’ I ties de fedders up in li’le bunches an’ puts ’em in er basket.

Chris’mas I teks dat basket on my arm, an I s’lec’s de houses where dey is babies, an’ dere is plenty ob ’em on de av’nues, too, ’spite ob Mr. Roosterfelt er-sayin’ rich chillun is fallin’ off in comin’ ter our big cities. He oughter hab my job one year an’ see fer hisse’f.

Well, I rings de bell an’ asks kin I gib de baby er Chris’mas gif’, an’ ’most ebery fambly say “Yes,” an’ brings de baby out, an’ acts pleased-like. Den I hol’s out my arms to de li’le chile an’ says, “Come ter Mammy, Honey!” an’ most in gen’al dey jumps right to me, an’ dat settles de mas an’ pas.

Den I s’lec’s er bunch ob fedders an’ gibs dem to de baby. All chillun, white or black, loves ter play wid fedders. Reckon it’s ’ca’se dey ain’t so long lef’ dem off in de wing-country what dey come f’om, an’ I tell you dat basket is er heap sight heavier on de home trip dan on de goin’ out.

Next day we all brings out our pickin’s an’ we builds er fire in de bes’ room, an’ _den’s_ our Chris’mas.

Doan’ we _give_ no presen’s? Co’se we does. We s’lec’s all de things what we doan’ want, same as de white folks does, an’ we makes er pile ob ’em, den we makes a lis’ ob de names ob de people what we wants ter gib to,--’Lindy she does dat paht, ’ca’se she’s had schoolin’ an’ kin write grand,--den we blin’fol’s li’le John Andrew, an’ ’Lindy she calls out er name, an’ John Andrew grabs er gif’. Dat’s how come you ter git er pair of gallusses, an’ Daddy Bundy er long gingham ap’on las’ year.

I hopes de givin’ dis year will turn ter tu’key an’ cramberry, jes fer de sake ob ole times down home. I sure does get lonesome fer de ole place roun’ ’bout Chris’mas.

DADDY DO-FUNNY’S WISDOM JINGLES

BY RUTH McENERY STUART

INCUBATOR CHICKENS

Dem inkybator chickens dat’s hatched by de clock
Wid a lamp for love, is lonesome stock;
Dey feeds in droves but dey envies de others
Dat scratches for grubs wid any ol’ mothers.
An’ dey ain’t by deyselves, po’ orphans, in dat--
No, dey ain’t by deyselves in dat!

THE CAULIFLOWER

When de cabbage got ambitiom, in a uppish hour,
He lost ’is head an’ bu’st into flower
Wid ’is brains outside, an’ addled, at dat--
Den he sot ’isself up for a ’ristocrat.
An’ he ain’t by ’isself in dat, in dat--
An’ he ain’t by ’isself in dat!

LIMERICKS

TEXT AND PICTURES BY OLIVER HERFORD

THE FILCANTHROPIC COW

Said a cow, “It has long been my dream,
A sort of utopian scheme,
To leave, when I die,
Enough milk to supply
A home for poor kittens--with cream.”

TACT

Quoth a cat to me once: “Pray relieve
My suspense. What does eight from nine leave?”
Poor puss looked so cold
And so thin and so old,
I replied, “_Quite a few, I believe_.”

THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW YORK

_Libby’s_

HAWAIIAN (SLICED) ~Pineapple~

This delicious tropical fruit is grown, sliced and packed by Libby, M^cNeill & Libby on their Hawaiian Plantations, the home of the world’s best pineapple.

Libby’s is the kind of Pineapple that has the sun-ripened natural flavor, and is good for everybody.

The sanitary can is full of tender, generous slices with a syrup of pure granulated sugar and luscious pineapple juice.

Serve just as it is for a dessert--as a salad, or fruit course.

_Always buy Libby’s_

Libby, M^cNeill
& Libby

Chicago

BAKER’S BREAKFAST COCOA

THE FOOD BEVERAGE OF FINE QUALITY

Absolutely pure, delicious, healthful; made from high-grade cocoa
beans, scientifically blended and by a perfect mechanical process (no
chemicals).

Estab. 1780 =WALTER BAKER & CO., Ltd.= Dorchester, Mass.