"Greg and Jim" – The Work of Gregory Clark and Jimmie Frise

Arbor Day

On April 25, 2026

***“Hurry,” I cried. “Pah,” protested Jim, as water showered him….***

In the Spring, a married man’s fancy turns to thoughts of gardening

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jimmy Frise, April 23, 1938.

“Fifty-fifty,” said Jimmie Frise. “You help me with my garden and I help you with yours.”

“I don’t know,” I hesitated. “A garden is a curiously personal and intimate sort of thing. I doubt if there is much I could trust you to do in my garden.”

“Well,” said Jim, “there is plenty you could do for me in my garden. The leaves off that poplar have drifted in all the corners like snowdrifts. I’ve got a program in mind for shifting several of my flowering bushes to make room for annuals.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” I admitted. “But how would it be fifty-fifty if I have nothing for you to do and you have so much for me?”

“Aren’t you doing any rockery projects this spring?” asked Jim. “Aren’t you building any trellises or anything that I am pretty handy at?”

“No,” I stated, “I have my garden set. It’s just the way I like it. All am going to do is fork it and spade it a little, to let in the spring sunshine and the soft April rains. Loosen the mould around the tulips and iris. Shake a little life-giving air in around the waking roots of the delphiniums and perennial phlox.”

“You have a swell garden,” said Jim wistfully. “That is why I was asking you to give me a hand with mine. I envy you your garden. Your gardening sense.”

“Ah,” I said, “that’s different. You are appealing to me as a master.”

“I am appealing to your better nature, too,” pleaded Jim. “There are some men who seem to have a power. They seem to have life in their very hands. What they touch thrives.”

“Ah,” I said, gratefully.

“I feel,” said Jim, earnestly, “that if I could get you to come into my garden, to touch the soil and bend over the places in the earth where the little plants are sleeping now, their roots weak and thin, why, it would be like the Pied Piper, calling the flowers from the earth, to come and bloom.”

Mmmm,” I said, delighted.

“You come down to-night after supper,” said Jim, “and I’ll pay you back. I’ll come and do some forking and spading for you.”

“No, sir,” I assured him. “Nobody does any forking around my garden. You’d puncture all the bulbs and uproot all the perennials. I’ve had people help me before. No, sir, a garden is a one-man job. But…”

“But what?” inquired Jim eagerly.

“In view of the fact,” I submitted, “that you have been intelligent enough to recognize certain talents I have in relation to earth and sky and rain and flowers. I will be glad to come down this evening and give you a little of my time.”

“Great,” cried Jimmie. “Great. I can see my garden blooming already. All my garden needs is a visitation. From somebody that has the power.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” I informed him, mysteriously, as if I had at my beck and call all the forces of nature. It is a nice feeling to be looked up to; especially if you are a short man.

White-Collar Garden

So after supper I strolled down to Jim’s in the limpid April air and found him busy transporting tools, rakes, spades from the cellar up into the garden.

Jim’s garden is the average garden. It has various shrubs, such as lilac and spiraea spaced at normal intervals around the edge, with the usual dense clumps of iris, badly thinned and rapidly going back in quality and quantity; a few perennial phlox stick their tender shoots up, already looking for the blight that is sure to catch them; and scattered in between these mathematically spaced familiars are sundry odds and ends that Jim cannot remember whether they are the relics of forgotten perennials or maybe annuals that feebly seeded themselves last fall. One thing Jim is always sure of. And that is golden glow.

In the corners of the wire fence are great matted heaps of poplar leaves blown down in the fall from those handsome trees which developers of new home-sites always plant because they grow so quickly and lend a treey look to the property. And in due time these poplars have to come down, thus restoring the original treeless nature of the property, because they shed a thick and imperishable leaf, their great roots, like subterranean pythons, go seeking for moist drains and the corners of houses, where they devilishly heave and thrust. Ah, the poplar is not my idea of a tree, except for the sound of it on a drowsy summer’s day, or the shine of it in the glorious sunset of June, and maybe as a good place to look for deer along about November with a rifle cocked over the crook of the arm.

“Skoal,” cried Jimmie.

“Muzzle-toff,” I replied, which is a form of greeting.

“I’m just getting out the tools,” gasped Jimmie, exertionally.

“So I observe,” I admitted, feeling the need of a rustic chair or garden chair, none of which Jimmie had yet brought up from the cellar.

“Let’s look around first,” said Jim, taking my arm. “Let’s see what I’ve got.”

“You’ve got,” I said, surveying the garden, “the usual white-collar garden. A lot of conventional junk, like bushes that flower for a week and then relapse to sullen green growing. A few tulips and iris that, in a brief burst, will bloom much paler and smaller than the seed catalogue pictures, and then will settle down to a hearty summer of eating up all the nourishment in your borders.”

“I’ll put in some verbenas and things, for summer,” explained Jim.

“Yes, but these hardy perennials,” I explained, “will crowd and elbow, those timid strangers of a brief summer… your perennials are the real residents of this garden. Why not put in summer-looking perennials?”

“No,” said Jim; “no more permanent stuff. You see, this feeling about a garden only lasts with me for a couple of weeks about this time of year. In another month I won’t have the slightest interest. By June 20 I will come out after supper, turn on the hose, rest the nozzle on a brick and let her flow. I’ll be interested in something else by then. I don’t want anything in here I have to fret over all summer.”

“I thought you invited me down here,” I said stiffly, “in the capacity of a consultant. I can stand here and lay out for you a garden as nice as my own, with something in it to bloom every week of the year, from frost to frost.”

“Nnn, nnn,” said Jim, shaking his head. “You fit a garden to me; don’t try to fit me to a garden. I envy you your garden, of course. I think you do wonders. But I don’t want to be enslaved by any garden.”

“Who’s enslaved?” I demanded indignantly.

“No, no; don’t misunderstand me,” cried Jim anxiously, leading me slowly around by the arm towards the stack of shovels and rakes against the back kitchen wall. “Some men are holus bolus and others are just casual. All I want to do is satisfy this temporary feeling I’ve got to make a nice little garden. I thought, after we rake up and burn these leaves¹, see, that maybe we might shift that spiraea over there into that bare corner where the dogs killed a dandy pink spiraea I had, and then, that lilac…”

“Never shift a lilac,” I disagreed.

“Let’s get the leaves piled up,” said Jim, letting go of my arm and seizing a toothed rake with one hand and a bamboo grass rake with the other. He proffered me the iron rake.

“That bamboo rake is no good for leaves,” I protested. “That’s for combing over a lawn.”

“I can scoop them up with this,” cried Jim, heading for the first corner. “Watch.”

But I got him to take a spade instead, and while he loosened up the matted heaps I raked them out on to a bare patch of the garden lawn near the back of the garden, where a fire would do the least harm.

Jim dug and pattered and ran in twice to answer the telephone, though both times somebody got there ahead of him. He also found things on the ground which several times required his close attention, so that he had to lean on his spade and stare intently. One of the neighbors was in his own garden and Jim had to get into two or three spirited little passages of conversation, though the neighbor, fortunately, was a real garden enthusiast and did not have any time to waste in gossip. In short, Jim used the spade as little as possible in the half hour it took me to rake the leaves ready for burning. But there is a profound satisfaction in seeing through people that sometimes repays a man for doing a little extra work.

“Hey,” cried Jim suddenly, “you’ve got it all done! My dear chap, I didn’t invite you down here to do all my work.”

“I left that one spot for you,” I replied, handing Jim the unexpected rake and pointing out a particularly mucky and matted pile of leaves tangled in under a section of the wire fence.

“Aw, we can skip that bit,” said Jim.

“I’ll light the fire,” I said, “while you hoke those out to one side until we get a good fire going that will burn them.”

So very unhappily Jim set to work raking out the pile I had carefully preserved for him, and he grunted and sighed a good deal, while I, having a small fire started, kept an eye on him; and he knew it.

The leaves caught and a nice flame danced.

“Ah,” said Jim, joyously letting the rake handle drop. “The odor of spring. Leaves burning.”

“You can have a nice garden, Jim,” I said. “All you need is the ambition. Now, on this rose arbor you want to buy a good Paul Scarlett or a Blaze.”

That arbor has a jinx on it,” said Jim. “I’ve tried three different ramblers on it, and they either don’t ramble at all or they do nothing but ramble and never bloom.”

“How much do you pay?” I inquired.

“Fifteen cents,” said Jim, “the regular price.”

“Hmmmf,” I laughed. “Can you imagine paying five dollars for a rose bush?”

“I certainly can’t,” said Jim.

Then you can’t imagine a garden,” I informed him, “Now, over here, along this fence, you have an ideal border of delphiniums, with tall yellow marigolds in front of them and red or henna verbenas, scrambling along the foreground.”

And we strolled along the border, still flattened and cracked by winter and spring and no sign of a fork in it, while behind us the leaf fire crackled cheerily and fragrant smoke wafted around.

“Hey,” said Jim, “the arbor!”

The leaf fire had taken hold of Jim’s pile of leaves next to mine and had actually caught on to the cedar sticks of the fragile rose arbor.

“Quick,” I said; the hose.”

He was already half way to the back door. In a jiffy he was returning, uncoiling the old black hose as he ran. I seized the nozzle.

“Quick, my lad.” I said, “turn it on.”

Jim dashed back to the kitchen door and down the cellar steps. I could hear him shouting. I could also hear the sharp crackle of the arbor and a steadily increasing roar as the fire took hold of it. The flames leaped bright and gay and the first of 40 little boys of the neighborhood vaulted the fence.

“See what Mr. Frise is yelling,” I commanded.

Everything Works for the Best

The little boy listened down the cellar steps.

“He says,” called the boy, “that he has to shift the storm windows. They’re stacked right where the tap is that turns on the hose.”

“Tell him to hurray,” I called.

“Hurry, Mr. Frise,” communicated the little boy, while bicycles began to arrive and neighbors began to come running.

The water came. I felt the hose stiffen and struggle. But none came out the nozzle. Jim leaped up the cellar stairs.

“Ach,” he cried, “the connections!”

All the water was running slobbily out of, one of those brass joints that are in the hoses of most people who dabble at gardening.

“Join her up.” I yelled.

Jim grabbed the hose at the joint and tried to screw it together. Water squirted in all directions and I got a couple of irresponsible jets out of the nozzle.

“Hurry,” I shouted. “Jam it in and hold it.”

“Pah,” protested Jim, water showering him.

He got the joint together and knelt, holding it grimly. A couple of violent and explosive squirts came out the nozzle and then it quit again.

“The other joint,” shouted Jim, running back towards the house where another joint had pushed open.

“Oh, well,” I called, “it’s too late now, anyway.”

Jim knelt by the other joint and looked. The arbor was now rising in slender and merry red and orange feathers and ribbons of flame. It was crackling with joy, as if, from the very beginning of time, this particular cedar wood had been predestined to burn rather than to spend its life supporting roses.

“Watch out,” shouted Jim, grabbing the hose in two hands. Again he vanished in a smother of irresponsible spray. Again the hose coughed violently a couple of times, threw a couple of wild squirts and then gurgled and quit.

“The other joint again,” I pointed out.

And indeed the first joint had again pushed itself open.

So Jim ran in and got a pail from the cellar and slowly filled it from the smoothly running but useless rubber hose, and by the time he got the pail full 19 little boys, all breathless off bicycles, had succeeded in batting and stamping and patting out the fire in the rose arbor which, except for a couple of blackened stakes, now lay coiling in embery ecstasy of destiny on the ground, as cedar wood does.

“Oh, well,” said Jim, “that arbor always did have a jinx on it. Maybe the next arbor will be lucky.”

“Anyway, wood ashes are very good for the soil,” I agreed. “And you can dig in some nice ashes here.”

“Now I come to think of it,” said Jim, surveying the ruins, “I don’t believe I’ll have an arbor there. That arbor always looked kind of useless. I think I’ll just plant another spiraea bush there. And maybe a couple of iris roots.”

“Everything works out for the best in most people’s gardens,” I suggested.

“Yes, sir,” said Jim, “a nice spiraea bush.”

“O.K., said, I, handing him the nozzle of the hose, which he proceeded to coil back up and put down cellar for the time being, there being no watering to do for some weeks yet.

Editor’s Notes: There was one strange thing with the printing of this story, that only someone very familiar with the stories would notice. Every story I’ve looked at always says “Illustrated by James Frise”, whereas this one says “Jimmy Frise”. Also, though typos are occasional in stories can happen, this one had a whole paragraph repeated. Perhaps there was an inexperienced typesetter this week? Or an inexperienced editor looking at the proofs?

Also, I haven’t brought up Canadian vs. American spelling before. I often see what I would consider American spelling these older stories (like “Arbor” over “Arbour”). It seems that while British spelling was common in the 19th century and earlier, the 20th century used more American spelling. I’m not sure when the switch commonly changed, but I do see that American spelling could occur up to the 1960s. For Greg in particular, he could have published a story in the 1960s with American spelling, but when it was collected into a book in the 1970s, Canadian spelling was substituted.

Burning leaves became illegal in the 1960s. ↩︎

Foiled

by admin

On April 23, 2026

In Miscellaneous, Other Story

By Gregory Clark, April 25, 1953.

When the porter conducted me down to my reservation, seat 5 in the chair car, I glanced covertly around at the chairs adjacent. It was an eight-hour journey ahead of me, the whole long day. I looked forward to spending the trip snoozing, gazing out the window at the coming of spring, reading a little bit, snoozing some more. And everything could be spoiled if, in one of the seats beside me or across from me, some chatterbox of a casual acquaintance were to be my neighbor, who would gas and blather away, mile after mile, hour after hour.

What might be worse, of course, would be two middle-aged women with brand new hairdos, on their way to some convention, who, in strident society voices, would ruin the whole journey by tirelessly interrupting each other, debating their plans. It was with pleasure I noted, with my first cautious glance, that my immediate neighbors were complete strangers, already deeply immersed in their newspapers, and not at all the chatty type. The seat directly across from me, chair 6, was not yet occupied. I hoped for the best.

I got a couple of magazines and a good fishing book out of my bag and disposed the bag and my coat up in the rack. I shook out the morning paper, swung my chair firmly around to face out the window, and snuggled down for a pleasant and restful eight hours.

Just as the train started, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, the porter approaching with a bag. Behind him came an elderly man. I was lucky. It was a stranger. With a little shrug of content, I snuggled deeper in my seat. He was in chair 6.

I heard him thank the porter quietly. His voice was deep and kindly. A beautiful voice.

After watching out the window at the passing suburbs in the bright morning, I decided to swing my chair around casually and have a look at chair 6. He was just lighting a cigarette and had one of those 35-cent paper back novels laid ready on his knee.

His head was shaggy, gray and noble. His profile was intensely interesting, a strong curved nose, splendid rugged forehead, humorous mouth. His eyes glanced out from under bristly brows. And he was tanned, even at this time of year, a deep, grained brown. Not a Florida tan, I thought to myself. This is a man from the North. Perhaps he is some famous mining geologist from Yellowknife.

His tweed suit was rough and costly. My glance ran down to his boots: they were those soft, walnutty ankle boots, obviously handmade. By Lob, of London, I bet myself, or at least by Tricker, also of London¹.

He picked up the cheap paper novel and opened it with a sigh of pleasant relaxation. The more I looked at this magnificent old man, the more excited I became. Across his chest he wore an old-fashioned watch chain from which dangled some curious charm. On his left hand, I saw the iron finger ring of the Engineers. There could be no doubt about it; across from me sat one of the great Canadians. I cleared my throat and rattled my newspaper. He was already lost in page one of his tawdry novel.

After a while, I swung around and tried to enjoy the passing fields and woods. But I felt easier when turned slightly, so as to be able to seize an opportunity, if it presented itself, of opening a conversation. He swung his chair to face out his window.

An hour went by, two hours. He never took his eyes off his book. And he read dreadfully slowly. What a way, I thought, for a man of his stamp to waste his time, reading trash. I dipped into my fishing book. I glanced through magazines. I coughed, sighed. When he goes to lunch in the dining car, I figured. I will follow, in the hope of getting to the same table. But he fell asleep at lunch time; and after a long wait, I went in without him. He came in, to another table, just as I was preparing to leave.

The miles, the hours clicked by. I never remember a more restless journey. Not once did the distinguished old man meet my glance or indicate the slightest awareness of me, He was literally sunk in his book.

We neared the journey’s end. I thought perhaps he would finish the book in time for five minutes, 10 minutes, so that I could at least discover who and what he was. But it was a race between him and the book and the train. It was a dead heat. We lumbered into the station. People were all putting on their coats, as was I.

He finished the book and tossed it aside, stood up with a bright, kindly gaze around. He smiled at me, I at him, as he put on his hat.

“Do you know,” he said, “I believe I have read that damned book before!”

And I never did find out who and what he was.

Editor’s Notes: This story appeared in Greg’s Choice (1961).

Lobb’s and Tricker’s still exist. ↩︎

The Skeptics

by admin

On April 21, 2026

In Birdseye Center, Comic

As Free as the Winds

by admin

On April 18, 2026

In Greg-Jim Story

***“Sail has the right of way over steam,” said Jim with a confident smile.***

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, April 18, 1942.

“Air,” said Jimmie Frise, “is about the only thing they can’t ration.”

“And water,” I suggested.

“Even water is rationed, indirectly,” asserted Jim, “through the rationing of the things you put in water, like sugar, tea, coffee, soap. But air is free. It is the one thing they can never control.”

“How about poisoning it with poison gas?” I inquired.

“Purely incidental, and purely temporary,” said Jim lightly. “They have rationed what we eat, what we drink, what we wear. They have controlled our roof and shelter. How we live, what we can buy, where we can go – all these things are under control. The only thing we can count upon in unlimited quantity is air.”

“Let us breathe deep,” I said devoutly.

“Sometimes,” mused Jimmie thoughtfully, “when I look upon the civilized world of Europe and America in their present condition, I have to smile even in the face of all the tragedy. For in this vast, storm-tossed scene, the only person who is free or happy is the person who has nothing.”

“Nothing?” I questioned.

“Those who are suffering the most, right now,” stated Jim, “are those who possess the most. The rich. The prosperous. It goes for countries as well as for individuals. Compare the freedom today of a hobo and a great industrialist.”

“Most great industrialists are in the war up to their necks,” I asserted. “It is only the would-be industrialists, the ones who couldn’t quite make the grade, who are yelping.”

“I am speaking,” said Jimmie, “of freedom and happiness. If the rich man is a good man, he is working as never before in his career; a prisoner of his great possessions, all of which must now bear fruit as never before. If he is a bad man, think how he must be agonized by the taxes, the restrictions, the controls.”

“A hobo is a happy man,” I agreed.

“The nations that are suffering the most,” went on Jim, “are those that have been accustomed to the most. And is true not only of possessions like money or property. It is true of men with sons. The man with the most sons today, whether they are in the war or not, is the unhappiest. And it is true of education and other spiritual possessions. The man with the most brains, the man with the greatest intelligence, is today the least happy and the least free. He is a prisoner of his thoughts, the way the wealthy man is prisoner of his possessions.”

“A hobo,” I agreed, “sitting on the side of the road, not even thinking, is the happiest man in the world today.”

“And the freest,” pointed out Jim.

Small Farm Best

“What makes you smile, then,” I inquired “when you look upon a world in such a mess?”

“Just the thought,” explained Jim, “that all over the western world of Europe and America we have been so desperate to gain the very things that would steal our freedom. The more you own and the more you know, the less free you are. And in the golden age of the past century, we have, like maniacs, been fighting to get into prison. We have invented and manufactured and amassed every conceivable thing. We have pursued knowledge and education like madmen. And having got it all, we now know that a small house, in the midst of a few acres of land, with a well and a rope to lower a bucket, and a plow and a horse and a haystack, are all that the human spirit can possess without going nuts.”

“Why, Jim,” I protested, “that’s worse than communism.”

“It’s the next thing after communism,” agreed Jimmie. “Communism is old stuff. It’s over and done with. It’s here. Now we’ve got to look beyond, to the next stage.”

“You’d have us all peasants,” I snorted.

“Several thousand years ago,” declared Jim, “the Chinese tried civilization, as we know it, and discarded it as silly. By painful experiment, they discovered that possessions are merely a burden. Only the fools submit to possessing things, beyond the merest essentials. A cup, plate, knife. That’s about all a man needs. And usually he can borrow them, from some fool who has two.”

“Have you gone Oriental?” I demanded.

“We’re all going Oriental,” said Jimmie. “We are all wishing we didn’t have half what we’ve got. Already, we are giving things away. And the first things we are giving away are our most cherished beliefs. The next thing will be our property. It’s too much trouble.”

“What started this?” I muttered unhappily.

“It started,” remembered Jimmie, “with me saying that the only thing they couldn’t control was air.”

“And a fine remark that was,” I submitted.

“What I had in mind,” said Jim, shifting his feet from the office window sill to his desk, “was a boat.”

“A boat?” I protested, since most of these casual ideas of Jim’s are tied up to a stump somewhere.

“A sail boat,” said Jim. “There’s nothing like a sail boat. A dinghy. Or a little sloop of some kind. With a sail boat and air, you are the nearest thing to being free there is in all the world.”

“Aha,” said I, seeing light.

“We thought when we invented engines for boats,” said Jim, “that we had made a great step forward towards freedom. But a boat sails the sea today at its peril. And you can’t get fuel to run even a little launch.”

“I can still paddle a canoe,” I asserted.

“If you are well and strong,” countered Jim. “But you can be as weak as a cat and still go places in a sail boat. The wind takes you. And they can’t control wind. Or ration it. That is why the Chinese still like sail boats. We call them junks. Were we ever wrong!”

“What could we do with a sail boat?” I inquired.

“We could go to work in a sail boat,” said Jim calmly. “We could keep it tied up to a wharf out at Sunnyside. And in the morning, we could come down the street, get in the boat and sail down to the foot of Yonge St. There, we could get permission to tie it up at one of the company piers. And at the end of the business day, we could walk down to the lakefront; get in the boat and sail home westward to Sunnyside again.”

“If the wind was right,” I interposed.

“We can always tack,” asserted Jim, the sailor.

“And take half the morning,” I scoffed.

“We could get up early,” retorted Jim. “And besides, business life isn’t going to be half as strenuous as it was. With gas rationing and crowded street cars and everything, business just isn’t going to be in a position to expect people to be at work on time. Anyway, it will be the bosses who will be latest.”

“I suppose we are going to take life a lot easier,” I admitted, “now that the means of speed are being taken from us.”

“Would you go shares in a sail boat with me?” demanded Jim.

“Are you serious?” I retorted.

“Perfectly serious,” declared Jim. “We can’t go touring in the country because of the gas rationing. So we will go sailing on the lake. We have no means of taking a load of anything from here to Hamilton. But if we have a sail boat, and a fair wind, we can get to Hamilton in five hours. A boat with sails is, in view of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, the most practical possession in the whole world.”

“We’d look ridiculous coming to work in a sail boat,” I scoffed. “In Toronto.””

“Let us hope we will never look more ridiculous,” said Jimmie. “In Toronto.”

So I said I would go halves on a small, cheap sail boat with him. Whereupon Jimmie picked up the telephone very business-like and called a man.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I protested; because you don’t agree to a philosophical proposition like a sail boat as if it were an ordinary business deal.

But Jim had, it seems, already done quite a bit of snooping for a sail boat and had located just what we wanted from a man down near the foot of Cherry St., towards Ashbridge’s Bay.

A Home-Made Dinghy

“We’ll be out to get her,” said Jimmie over the phone, “at about 2 p.m. We’ll sail her to a boathouse I know up at Sunnyside.”

“Hah,” said Jim, hanging up.

“How much?” I inquired grimly.

“Fifteen bucks, each,¹” said Jim. “Sail and all,”

“It can’t be much of a boat at that price,” I submitted. “I’ll bet anything you like that boats are more in demand now than ever.”

“Thirty bucks,” said Jim. “Hull, sail, mast, boom, rudder and gear, all in first-class shape.”

“It doesn’t sound reasonable to me,” I muttered.

And when we arrived at the old tumble-down boathouse on Toronto Bay down beside the coal piles, and were led through a sort of Davy Jones’ junk shop of boats and the carcasses of old boats picked clean long ago, and were shown our dinghy, it was obvious I was right.

It was a home-made dinghy about 10 feet long. It was old. It was warped. Its mildewed sail, when we unrolled it, was patched and patched over the patches. The ropes looked rotten to me. But Jim was undismayed.

“What do you expect for $30?” he demanded haughtily when I attempted to point out some of the deficiencies.

“I’ll put a pail in,” said the tired old boy who closed the deal with us. “She’ll probably leak a little at first.”

“Naturally,” said Jim. “They always leak at first.”

The three of us hauled and lifted the dinghy out of the old boathouse and down to some decaying wooden piles in the water which used to be a dock in the great old days of sail. We lowered her, and the water spurted through all the seams.

“Let her fill up for a little while,” sighed the old boy wearily, “while we step the mast and rig the sail.”

The mast had a bend in it. Two of the rings that hold the sail to the mast had broken away from the sail, and the old man had to go and slowly find a cigar box with sail needle, thread and a sailor’s palm². And he sewed the rings back on.

Then we stepped the mast, and wedged it into place with some wooden chips. The rope broke twice while hoisting the sail, but the old boy went slowly away again, into the staggering boat house, and brought some marlin twine with which to splice the rope.

“You can bail now,” he gusted heavily. “See if she leaks faster than you can bail.”

I got down and bailed. It took 17 full pails and 20 short dips to reach the floor boards. An invisible slow trickle was still coming in which you could see if you sat and watched one special spot on the floor boards.

“Aye, ye, Sir!”

“Let her soak overnight, Jim,” I suggested, “and we’ll come down tomorrow and take her away.”

“When I buy a boat,” said Jimmie, “I’ve got a boat. I’ll sail and you bail. It’s a swell southwest wind. We’ll be at Sunnyside in less than one hour.”

I dipped a few more part pailfuls out. I glanced across the bay. Toronto Bay is not exactly a noble body of water. But it is an expansive, dirty and cold one from over the deck of a small, wet, leaky dinghy.

“Okay?” cried Jim.

“Aye, aye, sir,” I said with a feeble effort.

Jim in his young days, before the old war, used to be quite a sailor on Toronto Bay. Personally, I like prairies. Or, better, mountains.

The old man took hold of the mast and headed her into the breeze. Jim got set at the tiller and close hauled her. Then the old man gave us a shove and we were off.

“Bail,” said Jim, calmly; and the boat heeled slightly over in the breeze, causing the little water in her to slosh down to the low side, wetting my feet and legs clammily.

“Head straight for the Western Gap,” I warned, as Jim with a fixed grin only to be seen on the faces of amateur sailors, hauled hard and headed our craft for Hanlan’s Point.

“We’ll beat up, a little,” hailed Jimmie, “and then run down on the gap.”

I bailed. The dinghy’s heeling over had discovered new and larger cracks in the hull, and I suddenly found the water was coming in at least as fast as I could bail if I bailed all the time.

“Hey, Jim,” I warned. “Don’t waste any time. Don’t get too far from shore.”

“She’ll tighten up,” halloed Jim, “in no time.”

The mast creaked. The sail, which had more creases in it than any sail I had ever noticed, slatted; small things popped and rattled; something groaned; and the water slapping the hull seemed just outside. It seemed, I should say, almost in.

“Jim, steer closer to shore,” I commanded. “This water is getting ahead of me.”

“Bail,” ordered Jim cheerfully, hauling the sheet tighter.

Suddenly a hoarse whistle roared almost in my ear, I straightened to behold a tug bearing square down on us.

“Jim!” I roared.

“Sail has the right of way over steam,” said Jim, with a confident and dreamy smile on his face. And he never even shifted muscle.

The tug, with another fierce toot, swerved slightly and passed behind us so close that the captain could have spit aboard us if he had had a spit ready. But he heaved a few big, loose cusses aboard us instead.

Shipwrecked

The swell from the tug came rushing high and crested straight for our stern.

“Jim, look out,” I shouted.

But Jim just leaned farther out and took another haul on the sheet. The big wave lifted us the way a lady lifts a rug to shake it. It gave us a shake and a snap.

The mast cracked, right across, like a stick of macaroni. The sail, with a calm slow bulge, folded quietly down on the heaving water. The dinghy, with Jim crouched beside me, remained flat.

Slowly the tug made a large circle and came back to us at quarter speed.

“What’s the big idea,” said the master hoarsely, “sailing an old hencoop like that around at this time of year? Don’t you know the frost ain’t out of spars yet?”

“Can you tow us?” demanded Jim coldly, a man of sail to a man of steam.

“To Hanlan’s Point, and no further,” said the master. “I’m tyin’ up there for the night.”

“Very good,” said Jim.

So they took us aboard and we hand-reefed the sail back aboard the dinghy and laid it, mast and all, inboard and Jim lashed her down.

“If she fills,” warned the tug master, “I don’t stop.”

“Go ahead,” said Jimmie.

And the tug, which was full of rumble and roar and power, leaped to life and surged and plunged across the bay to Hanlan’s Point, dragging the dinghy close behind, nose uplifted, in the churn and wake.

At Hanlan’s we paid the skipper $2 for his consideration and then found a local man who said we could haul our dinghy up on his lawn until we could make arrangements to sail her on the next leg of her journey westward. Then we took the last ferry home.

But there was a high gale of wind last night.

And I have hopes that when we go back tomorrow, the dinghy will have washed away.

Editor’s Notes:

$30 in 1942 would be $572 in 2026. ↩︎
A sailmaker’s palm is a specialized leather tool worn over the hand, featuring a metal thimble plate with divots to safely push thick sewing needles through canvas, leather, or heavy fabrics. ↩︎

Excitement in the Cellar

by admin

On April 16, 2026

In Miscellaneous, Political Cartoon

This political cartoon is about the Temperance referendum concerning a ban on the importation of alcoholic beverages into the province. It was supposed to be held in 1920, but was delayed until 1921 because of concerns about the voter list. This followed the 1919 Ontario prohibition referendum. Prohibition was a very contentious issue at the time, and the Toronto Star, where Jim worked, was editorially in favour of it. The stereotype was that men would keep their illegal booze in the cellar so as not to be seen drinking in public.

Old-Time Pirate

by admin

On April 14, 2026

In Comic, Other Comic, Political Cartoon, Uncategorized

This is another early political cartoon by Jim about submarine warfare by the Germans before Jim joined up for World War One.

War Cookies

by admin

On April 12, 2026

In Miscellaneous

Here’s an extra post this weekend. Check out how I can still be surprised in researching these guys after 10 years of doing so.

Out-Manoeuvred

by admin

On April 11, 2026

In Greg-Jim Story

***The major pointed his stick at us. “You!” he said. “You! You did it! It was you!”***

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, April 13, 1940.

“The crows,” stated Jimmie Frise, “are nesting.”

“What of it?” I retorted dismally.

“I know a bush,” declared Jim, “where there will be seven or eight nests right now. That means 14 excited and noisy crows. Those 14, if disturbed, will set up a hue and cry that will attract 200 crows from the surrounding township.”

“So what?” I insisted.

“Let’s take an afternoon off,” said Jimmie, “and blast a few crows off the face of the map.”

“It isn’t crows we should be interested in blowing off the map,” I pointed out. “Jimmie, you should have better taste than to suggest crow shooting at a time like this.”

“It would cheer us up,” submitted Jim. “Here you sit, all day, all week, full of mental depression.”

“I am not depressed,” I informed him. “I am merely conforming to the nation-wide sense of the gravity of the times.”

“If everybody gets gloomy,” said Jim, “there is no telling what may happen to us. Gloomy people are always easily defeated. It’s the high heart that can’t be beat.”

“Do you think crow shooting would give me the high heart?” I scorned.

“I don’t care what you do,” informed Jim, “so long as you do something. Something usual, something normal. It is this sitting about glooming that is bad for all of us. The whole country.”

“The only war work I have done so far,” I said bitterly, “is hold wool while my wife winds it into balls.”

“The women are lucky,” sighed Jim. “In wartime the young ones can join organizations to work and drive cars and collect stuff and make stuff. And when they get old, they can still knit socks. There is no war age limit on women. A woman can sit quietly knitting, in her own home, putting patriotism and love and devotion into every stitch. She can sit there, in peace and quiet, making a pair of socks that she knows some day will be faring far over the bloody earth. She can feel she is in touch with the great reality. Who knows what man, what hero, will wear these very socks? Who can say what historic battle, what Waterloo or Thermopylae these very socks growing in her hands will one day share in? Even a very old lady, with knitting is needles in her hands, can feel in tunes with the ages.”

“Old soldiers never die,” I commented. “They just grouse away. We’re too old to enlist. Our collars are too white for us to make shells. And if we join any of these clubs for the entertainment of the troops and other patriotic purposes, we end up in a fight with the committee inside of a week.”

“Come crow shooting,” pleaded Jimmie. “Don’t you see? If there is nothing you can do, by way of helping, then at least take steps to keep cheerful. The worst thing those of us can do, who are unable to find any real war work, is to grow crabby and gloomy and sour. In the old war, don’t you remember, there was a slogan – ‘Business as usual’? There was another one – ‘Keep the home fires burning.” In that old war we all understood the importance of keeping cheerful and busy. The best way to give aid and comfort to the enemy is by being depressed and gloomy.”

“We should all go around shouting hurraw,” I sneered.

“Much better,” declared Jim, “than if we all went around groaning.”

“That is Sheer Hypocrisy”

“Who’s groaning?” I demanded.

“You don’t realize you’re groaning,” said Jim. “That’s the heck of it. The worst thing about people suffering from depression is that they don’t even hear their own groans.”

“Do you mean to say…” I gritted.

“Look,” said Jim. “This bush I speak of is only 15 miles from where we sit in this office. In it are, I bet you, seven or maybe 10 crows’ nests. Each nest has four or five eggs in it. That means, next summer, probably 60 or 70 crows set loose upon the harmless wild world. That means hundreds of baby songbirds killed in their nests by the parent crows to feed those black brats.”

“Blackshirts,” I hissed.

“Exactly,” said Jim, encouraged. “Crows are the cruel Nazis of the wild world. They go about the innocent world of the woods, silently, listening, peering, prying. They are killers. Nothing counts but them. They have no mercy, no heart. As far as they are concerned, the whole world could belong to the crows.”

“I once saw a crow struggling in a low bush,” I related. “When I got there and drove it off, I found it had pecked and killed the five nestlings of a beautiful rose-breasted grosbeak. One of the most colorful and one of the loveliest singing birds in the world.”

“Yet,” said Jim, “you decline to come crow shooting because you think it is unbecoming?”

“I wouldn’t want any of my sarcastic friends to find out I had been out amusing myself,” I assured, “while Rome burns.”

“Then,” cried Jimmie, “don’t go to amuse yourself. Go for some fine, honest purpose. Just sit down and think and think, for a little while. Convince yourself that some high, holy purpose is to be served by going crow shooting. You are going crow shooting in order to save the farmer’s crops. You are going crow shooting because, in time of war, all the young men who ordinarily keep the crows down are away, and somebody must do their job or else the country is going to be overrun and ruined by crows.”

“Jim,” I said, shocked, “that is sheer hypocrisy!”

“Hypocrisy?” retorted Jim. “Do you call it hypocrisy when a professional politician, whose real job is to keep in the limelight and get himself power, persuades himself that he should attack the government in wartime? My dear boy, it is human nature. Not hypocrisy. A man can persuade himself that the best course for him is the right course. All men do. All over the world, in every nation, in every village, in every lonely shack in prairie and forest, men are persuading themselves that the course they want to take or must take is the right course.”

“How horrible, Jim,” I protested.

“Please use your head,” pleaded Jim. “You know it is true as well as I do. Those men who happen to choose a course that is good are reputed to be good men. Those who happen to choose the bad course are said to be hypocrites. But no man knows, until it is too late, which is the good or the bad. Because if he did, the world would have been heaven 2,000 years ago.”

“We must struggle,” I cried, “against the evil course. That is the whole of morality.”

“Do you mean to say,” accused Jim, leaning forward, “that no good purpose would be served by shooting 20 crows?”

“Of course some good purpose would be served,” I agreed, “but would it be as good a purpose as refraining from idle amusements in a time of national peril?”

“Ah,” sighed Jim, “who are we to decide between the greater or the lesser good? When we see good to be done, however small, let us be up and doing.”

“You’ve got a queer kind of morality,” I declared.

“How’s yours?” retorted Jimmie.

When Sky Rains Crows

So of course we went crow shooting. There is a time of year, just about now, that belongs to the crows. If we were people of any imagination about our own much beloved land, we would long ago have adopted into everyday speech some phrase such as “crow time” or “crow fortnight” or something of the kind to indicate those few days in April when the woods and the moving skies are loud with crows. Crows pairing, nesting, mating, with all the tumult and the stealth that go with such activities. The road was very good out to this bush Jimmie had in mind. Even the sideroad was a good one, well beaten, as though much traffic had recently gone along it. We parked the car quietly at the corner of the bushlot.

“See,” said Jim in a low voice. “There’s two nests abuilding right within sight. And look at the country round about. A dozen large woodlots. All of them full of crows.”

We took our shotguns and boxes of No. 7½ shells and the crow-call and entered the bush very stealthily, so as not to advertise our purpose any more than necessary. Crows are wary beasts. Even as we walked, warning caws were sounding and suspicious birds were winging out over the dark fields, expressing their suspicions to the wide-flung world.

We hunted about until we found a little gully in the woods and there, amidst some bushes already standing, we built a hide with boughs and brush, cedar and pine to give it a thicketty and harmless air

Room for the two of us we built, so that back to back, Jim and I could scan the open space amidst the bare tree tops, where the crows would come crying and wheeling and darting madly in response to Jim’s crow-call.

Jim is an artist in two dimensions. He can cartoon mankind. But he can also cartoon a crow. He uses a little wooden tube with a horn-like vibrator in it. From this small instrument he can coax such sounds as drive a sentimental crow mad with excitement. He can imitate a young lady crow caught by the foot in barbwire. He can shout like a brave gentleman crow who has suddenly found a great horned owl in a cedar tree. He can emit the harsh wails and yelps of a baby crow. And even though all crows, both male and female, should know that no eggs are hatched yet, still the love-distracted creatures will respond to those anguished cries of a baby crow.

When you call crows, you do not shoot at the very first ones that come. The ones from your immediate surrounding woodlot are likely to arrive first. Jimmie always uses the loud excited “wolf, wolf” cry of the male crow to start with. This excited shouting sound means that a crow has found an owl. It brings the nearby crows in a few seconds. Silently they come, circling suspiciously but excitedly. They alight on tree tops unsteadily and, carried by their fears, soon join in the racket. This starts the crows in the adjoining woodlots to setting up the alarm, too. As they start for the scene of action, they let out the war-whoop. And that travels from woodlot to woodlot, far and wide across the township, until, if you are an artist with the call, you can have 100 or 200 crows all furiously heading for you. The sky will fairly rain crows. And then you start shooting.

The Bush Explodes

When we got our hide well and snugly built and our field of fire clearly defined, we set our shell boxes open and ready and crouched down and Jimmie started to call.

A sudden sharp caw. As though a startled crow had almost stepped on an owl hidden deep in a cedar tree.

Another sharp caw or two; and a startled, rattled cry, as though emitted by a crow leaping suddenly in flight. Then, a series of frenzied caws, as though the crow was perched on a nearby elm, almost falling off in his excitement.

Hardly had the first of these started before we heard the welcome sound of an answering caw at the far end of the woodlot we were in.

“Keep down,” hissed Jimmie.

From the distance we heard sudden series of caws, as other birds took up the alarm. Jim let go challenging barks on the crow-call and in the open space overhead a crow wheeled and landed all flustered on a tree top. It sat there only an instant before it began cawing madly, teetering on the bough.

Suddenly the whole woods and across the fields around became loud with crow-calls, as they shouted encouragement to the clever scout who had found the enemy. And presently, wheeling and diving excitedly all about us overhead, were a dozen, two dozen, crows.

Motionless in our blind, we crouched, while Jim continued his inciting tunes, more frantic every minute. And a regular din grew in the woods all about.

“Now,” hissed Jim.

We grasped our guns. We braced our backs against each other and rose. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Our four shots, deliberate and aimed, smashed out in the noisy wood.

Silent as death, the startled crows vanished as though melted. All save two which fell to Jimmie’s gun. I am always too excited to get my first crows. I get a few later.

But hardly had the two toppled crows touched the earth before we heard an incredible sound. The whole woodlot was thrashing and crashing as though a herd of buffalo were loose. We stood petrified.

The bush exploded with a mortal smashing and banging. Shots rang out. Three, ten. Then 40, 70. And into our staggered view, in the little clearing in which we stood, 100 soldiers leaped, bayonets fixed, eyes glaring, faces flushed and triumphant, firing their rifles as they ran.

“You Bet You’ll Be Sorry”

Behind them another 100, all through the bush. The whole place seethed with soldiers, who charged in all directions, some passing us close by and not giving us even a sideways look. All leaping and chasing madly onward, as though the devil were after them or they were after the devil.

And while Jimmie and I stood dazed and unable even to speak to each other, there came at the tail end of this whirlwind of soldiers a major on a horse, plunging it furiously through the underbrush. He drove straight at us and reared his horse back and pointed his little stick speechlessly at us.

“You!” he strangled. “You! You did it! It was you!”

“Sir,” said Jimmie, “what is this…”

“You’ve ruined the manoeuvres,” roared the major. “Ruined them! The enemy has got us. We’re given away. They’ll surround us now. Oh, oh, oh.”

He whirled himself down out of the saddle and stood glaring speechlessly at us.

“But, sir,” I said. “We are a couple of innocent crow shooters…”

“Bah!” said the major, jerking his horse’s bridle in sheer rage.

“We’re extremely sorry,” said Jim.

“Sorry?” said the major. “You bet you’ll be sorry. My whole regiment wiped out. By a Western battalion at that. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

He stopped and stared at us shrewdly.

“Just a minute,” he said softly. “Maybe you’re members of that battalion, dressed up as civilians. How did you know four shots was the signal to advance?”

“We fired at crows,” I said.

“I’ll have my revenge,” said the major. “I’ll have you shot as spies. In civilian clothes. Firing the signal so my regiment would charge and give away our position to the enemy!”

Jim looked at me so bewildered I had to explain.

“It’s a sham battle, Jim,” I said. “Tactical manoeuvres. Two regiments out stalking each other. It’s quite all right. Don’t be alarmed.”

“You’ll hear about this,” gritted the major. “Stay right here, you two, until I come back. If I had any men left I’d put a guard on you. But don’t you leave here, at peril of your life. I want to get to the bottom of this.”

In the distance we could hear cheers.

“That’s the Westerners,” groaned the major. “They’ve surrounded the bush.”

He whirled up on his horse and dashed off into the thickets.

“Okay, let’s go, Jim,” I said, gathering my shell boxes.

“He said to wait,” protested Jim.

“We’ve got live ammunition, Jim,” I said pushing out of the blind. “They’ve only got blanks.”

So we crouched Indian fashion and got into our car and gave her the gas and went out the sideroad lickety split.