"Greg and Jim"

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, December 9, 1933.

“How,” asked Jimmie Frise over the telephone the other evening, “do you like oysters?”

“Love them,” I replied.

“Come on over!” cried Jimmie. “Some- body has sent me a whole barrel of oysters from the maritimes.”

“In their shells?” I asked, excitedly.

“How else would they send them?” retorted Jimmie.

“Well,” I explained, “you see those jugs of naked oysters out in front of the grocery stores.”

“These are in the shells,” said Jimmie. “Come on over. I’ve selected about forty of the best ones and I’ve got them in the sink.”

“It’s only an hour since dinner,” I said, “but I’ll come over.”

There was Jim in his kitchen. His shirt sleeves were rolled up. And with a small brush he was scrubbing the shells of a sink full of the loveliest great big oysters you ever saw. Through the open back kitchen door I could see a huge barrel, foretelling feasts for nights, to come.

“Grab that other nail brush,” cried Jim, “take off your coat and lend a hand here. We’ve got to scrub them nice and clean under the tap first. And then we’ll open them up and we’ll each have a platter of twenty oysters in the ice box. How’s that?”

“Twenty is my lucky number in oysters,” I said, removing my coat.

With the cold tap running merrily and Jim and I scrubbing the coarse, rugged shells of the oysters, our appetites began to stir, even though it was only a little after eight o’clock.

“I wonder,” said Jim, “who the intrepid hero was who first ate an oyster?”

“It was likely one of our cave-men ancestors,” I said, “because eating oysters is as old as the hills. They find heaps of oyster shells in the ruins of ancient cities, and even in the caves in which primitive man dwelt.”

“Maybe,” said Jimmie, holding up and polishing a particularly huge oyster, “it was eating oysters that started man on the upward climb from the half gorilla to what we are to-day.”

“Perhaps we ought to feed oysters to those of us that are still gorillas,” I suggested.

Oysters Not Prepossessing

“Still,” said Jim, speculatively, “I’d like to know how the very first man came to eat an oyster, because, until you get to know an oyster, it isn’t a very prepossessing creature. You don’t feel drawn toward an oyster at first sight as you do toward a roast partridge.”

“I reckon,” I said, as I scrubbed a nice fat-shelled one, “that some poor starving cave man, or maybe it was a poor starved cave girl, was walking along the sea shore one day and she saw the sea birds digging the oysters out of the mud, when the tide was down, and dropping them from a height on to the rocks and then gobbling the cold, salty oysters when the shell broke. Probably, if it was a poor starved cave girl, she shuddered and closed her eyes as she gulped down the first one. Then, opening her eyes in astonishment and joy, she dashed down to the beach and grabbed huge armfuls of oysters, and rushed back to the rocky shore and cracked them open and guzzled them down. I bet one thing, and that is that the first person ever to eat an oyster probably holds the world’s record for the number eaten at one sitting.”

“I bet she was a nice girl,” mused Jimmie.

And when she returned to the cave,” I went on, “all swollen up with oysters, and beginning to look more beautiful already, everybody, caveman and cavewoman, began wondering at the marvellous improvement in her. Day by day, as she continued to eat her new-found food, she grew lovelier, her chin got bigger, the coarse hair all over her began to moult off, and inside of a year, she was walking upright all the time. Hardly ever walking on all fours.”

“The beginning,” said Jim, scrubbing away.

“And then the secret was out, and the whole cave colony started eating oysters, crying ‘oy, oy,’ hence the name oysters,” I recounted. “And this tribe became so strong and powerful that they conquered all the surrounding tribes. Of course, this is ages ago, Jimmie. Long before history began. But each tribe they conquered, they introduced to oysters, and so began the rise of man from a mere meat-eating beast to an oyster-eating epicure.”

“Let’s,” said Jimmie, “scrub up a few more. You could eat thirty, couldn’t you?”

“Make it the even three dozen,” I suggested.

So Jimmie went out to the barrel and dug out another heap of oysters for the sink.

“It’s a long cry,” said Jim, as we started in scrubbing the new lot, “from the cave-men sitting in the tidal mud guzzling oysters to shipping a barrel of oysters a thousand miles, in a refrigerator car, to the descendants of the cave-men standing beside fresh running water out of a tap, in a modern kitchen.”

“Lit with electricity,” I said.

“And with a mechanical ice box to chill them,” said Jim. “But isn’t it funny how few new things to eat we have discovered? I guess our ancestors were great explorers in the realm of food, even if they didn’t discover North America until just lately.”

“With my delicate stomach,” I said, “I shudder to think of some of the things my ancestors must have eaten.”

“Or tried to eat,” added Jim.

It was now nine o’clock.

“Well,” said Jim, gazing fondly at the huge pile of beautifully scoured oysters heaped on the drain board beside the sink, “let’s open them.”

“Where’s your oyster knife?” I asked.

“I’ve no oyster knife,” said Jim. “I got a couple of screw drivers. They’ll do.”

He produced two screw drivers, a short one and a long one, from the pantry drawer. And he laid out two large platters on the kitchen table.

“No cheating now,” said Jim. “Take them as they come, large and small. And we’ll each fill our own platter.”

I picked up a chubby one. I looked for a good place to insert the screw driver. But an oyster is a very deceitful creature. Instead of having one clear-cut crack down its side, it has itself concealed with a half a dozen or more cracks, each one of which looks like the right one.

I shoved. Scraped. Tried here. Tried there.

“H’m,” said Jimmie. I looked at him, and he was standing over under the kitchen. light, narrowly examining his oyster.

“They’re awfully tight, aren’t they?” he said.

“It’s a trick,” I explained. “Once you find the hinge, it’s nothing to open them. I’ve seen a good oyster bartender open a dozen in two minutes. Just like that.”

“Have you ever opened any yourself?” asked Jimmie.

“I seem to have,” I said, “but I can’t recall.”

“Your unconscious memory, from your cave men ancestors,” said Jim, laying his oyster down and coming over to watch me. I laid the oyster down on the drain board, pressed with all my weight on one hand, while I gouged with the screw driver.

“Try the other side,” suggested Jim.

I turned it over and tried the other side.

The screw driver slipped and I gave myself a nasty gouge on the hand I was pressing with.

“Ouch!”

Jim got the iodine and some gauze upstairs and bandaged my left hand.

“I’ll get the hang of it,” said Jimmie, taking my place at the drain board.

He took a fresh oyster. It had a more innocent look than the first one. Jim studied it. He placed the screw driver against the most vulnerable point. He shoved. He twisted. He wiggled and jabbed.

“Ouch,” said Jimmie. He had cut himself. So I bandaged him.

“What we need,” I said, “is an oyster knife.”

So Jim went to the hall and telephoned half a dozen neighbors, but none of them had an oyster knife.

Jim came back and with the screw driver, he chipped off the edge of a new oyster, a still more childish and smooth-faced one. And then he peered along the chipped edges. But there was no sign of any relaxation.

It was now nine-twenty o’clock.

“If we are going to have an oyster supper,” said Jimmie, “we ought to get busy and open some of these.”

“It was your suggestion,” I reminded him.

Bending down and jamming the oyster firmly against the corner of the wall and the drain board, Jim inserted the screw driver, and slowly, relentlessly, he shoved and twisted the blade of the tool at the place in the oyster shell where there is a kind of hollow.

“Nnnhhh!” he grunted.

The screw driver slipped. Jim’s hand slammed up against the corner, with the oyster and screw driver hopelessly mixed up in the collision. And there was another hunk of skin off his one good hand.

“Bandage me,” said Jim. “Now I’m out of action!”

So while Jim stood by with two bandaged hands, I, with my remaining hand, decided to approach the problem with intellect rather than with physical force.

I sorted through the pile of oysters, seventy-two of them, all scrubbed and ready for the feast, until I found one that seemed the silliest, goofiest, Oliver Hardy¹ sort of an oyster in the whole heap.

Placing it in the corner of the drain board, with its back to the wall, I crept the screw driver into its hinge, and with a slow, prying pressure, I suddenly got a slight squirt of juice out of the edge.

“Hurray!” I shouted.

Another pry and twist.

And there, in its pearly glory, lay the, oyster, open and above board.

We beamed on it. We held it under the light. We smelled it. Boy, how cool and lovely it smelt!

“Let’s eat it right now,” said Jim, “to give us courage!”

“How could we both eat one oyster?” I exclaimed, scornfully.

“You take that round fat bit,” said Jim, “and I’ll take the ears, or whatever that crinkly part is.”

“Nothing doing,” I stated. “I eat an oyster whole. You won’t catch me dissecting any oyster. I’ve got the hang of it now, and in no time I’ll have the platters filled.”

But I was sanguine. I had to pass up three more before I got another one open. And after I got it laid bare, five more defied me before the accident happened.

It was very brief and simple. My hand slipped. And there was I with my right hand cut, too. And Jimmie was bandaging it, after a dash of iodine.

“Now,” said Jim, “where do we go? We’re both out of action.”

Because, really, you can’t open oysters with your hands wrapped up like a hobo’s feet in winter. “Let’s eat these two to start with, anyway.”

So Jim ate one and I the other, with careful and delicate applications of lemon juice, salt, pepper and ketchup.

“Mmmmm,” we said. Glurp. Plop. The oysters were ours.

We both tried to continue the opening, with our bandaged hands, but somehow we were too clumsy.

The Original Way

“I tell you,” cried Jimmie. “Let us resort to the ancient and original way of opening them. The way our cavemen ancestors, the discoverers of oysters, did!”

“How’s that?” “With a hammer!” said Jim. “They used rocks. But we’ve got hammers. Don’t tell me there isn’t some advance in civilization.”

So Jim got a hammer and a big heavy monkey wrench.

We laid the oysters on the drain board. But that only made big ugly nicks in the wood, and he was afraid his wife might complain.

“In the cave days,” explained Jim, “what a wife thought didn’t matter.”

He went outside and brought in two bricks, which we washed thoroughly, and then, squatting down on the kitchen floor, like the men of old must have done along the tidal shores, Jim and I proceeded to open oysters. It is not, I might say, the correct way. After hitting the oyster eight or ten times too lightly, you hit it one awful smash too hard, and there you have oyster squashed all over the brick, with broken shell imbedded in it.

After half an hour’s pounding, which caused neighbor’s dogs to howl and no doubt a lot of the neighbors to come and peer out their back windows, Jim had five oysters that were recognizable as such, and I had four. Of course, they weren’t on the half shell. We had to pick up the remains as best we could and carry them to the tap and wash off the brick dust and pick out the shell fragments. And then we put them in a tumbler. So to all intents. and purposes, we had those naked oysters such as you see in front of the grocery stores.

Anyway, such as it was, we held our oyster supper, after putting the rest of the seventy-two back in the barrel.

They went pretty good, too, although there was a mild flavor of iodine, and some slight trouble with shell splinters, and if there is any trick trickier than holding an oyster in your mouth while you feel around for a shell splinter with a bandaged hand, I don’t know it.

“This proves one thing,” said Jimmie, as we sat back from the feast. “And that is, we aren’t the men our ancestors were.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Every man to his trade. All we’ve got to do is go and take a few lessons from some chef.”

“From what I’ve seen of the art of opening oysters,” said Jim, “I imagine it is a life’s work. Maybe they have high-paid officials in the restaurants. Oyster openers. With fancy costumes. Maybe oyster opening is one of those family secrets, handed down from father to son.”

“It’s quite an art,” I said, imagining I felt a sharp stab inside of me from a splinter I had not detected.

“The problem is,” said Jim, “what am I going to do with all that barrel full of oysters?”

“You’ve got a lot of friends,” I reminded him. “They would just love a couple of dozen oysters, fresh from the sea.”

“I guess that’s the solution²,” said Jimmie.

Editor’s Notes: This story was repeated on February 17, 1940 as “Sea Shells”.

1. Of the famous Laurel and Hardy duo. ↩︎
2. Or just buy an oyster knife… ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 26, 1938.

“My, you’re sulky,” observed Jimmie Frise.

“Jim,” I requested, “do you know any dirty tricks I could play on a certain party?”

“Do you mean on me?” inquired Jim, cautiously.

“No, it’s this bird McMuddle,” I confided. “I’ve come to the end. I’ve got to do something about him.”

“Aw,” said Jim. “He’s not such a bad scout. You’re just a little allergic to his type, that’s all.”

“He has really got on my nerves,” I declared, firmly. “I find myself brooding about him during the day, when I should be thinking of my work. I find myself spending my evenings sitting at home, sunk in an easy chair, just patiently hating that guy.”

“You shouldn’t let individuals get you down like that,” protested Jimmie. “After all, he has never done you any real damage. He’s just irritated you, that’s all.”

“Irritation,” I submitted, “can often be worse than a real injury.””

“What has he done,” inquired Jim, “that has finally got you so worked up?”

“As a matter of fact,” I admitted, “it was rather a childish incident. I was standing talking on the street corner with a couple of acquaintances when this McMuddle came along behind me. I didn’t see him. He clapped me heartily on the shoulder, in passing, and sang out in a loud voice: ‘Well, my little man, have you got them spellbound?'”

“That wasn’t very bad,” smiled Jim. “You admit you generally do make speeches whenever you get a couple of guys backed into a corner.”

“As a matter of fact,” I declared, “I did have them spellbound. I was explaining to them the situation in Europe, how the different nations are all lining up against Russia….”

“Then what was the matter with McMuddle remarking the fact,” demanded Jim, “if you had them standing there with their mouths open?”

“Oh, it’s just the climax of a hundred things this McMuddle has done to me,” I gritted. “And you know it. You know if he is in the party, either at anybody’s home or on a fishing or shooting trip, if that guy is in the party, it’s ruined for me.”

“He just kids you,” protested Jim.

“He haunts me,” I insisted. “He makes fun of every word I say. If I make a suggestion, he instantly offers a counter suggestion. If I do anything, like last summer, the time I brought in those six big bass, not one of them under three pounds, what does that bird do? Any natural pride I might have in the performance is simply made ridiculous by the way he rushed about, shouting to everybody to come and see, and overdoing the praise and being so excited that anybody could see he was just making a fool of me.”

“You and Mac,” explained Jim, “happen to be two types that just naturally get on each other’s nerves. You irritate him. He irritates you. Like cat and dog.”

“Or like cat and rat,” I muttered, “and I know who’s the rat.”

“Why Does He Pick on Me?”

“You’re right, to some extent,” admitted Jim. “Mac is a bit of a poor sport. He always sees he gets the best of anything that is going, like on that same trip last summer, he snaffled the best guide and the boat with the cushions in it, and all that.”

“He’s greedy, Jim,” I cried. “And selfish. And without a vestige of sporting character in his make-up. Even when we were out at Ed’s house last week, McMuddle acted like a paid entertainer, took the floor and held it all night, never stopped talking for a minute, ate all the olives, picked all the ripe olives out of the dish before even the sandwiches were passed.”

“I think,” said Jim, carefully “that he was just having a little fun with you because your well-known preference for ripe olives.”

“Why does he pick on me?” I shouted.

“To tell the truth,” said Jim, embarrassed, “I think he held the floor, over at Ed’s, because he thought unless he did, you’d get it and hold it.”

“Jim,” I said, “That’s very unfair. If I ever take the floor, it is because I have come with something interesting to say. McMuddle just talked birds, that night.”

“Everybody thought,” said Jim, “that he gave a pretty fair take-off of you. We all laughed enough.”

“Except me.” I pointed out.

“Yes, but,” considered Jim, “I agree with you, Mac is a bit of a pain in the neck. He is one of those practical jokers. One of those outspoken, frank fellows who imagines he is hitting straight from the shoulder, whereas all he is doing is hitting a man when he’s down.”

“You said it,” I agreed fervently.

“You’re not the only one he picks on,” went on Jim. “As a matter of fact, he is pretty free with his tongue to everybody.”

“I wonder you put up with it,” I said.

“Well, Mac’s type,” explained Jim, “is kind of hard to handle. He’s big and husky. He is good-looking and hearty. He says what he thinks. He has a quick wit. You get into an argument with him, and no holds are barred. He says anything he likes to you or about you. He just puts his head back, looks down his nose at you, and in a loud, sarcastic voice, he just rips you up, and you are so flustered with his style of attack, you can’t even think…”

“That’s him, that’s him,” I concurred. “I wish we could get rid of the guy, some way. Can’t we drop him from our gang?”

“That would be hard,” said Jim, “anyway, some of the gang would accuse us of not being able to take it.”

“I wish,” I stated deeply, “I could think of some way we could put him on the spot. I’ve gone over dozens of imaginary meetings with him. I’ve dramatized, in my own mind, dozens of conversations with him, in which I have flayed him to the bone. But when I meet him, the conversations never turn out that way.”

A Whale of a Stunt

“Did you ever hear the story about dear old Lou Marsh and the Detroit Yacht club?” asked Jimmie. “It’s one of the funniest tales I ever heard.”

“What was it?” I enquired hopefully.

“Lou was over at some sailing races in Detroit,” said Jim, “and, as you recollect, Lou was a pretty masterful type. During the races, Lou was very much on top of any situations that arose. He wasn’t taking anything from the Americans. And after the races were ended, the Detroit boys decided they’d have one on Lou.”

“That would not be easy to do,” I submitted.

“They staged a party in the clubhouse,” related Jimmie. “About 20 prominent sailors were invited. Among other diversions was a poker game, into which about nine of them sat, including Lou. The game went on for long time, with increasing tension, which was not lessened by the fact that one of the men at the table was a bad actor who, as the evening drew on, started making trouble in a quiet way.”

“There is always a McMuddle in every party,” I put in.

“Suddenly,” recounted Jimmie, “this trouble maker leaped to his feet. Pointing an accusing finger across the table at another member of the party, he shouted, ‘Cheat, cheat!'”

“Good gracious,” I exclaimed.

“Lou,” went on Jim, “and all the others, sat frozen with horror. In an exclusive club. Amongst a pleasant party. The accused man got angry and leaped to his feet. There were violent words shouted across the table. The accused man took a sudden swing at the trouble-maker. The trouble-maker reached back, pulled a gun and fired point-blank at the accused man.”

“What a scene,” I breathed.

“And at that instant,” said Jim, “the lights were switched off, pandemonium broke loose and three more shots were fired by the man with the gun.”

“Pandemonium is right,” I admitted.

“Of course, nobody,” explained Jim, “except three of them knew it was a joke, that the gun was the starter’s pistol for the sailing races and blank cartridges were being used.”

“What a whale of a stunt.” I cried.

“Well, there it is,” concluded Jim. “The gun spitting, the sudden darkness, everybody crashing and leaping in all directions, sheer panic. And then, suddenly, the lights go on. Some of them are under the tables and chairs. One man has even crawled under the edge of the carpet. Three of them raced for the stairway and one fell down the stairs, bruising himself badly. And Lou Marsh was on his hands and knees trying to get his 200-pound bulk in behind the iron radiator along the wall.”

“Grand, grand,” I crowed. “I can see it. It was magnificent. It was a good one on Lou and on everybody else, and nobody would have acted any differently.”

“Not even you or me,” admitted Jim.

“But how can we work this on McMuddle?” I demanded.

“Exactly the same,” said Jim. “Exactly, in every detail. At the next party we’re on, and there is to be one next week at Bill’s house; we’ll pull it. We’ll only have to let one other man in on it. The one we’ll accuse of cheating. You handle the pistol, I’ll handle the lights.”

“No, no, Jim,” I said. “Let me handle the lights. Let me be the guy that reveals McMuddle for what he really is.”

“You handle the pistol,” said Jim, “because you’re a hot-tempered little guy anyway, and just nutty enough to be carrying a pistol. Nobody would ever imagine I’d carry a gun.”

“Oh, wouldn’t they?” I retorted. “You good-natured fellows are the ones that really boil over when you get mad. Please, Jim, let me be the one that turns on the lights. That’ll give me more satisfaction than anything I can imagine.

Finding a Villain

“I don’t see how we can fool our gang,” insisted Jim. “Nobody, least of all McMuddle, would ever believe either you or I would carry a gun.”

“Could we ring in a stranger?” I asked.

“Look,” said Jim, suddenly. “I think I have it. I’ll agree to come to the party, and then have to beg off on account of a jam I’m in with a fellow. I have to entertain that night.”

“Yes?” I urged.

“Bill and the boys will insist on me coming and bring the guy,” explained Jim, “and I’ll try to beg off, because this fellow is a very bad actor, a fellow I’ve got mixed up with in a rather funny deal, and I think he’s a crook. See?”

“Swell.” I agreed

“And when Bill says bring him along anyway and let’s look him over, I’ll agree, on one condition that Bill explain to all the rest of the gang that this fellow is a louse, and probably has got me rooked for $2,000 but that I can’t be sure and I’ve got to be nice to him, and so on.”

“It builds up lovely,” I agreed.

“At the party,” concluded Jim. “I’ll act kind of moody and restrained. Not my old jolly self. see? And it will become more and more strained until, at the agreed signal, you get up and go and stand by the light switch, emptying your pipe or something, and then I’ll cut loose.”

What a glorious set-up,” I agreed, seeing McMuddle already trying to creep up the fireplace chimney.

Bill’s party was called for Thursday as usual. Six of us as a rule attend. Just a lot of cards, sandwiches and stuff, while the ladies are out to a movie.

Jim had no trouble finding a suitable villain from amongst his Russian pool-playing friends¹, a lean and sinister fellow in the musical instrument business, wholly unknown to any of the rest of us. He was also an amateur theatricals enthusiast, and he fell for the plot with joy. To Bill, Jim told, with obvious reluctance, some of the facts of his being rooked by this gent, and how good it was of Bill and the boys to agree to Jim bringing him along. All through the evening, from the moment Jim arrived with the fictitious Mr. Sacrahan, which was a lovely name for a villain, Jim was ill at ease, anxious, jumpy. But all of us, realizing how embarrassed he was with this ringer in the party, were highly sympathetic and not a little jumpy ourselves. In fact, McMuddle, on whom I kept gloating and expectant eye, was almost decent throughout the night.

About 10 p.m., Jim began to get a little nasty with Mr. Sacrahan.

“Let’s have a look,” he would say, leaning over and examining Mr. Sacrahan’s cards whenever he tossed a winning hand down.

Sacrahan just gazed, with a malevolent expression, at Jim. In a few minutes, we all began to observe that Mr. Sacrahan was eyeing Jim steadily with increasing venom in his expression.

And Jim continued to make short, ugly remarks about each of Mr. Sacrahan’s bets, raises, calls.

Shots Crash Terribly

At a prearranged look from Jim, I rose and sauntered over to the dining-room light switch, and proceeded to fill my pipe.

Suddenly Jim leaped to his feet, crashing his chair over behind him.

“You crook!” grated Jim, pointing scarlet-faced at Sacrahan.

“Sit down,” said Mr. Sacrahan, evilly.

“You crook,” repeated Jim thickly. “I saw you take a card out of your sleeve.”

“That’s a lie,” said Sacrahan, as we all held our breaths in dazed horror.

“I’ve suspected for months,” began Jimmie, leaning forward across the table.

Mr. Sacrahan leaped to his feet and made a violent swing at Jim. I reached for the light switch, my eyes on McMuddle, who was observing the scene with tense fascination.

Out of Jim’s pocket came the bulldog starter’s pistol we had borrowed from Lou Marsh’s old sailing club.

All in one expert motion, the pistol swept up and crashed terribly in the strained and silent dining room.

Out went the lights.

And four more shots. scarlet, vicious, stabbed the pitch black.

Pandemonium is a poor word for it. Shouts, groans, yelps, crashes, scuffles, roars, and then, after 10 stupendous seconds in which I could hardly control the beating of my heart and the sobs of laughter fighting my diaphragm, I switched on the lights.

Bill was under his thick dining-room table. Others were rolled in corners, two were wedged in the narrow doorway, madly struggling to escape.

But on the floor lay Jimmie, flat on his back, and on top of him knelt McMuddle, one powerful hand holding Jim’s pistol hand at arm’s length pinned to the floor, the other hand clasped about Jim’s windpipe, slowly squeezing the life out of him.

“Here!” I shouted, “let go, let him up!”

McMuddle reached up and carefully took the gun from Jim’s now limp grasp.

“Has he gone nuts?” demanded McMuddle, in a cold, icy voice. “Has the poor guy gone completely nuts?”

“It was a joke,” I muttered.

“Does he want to hang?” continued McMuddle, slowly rising off the almost lifeless Jimmie, whose face had gone purple.

Then he saw Mr. Sacrahan grinning in the corner. And then we had to explain to everybody that it was just a little fun; and help Jim to his feet and take him into the kitchen for cold water.

“I should have known it was a joke,” said McMuddle, “but your acting was too good.”

“I guess,” said Jim, ruefully fingering his throat, “we should have let you in on the joke.”

And when the party broke up, all in the highest spirits, with Mr. Sacrahan suddenly blooming as one of the best story tellers we have ever had in our gang, Jim said to me aside: “It’s a funny thing, but often the most unpleasant people have the most guts.”

Editor’s Note:

1. It has been mentioned before that Jim likes to play Russian Pool. There are different variations so I am not sure which he played. ↩︎

Women have their knitting. But what can men do to keep their minds and hands busy?

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 15, 1941.

“The shortage of labor,” declared Jimmie Frise, “is making a laborer out of me.”

“The same here,” I agreed. “I had to put up my storm windows last week myself, for the first time in 15 years. The man who usually does it is working in a munitions factory.”

“Making shells?” inquired Jim.

“No, putting up the munitions factory’s storm windows,” I replied indignantly. “And doing odd jobs around the plant.”

“Still,” said Jim, “that’s part of the war effort. Somebody has got to keep the munitions plants tidy and shipshape.”

“Okay, but how about me as a taxpayer?” I demanded. “Am I not part of the war effort? Doesn’t the money I pay in taxes pay the workers who make the munitions? Who’s going to pony up the wages of the men who make the shells if I am so busy putting up storm windows that I can’t earn any money to pay the government?”

“Pshaw,” said Jim, “it didn’t take you half an hour.”

“It took me two hours,” I responded hotly. “And when you figure up how much work we have all got to do ourselves that we used to pay other men to do…”

“Wait a minute,” laughed Jimmie. “The money you save by doing the work yourself makes available that much more cash for the government.”

“I see,” I muttered. “They want us coming and going.”

“They sure do,” said Jim. “They want all the taxes off you they can scrape without skinning you alive. They want all the money you can save to lend them. They want you to work harder than you have ever worked so you will make more money for them to tax and for you to lend them.”

“I’m on a salary,” I pointed out.

“All right, they want you to work harder than you have ever worked for your salary,” explained Jim, “in order that your employer will make more money for the government to tax and for your employer to invest in war bonds.”

“Money, money, money,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” scoffed Jim. “It isn’t money the government wants. It’s shells. And bombs. And bombers. And ships. And soldiers ready for the battlefield. You can’t make a shell. You can’t make an airplane. You couldn’t even paint a ship. You’re too old to be a soldier. So you give what you’ve got. Work.”

“Aaaah,” I said.

“That’s all they want from you,” declared Jim. “Work. Work. Work. Work at anything you can do so long as it makes money that can be converted into shells, bombs, planes, ships. See?”

“Money is easily converted,” I confessed.

“Money is the only thing in the world,” explained Jim, “that can be converted into anything. It is the universal converter. For example: There is a tree standing in the woods. It is useless. But along comes a man who says I will give somebody 50 cents¹ to cut that tree down. And down comes the tree. Money has converted the tree into a log. Then the man says I will pay somebody 50 cents to haul that log down to the skids. And from the skids it goes to the pulp mill.”

The Meaning of Giving Up

“What is this?” I inquired. “A lecture?”

“At the pulp mill, another guy,” said Jim, “says he will pay $20 for somebody to work a week in the pulp mill and turn the log into pulp. And then into paper.”

“It see it coming,” I confessed.

“Then another guy says,” went on Jim, “I’ll pay somebody $50 to write an article to print on this piece of paper. And you write the article, see?”

“I’m converted,” I agreed.

“Then about 550,000 people,” continued Jimmie, “say, I’ll give you a dime for that piece of paper with that article in it. So the tree standing in the distant bush has been converted, by money, money, money, into this thing in the hands of two million people, supposing four people read each paper.”

“And that’s the end?” I asked.

“Not on your life,” cried Jim. “Then the government says, we’ve got to have submarine chasers and we need planks, hardwood planks for making little ships. So they say to you, give us 15 bucks of that 50.”

“I’m told,” I said grimly, “that they get more than half of it, one way and another. The get 25 bucks.”

“Okay, says the government,” concluded Jim, “give me 25 of that 50. And it sends a man up into the bush to find a useless hardwood tree standing there. And that guy says I’ll give somebody 50 cents to cut down that tree. And away she goes again.”

“The part I had,” I submitted, “was very small in that transaction. That one measly article.”

“Yes, but you notice you got more for the article,” explained Jim, “than anybody else got for their share.”

“And I gave up more,” I reminded him, “than anybody else when they wanted that hardwood plank for a boat. I gave up 25 bucks, which is more than the man got for working a week in the pulp mill.”

“Oh, no you didn’t,” smiled Jim. “Because all you gave up was a couple of hours work, writing the article, and $25. Whereas the man who worked in the pulp mill gave up a whole hard week of his life, laboring like the devil.”

“I mean…” I protested.

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” laughed Jimmie. “You don’t mean the same thing by ‘giving up’ as I mean. Well, sir, there is a war on. So terrible a war that it’s end will decide whether men shall be free or slaves. And the side that is going to win, without any question, is the side that understands the meaning of giving up.”

“Jim,” I said gratefully, “that was a good lecture. I begin to see what it’s all about. It isn’t what we get, what we keep, what we own that matters. It’s what we convert into shells, planes, ships… all of us, everywhere, doing anything.”

“The other night,” related Jim, “I couldn’t get to sleep and I tried counting sheep. But the sheep would not come. Soldiers came instead. Endless ranks of them, marching. I closed my eyes tight and tried to picture sheep. But brighter and sharper came the endless ranks of soldiers, marching abreast. And I couldn’t go to sleep at all. For I began thinking that here in little, farflung Canada, with only eleven million people, there were 300,000 homes from which a soldier has gone to war. That is a lot of homes.”

“They’re not all at war,” I submitted.

“A hundred thousand are overseas,” enlightened Jim, “and 20,000 are in the navy and 60,000 are in the air force. It does not matter yet where they are. They are all gone to war; 300,000 homes are short a man.”

“And we’ve got to pay those men,” I offered.

“Huh, pay them?” laughed Jim bitterly. “They get $1.30 a day each. But they have to assign half their pay, or $20 a month to their dependants at home if they want the folks to get any allowances from the government. In other words, a married soldier gets about 60 cents a day, brother.”

“Phew,” said I.

“And so the government,” went on Jim, “gives the soldier’s wife $35 a month, and $12 for each child up to two children. Maximum, with the absent soldier’s $20, of $79 a month!”

“That’s not $3 a day,” I protested, “for rent, food, clothing…”

“But look,” interrupted Jim, “suppose the wife has no children? How much has she got? Or suppose she has four children?”

“I guess a soldier’s wife,” I humbled, “doesn’t even get 60 cents a day, come to think of it.”

To Revive Whittling

“Well, the reason I mentioned soldiers,” said Jimmie, “is that when we think of our taxes, and our war savings, we always think of shells, bombs, planes, ships. Big roaring factories; toiling, well-paid workers. What we forget are those 300,000 soldiers at a few cents a day. And those 300,000 homes, with a woman in each one, and children. Lonely, anxious and haunted. And less than $3 a day to live on, entire.”

“Maybe,” said, “we prefer to think of our taxes and war savings going on mighty bombers and ships and shells…”

“It makes us feel more romantic,” explained Jim, “about ourselves.”

So we sat for a little while not thinking very romantically about ourselves.

“Even our leisure,” said Jimmie, after awhile, “should be used. I envy women their knitting.”

“We could do odd jobs,” I suggested. “Like…”

“Like putting up storm windows?” inquired Jim sweetly.

“Okay,” I surrendered. “Like putting up storm windows. Or raking leaves. Or painting the back steps.”

“Or even whittling,” said Jim. “There are a dozen things a man could whittle. Such as…er…”

“See, Jim?” I cut in. “You can’t think of anything a man could whittle nowadays that would be any good. When I was a boy, there was a whittling man in every block. Out in front of the flour and feed store, there was always a man whittling. But now there aren’t even any more flour and feed stores.”

“He could whittle latches for the door,” said Jimmie, “and sticks to hold the window up. And pegs to wind string on. And knobs for drawers.”

“But now,” I countered, “there are no more latches, and windows stay up themselves. And if anything needs a new knob, you turn it in on the instalment plan for a fresh suite of furniture.”

“Say,” said Jim, rising, “that reminds me. I have a piece of hickory down cellar that I got about five years ago for an axe handle. I was down at the old farm, looking around, and I found this piece of hickory.”

“You can buy an axe handle, Jim,” I submitted, “for 35 cents.”

But Jim was heading for the cellar stairs and I followed him. He hunted around the cellar, looking on beams, under boxes and baskets, behind old dining-room buffets and things, and at last, in the fruit cellar, on top of the cupboards, located the very billet of hickory he had brought home years ago from a visit to his boyhood home.

It was hard and dry and weathered. And from the cupboard top he threw down several other odds and ends of wood, including a one-inch plank of cedar about six feet long.

“There you are,” he said. “A cedar plank for you.”

“And what can I make with that?” I demanded.

“What else,” retorted Jim, “but a paddle? That’s what I picked it up for, about seven winters back.”

“You must have been thinking of whittling sooner or later,” I supposed.

Creative Satisfaction

But Jimmie was gone back into the furnace cellar where he rooted around in a big box and found an old-fashioned axe head and an ancient whetstone. And on the stone, Jimmie proceeded to sharpen his pocket-knife. And when he had it honed to a glittering sharpness, he took my knife and worked it up to a beautiful edge that you could feel with your thumb like a razor.

And finding pleasant spots in which to sit and lean, we set to work, Jimmie at his axe handle, with small, keen curly shavings off the hickory and I, at the paddle, with long, stiff strokes of the cedar.

Whittling is absorbing work. You can shave away, and talk at the same time. And there is a queer feeling of accomplishment, of creative satisfaction, that invades you little by little as the thing you are working at begins to take form.

Jimmie got the head end of his axe handle the wrong way round, and I had to saw off about a foot of my plank due to having taken too deep a bite with my knife, causing a large chunk of the cedar to shear loose. But we whittled and viewed and chatted and whittled away dull care until an hour or more had gone, and Jimmie was starting to fit the head on the axe handle.

“You have to get the size of the eye just right,” he said, “or else the wedge will never really grip it.”

And in a few minutes, he fitted the head perfectly, though the handle itself was rather rough.

“There you are, my boy,” he said, handing me the axe. “Just feel the heft of that. No store axe handle has got the feel. You could really swing that axe. Feel how the curve of the handle slides through your hand, giving power.”

And from the kindling bin, he got a chunk of wood and set it up on the cellar floor.

“Now, watch,” he said.

He aimed the axe and then raised it. Back over his shoulder he swung it. Forward and down he struck.

And the axe head slipped off and hurtled through the doorway into the fruit cellar where it crashed on to the second shelf of preserves which included green tomato pickle, chow chow², mustard pickles, summer catsup, mustard catsup; and these falling, took with them half the shelf of cherries, damson plums and 16 pints of wild raspberries which are Jim’s own favorite.

It was awful. Not only the sound, which continued for several seconds. But the way the juice ran, all red and yellow and ghastly over the concrete floor.

We used the shavings we had made to help staunch the flow. Jimmie used my paddle for a shovel to push the shavings on to the mess and to scrape up the broken glass and pickles and fruit.

Then he crept up the cellar stairs and finding nobody around he got the biggest ash can from the side entrance and we filled its huge space with the wreckage of shavings, glass, fruit and blood.

Then we carried the ash can out and placed it in the side drive of the house next door, where the people are away until Christmas.

And after we had swept and wiped and cleaned all as best we could and rearranged all the fruit and pickles from the upper shelves on to the lower shelves, until you could hardly notice how much damage had been done, I said:

“I am glad my whittling was of some use. It made a good shovel.”

“Finish it, why don’t you?” said Jim wearily.

“You finish your axe handle,” I suggested.

He looked around for it, but there was no sign.

“It must be swept up with the rest of the junk in the ash can,” said Jim.

So we went back upstairs in time to hear the late afternoon war news.

Editor’s Notes:

1. The are a lot of prices mentioned in this article. For comparable numbers, $1 in 1941 would be like $19 in 2025. ↩︎
2. Chow chow is a pickled relish made of chopped green tomatoes, onions, cabbage, and seasonal peppers (though carrots, cauliflower, beans, and peas are sometimes included). There are a variety of other pickled vegetables mentioned as well. ↩︎