Category: Greg-Jim Story Page 1 of 40

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, July 19, 1947.

“Vitamin pills,” suggested Jimmie Frise.

“No,” I corrected dismally, “vitamins are for the winter, when there’s no sun and no fresh vegetables.”

“You’ve got it wrong,” declared Jim. “The latest discoveries show that you need vitamins all the year round.”

“I feel,” I heaved, “exhausted. It’s the heat, probably. But I never felt the heat like this before.”

“To be a Canadian,” said Jim cheerily, “you’ve got to tough. You’ve got to be able to take the frigid cold of the Canadian February, and the tropic heat of the Canadian July. It isn’t every Tom, Dick and Harry who can be Canadian.”

“You mean to suggest…?” I accused.

“Any number of so-called Canadians,” stated Jim, “can’t take it. They go to Florida or California for the winter. And they go to far northern summer resorts for the summer. If it weren’t for modern means of travel, they’d be dead. A hundred years ago, when this country’s foundations were being laid, such people just died off. They were weeded out.”

“My ancestors,” I informed him, “were here 100 years ago. And they weren’t weeded out!”

“Probably,” said Jim heartily, “the weeding out process takes a little time. Three or four generations, maybe?”

I sagged back in my chair, a little shocked.

“I don’t feel, exactly,” I confessed, “as if I were going to die. It’s just a sort of limp feeling. Here it is Friday, and we’ve got to leave at five o’clock to drive 160 miles to your cottage. Through week-end traffic. Four long hours. Jim, I honestly don’t believe I can face it!”

“Aw, for Pete’s sake!” cried Jim, very athletic, “it’s the week-end at the cottage that restores your vigor. That’s the purpose of going to the cottage!”

“But it’s the getting there,” I submitted miserably.

“I’m driving,” reminded Jim.

“This summer cottage stuff is all very nice,” I parried,” but summer bachelors like us have to take an awful beating. We come down to the city and work like fools in all this summer heat. We eat at restaurants, where the food is just what you’d expect it to be in mid-summer, with the chef wishing he was away fishing. We spend five days laboring, and then we have to line up in that awful week-end traffic, and boll and sizzle and chisel and chivvy our way 100 miles or more through a sort of frenzied mob.”

“You can sleep,” offered Jimmie.

“I haven’t the energy to sleep,” I declared.

“Look,” said Jim. “Vitamins. You’ve got to take some of these new high-power vitamin pills. I heard a doctor in the drug store the other day talking about some new vitamin pill they’ve got. You can feel the effects of it – the lift – in less than half an hour!”

“Pawff!” I scoffed.

“It’s a fact,” cried Jim. “They’ve made some tremendous strides in the science of vitamins the past year or so.”

“Vitamin A, Vitamin B, Vitamin B One!” I recited derisively. “Jim, there are plenty of doctors who say this vitamin stuff is all bunk.”

“Sure,” agreed Jim, “and there are plenty of doctors who don’t believe in X-ray, or even surgery. You can always find doctors who disagree with everything new and scientific. I can find you doctors who believe everything is mental, and all you’ve got to do is get a man into the right frame of mind and Nature will heal him.”

“Let Nature heal me,” I muttered, loosening my shirt collar and mopping my brow.

“Look,” persisted Jim, “we’ll run over to Bill O’Neill’s and get you a bottle of these latest new vitamin pills. He’ll know them.”

“Personally,” I said, “I like to refer my health problems to a physician.”

“What nonsense!” exclaimed Jim. “Why go to a doctor when you can go to the doctors’ clearing house, the drug store? Listen: in every district there are, say, 20 doctors. Each has his own idea of how to treat various cases. Each sends his prescriptions into the drug store. Now, if you want to get the consensus of the doctors in the district, you go to the drug store. The druggist knows not only which is the most popular remedy among the local doctors. He also knows which remedy is working and which remedy is failing to work.”

“This is treason, Jim,” I declared.

“Maybe,” agreed Jim, “but it’s also common sense. Now, suppose there’s an epidemic of ‘flu in the neighborhood. Since the last ‘flu epidemic, we’ll say, there have been certain advances in medical science in relation to the treatment of flu. It’s been written up in the medical journals. Some of the doctors have read about it. Others have been playing golf or have been too busy to read. So, 20 doctors in the neighborhood go to work on the ‘flu epidemic. They send their prescriptions to the drug store. The druggist is naturally interested to see what the doctors are prescribing. He has to lay in in supplies of any new drugs required in the newest treatment. He keeps track of the results. Some of the cases require only one bottle of one thing. Other cases go on and on, consuming several bottles of some other treatment. Don’t you see that the druggist is the clearing house for all the latest dope in medicine?”

“This lethargy I feel,” I submitted, “may be due to some serious condition.”

“Aw, it’s just the heat,” snorted Jim, “plus your age, plus your extra fat, plus the way you eat.”

“I eat sparingly,” I declared, “in summer.”

“So sparingly,” agreed Jim, “that you probably haven’t given yourself enough energy-building food – enough vitamins – to carry you.”

I got up and retied my necktie. I put on my coat.

“Okay, come on,” I sighed. “We’ll try Bill O’Neill.”

Druggists are not allowed by law to prescribe their wares. To spare our old friend Bill the embarrassment of having to refuse us a prescription, Jim took the initiative, as we entered the cool and aromatic precincts of the corner drug store, and said to Bill:

“What’s this new vitamin pill that will pick you up when you’re all fagged out with the heat?”

Bill reached behind to the shelf and handed down a bottle of white, flat pills, like aspirin, only a little larger.

“I thought vitamin pills,” I protested, “were all transparent little jelly-looking things.”

“Not these,” said Bill.

“Are they any good?” I demanded.

“How would I know?” replied Bill. “They are made by a reputable firm. A lot of people buy them. I suppose they’re good.”

“Do I have to buy the whole bottle?” I asked, looking at the pencilled price on the label, which was astonishingly high.

“Oh, no, I can sell you a dozen,” said Bill.

So he put a dozen pills in small carboard box and I paid for them and we walked back to the house.

We had to pack our bags and change into our old clothes for the journey. I started the tap running, to let the water get cold and set the box of pills on the kitchen windowsill.

In a few minutes we had our bags in the hall and our canvas pants and shirts on, and I went to the tap, ran a glass of chilled water, took the pills off the windowsill, extracted two and downed them. They had a very nasty taste.

“Bitter,” I sputtered.

“I’ve always thought,” agreed Jim, “that the old fashioned vitamin pills were made too pleasant. For what a vitamin has to do, it ought to taste a little surprising.”

I slipped the box in my pocket and we carried our bags out to the car.

“In half an hour,” assured Jim, as we slid into our seats, “according to what I’ve heard of those pills, you’re going to feel like a new man.”

“By the way I feel,” I replied, “it’ll take more than two of them to lift me.”

So began the journey, out through half an hour of crowded city streets, with bad-tempered citizens either carrying home to get started on the regular Friday night exodus from the city; or those other less privileged citizens who can’t get away Friday, resenting the hurry of those of us obviously headed north.

The taste of the pills lingered in my mouth. It was a slightly bitter, slightly cloying flavor, and I wondered at any reputable pharmaceutical firm producing anything with quite so careless a taste.

As we emerged from the city on to the highway, where the endless procession of week-end traffic was already settling itself into its customary bad-tempered and restless tide, I sat up and listened to myself, as it were, to see if I could detect the first faint signs of the promised lift the pills would give me.

As a matter of fact, I felt slightly worse.

The lethargy and limpness of my legs, knees, elbows, neck and other joints was obviously more pronounced than when I had been in the shade and quiet of my house. And in addition to the lethargy, there was a slight uneasiness in my stomach as well as a ringing in my ears, and a feeling in my eyes as if my eyeballs were protruding.

“Has it started?” asked Jim brightly.

“Something has started,” I muttered, “but it isn’t good.”

“You’re probably an extreme case,” sympathized Jim. Maybe you need more than two. We’ll pull in at a hot dog stand up the way here, and you can take a couple more.”

“Not for a while,” I pleaded. “They taste awful. We’ll wait and give them a chance to work.”

So we bored on into the stampede. Cars cut in on us. We cut in on cars. The usual slowpokes held up the usual long columns of faster cars, and we had to edge and duck in and out to pass them.

“How about stopping at this next town,” inquired Jim solicitously, “and you can get a cup of tea to wash down couple more pills? The hot tea will make them work quicker.”

“And let all those slowpokes we’ve passed get ahead of us again?” I complained. “No, Jim, just keep on moving and let’s get this over with.”

“How do you feel?” asked Jim.

“Terrible,” I declared, sinking back into my corner. I tried to snooze. But the alarming sounds of the week-end stampede kept rousing me, and Jim’s style of driving furiously and then stamping on the brakes is not conducive to slumber.

We got 50 or 60 miles behind us and came to the main break in the highway, where much of the traffic goes east, while we continue north. The strain eased, and I sat up and breathed loud and deep.

“Ah, it’s started?” cried Jim cheerily.

“On the contrary,” I said hollowly.

So Jim, at the very next hot dog stand, swung in off the pavement.

“You sit right there,” he soothed, “and I’ll bring you a cup of tea.”

He brought tea for both of us.

“Here,” he said, when I took out the pill box, “let’s try a couple of those. Maybe they’ll work on me.”

I took two and he took two; and we downed them with the tea.

“Phthow!” spat Jim.” They sure taste nasty.”

So we headed back on to the road again, I slumping in my corner to await the lift; Jimmie occasionally emitting a “phthow!” or a “pfthooie!” in the silence.

Traffic was thinning, and it seemed to me Jim was driving slower.

“I feel terrible,” said Jim suddenly.

“No lift?” I groaned, sitting up.

“Let’s see that box,” said Jim, slowing the car. “I wonder what it was Bill gave us…?”

I handed him the pill box and he squinted at it.

And we very nearly went into the ditch!

“Cockroach poison!” yelled Jimmie in a strangled voice. “He’s poisoned us…!”

He ran the car on to the highway shoulder and stopped.

“My mistake,” I croaked, all becoming suddenly clear to me. “My mistake, Jim! I got the wrong box off the kitchen windowsill. There was a box of cockroach poison pills. They look exactly…”

“Quick!” shouted Jim, setting the car in motion. “Town! Next town! Nearest doctor!”

And feeling his throat with one hand and steering with the other, Jim drove like a Roman charioteer. Past cars we roared, in and out we wove as the old car shuddered. And I could feel the icy fingers of death toying with my throat, my heart, my stomach.

I was in no pain.

Jim lurched the car on to the gravel of the gas station on the outskirts of the town.

“Doctor!” he yelled at the attendant. “Where’s the doctor live?”

“Green house,” shouted the attendant. “First on the left past the post office!”

Through glazing eyes, I saw the town spin by and we whammed to a stop in front of a green house with “Dr. Macintyre” emblazoned on a brass plate.

Jim leaped around and opened my door for me. stumbled out and Jim led me, my legs folding under me, to the door. He rang the bell, supporting me.

The door opened promptly and there stood a grizzled gentleman in spectacles.

“Poisoned!” gasped Jim, heaving me through the doorway. “Both poisoned!”

“How?” said the doctor crisply.

“Cockroach poison,” whuffed Jim, handing the pill box to the doctor.

Dr. Macintyre went to the light and squinted at one of the pills narrowly.

“Nothing in these to poison you,” he said. “Nothing but boracic acid in them. Most cockroach poisons will make you sick. But not these. Just boracic acid.”

I felt  the icy fingers release their clutch.

“Oh, doctor, are you sure …!” I cried.

He favored me with a chilly eye.

“Certainly I’m sure,” he replied, and, removing one of the pills from the box, he tossed it into his mouth and swallowed it.

“A good antiseptic,” he stated.

Well, he listened to my heart with a stethoscope, felt my pulse and looked at my tongue.

“Nothing the matter with you,” he said. “Maybe a little upset stomach. Maybe too much heat…”.

I began to feel a great lift. But it wasn’t vitamins. It was just the joy of being alive.

“That’ll be $2” said the doctor. “Now, I’ll tell you what you need. You need a good vitamin. Here’s one” – and he got up and went to his wall cabinet – “here’s a new one. It will give you a lift in half an hour….”

Same as Bill O’Neill’s.

He counted me out a dozen.

Same price.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 9, 1938.

“Since I don’t swim,” said Jimmie Frise, “I guess we had better order nothing but rowboats for the cottage. No canoes.”

“What?” I protested. “Break our backs sculling rowboats all over the lake? Nothing doing.”

“The older I get,” said Jim, “the less I feel like being dumped out of a canoe.”

“The older I get,” I retorted, “the less I feel like straining my heart heaving 200-pound rowboats around when I can get a sweet little stream-lined canoe that weighs only 65 pounds.”

“Most drownings,” said Jim, “are from canoes.”

“No, sir,” I stated emphatically. “Most drownings are because people leave canoes.”

“How do you mean?” demanded Jim.

“All canoes float,” I informed him. “Even upset canoes. Even canoes absolutely full of water. They float. They float even in a heavy sea. No matter what happens to an upset canoe, it is still one of the greatest life rafts in the world.”

“Then how do all the drownings occur?” demanded Jim.

“Because foolish and excited people try to swim to shore,” I explained, “instead of clinging to the canoe either until help comes or until they patiently kick the canoe to shore.”

“Suppose,” suggested Jimmie, “they get a cramp. Suppose they have just eaten a meal before they’re upset¹, or suppose the shock of the sudden dump gives them a cramp?”

“A canoe,” I advised, “can be completely emptied of water by an expert. But even a complete dub can half empty an upset and swamped canoe. It’s very simple to do. And then, if the slightest sign of cramps appears, all you have to do is crawl quickly into the canoe and lie there until the cramps disappear or until the canoe floats ashore.”

“It all sounds very expert woodsmanny to me,” submitted Jim.

“Look,” I explained. “The canoe upsets. You and I are in it. Instead of glaring wildly around to see how far from terra firma we are, the very first thing we do is grab the canoe and get a good, easy hold on it.”

“Yeah,” agreed Jim. “I can see me spouting water like a whale, gasping and yelling.”²

“All right,” I said. “Now, the canoe, being streamlined and light, it very easily rolled over, right side up, see?”

“I’ve got goose flesh all over me already,” said Jim.

“We roll the canoe over, right side up,” I described. “It is, of course, as full of water as a tub. So we both work our way along the sides, holding on firmly, until we are at the one end together. This causes the other end of the canoe to stick high up out of the water.”

“A distress signal,” agreed Jim. “Sticking up and calling for help.”

All So Very Simple

“Yes,” I admitted. “But now the two of us, hanging on to the one end together, bear down with our arms and at the same time kicking out with our legs, shove forward as hard as we can. This causes half the water to flow out towards us.”

“Swamping us,” said Jim.

“No,” I explained. “We relax our weight and shove, and the canoe rights itself, half emptied. Then we work our way around to opposite sides, about the middle of the canoe. And we start alternately rocking the canoe, causing the water to splash out heartily over the sides. Experts do it another way. They get it partly emptied and then crawl cautiously in over the end of the canoe, creep along to the middle, and resting their feet on one side and their hands on the opposite gunwale, give the canoe a sudden complete flip that empties it entirely. At all regattas, you can see expert canoe men upsetting a canoe and then emptying it by this flipping method.”

“I can’t see you and me flipping canoes,” gave Jim as his opinion.

“No,” I confessed. “But the way I have told you, the pressing down of one end and shoving forward and then the subsequent rocking of the canoe, with such flapping out of water by hand as you care to do, will sufficiently empty a canoe to make it safe to get in and paddle it cautiously to the nearest shore.”

“How do you get back in?” asked Jim.

“At opposite ends,” I explained. “First one crawls carefully in over the end while the other fellow, still in the water, balances it as best he can. And then the other fellow worms his way in the same style, the man who is in balancing it for him.”

“Suppose I’m in the canoe alone?” asked Jim.

“One man can do it almost as well,” I stated. “He can get enough water out to let him crawl in and get to shore.”

“Suppose I have lost my paddles? Should I have swum after them?” asked Jim.

“Never swim after your paddles,” I cried. “Try to grab one as you tip. But never, never swim after one. Use your hands to paddle to shore.”

“Yes, but suppose there is an offshore breeze?” said Jim.

“If there is an offshore breeze,” I informed him, “you shouldn’t have been out in a canoe, and in any case a canoe is not to be used on big lakes or wide, open waters. It is an inshore craft, a craft for rivers and small lakes and channels. Even the Indians never went on big water in two-man canoes. They had a great, big travelling or war canoes for venturing on wide water, and they’d hold six to 20 men.”

“I suppose Indians upset often enough,” said Jim.

“Did you ever see an Indian,” I demanded, “sitting the cane seats or thwarts of a canoe?³ Never. He rests his hips against the thwart but his knees are on the bottom of the canoe, and so is his weight. Only amateur white men sit up on the cane seats or thwarts.”

“I still like a rowboat,” mused Jim. “Suppose I forget to bring my canoe cushion? Do I have to kneel with my knee-bones on the hard bottom of the canoe?”

“All you’ve got to do,” I said, “is what the Indian does. Take your jackknife and cut a little bundle of balsam boughs or ferns and make a cushion for your knees. You don’t even have to carry that cushion across a portage. You just cut yourself a new one and a springier one at the far end of each portage.”

“I Hate Sudden Water”

“I still like a rowboat,” declared Jim. “A good wide, fat rowboat, preferably the stern seat, with an old kitchen chair, with its legs pulled out by roots, screwed down for a nice comfortable seat and back rest.”

“And who,” I inquired, “will be rowing?”

“I don’t like to mention any names,” said Jimmie.

“Jim,” I announced, “the greatest fears in this world are the fears of the unknown. Meeting a bear isn’t half as bad as thinking of meeting a bear. I declare that at every regatta in Canada there ought to be a canoe-dumping demonstration, and that every family that owns a canoe ought to hold a canoe-dumping exercise on their own beach, with plenty of help and advice handy, so that every member of the family who uses that canoe will have felt what it is like to be dumped and know what to do. On every canoe that is sold, there ought to be painted, right on the deck, in clear, strong letters, the words, ‘in case of upset, hang to the canoe. Do not try to swim to shore, however near.’ That is the greatest truth of all.”

“I’ll watch you, up at the cottage,” said Jim, “stage a dumping demonstration for me.”

“Better still,” I cried, “some hot night this week, when we feel like a swim anyway, instead of going to a public swimming pool and getting kicked all over by children, let’s go down to Sunnyside and rent a canoe, in our bathing suits, and go quietly out and stage a little dump ourselves.”

“I hate sudden water,” replied Jim. “I like my water inch by inch, I like to submerge a joint at a time, my ankles, my knees, then my hips, then my waist, and so on.”

“Jim,” I advised, “you’re not so old yet that you will never be in a canoe again. And I want you to know how it feels to be dumped. We’ll go down to Sunnyside and do it in shallow water. Just up to our necks.”

“Up to your neck,” said Jim, stung by my reference to his age, “and up to my waist.”

“It will be an interesting experiment,” I said. “As two sportsmen in our prime, we ought not to be afraid of any experiences that are likely to happen to us anyway.”

“We don’t want a lot of people looking on,” said Jim.

“We’ll slip down around supper time,” I suggested, “when there is nobody around, and we’ll pick a quiet spot.”

Jim thought it was just another of the suggestions I make and then forget. But Thursday was so hot and humid and the thought of immersion, however sudden and however cold, was so grateful to the imagination, that I went up and got Jimmie just as he was taking the thumb tacks out of a cartoon.

The Element of Surprise

At the Sunnyside bathing pavilion, we rented bathing suits from the gentleman, explaining what we were going to do and he let us take the bathing suits away with us. We rented a canoe, one of those dizzy little city sissy canoes that are rented to pillow cushion paddlers, and since it was tippier than ordinary camping canoes, it would make our experiment all the easier, both coming and going.

We left our clothes at the boathouse and set forth on the quiet lake, I steering. Far and wide, a drowsy evening hung. In the distance, a motor cruiser with a party on board was

drifting slowly.

“It’s certainly quiet enough,” said Jim, peering overside into the water. “But it’s pretty darn deep.”

“Now, now,” I said. “This isn’t going to hurt you. Just grab the sides when we go over.”

“Not yet, not yet!” cried Jim, agitated.

“There has to be an element of surprise,” I said, “to make it realistic.”

“Yeah,” said Jim, “I’ll be the only one surprised. Don’t you dare do it until I tell you, or I’ll come right back and duck you.”

“We’re both going to be ducked,” I smiled, teetering the dizzy canoe slightly.

“Wait, wait,” roared Jim. “I’m not in the mood. I feel a little cramp already. In my foot.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” I laughed, sinisterly.

“Look,” pleaded Jim, turning cautiously to fix me with his eye, “I don’t feel like dumping tonight. Let’s put it off. I’ve felt kind of dull and dopey all day. I’ve had a slight sore throat….”

“Are you ready?” I called sternly, laying my paddle inboard.

“Wait, wait,” bellowed Jim, grabbing the sides.

“One,” I said, “two, THREE!”

And on the word ‘three,’ amidst wild shouts from Jimmie, I rolled hard a-port, giving my weight to the gunwale, and despite Jim’s desperate bearing to the right, the canoe cheerfully sank its lip under the smooth water and with a series of terrific splashes, roars, spouts, gulps and yells, we capsized, and there was Jimmie clambering on to the far end, and I to the stern.

“I’ll,” gasped Jim, “I’ll get you for this!”

“Now,” I explained, very business-like, “first we roll her right side up.”

“Come on down to this end,” said Jim, grimly.

“Jim, forget it,” I commanded. “Let’s get on with the experiment. This is deep water we’re in.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” laughed Jim, sinisterly, in his turn.

I started around the side of the canoe when I became aware of a tremendous sound approaching. I could faintly hear the air filled with shouts and cries and the hum and thunder of engines. From behind I saw a great cloud of spray and a small nose bounding amidst the white smother. It was the sea flea.⁴

From the other direction, I made out the shape of the motor cruiser, a bone in its teeth, all the party aboard leaning far out, coming helter-skelter in our direction, with a man on the bow waving frantically and yelling encouragement. From nowhere at all, another small motor boat, with a lone sportsman in it, was boring in our direction.

“Look,” I called to Jim, “the whole thing is being spoiled.”

“You wait,” prophesied Jimmie malignantly.

The sea flea reached us first, and overshot the mark, coming around us in a terrific smother of spray and kicking up a swell five feet high.

The first swell smacked into the canoe and washed my hold loose. A second terrific swell, as the sea flea curved past again, ducked me deep under and filled me with terror of being out of sight in case the crazy machine’s propeller would hit me. I rose to the surface with a wild yell of warning, only to see the bow of the cruiser, in a welter of foam, just over my head.

“Get away, get away,” I bellowed, waving.

But everybody was helping. The cruiser’s bowman heaved a big round life-preserver that narrowly missed my head. The sea flea addict was still furiously charging in short curves, this way and that, trying to get in close enough to cut my head off. The third motor boat had run its nose fair into the middle of the muddle. And Jimmie, who had been astraddle the canoe, now slid off the end of it and stood pleasantly up to his neck on solid bottom, still wearing on his face an expression of the uttermost malignance.

“It’s over my head,” I roared.

“Hold hard to the canoe,” he yelled.

“I’ve got it,” I spluttered, as another of the storm of swells of all our rescuers engulfed me.

“Good,” yelled Jim, and gave the canoe such a twist that what hold I had on it was wrenched from my grasp, and deep down I went.

It was, however, Jimmie, aided by several willing and friendly hands from the deck of the cruiser and the small boat and the sea flea, who finally dragged me in three various directions into safety.

“We heard your cries, fortunately,” gasped the captain of the cruiser. And everybody was filled with tenderness and care for us and threw blankets around us and pounded us on the back, and several of the ladies thought we should be sat upon and resuscitated by their gentlemen friends.

“If we hadn’t heard your cries for help,” said the fellow who had flung the 30-pound life preserver at my head, “you’d be goners by now.”

“It was my friend,” I stated, “who did the shouting. We have him to thank.”

“If I hadn’t been looking in your direction,” said the sea flea addict, who had climbed, life jacket and all into the social atmosphere of the cruiser’s cockpit, “I’d never have seen you go over, you went over that easy. Ah, a canoe is a wicked craft.”

“No doubt you are quite right,” I informed him stiffly, and glancing overside at the absurd animated shingle he rides on.

“Gentlemen,” said the captain of the cruiser, who had the word captain embroidered in gold on his cap, “we’ll tow your canoe ashore. But I might recommend to you both as an old hand on water, that unless you are familiar with canoes, you should never risk your lives in them.”

“Thank you,” I assured him. “Again, thank you.”

“George,” said the lady who appeared to be the real captain of the cruiser, “I don’t believe the little one realizes how near disaster he came.”

She was quite better-class about the whole thing.

But they took us both ashore in the cruiser and towed the canoe behind, and we paid the canoe owner 50 cents, and got dressed in the boathouse and went for a hot-dog and other amusements of Sunnyside, not talking about canoes at all.

---

Editor’s Notes: This story was repeated on July 1, 1944 as “In the Drink”.

1. This is the old myth that you should wait 30-60 minutes after eating before going in the water. Apparently it originated in an old Scout handbook. ↩︎
2. Of course, nowadays, the best advice it to wear a properly fitting life jacket. ↩︎
3. The cane seats are the mesh seats in a canoe. The thwarts are structural crossbars that prevent the hull from warping. ↩︎
4. The Sea Flea is a small homemade motor boat popularized in Muskoka. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, June 19, 1937.

“How’d you like,” asked Jimmie Frise, “to come up to Andy’s with me to-night?”

“Aw, Jim,” I said, “you go. But I don’t get along with Andy, you know that. He wants to talk about strikes.”

“I’ve got to go,” said Jim. “And I said I’d bring you.”

“Aw,” I said. “Who wants to spend a whole evening talking about subversive elements?”

“You’ve never been in his home,” pointed out Jimmie. “He has a glass gun case with more swell guns in it than you’ll ever see in your life. Pairs of English guns worth a thousand dollars. And over-and-under Belgian guns.”

“He’s a rich guy,” I protested. “And all he wants to do is get a couple of poor birds at his mercy and talk about Communists.”

“He’s very interested in you,” stated Jim. “He thinks you have the makings of a serious writer if you’d only meet the right people and get some sound ideas.”

“Now I won’t go,” I assured him. “I’ve got along all right so far without any sound ideas and I don’t intend to start at my age.”

“If you would only chum up with some of the important people,” declared Jim, “you might get somewhere. Instead of spending your life with any old tramp so long as he is a fisherman…”

“Jim,” I protested, “I won’t have you calling yourself a tramp. Not in my presence, anyway. You may be only a cartoonist, but if you had mingled with the right people and got some sound ideas, you might easily have been great artist.”

“Now don’t get sarcastic,” said Jim. “Andy has been telephoning me now for about six months, inviting me up to his place. I’ve been ducking and dodging but yesterday he got me and said ‘All right, what night can you come?’ And there he had me.”

“I wish people would stick to a certain night when they invite you,” I agreed. “Then you can say you have an engagement for that night. But this business of saying ‘what night will you come?’ is a lousy trick.”

“It sure is,” said Jim. “And that’s where we stand. I said I’d go to-night.”

“Well, Jim,” I said happily, “tell Andy I’m sorry I had an engagement for to-night.”

“Andy’s a good guy, even if he is rich,” said Jim. “I wish you’d get to know him better. He could be a lot of use to you.”

“I don’t want any friends to be of use to me,” I informed him. “I think that is the trouble with Andy. I have the feeling the only people he wants to know are ones that will be of use to him. He probably has the feeling that he owes it to society to get to know some newspapermen and fill them up with his ideas about Communists and things.”

“He’s got some swell English guns,” said Jim.

“Puh,” said I.

“He’s got one of the most interesting sporting libraries in Canada,” pursued Jim.

“Puh,” I repeated.

“Just lately,” said Jim, “he got a shipment of old books from a sale in England and in it is a copy of the second edition of the Compleat Angler¹.”

The Rare Edition

“Oh, yeah?” I laughed. “Second edition, eh? Do you know how much Andy would have to pay for that?”

“He told me he paid a hundred and ten pounds,” said Jim, quietly. “Five hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Jim,” I said after a moment, “you’re not fooling, are you?”

“I’m just telling you what Andy told me,” said Jim. “Second edition. Is that rare?”

“Rare?” I shouted. “Rare? Second edition of the Compleat Angler, you dummy? Why, Walton rewrote the book entirely for the second edition, and it’s a duodecimo, with ten engraved plates of fish, and there are original sheets of the Angler’s Song, and it’s rarer than the first edition… Jimmie, maybe Walton actually handled this copy, himself, at the printers…”

“Well, if you think so much of it,” said Jim; “why don’t you come up and see it?”

“Come up and see it?” I cried. “Who can stop me? Good old Andy. Now, there’s a true Canadian for you. Using his wealth to obtain for Canada some of the worth-while treasures.”

“I’ll let him know you are coming,” said Jim cheerfully.

And I went home early to spend a little while looking at my poor half-dozen editions of Walton, none of them worth ten dollars or dating farther than 1823, but very friendly in the hand, none the less. By merely touching these noble old books, I prepared my mood for the great honor I was to be accorded in holding in my very hands a copy of the Second Edition.

Jimmie picked me up early to drive to Andy’s, who lives in one of those fashionable neighborhoods above Eglinton Ave. on the fringe of the country.

We drove through districts that had not even been districts the last time I was up this way, depression or no depression. Through handsome streets of spacious homes set sideways to the street instead of endways, which was the old-fashioned and more economical method.

“Here’s Andy’s,” said Jim, slowing and eyeing a fine colonial red brick home with green shutters, the kind that are never shut. “Last time I was here, there were no houses on either side.”

“This city is sure growing,” I confessed.

We parked and strolled up the walk. “Andy said,” remarked Jim, “that he had to drive his wife over to Yonge St. and everybody’s out, so just walk in.”

“Let’s sit on the veranda,” I offered; “I don’t care about walking into people’s homes.”

“Don’t be lower class,” laughed Jim, trying the front door. “Be modern. Be smart. Walk right in.”

However, the door was locked.

“I didn’t think Andy was the kind to leave any doors open,” I said.

“He said walk right in,” said Jim, “and make ourselves at home. I guess it’s the side door.”

We went around the side drive into Andy’s very handsome garden. Jim tried the side door and a small back door that led into a sort of basement recreation room, by the look of it.

“H’m,” said Jim, they being all securely locked.

So we sat on a bench and watched the gentleman next door bent over his flower bed, weeding and forking.

“They’re After Us”

I recited in a low voice for Jimmie some of the lovelier passages of Walton, the one beginning “nevertheless, here I must part with you; here in this now sad place, where I was so happy as first to meet you.” And I gave him the famous passage “and we having still a mile to Tottenham High-Cross, I will, as we walk towards it in the cool shade of this sweet honeysuckle hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts and joys that have possessed…”

But you know Walton. Anyway, a little time passed and Jim got up and walked out the drive to look for Andy.

“You might as well be inside, looking at that old book,” said Jim, “as moaning about it out here.”

He tried the side and little back doors again, and then pushed at a casement window in the cellar room. It gave.

“Ah,” said Jim, “I’ll crawl through and open the door for you.”

“Ah,” said I, rising, for my hands were aching for that old book, and I went and stood at the side door, while Jim vanished through the window.

I heard a dreadful shriek. I heard Jim’s voice loudly speaking. I heard the thud of steps and Jim burst out the door.

“What the…” I demanded.

“An old lady,” said Jim breathlessly. “An old lady. She nearly scared me to death.”

“Well, tell her who you are,” I commanded. “I tried to tell her Andy said to walk in,” said Jim. “But she just let out a shriek and ran down the hall. Just a minute.”

Jim hurried to the edge and called across to the gentleman gardening next door. “Pardon me, sir,” said Jim, “but this is where Mr. Andy Daleberry lives, isn’t it?”

“No,” said the gentleman, “Mr. Daleberry lives one block further….”

But I was already half way down the drive heading for the car. Jim hastened after me.

“Jim,” I snarled, “she’s likely called the police.”

“We can explain,” said Jim, hurriedly starting the engine.

“I’m sick and tired of explaining.” I declared.

I glanced back and saw a small dark car come curving wildly around the corner at the end of the street.

“There’s the police radio car now,” I cried. “Stay still! Explain!”

But Jim had the car slightly in motion at that instant, and such is the ancient fear in the human heart, the first instinct is always to run. And with a rush and a roar, Jim leaped his car into high.

“I’ll shake them in a couple of blocks,” gasped Jim. “They’ll have to stop at the house for a second….”

“Jim, this is a mistake,” I groaned.

“Watch me,” said Jim tensely.

And he slewed around a corner, raced a block, turned another corner, and twisting and doubling back he made his way southward through handsome streets towards Eglinton Ave., that great east and west artery across the top of the city.

I sat facing back, watching anxiously for the police car. I saw it speed past one intersection just as we vanished around the turn, a full block south.

“Jim,” I cried, “they’re after us. What’ll we say now, if they catch us?”

“They’ll not catch us,” muttered Jim. “Here’s Eglinton. We’ll lose ourselves quietly in the traffic.”

But the traffic was thicker, this fine June evening, than could be easily entered. And it was somewhat congested, right at the foot of the block we approached it by, due to the fact that two or three dozen of those marathon runners, in their shorts and jerseys, were at that very moment strung along, running with chins high and arms bent up, westward along the highway.

“Quick,” hissed Jim, starting to tear off his coat.

“What?” I begged.

“Take off your clothes,” yelled Jim, already removing his shirt. “The cops’ll be around that last corner in a jiffy. They can’t miss this car. Quick.”

“What?” I repeated.

“We’re runners, see?” cried Jim.

It was only a couple of sweeps and a swipe for me to remove my clothes.

“Stuff them in the compartment behind the seat,” Jim ordered.

We jammed our clothes out of sight.

“Come on,” snapped he, opening the car door and crouching. “Allright, now head up, arms bent high. Let’s go!”

And ducking around two or three cars waiting to turn into Eglinton Ave., Jim and I sprinted out and joined the parade of marathon runners. Fortunately, they were strung out, in groups and pairs and singles, and Jim and I, neck and neck, formed only one unit in the long and straggling parade.

“How, far,” I puffed, “do we go.”

“We’ll have to go,” puffed Jim “all the way home.”

“But Jim,” I panted, “we can’t run five miles.”

“Take it easy,” said Jim. “We don’t have to win this race. All we got to do is keep in it.”

“Jim,” I gasped, “we’ll have to rest pretty soon.”

“Can’t rest,” whuffed Jim. “In these underclothes. Long as we are running it’s proper. Once we stop it’s indecent.”

“Oooooh,” I said, slackening.

So we slackened, and runner after runner went by us, with long, easy legs, many of them turning a brief surprised glance at us as they passed.

Slower and slower our feet went, as we passed Dufferin St. and saw ahead in the sunset the towering tops of the packing houses; and our socks worked down over our shoes and our eyes bulged and our lungs ached I but we slowly and methodically lifted them and put them down, while at length no more runners passed us in the growing twilight, and the lights came on and still down past the packing houses we panted and plodded.

A couple of curious motor cars slowed and followed us short distances. Some car horns were tooted at us. A few groups of young summer people on street corners hailed us with modernistic cheers. Several small dogs yipped at our heels. But by now we could cut down the quieter streets and the streets we knew as nigh unto home. And with a last leaden terrible quarter mile, we came down a lane and into Jim’s yard and there we fell.

“Got to get inside,” said Jim, sitting up and gulping air. “Phone police.”

“What for?” I gasped.

But Jim staggered up and, much as I loved that soft green sod, I followed him. He sat by the phone a couple of minutes until his breath grew more normal. And then he dialled the phone.

“Police?” said Jim, angrily. “Say, my car has been stolen from in front of my house. Frise is the name.”

And he gave his address and there was some waiting until they switched him to another police station.

“Yes,” Jim shouted hotly. “Stolen from right in front here.”

Pause.

“You’ve been phoning me? Here? Oh,” said Jim, “I’ve been out in the garden watering. I guess I couldn’t hear the phone for the hose. You’ve got the car? Good! Splendid! Where is it? On Eglinton, eh? Is it damaged?”

Another pause.

“Clothes?” cried Jim. “Behind the back seat? Oh, those are our fishing clothes. Sure. My friend and I always keep a suit of old clothes in the car for going fishing.”

“Now that’s kind of you,” said Jim.

He hung up.

“They’re bringing the car here,” said Jim. “Beat it home and get some clothes on.”

Which I did, and when the police arrived, Jim and I were sitting on his veranda and I was reciting some more swell bits out of Walton, the one about “the salmon is accounted the King of freshwater fish; and is ever bred in rivers relating to the sea.”

And we thanked the police most warmly for the way they look after stodgy old booklovers like us.

---

Editor’s Notes: This story was repeated on June 10, 1944 as “Hoofing It”. It appeared in the book Greg Clark & Jimmie Frise Go Fishing (1980).

1. The Compleat Angler is a book by Izaak Walton, first published in 1653. It is a celebration, in prose and verse, of the art and spirit of fishing. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, illustrated by James Frise, June 17, 1933.

“Nothing,” said Jimmie Frise, “demonstrates the general stupidity of mankind like hitch hiking.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, every hitch hiker goes through the same motions. They even use the same thumb. They thumb with the same gesture. They stand the same way, look the same way, all have the same expressions on their faces. You take a thousand different men, all ages, sizes and shapes, and set them along the side of a road, and instantly, they become as alike as posts in a fence.”

“That’s true,” I admitted.

“The nature of man,” said Jim,” “is to be as alike as dandelions. But the way man has got anywhere has been by being different. Why don’t hitch hikers realize that the way to attract notice and get a lift is by being different?”

“I guess there isn’t much difference possible,” I suggested.

“I bet,” said Jim, “I could get a lift from here to Montreal in less time than it would take me to drive myself.”

“You would make a poor hitch hiker,” I said. “If the first fellow picked you up was going to North Bay and you wanted to go to Buffalo, you’d go to North Bay with him just to be agreeable.”

“No, I’ve got a great idea,” said Jim. “I have a contribution to make to the hitch hiking public, and if you haven’t anything better to do this afternoon, we could investigate the hitchery business.”

“It’s all work,” I said, reaching for my hat.

“Just a minute,” said Jim, setting to work at his drawing board. He took two large sheets of heavy drawing paper, and in bold black printed letters, six inches high, he wrote:

“Give us a lift to Prescott¹.”

“Now,” said Jim, “we take a string, and we fasten these two notices on our backs.”

“Great!”

“And we just get out on the highway, walk right down in the middle of traffic, heading east. Everybody coming from behind sees these signs. It won’t be long until somebody comes along who is going to Prescott. He will see the sign, and instantly, his reaction will be to take us with him. The average driver is not inclined to pick up hitch hikers, because they may be only going to the next village, or a couple of miles down the road. A driver headed for distant parts hates to waste the time stopping to pick up short haul passengers, whereas, if he knows we are going to the same place he is headed, he will be immediately interested in us.”

“By George, Jimmie, I think you have hit on a wonderful idea. It will revolutionize hitch hiking.”

We took our two big signs and got Jim’s car and drove out the highway well beyond the city limits, and then parked at a gas station we know.

“We’ll be back in an hour or two,” said Jim to the gas man.

“Aren’t we going to Prescott?” I asked.

“No, no,” said Jim. “This is an experiment. My idea is that we should see how many times we can get picked up for Prescott between here and Whitby.”

“Won’t the people be sore at us for stopping them?”

“We’ll explain it to them.”

Cars were snoring eastward as we stepped out on the pavement and side by side walked off, our signs staring boldly back at the oncoming traffic.

Fifteen cars went by, and in every case, the cars slowed up while passengers turned and stared back at us.

“We are certainly attracting attention,” I said.

“Sixteen, seventeen,” said Jim. “I’m counting the cars.”

Eighteen came roaring from behind and just as it swept past us, we heard the brakes go on and the big sedan slowed to a stop on the side of the road ahead.

“We’ll take a little ride with him,” said Jimmie. “To get his reactions.”

We ran ahead to the car and the driver, who was alone opened the door with a grin.

“That’s a new idea, boys,” he cried. “And a swell one.”

“Going to Prescott?” asked Jim.

“Through Prescott,” said the driver, who was a small, weasel faced man with glittering eyes. “Do either of you drive a car?”

“We can both drive,” we said.

“This is swell,” said the weasely man.

“You boys might give me a rest by taking the wheel for a spell after we get going.”

“Sure,” said Jim, who loves to drive other people’s cars.

“Hop in,” said the driver.

We hopped in the front seat with him.

He slammed the gears and the big car leaped away.

“What are you boys going to do in Prescott?” asked the stranger.

“As a matter of fact,” said Jim, “we aren’t going to Prescott at all. We are a couple of newspaper men and we are experimenting with this hitch hiking business. We are introducing some new ideas.”

The stranger looked sideways at us.

“Newspaper boys, eh?” he said. “H’m, h’m!”

He put on more speed.

“How far were you figuring on going?” he asked.

“We thought we would see how many lifts we could interest between here and Oshawa or some place.”

The big car started to slow, but instead of taking to the side of the road to let us out, it turned down a side road towards the lake, and as soon as we were out of sight of the highway, the weasely man stopped it, slid quickly and smoothly out of the driver’s seat and when Jim and I looked out at him, he was holding something in his coat pocket. And pointing it in at us!

“I Got a Gun Here”

“Boys,” said the little man, “you are going for a little longer ride than you intended. I got a gun here. I’m getting in the back seat. You two are going to take turns driving me until I get ready to kick you out.”

“Just a minute,” said Jim. But I slid smartly into the driver’s seat.

“That’s right,” said the little man, opening the rear door and hopping nimbly in. “Now no fooling. We are not going through any towns. We are going around all of them. I know the side roads. When I tell you to turn, you turn, get me?”

“Yes, sir,” said I.

“Just a minute,” said Jim.

But the small man tapped him on the back in some way that caused Jim to sit up very straight in the car and close his mouth tightly.

“Now, start her,” said the little man, “and we’ll go down here and around Whitby, see?”

We jogged around the country road, making a detour past both Whitby and Oshawa.

Then we regained the highway and headed east.

“Make it fifty,” said the little man in the back seat.

I made it fifty.

He sat hunched forward, and kept peering in the reverse mirror over my head. Whenever cars overtook us, the little man crouched down in the seat until they were past. He detoured us around Bowmanville, even around the little gas station towns along the highway.

“Slow up,” he commanded sharply. Ahead we could see a brown uniformed man on a motorcycle. “Go around him.”

We took to the country roads again and went right around a township to avoid the motorcycle cop.

Port Hope, Cobourg, Grafton were neatly circled, the towns and villages ticking by as the big car snored on. Jim sat rigid beside me, never opening his mouth. The little man in the rear had nothing to say beyond giving me directions.

“Prescott,” he said, softly. “Give us a lift to Prescott, heh, heh, heh!”

“This is a good joke on us,” I laughed.

“Shut up.” said the little man.

I attended to my driving.

“Anyway-” I said.

“Shut up,” repeated the little man.

He was half standing up staring in the reverse mirror. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see another big car overtaking us.

“Put her up to sixty,” said the little man.

I put her up. It was a good car.

The car continued to crawl nearer.

“Step on it,” said the little man.

“We’re coming to a town,” I called.

“Shut up,” said the little man.

I reached out with my foot and shoved down. The car seemed to lift.

We went through a town that was just a blur of red gas tanks and white shop fronts.

I heard the car behind sounding its horn in a long, steady blast, faint over the sound of the racing engine.

Then the little man placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Easy now,” he said. “We are coming to a bush. As we come into it, I want you to slow her down. Take the left side of the road and make these guys come up on our right side. Easy now.”

The woods swept up to us. I slowed the car, veering to the left of the road, and the car behind rushed alongside of us. I caught a glimpse of men waving and shouting in it, and at the same time felt the draft as the left-hand door opened, and the little man took a flying leap. Just as I slowed to a stop, he vanished like a rabbit into the brush.

In an instant we were being boarded by big angry men who put handcuffs on Jim and me and locked us together.

“Well, hitch hiker?” I sneered at Jimmie.

“Where’s your partner?” asked one of the big fellows.

But already three of them were shouting off into the bush.

Jim and I were sat down on the roadside.

“What’s the idea of them signs?” asked our new boss, examining our backs.

“We’re a couple of hitch hikers and this bird picked us up,” said Jim. “Then he pulled a gun on us and made us drive.”

“That’s a good story,” said the boss.

“As a matter of fact,” I said, “we are not hitch hikers at all. We are a couple of newspapermen out getting a story about hitch hiking.”

“Yeah? Why don’t you think up a story that both of you can be stuck with?” asked the boss, taking out a cigar.

“We can prove it,” said I.

“Well, maybe so. But I can prove you were driving a stolen car.”

“Do you think your friends will catch that little guy?” I asked anxiously.

“You’ll do, even if they don’t catch him,” said the boss.

Presently, the three other men came out of the woods bringing the little weasely man with them.

“Here,” I commanded, as they brought him close, “tell these gentlemen to turn us loose! Tell them you picked us up on the highway.”

“What are giving us?” cried the little man in astonishment. “I tell you, gentlemen, these two men picked me up outside of Oshawa where I signalled them for a lift. When I saw by their actions and their conversation that they were crooks, I naturally jumped out of the car when it slowed, and tried to hide on you. Just human instinct.”

“He had a gun.” I yelled.

“Nonsense,” said the little man, angrily. “If I’d had a gun I would have forced them to stop, wouldn’t I?”

He looked the picture of outraged innocence.

“These birds,” said the big man who had stayed with Jim and me, “say they are hitch hikers. Then they say they are newspaper guys. Now, gents, just reach in and show us some identification.”

Jim reached into his pocket and felt around. The first thing he found was his little pass to the race track, a sort of little round book on a string.

“Here you are,” he said.

The cop took the pass and read the name on it.

“Lou Marsh²!” he read, staring at Jim.

“Wait a minute,” cried Jim. “I borrowed Lou’s pass.”

“Oh, you borrowed it, huh!”

They put another set of handcuffs on Jimmie and pushed us into the stolen car.

“This is Clark and I’m Frise,” shouted Jim, as we were being bundled in. “We can prove it.”

“Never heard of you,” said the boss cop. “Get in and tell it to the judge.”

“Can I go now?” asked the weasely little man in an injured voice. “I got to be in Prescott to see my old mother who is dying. I’m just a poor man hitch hiking my way home to see my old mother.”

“Do we need this guy?” the cops asked each other, sympathetically.

“Bring him along just as evidence against these two,” they decided.

It was supper time, so we stopped in Grafton for sandwiches. The cops brought them out to us in the car.

Jim always makes sketches in villages for use in Birdseye Center. He took the card off my back and with his handcuffs on, made a few sketches on the back of it.

The cop sitting in with us sat up and watched. He called the others over.

“What did you say your name was?” asked the boss.

“Frise,” said Jim.

“Oh, I thought you pronounced that Freeze,” said the boss³. “I didn’t get you at first. Wait a minute till I take off them bracelets so you can draw better.”

He unlocked the cuffs.

“Draw him,” said the boss, referring to one of his large colleagues. “Make him look like Pigskin Peters in that derby.”

There we were parked on the roadside, with several of the villagers coming and looking in the windows.

“Draw old Archie,” said another of the cops.

And that was the way Jimmie drew us out of the jam.

“You say this little bird here picked you two up in this car?” asked the boss.

“He did,” we said.

The little weasely man knew when he was cooked. He had art, but it wasn’t as good as Jimmie’s.

“Oh, all right,” he said. They took the handcuffs off me and put them on him.

So they drove us home to Toronto, and on the way, I took the sign off Jim’s back, turned it over and printed on it:

“Give us a lift to TORONTO.”

---

Editor’s Notes: This story was repeated on June 22, 1940 as “Sign Language”.

1. Prescott Ontario is about 350 km east of Toronto. ↩︎
2. Lou Marsh was the Sports Editor of the Toronto Star in 1933. Since he died in 1936, they had to change the name to Andy Lytle for the 1940 reprint. ↩︎
3. I make the note on the website that it is pronounced “fries”. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, June 6, 1942.

“Hey, look,” interrupted Jimmie Frise, “your gas gauge shows empty!”

“Aw, that,” I said. “I fixed it so it always shows empty. It keeps me worried all the time about how little gas I have. And, besides, it’s a useful dodge for your friends. You can always show your friends that you haven’t any gas, in case they suggest you drive them places.”

“It’s very good of you to drive me,” said Jim humbly.

“It isn’t my gas I’m wasting on you,” I informed him. “It’s my tires. There are 20 miles in a gallon of gas, and that worries us terribly. But there are only 15,000 miles in a tire, with luck. But that doesn’t worry us at all. Yet every mile you roll a tire, you are one mile nearer the end of your driving days.”

“Of course, we can all live in hope of the war being over,” mused Jimmie, “before our tires give out.”

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” I quoted.

“And some day,” sighed Jimmie, “the war will be over. All things come to an end.”

“And I wonder where the peace conference will be held,” I idled. “London, Berlin, Washington, Tokyo or Moscow?”

“Maybe in Ottawa,” suggested Jim. “Or maybe in Rio de de Janeiro. There is a lot of war ahead of us yet.”

“And doubtless a lot of surprises,” I said. “The surprises, with the exception of Russia, have mostly been against us. According to the law of averages we ought to be getting a few pleasant surprises any day now.”

“We sure can take it,” declared Jim. “Think of this time just two years ago. Let’s see: Dunkirk was just over. The whirlwind in France was coming to an end. The last of the British army was being rescued from Belgium. We were holding our breath the way we hold it when we watch our house burn down.”

“What immense changes,” I added, “have come over us all since that day! Think of how we felt about the United States then. And how we thought about Russia. Think how alone we felt then. Think how great a company we feel today. Yet not only are the people with us utterly, completely different from what we thought they were two years ago, but we ourselves are different. Not one of us is the same person he was two years ago. The only thing that is not changed is the mere skin which contains us.”

“I don’t know who I feel sorrier for in this war,” said Jimmie, “the young people or the old people. I feel sorry for the young men and women because their lives are interrupted, broken, altered, sometimes shattered, by the war. Yet the young ones at least have the thrill, the adventure.”

“And the pain and the death,” I reminded.

“Everything Taken From Us”

“But the middle-aged and old people,” went on Jim, “have the uprooting, the surrender, the change, the loss, the sense of guilt. It was our generation that stood by while the world slowly toppled into hell.”

“It is the young ones I feel sorry for,” I asserted. “Think of the lovers parted. Think of the young years wasted in hard, stupid soldiering…”

“Aw, rats,” cried Jimmie. “Do you realize that there are tens of thousands of young Canadian boys today flying airplanes? And not one of them would likely ever have been in an airplane, let alone flying one, if it hadn’t been for war?”

“Are you in favor of war?” I demanded hotly.

“Certainly not,” replied Jim, “but I am not being stupid. I am looking at what can be said in favor of things as they are. For all except the favored few, in this world, life is a pretty drab adventure. During a man’s early twenties he has a little fun, a little romance, a little adventure. He falls in love. He gets his job and starts the battle of working up. But soon he has to settle down to the humdrum round of life, the job no longer exciting, the sodden round of days, up in the morning, off to work, back home to bed.”

“Let me tell you, sir,” I informed him, “that very thing is what we are fighting so fiercely now to re-establish!”

“What chance,” continued Jim, “has the average young man of having any fun in life, normally? Only the crafty, the smart, the shrewd, the foxy get any fun in peacetime. The plain, everyday guy is a cog in somebody else’s wheel before he is thirty, as a rule. But along comes war. And every man can be a man. No more does the manly guy have to make way for the foxy guy. No more does the young kid from the sticks have to live little more excitingly than the cows in his pasture. No sir: the foxy guys, the crafty, the shrewd, the wise, find themselves in an awful hole. It is men who are wanted. And men get their innings.”

“What terrible nonsense,” I interrupted.

“So, with nothing but their manhood,” climaxed Jim, “the men of the nation get their innings. They become soldiers, airmen, sailors, fighters. They go forth to see the world. They journey thousands of miles. They mix with their fellow men, and while the foxy guys still have the edge on them in the early stages, the nearer they get to the fight, the less they are troubled or gypped by the wise guys. Until at last, in battle, they are men. They get their promotions, their decorations. They rate as men among men, not as foxes among foxes. If peace had continued throughout their lives, they would have barely lived at all, except as men in a world in which manhood is one of the minor qualifications.”

“You’re a Socialist,” I accused.

“But I feel sorry,” said Jim, without much sorrow,” for all us middle-aged and elderly birds. Everything is being taken from us, our property, our privileges, all the things we have worked so hard to gather around us and snuggle down into. We are like owls, whose nest has been discovered and the tree cut down. In daylight.”

A Flustered Set of Owls

“We weren’t such a bad generation,” I said. “We had our good points.”

“But we’re a pretty flustered lot of owls, right now,” said Jim. “Is there anything more like an owl disturbed in sunlight than one of us who has all his life been contemptuous of the Yankees and hated the Russians trying to reorganize his life-long beliefs? We flop from branch to branch, trying to get a comfortable grip. And we blink so.”

“You’re not really sorry for us older people at all,” I stated. “You are making fun of us.”

“Well, there is one member of the younger generation I feel sorry for,” said Jim, indicating a young air force man who was standing beside a dilapidated old motor car on the far side of the stop-street intersection where I had pulled up.

“He’s in a dither,” I admitted. The young chap was tall and fair-haired. In his cap was the little white stripe, the badge of distinction, which means he is in training for air crew – that, is, to become a pilot, navigator, observer or bomb aimer.

He was standing beside the car, clutching his cap in his hand. And he seemed to be talking to himself. His face was flushed, his hair rumpled, his eyes wild and he was glaring excitedly up street and down the street and turning to look in the car window at the dashboard.

I drove across the intersection and slowed as we passed him.

“Oh, oh, oh,” he moaned as we passed. “Oh, OH, oh!”

Jim opened the car door and stepped out.

“Hey, young man,” said Jim, “what’s up?”

“Oh, oh, OH,” was all the boy could say.

“Here, snap out of it,” said Jim, taking the boy’s sleeve. “What’s the matter.”

“It’s two,” said the brindle-haired boy, in a dazed way,” it’s two minutes to three!”

He raised his wrist and looked at his watch as if it were a rattlesnake.

“Okay,” said Jim. “What’s the matter. It can’t be this bad. Can we help?”

“Married,” said the boy, swallowing. He had one of those large Adam’s apples like a knee cap in his neck, which clunked up and down conspicuously above his air force collar.

“Indeed,” said Jim. “When?”

“Three o’clock,” said the boy. “No gas.”

“Well, hop in” shouted Jimmie, grabbing the boy’s elbow. “Here, hop in! Where to?”

“My best man, my best man,” moaned the young airman, resisting and drawing back. “He’s gone for gas.”

I jumped out of the car and went around the other side of the boy so as to lend Jimmie a hand.

“Come on,” I commanded. “Step lively.”

“Oh, oh, OH,” said the young fellow, fighting us free. “Wait a minute. My best man. He went away 20 minutes ago to get gas at the nearest gas station. He’ll…”

Three o’clock,” I announced firmly, showing my watch. “Do you want the girl or don’t you?”

“My best MAN,” shouted the young fellow fiercely. “How do I…”

“We’ll serve as your best man, kid,” I shouted back, trying to bring order into his chaotic mind.

“We ran out of GAS,” he bellowed back at me, clinging to the car door handle to resist our pulls and pushes. “Of all the silly, bloody things. It’s 3 o’clock. She’ll…”

“Where’s the wedding?” I demanded quietly, to appease, the frantic frame of mind

of the poor boy.

“The church,” he said. “The… the big church….on Bloor St. You know the church? It has a steeple.”

“Look,” I soothed. “Hop in our car. Your best man has met some difficulty. Maybe he can’t get gas. Has he got a permit?”

“I gave him mine,” said the boy, biting his lip to pull himself together quietly… “He should have been back in five minutes. We had plenty of time, even as it was. But he hasn’t come back. He hasn’t come BACK. And here I am sitting, watching my watch…”

“Hop to it, lad,” said Jim, firmly taking the boy’s elbow. “Pull yourself together. Never mind your best man. Let’s get to the church.”

“Okay,” said the young man heavily. And he swung into the back seat of the car. And in a swipe, I had her in motion and we were down the street, heading for Bloor.

“Which church?” I inquired again. “The big gray one? On the south side?”

“That’s it,” said the groom. “My best man knows all about it. He was there this morning and last night both, for the rehearsals.”

“Weren’t you?” I demanded.

“I couldn’t get out until noon,” said the boy, exhausted. “I left my leave as late as possible so as to have more time for the honeymoon. So, Bill – that’s my best man – attended to all the details.”

“Listen, son,” I reassured him, “this is all as easy as pie. It’s only five minutes past. Everything will be waiting. The minister will in the vestry. Your bride will be out in the car, in front, waiting for your arrival the signal to enter, on her father’s arm. These church weddings are pie. All that’s going on now is, they are playing the organ a little longer, the guests are having a little longer to sit and look at each other’s hats, and the only guy that is at all excited is your best man, wherever he is…”

“I can’t understand what happened to him,” grated the young flier, who was appreciably calmed now by our soothing talk and the fact that he was en route.

“Two blocks to go,” I cried cheerily.

“And this way,” said Jimmie, “it will be all over quicker.”

I could see, far ahead, the throng of cars in front of the church, the usual gathering of spectators around the steps and pavement in front of the church. We drove to a space left in front of the vestry, and even as the policeman strolled towards us, we all three were out of the car and up the sidewalk to the vestry and in the door.

All was silent.

The vestry was deserted.

I tip-toed over and pushed the swinging green baize doors that led into the church, to peek in the crack.

The sight that met my eyes froze me with horror.

There, in the packed church, the gowned clergyman was in the very act of handing the ring to the bridegroom, with the bride standing there and the best man and all. And the groom was an airman.

It all came to me in a flash.

The best man was perfidiously marrying the bride for himself!

“Quick,” I hissed, beckoning the groom and Jimmie towards me. “Quick!”

“Wha… wha…” said the groom, relapsing into his terror again.

“There’s your best man,” I hissed, “marrying your girl!”

In the Wrong Church

The groom peeked through the crack. He kicked the green baize doors apart. At the very instant the ring was about to be placed on the bride’s finger, he kicked those doors wide open with a great bang and strode into the church.

Jim and I stood transfixed. Talk about romance! Talk about excitement. Oh, to be young once more.

The groom took five terrific paces forward in front of a paralyzed church, minister, bride, and all.

Then he halted. Then he executed the perfect Manning Pool about turn, in the best precision drill style.

And towards us he marched back, his heels ringing on the stone floor.

“Wrong church,” he said, as he passed us.

Wham went the green baize doors. Out the vestry we went, helter skelter, just as the cop was starting to take down our car license number on his nasty little one dollar pad.

Into the car we bounced.

“Hey,” said the cop.

“Wrong church,” I said to him, stepping on starter.

“Oh,” said the cop.

We raced west three blocks.

“Will this be it?” I cried over my shoulder.

“Hey, yes, whoa, wait,” yelled the boy, half opening the door. “There’s my bride, just the way you said, in the car with her father.”

“In the side door,” I yelled, as he streaked across the street heading straight for his bride.

“Okay,” he shouted back, turning to point. “My best man.”

And coming out the vestry door was another airman, as red and tousled and flustered as the groom, waving his arms and gesticulating.

“All’s well that ends well,” sighed Jimmie.

And we blocked traffic for a couple of minutes as we sat and watched the groom and the best man pull themselves together on the vestry sidewalk and then, side by side, in the best Manning Pool tradition, step off by the left and march, stiff, straight and chins high, into the vestry.

Then we heard the organ resounding in the church and still another airman appeared on the church steps and bowed stiffly towards the bride’s car.

And her Daddy got out, poor, bewildered, excited old boy, and bowed his pretty little daughter out, and gave her his arm.

And they went up the church steps, amidst the crowd, all eyes leaping, all mouths open.

Including ours.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, May 29, 1943.

“I don’t suppose,” wheedled Jimmie Frise, “you’ve got an extra vacuum cleaner?”

“You can still buy vacuum cleaners,” I informed him. “Delivery in August.”

“Yes, a hundred bucks,” said Jim. “And who’s got 100 bucks? Besides, who can wait until August?”

“If you’ve got an old one to turn in,” I advised him, “you can get practically immediate delivery. One thing the government has gone awfully cautiously on, in its restrictions, is vacuum cleaners. They can push women around in a lot of ways; they can interfere with the food supply, they can cut down canned goods, they can upset the domestic scene in practically every direction. But there is one thing the government knows it can’t do. And that is, return women to the broom.”

“The carpet beater you mean,” corrected Jimmie.

“The broom,” I insisted. “The broom is the ancient badge of woman’s servitude. For countless ages, the broom was the symbol of woman’s slavery. When we wanted to ridicule women in the worst possible way, we invented witches and put them riding on brooms. Not riding on a frying pan. Or a wash board. On a broom.”

“Our vacuum cleaner,” announced Jim, “has burnt out its motor.”

“Have it repaired,” I said.

“I’ve had it repaired,” said Jim, “and now they say it can’t be repaired any further.”

“Then get a new one,” I explained.

The kind we’ve had,” said Jim, “isn’t made any more. And we would have to wait until August for delivery on a new one. I thought maybe somebody might have a spare one…”

“Why don’t you get somebody to rent you theirs, part time,” I suggested. “Say, three days a week.”

“Okay,” said Jim, “will you rent me yours, three days a week?”

“On account of my principles, no,” I replied. “There are lots of people who will do anything to make a little money now. They would even rent their vacuum cleaner, figuring on a little cash now, and forgetting that the more their vacuum cleaner is used, the sooner it will wear out, and the sooner they will need, not a dollar or so now, but maybe 50 or 100 bucks to buy a new one.”

Badges of Servitude

“To help out a friend,” said Jim, “you would rent your vacuum cleaner, wouldn’t you?”

“Principles are principles, Jim,” I explained. “I am the kind of person who doesn’t believe in renting or lending anything that wears out or can be damaged. The quickest way to lose a friend is to lend him your gun, your fishing rod or your dog. And now vacuum cleaners. Our friendship is too old and valued, Jim, to risk ending it on the burnt-out motor of a vacuum cleaner.”

“Sometimes,” sighed Jim, “I wonder our friendship has lasted so long.”

“It has lasted 30 years,” I stated, “because we have never borrowed nor lent. We have been mean and measly and tight with each other. Result: a lifelong friendship and understanding.”

“What am I going to do?” demanded Jim indignantly. “If I don’t find a vacuum cleaner right away, do you know what it means? It means I am going to have to go back to beating carpets.”

“Ha,” I laughed. “I bet there isn’t a carpet beater left in North America. I bet there isn’t one even in a museum,”

“There are two,” said Jim hollowly, “in my cellar.”

“Good gracious, man,” I cried, “have you no foresight! I threw out my carpet beaters 20 years ago.”

These,” muttered Jim, “were stuck up over the furnace pipes in my cellar. Nobody noticed them. Then, last night, my family found them.”

“You’re too old to beat carpets, Jim,” I reassumed him. “Only boys and young men beat carpets.”

“Talk about a broom being the badge of servitude of women,” said Jimmie, “a carpet beater is the symbol of man’s humiliation.”

“A broom and a carpet beater,” I mused. “Imagine the world being driven back to those barbarities!”

“Damn Hitler,” cried Jimmie.

“That’s too easy, Jim,” I protested. “It tickles our real enemies all to pieces to hear us damning Hitler.”

“Who are our real enemies?” inquired Jim hotly.

“Why, the people who find war profitable, everywhere,” I responded.

“Aw, don’t try to tell me there are any war profiteers in this war,” snorted Jim, “with taxes, and super taxes and…”

“Is profit,” I inquired, “only dollars and I cents made today? How about the dollars and cents made yesterday or to be made tomorrow? The people, all over the world, in all countries, who made this war possible were the people who preferred war to the way things were going before the war.”

“How were things going?” snorted Jim.

“Well, the Chinese,” I reminded him, “were going a little communistic, in 1931. So the Japs went in, on some cooked-up excuse. And nobody stopped them.”

Was it our business to stop them?” demanded Jimmie.

“In 1936, Spain was set upon,” I reminded him, “by a minority that had been chucked out at the polls, and Germany and Italy openly helped that ousted minority.”

“And Russia helped the majority,” declared Jim.

“Don’t you see,” I submitted, “that it has been Russia the whole world has been after for the past 20 years. Why did the Japs go into China? Why was Russia-hating Italy allowed to go and grab Abyssinia? Why were Russia-hating Germany and Italy allowed to help the Spanish minority? Why did the whole world sit back with folded hands while the disturbers in all countries were attacked by highly trained gangsters? Because Russia was demonstrating to the people of the whole world that a country can thrive without rich men.”

“Aw,” said Jim disgustedly, “no country in the world has more powerful individuals in it than Russia.”

“But they don’t get rich at it,” I explained. “Don’t you see what the real trouble with Russia is, in the eyes of our powerful and rich citizenry? Russia offers the simple solution to all the world’s ills. Sure it has powerful and clever and brainy men. But they don’t get paid for it. They don’t get the chance to stack up money to fortify themselves against being chucked out when they are through.”

“Through?” demanded Jim indignantly.

“Look,” I said. The average life of a business or industry is 25 years. That is proved by statistics. When a man’s body wears out, we think nothing of chucking him out when he can’t do his job any more. But we let men pile up millions so that when their brains wear out, they can hang on long after they are through. Russia found out that was silly. So it says to its clever and shrewd and strong-willed men. Go ahead, run things, manage things, be the boss, use your talents to the full. But don’t think you are going to get anything out of it. If you cheat, we’ll kill you. And if you die a natural death, all you’ll leave behind will be a happy memory.”

“What brainy man would accept a proposition like that?” scoffed Jim.

“There is no other proposition to accept,” I explained. “Therefore, what can a brainy man do but use his brains and be happy about it.”

The Rich and Powerful

“Do you mean to suggest,” said Jim, “that that is the real angle on Russia our big shots are fretting about?”

“What else?” I submitted. “Our rich and powerful like to think it is their riches the people of the world are fretting about. They hate to admit it is their stupidity and mismanagement of the world that is the cause of all the unrest, all over.”

“Ah, mismanagement,” murmured Jim, beginning to see.

“You must admit,” I said, “that in most countries, this past 20 years, power has been in the hands of wealth. And you never saw a world worse managed than ours for the past 20 years. One depression after another, and finally this war.”

“Maybe there have been too many wealthy people, lately,” suggested Jim.,

“You may have hit the nail on the head,” I agreed. “There have been times in the world’s history when the rich were rich because they were good managers. And the whole world basked in a golden age of good management. But for the past 30 or 40 years, our rich have been punk managers. You did not have to be a good manager to get lousy rich, in the past 40 years, out of market gambling, out of the incredible new inventions of the age, the motor car, the radio, and all the ten thousand new and remarkable things we have developed in these years. Some of the greatest fatheads, ever to possess a thousand dollars have become millionaires in recent years by sheer luck and despite the most terrible bad management. You know that.”

“I believe it,” confessed Jim.

“Okay, then,” I wound up, “with the power of the world in the hands of men who had made their money by many other means than good management, the world was subjected to a series of ruinous depressions and finally to this unparalleled war. The powerful guys still like to pretend that it is their money the disturbers are disturbed by. Let’s disillusion them. Let us explain that it is their mismanagement that is complained of.”

“But it is their money that is their power,” pointed out Jimmie.

“Ah,” I said, “that is where Russia is right. Don’t let them have any money. Let them be smart and clever. Let them be as big and powerful as their brains and character will allow. Let them be leaders, managers, heads of great industries and all that.”

“But would they be leaders and managers and heads of great industries,” demanded Jimmie, “if they didn’t have the incentive of making millions?”

“What nonsense!” I cried. “A man only makes millions in order to be the leader, the director, the head of a great industry. Take out that incentive, and the men of brains and character and strength of will and mind would still struggle to the top. And the best of them would get to the top. The mean-souled ones might not. But we’re better rid of them anyway.”

“I never thought of it that way,” mused Jim.

Brotherhood of Man

“Look,” I said. “Can a clever man help being clever? Can an industrious, hard-working, brainy man help being that way? The way you talk, you would think men are clever and powerful in their own right. They are not. They are born that way. And all the incentive in the world has nothing to do with it. The people who need the incentive in this world aren’t the rich, the smart, the shrewd and the forceful. The people who need the incentive are the lazy, the stupid, the dull and the torpid.”

“You certainly have put things backside-foremost to the way I’ve heard them,” said Jimmie.

“Naturally,” I agreed. “Because the people who do all the yelling about incentives are the smart and the clever. It is far easier to be the head of an industry if you own it, and a million bucks left over. It’s very comfortable. But the life of a business or an industry is 25 years. That’s the average. And we can’t any longer leave business and industry in the hands of people whose brains give out in 25 years. It’s too costly, too disorganizing for the rest of us. So, let’s set up a new system whereby we give all the brains of the country full scope to wear themselves out, with the right to chuck them out the minute they show signs of wear.”

“Hold on, isn’t that cruel?” demanded Jim.

“Is it cruel,” I inquired, “when we chuck out a guy when his body wears out and he can’t any more do his job? What’s the difference? The way it is now, by letting our smart brains hold the money, they are able to hang on their job long after they have worn out. Hence, ruin. Hence, the average life of a business, 25 years.”

“Incentive…” began Jim.

“Security for every man, woman and child on earth,” I cut in. “And then watch incentive work. Watch guys, who were too busy buying bread ever to feel any incentive, start feeling it. Watch where incentive will carry us then. And I mean incentive in the highest sense, not just the incentive to make money. Take that lowest incentive right out of the game, and watch incentive carry mankind to undreamed of heights of peace and security and conquest of all evil.”

“Too many men are, lazy and drifters,” muttered Jim.

“If you call men lazy and drifters,” I asserted, “who haven’t the heart play the game of life the way it is now, I agree. We encourage men to be devils; and then we call the natural saints lazy and drifters…”

Jimmie stood up and gazed out the window at the frowsy rooftops of the city’s business section, that grim and colorless lid to all the incentive, all the struggle and scheming and contriving of countless human souls.

“The wind is in the west,” he said. “The sun is shining. It’s a perfect day for beating carpets.”

“I hate to think of you,” I submitted, “a noble image of a Nobler design, swinging a carpet beater.”

“I have two carpet beaters,” said Jim, with his back to me.

“Shift from one to the other, as you tire,” I suggested. “The feel of a different, carpet beater is a great relief. Keep changing them, every five minutes…”

But there was no getting out of it. You can’t talk about the brotherhood of man while you own a vacuum cleaner in going condition and your brother owns two carpet beaters.

An Unnatural Action

The carpets were on the line when we walked up Jimmie’s side drive. The two carpet beaters were hanging on the fence.

“A little exercise will do us good,” I said.

“I feel like a boy again,” said Jim, rolling up his sleeves.

We stepped up to the carpet.

“Do it systematically,” said Jim. “Stand at the top and beat down.”

No wonder the vacuum cleaner was invented. The brain of man must have been working a thousand years on vacuum cleaners without knowing exactly what it sought. Stevenson invented the steam engine for what end? What did Watt have in mind? What was Edison fumbling for when he ran across the talking machine, the electric light bulb and all those trinkets? I bet every one of them started out to think up some way of beating carpets other than with a stick.

You step up to the rug with the beater. You take a good stance. You swing. The beater smacks the rug with a satisfying thud. The dust flies. You swing again.

About the fifth swing, you know, without any exhaustion yet inspiring your thoughts, that this is an unnatural and monstrous act. The human frame was not designed for horizontal swinging of sticks. All our other stick swinging is vertical. In war, we strike down or up. In golf, in mowing, in reaping, we swing down and up. There is no natural action the human frame performs that is a horizontal swing like carpet beating.

The sixth swipe cramps your tenderloin. The eighth throws your shoulders out. By the tenth, your hips and thighs are already as exhausted as if you had climbed a mountain. Your lungs are cramped by the cross-swing.

Your head swims.

“Exchange beaters,” said Jim breathlessly. So we changed beaters and went to it for a second spasm. It went eight beats.

“Let’s rest,” I suggested. “We aren’t even getting any dust out of them.”

Which we did.

“Let’s take turn about,” said Jim. “Ten beats each.”

Which also we did.

We beat for half a minute and rested five minutes.

“Jim,” I said, “when I stated my principles regarding renting our vacuum cleaner, I overlooked one little thing.”

But before I could explain the little thing, one of the girls put her head out an upstairs window and called down:

“Hey, dad, what are you trying to do?”

“You wouldn’t recognize it,” said Jim. “We’re beating the carpet.”

“The vacuum cleaner was fixed this afternoon,” she called down. “The postman fixed it.”

So Jim led me into the kitchen, where he got the stone jug of buttermilk out of the refrig.