This illustration went with a story by Stephen Leacock about making fun of the “undefended border” between Canada and the United States, in reference to customs officials. I found two parts interesting. Beyond the expected questions of his residence and whether he was going for work, he was asked if he had any whiskey, since Prohibition was in force, and whether he had ever been vaccinated, to which he replied that he had been vaccinated long ago during the great smallpox scare of 1889.
By Gregory Clark, December 3, 1921.
The little Russian church with its onion dome on Royce avenue still stands, with its queer triple cross on the steeple. But it is a Presbyterian church now.
No more do the humble Russians kiss the priest’s hand. No more do they kiss the feet of the crucified Jesus in the vestibule of their rough-cast church.
For they are Presbyterians now, and kiss nothing. They come boldly into their pews. The icons and sacred pictures have gone. There is nothing left to be afraid of. Even the minister has put aside his black robes.
Down the street, on Franklin avenue, the Greek Catholic church of St. Josaphat the Martyr is resplendent with great sacred paintings, its altar is ablaze with gold and silver ornaments and royal blue banners. Two thousand members is the estimate of the Rev. Dr. Joseph Zuk, its rector, recently arrived from Vienna.
But down at Templar’s Hall, at Queen and Dovercourt, last Saturday night, the Ukrainian Unity Society put on before a packed house of Russians a play entitled “Tsar Nicholas the Third” a bitter comedy aimed at the priests, which was cheered by the audience.
Toronto’s ten thousand Russians and Ukrainians are passing through a little revolution of their own.
The question naturally arises, since Russia and that part of South Russia known as the Ukraine are “bolshevik”, or under soviet government, what are the sentiments of these ten thousand Russians and Ukrainians in Toronto?
The answer is that they are divided. Dr. Zuk, only a few weeks out from Vienna, and whose command of English is not yet complete, appears to be very hostile to the bolsheviks. He is priest of the Greek Catholic church. When asked how many of the Russians and Ukrainians in Toronto belonged to his congregation, he said two thousand, and referred sternly to the remainder as being “bolsheviks, Presbyterians and socialists.”
But that a large number if not a majority of the Russians and Ukrainians in Toronto are frankly in sympathy with soviet Russia is fairly definite.
And it is perfectly natural under the circumstances that it should be so. For these people came to Canada to escape the conditions which the bolsheviks claim to have remedied. And while they have no direct news of Russia, and rely on bolshevik pamphlets and other literature printed in New York, which is secretly passed from hand to hand, there has been a sufficient reverberation of the Russian revolution in this country to make many of our Russians socialists at heart.
But that they entertain no hostile socialist ideas towards Canada is also evident.
“We regard Canada,” said one frankly avowed Toronto bolshevik, “as the land to which we came for sanctuary. If our socialist ideas show us anything wrong in Canada, it is none of our business. It is a far, far better land than Russia was, or we would never have come to it. At heart we are socialists, and we yearn for Russia.”
“It is six years,” said a Russian youth from near Kiev, “since I had a letter from my father. The last word I heard from home was that my four brothers had gone to the war.”
“I do not know,” he said, simply, “if I have four brothers, now, or a father or a mother. I do not know if they are starving. Here am I, working every day, eating fine meals, living in warm lodgings, saving a little money. But I am not happy, because always at my bench and at home in the evenings, I am wondering about my father and brothers.”
“Yet,” I asked, “how can you be a socialist, when you are so comfortable and they are in misery?”
“It is not easy,” he replied, “for you to understand. You do not know what Russia was when I left it; the power and comfort of the few, the misery and pain of the vast many. As far as Canada is concerned, I am not a socialist. You Canadians have a separate destiny. But for Russia, I am a socialist.”
“I have sworn,” he said, with a straight look in his wide-set blue eyes, ” to go back to Russia as soon as I can. I too wish to suffer with my father and brothers for the freedom of my race. Nineteen of my friends from Toronto have returned to Russia in the last year. All have written on the way from England, France, Poland. Then no more. Not another letter. They are gone utterly. To what? Well, I am ready to go.”
At the Templar’s Hall, a week ago tonight, I attended the play, “Tsar Nicholas the Third.”
It was Tsar Nicholas the Second who was executed. Tsar Nicholas of the play is the priest who fooled and robbed the people.
When you consider that ten years ago, Russians were the most childishly and superstitiously religious people in the world, this satirical comedy, acted by a group of amateur actors in a Toronto hall before six or seven hundred Russians, shows how complete the change has been. The priest who was revered and feared and trusted was shown on the stage as an immoral, leering villain.
The actors are men who work in Toronto factories, and one or two are common laborers. The women of the cast are the wives of Toronto workmen. They acted extremely well.
The audience was a remarkably fine looking one, largely South Russians or Ukrainians. The so-called “typical Russian” of broad features and heavy frame was not conspicuous. The great majority were clean-cut, handsome men, and the girls were slim and pretty. It was unlike a Canadian theatre audience only in that whole families were present, little children prattled about and mothers made frequent journeys up and down the aisles with their little ones. And nobody minded.
The orchestra was a Ukrainian brass band.
There is about them all the restlessness of a people in exile. For a century, this revolution has been the dream, the dark, secret, terrifying dream of the Russian people. Their literature proves it. In desperation, they exile themselves to a free and beautiful country. Then comes the revolution. And they can get no news of it. Beyond their most secret dreams, the revolution comes. “The Tsar is killed! The land is divided amongst the people. And all they can hear of it is that Russia is starving, their mothers and brothers are starving.
All exiles can sympathize with them: Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotsmen can picture their dismay if not their joy.
“I was sending fifteen dollars a month,” said a grim, dark Russian, “to my wife of a month. She was to follow me in a year. My baby was born. It is six years old and I have never seen it. The last letter I got, five years ago, said my baby’s fifth tooth had come, and that it would look at my picture when they said my name.
“I do not know, yet,” he added, “whether I am a bolshevik or not!”
Editor’s Notes: This article shows the status of Russian immigrants after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution that brought the communists to power. On the one had, many of the common people would be glad for the Tsar to be gone, but the revolution brought war and famine. The church leaders would be anti-bolshevist.
St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral still exists today in the same spot, but not the same building. The original from the article would be fairly new, having been dedicated in 1914, but it was destroyed by fire in 1964, and rebuilt in 1965.
The former church at Royce Avenue (now Dupont Street) and Perth Avenue that became Presbyterian is no longer there. A Presbyterian Church was built there, but eventually torn down. It is now a dreary looking strip mall.
Templar’s Hall started as the Western branch of the YMCA in Toronto in 1889. It housed many organizations throughout it’s history, and is now the Great Hall.
In the early 20th century, the weekend only consisted of 1.5 days. Office workers still worked on Saturday mornings. As can seen in the jokes of this comic, people often resented working on Saturday and could not wait to leave for their weekend plans. It was not until the 1930s that getting the whole Saturday off became common.
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, June 11, 1921
Mr. Raney may be right. But he is not fashionable.
For one Mr. Raney there are thousands of men who love horses passionately: racehorses that is, not these great, clumsy wagon-horses.
Mr. Raney has been entirely misled by somebody as to the motives of these tens of thousands of men and women in Toronto who attend race meets. Someone ought to be made to suffer for kidding a minister of the crown.
Does Mr. Raney imagine for a moment that these great hordes of people go to the races only from motives of sordid gain? Is he so innocent as to believe that these mobs of sportsmen and horse-lovers attend the races only to bet?
Mr. Raney must have a very poor opinion of his fellow men.
As a matter of fact, it is time we horse-lovers began to proclaim the truth.
And the truth is, if you are willing to believe the sportsmen who love horses, that betting has nothing to do with the popularity of the racetrack. Betting is done for two reasons: First, because it is an ancient and honorable custom in connection with horses, dating back to the days of ancient Greece and Rome -merely a formality; second, because it encourages horse-breeding. But as for mere money –!
In short, the one and only reason for the great crowds at the race tracks is love of horses.
I will admit, right at the start, that up till a week ago, I held very much the same views as Mr. Raney. Because I had never seen a racecourse. But one day my friend James L., an ardent sportsman and horse lover, insisted on my going up to Thorncliffe with him. I had frequently been guilty of condemning James for his absence from the office. I looked on him as a deep-dyed gambler. And his protestations that it was just his passion for seeing horses run I regarded just as so much tosh.
I went with him. Leaving all my money, my watch and wallet securely locked in my desk, I drove in his flivver with him up to Thorncliffe Park.
“Now,” said James, as we drove up Yonge street, “I have fifty bucks on me. If I bet that on a twenty-to-one shot that would give me a thousand dollars. Then if I planted the thousand onto a ten to one shot – ten thousand. By that time I’ll go close on a few favorites and sure things. And maybe I’ll come home with twenty thousand dollars!”
And James’s face lighted, and he switched up the gas, narrowly missing a traffic constable.
“Think of it!” he cried. “Here I go up Yonge street with fifty measly bucks. And in four hours I may be coming down with twenty thousand.”
“But,” I protested, “what has this to do with horses?”
“My boy,” said James, soberly, “don’t let me kid you. We horse-lovers talk like that about betting just for fun. We all do. But don’t let that deceive you. It’s just our jolly manner.”
But as we passed through the cemetery through which the road to the racetrack runs, I noticed James crossed the fingers of both hands on the steering gear, and turned the lucky ring on his finger.
At the race track – a small grand stand, several stables, all painted white and a large oval race track in front – was a crowd of about seven thousand people.
At first glance, I was not at all impressed by the crowd. There seemed to be a larger than usual percentage of hard-boiled looking people in it. But James reassured me.
“Isn’t it wonderful,” he cried, “what a noble thing is man’s love for a dumb creature, even among people you wouldn’t expect it of?”
And as I looked about at some of the faces around me I was deeply moved that such noble emotions could be concealed behind such unpromising exteriors.
The crowd surged under the grand stand where the betting machines were located, then surged out again to the fence. And before I realized what was doing, a race was run.
It was all very sudden. A bugle blew. Several horse-lovers cried hoarsely: “They’re off!”
Then a tense silence for a few seconds while seven thousand horse-lovers feasted their eyes on the sight they loved best – beautiful horses running.
Then it was over.
And I must say only a very few seemed interested in which horse had won. The rest of the crowd, just turned away, deeply disappointed that the beautiful sight of running horses was soon finished, and went down under the grand stand where the betting machines were, to rest and wait for the next race.
I didn’t see much of James while the races were on. He was rushing about, like a true horse-lover, chatting enthusiastically with different people about the beautiful steeds. In fact, I saw him earnestly talking with some very disreputable-looking men and I marveled at the equality that existed between horse-lovers. These strange fellows he was talking to were pointing out for James on his program the special qualities and beauties of the horses that were to run in the next race.
The horse-lover is an intense person. This crowd at Thorncliffe was not a crowd in the ordinary sense. There was no crowd feeling. They were simply seven thousand individuals, each deeply engrossed in his devotion to horses. They all walked with bent heads, devouring the facts contained in little newspapers specially printed for horse-lovers.
To imagine that all this intensity was over mere filthy money getting, mere greed, would be surely to misconceive the finest qualities of mankind. You never see such devotion at a dog show or a poultry show. You never see cat lovers bumping into each other so intently as they study the pedigree and former prizes won by their favorite cat! These horse-lovers are a race apart.
James and I met at the end of the last race.
He had tired look.
“Well,” said I, “have you got your twenty thousand?”
“You’re a jinx!” said James, with pretended bitterness.
He was very glum all the way down to the city. I then understood how fatigued a horse-lover could become with enthusiasm.
But I also noticed, at the garage where we had to stop for gasoline, that James could only find forty-five cents.
So we only took one gallon.
Editor’s Notes: This can be considered a very early Greg-Jim Story, as “James L.” is definitely James Llewellyn Frise. We also know from past stories Jim’s love of the race track.
William Raney was Attorney-General of Ontario at the time. He was known for his opposition to gambling on horse racing and the sale of alcohol. It is interesting that when the UFO (United Farmers of Ontario) won the 1919 election, the leader, Drury, approached Raney, a Liberal, to be Attorney-General since the UFO had elected no lawyers.
Thorncliffe Park Raceway existed from 1917-1953. It used to exist in the location of the Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood in Toronto today.
A “flivver” was early slang for cars, usually referring to a Ford Model T.
Currency conversion for 1921 to 2021: $50 = $665, $20,000 = $265,900.
45 cents/gallon in 1921 equals $1.31/litre in 1921 (which happens to be the same price of gas the day I write this!)
Jim illustrated this article by Stephen Leacock. It is about “Blue Laws” that were popular at the time to restrict any non-religious activity on Sundays. In Ontario, the Lord’s Day Act was passed in 1906, which prevented all sorts of activities including shopping, on Sundays. It was not repealed until 1985. I’m guessing there was more enforcement at the time, giving rise to article. The illustration is from this passage:
“Just to take a simple example: they say that under the Blue Laws the cigar counter in the rotunda of the hotel will be shut on Sunday. I am sorry, sorry over that. It was my wont always after breakfast at my hotel to stroll over to this counter and buy a two-for-a-quarter cigar from the Girl with the Golden Hair who stood behind it. She would smile at me over the purchase of a twelve-and-a-half-cent cigar in a way that made the place feel like home. It was my custom of a Sunday to talk to her, while I bought that cigar, of the kind of weather that we had been having in my home town. I suppose a hundred men a day told her about it.”
Osgoode Hall Continues to Belch Forth Young Barristers at a Furious Rate – Devious are the Devices Used to Decoy Possible Clients to the Doors of the Ambitious Young Legal Lights.
By Gregory Clark, January 22, 1921
There is a plague of young lawyers in Toronto.
It to estimated that there are now three lawyers for every criminal in this city.
That is a terrible state of affairs.
Osgoode Hall is belching forth raw barristers at a furious rate. Bay street, Yonge street and the other solicitor-laden thoroughfares are crowded at all hours of the day with grim, judicial appearing young men in search of junior partnerships. Several of Toronto’s leading barristers have given up their lucrative practices altogether in order to devote all their time to refusing jobs to the hordes of young lawyers who lay siege to their offices.
Many of the young lawyers have in consequence been forced to accept poor but honest situations as salesmen, insurance agents and office clerks.
But a few of them have courageously extracted a few hundred dollars from their parents and have opened up offices.
Most of the law business goes, naturally, to the old established law firms with six or more names on their office doors. The humble citizen loves to refer to his lawyers in names covering from fifteen to twenty syllables, although the actual work is done by the office boys and students while the numerous senior partners play “Ricketty Aunt” at the club, or shoot birdies in Bermuda.
The young lawyers who set up offices, therefore, have to do some real work in securing clients.
Clients are like pickles. The first pickle out of the bottle is hard to get. After that, they come easy.
It is that elusive first client that is the difficulty.
For the first week, the young lawyers sit in their offices and place huge volume of the law open before them on their desks. They walk out frequently, briskly, for the double purpose of looking again at the fine shiny new name plate on the door, and of creating an impression of traffic. To the same end the new barrister has his father, uncles, friends call on him as many times a day as possible. These know their part. They must walk anxiously, eagerly along the corridor to the law office; worried expressions on their faces; and come out smiling, as if all their anxieties were laid aside.
The young lawyer, for the first few days, has the stenographer copy yards and yards of egregious bunk out of fat law books so that the office will be filled with the comforting, prosperous music of the typewriter.
Some little genius is also displayed in the pursuit of clients. One young barrister, who is bound to be heard from, by the name of Torts, went forth as soon as he had hung his shingle and made the acquaintance of one of the most notorious bad-eggs in the city.
The barrister and vagrant were closeted together for over two hours. Presently the vagrant, well-known to every policeman appeared on the streets in a highly intoxicated and belligerent condition. He was, of course, promptly arrested and locked up.
In the morning, when he was brought to court with nearly a hundred other prisoners of all kinds, the rascal began to shout out to the guards:
“Send for Mr. Torts! I want Mr. Torts! There’s only one real lawyer in this town! I want Mr. Torts!”
Half a hundred prisoners heard this significant praise from one who apparently should know one lawyer from another.
Mr. Torts was, indeed, waiting in the Court. He defended very ably the vociferous scalawag who had called for him and got him off with a $10 fine, which was promptly paid.
Thereupon at least a dozen prisoners in the dock called upon Mr. Torts to defend them. Three of these cases were remanded and went before juries. The ingenious Mr. Torts practice was founded.
Still another inventive young solicitor named, shall we say, Mr. Repleven, hired the hardest looking man he could find in the unemployment line-up. And all this hired man has to do, for $25 a week, is to ride up and down elevators, hang around restaurants and repeat in a challenging fierce voice:
“That’s all right! Mr. Repleven will get me off, he will! If any lawyer in the world can get me off, it’s Mr. Repleven. See if he don’t!”
Repetition! That’s the secret of publicity! Look at Beecham’s Pills and Mayor Church! Repetition. So by hiring this conspicuous and desperate-looking character to go about at random repeating that liturgy, Mr. Repleven has succeeded in drawing his first client out of the bottle.
He is expecting another any day.
Editor’s Note: Osgoode Hall was originally founded by the Law Society of Upper Canada and where one would go to become a lawyer in Ontario. It is now affiliated with York University.
One thing the father of a first born infant must beware of is an alarm clock.
Those first few weeks when a young man is making the acquaintance of his first child are fraught with many difficulties. For one thing, he need expect no sympathy or understanding from anybody connected with his household. However enthusiastic he may be, everything he does will be wrong. But of all things in this dark, blundering and difficult time, let him put not his trust in alarm clocks.
A certain young man recently was presented with a large and lusty son. It might be said right at the start that from the moment of the arrival of this remarkable small son the poor young father entered on a career of unparalleled and unenlightened blunder.
The first thing he did was to rush down town and buy a beautiful blue enamel and gold locket, heart shaped.
This, with sundry gladioli, roses, zinnias, marigolds, candies, all-day suckers, rattles, dolls, horses, and teething rings, he bore triumphantly and proudly to the hospital.
Several female relations on both sides of the family, various nurses, hospital officials, and other people of the indignant sex were grouped around the sanctum where his new son lay.
Of course, they did not notice his approach. In fact, they had not been aware of his existence all day. They had told him of the arrival of his son merely as an afterthought.
The poor young man stood there, proud, smiling eagerly, yearning to be recognized as a party to this great event. The ladies were cooing and exclaiming, oblivious to his presence. So the father produced the blue locket on its chain, and advanced with an air of proprietorship to hang it about the neck of his son.
The cries of the multitude, when they beheld what he was about to do, filled the whole hospital. The young father was well nigh done to death by the infuriated ladies. A nurse threatened him with a chloroform pad.
It appears that heart-shaped lockets are for girls, and girls only. To present a boy with a locket is considered the most deadly of insults!
But who was to tell the young father that beforehand? Nobody! Nobody cared.
Now the young man is kept in fear and trembling by all his relations, who threaten to tell his wife all about it as soon as she is up and about. And he has hidden the locket, the horses, the candy bulls-eyes, and the teething rings in his desk at the office.
A book of hints to young fathers should certainly be written. The etiquette, for instance, of the drawing-room is a bagatelle to the etiquette of the nursery. When a father, beholding his first born son for the first time, sees him lying helplessly on his side, his little face pressed on the hard, flat mattress and crying fit to explode, nothing could be more natural for the father to do than to try to set the little fellow up on end and make interesting faces to amuse him. But it is astonishing the way every body will jump on him if he tries it.
Then again, they don’t feed a baby till it is two or three days old. Ordinary people may believe this is right. But you can’t expect a father to believe it, when he sees his child desperately trying to eat its own little hands.
This young man I speak of brought up a couple of egg sandwiches and a few arrowroot biscuits in his pocket the second day, intending to sneak them surreptitiously to his son. But the nurse caught him, and ejected him with violence from the room. They simply won’t trust you at all.
It is when the baby arrives home from hospital that the real trials begin, and young fathers should be warned of this period.
The last thing the nurse tells you at hospital is not to “spoil” the baby. If it cries, don’t pick it up. If you pick it up it will learn to cry until you do pick it up. Of course, if you think it has a pain you can pick it up for a moment–
In the case I speak of, the baby slept all day and all evening of its first day home. But at midnight it opened up. Naturally, it was in pain. Father, mother, and maternal grandmother All took turns till dawn in relieving its pain. The minute it was laid down it was in pain. The minute it was picked up and sung hymns to its pain departed.
After two nights of this, the father stated it was his opinion that the baby was not in pain, but was, in short, in danger of being spoiled.
In vain he quoted nurses. He might as well have been a murderer. What little respect for him was left in his family’s eyes was by this statement dissipated into thin air.
Now comes the alarm clock. This young man wound up his trusty, old alarm clock and set it for two o’clock in the morning, the baby’s halfway feeding time.
To the ladies of the household he said:
“Retire. I will keep watch. I will let him cry little, before lifting him, to see if he won’t stop of himself. And don’t worry about the time. I have set my alarm clock for two. I will get up and bring the baby in.”
This speech, delivered with a dignity and an air of authority, did much to restore the prestige he had lost in recent weeks.
Now, this is what happened. At two o’clock the baby was in his mother’s arms, and had been there for some hours. Maternal grandma was sitting rocking into the small hours. Father lay in the adjoining room sound asleep on his couch.
Suddenly the alarm clock bursts forth. It rings and rings. Even the baby’s cries are stilled by it.
Father moves drowsily. He reaches out and turns off the alarm, and with comfortable snuggle sinks again into profound slumber.
And in the other lighted room, grandma and mother and baby look significantly at each other, in silence.
To what greater depths of ignominy can that father fall? Betrayed by sleep and an alarm clock, he let his little son go hang! Go starve!
He will not hear the end of that. It matters not that the family all was and the baby warm and cuddled.
It to the spirit, not the performance, that counts, that cuts.
Editor’s Note: This is one of a number of stories Greg wrote about in the early 1920s about being a father.
These two illustrations by Jim appeared on the same page for different articles. The first, above, is from a story by Fred Griffin about people being distracted on the streetcar, with the illustration showing a woman unable to look up while reading a book while paying her fare. Not unlike smartphones today?
This illustration is from “The ‘opkins Rent and ‘aunted ‘ouse” by Edith Bayne. It is a terrible story written in working class slang about a haunted house. The man in the illustration thinks he hears a ghost, but it turns out to be the new boarder who is a telephone switchboard operator who talks in her sleep (5 cents being the cost of a call from a pay phone).
By Greg Clark, December 17, 1921
There is no more vain and no more popular argument in the world than at what age a baby is most sweet.
At lunch the other day, I happened to remark to George that in my opinion a baby three months old was without doubt the sweetest and quaintest creature in the universe.
“It’s astonished gaze,” I said, “It’s smile, it’s first silvery chuckle, it’s first difficult groping with its hands –“
“I disagree with you,” put in George. “To my mind, a baby is at its most delightful age at about fourteen months.”
That, of course, is precisely what George would say, for his little girl is exactly fourteen months old. As if I didn’t see through his absurd point of view, he went on:
“At fourteen months, they are intelligent beings, essaying their first little words, their first timid steps, discovering for the first time all the wonders of the world. I repeat, at fourteen months they are intelligent creatures, not mere little bundles of soft flesh, crying and kicking and oblivious to everything in the world except noisy rattles and gesticulating and diddering parents at their cribside.”
This, I might say, was a deliberate dig at me and my little boy, who, by the way, is exactly three months old, and the gentlest, cunningest – However!
George continued to shout in that manner about his little girl until everyone in the restaurant was staring at him. I never knew anyone who could blather so about a child as George can.
“Hold on, just a minute!” I exclaimed. “Give me a chance, won’t you? You’ve had fourteen months to rave about your child to me. Surely you can shut up for a minute and listen to me. As I was saying, a child of three months is not far short of fairyland. What I mean is, as a child grow older, it grows coarser, becomes, in fact, more human, and therefore more gross. Now, a baby of three months has that elfin air –“
“Look here!” shouted George, quite angrily. “What do you know about it. My baby was three months old, and six months old, and ten months old, and now It’s fourteen months old, so I know what I’m talking about.”
“I’ve seen other children,” I remarked.
“That’s not the same,” replied George.
“No,” I answered sweetly, “it is not.”
And we finished lunch without even talking about the new dominion cabinet. George and I have this kind of row about once a month.
It shows the futility of arguing about babies.
For instance, a young lady who has two very kindly asked me how our baby was.
“And is he smiling yet?” she said.
“Smiling!” I exclaimed. “My goodness, yes! He’s been smiling since he was three weeks old!”
“Oh, but not knowingly,” said she. “They don’t smile really until the seventh week.”
“Well, this boy of mine was smiling at three,” I declared.
“Of course,” she said, “a little pain or makes them appear to smile.”
Now, what could you say to that?
“He laughed out loud at three months,” was all I could think of to say at the moment. But it fell on deaf and unbelieving ears.
Our old family doctor has the misfortune to be a grandfather. His first grandchild is just about the age of our boy. And in his attitude towards our baby we can detect something just a little more than the professional manner.
“Oh, a fine boy, a fine boy!” he says, as our fellow, observing that it is the doctor, shows off his lung development in a few shouts.
“My little-grandson,” adds the doctor, “just laughs and gurgles all day long. I’ve seen countless babies in my day, but I never met so good natured a child as he.”
Of course, we discount his professional opinion to a proper degree.
“Well, now,” we all say at once, “this little fellow is so good we often wonder if it is right. We can’t imagine what has got into him just at the moment.”
“This grandson of mine,” continues the doctor in a loud, firm voice, “gains nine ounces a week.”
“Oh, surely that isn’t healthy,” exclaims my wife. “Ours gains five and a half, and that’s just about right.”
“Tut, tut,” says the family doctor. “The more the better.”
Doctors shouldn’t have grandchildren.
Our boy’s maternal grandma lives with us. She is a philosopher.
“The most beautiful age for a child,” she states, “is the age it is.”
“You will have a lot of fun with this fellow when he is creeping.”
“Not more than now,” I say.
“You will have great sport with him when he walks, and you can take him out to the parks.”
“Not more than when he is creeping,” I say.
“He will be great company when he is four or five.”
“Not more than when he first walks,” say I.
“But the greatest day of all,” says grandma, “will be the day he presents you with a little boy just such as he now is.”
And before such a mystery, at so marvelous thought, I am dumb.
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