Tag: 1934 Page 1 of 5

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, October 13, 1934.

“This is the fourth time in a row,” declared Jimmie Frise as we drove along the dreary back country road in the dusk, “that we have come home with no rabbits,””

“Our wives will become suspicious,” I agreed. “It looks fishy.”

“We don’t want any family interference in our rabbit hunting,” stated Jim, “with the season just starting nicely, so I have thought up a way out of it.”

“What is it?”

“We will drop into one of these farms,” said Jimmie, “and each get some chickens.”

“Great stuff,” I applauded.

“Live chickens,” said Jim. “You have that dog kennel in your yard and I have a sort of wired-off play area in mine. We will each take home half a dozen chickens, fatten them up and the local butcher will kill them for us when and as we need them.”

“Jimmie,” I cried, “you are a genius. You understand women. Half a dozen choice chickens, fresh from the farm, will warm their hearts more than a sackful of dead rabbits.”

“You watch,” said Jim, “for a sign on any of these farms we are passing that says anything about chickens for sale.”

And away up there on the top end of Peel and Halton counties, over whose bleak pastures we had been pursuing the jackrabbit in vain all day, we came down a bumpety little sideroad to a desolate-looking farmhouse, at the entrance to the lane of which our car headlights picked up the sign: “Chickens for Sale.”

The farmer led us out to the chicken-house and there we waked about fifty chickens on their perches, and the farmer, with his lantern, went along the rows of fluttering and squawking hens and selected three pair each for us at a dollar a pair.

“If you gents,” he said, “will take one more pair at a dollar I’ll throw in a pair for nothing.”

“Sold,” cried Jimmie.

So the farmer spent all of ten minutes picking out the pair he would throw in. By their legs, he carried them out to our car.

“Have you no crate?” he asked.

“No,” said Jim. “I thought we would just curtain off the back of the car with my lap robe and our leather coats over the windows. They would settle down and go to sleep on the back seat all right, don’t you think?”

The farmer more or less agreed and, having no pins, he got us some small nails, and we hung the lap robe across behind our front seat, and curtained the windows with the coats we rabbit hunters all carry too many of, and after each handing the farmer $4¹ we drove out on our way home.

“Good-looking fowls,” said Jim, as we got back on to the bumpety road. “Nice and plump.”

“That Buff Orpington² I got, especially,” I said. “Did you notice it? The farmer said it was under a year and a perfect roaster.”

Wonderful Prospect

“Boy,” said Jimmie, “we have got four or five meals of lovely roast chicken right behind us here. I like two chickens to a meal. That makes four drum sticks, four upper parts of the leg, four wings, four breasts and about five slices to a breast, making twenty slices.”

“Jimmie, you make me weak with hunger.”

“And those are good big chickens,” went on Jimmie, intent on steering down the ragged road, “so there can be about a solid quart of dressing stuffed into them. And at this time of year apple jelly is nice with chicken. And turnips, with plenty of pepper. And the gravy! With giblets chopped up in it.”

“I feel faint,” I begged.

The smell of chickens roasting,” said Jim, rounding a turn and heading at last for the main highway. “We each have five pairs of chickens. That means at least five dinners, or if you are a sort of meany ten dinners in the next couple of weeks.”

“I like that bit they call the oyster,” I said. “You find it on the side of the bird, just under the leg.”

“Don’t advertise that bit,” warned Jimmie. “That’s a bit I always have myself, and I am terrified of my family learning about it.”

“I like wings, too,” I suggested.

“I like wings cold,” said Jim. “Supper the day after, we will eat the two cold carcases, on which the wings have been left intact. With cold dressing, fried potatoes, you know, the smooth round kind of fried potatoes, brown on only one side.”

“Aw, Jimmie, shut up!” I beseeched.

The casual clucking and fluttering behind us as the chickens adjusted themselves to their surroundings in the darkness of their curtained-off chamber had almost died away. We came to the main gravel highway that leads southeast to join the greater cement highways to Toronto. We had gone only a mile or two on it when we saw ahead the lights of a village. As we came through the village, which consists of a store, a garage and a church, we saw a crowd of cars parked around the church and its basement was gleaming with lights.

“Hooray!” yelled Jimmie suddenly.

In the night, across the front of the church entrance, was strung a banner on which was printed, to be seen dimly in the night, the words:

“Harvest Home and Fowl Supper 35c.³“

“A fowl supper,” roared Jimmie, slewing the car into the gravel in front of the church. “Let’s go!”

“Aren’t we going to get home late?” I asked.

“Listen, you’ve never been to a fowl supper. Come on in. Only 35 cents and all the chicken and duck you can eat. Maybe turkey. With pies and coffee and thick country bread and butter and pickles-“

We ran the car in alongside the others. Nobody was in sight, which suggested the supper was in full swing. We left the car and walked up to the steps of the church basement, where we met two ladies, who took our 35 cents each and smilingly directed us in, where a great buzz and bustle of sound and talk and an odor of good things to eat drew us like a magnet.

A Little Bit Late

The basement was jammed with men and women and ladies were waiting at the long tables set on trestles. Steaming coffee pots were passing, and a gentleman, whom we learned afterwards was one of the elders, saw us and beckoned us in and sat us down at the far end of the room amongst a group of shy young men in their Sunday clothes who were looking very red in the face and shiny and about to burst. They were eating pie in immense bites.

“We’re late,” whispered Jimmie as we sat down and smiled around at everybody.

“I don’t want any pie,” I said. “All I want is chicken and plenty of it.”

“Duck for me,” said Jimmie.

A large lady leaned over us.

“Boys,” she said, “which will you have – cold ham or cold pork?”

“Chicken,” said I.

“Duck,” said Jimmie.

“The fowl is all gone,” said the lady, beaming. “You’ve come late. But we have some lovely cold pork. I cooked it myself.”

Jimmie and I looked around at that long table full of young men and a few young ladies, and we noticed that even the young ladies had a shiny and stretched look. They dropped their eyes when we looked accusingly about.

“At a fowl supper,” said the lady with the coffee pot, “you have to be on time. I guess you boys are from the city, eh?”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll have ham.”

The elder who had seated us came along and helped console us. The minister worked his way down between the tables and shook hands with us and told us how sorry he was the fowl was all done, but he looked as if he had done pretty well himself.

By this time the majority had got through their pie, some of them two or three kinds, apple, mince and berry, and a few were rising and going to the exit of the basement for a breath of air and a stretch or else gathering in groups to chat about the things people chat about in church basements.

The ham came and it was a great helping, half a dozen rich cuts, the way a tired carver carves ham, half the width of the ham, thick at one edge and fading off at the other. I also had mashed potatoes, stewed corn and pickled beets. Jim had the same, only he took pork. The corn was cold, the potatoes were just warm, and I glared at Jimmie.

“Fowl supper,” said I.

“We must go to one some time,” said Jim, spearing a big forkful.

As we ate, the diners mostly rose and about the time the coffee pot was brought by the motherly lady, who kept passing Jim the pickles, the conserve, the bread, the butter and everything she could reach, I happened to glance over toward the door and I caught about six of the men, mostly of them youngish, standing staring coldly at us. They did not look away when surprised in this act.

“Apparently,” I said to Jim, “they don’t even like us to have any of their ham.”

Jim looked at the door.

“Um,” said he, looking away.

By unseen signals and eye glasses I noticed that everybody in the basement was gradually vanishing out the exit and through the door came the sounds of muttered excitement.

Two very large young men came in awkwardly and sat down on chairs as if guarding the door. We ate our pie and the motherly lady left us alone in the basement.

“What is this?” asked Jim.

“I don’t like the look of things,” I assured him.

The excitement increased and through the crowd in the exit pushed an elderly man wearing a policeman’s cap. A dozen of the men and one or two thin ladies followed him. He walked over and stood across the table from us.

“Where are you boys from?” asked the town constable.

“Toronto,” we said, politely enough.

“Is that your car outside, license No. L1170?”

“It is,” we said.

“Where did you get the chickens you have hidden in the back of it?” asked the constable.

“We bought them,” said Jimmie, a light dawning on him. “Ah, I see. You thought we were chicken thieves? Ha, ha.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” said I.

“You will be glad to give us the name of the party you bought them from?” asked the constable, as the ring of men and the two thin ladies gathered closer around us.

“It was a farmer,” said Jim. “Let’s see. It was up in the north end of the county. Let’s see, we came down by … let’s see. Look here, we have been rabbit hunting. I can’t just say where we were when we bought those birds.”

“It was dark,” I put in.

“Ah, you can’t just say,” said the constable softly, nodding his head. He got out a notebook and began to take notes.

“Just a minute,” said Jimmie, rising to his feet. “Do you mean to insinuate that you think those chickens are stolen?”

The elder pushed forward.

“Boys,” he said, “there has been a lot of chicken stealing going on in this neighborhood.”

“Well, I assure you,” I said, “we got them from a farmer and paid him a dollar a pair for them.”

“That settles it,” cried the constable. “A dollar a pair they say they paid for a lot of old hens like those.”

“Several of the congregation,” said the elder, “think they identify some of their own chickens. Now that Buff Orpington in there, Mrs. Sampson thinks it is her old pet hen, Chicky.”

“I’ve had that hen seven years,” cried Mrs. Sampson loudly. She was one of the thin ladies. But already the crowd was slowly and soft-footedly flowing back through the entrance into the basement and listening with averted faces to the conversation.

“This is False Arrest”

“I don’t like this at all,” declared Jimmie loudly. “I am a respectable citizen. I buy some hens from a farmer…”

“Why had you them concealed behind rugs and coats?” asked the constable slyly, like a lawyer.

“Why did some nosey person go peeking behind those rugs and coats?” roared Jimmie.

Mrs. Sampson turned very red.

“I warn you gentlemen,” said Jim, softly, tapping the table with his finger, “if I am accused by you, without any evidence whatsoever, of chicken stealing, I shall sue this municipality for ten thousand dollars. I am a respectable man. This is a false arrest.”

Three of the older men, including the elder, turned pale and hurried back to a corner, where they held a consultation.

“I warn you, too,” I said loudly. “My reputation is worth ten thousand dollars. This will go hard with you taxpayers.”

“Tell us where you got the chickens,” demanded the constable, somewhat disturbed by the turn of events.

“You identify some of the birds,” retorted Jim. “Then arrest me if you dare.”

“We got the lanterns,” said a man from back in the crowd.

Escorted closely by several husky young farmers, we walked through the crowd and out into the night. The crowd swarmed after us. Up to the car the constable led us. The lanterns flooded their light over the scene.

The constable carefully opened our car door.

He opened it wider.

He flung it wide.

“They’re gone!” he yelled.

Our chickens were gone.

There was a moment of shocked silence.

“Who opened my car door?” demanded Jim. “Whoever opened my car door first is guilty of trespass, theft, breaking and entering! Did you open my car door, constable? If so, where’s your warrant?”

“And where are my chickens?” I asked.

But in the confusion the constable and the lantern bearers and Mrs. Sampson were all swept apart from us, and in the dark Jim and I continued to shout about our stolen chickens and what we would do about it.

But nobody paid any attention. Cars were driving off with loud exhausts, lights were going on. The elder tried to engage us, but his wife drew him aside.

“Aw,” said Jim, turning on his own lights.

“Anyway, it might take us a week, Jimmie,” I said, “to locate that farm back in the north end of the county.”

“Let’s get out of this,” said Jim, as if I had suggested the fowl supper.

So while Jim drove away I tore down the curtains of rugs and coats, and rearranged the rabbit guns and rubber boots.

---

Editor’s Notes: This story appeared in Greg Clark & Jimmie Frise Outdoors (1979).

1. $4 in 1934 would be $92 in 2025. ↩︎
2. An Orpington chicken is a British breed. ↩︎
3. 35 cents in 1934 would be $8 in 2025 ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 3, 1934.

“Can you run over for a minute?” asked Jimmie Frise on the telephone.

“I’ve just settled down,” I said, “for the night, with a good fishing book.”

“Well, I’ve got a poor chap here, I wanted you to see him,” said Jimmie. “It’s a pathetic case.”

“A friend?’ I asked.

“No, he just came to the door,” said Jimmie, in a guarded voice. “He is selling necktie racks. A very nice article. But he lacks salesmanship. He hasn’t got the punch. And he broke down on my porch. Run over for a minute, will you?”

“I’m no good in cases like that, Jimmie,” I demurred. “I always break down, too.”

“Come on,” begged Jim, “we’ll go into a committee on him.”

So I threw on my coat and walked over to Jimmie’s.

Jim had him in his little study at the side of the house. He was a man in his thirties, not badly dressed, but with that drawn look of despair and defeat on his face that is familiar to any of us that answer our front doors. Beside him on the floor was a paper bundle containing about a dozen objects made of wood with numerous pegs sticking out of them. They were painted pink, or blue or white.

“This gentleman,” said Jimmie, when I walked in, “makes these tie racks himself.”

I examined one critically.

“It’s a very attractive article,” I said with a professional air.

“But,” said Jimmie, “this gentleman can’t sell them. He simply can’t sell them. He has gone from door to door all through this well-to-do neighborhood and he hasn’t sold one!”

“I guess I’m not cut out for a salesman,” muttered the tie rack man huskily.

“Wasn’t anybody interested?” I inquired sitting down sympathetically.

“Most of them just opened the door, and before I could say a word, when they saw me hold out the tie rack, they shut the door,” said the man. His mouth was working, and tears stood in his eyes.

“It isn’t,” said Jim, hastily, “as if these were some commonplace junk. These are an original conception. Made by hand. Designed to fill a long-felt want in almost every home.”

A Surprise Selling Line

“Yes, sir,” said the man, sniffing loudly, “I thought them up myself. And I made the first model myself. And I perfected it myself. And I produced them in quantity myself. Painted and all.”

“Well,” I said, “nowadays you have to have a selling idea as good as the idea in itself. It’s no longer true that the world will beat a pathway to the door of a man who makes a better mouse trap. Nowadays, the only pathway, beaten to any mouse trap manufacturer’s is to the one who advertises and has worked up a smart selling line. In fact, the only pathways at all are those beaten by tireless salesmen driven by a tireless sales manager. To-day, the best mouse traps in the world aren’t catching any mice if the inventor is simply sitting at home looking out across the lawn for a path to appear.”

“You mean,” said Jim, “that this gentleman ought to get some manufacturer to adopt his idea?”

“Not if this gentleman wants to make any money out of it,” I replied. “I was merely suggesting that we think up some smart idea for him. This is old territory he is working. Every door in this neighborhood has been opened ten times a day for the past three years by somebody with something to sell, useful or otherwise. He has got to have some way of keeping that door open for half a minute, for even fifteen seconds, until he sinks the harpoon of interest into his prospective customer.”

“That’s true,” admitted Jim. “Now what would you suggest?”

“For one thing,” I said, “I’d have a couple of nice snappy ties hanging in one of these racks when I hold it up as the door opens.”

“Great!’ exclaimed Jimmie.

The other poor chap sat up with interest.

“Then I would say something like this,” I said, getting up and holding one of the tie racks in my hand, as if I were at a door. “‘Surprise, madam, a surprise for your husband. This tie rack hanging handy to his dresser, with all his ties neatly and tidily displayed. Only fifty cents. It will keep his dresser tidy. It will tend to make him interested in his appearance. Only fifty cents. In three colors. To match your furnishings!’”

I sat down amidst applause.

The man was impressed and flushed.

“Gents,” he said, “I sure am grateful. I’m sure I can do it. You’ve put new life into me. But I don’t think I’ll try to-night. I’ll wait till to-morrow. I’m all in tonight.”

“No, no,” cried Jimmie. “Try it to-night. While the idea is fresh upon you. Why, you can get rid of this dozen to-night in half an hour.”

“I’d rather tackle it to-morrow when I’m fresh,” said he.

Making a Poor Start

“Think of going home to-night with six bucks in your pocket,” said Jimmie, earnestly. “I believe in striking when the iron is hot.”

“Gents, if you don’t mind,” said the poor fellow anxiously.

“Listen,” cried Jim. “I know how you feel, this salesman stuff is terrible at first when you aren’t used to it. I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll go with you for the first few calls and get you started.”

“Would you!” exclaimed the tie rack man joyfully. “Would you?”

“Sure,” I said.

“We certainly would,” said Jim. “We’re interested in human nature experiments like this.”

Jim dashed out for his coat and hat and the man picked up his bundle of tie racks.

We went out, taking Jim’s car.

“We’ll drive a little way,” said Jim, “just to get away from this immediate neighborhood where we’re known.”

We drove up a couple of blocks and parked in a comfortable neighborhood and began at the first house in the block.

“Now you be the salesman,” said Jimmie to me, “and we’ll come right with you, carrying the stock of merchandise.”

We rang the bell. I cleared my throat.

A lady came to the door.

“Surprise,” I said, bowing slightly and employing a regular salesman smile. “Madam, here is a surprise for your husband. This tie rack hanging handy to your husband’s dresser…”

The lady, who had been looking with astonishment from one to the other of us, slowly closed the door. She didn’t even say scat.

In silence we walked down the steps.

“There you are, gents!” said the tie rack man. “That’s it.”

“One swallow doesn’t make a summer,” said Jimmie. “The bad beginning means a good end.”

Nobody was home but the young folks at the next house, they were dancing to the radio and the seven or eight of them who answered the door didn’t have fifty cents.

The next house, only the maid was in.

The next one, only the man of the house was in, and he had the book he was reading in his hand, and you could see his mind was not on what we were saying.

“Surprise,” I cried, holding the tie rack up in front of him. “Sir, a surprise for yourself. This handsome tie rack hanging handy to your dresser with all your ties neatly and tidily arrayed . . .”

“What the heck!” he said suddenly. And as suddenly slammed the door.

We went back out to the pavement.

The tie rack man was getting impatient. You could tell by the way he kept silent and stared off down the dark street moodily.

“Think of a new line,” said Jim. “Try some other approach.”

Trying the Heart Appeal

“How about this?” I exclaimed. “All three of us stand in the doorway, each one of us holding out a tie rack, you the blue one, you the pink one, and me the white one. What you call mass appeal. And then I will say: “Madam, these are tie racks. They are a useful and ornamental object for every man’s room.’ “

“No good,” said Jimmie, “we would only frighten the woman.”

“I guess you gents had better let me get along,” said the tie rack man in a melancholy voice.

“No, sir, once we put our hand to the plow,” cried Jimmie.

“Look here,” I cut in, “why not employ the one appeal that has worked to-night? What got this man into your house and brought us out into a committee of the whole? Why, the heart appeal.”

“Tears,” cried Jimmie.

“The breakdown,” I said. “We will call at this next house and we will all three stand there, with tears in our eyes, and appeal to the lady to buy a tie rack, we haven’t sold one to-night!”

“And that would be true,” added the tie rack man.

“Don’t overdo it,” warned Jimmie.

We went up to the next house. We turned up our coat collars and stood in an abject huddle while we waited for the bell to be answered.

A bald-headed man in shirt sleeves came to the door.

“Mister,” I said, exhibiting the poor pink tie rack, “us three have been all over this neighborhood trying to dispose of these tie racks, we only ask fifty cents, they’re a lovely thing, handy as anything, and we made them ourselves (here I let a little quaver get into my voice) and painted them ourselves, our own idea, too, and we thought we could make an honest dollar or two out of them…”

The bald-headed man stood looking at us silently. The tie rack man was the picture of woe. Jim had his chin ducked down in his collar, his hat over his eyes, a look of desperation in his attitude.

“You haven’t sold one, eh?”

“No, sir,” I said, brokenly. Jim gave what sounded like a muffled sob. The tie rack man lifted his wan face into the light.

“By george,” said the bald-headed man, “step inside here a minute.”

Generous With Advice

He held the door wide, and we three trooped into the hall. Beyond, there was a table, through a haze of cigar smoke, at which sat three men playing poker.

“Just a minute, boys,” called the baldheaded man. “Step out here.”

The poker players got up and came into the hall.

“These three poor chaps,” said the baldheaded man, “have a very handy little article here, a tie rack. See? A handy little gadget. They made them themselves. They thought up the idea themselves. They painted then. They have been all over this district and haven’t sold one! Now, here’s a case where we ought to help, don’t you think?”

All four of them regarded us with deep sympathy.

We all sat down in the front room.

“You follows look like pretty respectable men,” said the baldhead.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “We’re all good honest mechanics, and we thought we could make a few honest dollars to help along. But it seems we can’t sell these things.”

One of the men opened the bundle of tie racks and they all passed them around, admiring them.

“A smart idea,” they said. “A first-rate article. A thing you would imagine would sell in any house.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “Any man would appreciate having a thing like that to keep his ties in order.”

“Sure,” said one of the poker players, “my ties are all hanging on a knob by the mirror on my dresser. All in a mess.”

“I tell you what,” said the-bald-headed man, “you fellows have got a good article here, but no matter how good your article you have got to have a selling talk to go with it. It isn’t enough just to show them at the door from house to house.”

“That’s true, sir,” I said. And Jimmie nodded brightly.

“Now, we four men,” said the baldheaded man, looking around at his three friends who were regarding us sympathetically and curiously, “are in the merchandising business. In fact, this gentleman is something of a wizard at selling. I think we could get together right now and give you a sales talk on these articles which would work magic. You could dispose of this lot in no time, the three of you.”

“You’re right, Bill,” said the others, nodding.

“Now, let’s see,” said the bald-headed man. “How about this: you walk up to the door and when the lady comes you are holding the tie rack up like this, see? And you say, right off: “Madame, the problem of keeping your husband’s ties in order is one of the banes … no, not one of the banes…”

“The problem of keeping your husband’s ties in order,” stated one of the other poker players, a tall, thin, thoughtful man, whose tie was all skew-gee, “is promptly solved by this simple, attractive and handsome little article, only fifty cents.”

“That’s better,” cried the bald-headed man. “Or how about this: “Madame, how often do you have to sort out your husband’s ties, all in a tangle in his bureau drawer? This handy little article, etcetera, etcetera…” Do you see?”

The New Message

Jimmie and the tie rack man and I all saw, but the tie rack man had a slight bulge in his eyes that I did not like.

“I tell you what we’ll do, boys!” cried the bald-headed man. “We’ll go with you! This is most interesting to us, as sales experts. We’re not in the mood for cards to-night anyway, are we, boys? No. So just wait a jiffy and we’ll step out with you and see those racks vanish with a little snappy sales approach.”

“Good idea,” agreed the others, rising.

“Won’t there be a lot of us calling from door to door, sir?” I asked respectfully.

“I was going to suggest,” said the tall, thoughtful man, “that we might each take two racks apiece and we will scatter along the block and make a game of it. See who disposes of his racks first. Eh, boys! And so select the best sales talk.”

His friends all snapped up the challenge.

“How about it?” asked the bald-headed one, genially. “Will you trust us?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” I assured him, nudging the tie rack man, who seemed to be on the point of saying something.

We trooped out the front door.

“You chaps work right along here,” said the bald-headed one, “but as we others are known around here we’ll walk a couple of blocks north and start. When you’re through wait here, will you? We’ll be back in no time!”

We divided up the package of tie racks, giving each of the four gentlemen two apiece. Pinks and blues.

They walked eagerly away and Jim and the tie rack man and I started down to the corner of the block for Jim’s car.

“Now for a getaway,” I exclaimed.

“Where do I get off in this?” demanded the tie rack man loudly.

“Ssssh!” said Jim. “We’ll pay you for the lot. Three bucks each, me and my little friend. Am I right?’

“Right,” I said, opening the car door and hastening my two companions into it.

“But where do you get off in this?” asked the poor tie rack fellow, bewildered.

“It’s worth three bucks each to us,” I explained as Jim drove quietly but smartly away from there, “for the lesson.”

“Lesson?” said the tie rack man.

“Sympathy and advice aren’t enough,” I said. “We are all learning that now. Those four guys right now are learning it, too! It’s the new message of good times returning.”

“Yes,” said Jim, “we’ll buy your stuff even if we don’t need it.”

“And even,” I added, “if we haven’t got it!”

“Well, sir,” said the tie rack man, “I do believe things are on the mend!”

---

Editor’s Note: This story appeared in Silver Linings (1978).

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, December 29, 1934.

“AAAAAAGHHH,” said Jimmie Frise.

“What is it?” I asked anxiously.

“Ughh,” groaned Jimmie, this Christmas-New Year’s week gets me down. Over eating. Over eating. I feel like a boa constrictor that has eaten three goats. One goat. Two goats. Three goats.”

“Yes,” I said, “I know that lumpy feeling.”

“I could just lie down somewhere and let those colossal gorgings digest,” said Jimmie. “I feel drowsy. Or is it just that I have eaten so much, my skin is tight all over me, and that is what is making my eyes half close?”

“What we need,” I declared, “is exercise.”

“I never felt less like exercise in all my life,” replied Jim, resting himself in another slouched position on his chair.

“Big meals,” I said, clearing my throat, “big meals, Jimmie, should be forbidden by the public health legislation of this country. They should be a crime. In ancient times, when nature was our only law, men, like any other animal, ate whenever they could, but lots of times they went for days and days without a bite to eat.”

“I wish I was starving to death, right now,” moaned Jimmie.

“Lots of times,” I went on, “when game was scarce, whole tribes of men were slowly starving to death. Then all of a sudden, a herd of prehistoric reindeer or a couple of mammoths came along…”

“Ughh,” protested Jimmie.

“A herd of mammoths came along,” I continued, “and the whole tribe rushed out of the caves and slew a couple of them. And what a feast there was then! Up leaped the fires, and great juicy steaks of mammoth went on the pointed sticks to be roasted…”

“Please, please,” begged Jimmie, rising. “If you don’t change the subject, I’ll have to leave.”

“Very well,” I said. “But you see the point. Mankind, in the long-drawn-out early history of us, used to feast only after long fasts. I should say that in the ancient days mankind ate, as a rule, very little, and only once in a long while did they get a square meal. In these days, when we all eat regular meals, we should never, never feast.”

“Agreed, agreed,” said Jim, yawning and groaning at the same time.

“Having all and more than we need to eat, as often as we like,” I said, “it is against the ancient law of nature for us to gorge ourselves. It should be a public crime to stuff.”

“I’m a criminal all right,” said Jim, closing his eyes heavily.

“I’m a criminal, too,” I assured him. “Christmas Day, I started with two fried eggs and bacon, toast, cherry jam, two mugs of coffee and a beaker of orange juice. Then, about two p.m., we sat down to a turkey. Such a turkey. I ate three full-size slices off the breast, cut with a sharp knife. A gobbin of dressing about the size of a grapefruit…”

“Erp,” said Jim, “pardon me.”

“Then mashed potatoes with dark bright brown gravy, and turnips and cranberry sauce with the skins left in, for sharpness….”

Planning a Cellar Gym

“You were saying,” said Jim, heaving himself to an upright posture in his chair, “something about exercise. Talk about exercise. Tell me about walking five miles in the crisp winter afternoon, amidst bright pine trees along the frosty roads.”

“Walking,” I said, “about 120 to the minute, short, strong-legged paces, swinging a cane, with a tartan muffler around your neck, a pipe in your mouth, and steam blowing from your nose.”

“Aaaahhhh,” sighed Jimmie, looking better already.

“And big stout boots on your feet,” I pictured, “and the ground frozen and lumpy underfoot, and chickadees and maybe a redpoll or two in the trees for you to pause and look at, and maybe a pheasant, all dark and burnished, running across the road ahead of you.”

“Get away from pheasants, raw or roasted,” warned Jim.

“In the olden days,” I stated, “when we used to alternate feasts with long periods of enforced fasting, we got plenty of exercise. Hunting the mammoths must have been an arduous sport. Through bogs and swamps and through terrible jungles, with your poor stomach flat against your backbone from emptiness.”

“Beautiful,” murmured Jim.

“And you weary from carrying an immense club studded with bronze nails to kill the mammoths with.”

“Keep the mammoths alive,” urged Jim. “A dead mammoth gags me somehow.”

“I tell you what,” I suggested, “let’s go for a good walk right now. Let’s lock the office and go. Let’s drive as far as the Jail Farm¹ and then go for a big tramp about five miles west, along one of those lovely winter York county dirt roads.”

“I’d die,” said Jim. “I’d just sit down by a snake fence and die. I haven’t enough strength in my legs right now to stand up.”

“The only thing to cure you,” I informed him, “is exercise. A brisk, long walk. A swinging walk through country with cold wind in your face and pushing against your chest.”

“It’s lovely to hear about,” said Jim, “but I couldn’t do it. Just let us talk about exercise.”

“Can’t we do something about exercise?” I asked. “Instead of merely talking about?”

“I’ve often thought,” pursued Jim, “of making a sort of private gymnasium in my cellar. It’s a big cellar, with a nice high ceiling. I could erect a horizontal bar, and rings on ropes, you know?”

“And my wife,” I said, “has one of those rowing machines stored in the attic. I’d lend

it.”

“And a horse,” said Jim. “You know those leather horses for leaping over.”

“Why don’t we just join a gym?” I asked.

“It’s too public,” demurred Jim. “I couldn’t bear showing off my shape in front of a lot of beautiful young fellows built like gods.”

“You’re right,” I said. “Make it a cellar gym.”

“There,” said Jim, relaxing a little, “we two could meet of an early morning, fresh from sleep and before starting for the office. We could do a crisp half hour of swinging and whirling. We could shake all the stale blood out of our limbs.”

“And heads,” said I.

“We could start our pulses working,” went on Jim. “Evenings, we could do tricks, slowly reviving the lost talents of our muscles. Saturdays we could hold private and personal gymkhanas², competing with each other to see who had the most strength, the most skill.”

“You have me interested,” I admitted.

So that when we broke off work early and went home in the bright afternoon, we called at my house and got the rowing machine out of the attic of my house, and I also contributed a length of big half-inch rope that once I bought for an anchor, not knowing how big half-inch rope really is. An old army saddle I also dug out of the attic, relic of my war days when I tried to ride horses.

“This,” I explained to Jimmie, “will do instead of a gymnasium horse. We can prop it up some way between two chairs or something.”

Jim had timber to make horizontal bars. Old curtain poles of the kind all houses used to have between the living room and the dining room, and all of which are now stored in the attics of the world, Jim produced and we made series of bars on which we could swing like Tarzan, from limb to limb, strengthening our arms and dilating our chests and lungs.

Jimmie’s stuffiness passed off as we got the material assembled in his cellar.

“I feel better already,” said Jim, removing his coat and vest and producing an old box full of hammers, saws, nails and dusty old brackets and things.

First we had to sit down to plan it. We sat down on boxes and planned, with gestures. Over in the corner would be the rowing machine. Along the back of the big cellar would be a series of parallel bars for swinging, grand circles, short arm balances and chinning.

“I haven’t,” said Jim, “chinned myself for so long, it will be a treat to do it again.”

“And rings,” I cried. “Jimmie, when I was at school, I could travel faster around the rings than any boy in the school. I love rings. To swing at arm’s length on rings, gaining momentum and speed. I wonder if we couldn’t get so expert, we could set up two sets of ropes and rings, and swing from one to the other, like trapeze artists?”

“Vaulting the horse,” said Jim. “Now there’s a thing that tests your mettle. You take a run at the horse, place one hand on the saddle, and vault cleanly over it. I would rather see a man vault the horse than see a whole team of military jumpers take the hurdles on horseback.”

So we planned. We would have the horse in the middle of the cellar. I got up and set boxes and things and rested a broom across, and balanced my old saddle on the broom to show Jimmie just how it would look. Then I sat down again.

“It isn’t big enough,” mused Jim, “for a running track down here. But we might get some whitewash like they use on tennis courts and mark off the floor in rings and squares, to make it look gymnasiumy. You know, half the inspiration of a gymnasium is the look of it. It must look appetizing.”

“I thought you were tired of appetite,” I said.

“Now, how about a chest expander,” said Jim, shifting on to the floor and resting his back against the box. “We could attach a couple of bricks to some strong sash cord, and run it up through pulleys. A first-rate chest expander.”

“Swell,” said I. “And how about a rubbing-down table? I could rub you down and then you could rub me down.”

For Fresh Inspiration

“Boy,” said Jimmie, “that rub-down makes me feel good. What would we use for a rub-down?”

“Liniment,” I decreed. “A good cool stinging liniment. With a pungent, turpentiney odor.”

“Ach,” said Jim, “the smell of it fairly catches my breath. I feel like a new man already, just thinking about it.”

He sat up and stretched. He stood up. He walked around the cellar and patted the saddle.

“Think,” he said, “of that grand fresh, feeling of doing twenty minutes fast work on these bars, those rings, that horse, then five minutes on the rowing machine, then a quick rub-down with liniment and so to work!”

“I tingle,” I assured him. “Try a few pulls on that rowing machine.”

Jim stood above the rowing machine, looking down at it.

“Sit on it,” I urged him. “Take a few pulls and see how strong and elastic those springs are.”

“In a few minutes,” said Jim. “I’ve got to run upstairs for a second.”

Left alone, I lay there visualizing the gymnasium. Seeing Jimmie and me in our underwear lithely whirling and twisting, swinging and bending and wheeling. Upstairs I heard Jim’s feet to and fro in the kitchen.

He came down, just as the light from the cellar windows was fading, with a large tray.

On the tray were onion sandwiches, and the tail end of the turkey. The onion sandwiches were Spanish onions sliced thin, as only Jimmie knows how to make them, with salt and pepper, a dash of vinegar laid on with a teaspoon to get it just right, a faint dash of wooster sauce, between well-buttered thin bread.

The turkey was on its last legs, but hidden about its colossal carcase were large gobbets of meat, some white, some dark. Inside were large hunks of dressing still adhering to the ribs.

Jim had also a pot of coffee and a jug of thick cream.

“Ah,” said I, sitting forward.

We just laid the tray on the gymnasium floor and sat to it on our boxes.

After we had finished, I locked my fingers behind my head and leaned back against the wall.

“Well,” I said, “how about the gymnasium? How about doing something for a start?”

“New Year’s dinner will be in a few days,” said Jim, picking a last thread of white meat off from along that big keel bone sticking up drily. “What do you say if we wait until after New Year’s before going on with the gym? It will be a sort of fresh inspiration for us?”

“O-kay,” I agreed.

So before going upstairs to listen to the radio from the chesterfield and the big fat chair to match it, we pushed the bars and ropes and boards and saddle and stuff into a corner where they would be handy.

---

Editor’s Notes: This story appeared both in So What? (1937), and Silver Linings (1978).

1. The “Jail Farm” was the Langstaff Jail Farm. In today’s terminology, it was a minimum security facility for inebriates, first offenders, and petty criminals, an alternative to the dreaded Don Jail.  ↩︎
2. Gymkhana is a British Raj term which originally referred to a place of assembly. The meaning then altered to denote a place where skill-based contests were held. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 3, 1934.

“As servants of the people,” said Jimmie Frise, “we are not paying enough attention to the weightier problems of to-day.”

“I guess we haven’t got the equipment,” I agreed.

“We waste our time,” went on Jim, “making little unimportant experiments with pickling, furnace pipes, rabbit hunting and other minor domestic quarrels.”

“I would love,” I said, “to be a great authority.”

“It is easy to become a great authority,” stated Jimmie. “You just give up everything else, you forget about money, about your wife and family, you just concentrate yourself on one subject, like humming birds or radio tubes or something, and work sixteen hours a day at it and dream about it fitfully all night, year after year for thirty-five years. And then, when you are seventy-one years old and hump-backed and half blind and your family has all grown up and left you a quarter of a century ago, and you have no friends left, and you die, you get your picture in the papers and underneath it says, “The great authority on humming birds.””

“I don’t mean that kind of authority,” I hurried. “I mean a sort of authority that just comes by his knowledge instinctively, like poets – you know? – just born with an understanding of some of the mysteries of this life. I feel I have such an instinctive knowledge about the poor and oppressed. I sort of feel that, but for the grace of God and a little accident somewhere in my boyhood, I would have been a tramp myself.”

“I often feel that way,” mused Jim. “Sometimes I marvel that I have a house to live in.”

“Maybe everybody feels that way,” I suggested.

“I doubt it,” said Jim. “I think you and I have a deep sympathy with bums because we know, deep in our own hearts, that if it hadn’t been for some guidance we got as children or some friendly expectation we felt from our olders, we would have been hoboes.”

“And all the world to see,” I cried. “There is no reason to suppose that a hobo does not appreciate landscape as much as we do, and we have to pay big money and reserve expensive berths and staterooms to go abroad to look at mountains and the sea.”

“If we were hoboes,” went on Jim, “we could just climb aboard a freight train and dangle along through the lovely country and whenever we saw a beautiful lake or a lovely range of hills, all we have to do is jump off and stay there until our eyes and souls were filled. Maybe, by jove, maybe hoboes are artists at heart, poets and dreamers, who surrender all the world that they may saturate themselves in beauty!”

It Ought to Be Law

“Most artists I know,” I submitted, “look just one jump removed from hoboes.”

“Did you ever hear of the Sabbatical year?” asked Jim.

“I probably did as a child,” I guarded.”

“In ancient Biblical days,” says Jim, “every seventh year was a year of rest, like the seventh day. In the sabbatical year, nobody was allowed to work or till the earth. It was a year of rest. Some of the universities allow their professors a sabbatical year, and they go on holidays, with full pay, for the whole year!”

“I missed my calling,” said I.

“The old Hebrews were a wise bunch,” said Jimmie. “We make a big mistake when we aren’t fundamentalists. We should take Moses whole. We should have never surrendered the sabbatical year. Every seventh year, every man in this world ought to be allowed to turn hobo. Bankers, mechanics, newspapermen.”

“Where would you head for, Jimmie, if you turned hobo?”

“I’d head for California,” said Jim. “First, I would go to California and visit Tia Juana and then, at the right season, I would amble across to Kentucky and see the Derby and lie around on the blue grass for a month or two. Then, maybe, I’d stow away for England and see Ascot. Ireland, I’d like to see Ireland too, and spend a couple of months around one of those famous studs where they raise Irish hunters. But what about you? What would you do?”

“I’d start my sabbatical year,” I said, clearing my throat, “in May. I’d start via the Nipigon and then across to fish British Columbia, up to Alaska, finishing Alaska about August. Then I’d catch a boat for New Zealand, arriving there just as the brown and rainbow trout season opens about October first. I’d fish all around New Zealand until maybe February, and then stow away for the south of France, fishing through the Pyrenees and up and across into Devonshire by the first of April, then slowly, stream by stream, up to Scotland…”

“Wait a minute!” cried Jim. “Your sabbatical year is up!”

“Won’t you let me catch one salmon in Scotland?” I asked indignantly.

“You’ve got to be back in Toronto on May first,” stated Jim. “But it is a swell idea, that sabbatical year.”

“It ought to be law,” I declared.

“We ought,” said Jim, with that thoughtful, looking-away expression he wears when he is putting something over, “to just try a little of the hobo life, to see what it is really like. I mean, here we set ourselves up as the friends of the poor, but we don’t bark our shins grabbing freights. How about some day putting on some old clothes and going for a short trip on a freight?”

And that is how it came about that last Monday Jimmie and I sneaked off at lunch hour and went heme and put on our old hunting clothes and peak caps.

Grabbin’ a Freight

“Better take a few dollars each to get home on,” I suggested, as we admired ourselves in the mirror in Jim’s hall.

“Not on your life,” said Jim. “As artists, we must not only play the part of hoboes, we must be hoboes. Don’t let us take more than about 30 cents each, in dimes.”

“Suppose we get away off by Orillia or some place?” I inquired.

“Don’t be silly,” said Jim. “We aren’t going more than twenty miles. Freights always stop at sidings. We’ll go an hour or so one way, then hop off and catch another one coming into the city. Just to get a taste, not a bellyful.”

Jim had found out that one of the best places in the world to catch a freight is in the Mimico yards. There vast hundreds of acres of train tracks and sidings, thousands of empty box cars, long trains of loaded cars are assembled.

“We have to watch out for dicks,¹” said Jim, as we headed for the railway yards.

“O-kay, bo²,” said I, slouching.

With caps pulled over our eyes and shoulders tough and legs kind of bowed, which is any man’s way of feeling tough, we slunk through Mimico to Church St. and up to the subway. We were instantly in the core, the centre, the heart of railroadom. Turning in at the subway, we found ourselves in a vast region densely striped with hundreds of tracks and thousands of cars, with engines slowly puffing through, some drawing immense endless strings of cars, others steaming fussily about alone, and gauntletted railroad men, in overalls and peaked caps, leaning athletically out from cars and engines.

Hidden from us by strings of cars, engines puffed by us, and we heard the crunch of gravel under the feet of men which we could see by stooping down and looking under the cars. But they were railroad men’s feet. No bums did we see in the half hour we spent prowling up and down.

Two tracks away, we heard a string of cars shunt.

“Dere’s one haulin’ out, pardner,” hissed Jim. “Let’s scram on board, huh?”

We crawled underneath two strings of motionless freights and came out alongside the train that was still creaking from the shunt.

Three cars to our left, we saw an empty box car with its door ajar about two feet.

“Dere she is, buddy,” hissed Jim. “Lemme see how smart you are at grabbin’ a freight, huh?”

We scrunched low and made the dash.

Jim boosted me through the open door, and swung himself inside with professional smoothness.

“She’s headed west,” said Jim. “That means either Detroit or maybe Winnipeg. We’ll go as far as Brantford or Aurora.”

Cr-rash! shunted the train. You could hear it coming, but still it nearly knocked you off your feet.

“These freights are rough,” said I.

“You get used to it,” said Jim, walking to the door to peek.

“Nix!” he hissed. “Flat against the wall! Here comes a brakeman!”

We hugged the wall of the freight car as we heard footsteps crunching nearer on the gravel.

The footsteps stopped. We held our breath.

Then the brakeman reached up and with a grunt slammed the car door shut, and we heard a metallic clink and he threw home seme kind of a bolt or latch.

The footsteps died away.

“He locked us in!” I whinnied.

“Take it cool,” said Jim. “We’ll figure this out.”

“But we may not get out until we get to Vancouver,” I wailed, “or Des Moines!”

“We stop plenty of places,” soothed Jim. “All we have got to do is holler.”

“One brakeman and one engineer can’t hear us holler half a mile away,” I said loudly. “Let us holler now!”

“Hey,” roared Jimmie promptly. “HALP!”

“Halp, HALP!” I echoed, kicking the wall of the box car.

I will not embarrass you with a full stenographic record of the noises, yells and signals that we engaged in for the next ten minutes. Then we stopped because we were hoarse.

“She hasn’t started yet anyway,” said Jim.

“Maybe, Jim,” I said, as we sat on the floor, resting our lungs, “maybe this is one of those empty cars they store at Mimico until next summer.”

“It might be,” agreed Jim.

“Maybe nobody will come by,” I quavered, “and we will die of hunger and thirst. And maybe this car will not be used until they move the wheat next July.”

“Cut it out,” warned Jim.

“And we will be missing until next August,” I went on; “when they will find our desiccated and mummified bodies out in Weyburn, Sask.!”

The Free-Faring Life

“Stow it,” warned Jim.

“We have no identifications in these clothes,” I went on. “I’m going to spend what strength I have left now in carving my name on the wall of this box car, Jimmie, and if I am spared long enough, by the pangs of hunger and thirst, I will carve on the wall the details of our horrible experience. So people will know what became of us.”

An engine came puffing in the distance.

“Get ready,” cried Jim, leaping up in the dark. “Hoy, HOY, HAAALLLPPP!”

But the engine went thundering and hissing by.

“No use,” said I, sadly. “Let us save our strength and listen for footsteps. Surely some bum will come by.”

So we sat and listened. Occasionally, to break the monotony of conversation, we hallooed and yelled.

“It must be getting evening,” surmised Jimmie.

At about what must have been nine o’clock by the silence of the world, broken only by the thunder of passing trains, Jim suggested we take turns at having a little sleep. I slept first. But cinders are poor mattresses. I woke to find Jim snoring by my side.

“HAAALLLP!” I roared, but really to wake Jim.

“It must be getting towards morning.” Engines went by, trains, long, long trains, went by, going to Winnipeg, Vancouver and Des Moines.

“This,” said Jim, heavily, “might be one of those silk trains that make non-stop runs across the continent.”

“It is like being lost in the middle of the Sahara desert,” I said, hollowly. “Here, in the midst of a great freight yard, on the edge of a mighty city, we are lost as if we had flown in a rocket to the moon!”

We dozed again.

“Clink!”

We both sat up to face a foot-wide strip of God’s morning light streaming in and dazzling us. We made out the head of a man, a villainous, stubble-covered face peering at us with amazement.

“Hullo, said he. “Did I startle ye?”

Jim and I swallowed, poising for a spring.

“Kin I come in?” he asked, reaching up for a hoist.

“We’re getting out,” said Jim.

“All right,” said the hobo, “make it snappy. She’s just about to pull.”

Jim and I went through the narrow crack together. The tramp hoisted himself up and in.

“I hope yer not leavin’ on my account,” said he, looking down at us.

“No, no,” we assured him.

We hurried toward the Church St. subway.

“Ah,” cried Jim, as we hastened down toward the street cars in the fresh dawn, “the free-faring life of the hobo!”

But I was thinking about bacon and eggs and I didn’t want to be interrupted.

---

Editor’s Notes: This story was reprinted in Silver Linings (1978).

1. Here Jimmie means Railroad police, who would look for hoboes to remove them from the trains. They could also get quite rough. ↩︎
2. “Bo” is short for hobo and is part of hobo slang to refer to each other. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 28, 1934.

“Did you ever,” asked Jimmie Frise, “do any flying?”

“In the war,” I said, “I once went up by accident.”

“By accident?”

“Yes,” I explained. “Out of curiosity I visited an aerodrome and there I bumped into a chap I knew. He said he would like to drive me down to see my brother at an aerodrome about fifty miles away. That was four days’ march for us infantry. So I said swell. He led me over to an aeroplane. He assisted me in. He got in front. Before I came to I was rushing through the air, with the earth tilted up on its edge below me, and he couldn’t hear me yelling to stop.”

That must have been awful,” sympathized Jim.

“It was,” I assured him. “You have to think fast in this life. When he said ‘drive me down’ I thought he meant in one of those numerous trucks, motorcycle sidecars and so forth that the air force was equipped with. But there I was, pushing through the air at a frightful speed, with towns and slag heaps of mines zipping past underneath, and me clinging to a piano stool in the back end of a sort of a box kite called a Bristol Fighter¹. Phew!”

“Did you like it?” asked Jim.

“After I got down,” I explained, “I liked it fine. That is the main thing about flying. Once you are on the ground flying is a lovely sensation.”

“Do you get giddy?” inquired Jim.

“I can’t hang a picture from a step- ladder,” I assured him, “without either losing my balance or having to go and lie down for half an hour.”

“You get sea sick too,” pointed out Jim.

“Indeed I do,” said I.

“It is all imagination,” declared Jim.

“Is that so?” I sneered.

“Absolutely imagination,” repeated Jim. “All those feelings of giddiness, dizziness, sea sickness, car sickness are just the result of having a soft and limp mind. You can control almost everything by your mind.”

“Listen,” I said, “if I get on a merry-go-round I get so dizzy I can’t walk straight for two or three hours. My knees turn to jelly. My heart flutters. My head swims. I feel I am still on the merry-go-round, going round and round. I walk in big curves, thinking I am going straight.”

“All nonsense,” stated Jim loudly. “Perfect nonsense. Your imagination is playing tricks with you. Probably always has. What you need is a little discipline of your mind. You must get it into your head that mind has power over matter. You can will yourself to be warm when you think you are cold. Or to be cool when you think you are hot.”

“Rubbish,” I said, unbuttoning my vest, because it was a hot day.

On the Neck of a Giraffe

“A man of your intelligence,” said Jimmie, “should know the power of his own mind. You could be a steeplejack. You could be an ironworker on some of those thirty and forty storey buildings away up there in the sky…”

“Stop, Jimmie, stop!” I commanded. “I am getting slightly ill just thinking of it.”

“Really,” declared Jim, “you ought to do something about it. You have been letting your mind go limp for so long, by George, you some day may not be able to control it at all. Why don’t you try to control your feelings?”

“I am what I am,” I stated.

“Free will,” retorted Jim. “You have free will, haven’t you? Just say to yourself, I can climb the tallest ladder and not feel dizzy.'”

“I feel dizzy just thinking about a tall ladder.” I replied.

“Tell you what we’ll do,” said Jimmie. “To-night we’ll go down to Sunnyside². We’ll get aboard the merry-go-round and I’ll sit beside you and keep your mind drilled. I’ll take charge and keep saying. ‘You’re not dizzy, it can’t make you dizzy, you are enjoying the breeze, you are enjoying the fun,’ and if you get dizzy, after really making-up your mind not to, I’ll draw your nose without that jag in it after this.”

That jag in the nose happens to be the one sore spot in a long and happy friendship.

“I’ll try,” I agreed.

Jimmie and I both love amusement parks. We like the smell of them and the sound of them and the sights of them. We love to see our fellow men unawares. We love to watch men and women and youths and children and babies all off parade, going along with never a thought or a care. And you can see them more careless at amusement parks than anywhere else. In their eyes is the true expression of themselves, unaware, unguarded. And those expressions are so much more lovely than the expressions they put on.

Jimmie, a man of action, led me resolutely to the merry-go-round. It was mostly occupied by young girls in fluffy dresses who stand holding on to the neck of a giraffe or a lion and whirl round and round with a breeze against them, and by perspiring young fathers holding two-year-old pop-eyes on the back of a zebra for a tiger.

The music slacked, the merry-go-round slowed and in the rush of people off it and on Jimmie and I got discreetly aboard the inner ring of animals, I choosing a giraffe and Jimmie a lion. Jim sat crossways and with easy grace. I got my feet in the stirrups and took a good warm clutch on the long neck of the giraffe.

“Ha, ha,” I laughed excitedly. “It can’t make me dizzy.”

“Atta boy,” said Jim.

A lone lady, middle-aged, thin and anxious looking, struggled to climb aboard a prancing horse just ahead of me and found it too difficult. She turned and, with a nervous smile, held her purse out to me.

“Pardon me,” she said, “would you hold my purse, please?”

“Certainly, madam,” said I, remembering I have an honest face.

I took the purse, a brown, rather young-looking purse for so lean and severe a lady. She tried to mount the horse again; last-minute people were scampering aboard, grabbing what was left. The merry-go-round started and the lady, moving away from the horse, with a little gesture of fright, took a quick run and jumped off just as the machine got going.

Whirling Through Space

“Hey, lady!” I called, above the music, waving the purse.

But I had to attend to other matters. The merry-go-round started its wild surging, round and round, and I was busily engaged in getting a good strong hug, with both arms and both elbows, around the neck of the giraffe.

“Atta boy,” came Jim’s voice from behind me: “this can’t make you dizzy! You’re o.k. You’re enjoying it. The breeze. The whirl, eh!”

There was a wild blur of faces and bodies passing me and to look for the lady who had given me her purse was out of the question, so every time I came past where I thought she had got off I waved the purse slightly to reassure her.

Blur, music, surge, blur, blur, blur. I began to feel rather damp and the familiar sensation of weakness at the knees, elbows and wrists began to creep over me.

“Atta boy,” cried Jim, above the rowdy music. “From now on, no crook in your nose. It’s a promise!”

I clung tighter to the giraffe’s neck. I felt myself leaning far out to the edge, though I knew by the feel of the giraffe’s neck that I was still square on top of it.

Blur, blur, blur. Would the fool thing never stop! I ceased waving the purse. I hoped the lady would be right handy when I got off, because I did not want to have to weave my way amongst any crowd when I got off. I had no feeling any more, but just a vast empty wheeling sensation. My eyes felt permanently crossed. I gripped the giraffe’s neck until my arms ached, yet I felt as if I were leaning at an incredible angle far off to the right.

“Hold tight; it’ll soon be over,” assured Jimmie.

I felt he could tell I was not earning a straight nose.

I felt the whirling machine start to slacken. I clung all the tighter. Slowly it came to a stop, but I and the giraffe kept whirling straight onward, forever and forever, round and round. I could see the crowds climbing down and off and new ones scrambling on and up. But I just held grimly until Jim came and helped me off.

“Not so good, eh?” asked Jim, steadying me.

“WooooOOOOOooooo,”I assured him. I wove dimly amongst the wild beasts.

Two young ladies got in front of us.

“That’s my purse!” hissed one of them. She made a snatch at it.

“Pardon me,” I said unsteadily, “but it is not. A lady much older in a gray woollen dress gave me…”

“Give me my purse or I’ll scream police,” cried the young lady, angrily but quietly.

“Hush!” interposed Jimmie. “Come outside, please. There is some mistake.”

“I’ll scream police,” warned the young lady, while she and the other girl followed me, close.

“I’ll Call the Police”

But in the dimness of the merry-go-round we paused.

“You are not the person who gave me this purse,” I said, while Jimmie held me up.

“That’s my purse. My name is in it and five dollars,” said the young lady shrilly. “And it was snatched out of my hand in the crowd here not ten minutes ago!”

“Miss,” I said, “so help me, a middle-aged lady gave it to me to hold.”

“Look in it. My name is Brown. It’s written inside the cover.”

I opened it. There was “Brown” written inside the flap.

“There,” she said. “And five dollars.”

I opened it.

There was nothing in it at all. Not even a copper.

“Oh,” wailed the young lady. “I’ll call the police.”

“Wait a minute,” cautioned Jim. “Just a second. I tell you I saw the lady give him the purse!”

“You’re both thieves,” cried the young lady more loudly, and her friend started taking a deep breath to let out a yell.

“Shhhh!” I begged. “Look, won’t you believe that this purse was given to me? Maybe the other lady snatched it from you and then got me to hold it.”

“Will the police believe that?” asked the girl suspiciously. “We’ll see.”

And she started to swell up for a yell.

“Here,” cried Jim, “don’t be foolish. It will just create a lot of trouble. Here, give her five dollars.”

“I won’t be gypped,” I cried, while around me the lights whirled and the music of the new revolving merry-go-round made me lurch and cling to Jim’s arm.

“How dare you?” cried the young lady.

I reached in and gave her my one bill, a five.

She put it in the purse.

“The very bill,” said she, glancing at it easily, “that was in it before.”

She and her friend whirled their skirts at us and vanished in the throng.

“Let’s,” said Jimmie, “follow them. I bet you any money in the world that the older woman is working with them and that you were framed. I bet they are a gang. I bet she wouldn’t have yelled for the police for five hundred dollars. Come on.”

“WhoooOOOOoooo, Jimmie,” I begged. “Don’t let go of me.”

We went over to a bench and while Jim sat, talking loudly about how one woman planted the purse and another one claimed it, I went on a private journey, round and round, round and round, sitting on that magic bench that went nowhere, yet went round and round.

After about half an hour of silent prayer, concentration, contemplation and sitting with eyes squeezed tight shut I asked Jimmie:

“How about the twist in my nose?”

“That,” said Jim, not unkindly, “is not a jag or a twist. It is a crook in your nose. And it stays in, in memory of this night.”

Which I suppose is only fair to a man with a limp mind.

---

Editor’s Notes:

1. This would be a Bristol F.2 Fighter. ↩︎
2. The Sunnyside Amusement Park existed from 1922 until 1955. ↩︎