Tag: 1939 Page 1 of 5

“If anything makes me sick,” declared Jimmie Frise, “it’s spring house-cleaning.”

“The law ought to be,” I agreed, “that spring house-cleaning had to be done on and not before May first. Then it would coincide with the opening of the trout season.”

“Perfect, perfect,” cried Jim. “Then the men could all go trout fishing for three or four days and leave the women to their frenzy.”

“Personally,” I submitted, “I can’t see the use of spring cleaning. It makes no difference. They’re always sweeping and dusting and using the vacuum anyway. They never rest. I think it is a kind of a spring disease in women, like trout fishing or gardening with men.”

“I wouldn’t doubt that at all,” said Jim. “They go kind of nuts, don’t they? They get all flushed and a wild look in their eyes?”

“It’s a form of spring fever,” I assured Jim. “Nature gives us all these deep instincts, like falling in love in June and feeling very industrious and saving in September, in order to keep us alive and going. This spring cleaning business probably dates away back to the cave man. I bet the caves were in a mess by the time spring came.”

“Old gnawed bones, and ashes and everything,” agreed Jim.

“So all the females of the cave man species,” I followed, “were suddenly filled with a furious fever of energy, and they got to work and held a kind of bone flinging and ash chucking orgy, to clean out the cave. It’s the same thing as in a wren, when she returns to the bird house in our gardens. She goes mad flinging out all the old sticks and debris of last year’s nests. If nature sends a lady wren nutty, there is no reason why it shouldn’t work with women.”

“Yet, the pity of it is,” said Jim, “that this fever isn’t necessary any more. Women keep homes clean all the year around, every day, sometimes twice a day. All this rumpus is sheer nuisance.”

“You can’t reason with them,” I warned.

“Naturally,” said Jim. “You can’t reason with a man in fever delirium. That’s what it is, spring delirium.”

“Do you think,” I asked, “we could talk it over with them and get them to put off until May first?”

“So we could go fishing until it’s over?” mused Jim.

“It’s a perfect arrangement,” I submitted.

“Yeah,” muttered Jim, “but there’s one little difficulty. My family has got me in a corner. They have it all arranged that I am to clean up the attic.”

“Do that in advance,” I cried. “Get it over with.”

“I might do that,” admitted Jim.

“It isn’t the work that upsets men,” I explained. “It’s the way the whole house is thrown into a wreck for nearly a week. That’s what gets a man’s goat. I don’t mind a little work.”

Antipathy To a Broom

“Would you help me with my attic?” inquired Jim.

“Why not?” I retorted. “What’s the trick about your attic?”

“Well, in a way,” said Jim, “the attic is mine, you see? All my stuff is up there. Guns, fishing tackle, decoys, work bench. I’ve got that old work bench up there. I’ve been tinkering at making decoys and things and there’s a lot of shavings and sawdust.”

“Aaaaah,” I said.

“That’s. why the women insist on me cleaning it up,” explained Jim. “I promised I’d clean it up last year. And the year before, I agreed to, and I did clean it up in a kind of a way. But they say it is my job and this year they’re kind of ganged up on me.”

“Of course, what you could do,” I offered, “is let it go to the bitter end and then one day you’ll come home and find they’ve done it in desperation.”

“They can’t,” said Jim. “I’ve got the key. I keep the attic locked ever since the days the kids were small. I didn’t want them going up and messing around my tackle and guns and stuff.”

“And you don’t want them messing around there now?” I added.

“Certainly not,” said Jim. “Even downstairs, where things are organized, I can never find anything I want after spring cleaning. It takes me about six weeks to get the house reorganized after spring cleaning. But if they ever got up into my attic, good heavens, I might never find anything again, ever,”

“I guess it’s up to you,” I sighed.

“I’m afraid it is,” said Jim. “The sawdust and shavings and things sometimes drift down through the cracks under the door. They are even saying that the sawdust is seeping through the ceilings. A man by rights ought to have a little cabin down at the foot of his yard, shouldn’t he?”

“After his kids start to grow up,” I agreed, “a man’s house is no longer his castle. It becomes only a sort of checker-board on which he plays a steadily losing game.”

“It was good of you offer to come and help me with the attic,” felt out Jim.

“Not at all,” I said, providing it’s not some night I can’t get away.”

“Oh, I’ll let you pick the night,” said Jim; which is a pretty low trick.

“I’m not particularly good at domestic work,” I submitted. “In fact, I have been told I am more a nuisance than a help.”

“Don’t you believe it,” cried Jim, heartily. “You’re a tidy little fellow. You can sweep while I shift the bigger stuff around.”

“Hm,” said I, neither positive nor negative; because there is some deep antipathy in my nature to a broom. Maybe some of my ancestors were stable boys.

To Clean Up the Attic

At any rate, Jim referred in a casual way to the cleaning of his attic from day to day, and finally, he tricked me.

“Did you hear about that short newsreel picture about bird dogs?” Jim inquired sweetly.

“No, where is it?” I asked.

“It’s at some theatre on Bloor St.,” said Jim. “I’ll look it up. It shows bird dogs pointing quail, and the gunners walking up to the point and flushing the birds and making lefts and rights. Boy, they say it is one of the most wonderful sport pictures ever produced.”

“Let’s go tonight,” I said promptly.

“Can you get off tonight?” asked Jim, pointedly.

“This is the first night I’ve got to myself in a week,” I assured him.

So Jim got up and pretended to hunt through the theatre ads for the picture and couldn’t find it. Then he telephoned one of the movie exchanges, and they said the picture wouldn’t be showing in the local theatres for another month.

“I must,” said Jim, innocently, “have seen the ad somewhere else. But say, look here, if you’re free tonight, how about coming over and giving me a hand with that attic of mine.”

“Er,” I said.

“Let’s get it over and done with. It’s only a month to the fishing season. You wouldn’t want me tied up with a lot of house-cleaning on May the first?” demanded Jim.

And since I couldn’t think of any graceful excuse, I was roped.

“It’s a perfect night for it,” continued Jim. “The family is all going to be out. We can have the house to ourselves. If we find any short cuts, we can use them, with nobody around.”

“Like chucking shavings, et cetera, out the attic window,” I instanced.

So waiting until around 8 o’clock to allow Jim’s family to leave the house and also to allow my supper to settle, I strolled around to Jim’s and he led me without delay upstairs and via the little stairway into the attic, which is just one big unfinished room, perfectly suited to a man’s needs.

It was a mess. No wonder Jim kept the attic door locked and the key in his pocket. One corner was full of decoy ducks, like coal heaped in a coal bin. Another corner had an enormous heap of what appeared to be old magazines, hunting coats, rubber boots and fish baskets. In the midst stood a small carpenter’s work bench, and a foot deep all around it lay a drift of shavings, sawdust, hunks of wood, and all the ingredients of a fine life devoted to making things of no particular value or success.

“Well, Jimmie,” I said, “quite an evening’s work.”

“Now,” said Jim, very energetic. “I’ve got it figured out. I’ll start shifting everything to a new place, like, and you follow me with the broom.”

“If your wife,” I said, “ever saw this place.”

“I’ve been scared stiff this last few months,” admitted Jim. “Haunted, by day and by night.”

I peeled off my coat and hung it on a nail. Jim handed me the broom.

“I’ll start here, with these decoys,” suggested Jim. “I’ll shift them all over to that corner, and you sweep. Then when you catch up to me, I’ll shift the decoys and what will be under them to another corner, and so on. We’ll keep going around and around, see, until it is all cleaned up.”

“That’s the way the women do,” I admitted. “Shift everything around.”

So Jim started picking up big armfuls of decoys and carting them to the next corner, and to fill in the time, I started batting with the broom at the dusty rough, unfinished planking and rafters of the attic wall and ceiling.

Suddenly, in the garish light of the naked electric light bulb, something fluttered out from the planks.

“A bat,” I shouted.

Jim dropped an armful of ducks and peered into the already dusty glare of light.

“Where?” he demanded.

We stood perfectly still, and heard a small scratching sound.

“Here,” I said, swinging the broom.

The bat leaped heavily into space and wobbled sleepily around, narrowly missing our heads.

“Swing it,” roared Jim, snatching up a long piece of scantling that lay in the debris on the floor.

I swung. The bat ducked. I ducked; the bat swung.

“Look out,” shouted Jim, charging for the narrow stairway. “It’ll get downstairs.”

But he was too late. The bat, attracted perhaps by the warm current of air coming up the attic stairway, followed down, and we were just in time to see it wobble on half-wakened wings, into the glow of light at the foot of the attic stairs.

“After it,” commanded Jimmie, fiercely. “The women would go crazy if they saw that bat in the house.”

Riot and Confusion

Down the stairs we thundered, and commenced a cautious search, in room after room, listening, holding our breath, waiting to hear the faint scratching of the bat hiding behind some picture or mirror.

“Prod around,” said Jim.

So we prodded around, shoving at pictures on the wall, shifting dressers and keeping a wary eye.

“Turn on the bright lights,” I commanded, “blind the beast.”

Suddenly, soundlessly, the little bat came staggering and wobbling along the hallway ceiling and darted into the room.

Jim swung. The chandelier crashed terribly and splintered glass flew in all directions. The bat darted out.

“After it!” shouted Jim, colliding his hunk of scantling along walls and doors.

I heard another violent crash. Jim had swung at the bat in the front bedroom and swiped all the ornaments off the top of a chest of drawers.

“Downstairs,” cried Jim, leading the chase.

“Be careful,” I begged. “Don’t wreck the house.”

“Better wreck the house than have that bat, in it when the folks get home,” gasped Jimmie, crouched and searching like a gangster in a movie.

We found the bat after we had disarranged all the pictures in the living room and shifted all the furniture and upset everything on the buffet. It was up in the chandelier.

“Poke with your broom,” whispered Jim. “Poke it out towards me.”

Jim poised like a baseball player, gripping the scantling mightily.

I poked with the broom at the poor little beastie. fluttered out towards Jim.

Jim swung. The chandelier swayed madly, tinkled into a thousand splinters of glass and then, slowly losing its wiry grip of the ceiling, came down with about a square foot of plaster.

“I missed,” moaned Jim.

“Like heck you did,” I said, from my shelter under the dining-room table.

The house was full of dust, riot and confusion.

“Where did it go?” I begged.

“I saw it go upstairs again,” said Jim wearily.

So we followed. After 10 minutes, we found under the bathtub. It eluded us again, and to our joy, it turned up the attic stairs again.

“Good,” said Jim. “Now we’ve got it on our own territory.”

So we went after it, and got into Jim’s private attic just in time to see the bewildered little creature alight flat against the rough beams of the ceiling and tuck itself cleverly and quickly in behind some great two-inch stringers of the roof.

“Aaaaah,” sighed Jim. “Leave him there. Leave him right there, still in his winter sleep, the little devil, and some nice spring evening, I’ll open the window and let him fly out.”

“It’s best to leave a bat alone,” I agreed. “Just let him fly away.”

“He sure has wasted the evening,” said Jim.

“We’d better quit this job,” I offered, “and go down and straighten things up the best way we can before the folks get back.”

So we turned the light off, carefully locked the door, went down and telephoned the drug store for a couple of dozen new light bulbs, and straightened all the pictures and dusted everything, and did the best we could with the fallen chandelier.

“There’ll be the dickens to pay,” I said, after we had worked for an hour and still everything looked disturbed, somehow.

“It’ll give them a taste,” said Jim, “of what we men have to suffer when they’re spring cleaning.”

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, April 15, 1939.

This Greg-Jim adventure is from Gregory Clark’s book, “Which We Did,” published by Reginald Saunders, Toronto.

“I have been invited,” said Jimmie, “to act as adjudicator in connection with some amateur theatricals.”

“What the heck,” I begged, “is adjudicator?”

“It means judge,” said Jim.

“Then why not say it?” I inquired.

“Ah,” said Jimmie, “that’s the drama of it. In the drama, it is how you say things; not what you say.”

“As a matter of fact.” I agreed, “there really isn’t very much to say in life, is there?”

“Drama,” said Jim, “is the memorable saying of things about which there is very little to say. Now you take Shakespeare. Take Romeo and Juliet. A couple of kids fall for each other. But it turns out that their families have been pulling some raw business deals on one another and aren’t on speaking terms. It’s a very common situation. You’ll find it in every town and village. Especially villages. So, these kids try to get together secretly, but everything turns out against them. You could tell the whole story in about two paragraphs in a newspaper. But Shakespeare takes five acts.”

“How different,” I confessed, “from the newspaper business. There it doesn’t matter how you say it. It’s what you say that is all important. The news. The facts. Get it across quick.”

“And how different,” said Jim, “from the movies. In the movies, it is what you do, not what you say, that counts.”

“This is the age of action,” I pointed out. “Doing is more attractive to us nowadays than saying.”

“The movie business,” said Jim, “hasn’t yet got over the discovery of the movie camera. You’d think they would get used to the idea sooner or later. But no. The guy with the camera is really the boss. There he sits, demanding that everybody move. And the director obeys, and makes them all move. It’s like on a fishing trip, when you take a bunch of the boys with the little amateur movie camera. They all feel they have got to wave their arms and lift the strings of fish up and down, to prove it is a movie. You can go to the movies for a whole year and never hear an intelligent remark or conversation that lingers an hour in your memory. Why? Because the conversation in the movies is nothing but part of the sound effects. They still make the movies the way they did back 20 years ago. All movement, with sound effects.”

Two Kinds of Everything

“I can’t say,” I confessed, “that I could I stand for movies consisting of just two people sitting a half hour at a time quietly chatting, the way it used to be in the stage drama. Or even soliloquy. Do you remember soliloquy, where the actor used to stand all alone on the stage talking to himself out loud?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” protested Jimmie. “I can still remember, as if it was only yesterday, the scene in ‘Liliom’ where Joseph Schildkraut¹, as Liliom, debated with an old crook the question of God. You could put that on the movies. Just the two of them, sitting in a dirty old back yard. Because what they were saying was fascinating. W. C. Fields² talking to himself is one of the greatest features of the modern movies. Yet they cut him short, and hustle him into movement again. The trouble with the movies is, they are camera struck.”

“Like everything else,” I suggested, “the public will probably get weary of seeing nothing but action and begin to yearn in time to hear some words of beauty or wisdom.”

“No,” disagreed Jim. “There’s no hope in that direction. The great mass of the public have only the one sense, visual. Their only power of appreciation of beauty is optical. It is their weekly two bits, or twice-weekly two bits, that make up the vast fortunes of the movie industry.”

“Then,” I surmised, “the stage drama is going to survive after all?”

“What I think,” said Jim, “is, there are. two kinds of everything. Two kinds of cars, cheap and dear. Two kinds of clothes, houses, churches, schools, fishing rods. In a little while, there will be two kinds of movie theatres. The big cheap ones where the same old whang-doodle goes on for ever and ever. And small, expensive movie theatres where the true artists, the real dramatists, actors, stage-craftsmen, will perform for a minority who are eager to pay the cost. We are all at the vaudeville stage of the movies now.”

“But,” I disagreed, “there will still be wandering minstrels. There will still be actors and actresses forlornly travelling the wide world, making personal appearances in small hotels, conservatories and church basements.”

“Ah,” agreed Jim. “And there will still be amateur theatricals.”

“That’s a thing,” I said, “I never had any yen for when I was young, amateur theatricals.”

“No, because you had sport,” said Jim. “You dramatized yourself with gun and rod and canoe. You ranged the rocks and hills, imagining yourself a mighty hunter before the Lord. For one deer you have ever really shot, you have, in a thousand dramas of your own invention, shot ten thousand wild and fierce creatures.”

“How do you know that?” I asked in astonishment.

“We’re all alike,” said Jim. “Drama is a word that comes to us straight from the ancient Geeks. It means to perform. Every living being loves to perform. It is the very spirit of life itself. One minute, we are nothing. Then we are alive, for a few brief minutes. Then we are nothing again, forever. But during those few minutes that we are alive, the one great yearning in us, between those two dreadful darknesses, is to perform, to move, to act, to do something, however strange.”

Pretend They’re Other People

“And amateur theatricals?” I asked.

“Most people who go in for amateur theatricals,” explained Jimmie, “are bank clerks, accountants, oppressed, repressed individuals who dare not venture, even in the imagination, away from the ledgers, the desks, the hard realities of their lives. Church people go in for amateur theatricals. Church people are publicly trying to lead a good life. Therefore, even in the secret of the night, or in the shadow of their own hearts, they dare not go gallivanting in any dreams. And dreams are drama. Ah, the uncounted billions of unwritten dramas of humanity!”

“Who are these people you are going to adjudicate?” I asked.

“Oh, just a neighborhood drama league,” said Jim. “A couple of churches, a men’s club and a community association of some kind. I guess they will be pretty dreadful.”

“I remember one time,” I said, “I got into a movie theatre on a juvenile amateur night. I never suffered so much for 37 cents in all my life.”

“It will probably be fun, though,” said Jim. “I am to attend a dress rehearsal of this play, some sort of a drama of family life. Each season, before they present a play, they call in a critic or adjudicator, not, a professional, you understand, but some prominent citizen like me, who is asked to decide if the characters are properly apportioned, if the players are suited to their parts, and if the drama, as so presented, is suitable for a stage offering in the community hall.”

“It’s a nice idea,” I admitted, “I’d like to go with you.”

“Come along,” cried Jim. “They’ll be delighted to have you.”

So, the night of the rehearsal, Jim telephoned to remind me, and called for me in his car.

“You’re late,” I said. “It’s 8.25.”

“I phoned them,” said Jim, “and they said they would start and we could come in after the fuss of getting going was over.”

“We the only audience?” I asked.

“Just us,” said Jim.

We arrived at our destination, a handsome big home. It was all in darkness. We rang the bell; but there was no response.

“That’s funny,” said Jim. “They said 102.”

“Maybe it is 120,” I said. “You’re not very good at figures.”

“They said 102, I am sure,” said Jim, as we walked down to the pavement. We strolled east. Down a few doors, there were several cars parked in front and an air of activity in a brightly lighted house.

“That’s 112,” I said. “You got it wrong by one.”

Number 112 was the house, all right. The shadows of people moving on the blinds, the sounds of voices, of voices raised in mock passion.

We rang the bell.

“They’re going good,” said Jim, as we heard a woman’s voice rise in tearful entreaty.

We rang the bell again.

“I guess,” said Jim, trying the door knob and finding the door open, “they can’t hear the bell for the racket they’re making.”

A crowd was assembled in the living-room, so Jim and I quietly tip-toed in and hung our coats and hats on the crowded rack. Through the hall curtains, we could see the drama going on, full bang. Around the living room, seated crowded on chesterfields and chairs and standing leaning against the walls, were the players, four or five middle-aged or elderly men and women and about seven or eight younger persons. In the middle of the room, the centre of all eyes, were two of the company, a middle-aged woman a middle-aged man. As we slipped in by the curtains and took our stand against the wall, the action was not interrupted, and a few of the players threw brief glances and smiles.

“For 40 years of my life,” the woman was saying, in a deep. tremulous voice, and I was impressed to see very real looking tears on her face, “I have been a faithful daughter to him, devoting my life to him. I denied myself marriage…”

“Ha, ha,” laughed the man who was standing with her, undoubtedly the villain, though an elderly villain. “Denied yourself marriage, you say?”

“Yes,” cried the woman, in a hoarse, broken voice that was most dramatic, “denied myself marriage.”

“Heh, heh, heh,” laughed the villain, and all the other players around the room smiled at his humor, “I tell you, Lizzie, you have been the joke of the family all your life for the desperate efforts you have made to capture a man. Why, even the little boys of the neighborhood make jokes about your next attempt.”

“You brute,” gasped the woman, staring tragically around at us, “you filthy brute. To think, a brother should ever speak to a sister in such words! Why, even as a little girl, who was it stayed home with Daddie while you others went your ways? When he had the typhoid fever, who was it nursed him? Where were you when he had the typhoid fever, I ask you?”

The male villain was now standing over against the mantel, with his arm resting on it, in the approved attitude.

“Lizzie,” he said, “we all see through you. There isn’t one of us in this room, young or old, that could not testify in a court of law that you had deliberately prevented us, time after time, from doing acts of kindness to Daddie. Eleanor, there…”

The pretty girl cried out –

“I tried to take Granddaddie for motor rides.”

“Hah,” cried Lizzie, the lady standing up, “let a rattle brain like you take a nervous old man driving? You who’s been in three dreadful accidents, all your own fault?”

“Lizzie,” said the villain, pointing a lean finger at her, “you can’t face it. No court of law would uphold you. Every member of this family will testify that you usurped the old man’s love; that you poisoned his mind against us all; that you misrepresented us all to him; that you frustrated us in all our attempts to show him a natural family affection.”

“Affection?” screamed Lizzie, whirling about the middle of the room to stare at us all most tragically, “Affection? Why half of you, didn’t come to his funeral. You were too busy playing golf or grubbing your filthy money.”

“Filthy money?” sneered the villain, “Heh, heh, heh! I tell you, my dear sister, unless you voluntarily divide up Daddie’s estate among us, his proper heirs, we’ll take you for a ride through the court of this country that will take every cent he left you, make you a public character, and make you wish you had never been born.”

Lizzie, standing there in the midst, burst suddenly into tears. It was magnificent acting. Real tears cascaded through the fingers of her hands as she covered her face.

“Oh, oh,” she wailed, in an entreaty to Fate more moving than any words could be.

Jimmie stepped forward.

“Ladies and gentlemen, he said, smiling, and even Lizzie stopped crying and everybody stared.

“My dear friends,” said Jim, “as adjudicator, I think I might interrupt at this stage of the proceedings to say that the acting of the villains the way he leans on the mantel, the way he sneers so and points his finger, is a little too melodramatic. In real life he would be cold, soft-speaking, insinuating and threatening. My dear sir, you will forgive me, but I think you bluster too much.”

There was an instantaneous outburst of mutter and murmur and chatter.

“Who,” demanded the villain, advancing on Jim, “are you?”

“I’m the adjudicator,” smiled Jim.

“The what?” cried the villain.

“The adjudicator,” said Jim. “Didn’t you invite me here to act as critic of your little drama?”

“Drama?” said the villain. “I thought you two were her lawyers.”

Dazed Triumph

There was a sudden burst of excitement and everybody stood up and crowded around.

“I thought,” said Lizzie, “they were your lawyers. Who are you two gentlemen, please?”

Jim and I stood side by side.

“Pardon us,” I said, for Jimmie was temporarily at sea, “but we are just a couple of newspapermen, who were invited by a local amateur theat…”

“Newspapermen,” muttered the villain, looking fearfully around. “Newspapermen,” the others all muttered, starting for the hall. Men, women and young folk, they all seemed like children when the fire bell rings, so eagerly did they bump into one another on their way to the hall, grabbing their coats and hats. “Newspapermen,” they all mumbled and muttered and gasped, with sideway glances. And the sound of engines starting up and cars departing in gear filled the night while Jim and I still stood bewildered, and there was nobody left but Lizzie and us two.

“But,” said Jim, apologetically, to that lady who stood with a look of dazed triumph on her face, “we thought this was where the neighborhood drama league was rehearsing. We were invited.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Lizzie. “God sent you.”

“No ma’am, we just mistook the house number,” confessed Jim.

“Mistook?” sighed the lady, like Jane Cowl³. “Mistook? My dear friends, those were my brothers and sisters and their children, come to rob me of my rights, a poor woman who has devoted her whole life to a dear old neglected man. And you come in, two newspapermen, and are witnesses of the whole dreadful thing…”

“Ma’am,” said Jim, deeply, “we are dreadful sorry. Never a word of it would either of us ever breathe.”

“You won’t need to,” laughed the lady almost hysterically, seizing our arms. “You won’t need to not if I know my brothers and sisters. I’ll never even hear of them again.”

And laughing and crying, she threw herself on a chesterfield and laughed and cried, while Jimmie and I got into our coats and hats and said good-by 12 different ways and times, and went out and shut the front door, with her still sobbing and laughing.

And we never did find those amateur theatricals.

---

Editor’s Notes: As indicated at the start of the story, this was originally published in Which We Did (1936).

1. Joseph Schildkraut, an Austrian-American actor, played the title role in the first American stage production of Liliom, the play that eventually became the basis for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. ↩︎
2. W. C. Fields was an American actor and comedian. ↩︎
3. Jane Cowl was an American film and stage actress and playwright. ↩︎

“Let men go into concealment again. Nature gave us a natural ambush but we came out of it. And look where we are!” So Greg and Jim let their beards grow long.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, January 21, 1939.

“You haven’t shaved this morning,” observed Jimmie Frise.

“I have some kind of frost-bite,” I explained, “here on the corner of my chin.”

“I bet you’d be a handsome little coot, with a square red beard,” admired Jimmie.

“It would accentuate my shortness,” I replied. “Only tall men should wear beards.”

“You’re mistaken,” stated Jim. “A little man could add tremendously to his prestige with a good big beard. A tall man doesn’t need a beard. A little man does.”

“In the army,” I recollected, “I often thought of growing a beard. We used to be sometimes a week or more without a chance to shave, and I’d have the grandest red stubble all over my face. I looked like one of the 12 apostles.”

“Judas, likely,” commented Jim.

“But the army regulations,” I went on, “forbade beards. Moustaches were encouraged.”

“It’s a long time since beards were really in fashion,” remarked Jim.

“Yes, and there is reason to believe that the world has gone to pot partly on account of the disappearance of beards,” I stated.

“It’s as good a reason as many another I’ve heard,” admitted Jim.

“As a matter of fact, it’s a better explanation of the world’s confusion,” I declared. “We always look for deep, hidden causes, when the real cause is probably right on the surface. Why did men cut off their beards, to begin with?”

“To please the ladies, I imagine,” said Jim. “What lady would like to have a huge beard stuck in her face every time Pappy wanted a kiss?”

“To please the ladies,” I repeated darkly. “I believe that was it. A thousand years ago, a beard, I imagine, was a fairly unsanitary appendage. There would be soup in it, and wassail and perhaps even a few smaller chicken bones and things caught in it.”

“Don’t forget,” said Jim, “the Romans shaved. All the statues of Caesar and the great emperors show clean-shaven men.”

“Pshaw,” I cried, “three thousand years before the Romans, the Egyptians were clean- shaven. A thousand years still further the other side of the Caesars than we are from them, men shaved.”

“Did they have razors that long ago?” asked Jim.

“Funny looking tools, too,” I said. “You can see pictures of Egyptian razors¹ in the encyclopaedia. They look like a little hatchet, only all four sides of the blade were sharpened. They were bronze, and brought to at high degree of sharpness. The four or five edges were used for getting in around the corners and curves of the chin. In some ways, an Egyptian razor of the year 3,000 B.C., that is, 5,000 years ago, is better designed than the finest razors of today.”

“Well, look at Egypt,” said Jim, “just a few pyramids and pillars dug from the dust of ages. That shows you what happens to a nation when its men shave.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “The first trouble about shaving is, that a man reveals his true character when he reveals his countenance. Behind a beard, a man could hide such weaknesses as tenderness, sympathy, humor. A man could go about the business of creating and defending an empire when his face was hidden in a beard. But the minute he shaved, all his native humanity showed and could be appealed to by his victims.”

Beards Used to Be Holy

“In the great old days,” said Jim, “beards used to be holy. Men used to swear by their beards.”

“Don’t you remember in the Bible,” I asked, “where David’s ambassadors to the enemy are humiliated by having half their beards shaved off, and David sent them the message. ‘Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown’²?”

“Why don’t you grow a beard?” cried Jim, suddenly. “You’d have a dandy in two weeks, at the rate you show this morning.”

“It’s too late,” I pointed out. “Everybody knows my character now. My family, my friends, the office, everybody. They’ve seen my face. I am exposed. But if I ever move to another community. I’ll sure grow a beard so that nobody will ever know my true character again and, boy, will I make hay while the sun shines!”

“I’ll grow a beard if you will,” stated Jim, very concentrated.

“What’s the idea?” I demanded.

“To change our luck,” said Jim. “And maybe we could start a fashion and change the luck of the world.”

“Beards have come and beards have gone.” I informed him, “all across the history of the world. The ancient Egyptians shaved, but the Assyrian and Babylonian kings grew great beards which they oiled and curled and braided with gold wire.”

“Gold wire?” said Jim. “What a mess!”

“Oh, don’t feel so superior,” I declared. “Henry the Eighth, who was one of our craftiest and most useful kings, had his beard knotted.”

“Knotted?” gasped Jim.

“Yes, sir.” I informed him. “His barber, instead of shaving him, had to come every few days and tie little knots in the beard to take up the slack. So Henry’s beard was a beautiful little snug mass of knotted hair close up against his chin.”

“Ugh,” said Jim.

“In British history,” I enlightened, “beards came with the thoughtful kings and vanished with the battlers. The Richards were clean shaven or with mere tufts, but the Edwards were bearded. The battling Henrys wore no beards at all, or else little forked or tufted beards, fancily designed: but the thoughtful and scheming Henrys wore beards. Edward, the famous Confessor, wore a forked beard down to his girdle.”

“I suppose,” said Jim, “if you had a long beard to stroke reflectively, you would be a reflective man.”

“Correct,” I said. “We are reflective or not reflective, depending on our little habits, not our big ones. Queen Elizabeth had an ambassador named George Killingworth who had a beard five feet long.”

“Good grief,” said Jim.

“Well, you see, a bare-faced queen could not very well impress foreign powers,” I submitted. “But when her ambassador walked into the foreign court behind a colossal bunch of whiskers five feet long, by golly, the political disadvantage of a queen was balanced.”

“The more I think of it,” reflected Jim, “the more I believe there is something to beards. The late King George had a beard and Britain was a power all over the world. And the minute he died, we’ve been getting into one jam after another.”

“Look what Hitler can do,” I pointed out, “on just the least little moustache.”

A Natural Ambush

“The women,” announced Jim, “have had their way long enough. It’s time we began to take stock and put them back where they belong. The emancipation of women may be a very noble idea, but not at the price of world confusion and possible disaster. Delilah the world over, that’s what it is. Just to get a smooth kiss instead of a prickly one, women have sold out the power and strength of mankind.”

“You said it,” I agreed, rubbing my stubble, which was itchy.

“Open diplomacy, openly arrived at, to heck with it,” cried Jim. “Let men go into concealment again. Let us adopt a universal poker face. Let us get into ambush once more. Nature gave us a natural ambush, and we came out of hiding by choice, at the soft, cooing request of women. And look where we are!”

“It’s not easy to grow a beard,” I pointed out. “It takes a long time to get it out far enough to be manageable. And it’s awfully itchy for the first few weeks.”

“If you have no strength of character left,” declared Jim, leaping up, “very well, give way before the smiles of your friends, surrender to the astonished looks of strangers on the street.”

“I’m one day ahead of you, anyway,” I retorted, sticking out my chin resolutely.

“We’re just like everybody else,” said Jim, “we take the easiest way. Is nobody ever going to get his back up? Are we going to drift and drift, instead of grabbing hold of some reality, even if it is only whiskers?”

“Are you serious, Jim?” I demanded. “Do you mean it?”

“All our leaders,” said Jim solemnly, “plead and beg us to seize hold of democracy or justice or some other abstract thing that can’t be grabbed hold of, any more than the wind can be grabbed hold of. I’m tired of all this exhortation. I’m going to take my stand for mankind before it is too late, and I’m going to take my stand in some small, tangible way. First, I’ll grow a beard. And from there, the next step will be easy. I don’t know what it is, but at least I will have made a start. Freedom is at stake. Why? Because we have surrendered in little things, until, like sand slipping from under us, all things are surrendered.”

“What can one beard do?” I asked.

“Two beards, you mean,” said Jim.

So, it being Friday, we had the week-end to get things started. It caused a little trouble at home, especially for Jim; but he invented some pimples on his face as his excuse. And on the street, Sunday afternoon, when I called on Jim to go for a little walk, we met neighbors who did not conceal their astonishment and amusement, depending on how well they knew us.

One neighbor condoled with us, thinking we were ill.

“You look like a couple of galloping declines,” he said.

Jim’s beard, despite his white hair, came out nice and black, but was spotty. It grew in patches, as it were. At a little distance, it did give him a scabby look.

Mine, on the other hand, came out a sort of brindled gray and brown, with a tinge of red in it. The hairs, instead of growing out stiff and straight, like Jim’s, curled, and I had feeling that the tip of each hair was movable, and kept up a constant little tickling all the time. The frost-bite was all better, and I was able to do a little comforting scratching, but scratching seemed only to make more flexible the little curled ends, and they tickled all the more.

Monday morning, we drove down together to the office real early, not because we were afraid to arrive with the crowds, but because we really had some work to catch up on.

“And I never felt work slide so easily under me,” said Jim, about 11 o’clock. “I have a feeling of strength and determination that I never experienced before. I bet shaving takes a lot out of a man.”

“Naturally,” I explained. “It is the instinct of hair to want to grow. You can’t simply speak to your hair and tell it you don’t want it. Naturally, also, hair consumes energy out of your system, in order to grow. So here are our beards, year after year, desperately trying to do their duty. The more we cut them, the harder they struggle to perform their function. Beards were provided by nature to protect our chins and throats. So when our beard cells feel the cold, after shaving, they try all the harder. As soon as we quit shaving, even to this small extent, the slower our beards will grow and the less they will consume of our energy.”

“In other words,” said Jim, dashing off cartoons at a terrific speed, “when we get real good beards we’ll feel ten times the energy we feel this morning.”

“It stands to reason,” I agreed.

Braving the Public Eye

“Boy,” breathed Jim, filling his lungs. “I shave every day. Each day I cut off, say, one-16th inch of beard. Let’s see. One inch every 16 days. Two inches a month. I have been shaving since I was about 20. That means, mumble, mumble, times mumble, divided mumble, mumble; that means I have shaved off 60 feet of whiskers from my chin, or a beard 20 yards long! No wonder I’ve felt debilitated this last 15 years.”

“It’s a tremendous waste of energy,” I submitted. “It’s a wonder modern industry with its scientific attention to all phases of efficiency, hasn’t refused to hire any but bearded help for the past 20 years.”

So we agreed and conversed, until lunch time, and went forth to brave the public eye, which is the hardest part of growing whiskers. Fortunately it was storming and we were able to bury our chins in our mufflers and bow our heads to the blizzard. We decided to steer clear of our usual lunching place, not because we were afraid, but because of the time it would take explaining to waitresses and the manager, who is always keen about the health of his customers.

“Don’t let’s get into any of the big noisy places,” I suggested. “Let’s try one of these quiet little restaurants.”

So, after looking in the windows of three or four of the little hole-in-the-wall places, we selected one which had plenty of men in it.

As we entered, the proprietor, a Greek gentleman, was standing at the cash register and he looked at us narrowly. We smiled easily at him.

We walked down the narrow cafe and selected a table and took off our mufflers and coats, revealing ourselves brazenly.

The proprietor came walking down after us and stopped to have a good look.

“Not here,” he said, laying his hand on the back of Jimmie’s chair and starting to pull it.

“What’s that?” I demanded indignantly.

But it is difficult to look properly indignant with only stubble. With a beard, yes. You can look very indignant, because nobody can see how nervous your mouth may be.

“Not here,” said the proprietor. “Scram. We don’t serve bums.”

“What are you talking about?” stated Jim, quietly. “How dare you call us bums?”

“Look,” said the proprietor, gesturing with his open hand first at my face and then at Jim’s.

I reached into my pocket and hauled out a handful of silver and displayed it before the proprietor’s eye.

“Good pickings today, huh?” said the proprietor. “Never so, scram. No bums. It ruins my business.”

We heard a sort of quiet and glanced around the little restaurant, where a lot of earnest-looking people, the kind who eat in little places, were all paused in their eating, looking at us with obvious lack of sympathy, if not distaste.

“Quick,” said the proprietor. “No bums. Sorry. I got to think for my business.”

He rattled the chair under me, decisively.

“Just a minute,” I began.

But Jim rose abruptly from his chair, snatched his coat and muffler and started for the door.

I followed.

“So,” I said, as we emerged into the storm, “so you hadn’t even the courage to face it out.”

“As a matter of fact,” said Jim, “you do look like a bum.”

“If you want any comparisons,” I retorted, “you might take a look at your own face, all blotchy and scrofulous looking.”

We didn’t say any more, but hurried back along King St. and into a barber shop and had a quick shave, with hot towels and witch hazel, and then went and ate at our usual place, amongst our own bare-faced and cowardly kind.

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Editor’s Notes:

1. A sample can be seen here. ↩︎
2. From 2 Samuel 10:5. ↩︎