Tag: 1948 Page 1 of 2
Jim and Greg on the trail of missing links find that, as archeologists, they make bad gardeners.
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, May 29, 1948.
“Why all the industry?” inquired Jimmie Frise, heartily.
“Past!” I hissed, laying aside my spade and signing to him to be quiet.
I led him over to the garden bench, where a small clutter of dirt-caked, corroded little treasures lay spread out.
Glancing cautiously around to see if any neighbors in adjoining gardens were within earshot, I directed Jim’s attention to my hoard.
“French coins!” I whispered excitedly. “Spanish coins! Gold, I think!”
“Holy smoke,” said Jim, picking them up one by one and peering at them in the evening light.
“I was just shifting some old tulip bulbs,” I informed him excitedly, “down there at the foot of the garden, when I heard a clink. And glancing down, I saw this little coin.”
Selecting the correct one from the collection of half a dozen coins of various shapes and sizes, I showed it to him.
“See?” I gloated. “I’ve scraped off enough old dirt and corrosion to see the word – look! – ‘France.’ And on the other side, you can make out the faint outline of one of the kings of France, maybe Louis XIV.”
Jim held the coin in the last beams of sunset.
“By jingo,” he admitted. “Sure enough. But it looks and feels like copper.”
“Maybe so,” I assured. “But it isn’t the gold I’m interested in. And it isn’t even the value of these coins as collectors’ items I’m interested in. Jim, do you realize where you probably are standing?”
“On a buried treasure?” suggested Jim eagerly.
“On the site,” I corrected impressively, “of some early French encampment! On historic ground. Right here in my garden, my boy, Champlain may have camped. Maybe right here, some party of explorers of the 16th century may have had their winter quarters. Possibly the Jesuit Fathers may have staged a last stand right on this spot!”
Jim glanced around him with startled interest.
“The history of this great Dominion,” I declared, remembering to lower my voice again, “is for the most part lost in obscurity in its earliest phases. All over the country, parties of archaeologists and historians are digging and delving, looking for the sites of Indian villages and French explorers’ stockades.”
Jim leaned down to the garden bench and stared reverently and curiously at my lucky find. There were a variety of coins. Some looked like silver, but were green and caked from their long burial in the damp earth. Others were copper or possibly gold and, with the exception of the one I had managed to scrub and wipe clean, all were undecipherable little medallions of metal.
“Let’s go inside,” suggested Jim, “in the kitchen and scrub them to see…”
“Go and get that rake,” I commanded, pointing, “and lend me a hand while there’s still some daylight. I’ll dig and you break up the clods with the rake. We’ll sift every pound of it.”
“It’ll keep,” pleaded Jimmie.
“I wouldn’t sleep a wink,” I protested, “with the thought of what we might find here, Jim! Maybe some ancient kettles, axes, weapons. Maybe we might come upon some bones. Possibly some little object or ornament that might identify this as the site of one of LaSalle’s of Champlain’s encampments. Good heavens, man, do you realize what that would mean?”
“I’ll get the rake,” cried Jim, striding off.
“Ssssh!” I warned.
“What’s the matter?” murmured Jim, halting.
“I don’t want,” I whispered vehemently, “all the neighbors in on this! If we find anything, I’ll keep it quiet until we can get some official body to take over the discovery and make a proper scientific excavation. And we’ll get the credit.”
Jim got the rake and joined me, coat off.
“I suppose,” he said quietly, “there would be considerable credit in a find like this.”
“Credit, man!” I exploded, seizing the spade, “But it’s fame! We’ll go down in history! It will be the subject of books and historical sections in great museums the Clark-Frise Discoveries! The Clark-Frise Excavations! Definite proof of the route Champlain took in his exploration of the Great Lakes.”
“He was the first white man…?” recollected Jim.
“Well, maybe not,” I grunted, digging. “Who knows what we’ll find? Maybe an ancient copper kettle scratched with a last message by one of the Jesuit martyrs as he was being carried off by an Iroquois war party. Come on! Sift that!”
Jim attacked the chunk of dirt I threw up, with the rake. Having broken it into dust, he squatted and sifted it with his fingers.
“Maybe the best part of the encampment,” I explained in a low tone, “is on one of the neighbor’s gardens. I don’t want everybody in on this. We’ll find enough to justify a public announcement. And then the government will declare all excavations off until the professional historical and archaeological authorities can start work.”
“That looks after the Clark-Frise angle,” chuckled Jimmie.
“Oh, don’t laugh!” I said. “Men have spent their lives in a thousand ways trying to go down in history. But nobody remembers them inside of 10 years. But if we make a historical find like this, and you’re in history for all time.”
“Hey!” exclaimed Jim, suddenly catching up something out of the crumbling dirt and resifting intently. “Hey, look!”
I bounded over beside him. In the gloaming, he had dug up a curious ring. A ring about an inch in diameter. It was thick with corrosion and rust. It was ready to crumble with antiquity. I seized it delicately from Jim’s fingers.
“The Clark-Frise Excavations, 1948!” I announced quivering. “Jim, we’re made men!”
“What is it?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said, holding it up against the darkening sky to see it better, “maybe the ring off the cross of a martyr. Maybe part of a sextant or a compass or some instrument belonging to an intrepid explorer in the dawn of this country’s history.”
I hurried over and laid it with the other treasures on the lawn bench.
“Dig carefully, my friend,” I cautioned. “Sift cunningly! We are in communion this hour with the ancient past and future. We are fortunate links in the story of mankind!”
“You’re trampling all over the verbenas!” warned Jim.
“They’re doomed,” I replied, trampling. “Come on.”
“Slow down till we get a lantern,” pleaded Jim.
“And have the whole neighborhood nosing around? I scoffed.
“We’ll say we’re digging fishworms,” suggested Jim.
“Say…! I reflected.
“Look: a week ago, you were bragging about the verbenas,” reasoned Jim. “If we had a light, we could work around them.”
“Not a chance, Jim,” I countered. “I struck that first coin at about a depth of a foot, when I was gouging out those old tulip bulbs. For years, we’ve been scuffling over the top six inches, planting the garden, never dreaming that a few inches deeper, lay these historical treasures. We’ll have to dig the whole place up. In fact, even the lawn will have to go.”
“Have you got a lantern?” demanded Jim.
“My gasoline camp lantern,” I revealed.
So we suspended operations for a few minutes while I found the lantern and set it going. In its light, at the foot of the garden, we were able to see what we were doing and what I had already done.
Man, you’ve been digging!” marvelled Jimmie, as the lantern beams revealed the wreckage.
The verbena bed was entirely uprooted. Five lovely delphiniums – including a couple that were expected to be practically jet black when they bloomed: champion stock – had been torn loose. And I had stepped on a couple of them.
“A week from now,” I said easily, “this will be nothing. When the nature of the Clark-Frise Excavations is fully realized, this whole district will be torn apart. And all the householders will be proud to be in it. Famous scientists and historians from all over, from Harvard, maybe from Oxford and the Sorbonne in Paris, will be here…”
“Before we start,” begged Jim, “just let’s shift what is left of these verbenas over to the side border. And those delphiniums. We can save them.”
“This is no time,” I stated firmly, “for sentimentality, Jim.”
I bared my arms, seized the spade and drove it deep. Jim squatted down: and to every carefully delved spadeful I laid reverently before him, he gave his reverent attention, breaking it with the rake and crumbling it between his fingers, minutely.
We dug the whole verbena bed. We uprooted and cast aside the entire delphinium bed that borders, at the back, the verbenas. Just as we neared the last of the 16 delphiniums, Jim, with another gloating cry, held up still another coin. This time, a large one, as big as an English penny. It too was corroded and caked. I added it to the rest on the garden bench. And it inspired us to fresh ardor.
From the verbena bed, we advanced upon the small terraced rose bed where about 14 dwarf rose bushes of rare bloom had just begun to open their buds.
“Now, look,” pleaded Jimmie resolutely. “We don’t have to be crazy! Let’s take a little time, and transplant these rose bushes. They’re lovely. They’re just coming into flower. You treasure them…”
“Who knows,” I cried, “what treasures are entangled in their roots!”
“What I say, is,” insisted Jim, “let’s leave the roses until morning. I’ll come over – yes, at six o’clock! – and we’ll start early on the roses, transplanting them. Meantime, we’ve got enough to start with. Let’s take what we’ve found in to the kitchen and clean them and see what we’ve got. Let’s make the preliminary investigation…”
I looked long and hungrily at the rose bed in the exciting glare of the gasoline lantern. I heard a muffled cough over the fence, started, and discovered my neighbor’s pallid face peering at us.
“Lost something?” he inquired.
“Aw, no, just digging fish worms,” I replied easily, giving Jim a warning nudge.
I realized the wisdom now of quitting for the night. Doubtless my neighbor’s suspicions were already roused. We picked up the coins discreetly off the garden seat, and took them tremulously indoors.
On the kitchen drain board we laid them. With hot water, we swished them free of caked earth, mud and loose verdigris. They began to shine. I took the potato brush and some scouring powder1 and scoured the copper coin already partly cleaned: the one with “France” on it.
With bated breath, we dried it and held it clear under the kitchen light.
“Napoleon III,” it said. “Empereur. France. 1862.”
On the other side it said:
“Un sou,” with a large “I”.
“Not,” coughed Jim, delicately, “Champlain?”
I took the next one, the large coin that looked like an English penny. It was an English penny; 1895.
Some of the smaller ones were English sixpences, American dimes, French francs, Spanish 10-centavos, German pfennigs. One read: “Good for one ride: Ferris Wheel: Chicago World’s Fair.”2
And they each and all had small holes bored in them, near the rim.
While I was forlornly cleaning and de-rusting the ring we had found, the kids came clattering in from the movies.
“Why,” said the oldest of them, “that’s that key ring, Dad, the one you used to have in that drawer in your desk, with all the old coins on it.”
“How,” I growled thickly, “how would that key ring of coins get down at the foot of the garden, buried?”
I clearly remembered the old key ring now. Pride of my own boyhood many a year ago. Gift of an old auntie.
“Why,” blushed the lad, “I guess we kids, when we were small, might have taken it out to play with.”
We walked out of the kitchen and left them to their sandwich-making.
We sat down heavily in the living room and turned off the radio.
“Well, it was nice,” sighed Jim, wistfully, “To have belonged, for a little while, to the ages.”
“I was wondering,” I said, modestly, “Jim, if you would care to come over, after all, in the morning, around six, say, before the sun is up, and help me see how much of those verbenas and stuff we might save?”
Editor’s Note:
- If anyone finds old coins, do NOT attempt to clean them with any cleaning solution as they could be damaged! ↩︎
- The Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 had the original Ferris Wheel. So the coins would have been dated from 1862-1895. So still up to 86 years old in 1948, but not very old from when Greg was a boy (he was born in 1892). ↩︎
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, January 3, 1948.
Jim and Greg disagree over the most fitting method to dispose of a 50-pound gift of Maritime lobsters
“Hurray!” yelled Jimmie Frise, waving a letter aloft.
“From the income tax department?” I inquired sweetly.
“Lobsters!” exulted Jim excitedly. “Good old Joe Havelock down in New Brunswick has shipped me a 50-pound box of lobsters. They’ll be here Saturday.”
“Fifty pounds?” I suggested. “That’s a lot of lobster. They won’t keep. You’ll have to divide them up among your friends.”
“To heck with that!” cried Jim. “I’ll give a stag party.”
“Whenever you get a barrel of oysters or a box of sea food from your Maritime friends,” I protested, “the tradition up here is to scatter them around among your friends.”
“Tradition be hanged!” enthused Jim. “I’ll stage a stag party. Fifty pounds of lobster! Man, we’ll put on a party that the gang won’t soon forget.”
“Lobsters,” I pointed out doggedly, “are a delicacy, Jim. You don’t want to stuff anybody with lobster. The best thing to do would be to keep what you can use in your own family, then distribute the rest around among your immediate friends.”
“I’ll get the womenfolk,” interrupted Jim, “to crack up about 10 pounds of them and make a nice lobster salad, with mayonnaise, on lettuce, in a great big salad bowl. Then the rest…”
“Nobody,” I pursued firmly, “wants to be surfeited with lobster, Jim. You invite five or 10 of the gang here…”
“Five or 10?” scoffed Jim. “I’m going to invite 20. Maybe 30. The whole gang. Everybody we know. We’ll have Skipper and Bumpy and young Art, and Bill Sparra and Billie Milne…”
“Some of them may have ulcers,” I pointed out. “Maybe they can’t EAT lobster. Now, my idea, if you want my advice, would be to keep a few pounds for yourself and make a nice little holiday season gift to…”
“I’ll have that big salad, with mayonnaise,” ignored Jimmie, “and then, whole lobsters on platters, trays, cake plates. Every dish and platter in the house, I’ll have spread out all over the dining room table and on the buffet and on side tables. Lying on big lettuce leaves, whole lobsters by the dozen, with little pots of mayonnaise scattered handy, to dip the delicate morsels in, as they crack them.”
“Crack them?” I pointed out. “How many tools are you going to have lying about? Eh? Have you thought of that? How are your 20 or 30 guests going to crack their lobsters? Have you got 20 or 30 sets of nut crackers, pliers, wrenches, hammers?”
“They’ll be cracked in advance,” said Jim triumphantly. “You and I will spend the afternoon, preparing the whole lobsters the way they are done in restaurants. We’ll crack the shells just enough so as not to spoil the looks of the whole lobsters, but enough to let the boys get at them. Man, there is no way to eat a lobster except right in your hands, breaking it open and extracting the luscious meat.”
“You want my help,” I accused, “But you don’t want my advice. I assure you, Jim, that the traditional way of disposing of one of these wholesale gifts from our friends and relatives in the Maritimes, a barrel of oysters, a crate of lobsters, is to distribute them around among our intimate friends. Just a few of our closest, most intimate friends…”
“All right,” announced Jim. “I’m starting a new tradition, right now. From now on, when I get a load of oysters or lobsters, I stage a party and serve the whole business at one swoop. It’s the only proper, decent thing to do. It should be a celebration. If your friends down east wanted you to have a taste of oysters, they’d send you a dozen. If they wanted you to have a little lobster for supper, they’d send you a couple in a candy box. But when they send you a BARREL or a 50-pound crate of lobsters, they expect you to do something about it in a style befitting the occasion. If those Maritimers knew what we did with those barrels and crates, they’d never send them. Puh! We either hide the barrel away until half the contents spoil, or else we hastily call up our friends to come over and get a dozen oysters or a lobster. Not me! I’m staging a celebration, in honor of the great Canadian Lobster!”
“Well…” I sighed helplessly: I had done my best to get a half, a quarter or even an eighth of that box of lobsters.
Without more ado, Jim sat down and began writing out a list of the gang he was going to invite: It did not take him long to write 10 names. The next five, bringing it to 15, took a little more time and thought. To get it to 20, he had to rumple his hair and stare out the window. Not many men have 20 friends. Friends, that is, close enough to come in on a Saturday afternoon, at 4:30 and crack lobsters.
But he got it. And then started phoning.
“Saturday!” he said to them all. “Come around 4:30. Just a stag party. I got a whole crate of lobsters from NB. Yes. Fifty pounds. Okay! Around 4:30.”
So, one by one, I saw those lobsters vanishing into thin air.
Saturday morning, as soon as we got to the office, Jim telephoned the express company and inquired if there was a box of lobsters for him from the Maritimes.
After a lot of delays and being shifted from one department to another, Jim finally got hold of a man who said that the express from the East hadn’t been sorted yet. He would look up the manifests and call back. Jim gave him our number.
By 11 o’clock, Jim was in a tizzy. He telephoned the express company again. And after another long delay and after being shifted again from department to department, he at last got hold of the same guy, who said he hadn’t had a chance to examine the manifests yet. But he’d call back. Jim had the good sense to get the man’s name and branch telephone line.
“You’ll call me back?” pleaded Jim. “It’s very important.”
“You should have waited,” I explained, after he hung up, “to invite your stag party AFTER you got your lobsters.
“Joe Havelock SAID they’d be here Saturday,” declared Jim hotly.
“Aw, you know the express,” I comforted.
When there was no telephone call from the express by 12:15, Jim telephoned again, direct to the man. And a stranger informed us that the man had gone for the day. He quit at noon. So, after a lot of recapitulation, repetition and backtracking, the new man said he’d look up the manifests and see if there was a package addressed to Frise. And call us back.
“If it’s come,” he explained to Jim, “it will be out in the delivery now.”
“That,” Jim informed him, “is exactly what I have been trying to avoid. Goodness knows when it’ll be delivered.”
We took turns going out to lunch, so one of us would be in when the express man telephoned. But there was no call. And at 2 o’clock, Jim telephoned again, and here was NO answer.
So we got in the car and drove down to the express company warehouse. It was 2:45 when we found the correct department of the warehouse. It was 3:10 when we found the right official to deal with.
He led us on a tour of exploration.
“What’s that over there?” demanded Jimmie, pointing to a pile of gloomy boxes.
“Oh, that’s fish,” explained the express man.
“Might lobsters not be among the fish?” inquired Jim wanly.
We looked. We shifted 20 boxes of fish. And there, right as a dollar, was our box, addressed in bold large characters to Mr. James Frise.
“Aw, it just got mixed up with the fish,” explained the express man.
It was 3:45 when we hoisted the box of lobsters into the back of Jim’s car. It was 4:20, due to the icy streets, when we pulled up at Jim’s house. And already three cars were in the driveway.
“Gosh!” chuckled Jim. “The boys must be hungry!”
They were enthusiastic, anyway. For half a dozen of them, Bumpy, Skipper and Sparra among them, came tumbling out of the house to help us carry the big box into the back kitchen.
“Leave it here,” commanded Jim. “We’ll open it here in the back kitchen, so as not to get ice and water all over the linoleum.”
“They’re well packed,” remarked Skipper. “The box, isn’t leaking at all.”
No wonder it wasn’t leaking! Jim got the hammer and screwdriver, and started prying the lid off.
“If it hadn’t been for this express mix-up,” grunted Jim, “Greg and I by now would have had these all cracked and on the platters.”
“Don’t fret,” consoled Old Skipper. “It will be all the more fun. Every man cracking his own…”
With a squeak, the top board came off.
But instead of cracked ice, we beheld to our astonishment a soggy mass of dark purplish brown.
“Seaweed!” remarked Old Skipper promptly.
Jim pried off another board.
We stared down at the sodden mass.
And it MOVED!
“Live!” shouted Old Skipper. “Live lobsters!”
I looked at my watch. It was 4:30. And at that moment, the front door bell rang.
“Here they come,” muttered Jimmie dully. We lifted the top layer of seaweed off.
There, slowly waving a huge, vicious olive green claw with yellow ruchings, emerged a great big five-pound lobster.
Skipper gingerly reached in and picked him free of his encumbering weeds. He was a beauty. His long whiskers moved mechanically. His bulging claws, tied together with a chip between them, waggled and twitched. His eyes – on stems – clicked to right and left.
As the gang poured in from the front of the house, we unearthed a dozen large and several small lobsters; not pretty red, packed in ice; but dark sea green, olive green, packed in dank seaweed.
“I thought,” announced Jim to the gathering, “I thought they’d be boiled lobsters. It never occurred to me…”
“We’ll boil ’em!” encouraged Old Skipper heartily.
“What in?” demanded Jim hollowly. “What can we boil all those great big things in?”
“Get the cook book,” I suggested.
Jim read from the cook book: “Take a large cauldron and fill with sea water…”
“Sea water!” he halted. “See?”
“Aw, don’t boil them,” put in Bill Sparra, anxiously. “It’s horrible! Every time you drop a lobster into the water, it screams.”
“No!” denied Old Skipper.
“Yes!” insisted Bill Sparra. “A little high scream. You can hear it all over the house.”
“Utter nonsense,” protested Bumpy, hotly. I’ve seen dozens of lobsters boiled…
“Broil them!” I suggested brightly. “Broiled live lobster? It’s a feature on the best sea food menus.”
By now the back kitchen, the kitchen and the hallway, were filled with the stag party guests.
“What on earth…” muttered Jim, helplessly, “… do I do? What’s in the house to eat?”
Well, there were ham and eggs in the house. I skipped over to the corner and bought another three dozen eggs and two pounds of ham.
And Jim and I functioned as chefs and did the cooking.
We had the stag party on ham and eggs; and it was pronounced a great success by all.
The lobsters we took down Monday to our old friend and restaurateur, Arnold Taylor, who got his fish chef to boil the lobsters for us.
And Jim divied them up Monday evening among a few of his closer, more intimate friends.
Editor’s Note: A stag party might now more commonly refer to a party for the men in a wedding party, but it can also mean any party where only men are invited.
Jim, with the help of Greg and a few friends, works out a plan to beat the used car dealers at their own game. But…
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, April 24, 1948.
“I’ve decided,” announced Jimmie Frise, “to sell my car.”
“Jim, you’re crazy!” I exclaimed.
“No: I’ve just decided I’m smart,” he declared. “I’m going to cut the price of my new car by $6002.”
“But you told me last night,” I protested, “that the car dealer said he couldn’t get you a new car until August or September.”
“Precisely,” agreed Jim. “The fact that summer is almost here, plus the extreme shortage of new cars, is what accounts for the fact that I can get $600 more for my old car than it’s worth.”
“You mean,” I cried, “that to make $600 you are going to do without a car all summer?”
“With a little co-operation from you,” admitted Jim, “that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Co-operation?” I queried.
“Yes,” said Jim. “You see, you are away at your summer cottage for two weeks in July, during which time your car stands idle in a tumble-down old rented garage up at the Landing. I figure you wouldn’t mind letting me have the use of your car during those two weeks…”
“Jim,” I interrupted. “There’s May, June, July and August…”
“Correct,” said Jim, “I’ve telephoned three or four others among my friends, checking their holiday schedules. There’s Bumpy and Bill Sparra and Harry Wilcox. They’re all taking their holidays at different times through the summer. And it so happens they are going to summer hotels up the lakes, where they abandon their cars, at the end of the highway, having to pay rent for garages…”
“Jim, look here,” I cut in sternly. “Use your common sense. How are you going to run all over the country, borrowing people’s cars?”
“It will be fun,” assured Jim. “It will be sort of like a holiday in itself. For example, when you go up to your cottage, I’ll go with you and drive your car back here and use it for the two weeks, bringing it up to the Landing the Sunday you are coming down. See?”
“But…” I began.
“You’d far rather,” cried Jim, “leave the car in my care than leave it in one of those baking summer resort garages, where anybody can break in!”
“I suppose that’s true,” I grudged.
“At any rate,” he announced, “if I sell my car now, at top prices, I get the new car for hundreds of dollars less, don’t you see? I bet I wouldn’t get $300 for it next September when my new car is ready. Yet I saw the same year and model as my car up at one of those used car lots for $900.”
“Surely not!” I scoffed. “Nine hundred dollars?”
“It’s a fact,” cried Jim. “I’ll drive you up and show you.”
“Still, to be without a car all summer,” I brooded, “is a pretty serious matter, Jim. In a sense, it’s really for summer – for the five months from May until October – that we own cars, most of us.”
“Exactly what has created the present market for used cars,” pointed out Jim. “The way to make easy money in this world is to take advantage of the weaknesses and needs of your fellow man. You’ll never get ahead in this world if you just work for wages or salary all your life. My new car next fall is going to cost $1,700. By taking advantage of the present market, as well as the good nature of half a dozen of my friends, I will buy that car for only $1,100. That’s what you call business.”
“You run certain risks,” I reminded him. “Suppose you crack up one of your friends’ cars?”
“I run that risk driving my own old jalopy,” countered Jim. “In fact, I will be far more careful driving your car and Bill Sparra’s and Harry Wilcox’s than I would my own. Every way you look at it, it’s a wise and shrewd move on my part.”
“Jim,” reflected, “there is a moral aspect to this business. If you did without a car all summer, that would be the price you pay for that $600 you are going to make. In other words, to earn $600, you sacrifice your car for the summer.”
“Are you hinting,” inquired Jim, “that you don’t want to lend me your car, when it’s lying idle anyway?”
“No, no!” I hastened. “I just feel there’s something immoral about this used car racket, selling old jalopies at outrageous prices, just by taking advantage of the widespread desire to drive cars in summer. If you were going to do without a car for the summer suppresses that natural desire, why, the $600 you would make would look quite so… so…”
“What I say,” declared Jim, “is, make use of every advantage in this world. Among the advantages we possess are a number of fine friends who would be glad to lend me their cars for a couple of weeks, partly for the sake of friendship, partly to see me make $600; and partly to save them the rent on those tumble-down summer resort garages where goodness knows what might happen to your car…”
“Okay, okay,” I surrendered. “And it will be $600 that won’t show in your income tax, Jim. I suppose the smartest guys in this world are the traders who make deals like this all the time. We salary and wage earners are the suckers.”
“I’ve been a sucker long enough,” said Jim, rising and pulling down his vest and lighting a cigarette with a very big-executive flourish. “It will give me a new self-respect, next fall, to be driving around in a car that cost me 600 bucks less than those of all the suckers I pass in traffic. Do you want to come up with me while I shop around and make the sale? Do you know any of these used car lot pirates?”
“The fact is,” I replied, “not only do I not know any of them, I’ve never seen any of them. I’ve looked at hundreds of used car lots in passing, but now that I come to think of it, I’ve never in my life seen anybody around them. Just a great big corner lot packed with motor cars sitting there. And no human inhabitant in sight.”
“Oh, they’ll be there, all right,” assured Jim. “They hide at the back, somewhere.”
So we went out to Jim’s garage and took a last look at Old Maud, Jim’s faithful schooner for more than 10 years. Many’s the thousands of miles it has carried us on fishing trips and hunting trips. Many’s the $10, $20 and $50 it has cost to have its engine overhauled, its brakes relined, its clutch repaired. Many’s the thousands of dollars’ worth of gas its rusty old engine has inhaled in our service.
“I’ll just get a pail of water and a rag,” said Jim, “and give her a wipe.”
While Jim was sponging off the exterior of Old Maud, he had me, with a whisk-broom, tidying up the interior, from the trunk compartment, I removed sundry personal odds and ends, such as a set of rusty chains, an old shovel and an accumulation of ancient car tools that had shaken themselves into out-of-the-way corners of the compartment.
“No wonder she’s rattled,” remarked Jim, as I passed him carrying an armful of salvage toward the garage. Jim sponged off the body, fenders and windows; and I took the hose and tidied up the wheels and spokes. Little by little, Old Maud took on a genteel if shabby expression. We hadn’t seen her so clean in years. But just the same, her scars showed more clearly.
“It’s better, perhaps,” pondered Jim, as we stood back and surveyed the old schooner, “not to tidy up an old car too much. It only accentuates its age, like cosmetics on an old woman.”.
“Anybody,” I stated, “who would pay $900 for an old crock like that is nuts.”
“Not nuts,” smiled Jim, patting the wobbly hood, “just summer madness.”
“Do you feel any twinges of sorrow on bidding goodbye to an old friend and faithful car like this?” I asked.
“Aw, no,” said Jim, lightly. “Some cars, like some people, can live too long. Come on. Let’s get it over with.”
“You won’t sell it right tonight!” I protested.
“If I get a decent offer, I’ll sell right now,” said Jim.
“But what about the family? Are they reconciled to being without a car?”
“I’ve explained the whole deal to them,” said Jimmie. “And they all are in complete agreement. I’ve promised to allow them $5 a week for taxis, in special cases of emergency. Then I figured you wouldn’t mind lending me your car once in a while, for special occasions…”
“Mmmmm,” I reflected.
“I’ve suggested the same to Bumpy and Bill Sparra and Harry Wilcox,” went on Jim. “The family figure we’ll be a lot better off, for a while, than we’ve been with Old Maud here.”
Jim waved me into the car and stepped on the starter. Old Maud’s starter whined and whimpered, and finally the engine exploded into life, and the usual fumes belched up through the worn matting on the floor boards.
“I’ll take you first,” shouted Jim, “to the place they have this same model at $900.
A few blocks away, we arrived at the large used car lot of McGrigor, Mortis & Co. A big banner over the entrance bore the company’s name and the legend: “Highest Prices Paid.”
Along the front of the lot, there was an array of the handsomest new cars you would see even at a motor show. Resplendent, shining, glittering, none of them showed the slightest sign of having been used at all. But as we drove in the lane, we saw that back of the glittering cars were close-packed ranks less glittering cars. And farther back still, were rows and rows of cars that didn’t glitter at all. These most backward ranks of cars all had prices painted on the windshield with whitewash. $375 or $500 or $625. Only the shabbiest cars had the indignity of prices painted on them.
Sure enough, as we drove down deep into the lot, a man emerged from a little shack and came toward us cautiously.
“Mr. McGrigor?” inquired Jimmie heartily, out the car window. “Or Mr. Mortis?”
“Neither,” said the gentleman. “They’re both in Florida. What can I do for you?”
“I was thinking of selling this car,” said Jim, as though in doubt.
“You might get somebody to buy it,” agreed the gent.
“What would you give me for it?” inquired Jim.
“How much do you want for it?” countered the used car man.
“Well, you’re the buyer,” smiled Jim. “What would you offer?”
“No, I’m not the buyer,” smiled the used car man, “I’m only interested in selling cars. How would $250 catch you?”
Jim was stunned.
“Two,” he croaked, “fifty!”
“That’s all it’s worth to me,” said the used car man.
“But…” sputtered Jim, “right over there is the same model as this offered at $900!”
“Aw, sure,” said the used car man, “but that car has a new engine in it and only two years ago it had a new transmission and rear end. We’ve put a lot of work on that, the same as we would with this if we bought it.”
“Two fifty!” fumed Jim. “Why, I’ll sell it privately, I’ll advertise it…”
“Sure, sure,” laughed the used car man, “and in about a month, the buyer will be back with it, saying you misrepresented it; and he’ll sue you unless you give him back $400.”
“Do they sue you?” demanded Jim bitterly.
“Aw, no,” explained the used car man. “We do a lot of work on the cars we take in. And in the contract of sale, we make mention of all the work done, see. How about $250?”
Jim did not answer. He backed Old Maud out the lane, and in silence we drove back home.
As he turned off the ignition in the side drive, Jimmie spoke for the first time.
“Imagine,” he said tenderly, “imagine selling a faithful, wonderful old car like this for $250!”
He patted the seat affectionately. He ran his hands lovingly over the steering wheel.
“Next fall, when the new car is ready,” he said. “It will break my heart to part with her.”
“At that price,” I added.
“You have no sentiment,” accused Jim.
Editor’s Notes:
- David Harum references a movie (and book) about a businessman and a horse he purchased. The story is known more today for the racist stereotype played by the black actor Stepin Fetchit. ↩︎
- $600 in 1948 would be $8,480 in 2024 ↩︎
Bargain hunters Jim and Greg discover that honest folk are always getting gypped
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, June 12, 1948.
“We’ll stop,” announced Jimmie Frise, “in this next town and grab a sandwich.”
“Jim, we haven’t got time!” I protested vehemently. “We’re half an hour late now.”
“It won’t take five minutes,” reassured Jim. “I’m hungry.”
“Jim,” I groaned, “please be reasonable. The auction sale starts at 2 pm. It’s nearly one o’clock now, and we’ve got a good 50 miles yet to go.”
“Won’t take five minutes,” said Jim, comfortably patting the steering gear.
“It’ll take more than five minutes, just to find a parking space,” I growled.
“Not in this next town,” declared Jim. “They’ve got parking meters. Plenty of room.”
“Do you want those Krieghoffs, or don’t you?” I demanded bitterly. “How do you know those paintings, won’t be the very first thing auctioned off?”
“Aw, you don’t know country auction sales,” com- forted Jim. Things like paintings and ornaments come last of all. In fact, we’ll probably have to sit around. on the lawn until six or seven o’clock tonight before they get around to the junk.”
Junk!
Last night, an old auntie of mine had telephoned me to read a little notice of an auction sale being held on the old Masterton farm back near the village where she had spent her girlhood. The little country weekly paper reported the notice of the action sale of the implements and household effects of the Mastertons, the last of whom had died.
Among the items listed were “framed pictures.”
“When I was a girl, Greg,” said my old auntie, “old Mr. Masterton – that’s the grandfather of the one who died last month used to be famous for the paintings he bought. All over the county. And I distinctly recall that four of his paintings were by this fellow with the Russian name…”
“Krieghoff?” I cried.
“That’s the name,” said my auntie.
Which accounts for Jimmie and me being en route, in the middle of the week, to a remote village to attend an auction sale. Kreighoff was a Polish artist who made Canada his home in the 1840s and painted the rural Canadian scene. Today, little paintings of his a foot square sell for $1,000 and $2,000. His larger paintings can’t be bought for any price. They go to National Galleries.
“Jim,” I warned, “you’re a very foolish guy to set a sandwich up against four Krieghoffs.”
“If they are Krieghoffs,” said Jim, “there will be buyers from all over North America there. And we’ll have about as much chance of getting them as of flying to the moon. Those guys will bid thousands.”
“Look”: I reasoned grimly. “My old auntie just happens to remember something from her girlhood. Do you suppose any of the Mastertons know what they’ve got? There hasn’t been a Masterton interested in pictures for three generations. I bet those paintings have been up in the garret for two generations, to make way for Varga calendars and Petty girls.”
“There’s always a chance, of course,” agreed Jim. “Krieghoff painted an awful lot of pictures. Some of them are lost. Others keep turning up now and then.”
“Look, Jim,” I pleaded. “Get cracking. Put on some speed. Let’s whip through here…”
“Sandwich,” said Jim.
We were coasting into the outskirts of the small town.
In a moment, we were entering the main street business section, and the neon sign of a cafe shone redly ahead in the bright noon day. The street was pretty solidly lined with parked cars. But I noticed at once the parking meters. A car length distant from one another, the meters were sturdy small poles, four feet tall, on the top of each of which was a meter, the shape of a piece of pie. In red, the word “Violation” showed on the meter until, on your parking your car opposite a vacancy, you put a nickel in the slot, turned the knot and the word “Violation” disappeared. And you had one hour to park for your nickel.
Not far from the cafe, on the opposite side, Jim found a vacant space and whipped into it. I put the nickel in the meter and turned the knob.
“You didn’t need to put a whole nickel in,” admonished Jim. “You can put one cent in, and that’s good for 10 minutes. We’ll only be 10 minutes.”
“I’ll gladly pay a nickel,” I assured him, heading across the street, “for this five minutes!”
We dashed into the cafe. We found two seats at the front counter, and by a special way of smiling at the waitress, we caught her eye and gave our quick orders, a ham sandwich and a glass of milk each. She hustled away.
“Those parking meters,” said Jim, relaxing, “are great idea. They have revolutionized the whole parking problem in these small towns. In the old days nothing could deter the local merchants from parking their own cars in front of their shops. Then, all the kids used to park half the day. And farmers from out of town come in for one of those rambly, easy-going, long, chatty shopping trips; and park all day: smack in the busiest part of the street.”
“They’re a good idea, all right,” I agreed, glancing back in the cafe to see if the waitress was in sight with our sandwiches. We could hear sounds of laughter and gay conversation from behind the kitchen partition.
“There’s quite a racket to them, too,” said Jim. “When you see two or three vacant spots, get out and glance at the meters. Some of them have still half an hour to go. Somebody else put in a nickel and only parked half the hour. So you pop in there for free!”
“Heh, heh!” I said. “What some people will do for half a nickel.”
“You don’t get rich any other way,” assured Jim. “Look out for the nickels and the dollars will look after themselves.”
“Unless,” I suggested, glancing up at the cafe wall clock, “you buy Krieghoffs at five bucks and sell them for 2,000!”
The clock said 1:12.
Our waitress came swishing from the kitchen, but with no sandwiches.
“Look,” I called, “we’re in a terrific hurry…”
“We just run out of ham,” explained the waitress soothingly. “One of the girls has just popped across to the store for some.”
“But, look, what else have you, ready!” I cried. “We’re late for a very important…”
“Now, now, the ham’ll be here in a minute,” scolded the waitress prettily.
It was exactly 1:17 when the sandwiches and the milk were slid before us.
It was 1:21 when we faced the cashier. It was 1:22 when we bounded across the road to our car and found a parking ticket summons fastened to our windshield wiper.
“What’s this?” exclaimed Jim, examining it.
“For violation of the parking limits,” I read aloud. We looked at the meter. In red, the word “VIOLATION” stared at us.
“But look here,” expostulated Jim. “We haven’t been 15 minutes…”
“Come on, come on,” I snorted, opening the ear door. “Argue about it later, but let’s get cracking.”
“Now, hold your horses,” backed Jim. “We’ve got to look into this. How do we pay it? How much are they going to soak us in this gyptown?”
A passerby, in best small town spirit, overheard our heated discussion and came to Jim’s aid. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“We put a nickel in this meter, not 20 minutes ago…” began Jim.
“Is this the meter you parked in front of?” asked the townsman. “Sometimes the local smarties, when they want to park, just push a car a little way ahead and so occupy a paid-for space…”
He nimbled back one car and looked at the meter.
This one,” he smiled, “has 40 minutes still to go.”
“You mean the guy who owns that car,” I gritted, “just shoved us forward and took our space?”
“And then the town cop,” explained the local, “comes along and sees you parked in front of a violation meter.”
“What’s this ticket going to cost me?” demanded Jim.
“A dollar, I think,” consoled the townsman.
“Where’s the cop?” shouted Jim indignantly.
I was starting to perspire all over.
“Jim!” I commanded sternly.
But Jimmie was off down the street to the corner, where he could see the town constable in conversation in the shade.
It was 1:30 when Jim returned to the car with the policeman. He was a very genial policeman.
“I know the man who owns this car behind you,” he said, “and he’s a very honorable man. He wouldn’t do a trick like that.”
“Is his wife honorable? Are his kids honorable?” countered Jim. “How do you know who’s driving the car?”
“I don’t think anybody would do a trick like that,” said the cop. “Not in this town. What I think is more likely, you gents were a little longer at your lunch than you imagine.”
“We were not!” I declared hotly. “We are both witnesses to the fact that shortly after one o’clock, we deposited a nickel in this parking meter…”
“In A parking meter,” corrected the constable.
“Jim,” I hissed. “Krieghoff! Krieghoff!”
“If you want to be rude,” said the cop, “you can come up to the town clerk right now.”
“Can we pay you?” said Jim reaching to his pocket.
“I don’t accept fines,” said the policeman stiffly. “Go up that side street half a block, and you’ll see the municipal offices. Go in there…”
“Can’t we mail it?” I wailed.
“Yes, you can mail $1 with the ticket. It says so, if you’ll read it,” snorted the constable.
“I HATE being taken for a sucker!” said Jim, sliding in to his seat beside me. “I’m going to run around and fight this out with the town clerk or the JP.”
“Not now, Jim,” I pleaded. “On our way back.”
“This town will be closed up by the time we pass down,” said Jim firmly.
And despite my sighs, groans and muttered curses, Jim drove around to the side street, spent five minutes finding a parking spot on this non-metered street: only the main street is metered. And it was 1:40 when he left me to go into the municipal offices to fight the good fight for human rights and justice.
It was 2:10 when Jim came out, red and exhausted, to find me white and exhausted, glaring in the car.
Jim had lost. The clerk had said that Jim should have put his brakes on and locked the car, if he didn’t want to be shoved ahead from his paid meter.
“What kind of a world is this?” begged Jimmie.
“Anything for a nickel,” I muttered.
Which reminded me of the Krieghoffs.
We arrived at the Masterton farm at 3:15. The auctioneers were still out in the barnyard, working on the implements and barn fixtures.
Out on the lawn were piled all the domestic treasures of the Mastertons of three generations. Chairs, sideboards, tables, mattresses, beds, chinaware. Ladies of the county were circulating amidst the piles, appraising. There were about 15 pictures, including oval framed enlargements of gentlemen in sidewhiskers and ladies with set jaws. There was a steel engraving of “The Stag At Bay.” But there were none that even remotely resembled Kreighoffs.
I asked a knowing-looking lady if there were any Mastertons in the crowd. She took me over to an aged gentleman who was a brother of the late owner of the farm.
“Yep,” he said, “there was a bunch of oil paintings once. Stacked up in the attic they was. Pretty dim little things, about so big. Dim, and dark. Not much to look at. Dirty, I guess they was.”
He held his hands out to show how big they were. Exactly Krieghoff size.
“What happened to them?” I said hoarsely.
“A feller selling patent medicines came by here, Oh, maybe 15 years back,” said the old-timer, “and my brother traded him all them pictures – there must have been a dozen of ’em in the garret – for two large bottles of sciatica liniment.”
“The pictures,” I swallowed, “for liniment.”
“Yeah, ye see,” said the old timer, “when you get sciatica, you ain’t much interested in art.”
“Somebody,” said Jim, as we headed for the car, “is always getting gypped.”
Editor’s Notes: Cornelius Krieghoff is best known for his paintings of Canadian landscapes and outdoor life.
“Up in the garret” is slang for “up in the attic”.
Alberto Vargas and George Petty were well known in the 1940s for their pin-up art, often available in calendars.
The parking meter was invented in 1935, but must have been not well known enough in 1948 requiring Greg to explain what they were and how they worked.
5 cents in 1948 would be 68 cents in 2023. $2000 would be $27,250.
Sciatica is pain going down the leg from the lower back.
By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, April 3, 1948.
Greg gives Jim a few lessons in the sport of bird-watching
“I won’t go!” announced Jimmie Frise.
“It’s the greatest sport in the world,” I assured him.
“Under no circumstances,” cried Jim flatly, “would I go! It sounds to me like the silliest, stupidest, vapidest, most infantile…”
“Go once,” I declared, “and you’ll wonder why you’ve been wasting all your life on sissy sports. Bird-watching, in another 10 years, will have 10,000,000 followers in North America. It’s sweeping the continent.”
“Bird-watching!” breathed Jimmie contemptuously.
“Some call it birding,” I informed him.
“Birding!” simpered Jim, puckering up his mouth. “Tatting. Crocheting. Birding!”
“Look:” I submitted. “I’ll take you out for a day’s bird-watching, and I’ll guarantee at the end of it you’ll be more exhausted than you’ve ever been with all your hunting and fishing in all your life.”
“Who wants to be exhausted?” snorted Jim.
“One thing at a time,” I reminded him. “You were trying to make out it is a sissy, old maid’s sport. I tell you, bird-watching is a strenuous sport, if you want it strenuous. On the other hand, if you just want to wander along country side roads, avoiding the bush and the swamps, that’s okay, too. But you won’t run up much of a score.”
“Score?” cried Jim. “Is there a score in this pretty game?”
“Certainly,” I explained. “This IS the game. It is to see how big a score of different species of wild birds you can run up in the one day. You compete with your friends who are out in the country with you. Or you can join a club of field naturalists or just a club of your own friends and connections. And then you try to beat the experts in that club.”
“It still sounds piffling to me,” muttered Jim.
“Okay” I changed direction. “What does any sport give you? What does golf give you? A day in the open air, zestful exercise, the company of your friends; and a little competition.”
“But golf calls for skill,” protested Jim.
“What do you think bird-watching calls for?” I exclaimed. “A great deal more skill than swinging a club. You’ve got to have physical skill to work your way, with economy and energy through thick swamps, dense bush, hill, cliff and valley. And you’ve got to have skill of eye and mind to identify the bird when you see it. With your field glasses.”
“How many birds are there?” asked Jim.
“Fifteen billion, by the last census,” I replied, “in North America.”
“I mean, how many different kinds?” said Jim, trying not to look impressed.
“In North America, 700 different kinds,” I informed him. “Around 500 different kinds in this particular section. But if you were to become a real expert, you might see 250 in your lifetime. So far, although I’ve been looking at them for 30 years, I’ve only seen and identified 170 kinds, from eagles to hummingbirds.”
“Gosh,” murmured Jim. “I had no idea. Heck, I don’t know more than a dozen different kinds, a crow, a robin, several kinds of duck, a hawk…”
“What kind of hawk?” I queried.
“Well, a hawk!” cried Jim. “Isn’t a hawk a hawk?”
“Certainly not,” I asserted. “There are 22 kinds of hawks. See? You talk about skill in golf. All your life you’ve been seeing birds out of the corner of your eye. You’ve never even looked at them. They’re creatures of beauty, mystery, charm. Most of them are HARD to see. It takes skill and intelligence.”
“And a lot of time,” complained Jim.
“Well, you spend a lot of time on other recreation,” I reminded.” But golf is limited by the season. So is hunting. So is fishing. Any sport you like to mention has to be given up at some season of the year. Bird- watching, on the other hand, is an all-the-year-’round game. These clubs and gangs of bird-watchers – you’ll find them in every city and town, centered around the schools or the sportsmen’s clubs – are out hunting from January 1 to the next December 31. They get a far bigger kick out of running up a score of 20 different birds on a February day than 100 on a May day.”
“You mean,” demanded Jim, “that these nuts go out in the dead of winter?”
“Certainly,” I gloated. “That’s the point. If it’s fresh air and exercise you want, a day in the country, with your friends, and with hunting as the object…”
“Queer hunting,” protested Jim.
“You mean you don’t kill anything?” I asked. “That is its chief charm. Do you know, doctors and psychiatrists are recommending bird-watching to bored and worried people all over the world?”
“The trouble is, I’m a dub,” explained Jim. “I don’t, know more than a dozen or so birds to start with. What equipment do you need?”
“Well, everybody’s a dub, when they start golf or bridge or fishing,” I pointed out. “All the equipment you need is a pair of field glasses and a pocket field guide to the birds, so you can identify them when you see them.”
Jim stared moodily out of the window. April is a funny time of year. Too early for golf. Too late for skiing. Too soon for fishing. Too muddy to start on the garden.
“I’ll go,” he announced grimly.
So, at 7 am, which is early for a Sunday anywhere, I tooted outside Jimmie’s; and he emerged in his old hunting clothes and boots, with an old pair of army field glasses around his neck and a paper bag of sandwiches in his hand. We drove to a suburban cross-roads where our particular party was to rendez-vous. There were five carloads, and the hunting party consisted of two bank managers, a fur dealer, a university professor of history, a locomotive engineer, three brokers, a plumber, a doctor, two mechanics and one poet. They were all dressed in dowdy old clothes and hunting boots. The only things they had in common were field glasses hung around their necks, long peaked caps and paper bags full of lunch.
I introduced Jim to the gang. One or two of the party had already started to score. You can pick up plenty of wild birds right within the city limits. The history professor, for instance, had detoured through a city park on his way to the rendez-vous, and he had scored already – song sparrow, bluebird, chickadee, sparrow hawk, pheasant, flicker, downy woodpecker, junco, blue jay and winter wren.
After a short palaver as to where we would all meet for lunch, in case any of us got lost chasing will o’ the wisps, we piled into our cars and the procession started away from the suburbs at a nice slow pace. You don’t race, bird-watching. Everybody is watching.
“A funny bunch,” announced Jim, as we fell in the rear of the parade.” They look like a bunch of crap- shooters.”
“Or deer-hunters,” I agreed, “or hound men going out for a fox. You see: it doesn’t matter what the game is…”
Half a mile up the road, the lead car spotted a bird hunched on a low tree off in the field. The whole cavalcade halted violently, everybody bailed out and levelled their field glasses. It was a migrant shrike. Everybody took out their score cards and entered the shrike. Jim studied the bird long and carefully; and then I showed him its color print in the little field guide.
“Never saw it before!” he stated with surprise.
“Oh, yes you have,” I assured him. “You never recognized it before. Up till now, it was just a bird of some kind. Score one, Mr. Frise.”
We dropped a little behind as I pointed out song sparrow, blue bird, junco, a pair of mourning doves rising off the road, their lovely flight so shy and wild; a chipping sparrow and a phoebe. “Just little flutters along the roadside,” marvelled Jim, “unless you stop and take a look.”
He levelled his glasses through the car window at each of them; and then took pleasure in hunting them up in the little book.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” he muttered, as he took out his score card and marked them down.
We overtook the main party, where they had all bailed out to identify a large hawk beating and soaring over a field some distance away. It turned out to be a red-tailed hawk, and Jim was amazed to discover, in his field glasses, that it had a red tail!
So we proceeded, by main road and occasionally turning off side roads, to do the concession square, and so back to the main road. We added savannah sparrow, tree swallow and a beautiful little sparrow hawk to our score. Jim was profoundly impressed at the comparison between the tiny, robin-sized sparrow hawk and the huge red tail he had seen a few minutes before. Both hawks! He pondered, scoring his card.
The caravan wandered up the highway, off the side roads, with distance increasing between cars from time to time as something caught the eye; and then closing up again into a compact convoy. At a dense swamp, we all got out and entered the cedars to look for some long-eared owls the history professor had seen in there the week before. But we found none.
We were about two hours out from the city when we got detached from the convoy. I had stopped the car to let Jim see a kildeer plover. He had seen lots of them before; but never through field glasses. When we took up the chase again, we came to a backwoods crossroad; and the other cars were nowhere in sight.
As we sat cogitating, something compact, brown and swift flashed across the road a few yards away. “A woodcock!” shouted Jim.
“A jack snipe,” I corrected.
“A woodcock!” insisted Jim, with newborn authority. “I guess I know a woodcock when I see it. I’ve shot plenty of them.”
I turned the car along the side road, and we coasted slowly, watching out the windows into the brushy swamp. A hundred yards down, I stopped and we got out.
“What do you say?” I suggested. “Let’s go in and try to identify it.”
“That’s my idea,” declared Jim. “That’s real bird-watching.”
So we left the car and slipped as cautiously as we could into the underbrush. Underfoot, the first hepatica, the barely open anemone. We kept close together and thrust, yard by yard, into the brushy willow and alder, watching every foot of ground ahead. We came to wet spots that we had to circle. We encountered cedar patches, which we wove through. We worked east, we worked west: but nary a woodcock nor even a jack snipe did we see; nor any other bird. And we were sweating and our legs ached. And we decided to go back out to the car.
Which we did. And when we reached the road, there was no car! We walked back to the corner. No car. We walked the full concession, with heavy feet. No car. We hailed a passing farmer in a truck and asked him had he noticed a yellow car.
“Not on the sixth line,” he confessed.
Had he seen a convoy of five cars full of bird-watchers?
“Bird what?” he asked suspiciously.
“Our car must be stolen,” I pleaded. “Could you give us a lift, while we look around?”
He drove us slowly along the side road, up and around the concession. He took us to his farm house, where we put in a call to the county constable.
“If it’s stolen,” said the constable, “they can’t get out of this area without having been seen by one of the gas stations, I’ll call you back in 20 minutes.”
We sat drinking tea with the farmer and his wife.
“What were you doing in there?” the farmer asked, cautiously.
“We’re b…”, I stuttered, “we’re naturalists.”
“Ah, bugs and things,” said the farmer, much relieved. The phone rang. It was the county constable.
“We’ve located your car,” he said. “It’s been abandoned. It’s down on the fifth line.”
So the farmer drove us down to the fifth line.
And there was our car, exactly where we had left it! It seems, when you go bird watching you can get badly turned around. What is more, you can cross a road without being aware of it. For the farmer had driven us, in his truck, entirely around the concession in which we believed we had been hunting.
“You get sort of,” said Jimmie, “sort of hypnotized by…uh…”
“Bugs and things,” agreed the farmer, gently.
We got into the car and drove back to the highway: and thus to the lunch hour rendez-vous by a stream, where we found our five carloads of fellow bird watchers deep in their paper bags.
The professor of history had a score of 48, the locomotive engineer 47, and all the rest in the forties. They all wore the relaxed and cheery air of men who had been thoroughly washed out by wild fresh air. Their legs spread out, heavy and tired. They munched their sandwiches. The winners looked cocky and proud. The losers looked subdued and defiant.
No money had changed hands. Nothing was killed. The hunt was ended. The friends were sprawled about, aware of one another.
“You’ve got something,” admitted Jim, in a low voice, from behind his ham sandwich.
Editor’s Notes: Tatting is a technique for handcrafting lace.
Hepatica and Anemone are in the buttercup family.
Any of the bird types can be searched for if you are interested.
This was the last Juniper Junction by Jim to be published in the Family Herald, though it was not the last one. There was one more after this published in the Montreal Standard, and I do not know why is was skipped in the Herald.