A GAME OF CARDS
The first copy of the _March Hare_ came out amid great
excitement,--excitement that spread not only through the Burmingham High
School but into the home of almost every child in the town. It was a
good number, exceptionally so, even as the product of an undergraduate
body of students who were most of them amateurs at the writing game.
A page of the magazine was given up to each of the classes and contained
items of interest to freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors
respectively; there was a page of alumnae notes; another page devoted to
general school news; a section on school sports; another section on
girls' clubs and handicraft. The drawing master contributed a page or
two on poster-making; and Mrs. Clement was prevailed upon to write a
bright and practical article on the making of an iceless refrigerator.
Even Mr. Carter, old newspaper warhorse that he was, was compelled to
admit that the _March Hare_ was not half so mad as it was painted. In
fact, he grudgingly owned to one of his employees that the new
publication was quite a masterpiece for the youngsters. He had not
dreamed they could do so well. It was a great surprise to him. Why, the
product was quite an eye opener! A paper for general home use might not
be such a bad thing in Burmingham. There was actually something in this
_March Hare_ worth while for grown-ups. If the following issues
continued to be of the present order of merit, the _Echo_ had nothing to
blush for in fostering the scheme. As for that Paul Cameron, he was a
boy worth watching. He would make his mark some day.
Coming from a man who habitually said so little, such praise was
phenomenal and it spurred Paul, to whom it was repeated, to increased
effort. He must keep his paper up to this standard, that was certain.
With such a varied group of opinions to harmonize as was represented by
his editorial staff, this was not altogether an easy task. Each boy
stressed the thing he was specially interested in and saw no reason for
publishing anything else in the paper. Some thought more room should be
given to athletics; some clamored that the "highbrow stuff" be cut out;
others were for choking off the girls' articles on canning and fancy
work. There were hectic meetings at which the youthful literary pioneers
squabbled, and debated, and almost came to blows.
But Paul Cameron was a boy of unusual tact. He heard each objector in
turn and patiently smoothed away his objections until, upon a
battlefield of argument from which scars of bitterness might have
survived, a harmonious body of workers finally stood shoulder to
shoulder, each with enthusiasm to make the particular part of the work
for which he was responsible finer and more efficient. It was, as Paul
declared to his colleagues, a triumph of teamwork.
It had never, perhaps, come to the minds of the boys that teamwork was a
term that could be applied to work as well as to play. Business and
sport seemed vitally different fields of activity. Yet here they were--a
group of boys pulling together, each at the post assigned him--toiling
for the success of the whole body. Was it such a different thing from
football or baseball after all? Business managers, authors, advertising
agents, were working quite as hard to do their part as ever they had
worked at right or left tackle; as first baseman, or pitcher, or
catcher. The present task simply demanded a different type of energy,
that was all. The same old slogan of each for the whole was applicable.
Consequently every man took up his duties with a pride in his especial
role on the team, and as a result the second issue of the _March Hare_
over-topped the first, and the third the second.
Young people who did not go to the High School at all mailed
subscriptions to the business manager; the alumnae, now scattered in
every direction, began to write for the publication to be sent them; it
was good, they said, to get once more into touch with their Alma Mater.
Older persons who had no children turned in applications for the _March
Hare_. They had seen a copy of the paper and liked it.
Into Paul's editorial sanctum articles from parents who had things to
say and wished to say them gradually found their way. Many of these
persons had done little writing and would not have presumed to send
their attempts to a magazine of a more professional character.
Mr. Lemuel Hardy, for example, submitted a humorous poem on how the
grapes disappeared from his stone wall,--a poem so amusing and so
good-natured yet withal containing such a pitiful little refrain of
disappointment that the seniors at once took it upon themselves to see
that no more of Lemuel's grapes were molested.
Mrs. Wilbur wrote on raising, transplanting, and caring for currant
bushes. Was it really so hard as that to bring a good crop of fruit to
perfection? If so, the boy was a brute who invaded Mrs. Wilbur's garden.
1920 would see that there was no more of that!
Gladys Marvin's father sent to the paper a short article on the beauty
of the ordinary stones when polished and offered to polish, for a small
sum, any specimen brought him. Many of the pupils of the school availed
themselves of this suggestion, and before a month was out there
blossomed forth a host of stones of every imaginable hue set in rings or
scarfpins of silver. Stone-hunting became a craze and the geological
department gained scores of pupils in consequence. One heard murmurs
about quartz and crystals as one passed through the school corridors,
and one came upon eager scientists comparing rings, brooches, or
pendants.
The drawing department was beset with pupils who wished either to make
designs for jewelry, or to look over books on ancient settings for gems.
Louise Clausen had a necklace she had made herself at arts and crafts
class; it was set with stones she had collected--common pebbles that had
been polished--and it was the envy of the entire student body. Her
mother had let her melt up an old silver butter-dish to make it, she
explained.
Burmingham boys and girls went home _en masse_ and begged to be allowed
to melt up old water pitchers, mugs, or napkin rings, and fashion
jewelry.
Out of the jumble of material turned in from various sources one number
after another of the _March Hare_ appeared, each marked by a freshness
of subject matter and a freedom of expression in such complete contrast
to other publications that even such an august medium as the _Echo_
broke over its traditions to a sufficient extent to glean an idea here
and there from the infant prodigy and enlarge upon it.
Once no less a personage than Mr. Arthur Presby Carter himself asked of
Paul permission to reprint in the columns of his paper an article that
had particularly appealed to him as unique and interesting.
"I tried," declared Paul, when relating the incident to his father, "not
to fall all over myself when granting the permission. I told him that of
course the thing was copyrighted, but that we should be glad to have him
use it on the condition that he printed the source from which he had
obtained it. One of his men told me afterward that we let him off too
easy--that Carter was determined to have the article, and would have
paid us a good sum for the privilege of republishing it. We never
thought of charging him for it; we were proud as Punch to have him
reprint it."
Mr. Cameron laughed. Paul's frankness had always been one of the lad's
greatest charms.
"Pride goeth before destruction, my son," he remarked jestingly.
"However, perhaps you did as well not to put a price on your product.
Mr. Carter has done quite a little to boost your undertaking and you can
afford to grant him a favor or two. But I will say you are getting
pretty deep into newspaper work, Paul."
"I do seem to be, don't I?" smiled Paul, flushing boyishly. "I'm crazy
over it, too. The more you do at it the better you like it. I don't know
but that when I'm through college, I'd like to go in and be a reporter.
I'd like to write up fires and accidents and wear a little badge that
would admit me inside the lines at parades and political meetings."
"I'm afraid you'd find there was lots to it besides the badge and the
pleasure of stalking under the ropes."
"I suppose so; but I'd like the chance to try it. I've always envied
those chaps who whispered some magic word and walked in while the rest
of us waited outside."
"There you go!" cried his father. "You are just as bad at wanting what
other people cannot have as ever were the early book collectors!"
Paul colored.
"I know it," he admitted. "I'm afraid we all enjoy having a pull and
getting the best of other people. It is human nature."
"It is human, that is true; nevertheless, the impulse is a very selfish
one," said his father.
A silence fell upon the two. They were sitting in the living room and it
was almost Paul's bedtime. Outside the rain was beating on the windows;
but inside a fire crackled on the hearth and a crimson glow from the
silken lampshade made cheery the room.
"I was telling the fellows to-day some of the things you told me about
early bookmaking, Dad," remarked Paul. "They wanted to know if printing
came soon after the illuminated books, and who invented it. I couldn't
answer their question and as yet have had no time to look up the matter.
We had quite a discussion about it. Perhaps you can save me the trouble
of overhauling an encyclopedia."
"I've no business to save you from such an expedition," retorted Mr.
Cameron with amusement. "Morally, the best thing you can do is to look
up the answer to your question yourself. It is good for you. However,
because the subject happens to interest me, I am going to be weak enough
to reply to your query. Printing did follow the hand-illuminated and
hand-penned manuscripts and books; but before printed books made their
appearance, there was an interval when printers tried to say what they
had to say by means of pictures. You know how we give a child a picture
book as a first approach to more serious reading. He is too undeveloped
to comprehend printed words; but he can understand pictures. It was just
so in the olden days. The uneducated masses of people were as simple as
children. Hence the pioneer printers' initial efforts were turned in the
direction of playing cards, pictures for home decoration--or _images_,
as they were called--and genuine picture books, where the entire story
was told by a series of illustrations."
Mr. Cameron paused in his narrative.
"You can readily see, if you think for a moment," he presently went on,
"how such an innovation came about. Paper had not been invented, and
vellum was not only costly but too limited in supply to permit many
books being printed. Moreover, as I told you, hand in hand with this
objection was the fact that the majority of the public had no interest
in learning. Their intellects were immature. They were nothing but
grown-up children, and you know how children like games and picture
books. Well, those are the reasons why the next step in the development
of printing was in the direction of making playing cards. A coarse,
thick, yellowish paper was beginning to be produced--the first crude
attempt at paper-making--and on this material were engraved woodcuts of
varying degrees of artistic merit. Some of the designs were merely ugly
and clumsy; but some, on the other hand, were really exquisite examples
of hand-coloring, unique and quaint in pattern. Thus playing cards came
speedily into vogue. The finest ones were painted on tablets of ivory,
or engraved on thin sheets of silver. It is interesting, too, to note
that the old conventional designs then in use have, with very little
modification, persisted up to the present day. Probably the playing
cards in common use were printed by the same crude method as were the
images, and unfortunately history has failed to unravel just what that
method was. They may possibly have been stenciled. All we have been able
to learn is that cards, images (which were in reality religious
pictures), and stenciled altar cloths--the first primitive printing on
cloth--all appeared very early in southern Europe, playing cards having
their origin in Venice, where in 1400 and even before that date we read
of the Venetians playing cards."
"Do you suppose their games were anything like ours?" questioned Paul,
much interested.
"I doubt it. Probably, for example, there was no bridge whist in those
days," said his father, with a chuckle. "And I'll wager, too, the
Venetians were quite as happy and as well off without it. The games of
the time were doubtless much more simple. But whatever they were, they
proved to be so fascinating that they soon became an actual menace.
Amusements were few in those dull, monotonous days, when there were
neither theaters, books, moving pictures, railroads, or automobiles. One
day was much like another. Therefore even the clergy welcomed a
diversion and devoted so much time to cards that the recreation had to
be forbidden them. Now and then some great religious movement would
sweep over the land and break up card-playing; but after a little
respite people always returned to it with even greater zest than before.
Nor was it a wholly bad thing. In the absence of schools the games
quickened the intellect and made the common people mentally more alert;
the ignorant were also trained by this means to count and solve simple
problems in arithmetic, of which most of them knew nothing."
"That's a funny way to get arithmetic lessons," said Paul.
"Yet you can see that a knowledge of numbers could be thus obtained?"
"Why, yes. Of course. But I never thought of it before."
"Remember that the race had reverted to its childhood during the Dark
Ages," explained Mr. Cameron. "For years all its attention had been
given to warfare, and learning and the arts which had been destroyed by
constant strife and turmoil had to be built up again."
"But to have people learn arithmetic by means of playing cards!" mused
Paul.
"Better that way than not at all. It helped the big result by gradually
making them realize how little they knew, and making them want to know
more, which was the necessary spur to learning. You will be interested
also to know, since we are discussing playing cards, that the four suits
are said to represent the four great social classes of society at that
time. Hearts stood for the clergy; Spades (spada meaning a sword) for
the nobility; Clubs for the peasantry; and Diamonds for the more
prosperous citizens or burghers."
"That is interesting, isn't it?"
"Yes, I think so."
"And the images?"
"Oh, the image-prints were small religious pictures done in color,"
answered his father, "and I fear they were often valued far more for
their brilliant hues than for their religious significance. They
represented all sorts of subjects, being taken largely from incidents in
the lives of the saints. You know that at that time in many countries,
especially in Italy, religious dramas were presented--plays such as
Everyman and Saint George and the Dragon. Hence such scenes were
constantly before the people, and they were very familiar with them. The
small image-prints served to perpetuate to a great extent things which
they liked and knew; and the picture books, which gave not only these
scenes in other form, but also reproduced stories from the Bible, did
the same. No text was necessary. The picture told the tale to a people
who could not read, just as the stained-glass windows and mosaics in the
churches did. Everywhere the feeble literature of the period took the
form either of verbal minstrelsy, drama, or pictured representations.
You will recall how most of the early races first wrote in pictures
instead of letters. There were hieroglyphics in Egypt; 'speaking
stories' in Assyria; and picture-writing in Turkey, China, and Japan.
The picture book of the time was merely an attempt to put into simple
outline, by means of woodcuts, the religious drama, or dumb shows of the
day. The city of Florence did much for this form of work, its
_rappresentazioni_ being printed as early as 1485. Albrecht Duerer of
Germany was one of the later and most skilful woodcut artists. What the
ballad was to literature the woodcut was to art--simple, direct,
appealing."
The man paused.
"The printed story awaited several necessary factors to bring it into
being. One was a public that desired to read--which this one did not;
another was a means by which to print reading matter; a third was
suitable paper on which to print; and the fourth, but by no means the
least important, a good and proper quality of ink. One after another
these difficulties were done away with. If they had not been," concluded
Mr. Cameron, "you would not now have been publishing such a thing as the
_March Hare_."