A Robbinsdale school teacher had a class up to spell. They were very
young. She pronounced the word “leg.” The young miss who was to spell
it was very modest and couldn’t spell it, a big awkward boy blushed
furiously when it was passed down to him and the next one spelled it.
“And what is the definition?” she asked, elevating her eyebrows
encouragingly.
Nobody knew.
“Why children,” she insisted, “surely you know that? What is it of which
I have two and a cow has four?”
There was an awkward pause for just a moment and then a diminutive urchin
at the foot of the class yelled out an answer. The answer has not yet
appeared in print, but they do say that there was a vacation the rest of
that day, while the teacher recovered consciousness.
_Whiz Bang Editorials_
“_The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet_”
During the past month, we have received an inquiry from a reader asking
us to define a “lounge lizard.” We have nothing of that caliber in this
rural community of Robbinsdale. Most of us are poor financially, but
strong in the knowledge of Mother Nature and the homely ways of the farm
and fireside. During the midst of our studies, we journeyed through
Shakespeare’s immortal “King Lear,” and in the scene before Gloucester’s
castle, we find the following:
Kent: Fellow, I know thee.
Oswald: What does thou know me for?
Kent: A knave, a rascal; and an eater of broken meats; a base,
proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred pound, filthy,
worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action taking knave,
a glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue. One that
would’st be a bawd in the way of good service, and are nothing
but the mad composition of a knave, beggar, coward, and the son
and heir of a mongrel; one whom I would beat into a clamoured
whining if thou denyest the least syllable of thy addition.
We have omitted some expressions from this denunciation. We have
deliberately weakened it. We cannot find it in our soul possible to
condemn any fellow man in such language as Shakespeare uses. We follow
the quaint philosophy that every man has a redeeming quality and that
none combines the bald badness which Kent ascribes to Oswald. In our
community, a man denounces another in few words. We shake our fist and
call our enemy “a blankey-blank-son-of-a-blank.” Our language may not be
as polished as Shakespeare, but it seems to satisfy the vendor.
* * * * *
Wonder what a dog thinks about while he sits hours at a time watching his
master bending over a battered desk pecking with two pitchfork-blistered
fingers at a typewriter model of 1898?
Have you ever stopped to consider the dog? I’ll admit that in the eight
years my collie breed “Shep” has been my faithful companion, I have never
stopped to give him thanks or to reason with myself why this dumb beast
should love me so.
As I work here by my old desk in Whiz Bang headquarters, “Shep” sits on
his hind quarters panting. Occasionally, as I turn in a friendly glance,
he points his nose as if inviting an affectionate pat. “Shep” seems to
approve of my magazine. I really believe he understands what it is. He
seems never so happy or affectionate as when he sits beside me in my
study. When I’m in the field he saunters about, paying little attention
to me, but here in the study he seems vitally and keenly interested. His
attitude brings me to Senator Vest’s plea for a dog.
“The best friend a man can have in this world may turn against him,”
said the senator. “His son or daughter, whom he has raised with kind and
loving care, may prove ungrateful, those who are nearest and dearest
to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may
become traitors to our faith. The money a man has, he may lose; it flies
away from him when he perhaps needs it most. A man’s reputation may be
sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. Those who are prone to
fall on their knees and do us honor when success is with us, may be the
first to cast the stone of malice when failure settles its clouds upon
our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend a man can have in this
selfish world, is his dog.
“A man’s dog stands by him, in health and in sickness, in poverty and in
wealth; he will sleep on the cold ground, when the wintry winds blow and
the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side. He
will kiss the hand that has no food to offer him; he will lick the wounds
and the sores that come from an encounter with the roughness of the
world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.
“If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast into the world,
friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than
to accompany him, to guard against dangers, to fight against his enemies.
And when the last scene of all takes place, and death takes the master in
its embrace, and his body is laid away in the cold ground; no matter if
all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will be found
the faithful dog, his head between his paws, his eyes open yet sad, in
alert watchfulness. Ever faithful unto death.”
* * * * *