And Benji. Look, there _he_ is. Benji! Look, there’s the Benji one! Not
much to look at, Benji. Mostly spectacles, the darling. Her Benji! He’s
at school, is Benji. He’s at his books. He gets prizes. Harry idolizes
him, weeps over him. Rosalie, too, though a woman. Her wee one. One
should have mentioned that his name was Benji.
Little Benji collides with a train. It isn’t a fair match. Benji was
outclassed. The train and Benji weren’t in the same class at all. A
bicycle would have sufficed.
But, the result is the same—Benji dies. She had never taught _him_ about
Jonah and not to collide with trains.
Therefore, he’s dead.
Strike three! Striker out!
That’s all there is. There isn’t any more. Supply of children exhausted.
Yet there was to have been more—much more and worse. Harry dynamiting
the Albert Memorial as a protest against matrimony. Rosalie—what? Who
can say?
But one cannot any more go on. Tears run down one’s nose and dilute
one’s ink. One’s heart——
Look forward then....
They’re all right now. Huggo in Canada, reformed. So he’s all right now.
Rosalie at home, every day, all day, teaches Huggo’s daughter about
Jonah. So she’s all right now. Harry say “Mice and mumps” over and over
again all day long. So he’s all right now. Doda and Benji still dead. So
_they’re_ all right now.
CERTAIN PEOPLE OF NO IMPORTANCE
_Not By_
KATHLEEN NORRIS
I
The Crabtree family is ancient and honorable. Though the beginnings of
the American branch are obscure, the family’s origin is undoubted. Its
founder was the well-known Adam Crabtree, a landed proprietor whose
country estate was notable for its extent and magnificence, but
especially for a certain famous tree, which bore beautiful but bitter
apples, called crabs, whence the family took its name. He had perhaps
the largest private zoölogical garden ever assembled, unequaled for
completeness, until one of his descendants, Noah Crabtree, built up his
collection.
Adam Crabtree lived in Eden, Mesopotamia, where, in 4004 B. C., he
married his second wife, Eve Sparerib. Their third son, Seth, was the
ancestor of the American branch of the family.
Though a man of large means, Adam Crabtree’s taste in dress was simple.
He commonly wore only a sort of sporran made of fig-leaves. His second
wife, Eve, was more given to dress than his first, Lilith, but was
really unostentatious. Her costume was a mere surcingle of the same
material, edged with scallops of geraniums. It is regrettable that her
quiet taste was not inherited by her American descendants.
The dominant family trait of restlessness was early displayed in the
departure of the Adam Crabtrees from Eden, shortly after their marriage.
Longevity was also a characteristic, emphasized in the case of old
Methuselah Crabtree. At the time of his death he was the oldest
inhabitant of his home town.
Noah Crabtree was an eminent shipmaster. He was the genius who put the
ark in archæology. Successive Crabtrees kept on the move, Arphaxad,
grandson of Noah, Terah, his descendant in the seventh generation, and
Abraham, son of Terah, were notable travelers.
Abraham’s great-grandson was the first Reuben Crabtree. The first to
engage in the business so successfully conducted years afterward in San
Francisco, the dealing in spices, was Solomon Crabtree, an importer in a
large way of business.
The coming of the family to England, whence the founder of the American
branch emigrated, is wrapped in the mists of history. But at the Round
Table, it seems, the family was represented by the knight known by the
family’s commonest pseudonym, Bors.
Throughout this distinguished line of ancestors there were displayed the
Crabtree characteristics of longevity, frequent change of abode, large
families and complicated kinships. These are especially observable in
the Earlier Eastern line but persist remarkably to the present day. No
Crabtree can ever confidently state his relationship to any other
without consulting the family tree, which each carries about with him.
II
The Reuben Crabtree family mansion at San Rafael was a large house with
three floors and as many ceilings. It also had a cellar, four walls, a
roof, numerous bay-windows, a kitchen and a sink. It was fully furnished
with chairs, tables, beds, bureaus, carpets, wallpapers, stationary
washstands and daughters. It was surrounded, as well as inhabited, by
wallflowers, also by syringas, fuchsias and fences.
Reuben’s daughter, May Brewer, lived in the house and was responsible
for its upkeep, also, in part, for the daughters. Mrs. Brewer had a high
bosom and many fine costumes, descriptions of which may be found in
_Godey’s Lady’s Book_ and _Harper’s Bazaar_ of appropriate dates.
The chief occupation of the Brewer household was husband hunting. Just
what the girls would do with their husbands after they were caught, they
did not know, having been brought up very carefully.
“Tina,” said Vicky, who wore a figured lavender foulard, pleated and
flounced over a small bustle, its skirts sweeping the ground, its tight
sleeve ending below the elbow and above the wrist, the other sleeve
doing the same, “do you think Vernon Yelland will marry you?”
“Well,” answered Tina, who wore a girlish white muslin and no bustle,
her broad uncorseted waist merely indicated by a sash of satin ribbon,
“I’ve looked at the family tree and find that he has to marry Grace
Fairchild first, but that she will die in 1894 and then he marries me.”
“What a long time to wait,” said Esme, in a pleated pink challis gown,
trimmed with blue cashmere, cut on the bias, hemstitched with broad
bands of guipure lace, with flounces of dimity and old rose brocade.
“Yes,” said Tina, “but it’s a cinch at that, compared with your chance
or Vicky’s.”
“A what, my dear?” asked her mother, who wore a costume of purple cloth,
ornamented with festoons of flowered satine _en brochette_, from which
hung elegant tabs of peau de soie, garnished with paillettes of crimson
plush and organdie, the panniers cut _en train_ and looped over the
bustle with ropes of blue sarsenet, pleated with rosemary chenille. “Do
not let Mamma hear you use that naughty word again. Say—‘I’m sorry,
Mamma.’”
Lou, the fourth daughter, clad in scarlet tapestry, trimmed with jet
chignons and basques of green corduroy, interrupted the conversation.
“Sh-h-h! there’s someone coming up the drive.”
“A man?” they cried in unison.
“I think so.”
“To your stations, girls!” said their mother. “Whose turn is it to-day?”
“Vicky’s,” said Esme reluctantly.
Vicky seized the lasso which hung ready to hand and, clambering through
the window, stretched herself prone upon the porch roof, over the front
steps. Her mother, holding the end of the rope, braced herself against
the window sill for a strong pull at the proper moment.
The others scurried down the back-stairs and circled the house. Two of
them took up positions in the shrubbery bordering the drive, Esme with a
shot-gun, Lou with a pitchfork, to prevent the evasion of their prey.
Tina reached the gate unseen, closed it, locked it and chained to it the
man-eating watch-dog.
There was a moment of tense excitement, then Esme’s voice calling, “Sold
again, Vicky. It’s only Papa.”
Mr. Brewer approached the house. His face was simply dressed in a full
beard, _à la Russe_, garnished with sidewhiskers of the same.
“Anybody married since I left this morning?” he asked hopefully. There
was no response. A look of deep melancholy overspread his features, his
shoulders sagged visibly, the wrinkles in his bombazine coat showed
plainly his desperation.
III
Aunt Fanny and Aunt Lucy came over to San Rafael to spend the day. They
had taken the nine-forty-five ferry to Sausalito and the ten-thirty
train hence. There had been a change in the schedule the previous week,
the boat formerly leaving at nine-forty now left at nine-forty-five, and
the train, whose time had been ten-fifteen, now departed at ten-thirty.
They had with difficulty adjusted themselves to these innovations.
All the female members of the Brewer family and their guests were
assembled in the parlor. The Brewer girls ranged in age from twenty-four
to twenty-eight years.
Aunt Fanny was an old maid with a flexible nose, which, when agitated,
she used to beat. By the intervals between the blows and by their force,
one could measure the depth of her agitation. She wore a blue foulard,
trimmed with camel’s hair, flounced with calico and broadcloth and
ornamented with passementrie and passepartout in contrasting colors.
Aunt Lucy was garbed in a crazy-quilt which she had made out of her
former husband’s discarded neckties.
Mrs. Brewer and the girls wore the dresses described in the previous
chapter.
“Have you heard of Amelia lately?” asked Mrs. Brewer.
“Who is Amelia?” asked Vicky, aged twenty-eight.
“Vicky, dearest, you shouldn’t ask Mamma such questions,” chided Mrs.
Brewer. “Mamma doesn’t like it. Amelia is your third cousin once
removed, the daughter of Aunt Caroline’s first husband, who was the son
of his father, one of the Brewers of Milwaukee.”
“No,” replied Aunt Fanny, beating her nose gently. “But Rebecca’s
mother, who was old Hannibal Crabtree’s niece by his marriage to Belinda
Johnson, the sister of Cicero Tompkins, who was divorced from her
uncle’s sister.”
“What about her?” said Esme.
“Nothing,” answered Fanny.
“How do you make that delicious fruit cake, May?” asked Lucy.
“Two cups of flour, four eggs, a spoonful of saleratus and two cups of
horseradish. Break the eggs gently, add the gravy drop by drop, stir
from left to right. Let it simmer on the back of the stove for two days
and fry in a colander over a slow fire,” said May.
“Lou,” interjected Tina. “Did you know our cat has kittens?”
“_Teeny-weeny!_” cried her mother. “Don’t you know that such things
should never be alluded to in Mamma’s presence? Mamma is deeply grieved.
Perhaps a few days in your room on bread and water will be needed.”
“Yes, Mamma,” said Tina meekly.
“How about Pa Crabtree?” asked Mrs. Brewer of Fanny. “Any prospects of
his dying soon?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Fanny, beating her nose staccato. “He does hang
on so.”
“Girls,” said Mrs. Brewer, “go out on the porch for a few minutes.”
Obediently they trooped out.
“Is—Alice?”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “December.”
“And—Nellie?”
“November.”
“And—Dessie?”
“October.”
“Lola is—January,” said Mrs. Brewer. “Mrs. Yelland, February and Mrs.
Torrey, March. The cat, yesterday. I hope my daughters will never be so
unladylike.”
Aunt Fanny beat her nose violently, expressing chagrin.
“Come in, girls,” called Mamma. “Tell Auntie Fanny how you make that
delightful new salad.”
“Four cups of vinegar,” began Vicky, “a pound of macaroons, nine
artichokes, two peppers and a turnip. Crumble the eggs in a warming pan,
add the glycerine, chop the tomatoes into small pieces and serve in
patty-pans garnished with ostrich feathers.”
“How lovely,” said Lucy.
“This whole thing,” whispered Lou to Tina, “sounds to me like two pages
out of the _Ladies’ Home Journal_.”
Father’s footsteps were heard in the hall.
“Anybody married yet?” he asked. “Hello, Fanny. Is your Pa dead?” He
read the answers in their faces, groaned audibly and left the room.
IV
It was a fine bright day in the latter part of the last chapter. May
Brewer and Stephen, her husband, were busy in the kitchen. She washed
the dishes at the sink. He dried them.
“Well,” said she, “it’s about finished.”
“Yes,” he replied, “Esme’s dead. Vicky’s working her head off at Napa to
keep the wolf from their door. Tina’s married to a poor preacher and has
three step-children beside her own brood. Lou married that old fellow in
Buenos Aires. Bertie’s thoroughly unhappy with his wife. Lucy’s left
Harry and he’s living on George. Nelly’s husband is a drunkard. Alice’s
beats her. Bob’s wife’s dead. The family business is bankrupt, and I’ve
got nothing to do but wash dishes in this mortgaged house and live on
remittances from Lou’s husband. It’s been a great life.”
“There are compensations, dear,” said May.
“Yes, to be sure,” admitted Stephen. “Your Pa’s dead. That helps some.”
THE BLUNDERER OF THE WASTELAND
_By_
JANE GREY
I
“_Buenas dias, señor!_”
The girl’s liquid accents exactly fitted the dark, piquant, little face
whence they had emerged. The slender grace of her slight form, the
delicate arch of her instep, the shapely grace of her dainty ankle, all
marked her as the child of a Mexican laborer, Margarita the Maid of
Muchacho.
“_Muchus gracious, seenora!_”
Adam Larey’s Spanish was not that of the lower class of Mexicans, but it
was the best he had. Adam Larey’s face flushed beneath its coat of tan
and his breath came in short pants, for he was clothed in the innocence
of eighteen summers. Though his lofty stature betokened budding manhood,
Adam Larey had never before spoken to a woman other than his mother or
an occasional sister.
Then, suddenly, Margarita launched herself upon him. Her slender twining
form enveloped him like a wind of flame, like a lissom spectre. A strong
shuddering shook his heart. His blood leaped, beat, burnt in his veins.
He was gathered in her close embrace.
“Don’t! don’t!” he gasped. “You mustn’t! Someone will see——”
His words were stifled by those eager searching lips and—_she kissed
him_.
It was over in a single, scorching, flaming moment. Exerting his
enormous strength to the utmost, he tore himself from her twining arms,
half ran, half stumbled up the rocky path to his cabin, flung himself
upon his bed and burst into a blinding flood of tears.
II
Adam Larey’s aching eyelids opened on the cold gray dawn of the morning
after. Simultaneously, the dread realization of his loss overwhelmed
him, devastated him, made him feel very bad. He had been through the
fires of passion, through the flames of dishonor. He could never, never
be the same pure man again as previously he had been before. She must
atone. She must marry him, make an honest man of him.
He found her in converse with his brother Guerd Larey—tall, superbly
built, handsome, bold, keen, reckless, gay Guerd Larey—whose face was
perfect of feature, not a single one missing—Guerd Larey, a creature of
G—dlike beauty, with a heart as false as h—l!!
“Margarita! Maggie! Mag!” he faltered. “Will you—won’t you—ain’t you
going to—marry me? After what happened—last night—you won’t, will you?—I
mean, you will, won’t you? You ain’t chucked me, are you? I’m on, ain’t
I? You can’t can me, can you? Aw! You know what I mean!”
“_Nachitoches, señor!_” she answered lightly.
“Meaning?” he inquired.
“Nay—no—not—nix—never—not at all—nothing doing—and several other
expressions of like import,” said she.
“Ha! ha!” commented Guerd Larey.
His mocking tones roused all the d—vil in the breast of Adam Larey.
“Take care, Guerd Larey!” he said omnivorously.
“Say not so, Adam! say not so!” taunted Guerd Larey, and at the same
time seized a huge rock of several hundred-weight and hurled it at his
brother. It struck Adam Larey full in the face and dazed him for a
moment.
Then a rushing gush of rage overwhelmed him. He snatched his gun from
its holster.
“You have snore your last sneer, Guerd Larey!” he cried, closed both
eyes and pulled the trigger—or whatever you call that little thing that
makes it shoot—turned and fled to the desert—the registered trade-mark
of Cain upon him.
III
Adam Larey’s dull eyelids opened on the grim, dim dawn of the zanegrey
desert. Before him a wide, barren, endless, bleak, lifeless, silent,
desolate plateau—illimitable space and silence and solitude and
desolation stretched illimitably to a illimitable horizon—wild and black
and sharp—colossal buttresses, chocolate mountain ranges, bare and
jagged peaks, silhouetted against the hazel dawn.
Here and there were sparse, vague tufts of sage-brush, greasewood,
sneezewood, _cacti_, _neckti_, _octopi_, _ocatilla_, _ocarina_ and
similar hardy perennials—the strange verbiage of the desert.
On the left, lofty Pistachio lifted its pale green peak. On the right
Eskimopi, in lofty grandeur, heaved its chocolate height.
IV
Two weeks had elapsed since Adam Larey had flown the coop. Two weeks
without food, without water, had left him both hungry and thirsty.
Punctured by cactus-spines, his boots had suffered several important
blow-outs and now he was traveling practically on his rims.
More than fifty miles a day he had fled over the desert floor, composed
chiefly of sand, gravel, lime, cement and other building materials, yet
every one of the last ten nights he had slept in the same place.
Morning after morning, he had set out. Day after day, he had followed
his own trail, now a broad, well-beaten track. Night after night, he had
reached the same starting point. _The doom of the desert had fallen on
the wanderer._ HE WAS TRAVELING IN A CIRCLE.
V
The blazing disc of the sun mounted the coppery sky—the lord of day
ascending the throne of this, his empire. The desert seemed aflame, when
Adam Larey set out on his daily round. The rocks were hot as red-hot
plates of iron or steel. The sand was very warm, also.
And now a low, seeping, silken rustle filled the air, sometimes rising
to a soft roar—the dread simoom of the desert! It whipped up the sand in
clouds, sheets, blankets, quilts, mattresses, till all the air was pale
yellow, thick and opaque and moaning. It was hot with the heat of a
blast-furnace, heavy with the weight of leaden fire.
It burned Adam Larey’s brow, charred his cheeks and baked his
brains—seared, scorched the rest of him. His blood was boiling in his
head. His motometer burst, steam issued from his ears and there was no
water to replenish his radiator. Still doggedly Adam Larey strove
forward.
Fiercer and hotter blew the wind. His hair was ignited. His celluloid
collar button exploded. His shirt was charred to tinder. His suspender
buttons melted. His trousers fell from him. Still doggedly Adam Larey
strove forward.
Fiercer and hotter blew the wind. His skin dried, shriveled, was
calcined, blew away in dust. His flesh followed. As deep inroads were
thus made in his muscular substance, unarticulated bones, having no
means of support, were detached and fell from him. Still doggedly Adam
Larey strove forward.
But when both knee-caps dropped and his knee-joints worked with equal
ease forward or backward, even he could no more. The skeleton of Adam
Larey fell rattling to the ground.
VI
There Dismukes, the old prospector, found him. It was a heart-breaking
job to rebuild Adam Larey—to find the missing parts. But the pertinacity
of the old prospector was rewarded. Adam Larey’s chassis was
re-assembled. A few cups of soup were administered, carefully at first
because the gas-tank leaked, and at last Adam Larey, re-built,
re-finished throughout, stood erect once more.
Dismukes gave him a new outfit, including a burro, showed him how to
pack the burro neatly, so the drawers would close, and Adam Larey set
out again on his travels.
VII
Eight years Adam Larey dwelt in the desert, growing daily stronger,
finer, purer in its illimitable wilds—the abode of purity, silence and
tarantulas. Climbing inaccessible heights, striding over impassable
plains, stalking the savage antelope, the impatient grizzly, the
querulous bob-cat, he acquired the eye of a mountain-sheep, the ear of a
deer, the nose of a wolf and many other trophies of the chase.
He loved the lure of the desert. He learned its lore. The secrets of
nature were disclosed to him. He knew whether the antelope chews her cud
with a full set of teeth, upper and lower, or has to gum it in part—why
grizzly-bears always walk in single file and why they never do—why the
bark of a coyote or of a tree, whichever it is, is always rougher on the
north or the south side, as the case may be—wherein the joyous cry of
the great blue condor, weeping for its children, differs from the
melancholy note of the lounge lizard courting its mate—whether the gray
desert wolf is indigenous, like the horned toad, or monogamous, like the
rattlesnake—whether the jack-rabbit’s tail curls in the direction of the
movement of hands of a watch, like the trailing arbutus, or
counter-clockwise, like the lesser celandine—whether the giraffe lies
down to sleep or merely appears to do so—whether the mesquite-bush
attracts lightning or whether it is the lightning’s own fault—whether
sound travels faster in the direction in which it is going or in the
opposite direction—whether the vulture finds carrion by the odor
emanating from its prey or by its own sense of smell—whether the bob-cat
can see in the dark as well or not as well or better or worse or at all
or not at all or at night or partially or impartially or which, if
any—Adam Larey at last knew the answers to all these questions as well
as Stewart Edward White or any Boy Scout in America.
He had adopted the name of Woncefell—in memory of his single lapse from
virtue, his momentary liaison with Margarita, the Maid of Muchacho. As
Woncefell, the Wanderer, he was known and feared throughout that desert
land.
VIII
Death Valley! Surrounded by ragged, jagged peaks, floored with ashes,
borax, sandsoap, dutch-cleanser, watered by arsenic springs, swept by
furnace blasts, it was, indeed, an unpleasant place. “The lid of h—ll,”
a profane prospector had called it.
Yet there, in a rude shack on the sloping mountain side, overhung by an
impending mass of loose rock, from which ever and anon gigantic
fragments detached themselves to roll with a booming crash into the
valley below, missing the cabin only by inches, dwelt Magdalene Virey
and Elliott, her husband.
She was a woman of noble proportions, though frail—at least she had been
on one occasion. She suffered from insomnia because Elliott spent his
nights in the mass of rocks above the cabin, detaching great boulders
and rolling them down with a booming crash into the valley below, trying
to frighten his wife to death.
Elliott did not love his wife and he was a very disagreeable man. He
was, perhaps, a little mad, but his wife never got that way. She had a
very sweet forgiving nature. The great boulders always narrowly missed
the tiny cabin. They bounded over, knocking the top off the chimney, and
she had to rebuild it every morning. But the sad-eyed saint never
complained.
IX
Thither came Woncefell, the Wanderer.
“Magdalene Virey, why do you dwell in this horrible place?” he asked.
“Woncefell, the Wanderer,” she answered, “I love the silence, the
loneliness, the mystery of the great open spaces and, besides, dear
Elliott finds his rock-golf so amusing. He is so ambitious to make the
chimney in one.
“I can endure it only because I am sustained by my faith in G—d and by
the hope that some night he’ll break his dod-gasted neck or pinch his
fingers or something.”
“Magdalene Virey,” he said, “why does he do it?”
“Woncefell, the Wanderer,” she said, “because my daughter Ruth is not
Elliott Virey’s daughter.”
“Magdalene Virey, who _is_ Elliott Virey’s daughter, then?” he asked.
“Woncefell, the Wanderer, I do not know,” she answered.
“Magdalene Virey, my G—d!” he exclaimed.
Who _was_ Elliott Virey’s daughter? The mystery was insoluble. It was
plain to him now that he must kill Elliott Virey with his bare hands,
like he had killed Baldy McKue, breaking his arms, one at a time, then
his legs, then his ribs _seriatim_, then his neck—and that was about
all.
X
That night Elliott Virey engaged as usual in his favorite outdoor sport.
Rock after rock, boulder and yet more bould, crashed, streaked, hurtled
down the mountain. Singly, in pairs, in column of fours, in mass
formation, by dozens and hundreds, they crashed and boomed as the madman
hurled them at the humble dwelling of his lawful wife.
The time had come! Adam Larey started up the slope.
“_Virey_,” he roared above the thunder of the rocks, “_I’m going to
break your bones like I done Baldy McKue’s_.”
The madman heard him.
“_Fore!_” he yelled and with one last supreme effort tore loose the
whole mountain side. Down it came with a thunderous roar, a cataclysmic
rush, and with it came Virey. It swept the cabin from its underpinning.
As the mass of rocks bearing the little shack crashed past Adam Larey,
the saintly woman leaned far out o’er the window sill and handed him a
small photograph.
“Woncefell, the Wanderer,” she said in a low, clear voice, “take it. It
is my daughter, my child, not Elliott’s. With the clairvoyant truth
given to a dying woman, I tell you that you and she will meet. Go find
her. And now, I do not know where we’re going but we’re certainly on our
way. You’ll excuse my leaving you, won’t you? Her name is Ruth. _Au
revoir!_”
“What a pretty name,” said Adam Larey, musingly, as the avalanche and
Mr. and Mrs. Virey spilled over into the declivity below, lifting to
heaven a thick, crashing, rolling roar of thunder. When the last rumble
died away, silence and solitude reigned over all. Adam Larey was alone
at last.
XI
He did meet Ruth on page 392. Her mother had evidently been reading
ahead.
“Oh, you Sheik,” she said. “Desert man, I am lonesome. Stay—stay, desert
man, and make me a woman.”
Gosh! wasn’t she awful? Adam Larey fled. The younger generation was too
much for him. Besides, he had yet to atone for his brother’s death—to
surrender to the sheriff, be hanged for murder—then, only then, would
his conscience cease its seventeen years’ bickering—then, only then,
could he return and claim her for his bride.
XII
Muchacho again—the scene of his boyhood—and his old friend, Merrywell.
“Old friend,” said Adam Larey, “lead me to my brother’s grave.”
“His grave?” said Merrywell. “Gosh! he ain’t got none, as I knows on.”
“What?” cried Adam Larey. “Why didn’t they bury him?”
“’Cause he ain’t dead yit.”
“Didn’t I kill him?”
“Gosh, no! Your pistol missed fire. Guerd Larey’s ’live as you be.”
“Do you mean to say,” cried Adam Larey, “that I’ve been expiating Guerd
Larey’s death in the desert for seventeen years with sandstorms and
tarantulas and everything, and he ain’t dead? This is an outrage!
Somebody’ll pay for this!”
“Go easy, young man,” said Merrywell. “Ain’t you been workin’ fer Mr.
Zane Grey? Well, don’t you know as Mr. Grey don’t never let his heroes
do nothin’ ’at’s really bad?”
BY WAY OF EPILOGUE
THE DRY LAND
Variations
_Suggested by T. S. Eliot’s Poem_
_THE WASTE LAND_
I APRIL FIRST
April is the foolishest month, bringing 1
The First of April, bringing
Jest and youthful jollity, jingling
Bells of Merry Andrew, rattling
Dried peas in blown bladders
Full of sound and signifying
Nothing—absolutely nothing.
II THE SEA
The Dry Land yields no wine,
The Waste Land no whiskey,
And the Desert no malt liquor,
But there is moisture in spots. 10
Where there are rocks,
There also is moisture.
(Come with me here to the rocks)
What rocks? The Fleet rocks—
In the cradle of the deep.
Half a league and half a league outward,
In the sea, the sea, the open sea,
The Mariners of England
Nightly guard our shores. 20
Yo! ho! ho! and a bottle of rum,
A little wine for my stomach’s ache
And whiskey in a glass darkly.
Let us go down to the sea in ships
To-day it is our pleasure to be drunk
And this our queen shall be as drunk as we.
Ἐντεῦθεν ἐξελαύνει σταθμοὺς δύο
Παρασάγγας δέκα εἰς τὴν θάλᾶτταν
Alack! alack! turn back! turn back!
For I am suffering a sea-change 30
Or something. Pull for the shore,
Sailor, pull for the shore!
III THE WHITE ROCK
Very well, then, here is another Rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this White Rock)
And I will show you something else again.
But that is water
And water
And also water,
Only that and nothing more.
Who would go upon a bust 40
On White Rock?
What a pallid bust it would be
On White Rock,
Only that and nothing more.
Mrs. Porter and her daughter
Washed their feet in soda-water.
They knew
What to do
With water.
IV OTHER ROCKS
Are there no other Rocks? Yes 50
Here are rocks,—bullion, scads, cash,
Banknotes, dough and all kinds of money.
What will it buy? What will it buy?
Sodas, fizzy, fuzzy, insubstantial?
Sundaes, clinging, cloying, agglutinating?
Pretty polonies and excellent peppermint drops?
Yes, all. No more? Aye, more.
But this is the Waste Land. This is the Dry Land.
Aye, but there is moisture in spots,
(Come with me here to this spot) 60
This is a Wet Spot. It will buy
Any old thing
You want.
Johnnie Walker, Haig and Haig
Black and White and Gordon Gin.
Ab-sa-tive-ly, Mr. Gallagher?
Pos-o-lute-ly, Mr. Shean!
V THE MOUNTAINS
In the highlands, where the Revenooer dozes
Where the old, kind men have rosy noses—
O the Moonshine’s _right_ 70
In my old Kentucky home!
Here is a still and a quiet conscience.
O still! govern thou my song.
Jug, jug, jug, jug, jug, jug
And also bottles
And demijohns
By the light of, the light of the moon.
There is no water
In my old Kentucky home
Except for washing 80
And damn little for that.
There spotted snakes with double tongue
And bats with baby faces may be seen
And camels all lumpy and bumpy and humpy
A-rolling down to Bowling Green.
VI RAT’S ALLEY
I think we are in Rat’s Alley
Where the dead men roll their bones.
What is that noise? A rat i’ the arras?
Sh! Sh-h! Sh-h-h! Sh-h-h-h!
At my back in a cold blast I hear 90
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
In days of old when nights were cold
And the world was too much with us
Late and soon
He rattled his bones on the alley-stones,
A remote, unfriended, melan-
Choly coon.
He kept his maculate but honored bones
In the dark backward
And abysm of his pants. 100
He rolled ’em nightly on the alley stones
With that strange power
That erring men call chance.
And now his gentle ghost besprent with April dew
Nightly to the wandering moon complains
_Ah craves action. Shoots ten dollahs.
Fade me! Fade me! Shower down boy!
Telegraph dice, click fo’ de coin!
Eagle bones, see kin you fly!
Bugle dice, blow fo’ de cash! 110
L’il snow flakes, sof’ly fall!
Gallopers, git right! Whuff! Bam!_
READ ’EM AN’ WEEP!!
I never saw a Moor. I never saw the sea
And yet I know how the heather smells
And, by the same token, I can distinguish
A Moor from a Blackamoor
And the wild rose from the negroes.
VII HAT AND TEETH
Where Catherine Street descends into the Strand
There I saw one I knew and stopped him, crying 120
“Where did you get that hat? Stetson?”
“Dunlap,” he said and grinned
And showed precarious teeth.
One of the Five he was and not The One,
So Pyorrhea claimed him for her own.
VIII BANANAS
What makes the rear rank breathe so hard?
They are saying “But
“Yes, we have no Bananas to-day.”
O O O O that sweet Banana Rag,
It is so beautiful, 130
So fruitiful.
But, yet, we have no bananas to-day.
This day, so calm, so cool, so bright
We have not a
Single damn ba-
Nana, yes.
What shall I do now? What shall I do?
I shall rush out just as I am without one plea
And buy cocoanuts.
IX APRIL AGAIN
Yes, April is the foolishest month, bringing 140
The First of April. On that day I wrote this,
Tongue in cheek, twinkle
In eye, laughter in sleeve and
It shall shake the World,
Insofar as the World is composed of
Serious, sophisticated,
Impressionistic, expressionistic,
Futuristic, cubistic
Immature, Dadaists, blinking
Through horn spectacles 150
With horn lenses as well as
Horn frames, who shall read
What is not written, hear
What is not spoken, understand
What is cryptic only because it is
Nonsense.
_Eeny meeny miney mo
Omne ignotum pro magnifico
Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten.
Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate_ 160
Da Dada Dadaism
Ha Haha Hahaism
Silly Sillier Silliest
_NOTES_
Not only the title but the plan and a good deal of the incidental
symbolism of the poem were suggested by Mr. T. S. Eliot’s poem _The
Waste Land_. Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Mr. Eliot’s poem will
elucidate the difficulties of my poem much better than my notes can do;
and I recommend it (apart from the amusement to be derived from it)
because my poem will seem more lucid by contrast.
Following Mr. Eliot’s example, I have availed myself of the work of
fellow bards. Credit has not been given in these notes in every case,
but will be extended freely on application to our Credit Department.
I
Lines 1–7 Cf. _The Waste Land_, l.1–7.
II
11. A phenomenon commonly observed.
14. V. _The Waste Land_ 1.26.
23. St. Timothy _I Timothy_ 23.
25–6. V. H. Fielding _Tom Thumb the Great_ I, Sc. II.
27–28. Cf. Xenophon _Anabasis_, _passim_.
31–32. V. Moody and Sankey _Hymnal_ No. 1.
III
34. Cf. _The Waste Land_ l.26.
36–7. Cf. _The Waste Land_ l.348–9.
45. Cf. _The Waste Land_ l.199–201.
IV
59. Inquire of any policeman or taxi-driver.
64–5. This list is incomplete. For full particulars inquire as
above.
66–7. I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these
lines are taken.
V
68–69. Cf. R. L. Stevenson, _In the Highlands_.
70–71. Old song.
72. Cf. W. Shakspeare _Henry VIII_ Act 3, Sc. 2.
73. V. John Milton _Paradise Lost_ Bk. 7, 1.29.
74. V. _The Waste Land_ 1.204.
78–9. So reported by travellers.
83. Cf. _The Waste Land_, 1.379.
85. Old song. This Bowling Green is not in The N. Y. _Evening
Post_ but in Ky.
VI
86–7. Cf. _The Waste Land_ l.115–116.
90. Cf. _The Waste Land_ l.185.6.
92. Cf. Old song.
96–7. Cf. Oliver Goldsmith _The Traveller_ l.1.
99–100. Cf. W. Shakspeare _The Tempest_ Act 1, Sc. 2.
102–3. Cf. J. Milton _Comus_.
104. V. B. _Jonson Elegy on Lady Jane Pawlett_.
106–13. V. Hugh Wiley, _passim_.
114–15. V. Emily Dickinson _Poems_.
VII
120–1. Cf. _The Waste Land_ l.69.
123. Cf. _The Waste Land_ l.339.
124–5. V. Current advertisements.
VIII
128. Old song of unknown origin.
129–31. Cf. _The Waste Land_ l.128–130.
137–8. Cf. _The Waste Land_ l.131.2.
IX
156. Cf. The Waste Land _passim_.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
2 to his room and look off all his to his room and took off all his
clothes. He clothes. He
21 Clavering’s nerves rippled, but Clavering’s nerves rippled, but
the man next him the man next to him
23 a passing taxicab, smashed the a passing taxicab, smashed the
area windows, burst area windows, and burst
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.