=BACK HOME. By Eugene Wood. S. S. McClure Co., New York.=
It isn’t often that an author writes a real review of his own book. Well,
maybe he does, too, but it seldom happens that he writes it as a preface
to the book itself, very seldom that it is an interesting one, very, very
seldom that it tells you what to expect to find in the book, and very,
very, _very_ seldom that he isn’t too much wrapped up in his own private
idea of his story to write a fair one from our point of view. However,
Eugene Wood, being unconventional and other pleasing things, has done all
this in the preface to his “Back Home.” When you have read the preface,
you are glad you did, instead of feeling sorry you wasted time on it and
fearful lest a book by the same author of that preface will be something
of a bore. After Mr. Wood’s preface you know Mr. Wood and about what to
expect in Mr. Wood’s book. You like one, and you know you are going to
like the other.
It would be the easiest thing in the world for the reviewer to sit down
and write reams of “copy” on “Back Home” and the good things therein, but
it is much more to the point for him who reads to listen to Mr. Wood
himself. If you are human instead of petrified, you will enjoy both the
preface and the book. Both reach for the heart-strings, and the terms—the
term is good.
Here is the larger part of the preface:
“Gentle Reader:—Let me make you acquainted with my book, ‘Back Home.’
(Your right hand, Book, your right hand, Pity’s sake: How many times have
I got to tell you that? Chest up and forward, shoulders back and down,
and turn your toes out more.)
“Here’s a book. It is long? No. Is it exciting? No. Any lost diamonds
in it? Nup. Mysterious murders? No. Whopping big fortune, now teetering
this way, and now teetering that, tipping over on the Hero at the last
and smothering him in an avalanche of fifty-dollar bills? No. Does She
get Him? Isn’t even that. No ‘heart interest’ at all. What’s the use of
putting out good money to make such a book; to have a cover-design for
it; to get a man like A. B. Frost to draw illustrations for it, when he
costs so like the mischief, when there’s nothing in the book to make a
man sit up till ‘way past bedtime’? Why print it at all?
“You may search me. I suppose it’s all right, but if it was my money,
I’ll bet I could make a better investment of it. If worst came to worst,
I could do like the fellow in the story who went to the gambling-house
and found it closed up, so he shoved the money under the door and went
away. He’d done his part.
“And yet, on the other hand, I can see how some sort of a case can be
made out for this book of mine. I suppose I am wrong—I generally am in
regard to everything—but it seems to me that quite a large part of the
population of this country must be grown-up people. If I am right in
this connection, this large part of the population is being unjustly
discriminated against. I believe in doing a reasonable amount for the aid
and comfort of the young things that are just beginning to turn their
hair up under, or who rub a stealthy forefinger over their upper lips
to feel the pleasant rasp, but I don’t believe in their monopolizing
everything. I don’t think it’s fair. All the books printed—except, of
course, those containing valuable information; we don’t buy those books,
but go to the public library for them—all the books printed are concerned
with the problem of How She got Him, and He can get Her.
“Well, now. It was either yesterday morning or the day before that you
looked in the glass and beheld there The First Gray Hair. You smiled a
smile that was not all pure pleasure, a smile that petered out into a
sigh, but nevertheless a smile, I will contend. What do you think about
it? You’re still on earth, aren’t you? You’ll last the month out, anyhow,
won’t you? Not at all ready to be laid on the shelf? What do you think
of the relative importance of Love, Courtship, and Marriage? One or two
other things in life just about as interesting, aren’t there? Take
getting a living, for instance. That’s worthy of one’s attention, to a
certain extent. When our young ones ask us: “Pop, what did you say to Mom
when you courted her?” they feel provoked at us for taking it so lightly
and so frivolously. It vexes them for us to reply: “Law, child! I don’t
remember. Why, I says to her: ‘Will you have me?’ and she says: ‘Why,
yes, and jump at the chance.’” What difference does it make what we said
or whether we said anything at all? Why should we charge our memories
with the recollections of those few foolish months of mere instinctive
sex-attraction when all that really counts came after, the years wherein
low passion bloomed into lofty Love, the dear companionship in joy and
sorrow, and in that which is more, far more than either joy or sorrow,
“the daily round, the common task?” All that is wonderful to think of in
our courtship is the marvel, for which we should never cease to thank the
Almighty God, that with so little judgment at our disposal we should have
chosen so wisely.
“If you, Gentle Reader, found your first gray hair day before yesterday
morning, if you can remember, ’way back ten or fifteen years ago—er—er—or
more, come with me. Let us go ‘Back Home.’ Here’s your transportation,
all made out to you, and in your hand. It is no use my reminding you
that no railroad goes to the old place. It isn’t there any more, even
in outward seeming. Cummins’s woods, where you had your robbers’ cave,
is all cleared off and cut up into building lots. The cool and echoing
covered bridge, plastered with notices of dead and forgotten Strawberry
Festivals and Public Vendues, has long ago been torn down, to be replaced
by a smart, red iron bridge. The Volunteer Firemen’s Engine-house, whose
brick wall used to flutter with the gay rags of circus-bills, is gone
as if it never were at all. Where the Union School-house was is all
torn up now. They are putting up a new magnificent structure, with all
the modern improvements, exposed plumbing, and spankless discipline.
The quiet, leafy streets echo to the hissing snarl of trolley cars, and
the power-house is right by the Old Swimming-hole above the dam. The
meeting-house, where we attended Sabbath-school, and marveled at the
Greek temple frescoed on the wall behind the pulpit, is now a church
with a big organ, and stained-glass windows, and folding opera-chairs on
a slanting floor. There isn’t any “Amen Corner,” any more, and in these
calm and well-ordered times nobody ever gets “shouting happy”.
“But even when “the loved spots that our infancy knew” are physically the
same, a change has come upon them more saddening than words can tell.
They have shrunken and grown shabbier. They are not nearly so spacious
and so splendid as once they were.
“Some one comes up to you and calls you by your name. His voice echoes in
the chambers of your memory. You hold his hand in yours and try to peer
through the false-face he has on, the mask of a beard or spectacles, or a
changed expression of the countenance. He says he is So-and-so. Why, he
used to sit with you in Miss Crutcher’s room, don’t you remember? There
was a time when you and he walked together, your arms upon each other’s
shoulders. But this is some other than he. The boy you knew had freckles,
and could spit between his teeth, ever and ever so far.
“They don’t have the same things to eat they used to have, or, if they
do, it all tastes different. Do you remember the old well, with the
windlass and chain fastened to the rope just above the bucket, the chain
that used to cluck-cluck when the dripping bucket came within reach to be
swung upon the well-curb? How cold the water used to be, right out of the
north-west corner of the well! It made the roof of your mouth ache when
you drank. Everybody said it was such splendid water. It isn’t so very
cold these days, and I think it has a sort of funny taste to it.
“Ah, Gentle Reader, this is not really ‘Back Home’ we gaze upon when we
go there by train. It is a last year’s birds’ nest The nest is there;
the birds are flown, the birds of youth, and noisy health, and ravenous
appetite, and inexperience. You cannot go ‘Back Home’ by train, but here
is the magic wishing-carpet, and here is your transportation in your hand
all made out to you. You and I will make the journey together. Let us in
heart and mind thither ascend.
“I went to the Old Red School-house with you. Don’t you remember me? I
was learning to swim when you could go clear across the river without
once ‘letting down.’ I saw you at the County Fair, and bought a slab of
ice-cream candy just before you did, I was in the infant-class in Sabbath
School when you spoke in the dialogue at the monthly concert. Look again.
Don’t you remember me? I used to stub my toe so; you ought to recollect
me by that. I know plenty of people that you know. I may not always get
their names just right, but then it’s been a good while ago. You’ll
recognize them, though; you’ll know them in a minute.”