TAKE IT FROM DAD
[Illustration]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration]
TAKE IT FROM DAD
BY
GEORGE G. LIVERMORE
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
_All rights reserved._
COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1920.
TAKE IT FROM DAD
LYNN, MASS.
_September 25, 19--_
DEAR TED:
Your letter asking me if I think you are a failure at school, and
wanting to know whether I can give you a job in the factory, came this
morning.
"Yes," to the first, and, "I can but I won't" to the second. I didn't
send you to Exeter to have you leave in a week; and as for the factory,
I guess it can stagger along a couple of years more without you,
although I sure do appreciate your wanting to work. It's so different
from anything else you have ever wanted, and as Lew Dockstader once
said, "Variety is the spice of vaudeville."
Sure, Exeter is a rotten place in the fall, when it rains eight days a
week, and there's nothing except soggy leaves and mud everywhere, and a
continuously weeping sky that's about as cheerful as the Germans at the
peace table. You don't know any one well enough yet to say three words
to, and your teachers seem to be playing a continual run of luck, by
always calling on you for the part of the lesson you haven't learned.
Sure it's rotten; not Exeter, but what's the matter with you. It begins
with an "h" and ends with a "k," but like other diseases, lockjaw
excepted, and you'll never have that anyway, it's just as well to catch
it young and get it over with.
Then, too, I guess you're beginning to realize that the leader of the
Lynn High School Glee Club and left end of the football team isn't so
big a frog, after all, when he gets into a puddle with five hundred
other boys, most of whom never heard of Lynn.
Your learning this young is a blessing which you don't appreciate now.
I had to wait until I took that trip to Binghamton with the Masons.
I'd thought till then I was some pumpkins of a shoemaker grinding out
eight thousand pairs a day, eleven with two shifts, but when I moseyed
through Welt & Toplift's and saw them make fifty thousand pairs without
batting an eye, I realized I had been looking at myself through the
wrong end of the telescope.
Say, Ted, did I ever tell you about the time your grandfather and
grandmother went to the Philadelphia Exposition and left me at Uncle
Nate's?
You never saw Uncle Nate; but I don't know as you need feel peeved
about it. Anyway, Uncle Nate had whiskers like a Bolshevik, and
catarrh. He was a powerful conscientious man, except in a horse dicker,
when he shed his religion like a snake does his skin.
Uncle Nate lived over at Epping Four Corners, six miles from our farm,
and owing to his judgment of horse flesh he was about as popular there
as General Pershing would be at a Red meeting.
I landed at Uncle Nate's at noon, and by six o'clock he had asked me
four times if I was a good boy, and I could tell by the look in his eye
that he'd ask me that a dozen times more before I went to bed.
[Illustration]
Along about seven it began to grow dark and I began to miss my mother.
Uncle Nate sat in a rocking chair in the dining room with his feet on
the stove, chewing fine cut and reading a farm journal, and I sat in a
small chair with my feet on the floor, reading the "Pruno Almanac" and
chewing my fingers.
He said nothing, and I said the same. After a while I got so blame
lonesome I stole out on the back steps and stood there wishing I was
dead or in jail, or something equally pleasant.
Gosh all hemlock! I was homesick. Then I remembered Sandy, our
hired man, was still at the farm. I pointed my nose toward home and
skedaddled and, believe me, I went some until I hit the woods just
below the intervale, where the wind was soughing through those tall
pines like invisible fingers plucking on Old Nick's harp. It sure was
the lonesomest place I had ever been in; but the thought of Uncle Nate
drove me on until I came to where the old Shaker graveyard runs down
close to the road.
I'd forgotten the graveyard until just as I got up to it a white,
shapeless figure jumped into the road and ran toward me, waving its
arms.
Old Von Kluck did a turning movement before Paris; but he had nothing
on me. I turned and, believe me, son, I went back to Uncle Nate's so
fast I almost met myself coming away. I slid into the house like a dog
that's just come from killing sheep and found the old gentleman asleep
in his chair.
When he awoke he said I'd been a good boy not to disturb his nap, and
he gave me a nickel, which surprised me so I almost refused it.
After that we were great pals, and I actually hated to leave him when
the folks got home.
Cheer up, Ted, you'll like the school better before long, and try
learning all your lessons instead of only part; you can fool a lot of
teachers that way.
One thing more, don't write any doleful letters to your Ma just now.
I'm planning a surprise trip with her to the White Mountains for our
twenty-first wedding anniversary, and if you go butting in on her good
time I'll tan you good. No, I won't, I'll stop your allowance for a
month. That'll hurt worse.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
P. S.--I forgot to tell you the ghost I met by the graveyard was a
half-wit who had escaped from Danvers in his nightshirt. They caught
him the next morning, in a tree on the common, where he sat singing
songs, thinking he was a canary.
[Illustration]
LYNN, MASS.,
_September 30, 19--_
DEAR TED:
So your roommate is a ham, is he? Well, if he is, you're in luck. Ham
is selling for fifty cents a pound in Lynn and is going up.
Time was when ham was looked down upon as the poor man's meat, but now,
when there are no poor except professional men and shoe manufacturers,
his pigship has come into his own.
Seriously, Ted, I didn't care much for your last letter, it left a
taste in my mouth like castor oil. I've got a pretty good idea of the
appearance and general make-up of that "ham" of yours, and I'm laying
myself a little bit of a lunch at the Touraine next time I'm in Boston,
against reading one of your Ma's new books on the Ethical Beliefs of
the Brahmins I'm right.
Comes from a small town in Kansas. Never been fifty miles away from
home before, and would have taken the next train back after the frigid
reception you gave him if he had had the price, and the old folks out
there weren't betting on him to make good. Wears half-mast pants,
draped with fringe at the bottom, and the sleeves of his coat seem to
be racing each other to his elbows, and for general awkwardness he'd
make a St. Bernard puppy look as graceful as Irene Castle.
You're at an age now, Ted, when you know so much more than you ever
will again, it would be presumptuous for me to offer any advice.
Advice is the most beautiful exponent known of the law of supply and
demand. No one wants it, that's why so much of it is always being
passed around free. A man will give you a dollar's worth of advice when
he'd let you starve for a nickel. But while I think of it, I want to
tell you of something that happened at the Academy the year your Uncle
Ted was there. That fall there blew into school a rawboned youth from
the depths of Aroostook, Maine. He tucked his jean trousers in high
cowhide boots, wore red flannel underwear, and spent most of his time
stumbling over some one else's feet when he couldn't trip over his own.
The school was full, and the only vacant place was the other half of
Ted's room, so the faculty planted him there. Ted made him about as
welcome as a wood pussy at a lawn party, for at the time he was badly
bitten by the society bug and thought a backwoodsman roommate would
queer him with the club he wanted to make. For a week Ted was as nasty
to his new roomie as possible, hoping he'd get sick of his company and
seek other quarters. Apparently Aroostook never noticed a thing. Just
went on in his awkward way, and the nastier Ted got, the more quiet he
became.
On the night of the president's reception Ted hurried back to his
room to dress, filled with pride and prunes. Pride because of a
brand-new dress suit he had bought with an unexpected check dad had
absent-mindedly sent him, and prunes because supper at the place he
boarded consisted mostly of that rare fruit. When Ted opened the door
his roommate was greasing his cowhide boots, and wearing an air of
general expectancy.
Ted brushed by him into the bedroom, and changed into his dress suit,
his mind delightfully full of his lovely raiment and the queen of the
town belles he had persuaded to accompany him.
At last, hair slicked and clothes immaculate, he rushed out into the
study where his roomie stood, evidently waiting for him.
"Guess I'll walk along with you, Ted, if you don't mind?" Aroostook
said. "I cal'late this reception thing is a right smart way to get to
know folks."
"In those clothes?" Ted asked with biting sarcasm, delightfully
oblivious of the fact that he was wearing evening clothes for the
first time. Ted says he hates to remember the look that came into his
roommate's eyes at his remark. The sort of a look a friendly pup has
when he wags himself to your feet only to receive a kick instead of the
expected pat.
His roommate did not reply, and furious at himself for having spoken
as he did, and also afraid of the guying he might have to stand for
his roommate's appearance, Ted walked silently down the stairs beside
him. At the door he shot another venomous arrow by hurrying off in an
opposite direction, exclaiming, "Well, you can't go with me anyhow! I'd
stay home if I were you. I don't think you'll enjoy yourself."
Basking under the smiles of his fair lady, Ted walked by her side
to the reception, pouring into her ears the story of his ridiculous
roommate, and she, as heartless a young miss as ever lived, made Ted
promise to introduce her so she and her friends might enjoy him at
close quarters.
After a few dances Ted spied his victim leaning awkwardly against a
pillar in the gym, and looking about as much at ease as a boy who's
been eating green apples.
Ted introduced his partner, and in five minutes his roommate was
surrounded by a bevy of town beauties. Boys are cruel as young savages,
but for sheer, downright, wanton cruelty give me the thoughtless girl
of seventeen. That precious crew let him try to dance with them, mocked
and guyed him when he stumbled over their feet or stepped on their
dresses, and poked so much fun at him that at last he left the hall,
his face flaming, and his eyes wet with tears of mortification.
Little beast that Ted was, he took upon himself great credit for his
humiliation and acted like a perfect cad for the rest of the evening,
starting delighted giggles whenever possible by brilliant remarks about
his backwoodsman.
Later, as Ted and his fair companion were walking down Main Street on
the way to her home, they met a little rat-eyed "townie" by the name of
Dick Cooke whom Ted had thrashed a week before, for trying to steal his
coat from a locker in the gym. He made an insulting remark to the girl
and started to run. Seeing, as Ted believed, a cheap chance to play the
hero, he piled after him. He only went a few feet, then turned and from
out of the shadows of one of those old houses, four of his cronies lit
into Ted.
Ted went down with a crash, his head hitting the sidewalk so hard he
saw stars. Then he heard a shout, "Stick it out, Ted, I'm coming!"
There was a rush of heavy feet and spat, spat, spat, came the sound of
bare fists landing where they were aimed.
When Ted struggled to his feet his gawky roommate was standing beside
him, and the "townies" were tearing down the street as though Old Nick
himself were after them.
Ted didn't make a long speech of apology for his meanness to his
roommate. It's only in stories a boy does that, but, believe me, he
treated him differently.
And, would you believe it, in less than two months Aroostook was wading
through the Andover line as if it were so much knitting yarn, and at
mid-year Ted was taken into the Plata Dates on the sole recommendation
of being his roommate.
A fellow by the name of Burns once said, "Rank is but the guinea's
stamp"; now, I don't know much about guineas, but what I do know is
that the grain on a side of sole leather don't tell the whole story.
It's the sound, clean, close-knit fibers underneath that make it figure
right.
Son, there's going to be a place at our Sunday dinner table for that
"ham" of yours. Bring him home. I've a notion it's sweet pickle he
needs to be cured in, not sour.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS.,
_October, 2, 19--_
DEAR TED:
You could; but I wouldn't. If you go to the principal and tell him a
senior sold you the wall paper in your room, he'd get your money back
for you; and you'd get interest with it, not the six per cent kind
either; but a guying from the whole school, and probably the nickname
of "Wally", that would stick to you closer for the rest of your life
than that paper stuck to your wall.
You seemed surprised that any one who talked so nicely and seemed
such a likeable, jovial sort of good fellow, would flim-flam you like
that. Let me tell you right here, that the easy talkers and jolly good
fellows, are the ones you want to watch in business sharper than an old
maid watches her neighbors.
The short worded man I'll listen to, for he condenses all he has to
say, and is usually worth hearing. But when one of your slick word
wrestlers gets by the outer guard, and begins filling my office with
clouds of rosy talk of how I'll soon have John D. shining my shoes if
I'll only buy goods of him, I slip my wallet into my hip pocket and
lean back on it, while I make signs to Mike to clear a path to the door.
Honestly, Ted, I'm glad you bought that wall paper. The male human is
so constituted that he has got to make at least one fool investment
during his life and it's just as well to get it out of your system
early. If I were you, I'd write that six dollars down in my expense
book as spent in a worthy cause, for it may save you from some day
buying stock in the Panama Canal, or a controlling interest in the
Brooklyn Bridge.
Speaking of fool buys, naturally reminds me of the time your Ma and
I were boarding with your Aunt Maria over in Saugus. We'd just been
married, and I was spending my days bossing the sole leather room in
Clough & Spinney's, and my nights in trying to figure how the fellow
who said two can live as cheaply as one got his answer.
Your Aunt Maria was a good woman, but so tight she squeaked, and when
she let go of a dollar the eagle usually left his tail feathers behind.
Aunt Maria, in my estimation, was the most unlikely prospect in the
whole of Massachusetts, for a book agent, but one day a slick specimen
representing, "The Heroines of English Literature," blew into her
parlor, and when he left he had fifty dollars, in cash mind you, of her
money, and an order for a set of twenty volumes.
The next day, when she had somewhat recovered from the effects of her
severe gassing; and had begun to think of that fifty, lost forever, her
mouth looked as though she had been eating green persimmons, and she
was about as amicable as a former heavy weight champion just after he
has lost his title.
For a month we had so many baked bean suppers, your Ma and I began to
wonder if she had bought the world's supply, and took to accepting
invitations from people we didn't like.
Now Aunt Maria in spite of her closeness, was some punkins in Saugus
society. She was president of the Sewing Circle, and a strenuous leader
in the Eastern Star, and one Saturday afternoon about six weeks after
she had invested in, "The Heroines of English Literature," the Sewing
Circle was holding a meeting in her parlor, while I was in the dining
room trying to figure out a trip to the Isle of Shoals for your Ma and
me.
After they had got through shooting to pieces the reputation of the
absent members, and had guzzled their tea, one of the bunch spied
"The Heroines" on a little side table where Aunt Maria had installed
them upon their arrival. Out of sheer curiosity, the crowd fell upon
them with cackles of delight, and to make themselves solid with their
president, praised the books to the sky.
Aunt Maria saw a great light; and before her guests left she had sold
them enough sets so that the commissions from the publishers more
than made up her fifty dollars, and as a special favor to her dearest
friend she delivered her own set to her then and there. For a time,
after that, "The Heroines" were the most popular reading matter that
ever hit Saugus. Popular with the women, I mean, for the men figured
Aunt Maria's epidemic of literature cost them a good many new suits of
clothes, and the village watch dogs almost went on a strike, because
there were so many collectors coming around after partial payments it
was hard for a dog to tell whether they were tramps or new members of
his family.
[Illustration]
Which all goes to prove that even a poor buy may sometimes be turned
into a good account. Now you can draw some, Ted, or at least your
teacher said you could, when he pried a hundred dollars out of me for
pictures to decorate the high school.
I told him you could overdraw your allowance all right, but he insisted
you had true technique, whatever that is, so I loosened up.
Why not try a little freehand stuff on your newly acquired wall paper!
You might start a fad like Aunt Maria did, that would stamp you as one
of the school weisenheimers, and by the way if the boy who sold you the
wall paper isn't going to college tell him I'd like to see him some
day. I'll need a cub salesman in the Middle West, next summer, and I
don't like to see so much natural ability going to waste.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS.,
_October 15, 19--_
DEAR TED:
There have been farmers and doctors and lawyers and preachers in the
Soule family, and, in the old days, I believe we boasted of a pirate
and a highwayman or two, but no artists, and I'd rather you didn't
break the record.
Am glad though the faculty didn't fire you, for carrying out that fool
suggestion of mine of decorating the other boy's wall paper. Fifteen
rooms is going some Ted, and the $30.00 you received will come in real
handy to pay for new school books, won't it?
After you've been tried here in the factory, to prove whether you
can ever be made into a shoe manufacturer, and we decide you can't;
I have no objection to your joining the grave diggers union, or
driving a garbage cart, but as for your being an artist, you haven't a
chance. Your Ma says I am prejudiced against artists because they are
temperamental, but so far as I can see the accent must all be on the
first part of the word for I never knew one who had brains enough to
make a living.
You remember Percy Benson, son of old man Benson who lived on Ocean
Street, don't you? Well, Percy was a promising youngster until he
began to draw the cover designs of the high school Clarion, although I
told his father when he was born that the name Percy was too much of a
handicap for any kid to carry successfully. The old man allowed he'd
never heard of a shoe manufacturer with that name but said, "The boy's
Ma got it out of a book she'd been reading and that settled it." and
knowing Mrs. Benson I guess he was right.
[Illustration]
As I was saying, Percy did real well until he started drawing covers
for the high school paper. After these had been accepted he swelled
up like a pouter pigeon and nothing would do but he must go abroad to
study. His father kicked like a steer; but in the end Percy and his
mother prevailed, and Lynn lost sight of him for a few years.
For a time, I used to ask the old man how Percy was getting along with
his painting, but as he always changed the subject to the leather
market, I soon quit. One day after Percy had been gone about three
years, I came home early and found your Ma holding a tea fight in the
parlor.
After balancing a cup on my knees without spilling more than half of
its contents, and getting myself so smeared with the frosting of the
cake I was supposed to eat that I'd have given ten dollars for a shower
bath, the conversation lulled, and remembering your Ma had told me I
never talked enough in society, I asked Mrs. Benson how Percy was doing.
Ted it tickled her most to pieces, and she opened up a barrage of
technique, color, fore-shortening, and high lights, winding up with the
astonishing fact that one of Percy's pictures had been hung in a saloon.
I was gasping for breath like a marathon runner at the end of the
twenty-third mile, but your Ma was all smiles so I thought I must be
making a hit.
That's where I went wrong, and while you're about it Ted just paste
this in your hat for future reference. When you begin to be pleased
with yourself you're in as much danger as a fat boy running tiddelies
on early November ice.
As saloon was the only word in the Benson cannonade that I understood,
I replied when the bombardment was over.
"Glad to hear it, I'm sure. If the French brewers are paying him for
pictures to hang in their saloons, he should be able to paint some
snappy clothing ads for American manufacturers before long."
Mrs. Benson choked, gasped, strangled, and grew so red in the face I
thought she was going to have apoplexy. Then she bounded out of her
chair with one word, "insulting," and made for the door with your Ma
one jump behind, imploring her to stay.
When your Ma returned, I learned saloon was the French word for picture
gallery, and that my society stock had gone down like an aviator in a
nose dive.
About a year later Old Man Benson busted trying to flood the retailers
with bronze kid boots, and it was a real honest-to-goodness failure.
The old man was wiped out and Percy came home from Paris.
One morning I was over at the Benson's factory along with a bunch of
other creditors. The meeting had hardly got under way, when Percy
entered in a cloud of cigarette smoke, and with a breath that made me
think the French knew what they were about when they called the place
at which he had been studying Booze Arts.
No one there had much love for Percy, but we all realized his father
was too old to start again and that it was up to Percy to go to work,
for from his general appearance it did not look as though the artist
business was paying any dividends. So as gently as I could, I suggested
he paint the inside of my factory at $25 per. I was pretty sure it was
more than he was worth, but I felt sorry for the old man. Did he take
it? He did not. He gave me one scornful glance and strode out of the
room with the air of an insulted king. Did he go to work? Not much! He
married a waitress at the Dairy Lunch who ought to have known better,
and to-day she is working in the stitching room at Fair Bros. while
Percy spends his days coloring photographs for about ten a week, and
his nights preaching revolution at radical meetings.
Forget the artist stuff Ted, and take a second helping of the education
they pass around so liberally at Exeter. It can't hurt you any, and who
knows but it may do you some good. And by the way if you can spare the
time from your studies (and I guess you can if you try real hard) why
not play a little football?
Your Ma says she's afraid you'll have your brains knocked out, but I
tell her not to worry over the impossible.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS.,
_October 21, 19--_
DEAR TED:
As I was walking down Market Street to the factory the other afternoon,
I overheard two of your old schoolmates refer to me as the father of
the Exeter end.
I'm glad you're on the team, and for the next year or two I don't mind
being the father of a star end, provided you keep it firmly fixed in
your head that it's just as important to keep old Julius Cæsar from
slipping around you for twenty-five yards, as it is to keep the Andover
quarter from running back kicks.
After you go to work, if anyone refers to me as the father of an end,
I'll feel like turning the factory over to the labor unions, because if
there is anything that disgusts a live business man it's to see a young
fellow in business trying to live on a former athletic reputation. Just
you remember, son, that the letter on your sweater fades quickly; but
the letters on a degree last through life.
I didn't care much for that part of your last letter where you said
you were afraid you were not good enough to hold down a regular job
on the team, and I want to go on record right now that if that's the
way you feel about it you're dead right. No man ever succeeded without
confidence in himself, and it don't hurt any to let others know you
have it.
I don't mean boasting. I despise above all else a person who is in
love. That is, with himself, but as yet I have never heard of a
scientific organization of bushel raisers, so it won't do you a bit of
harm to let a little of your light shine forth now and then.
And, Ted, go out on the field every day with the idea that you're
better than the average as a football player, and when you get a kick
in the ribs or have your wind knocked out, come up with a grin and go
back at 'em harder than before.
Play to win, Ted, but play clean. Your coach doesn't tolerate dirty
football, and I don't tolerate dirty business. Play nothing except
football on the football field, do nothing except study in your class
rooms, and when you go to work, work in business hours. If you stick to
that prescription you'll come out with a pretty fair batting average at
the end of your life.
You say that if you play in the Andover game you'll be up against an
opponent who will out-weigh you fifteen pounds. Don't let that worry
you. No less a person than the great Lanky Bob said, "The bigger they
are the 'arder they fall." All through your life you will be running
up against men who are bigger than you physically, mentally, and in a
business way, so it's just as well to get used to the fact while you're
young.
Your dreading your bigger opponent reminds me of something that
happened to me when I was about your age.
In those days the Annual Cattle and Poultry Show held at Epping was
quite the event of our social season, and the one thing all the people
looked forward to, for months.
This particular year I had been saving my money a nickle here and a
dime there, for your grandfather was determined none of his children
should grow up to be spendthrifts, and would turn over in his grave if
he knew the allowance I give you.
You needn't tell your Ma this, but in those days I was sweet on Alice
Hopkins who was the belle of the town, and after much careful planning
and skillful maneuvering had wrung an ironclad promise from her to let
me escort her to the show, and I was pretty sure she would keep it,
for somehow she got wind of the fact that I had all of $10 to spend
which was considerably more than any of her other swains had managed to
accumulate. My father loaned me his best buggy for the occasion, and I
spent the entire afternoon before the great day washing and polishing
it, and grooming our bay mare until she shone; and believe me, I was
some punkins in my own estimation when I drove up to Alice's house the
next morning and she rustled in beside me in a new pink dress.
As we rolled along the river road, the mist rising white from the
marshes, the brilliant splashes of color on the sumac and maples, the
autumn tang of the crisp September air, and Alice looking prettier each
minute at my side, all made my thoughts turn toward a rosy future in
which she and I would ride on and on. I was oblivious of the fact that
my entire capital consisted of a spavined colt and the ten dollars in
my pocket, and that I had about as much chance of gaining my parents'
consent to marry, as a German has of being unanimously elected the
first president of the League of Nations.
Alice, I found after I had hitched the horse to the rail in the maple
grove inside the fair grounds, had no such vague ideas. She had the
curiosity of a savage, the digestion of an ostrich, and the greed of
a miser. At her prompting we drank pink lemonade, ate frankfurters at
every booth, and saw all the side shows, from the bearded lady and the
blue monkey to the wild man from Borneo and the marvel who could write
with his toes. At times I protested feebly, as my supply of dollars
dwindled, but Alice would pout prettily and guide me gently by the
elbow to the ticket seller, and then almost before I knew it another
quarter had been squandered.
At noon, I remembered the nice box of luncheon my mother had put up for
us and which I left under the buggy seat, but Alice tossed her head
and marched smack into the dining tent where a sloppy greasy meal was
served at a dollar a plate.
I followed meekly, groaning inwardly, for all I had left was three
dollars, but trying to console myself with the reflection that after
all the candy and popcorn, and frankfurters, and pink lemonade, and
with a regular country dinner besides, Alice couldn't eat much in the
afternoon and my wallet would get a rest while we watched the races.
On our way over to the track, after dinner, I noticed a group of men
and boys clustered about a placard which read, "Wrestling Tournament
For Boys Under Eighteen." Now I was the champion wrestler of the
village for I was big and strong for my age and quick as a cat, and
when we drew near and I saw a prize of $10 was offered to the winner,
I felt that there was a chance to retrieve my fallen fortunes and get
the necessary wherewithal to feed Alice throughout the afternoon if her
inclinations still ran in that direction.
The judges entered me in the second group, the winner of which was to
wrestle the winner of the first group for the championship. The second
group was composed of boys all of whom I had defeated, and all of whom
promptly withdrew when I entered. Two contestants remained in the first
group, a great hulking farm boy, Caleb Henry, whom I had beaten the
only time we had ever met, but only after a severe struggle on my part,
and a little undersized shrimp of a fellow who looked half scared to
death and whom I was sure I could lick with one arm.
[Illustration]
Hoping that by some miracle the little chap might win, for I had no
hankering for a severe struggle with Caleb, I escorted Alice over to a
seat beside the track and was overjoyed on my return to find my hopes
had been fulfilled.
As I threw off my coat and advanced with overflowing confidence toward
the little unknown, he looked smaller and more insignificant than ever,
and my head was so filled with the thoughts of the heaps of ice cream
I could buy for Alice with the $10 prize money that I grappled my
antagonist carelessly, and the next minute was giving a very creditable
imitation of a pinwheel as I flew through the air lighting on the
back of my neck, the little fellow sitting on my chest and pinning my
shoulders to the grass.
I spat out a mouthful of dirt and struggled to my feet. One of the legs
of my Sunday pants was ripped clear to the knee, and one shirt sleeve
was torn off. Again we grappled, and again I was thrown as quickly as
before.
Sore with defeat, I pulled on my coat and limped away with the jeers of
the crowd echoing in my ears. Alice was not where I had left her, and
after a half an hour's search I found her in a booth eating ice cream
with Jim Davis, a hated rival who promptly informed me she had promised
to ride home with him.
Rats, you know, Ted, leave a ship under certain conditions. Yes, I got
a licking from my father when I reached home for spoiling my Sunday
suit. A corker it was, too, with a hickory branch.
Oh! I forgot to say the little fellow who threw me so hard was the
Champion Lightweight of New England.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS.,
_October 26, 19--_
DEAR TED:
If you imagine I've been wringing tears out of my handkerchief, and
wearing crepe on my hat since I got your last letter, you're as
mistaken as the Kaiser was when he started out to lick the world.
To tell the truth, Ted, I had to wipe a number eleven smile off my face
when I reached the part about the seniors making you moan like new mown
hay.
From the way you have been strutting around Lynn the past few months,
I rather expected there was something coming to you, so I wasn't
surprised to learn you'd collected it, for things are so arranged in
this world that people usually get what is due them, whether it's a
million dollars or Charlestown.
Some persons claim hazing is brutal. Maybe some kinds are; but your
handwriting seems pretty firm in your last letter, especially in the
part where you ask for an extra $10, so I guess you have not suffered
any great damage. Personally, I have always maintained that hazing, if
not carried too far, is the greatest little head reducer on the market,
and it doesn't cost a dollar a bottle, war tax extra, either.
Perhaps it is not in keeping with the lordly dignity of your advanced
years, to furnish entertainment for your schoolmates by fighting five
rounds with your shadow, or asking your girl to go to a dance over an
imaginary telephone. You should remember, however, that your turn will
come with the new boys next fall, and you've got a long time ahead in
which to think up original stunts.
Every time hazing is mentioned it reminds me of Sammy Smead and the
Brothers of Mystery. I can't remember ever having told you about the
Brothers, or Sammy either, for that matter, and as I have a few minutes
before starting for the 10:30 to Boston, here goes!
Sammy was the son of old Isaac Smead, sole owner of the Eureka Wooden
Ware factory in Epping. As old Isaac could smell a dollar farther
than a buzzard can a dead cow, and as he had in early life developed
a habit of collecting farm mortgages, which in those days were about
as easy to pay off as the national debt of Germany, he waxed sleek and
prospered mightily, until at the time about which I write, he was not
only Epping's wealthiest resident, but also a selectman, pillar in the
Second Church, president of the bank, and general grand high mogul of
everything.
Sammy was the old man's only child, and knew it. He wore velvet pants:
and patent leather shoes in the summer when all the other boys were
barefooted; but his most heinous crime as I remembered it, was the
round white starched collar he used to wear over the collar of his
jacket.
Sammy's mother did what she could to spoil him. At that she didn't have
to put in any overtime, for he was about as willing a subject, as could
possibly have been found.
Those were the days, when any quantity of fraternal societies were
coming into existence, and as Epping was a town where not more than
five persons ever agreed on any one subject, it was a mighty good
territory for new lodges.
Naturally, with all the men joining the Amalgamated Brotherhood of
Clodhoppers, and the order of Husbandmen, and the women scrambling
over each other in a bargain counter rush to be charter members of the
Sisters of Ceres, we boys thought we had something coming to us in the
way of a secret society, so we gathered in Fatty Ferguson's barn one
afternoon, and banded ourselves into the Brothers of Mystery. Fatty
Ferguson being the proud possessor of a discarded uniform once worn by
a member of the Epping Cornet Band, was elected Grand Exalted Ruler,
and I was made Keeper of the Sacred Seal, although my chance of doing
business, depended on our improbable capture of such an animal, which
we planned to keep in Fred Allen's duck pond.
The editor of the Epping Bugle printed some red silk badges for us to
pin on our coats, and the Brothers were ready. At first, we attracted
considerable attention at school by our badges, elaborate handclasps,
and whispered passwords whenever two of the Brothers chanced to meet.
As all the boys in our neighbourhood were members, with the exception
of Sammy Smead, the novelty soon passed.
Now Sammy had everything we boys had, and a good many things we hadn't,
but like everyone else in the world, he wanted what he hadn't which at
that particular time, was a full-fledged membership in the Brothers.
Sammy, needless to say, had not been excluded from our select circle
by chance, and it is doubtful if he would ever have become a member,
if his mother, who was High Priestess of the Sisters of Ceres, had not
found out that her darling had been left out in the cold.
She straightway called upon my mother, who having designs on an office
on the Executive Board of the Sisters, passed the word along to me that
if I wanted a new sled for Christmas, it would be well to see that
Sammy was made a Brother.
Sammy being about as popular with the Brothers as sulphur and molasses,
I was howled down when I proposed his name at a meeting, until I had a
happy thought, that as all the Brothers were charter members, we had
had no initiations.
The idea of initiating Sammy, instantly became tremendously popular,
and he was duly informed that he had been elected a member, and was
told to report at our barn at three o'clock the next afternoon.
[Illustration]
Did Sammy show up? He did, velvet pants, patent leather shoes, white
collar and all. Only a circus could have kept him away.
We blindfolded him, and put him through a course of sprouts in the
barn, including making him ride a pig bareback around the floor, and
walk the plank which was a beam above the hay mow, and to which he hung
like a cat, squalling and whimpering, until Skinny Mason stepped on his
fingers and made him let go.
Having exhausted the resources of the barn, we marched him out into the
yard planning to hang him by the heels from a tree, when to our delight
we discovered a two-wheeled iron barrel of tar, which the workman who
had been mending our driveway, had left uncovered when he knocked off
for the day.
Instinctively, we marched Sammy up to the tar barrel, and I liberally
daubed his hateful and, wonderful to relate, still clean collar with
its contents, taking more pains to get it on his collar, than to keep
it off his clothes. It was hard work, for the tar was lukewarm and
naturally heavy; but I was making a pretty good job of it, when I heard
Fred Allen yell, "Look Out!"
[Illustration]
I turned just in time, and saw charging full tilt across the yard my
old billy goat. The Brothers scattered in all directions, but Sammy who
was blindfolded and did not sense his danger, stood patiently waiting
his fate. Billy struck him squarely amidships, and Sammy leaving his
feet, described a beautiful curve in the air, and landed head first in
the tar barrel, just as his mother, who had been visiting my mother,
stepped out on the porch to see how her darling was enjoying himself
with his little playmates.
I only mentioned Sammy, to show you that you got off easy. The next
time you are called upon to perform, do whatever is asked willingly.
There's no fun in making a person do what he wants to do, and if you
show no great indignation at doing a few tricks, you'll soon be let
alone. Don't try to be funny, if you succeed you will have to give
encores, and I take it that is not what you are after.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
P. S. I did not get a sled; but I did saw three cords of wood, stove
length.
LYNN, MASS.,
_October 30, 19--_
DEAR TED:
Somehow the price of cut soles is worrying me more, just now, than the
fact that you have not been elected to one of the school clubs.
I realize that your not making one of the school clubs yet, is a
terrible tragedy in your young life; but I feel as though you are going
to survive, and perhaps you will be elected to one after all. I've
found it a pretty good rule, not to figure a shipment of shoes a total
loss even when the jobber writes that he's returning them, and if I
were you I wouldn't borrow trouble until it's necessary. Trouble is the
easiest thing in the world to borrow, and about the hardest to discount
at the bank.
Maybe it's just as well you are having your touch of society chills and
fever young, for it may save you from making a bigger fool of yourself
later on. No one minds a young fool much, but an old one is about as
sad an object as a Louisville distiller attending a Supreme Court
decision on the prohibition law.
Society is all right, some of it; but just because you eat dessert at
the end of your dinner, is no reason why you should make a meal of it.
A little society, like the colic, goes a long way, and you want to
remember that a man, like a piece of sole leather, usually figures out
to what he is.
Burns, not Frankie the lightweight, but Bobbie who used to edit the
Edinborough Daily Blade, back in the days when freshmen wore whiskers
and plug hats, hit the nail on the head when he said, "A man's a man,
for a' that."
I'll never forget when Aunt Carrie caught the society fever, nor will
she. It was a couple of years before I was married, and it didn't make
me want to postpone having a home of my own, although it did influence
me to choose a girl who was society proof.
After your Grandmother Soule died, Carrie ran our old house and was
doing a pretty good job of it, until Algernon Smiley came to Epping as
principal of the grammar school. Algernon wore spectacles, a lisp, and
long hair, and he could spout more poetry than a gusher well can oil.
At that, he was a harmless sort of insect, if the girls of the town
hadn't taken him seriously.
Algernon was a graduate of Harvard, and the only thing I ever had
against that university. It didn't take him long to discover there was
no real society in Epping, and not being at all backward about coming
forward when he had anything to say, Carrie and her girl friends soon
had the same idea. Now Epping had staggered along over two hundred
years without the help of society, and was doing quite well thank you,
with its church sociables, bean suppers, and candy pulls, until Algy
butted in.
Everything we did was all wrong. "There was no culture," and having the
hearty backing of all the girls he set out to culturate us. His first
offense was a series of lectures, but after the young men had listened
to him rave about the art of Early Egyptian Dancing, and the history
of Nothing before Something, they unanimously had previous engagements
when Algy sprang a lecture.
[Illustration]
Next Algernon started a Browning Club, which consisted, so near as
I could judge, in his reading a poem, and then everyone in the club
expressing a different opinion as to what the poem meant. It may be
good business for a poet to write a poem no one can understand, but
believe me when I buy a rhyme for a street car ad it's got to be one
every woman will recognize as advertising "The Princess Shoe."
To get back to Algy, after a while the attendance at the Browning clubs
began to get mighty poor, and he had to think up a new scheme to keep
the town from getting decultured. Somehow, the little cuss had scraped
an acquaintance with some pretty solid men on the Harvard faculty, and
he managed to drag several of them up to Epping to deliver lectures,
with the result that the culture business began to show a healthy
growth. Epping was not stupid, it had been bored.
Now while Algy had been trying to culturate Epping, he'd worn
considerable horsehair off the sofa in Farmer Boggs' parlor, sitting
up nights with his daughter Ruby. Ruby was a nice cow-like girl, who
hadn't much to say and proved it when she talked, and as Algy was never
so happy as when he was doing all the talking, he got along with her
fine. Then, too, Pa Boggs owned free and clear the best farm in the
township, and had $15,000 salted away in Boston and Maine stock, and
Algy, for all his culture, wasn't overlooking any bets like those.
Where Algy went wrong, was in patronizing people he thought didn't know
as much as he. Whenever old man Boggs juggled beans with his knife,
Algy would smile upon him so condescendingly the old man would almost
bust with rage; and when Mrs. Boggs said "hain't" he would raise his
eyes as though calling upon heaven to forgive her; but what blew the
lid off came at a Browning Club meeting that Carrie had insisted upon
having at our house.
Algy imported a noted Professor to give a talk on Prehistoric Fish, and
when the great man had finished, we all stood around, the girls telling
him how much they enjoyed it, and the men wishing he would go, so they
could retire to the kitchen and shirt sleeves. Poor Ruby, during a lull
in the general conversation, started the old chestnut about Ben Perkins
the light keeper at Kittery falling down the light house stairs, ending
with, "and you know he had a basket of eggs in one hand, a pitcher of
milk in the other, and when he reached the bottom they had turned into
an omelette. Ain't spinal stairs awful?"
At the word "spinal" the Professor snickered, and Algy who was always
nasty when Ruby made a break, said, "I'm surprised at your ignorance
Ruby: you mean spiral."
Ruby began to cry, and everyone looked uncomfortable. I was hopping
mad. I guess maybe it was the tight patent leather shoes I had on.
Anyway I'd seen about enough of Algy.
"Shut up, you Goat," I snapped at him. "Haven't you brains enough to
know she meant the back stairs!"
Algy claimed he was insulted.
I allowed it wasn't possible.
Then he said he was a fool to have tried to culturize Epping.
I said I reckoned his allowing he was a fool, made it unanimous, and
invited him out in the yard to settle things, although I never could
have hit him, if he had accepted my invitation.
In two weeks Algy left town, and the next fall Ruby married Will Hayes
over at George's Mills, and has been happy ever since.
Ted, I wouldn't think too much about those clubs. There's no use
worrying about what people think of you; probably they don't. You've
only been at Exeter a few weeks, so if I were you I wouldn't jump into
the river yet. Now I'll admit it will please me if you are elected to a
club, but if you aren't, I'm not going to go around with my head bowed
in shame, and neither are you, for ten years from now, no one will be
greatly interested whether you belonged to the Belta Pelts or the Plata
Dates, and above all things don't toady. Eating dirt never got anyone
anything. Look at Russia.
Your affectionate father,
WILLIAM SOULE.
LYNN, MASS.,
_November 6, 19--_
DEAR TED:
I'm glad you've been elected to the Plata Dates, if for no other reason
than because now that you have stopped worrying whether you would be,
you will have time to worry about your studies. Don't you fool yourself
that because E stood for excellent at the high school, I don't know
that it stands for Execrable at Exeter. Now you are on the football
team, it's better to have an E on your sweater, than on your report.
I thought when you were elected to the Plata Dates, you would be
bubbling over with joy, but your letters are about as cheerful as a
hearse. The teachers are picking on you, the football coach doesn't
recognize your ability, and even the seniors so far ignore your
presence, by failing to remove their hats and step into the gutter when
you come along.
Whatever you do, don't get sorry for yourself. There's nothing in the
world more silly than a person who is sorry for himself, and the ones
who are, are always the ones who have no cause to be. Now I don't
believe for a minute that the teachers at Exeter have picked you alone,
out of five hundred boys, to jump on; they're too busy, and I guess
your coach's main idea is to get a team together that can lick Andover,
so it might be well, if you are finding people hard to please, to ask
yourself if it's their fault.
If you go into your classrooms with only part of your lessons learned,
you aren't going to fool your teachers very long, and if you go on to
the football field with an air that the coach can't show you anything
he's not likely to try. Half knowledge, is the most dangerous thing in
the world. I never saw a successful shoe manufacturer who only had half
knowledge of making shoes, and I guess Walter Camp isn't putting anyone
on his All American, who only knows how to play his position half way.
You might as well make up your mind, Ted, to learn Virgil, from the
"Arma virumque cano" thing to Finis. And it's just as well to let the
coach think he can show you something about football: he only played
three years on the Harvard 'Varsity, and even if you do know more than
he, it will make him feel good.
Being sorry for yourself is a bad habit. I had it once for a whole
year, and believe me it was the worst year I ever put in, and I'm
counting the panic of 1907 too.
I'd been super. over at Clough & Spinney's in Georgetown for three
years, and had the little shop running like a high-grade watch, when
Henry Larney of Larney Bros. in Salem died and left the whole show to
his son Claude. "But in trust" nevertheless, as the wills say, and it's
a mighty good thing he did for Claude spent most of his time and all
his money at Sheepshead Bay and Saratoga Springs, and couldn't tell a
last from a foxing.
Old Josiah Lane was trustee, and having about as much respect for
Claude's ability as a shoemaker as I have for the Bolsheviki as
business men, he looked around for someone to run the factory and
lighted on me.