Pluck and Luck Read online

  There will be no kindling ready. This is a certainty. This means that he will have to break up some boxes. It will be found that these boxes, while seemingly constructed of wood like other boxes, are in reality made of a sort of marble composition which was originally put together to resist the blows of an axe. (In case there is no axe in the cellar, which is more than likely, the shaker to the furnace will do nicely. Place the box or board against the wall and strike it heavily with the iron shaker, saying, “Oh, you would, would you?” at each blow. Your chances are at least even that it will not bounce under the blow and fly up and strike you in some vital spot. If it doesn’t do this, it may split.)

  After breaking up a sufficient number of sticks, you will take them over to the furnace. The furnace has been standing there all this time, laughing.

  A quantity of newspaper is necessary, and while crumpling it up preparatory to filling the bottom of the fire-box with it, you will probably discover several old funny sections which you have never seen before and will have to sit down and read over. This will rest you after the chopping and will take your mind off the furnace. If your wife inquires from the top of the cellar stairs how the fire is coming on, you can reply that you are waiting for it to catch.

  The papers once placed in the fire-box, the time has come to pile the sticks in on top of it. Now is also the time to discover that the sticks are too long and won’t fit. Back to the axe or the furnace-shaker and a little more fun, smashing and talking to yourself. And now for the big moment!

  Placing the wood on the paper, you apply the match. The first match. Follow thirty other matches. Then discover that the drafts aren’t open. A good joke on you, at which you laugh heartily.

  And now a merry blaze! Up goes the paper in a burst of flame and you feel that the job is about done. After all, not such a hard task, once the wood is split. You shut the door, in order to give the wood a better chance to catch, and hear the cheery roar as the flames rush up the flue. Gradually the roar dies down and you strain your ears to catch the sound of crackling wood. Now the roar is gone, but there is no crackle. Carefully you open the door, afraid to learn the worst, and there, in a nice, black fire-box, is your wood, safe and sound, with one or two pink wisps of paper glowing coyly underneath. The rest is silence.

  Pick the wood out carefully, piece by piece, and start again. Oh, the joy of starting again! Think of what it means, this glorious privilege which Nature gives us of making a fresh start after each one of our little failures! In with more paper! In with more wood! Now the match! And again the roar! Is it not splendid, Little Father? This time certain sections of the wood catch and flicker sadly.

  The wood started, we now come to the real test of the fire-builder. Sneak quietly to the bin and get a shovelful of coal. Stand with it by the door of the fire-box, behind which the wood is blazing. Quick! Open door! Quicker! In with the coal! Back for another shovelful! In with it! That’s right! It may look for a minute as if you were smothering the bright blaze with the black coal, but don’t waver. Another shovelful to cover the last tongue of flame from the burning wood. Hurrah! Hurrah! The fire is out!

  The next thing to do is go upstairs and telephone for Jimmie, the Italian who makes a business of starting furnace-fires and keeping them going throughout the winter. This requires no more practice than knowing how to use the telephone. And it is the only sure way of getting your furnace going.

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  Justice for Mussels!

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  It is with gratification that we note the action of the Indiana Legislature in passing a bill affording the same protection to mussels growing in the river’s bed as that granted to fish in the same waters. This marks the culmination of years of violent agitation on the part of our society, known among mussel-fanciers as the League for the Protection of Native Mussels on the Same Basis as Fish.

  The league was founded in October, 1903, by the Reverend Theodore Knees of Basle, Switzerland. Dr. Knees, being a full-blooded Swiss, naturally never saw a mussel until he came to this country in 1903 on a pleasure trip with a friend of his wife’s. That was in August. One day while in wading (Dr. Knees was only sixty-one and very spry for his age) the famous naturalist stepped on what turned out to be a young mother mussel who was hiding from the dogs on top of a submerged rock. “What is this?” the doctor said, among other things.

  “What is what?” said his guide, for the doctor was still under water.

  “What is this mussel?” answered Dr. Knees. “Is it a mussel?”

  “A mussel,” explained his friend. “It is a kind of crustacean. Lift it off the rock and you will see that it is practically expressionless. This is Nature’s way of protecting the mussel against its enemies, for, you see, they can never tell what the mussel is thinking.”

  The Swiss naturalist turned to his companion at these words, and uttered the phrase which has since been adopted as the slogan of the league: “God willing, I shall live to see the day when these helpless mussels will be protected from hunters and their dogs and, Deo volente, I may be able to lend my small assistance to the furtherance of the cause which, D. v., will bear its fruits in my life-time.”

  And sure enough, from that day forward Dr. Knees put every ounce of energy that he had into the work of mussel protection. He waded up and down the whole length of the river compiling statistics which showed, among other things, that:

  1. Eight hundred thousand mussels die every year from fright.

  2. After a mussel leaves its mother and before it is old enough to shift for itself in the hurly-burly of crustacean existence, it is absolutely without resources and open to attack from every quarter. This period of helplessness lasts until its first horns appear, and as, in 9.8 cases out of 10, mussels never have any horns, this means that the mussel is helpless most of its life. In fact, all of its life.

  3. The effect of this continual state of fear in which the mussel lives is made manifest chiefly in the children, who often turn out to be weak and irritable and difficult to do anything with until they are out of their teens. Many mussel children born of unprotected parents snap viciously when approached by a stranger, and Dr. Knees himself suffered several nasty wounds from this source while carrying on what was, if the mussels had only known it, a work of mercy.

  These facts, gathered together in a nicely bound pamphlet with Dr. Knees’ portrait as a frontispiece, were presented to the State Legislature with a petition urging adequate laws to allow for the free development of our native mussels. The result has just been announced, and all lovers of God’s creatures will rejoice with us, we are sure.

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  Drama

  Cleansing and Pressing

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  Something has got to be done about the sex-play market in New York. It is all shot to pieces, owing to the fact that a manufacturer can’t tell whether he has turned out an obscene play or a work of art. He doesn’t know in advance whether his show is going to be found guilty of corrupting public morals or put on President Eliot’s list of the Fourteen Most Ennobling Plays on the Atlantic Seaboard. Each opening night there is an equal chance that the next week will find him having an audience with either a judge or the Pope.

  This uncertainty has made the managers rather jumpy, as well it might, and if we don’t look out they will give up producing sex plays entirely, and then where would we be?

  A pretty good way to judge in advance about the intrinsic art of a sex play is to see whether the characters have a good time at it or not. If they get fun out of the thing, then it’s a harmful play. If they hate it, it’s a work of art. So long as someone dies in the last act, making the show a tragedy, the sky’s the limit in the dialogue up to that point. You can have your heroine as indiscreet as you like, so long as you make her protest, with a dour expression, that, so help her Pete, she never had a worse time in her life.

  For example, here are two plays, with exactly the sa
me idea back of each, one of which would be suppressed, the other of which would be endorsed by clergymen and Benny Leonard. See if you can tell which is the sincere work of art and which the disgrace to the American stage:

  A FARCE IN ONE ACT

  entitled

  “WRONG NUMBER, PLEASE”

  SCENE: The boudoir of Mertisse LaFrage in her home on Long Island, furnished in pink and Quelque Fleurs.

  MERTISSE is discovered in a single-handed tussle with Elizabeth Arden. She has just cleaned up the Epidermis Cream and is about to begin on the Tissue-Building Lotion, when RONALD enters.

  RONALD: Hello, Mertisse, old girl! Where’s your husband?

  MERTISSE: Oh, Freddie is out whippet-racing.

  RONALD: That’s fine. Perhaps that will give me a chance to tell you how much I love you.

  MERTISSE: It will give you a chance all right, but what guarantee have I that you will take it?

  RONALD: I’ll take that, and a pound of your best coffee, and you can send them, please. I’ll take this along with me. (Kisses her.)

  (FREDDIE enters.)

  FREDDIE: What, what?

  RONALD: Did you want to see someone?

  FREDDIE: No, I just happened to be passing by and thought I’d drop in and see how far along the plasterers were. They promised to have the job done by Thursday.

  RONALD: Well, this is only Friday. Drop in again tomorrow and I’ll see if I can place you.

  MERTISSE: Oh, and Freddie, on your way out tell Harvey to serve the creamed fish in ramekins tonight.

  FREDDIE: Right-o! Well, toodle-oo! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.

  RONALD: See you at third base, old bean. So long!

  (Exit FREDDIE.)

  RONALD: Let’s see, where was I?

  CURTAIN

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  “SUNK”

  A DRAMA IN ONE ACT

  SCENE: A bedroom in a cold New England farmhouse. The only light comes from the ice in the wash-pitcher.

  HILDA is discovered pulling her hair down over her eyes and moaning softly to herself.

  (EBEN enters.)

  EBEN: Cold, ain’t it?

  HILDA: Cold.

  EBEN: Whar’s Ezra?

  HILDA: Out in the barn, torturing the horses.

  EBEN: That’s good. Mebbe I kin tell yer now, Hilda, how much I love yer.

  HILDA: That’d be fine, Eben.

  (Punches herself on the jaw. EBEN kisses her and they both cry.)

  (EZRA enters.)

  EZRA: Cold, ain’t it?

  HILDA: Cold.

  EBEN: Cold.

  EBEN: Want anything, Ezra?

  EZRA: Nothin’, Eben. Nothin’ but the wind across the hills.

  EBEN: You’ll get that outside, Ezra.

  HILDA: Outside.

  EZRA: Wall, I’ll be goin’.

  (Exit EZRA.)

  EBEN: Well, Hilda?

  HILDA: Well, Eben?

  A shot is heard outside, indicating that Ezra has killed himself or one of the horses. Eben and Hilda embrace, moaning with despair.

  CURTAIN

  It wouldn’t take a play jury long to decide which of these plays was harmful to public morality and which was a genuine piece of creative work. And the public discussion of the subject would probably make a big hit out of the second play. The first would have been a hit from the start. But there ought to be some better way of rendering a frank play innocuous and fit to be witnessed by the tenderer and more susceptible section of the theater-going public. Since the trouble lies in the dialogue, why not utilize those little ruses which are used in family conversations to hide words which should not be spoken? Who could object to the following scene?

  The play is called “Freight on Board.” The hero has been discovered bringing the morning papers up to the room of his employer’s wife. There has been a scene in which the employer accuses the hero of looking at the sporting section of the paper before delivering it. The hero has denied doing this, but does admit that he opened the paper slightly to peek in and see what the weather was going to be. This so enrages the employer that he calls his wife into the room to see what kind of man her lover is.

  HUSBAND: Look, Martha, I want you to see just what kind of man your you-know is.

  WIFE: My you-know? You are crazy, Paul. I am true to you.

  HUSBAND: Don’t lie to me, you whad-ye-call it, you! You’re no better than a common so-and-so.

  WIFE: So that’s all the gratitude I get for all that I have been to you.

  HUSBAND: What can you expect when you Number 14?

  WIFE: I have not Number 14ed.

  HUSBAND: You lie! My spies have kept me posted.

  WIFE: You thingamabob!

  HUSBAND: Thingamabob, perhaps, but at any rate not a how-now.

  WIFE: Well, Paul, you are forcing me to tell you something that I had not planned on telling for a while yet.

  HUSBAND: What are you driving at?

  WIFE: Can’t you guess?

  HUSBAND: You don’t mean—?

  WIFE: We are – going – to – have – a – whatziz.

  CURTAIN (as they embrace)

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  Evolution Sidelights

  Showing Nature’s Way

  of Taking Care of Her Young

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  One of the most fascinating chapters in the story of Evolution is that in which we see animals of a certain type change, through the ages, into animals of quite a different type, through a process of the survival of the fittest and adaptation to environment. These are pretty big words, I am afraid, but before we are through you will see what they mean, or you will take a sock on the nose.

  Thus we learn that our present-day sheep, from whose warm blanket our silk socks are made, was once, in the early, early days of the earth, a member of the hermit-crab family. It was during the Palaeozoic Age, before the great glaciers had swept down over the land leaving their trail of empty tins and old shoes, even before the waters had receded from the earth. So you can see how long ago it was! Just years and years.

  Well, anyway, the hermit-crab of the Palaeozoic Era lived in the slime and sulked. He didn’t like being a hermit-crab. He didn’t see any future in it. And, as the sun beat down on the earth, and the waters gradually receded, the crab was left high and dry on the beach and little Palaeozoic children built forts on him. This got him pretty sore.

  Now as the centuries went by and the sun continued to beat down on the earth, the color of the mud changed from reddish brown to a dirty gray. Formerly, the crabs who were reddish brown had been more or less hidden in the reddish-brown mud, but now they stood out like a rainy Thursday, and it was the dirty-gray crabs who were protected from the onslaughts of the hordes of crab-devouring mantes which came down from the mountains. Gradually the red crabs became extinct, and the gray crabs, through their protective coloring, survived. The red crabs that you see today are a new batch, and anyway, don’t ask questions.

  The next step was ages and ages later, when the crab, in order to get food, began to stretch himself out to get to the grass which grew up along the edge of the beach. He also wanted to take a crack at this running business he had heard so much about. So, in another hundred million years, or, at any rate, a good long time, these crabs had developed teeth with which to pull up grass and chew it, and four legs on which to run. By this time it was late in April.

  We finally see these four-legged herbivorous crabs who had managed to survive the rigors of the seasons, running, as sheep will, farther and farther north, where the weather grew colder and colder. This made it necessary for them to develop some protective covering, and those lucky crabs who were able to work themselves up into a sort of wool were the ones who stood the climate. The others froze to death and became soldiers’ monuments.

  And that is how Nature took care of the hermit-crab and turned him into a sheep.

  The same thing happens right under our very eyes today, only quicker. Nature has
endowed certain animals with the power to change color at a second’s notice, and thus elude pursuers. Of course, a simpler way for such animals would be to stay in the house all the time and make faces out the window at their enemies, but some of them, like the horse, simply have to go out-of-doors occasionally on business, and it is then that their ability to change coloring comes in so handy.

  Having taken the horse as an example, we may as well continue. Professor Rossing, in his book, “Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?” reports a case of a man who was chasing a bay mare to try to make her eat her breakfast. He had chased her all around the yard, both of them laughing so hard they could scarcely run. Suddenly, the mare, deciding that there had been enough of this foolishness, drew up alongside a red-brick silo, and ducking her head slightly, changed coloring in an instant, taking on exactly the shade and markings of the brick surface. Her pursuer was dumfounded, thinking that the mare had disappeared into thin air. As he drew near to the silo, to examine what he felt sure must be a trap-door in the side, the mare romped away again, startling him so that he dropped the feed-bag, and the chase was over. The mare, with Nature’s aid, had won. How many of us can say the same?

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  Here Come the Children

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  Many parents are confronted this month by the problem of homing children. Just as you have got the house picked up after Thanksgiving, the private schools and colleges let their charges loose again for two or three weeks because of Christmas or some such pretext, and before you know it Spencer and Beth and eight or ten of their little playmates land on you, palpitating for entertainment. What, as the question runs, to do?