Pluck and Luck Read online

  The quartet gives a tender note to the affair by singing “Absence from You,” the chief virtue of which is that it is short.

  * * *

  At night, dear heart, I dream of you,

  At night, dear heart, the soft winds blow,

  Come back, dear heart, to you I’m true.

  Absent from you, absent from you-u-u.

  * * *

  The quartet is then joined by the entire Glee Club for the final number which turns out to be the college hymn, “Rasher Days,” by H. B. Humphrede, ’04. All the undergraduates and graduates in the audience rise and join in as this is sung, while the ladies rise out of sympathy.

  * * *

  When years have come and laid their hand

  On us, fair mother of men,

  We’ll ne’er forget the days we spent

  Thy fair elms among.

  Oh, give us of thy wondrous grace

  That we may noble be,

  And let us ne’er forget thy face,

  Dear Rasher Universit-e-e.

  * * *

  The leader then steps out into the center of the stage and leads the combined musical clubs in the regular Rasher cheer.

  * * *

  R-A-S-H

  R-A-S-H

  R-A-S-H

  (faster) R-A-S-H-E-R

  (faster yet) R-A-S-H-E-R

  Rasher-Rasher-Rasher!

  * * *

  Frantic applause and an immediate verdict of “awfully good” for the whole thing.

  * * *

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  Whoa!

  * * *

  Paul Revere leaped into his saddle.

  “Through every Middlesex village and farm, Bess, old girl!” he whispered in his mare’s ear, and they were off.

  And, as he rode, the dauntless patriot saw as in a vision (in fact, it was a vision) the future of the land to which he was bringing freedom.

  He saw a hundred and ten million people, the men in derbies, the women in felt hats with little bows on the top. He saw them pushing one another in and out of trolley-cars on their way to and from work, adding up figures incorrectly all morning and subtracting them incorrectly all afternoon, with time out at 12:30 for frosted chocolates and pimento cheese sandwiches. He saw fifty million of them trying to prevent the other sixty million from doing what they wanted to do, and the sixty million trying to prevent the fifty million from doing what they wanted to do. He saw them all paying taxes to a few hundred of their number for running the government very badly. He saw ten million thin children working and ten thousand fat children playing in the warm sands. And now and again he saw five million youths, cheered on by a hundred million elders with fallen arches, marching out to give their arms and legs and lives for Something To Be Determined Later. And over all he saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the artificial breeze of an electric fan operated behind the scenes.

  So, tugging at the reins, he yelled: “Whoa, Bess! We’re going back to the stable.”

  * * *

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  A Mid-Winter

  Sport Carnival

  * * *

  Along about this time of year, we sportsmen find ourselves rather up against it for something to do to keep the circulation pounding even sluggishly along. Golf, tennis, and paddling about on water-wings are out of season, and somehow bear-hunting has lost its flavor. Bear-hunting has never been the same since the supply of bears ran out. There really is nothing much to do except sit behind the stove in the club-house and whittle. And even then you are likely to cut your thumb.

  In an attempt to solve this mid-winter problem for red-blooded men, a postal ballot has been taken to see what others of our sort are doing during the long evenings to keep themselves fit for the coming open season. Some of the replies are strictly confidential and cannot be reprinted here. You would certainly be surprised if you knew. Send a dollar and a plain, self-addressed envelope and maybe we can make an exception in your case. The address is Box 25, Bostwick, Kansas.

  Following, however, are some excerpts from letters concerning which the writers have no pride:

  “I keep in training during the winter months,” writes one man, “by playing parchesi with my little boy. The procedure of this only fairly interesting game is as follows:

  “I am reading my paper after dinner. My son says: ‘Dad, play parchesi with me?’ And I say: ‘No,’ Then my wife says: ‘I don’t think it would hurt you to pay a little attention to your children now and then.’ ‘Oh, is that so?’ I reply.

  “The parchesi board is then brought out and I am given my choice of colors. It is a good rule to pick a bright-colored set of buttons (the technical name for parchesi men escapes me at the moment) because as the game progresses and you get sleepier and sleepier, a good bright color, like red, will help you focus on the board.

  “As you probably know, the way in which parchesi is played is a combination of that man’s game – ‘crap,’ and the first six pages of Wentworth’s Elementary Arithmetic. Unless you had played it, you wouldn’t believe that rolling the bones could be transformed into anything so tepid. One evening when my wife was out getting a drink of water I gave the boy a few pointers on what could really be done with the dice by going about it in the right spirit, and before she came back I had got the fifteen cents he had been saving up to buy a pair of shoes with. I had to give it back to him; however, as he cried so hard she asked him what was the matter.

  “As the evening wears on, I get so that I can roll and make my move without being more than one-third conscious. The only danger is that I will lean too heavily on the board in the middle and close it up, throwing the men in all directions. This, of course, has the advantage of stopping the game, but you can’t work it very often.”

  * * *

  “You ask what I do for exercise during the winter,” writes another. “Well, I am quite a carver. During the summer and spring (and autumn, too, if you like) when there are other things to do, we have chops and meat-balls and fish for dinner, things which do not have to be carved. But as soon as the weather gets bad, I just shut the doors and light a good fire, and give up my time to hacking roasts to pieces for a family of five.

  “In this I am aided immeasurably by my wife. Let us say that we have for dinner a leg of lamb. My first move is to prop it up on its side against a potato and drive the fork deep into the ridge. I may take three shots for this, owing to the tendency of the potato to slip, letting the roast turn heavily over into the dish-gravy. A little time is necessary also to cover up the spots on the table-cloth before the Little Woman notices, of doing which there is a fat chance.

  “Then it begins.

  “‘Why don’t you carve it down the other way?’

  “‘What other way?’

  “‘Why straight across, of course. You’ll never get anywhere hacking at it that way.’

  “‘Where did you ever see anyone carve meat straight across?’

  “‘Everyone carves it that way. You’re the only man I ever saw who tried to gouge it out like that.’

  “‘Gouge it out? Who’s gouging it out? What’s the matter with that slice?’ (Holding up a slab on the fork and dropping it into the cauliflower.)

  “‘What’s the matter with it? It’s in the cauliflower!’ (Shrill, irritating laughter.)

  “I then turn the roast over and slice along the side as requested, doing it badly on purpose to show that that is not the way to carve meat. In messing it up, I overdo the thing and slip with the knife, cutting my wrist.

  “‘Now you see? God never meant Man to cut that way. I’ve hurt myself.’

  “‘I never said that God did mean Man to cut that way, the way you were cutting. All God meant Man to do was to use his brain – if any. Here, give me that knife, and you go and dish out the beans.’

  “And so it goes, every time we have a roast, and double the strength when we have chicken. It keeps the winter months from becoming dull and works up quite a good forearm dev
elopment.”

  * * *

  An advocate of outdoor sports is the writer of the following:

  “As for me, give me the invigorating fun of snow-shoeing when Mother Nature has thrown her mantle over golf-course and tennis-court. Just as soon as the first snow comes, I get out all the picture books in the house, showing people plunging around in the drifts, cheeks aglow and ears a-tingle. Then to the sporting-goods store, where I buy a pair of snow-shoes.

  “Trying on snow-shoes in a store is not so easy as trying on a pair of regular shoes. The clerk straps them on your feet and says: ‘Now just walk up and down a bit to see how they feel. There’s a mirror over there.’

  “Just try walking up and down a bit on a board floor with snow-shoes on, and you will see why so few people bother to get the right size when buying them. Owing to this carelessness, however, arises much of the flat feet among snow-shoers. Their snow-shoes don’t fit them.

  “Then one has to have a stocking-cap, preferably red, and a good stout stick. The stick is for clouting people who make fun of you. In case there is too much ridicule, you can pull the stocking-cap down over your face and then they won’t know who it is. They won’t dare kid anyone whose face is hidden in a stocking cap for fear it might turn out to be Nicholas Murray Butler or someone like that.

  “Then, when I have made all my purchases, I take them home with me and order a fire lighted in the fireplace. Next some nails and good strong cord. Standing on a step-ladder (just an ordinary stepladder will do) I take the snow-shoes, cross them, and hang them up over the fireplace, with the stick as a cross-bar. By this time a merry fire is crackling, and by standing across the room you will get as pretty a picture as you could wish to see, with the crossed snow-shoes fairly dancing in the glimmer of the fire-light. A Scotch and soda helps make this sport one of the most stimulating in the world.”

  Write in and tell us what you do in the winter months to keep fit.

  * * *

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  A Christmas Pantomime

  For Kiddies and Grown-Ups, or Neither

  * * *

  The scene is on a snowy plain just outside Wilkes-Barre.

  The characters in this pantomime are:

  PIERROT A pierrot

  COLUMBINE A pierrot

  CIBOULETTE A pierrot

  LITTLE LAURA who dreams the dream.

  As the curtain rises, something goes wrong; so it has to be lowered again. Twenty-five minute wait while it is fixed.

  As the curtain rises, PIERROT is discovered sneaking a drink out of a bottle. He puts the bottle down quickly when he finds out that he has been discovered.

  Enter COLUMBINE, awkwardly. She dances over to PIERROT and makes as if to kiss him, but he hits her a terrific one under the eye and knocks her cold. Three thousand gnomes enter and drag her off. One gnome (Alaska) stays behind and dances a little.

  End of the Show: Everybody Out!

  On thinking it over, a Christmas pantomime doesn’t seem to be just what is needed. You can get a Christmas pantomime anywhere. In fact, don’t you? So let’s not do a Christmas pantomime. Let’s just have some fun and get to bed early.

  Let’s tell some Yuletide stories!

  I know a good Christmas story. It seems there was a man who came to a farmer’s house late on Christmas Eve and asked if the farmer could put him up for the night.

  “Ich habe kein Zimmern,” sagte der Farmer, “aber Sie können mit Baby schlafen.” (“I have no rooms,” said the farmer, “but you may sleep with the baby if you wish.”) So the man–

  I guess that isn’t about Christmas, though. You can tell it as if it were about Christmas, however, by putting that in about it’s being Christmas Eve when the man came to the farm-house. But it really wasn’t Christmas Eve in the original story and I couldn’t deceive you.

  Games are good on Christmas Eve. I know some good games. One that we used to play when I was a boy was called “Bobbing for Grandpa.” All you need is a big tub full of water, or gin, and a grandfather. Grandpa gets into the tub and ducks his head under the water. Then everyone steals softly out of the room and goes to the movies. You ought to be back by eleven-fifteen at the latest. Then you all rush into the room, pell-mell, and surprise the old gentleman.

  Oh, I don’t know but what the pantomime was best, after all. You can get more of the spirit of Christmas into a pantomime. Let’s go back and do some more of that old pantomime. You surely remember the pantomime?

  CIBOULETTE enters carrying a transparency which reads: “This is Christmas and You Are Going to Be Merry, and Like It, Too. . . . Toyland Chamber of Commerce.” She dances around a bit and finally finds a good place to exit, which she does, thank God!

  PIERROT awakes and sees his image in the pool. He goes right back to sleep again.

  This brings every character on except RINTINTIN and there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for bringing him on at all. However, he insists and comes on, dancing across the stage to where PIERROT is sitting. This cleans up the entire cast and after PIERROT has danced around the sleeping COLUMBINE once or twice, something in the manner of a dying rose-bud, which he claims to represent, the curtains come together again and we are left flat, with only about half of our Christmas Eve over and nothing more to do before bedtime.

  Heigh ho! Perhaps we can get Mr. Rodney to tell us some ghost stories. Mr. Rodney, please!

  MR. RODNEY: Well, children. Here it is Christmas Eve and no one has pulled the Christmas Carol yet. If you will all draw up close and stop your necking, I will at least start . . . Stop, there is someone at the door. You answer, Alfred, it’s probably for you.

  ALFRED: No, Mr. Rodney, it’s a little old man in a red coat and a white beard who says he’s Santa Claus.

  MR. RODNEY: Send for the police. I’ll Santa Claus him.

  At this moment , SANTA CLAUS himself enters. He is a tall, thin man, with black side-whiskers, and wears a raincoat and a derby.

  SANTA CLAUS: My name is Mortimer, George Pearson Mortimer. A lot of silly people call me “Santa Claus” and it makes me pretty mad, I can tell you. Santa Claus, indeed! Just because one year, a long time ago, I got a little stewed and hired a sleigh and some reindeer and drove around town dropping presents down chimneys. I was arrested at the corner of State and Market streets and when they took me to the station-house I didn’t want to give my right name; so I gave “Santa Claus” and thought it very funny. The trouble that got me into!

  MR. RODNEY: Do you mean to tell us that there is no such person as Santa Claus?

  SANTA CLAUS: Yes – or rather no!

  (MR. RODNEY bursts into tears.)

  MR. RODNEY stops crying to listen. “Hark, what is that?” he says.

  “It’s the sun on the marshes, Mr. Rodney,” they all say in unison and the curtain comes down on the final scene of the pantomime.

  In this scene, PIERROT comes to life again and revisits the old haunts of his boyhood where he used to spend Christmas years and years ago. First he comes to the old Christmas turkey, which is much too old by now for any fun. Then he sees the Little Girl That He Used to Play With in His Holidays. She is now the mother of three children and engaged to be married. But still PIERROT seems dissatisfied. He is very evidently looking for something, searching high and low. First he looks in his vest pockets, then in his coat pockets. Finally he looks in his trousers pockets. But whatever it is, he cannot find it.

  “What are you looking for?” asks CIBOULETTE, voicing the sentiments of the entire gathering.

  “I can’t seem to remember where I put the check the coat room girl gave me for my hat and coat,” he answers. “I could swear that I put it right in here with my old theater-ticket stubs.”

  “I didn’t give you any check,” says the coat room girl. “I know your face.”

  PIERROT laughs at his mistake as

  THE CURTAIN FALLS

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  The Church Supper

  *
* *

  The social season in our city ends up with a bang for the summer when the Strawberry Festival at the Second Congregational Church is over. After that you might as well die. Several people have, in fact.

  The Big Event is announced several weeks in advance in that racy sheet known as the “church calendar,” which is slipped into the pews by the sexton before anyone has a chance to stop him. There, among such items as% quotation from a recent letter from Mr. and Mrs. Wheelock (the church’s missionaries in China who are doing a really splendid work in the face of a shortage of flannel goods), and the promise that Elmer Divvit will lead the Intermediate Christian Endeavor that afternoon, rain or shine, on the subject of “What Can I Do to Increase the Number of Stars in My Crown?” we find the announcement that on Friday night, June the 8th, the Ladies of the Church will unbelt with a Strawberry Festival to be held in the vestry and that, furthermore, Mrs. William Horton Maclnting will be at the head of the Committee in Charge. Surely enough good news for one day!

  The Committee is then divided into commissary groups, one to provide the short-cake, another to furnish the juice, another the salad, and so on, until everyone has something to do except Mrs. MacInting, the chairman. She agrees to furnish the paper napkins and to send her car around after the contributions which the others are making. Then, too, there is the use of her name.