But, beginning with _V. Aagaard_ and continuing through to _Mrs. L.

Zyfers_ of Yettman Ave., the reader is constantly aware of the fact that here are real people, living in a real city, and that they represent a problem which must be faced.

Sharp as we find the character etching in the book, the action, written and implied, is even more remarkable. Let us, for instance, take _Mr. Saml Dreyslinger_, whose business is "Furn Reprg," or _Peter Shalijian_, who does "pmphlt bindg." Into whose experience do these descriptions not fit? The author need only mention a man bindg pmphlts to bring back a flood of memories to each and every one of us--perhaps our old home town in New England where bindg pmphlts was almost a rite during the long winter months, as well as a social function of no mean proportions. It is the ability to suggest, to insinuate, these automatic memories on the part of the reader without the use of extra words that makes the author of this work so worthy of the name of craftsman in the literary annals of the day.

Perhaps most deft of all is the little picture that is made of _Louise Winkler_, who is the village "sclp spclst." One does not have to know much medieval history to remember the position that the sclp spclst used to hold in the community during the Wars of the Roses. Or during Shay's Rebellion, for that matter. In those days, to be a sclp spclst was as important a post as that of "clb bdg stbls" (now done for New York City by Mr. Graham). People came from miles around to consult with the local sclp spclst on matters pertaining not only to sclps but to knt gds and wr whls, both of which departments of our daily life have now been delegated to separate agencies. Then gradually, with the growth of the trade guild movement, there came the Era of Specialization in Industry, and the high offices of the sclp spclst were dissipated among other trades, until only that coming strictly under the head of sclp speclzng remained. To this estate has _Miss Winkler_ come, and in that part of the book which deals with her and her work, we have, as it were, a little epic on the mutability of human endeavor. It is all too short, however, and we are soon thereafter plunged into the dreary round of expting and impting, this time through a character called _J. Wubbe_, who is interesting only in so far as he is a.s.sociated with _M. Wrubel_ and _A.N. Wubbenhorst_, all of whom come together at the bottom of the column.

The plot, in spite of whatever virtues may accrue to it from the acid delineation of the characters and the vivid action pictures, is the weakest part of the work. It lacks coherence. It lacks stability.

Perhaps this is because of the nature of the book itself. Perhaps it is because the author knew too well his Dunsany. Or his Wells. Or his Bradstreet. But it is the opinion of the present reviewer that the weakness of plot is due to the great number of characters which clutter up the pages. The Russian school is responsible for this. We see here the logical result of a sedulous aping of those writers such as Tolstoi, Andreief, Turgenief, Dostoiefsky, or even Pushkin, whose _metier_ it was to fill the pages of their books with an inordinate number of characters, many of whom the reader was to encounter but once, let us say, on the Nevsky Prospekt or in the Smolny Inst.i.tute, but all of whom added their peculiar names (we believe that we will not offend when we refer to Russian names as "peculiar") to the general confusion of the whole.

In practice, the book is not flawless. There are five hundred thousand names, each with a corresponding telephone number. But, through some error in editing, the numbers are all wrong. Proof of this may be had by the simple expedient of calling up any one of the subscribers, using the number a.s.signed by the author to that name. (Any name will do--let us say _Nicholas Wimpie_-Haxlem 2131.) If the call is put in bright and early in the morning, the report will come over the wire just as the lights are going on for evening of the same day that "Harlem 2131 does not answer." The other numbers are invariably equally unproductive of results. The conclusion is obvious.

Aside from this point the book is a success.

XXI

CHRISTMAS AFTERNOON

_Done in the Manner, if Not the Spirit, of d.i.c.kens_

What an afternoon! Mr. Gummidge said that, in his estimation, there never had _been_ such an afternoon since the world began, a sentiment which was heartily endorsed by Mrs. Gummidge and all the little Gummidges, not to mention the relatives who had come over from Jersey for the day.

In the first place, there was the _ennui_. And such _ennui_ as it was!

A heavy, overpowering _ennui_, such as results from a partic.i.p.ation in eight courses of steaming, gravied food, topping off with salted nuts which the little old spinster Gummidge from Oak Hill said she never knew when to stop eating--and true enough she didn't--a dragging, devitalizing _ennui_, which left its victims strewn about the living-room in various att.i.tudes of prostration suggestive of those of the petrified occupants in a newly unearthed Pompeiian dwelling; an _ennui_ which carried with it a retinue of yawns, snarls and thinly veiled insults, and which ended in ruptures in the clan spirit serious enough to last throughout the glad new year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What an afternoon!"]

Then there were the toys! Three and a quarter dozen toys to be divided among seven children. Surely enough, you or I might say, to satisfy the little tots. But that would be because we didn't know the tots. In came Baby Lester Gummidge, Lillian's boy, dragging an electric grain-elevator which happened to be the only toy in the entire collection which appealed to little Norman, five-year-old son of Luther, who lived in Rahway. In came curly-headed Effie in frantic and throaty disputation with Arthur, Jr., over the possession of an articulated zebra. In came Everett, bearing a mechanical negro which would no longer dance, owing to a previous forcible feeding by the baby of a marshmallow into its only available aperture. In came Fonlansbee, teeth buried in the hand of little Ormond, which bore a popular but battered remnant of what had once been the proud false-bosom of a hussar's uniform. In they all came, one after another, some crying, some snapping, some pulling, some pushing--all appealing to their respective parents for aid in their intra-mural warfare.

And the cigar smoke! Mrs. Gummidge said that she didn't mind the smoke from a good cigarette, but would they mind if she opened the windows for just a minute in order to clear the room of the heavy aroma of used cigars? Mr. Gummidge stoutly maintained that they were good cigars. His brother, George Gummidge, said that he, likewise, would say that they were. At which colloquial sally both the Gummidge brothers laughed testily, thereby breaking the laughter record for the afternoon.

Aunt Libbie, who lived with George, remarked from the dark corner of the room that it seemed just like Sunday to her. An amendment was offered to this statement by the cousin, who was in the insurance business, stating that it was worse than Sunday. Murmurings indicative of as hearty agreement with this sentiment as their lethargy would allow came from the other members of the family circle, causing Mr.

Gummidge to suggest a walk in the air to settle their dinner.

And then arose such a chorus of protestations as has seldom been heard. It was too cloudy to walk. It was too raw. It looked like snow.

It looked like rain. Luther Gummidge said that he must be starting along home soon, anyway, bringing forth the acid query from Mrs.

Gummidge as to whether or not he was bored. Lillian said that she felt a cold coming on, and added that something they had had for dinner must have been undercooked. And so it went, back and forth, forth and back, up and down, and in and out, until Mr. Gummidge's suggestion of a walk in the air was reduced to a tattered impossibility and the entire company glowed with ill-feeling.

In the meantime, we must not forget the children. No one else could.

Aunt Libbie said that she didn't think there was anything like children to make a Christmas; to which Uncle Ray, the one with the Masonic fob, said, "No, thank G.o.d!" Although Christmas is supposed to be the season of good cheer, you (or I, for that matter) couldn't have told, from listening to the little ones, but what it was the children's Armageddon season, when Nature had decreed that only the fittest should survive, in order that the race might be carried on by the strongest, the most predatory and those posessing the best protective coloring. Although there were constant admonitions to Fonlansbee to "Let Ormond have that whistle now; it's his," and to Arthur, Jr., not to be selfish, but to "give the kiddie-car to Effie; she's smaller than you are," the net result was always that Fonlansbee kept the whistle and Arthur, Jr., rode in permanent, albeit disputed, possession of the kiddie-car. Oh, that we mortals should set ourselves up against the inscrutable workings of Nature!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Hallo! A great deal of commotion!"]

Hallo! A great deal of commotion! That was Uncle George stumbling over the electric train, which had early in the afternoon ceased to function and which had been left directly across the threshold. A great deal of crying! That was Arthur, Jr., bewailing the destruction of his already useless train, about which he had forgotten until the present moment. A great deal of recrimination! That was Arthur, Sr., and George fixing it up. And finally a great crashing! That was Baby Lester pulling over the tree on top of himself, necessitating the bringing to bear of all of Uncle Ray's knowledge of forestry to extricate him from the wreckage.

And finally Mrs. Gummidge pa.s.sed the Christmas candy around. Mr.

Gummidge afterward admitted that this was a tactical error on the part of his spouse. I no more believe that Mrs. Gummidge thought they wanted that Christmas candy than I believe that she thought they wanted the cold turkey which she later suggested. My opinion is that she wanted to drive them home. At any rate, that is what she succeeded in doing. Such cries as there were of "Ugh! Don't let me see another thing to eat!" and "Take it away!" Then came hurried scramblings in the coat-closet for over-shoes. There were the rasping sounds made by cross parents when putting wraps on children. There were insincere exhortations to "come and see us soon" and to "get together for lunch some time." And, finally, there were slammings of doors and the silence of utter exhaustion, while Mrs. Gummidge went about picking up stray sheets of wrapping paper.

And, as Tiny Tim might say in speaking of Christmas afternoon as an inst.i.tution, "G.o.d help us, every one."

XXII

HAIL, VERNAL EQUINOX!

If all that I hear is true, a great deal has been written, first and last, about that season which we slangily call "Spring"; but I don't remember ever having seen it done in really first-cla.s.s form;--that is, in such a way that it left something with you to think over, something that you could put your finger on and say, "There, _there_ is a Big, Vital Thought that I can carry away with me to my room."

What Spring really needs is a regular press-agent sort of write-up, something with the Punch in it, an article that will make people sit up and say to themselves, "By George, there must be something in this Spring stuff, after all."

What sort of popularity did Education have until correspondence schools and encyclopedias began to give publicity to it in their advertis.e.m.e.nts? Where would Music be to-day if it were not for the exhortations of the talking-machine and mechanical-piano companies telling, through their advertising-copy writers, of the spiritual exaltation that comes from a love of music? These things were all right in their way before the press-agent took hold of them, but they never could have hoped to reach their present position without him.

Of course, all this has just been leading up to the point I want to make,--that something more ought to be written about Spring. When you consider that every one, including myself, agrees that _nothing_ more should be written about it, I think that I have done rather well to prove as much as I have so far. And, having got this deep into the thing, I can't very well draw back now.

Well then, Spring is a great season. n.o.body will gainsay me that.

Without it, we should crash right from Winter into Summer with no chance to shift to light-weight underwear. I could write a whole piece about that phase of it alone, and, if I were pressed for things to say, I myself could enlarge on it now, making up imaginary conversation of people who have been caught in balbriggans by the first sweltering day of summer. But I have so many more things to say about Spring that I can't stop to bother with deadwood like that. Such literary fillerbusting should be left to those who are not so full of their subject as I am.

In preparing for this article, I thought it best to look up a little on the technical side of Spring, about which so little is known, at least by me. And, would you believe it, the Encyclopedia Britannica, which claims in its advertis.e.m.e.nts not only to make its readers presidents of the Boards of Directors of any companies they may select, but also shows how easy it would be for Grandpa or Little Edna to carry the whole set about from room to room, if, by any possible chance they should ever want to, this same Encyclopedia Britannica makes no reference to Spring, except incidentally, along with Bed Springs and Bubbling Springs.

This slight of one of our most popular seasons is probably due to the fact that Spring is not exclusively a British product and was not invented by a Briton. Had Spring been fortunate enough to have had the Second Earl of Stropshire-Stropshire-Stropshire as one of its founders, the Britannica could probably have seen its way clear to give it a five-page article, signed by the Curator of the Jade Department in the British Museum, and ill.u.s.trated with colored plates, showing the effect of Spring on the vertical and transverse sections of the stamen of the South African Euphorbiceae.

I was what you might, but probably wouldn't, call stunned at not finding anything about the Season of Love in the encyclopedia, for without that a.s.sistance what sort of a scientific article could I do on the subject? I am not good at improvising as I go along, especially in astronomical matters. But we Americans are not so easily thwarted.

Quick as a wink I looked up "Equinox."

There is a renewed agitation of late to abolish Latin from our curricula. Had I not known my Latin I never could have figured out what "equinox" meant, and this article would never have been written.

Take that, Mr. Flexner!

While finding "equinox," however, I came across the word "equilibrium," which is the word before you come to "equinox," and I became quite absorbed in what it had to say on the matter. There were a great many things stated there that I had never dreamed before, even in my wildest vagaries on the subject of equilibrium. For instance, did you know that if you cover the head of a bird, "as in hooding a falcon" (do you remember the good old days when you used to run away from school to hood falcons?) the bird is deprived of the power of voluntary movement? Just think of that, deprived of the power of voluntary movement simply because its head is covered!

And, as if this were not enough, it says that the same thing holds true of a fish! If you should ever, on account of a personal grudge, want to get the better of a fish, just sneak up to him on some pretext or other and suddenly cover its eyes with a cloth, and there you have it, helpless and unable to move. You may then insult it, and it can do nothing but tremble with rage.

It is little practical things like this that you pick up in reading a good reference book, things that you would never get in ten years at college.

For instance, take the word "equites," which follows "equinox" in the encyclopedia. What do you know about equites, Mr. Businessman? Of course, you remember in a vague way that they were Roman hors.e.m.e.n or something, but, in the broader sense of the word, could you have told that the term "equites" came, in the time of Gaius Gracchus, to mean any one who had four hundred thousand sesterces? No, I thought not.

And yet that is a point which is apt to come up any day at the office.

A customer from St. Paul might come in and, of course, you would take him out to lunch, hoping to land a big order. Where would you be if his hobby should happen to be "equites "? And if he should come out in the middle of the conversation with "By the way, do you remember how many sesterces it was necessary to have during the administration of Gaius Gracchus in order to belong to the Equites?" if you could snap right back at him with "Four hundred thousand, I believe," the order would be a.s.sured. And if, in addition, you could volunteer the information that an excellent account of the family life of the Equites could be found in Mommsen's "_Romisches Staatsrecht_," Vol. 3, your customer would probably not only sign up for a ten-year contract, but would insist on paying for the lunch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "If you could snap right back at him with 'Four hundred thousand, I believe,' the order would be a.s.sured."]

But, of course, this has practically nothing to do with Spring, or, as the boys call it, the "vernal equinox." The vernal equinox is a serious matter. In fact, I think I may say without violating any confidence, that it is the initial point from which the right ascensions and the longitudes of the heavenly bodies are measured.

This statement will probably bring down a storm of ridicule on my head, but look at how Fulton was ridiculed.

In fact, I might go even further and say that the way to seek out Spring is not to trail along with the poets and essayists into the woods and fields and stand about in the mud until a half-clothed bird comes out and peeps. If you really want to be in on the official advent of Spring, you may sit in a nice warm observatory and, entirely free from head-colds, proceed with the following simple course: