You Should Worry Says John Henry
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George V. Hobart >> You Should Worry Says John Henry
Nowadays when a clever young man goes to visit his sweetheart he hikes
over the streets in a benzine buggy, and when he pulls the bell-rope at
the front door he has a rapid-fire revolver in one pocket and a bottle
of carbolic acid in the other.
His intentions are honorable and he wishes to prove them so by shooting
his lady love, if she renigs when he makes a play for her hand.
I think the old style was the best, because when young people quarreled
they didn't need an ambulance and a hospital surgeon to help them make
up.
In the old days Simpson Green would draw the stove brush cheerfully
across his dog-skin shoes and rush with eager feet to see Lena Jones,
the girl he wished to make the wife of his bosom.
"Darling!" Simpson would say, "I am sure to the bad for love of you.
Pipe the downcast droop in this eye of mine and notice the way my heart
is bubbling over like a bottle of sarsaparilla on a hot day! Be mine,
Lena! be mine!"
Then Lena would giggle. Not once, but seven giggles, something like
those used in a spasm.
Then she would reply, "No, Simpson; it cannot be. Fate wills it
otherwise."
Then Simpson would bite his finger-nails, pick his hat up out of the
coal-scuttle, and say to Lena, "False one! You love Conrad, the
floorwalker in the butcher shop. Curses on Conrad, and see what you have
missed, Lena. I have tickets for a swell chowder party next Tuesday. Ah!
farewell forever!"
Then Simpson would walk out and hunt up one of those places that can't
get an all-night license and there, with one arm glued tight around the
bar rail, he would fasten his system to a jag which would last a week.
Despair would grab him and, like Dike, he'd be Simpson with the souse
thing for sure.
When he would recover strength enough to walk down town without
attracting the attention of the other side of the street, he would call
on Lena and say, "Lena, forgive me for what I done, but love is
blind--and, besides, I mixed my drinks. Lena, I was on the downward
path, and I nearly went to Heligoland."
Then Lena would say, "Oh, Simpsey, I wanted you to prove your love, but
I thought you'd prove it with beer and not red-eye--forgive me,
darling!"
Then they would kiss and make up, and the wedding bells would ring just
as soon as Simp's salary grew large enough to tease a pocketbook.
But these days the idea is altogether different.
Children are hardly out of the cradle before they are arrested for
butting into the speed limit with a smoke wagon.
Even when they go courting they have to play to the gallery.
Nowadays Gonsalvo H. Puffenlotz walks into the parlor to see Miss
Imogene Cordelia Hoffbrew.
"Wie geht's, Imogene!" says Gonsalvo.
"Simlich!" says Imogene, standing at right angles near the piano because
she thinks she is a Gibson girl.
"Imogene, dearest," Gonsalvo continues; "I called on your papa in Wall
Street yesterday to find out how much money you have, but he refused to
name the sum, therefore you have untold wealth!"
Gonsalvo pauses to let the Parisian clock on the mantle tick, tick,
tick!
He is making the bluff of his life, you see, and he has to do even that
on tick.
Besides, this furnishes the local color.
Then Gonsalvo bursts forth again, "Imogene! Oh! Imogene! will you be
mine and I will be thine without money and without the price."
Gonsalvo pauses to let this idea get noised about a little.
Then he goes on, "Be mine, Imogene! You will be minus the money while I
will have the price!"
[Illustration]
Gonsalvo trembles with the passion which is consuming his pocketbook,
and then Imogene turns languidly from a right angle triangle into more
of a straight front and hands Gonsalvo a bitter look of scorn.
Then Gonsalvo grabs his revolver and, aiming it at her marble brow,
exclaims, "Marry me this minute or I will shoot you in the topknot,
because I love you."
Then papa rushes into the room and Gonsalvo politely requests the old
gentleman to hold two or three bullets for him for a few moments.
Gonsalvo then bites deeply into a bottle of carbolic acid and, just as
the Coroner climbs into the house, the pictures of the modern lover and
loveress appear in the newspapers, and fashionable society receives a
jolt.
This is the new and up-to-date way of making love.
However, I think the old style of courting is the best, because you can
generally stop a jag before it gets to the undertaker.
What do you think?
CHAPTER VI
YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT SNAP SHOTS
When Aunt Martha gave friend wife that newfangled camera this Spring I
had a hunch that the dealers in photographic supplies would be joyously
shrieking the return of good times and hot-footing it to the bank with
the contents of my wallet.
Peaches just grabbed that camera and went after everybody and everything
in the neighborhood.
She took about 800 views of Uncle Peter's country home before she
discovered that the camera wasn't loaded properly, which was tough on
Peaches but good for the bungalow.
Like everything else in this world picture pinching from still life
depends entirely on the point of view.
If your point of view is all right it's an easy matter to make a
four-dollar dog-house look like the villa of a Wall Street broker at
Newport.
Ten minutes after friend wife had been given the camera she had me set
up as a statue all over Uncle Peter's lawn, and she was snapping at me
like a Spitz doggie at a peddler.
I sat for two hundred and nineteen pictures that forenoon and I posed
for every hero in history, from William the Conqueror down to Doctor
Cook, with both feet in a slushy little snowbank representing
nearly-the-North-pole.
[Illustration]
But when she tried to coax me to climb up on a limb of a tree and stay
there till she got a picture of me looking like an owl I swore softly in
three languages, fell over the back fence, and ran for my life.
When I rubbershoed it back that afternoon friend wife was busy
developing her crimes.
The proper and up-to-date caper in connection with taking snap-shots
these days is to buy a developing outfit and upset the household from
pit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures of every dearly beloved
friend that crosses your pathway.
Friend wife selected a spare room on the top floor of Uncle Peter's home
where she could await developments.
A half hour later ghostly noises began to come from that room and
mysterious whisperings fell out of the window and bumped over the lawn.
When I reached the front door I found that the gardener had left, the
waitress was leaving, and the cook was telephoning for a policeman.
"Where is Mrs. Henry?" I asked Mary, the cook.
"She is still developing," said Mary.
"What has she developed?" I inquired.
"Up to the present time she has developed your Uncle's temper and she
has developed your Aunt's appetite, and a couple of bill collectors
developed a pain in the neck when she took their pictures, and, if
things go on in this way, I think this will soon develop into a foolish
house!" said Mary, the cook.
A half hour later, while I was hiding behind the pianola in the living
room, not daring to breathe above a whisper for fear I would get my
picture taken again, friend wife rushed in exclaiming, "Oh, joy! Oh,
joy! John, I have developed two pictures!"
I wish you could have seen the expression on Peaches' face.
In order to develop the films a picturesque assortment of drugs and
chemicals have to be used.
Well, friend wife had used them.
A silent little stream of wood alcohol was trickling down over her left
ear into her Psyche knot, and on the end of her nose about six grains of
extract of potash was sending out signals of distress to some spirits of
turpentine which was burning on the top of her right eyebrow.
Something dark and lingering like iodine had given her chin the
double-cross and her apron looked like the remnants of a porous plaster.
Her right hand had red, white, green, purple, and magenta marks all over
it, and her left hand looked like the Fourth of July.
"John!" she yelled; "here it is! My goodness, I am so excited! See what
a fine picture of you I took!"
She handed me the picture, but all I could see was a woodshed with the
door wide open.
"A good picture of the woodshed," I said; "but whose woodshed is it?"
"A woodshed!" exclaimed friend wife; "why, that is your face, John. And
where you think the door is open is only your mouth!"
I looked crestfallen and then I looked at the picture again, but my
better nature asserted itself and I made no attempt to strike this
defenseless woman.
Then she handed me another picture and said, "John, isn't this
wonderful?"
I looked at the picture and muttered, "All I can see is Theodore, the
colored gardener, walking across lots with a sack of flour on his back!"
"John, you are so stupid," said friend wife. "How can you expect to see
what it is when you are holding the picture upside down?"
I turned the picture around, and then I was quite agreeably surprised.
"It's immense!" I shouted. "It's the real thing, all right! Why this is
aces! I suppose it is called, 'Moonlight on Lake Champlain'? Did this
one come with the camera or did you draw it from memory?"
"The idea of such a thing," friend wife snapped, "can't you see that
you're holding the picture the wrong way. Turn it around and you will
see what it is!"
I gave the thing another turn.
"Gee whiz!" I said, "now I have it! Oh, the limit! You wished to
surprise me with a picture of the sunset at Governor's Island. How
lovely it is! See, over here in this corner there's a bunch of soldiers
listening to what's cooking for supper, and over here is the smoke from
the gun that sets the sun--I like it!"
Then my wife grabbed the picture out of my hands and burst into speech.
"Why do you try to discourage my efforts to be artistic?" she volleyed
and thundered. "This is a picture of you holding Mrs. McIlvaine's baby
in your arms, and I think it's perfectly lovely, even if the baby is the
only intelligent thing in the picture."
When the exercises were over I inquired casually, "Where, my dear, where
are the other 21,219 pictures you snapped to-day?"
"Only these two came out good because, don't you see, I'm an amateur
yet," was her come-back.
Then she looked lovingly at the result of her day's work and began to
peel some bicarbonate of magnesia off her knuckles with the nutcracker.
"Only two out of 21,219--I think you ought to call it a long shot
instead of a snap shot," I whispered, after I had dodged behind a sofa.
She went out of the room without saying a word, and I took out my
pocketbook and looked at it wistfully.
CHAPTER VII
YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT THE SERVANTS
When Peaches and I get tired of the Big Town--tired of its noises and
hullabaloo; tired of being tagged by taxis as we cross a street; tired
of watching grocers and butchers hoisting higher the highest cost of
living--that's our cue to grab a choo-choo and breeze out to Uncle Peter
Grant's farm and bungalow in the wilds of Westchester, which he calls
Troolyrooral.
Just to even matters up Uncle Peter and his wife visit us from time to
time in our amateur apartment in the Big Town.
Uncle Peter is a very stout old gentleman. When he squeezes into our
little flat the walls act as if they were bow-legged.
Uncle Peter always goes through the folding doors sideways and every
time he sits down the man in the apartment below us kicks because we
move the piano so often.
Aunt Martha is Uncle Peter's wife and she weighs more and breathes
oftener.
When the two of them visit our bird-cage at the same time the janitor
has to go out and stand in front of the building with a view to catching
it if it falls.
When we reached Troolyrooral we found that "Cousin" Elsie Schulz was
also a visitor there.
"Cousin" Elsie is a sort of privileged character in the family, having
lived with Aunt Martha for over twenty years as a sort of housekeeper.
They call her "Cousin Elsie" just to make it more difficult.
Three or four years ago Elsie married Gustave Bierbauer and quit her
job.
"Cousin" Elsie believes that conversation was invented for her exclusive
use, and the way she can grab a bundle of the English language and
break it up is a caution.
Language is the same to Elsie as a syphon is to a highball--and that's a
whole lot.
Two years after their marriage old Gustave stopped living so abruptly
that the coroner had to sit on him.
The post mortem found out that Gustave had died from a rush of words to
his brainpan.
The coroner also found, upon further examination, that all of these
words had formerly belonged to Elsie, with the exception of a few which
were once the property of Gustave's favorite bartender.
After Gustave's exit Aunt Martha tried to get Elsie back on her job, but
the old Dutch had her eye on Herman Schulz, and finally married him.
So now every once in a while Elsie moseys over from Plainfield, N. J.,
where she lives with Herman, and proceeds to sew a lot of pillow slips
and things for Aunt Martha.
Yesterday morning, while Peaches and I were at breakfast, Elsie
meandered in, bearing in her hand a wedding invitation which Herman had
forwarded to her from Plainfield.
Being, as I say, a privileged character, she does pretty much as she
likes around the bungalooza.
Elsie read the invitation: "Mr. und Mrs. Rudolph Ganderkurds request der
honor of your presence at der marriage of deir daughter, Verbena, to
Galahad Schmalzenberger, at der home of der bride's parents, Plainfield,
N. J. March Sixteenth. R. S. V. P."
"Vell," said Elsie, "I know der Ganderkurds and I know deir daughter,
Verbena, und I know Galahad Schmalzenberger; he's a floorwalker in
Bauerhaupt's grocery store, but I doan'd know vot it is dot R. S. V. P.
yet!"
I gently kicked Peaches on the instep under the table, and said to
Elsie, "Well, that _is_ a new one on me. Are you sure it isn't B. & O.
or the C. R. R. of N. J.? I've heard of those two railroads in New
Jersey, but I never heard of the R. S. V. P."
For the first time in her life since she's been able to grab a sentence
between her teeth and shake the pronouns out of it Elsie was phazed.
She kept looking at the invitation and saying to herself, "R. S. V. P.!
Vot is it? I know der honor of your presence; I know der bride's
parents, but I don't know R. S. V. P."
All that day Elsie wandered through the house muttering to herself, "R.
S. V. P.! Vot is it? Is it some secret between der bride und groom? R.
S. V. P.! It ain'd my initials, because dey begin mit E, S. Vot is dot
R. S. V. P.? Vot is it? Vot is it?"
That evening we were all at dinner when Elsie rushed in with a cry of
joy. "I got it!" she said. "I haf untied der meaning of dot R. S. V. P.
It means Real Silver Vedding Presents!"
I was just about to drink a glass of water, so I changed my mind and
nearly choked to death.
Peaches tried to say something, which resulted in a gurgle in her
throat, while Uncle Peter fell off his chair and landed on the cat,
which had never done him any harm.
Elsie's interpretation of that wedding invitation is going to set Herman
Schulz back several dollars, or I'm not a foot high.
And maybe they don't have their troubles at Troolyrooral with the
servant problem.
It's one hard problem, that--and nobody seems to get the right answer.
One morning later on Peaches and I were out on the porch drinking in the
glorious air and chatting with Hep Hardy, who had come out to spend
Sunday with us, when Aunt Martha came bustling out followed by Uncle
Peter, who, in turn, was followed by Lizzie Joyce, their latest cook.
Lizzie wore a new lid, trimmed with prairie grass and field daisies,
hanging like a shade over the left lamp; she had a grouchy looking grip
in one hand and a green umbrella with black freckles in the other.
She was made up to catch the first train that sniffed into the station.
Aunt Martha whispered to us plaintively, "Lizzie has been here only two
days and this makes the seventh time she has started for town."
Busy Lizzie took the center of the stage and scowled at her audience.
"I'm takin' the next train for town, Mem!" she announced, with
considerable bitterness.
Uncle Peter made a brave effort to scowl back at her, but she flashed
her lanterns at him and he fell back two paces to the rear.
"What is it this time, Lizzie?" inquired Aunt Martha.
Lizzie put the grouchy grip down, folded her arms, and said, "Oh, I have
me grievances!"
Uncle Peter sidled up to Aunt Martha and said in a hoarse whisper, "My
dear, this shows a lack of firmness on your part. Now, leave everything
to me and let me settle this obstreperous servant once and for all!"
Uncle Peter crossed over and got in the limelight with Lizzie.
"It occurs to me," he began in polished accents, "that this is an
occasion upon which I should publicly point out to you the error of your
ways, and send you back to your humble station with a better knowledge
of your status in this household."
"S'cat!" said Lizzie, and Uncle Peter began to fish for his next line.
"I want you to understand," he went on, "that I pay you your wages!"
"Sure, if you didn't," was Lizzie's come-back, "I'd land on you good and
hard, that I would. What else are you here for, you fathead?"
"Fathead!" echoed Uncle Peter in astonishment.
"Peter, leave her to me," pleaded Aunt Martha.
But Uncle Peter rushed blindly on to destruction. "Elizabeth," he said,
sternly, "in view of your most unrefined and unladylike language it
behooves me to reprimand you severely. I will, therefore----"
[Illustration]
Then Lizzie and the green umbrella struck a Casey-at-the-bat pose and
cut in: "G'wan away from me with your dime-novel talk or I'll place the
back of me unladylike hand on your jowls!"
"Peter!" warningly exclaimed the perturbed Aunt Martha.
"Yes, Martha; you're right," the old gentleman said, turning hastily. "I
must hurry and finish my correspondence before the morning mail goes,"
and he faded away.
"It isn't an easy matter to get servants out here," Aunt Martha
whispered to us; "I must humor her. Now, Lizzie, what's wrong?"
"You told me, Mem, that I should have a room with a southern exposure,"
said the Queen of the Bungalow.
"And isn't the room as described?" inquired Aunt Martha.
"The room is all right, but I don't care for the exposure," said the
Princess of Porkchops.
"Well, what's wrong?" insisted our patient auntie.
"Sure," said the Baroness of Bread-pudding, "the room is so exposed,
Mem, that every breeze from the North Pole just nachully hikes in there
and keeps me settin' up in bed all night shiverin' like I was shakin'
dice for the drinks. When I want that kind of exercise I'll hire out as
chambermaid in a cold-storage. I'm a cook, Mem, it's true, but I'm no
relation to Doctor Cook, and I ain't eager to sleep in a room where even
a Polar bear would be growlin' for a fur coat."
"Very well, Lizzie," said Aunt Martha, soothingly; "I'll have storm
windows put on at once and extra quilts sent to the room, and a gas
stove if you wish."
"All right, Mem," said the Countess of Cornbeef, removing the lid, "I'll
stay; but keep that husband of yours with the woozy lingo out of the
kitchen, because I'm a nervous woman--I am that!" and then the Duchess
of Devilledkidneys got a strangle-hold on her green umbrella and ducked
for the grub foundry.
Aunt Martha sighed and went in the house.
"Hep," I said; "this scene with Her Highness of Clamchowder ought to be
an awful warning to you. No man should get married these days unless
he's sure his wife can juggle the frying pan and take a fall out of an
egg-beater. They've had eight cooks in eight days, and every time a new
face comes in the kitchen the coal-scuttle screams with fright.
"You can see where they've worn a new trail across the lawn on the
retreat to the depot.
"It's an awful thing, Hep! Our palates are weak from sampling different
styles of mashed potatoes.
"We had one last week who answered roll-call when you yelled Phyllis.
"Isn't that a peach of a handle for a kitchen queen with a map like the
Borough of The Bronx on a dark night?
"She came here well recommended--by herself. She said she knew how to
cook backwards.
"We believed her after the first meal, because that's how she cooked it.
"Phyllis was a very inventive girl. She could cook anything on earth or
in the waters underneath the earth, and she proved it by trying to mix
tenpenny nails with the baked beans.
"When Phyllis found there was no shredded oats in the house for
breakfast she changed the cover of the wash tub into sawdust and
sprinkled it with the whisk-broom, chopped fine.
"It wasn't a half bad breakfast food of the home-made kind, but every
time I took a drink of water the sawdust used to float up in my throat
and tickle me.
"The first and only day she was with us Phyllis squandered two dollars
worth of eggs trying to make a lemon meringue pie.
"She tried to be artistic with this, but one of the eggs was old and
nervous and it slipped.
"Uncle Peter asked Phyllis if she could cook some Hungarian goulash and
Phyllis screamed, 'No; my parents have been Swedes all their lives!'
Then she ran him across the lawn with the carving knife.
"Aunt Martha went in the kitchen to ask what was for dinner and Phyllis
got back at her, 'Im a woman, it is true, but I will show you that I can
keep a secret!'
"When the meal came on the table we were compelled to keep the secret
with her.
"It looked like Irish stew, tasted like clam chowder, and behaved like a
bad boy.
"On the second day it suddenly occurred to Phyllis that she was working,
so she handed in her resignation, handed Hank, the gardener, a jolt in
his cafe department, handed out a lot of unnecessary talk, and left us
flat.
"The next rebate we had in the kitchen was a colored man named James
Buchanan Pendergrast.
"James was all there is and carry four. He was one of the most careful
cooks that ever made faces at the roast beef.
"The evening he arrived we intended to have shad roe for dinner and
James informed us that that was where he lived.
"Eight o'clock came and no dinner. Then Aunt Martha went in the kitchen
to convince him that we were human beings with appetites.
"She found Careful James counting the roe to see if the fish dealer had
sent the right number.
"He was up to 2,196,493 and still had a half pound to go.
"James left that night followed by shouts of approval from all present.
"I'm telling you all this, Hep, just to prove that Fate is kind while it
delays your wedding until some genius invents an automatic cook made of
aluminum and electricity."
Hep laughed and shook his head.
"The servant problem won't delay my wedding," he chortled; "if there
wasn't a cook left in the world we wouldn't care; we're going to be
vegetarians because we're going to live in the Garden of Eden."
"Tush!" I snickered.
"Tush, yourself!" said Hep.
"Oh, tush, both of you," said Peaches; "John said that very thing to me
three weeks before we were married."
"Sure I did," I went back, "and we're still in the Garden, aren't we? Of
course, if you want to sub-let part of it and have Hep and his bride
roaming moon-struck through your strawberry beds, that's up to you!"
"Well," said friend wife, "being alone in the Garden of Eden is all
right, but after you've been there three or four years there's a mild
excitement in hearing a strange voice, even if it is that of a Serpent!"
Close the door, Delia, I feel a draft.
CHAPTER VIII
YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT AUCTION BRIDGE
Receiving letters which I promptly forget to answer is a hobby with me.
The disease must be hereditary--possibly from my grandfather, who was a
village postmaster. He used to get a lot of letters he never answered.
(Man the life-line, lads; we'll get him ashore yet!)
Well, here's one I am going to answer.
It's a bit of literature that reached me a day or two ago, chaperoned by
a two-cent stamp and a hunk of pale green sealing-wax.
Philadelphia, Lately.
Dear John:--I have never met you personally, but I've heard my
brother, Teddy, speak of you so often that you really seem to be
one of the family.
(Teddy talks slang something fierce.)
Dear John, will you please pardon the liberty I take in grabbing a
two-cent stamp and jumping so unceremoniously at one who is, after
all, a perfect stranger?
Dear John, if you look around you can see on every hand that the
glad season of the year is nearly here, and if you listen
attentively you may hear the hoarse cry of the summer resort
beckoning us to that bourne from which no traveler returns without
getting his pocketbook dislocated.
Dear John, could you please tell me how to play auction bridge, so
that when I go to the seashore I will be armed for defraying
expenses?
Dear John, I am sure that if I could play auction bridge loud
enough to win four dollars every once in a while I could spend a
large bunch of the summer at the seashore.