News from the Amity Star
George D. Vaill, Editor & Publisher
Vol. 0, No. 0 – October 16, 1950
Weekly Newspaper May Result From Survey Now Being Made
BETHANY PRINTER SEEKS INFORMATION FROM TOWNSPEOPLE
BETHANY, CONN., OCT. 16 – George D. Vaill, proprietor of The Bethany Press,
announced today that he is ready to proceed with the publication of a weekly
newspaper serving the towns of Bethany and Woodbridge – provided the people
of the two communities express a desire to have such a paper and a
willingness to support it. . . .
READERS ASKED TO MAIL RETURN CARDS PROMPTLY
Included with this announcement is an addressed government postal card which,
it is hoped, will expedite completion of the survey being made. It will be
greatly appreciated if you will fill out and mail your card as soon as
possible. . . .
December 1, 1950
TOWN MEETING TAKES ACTION TO HELP BETHANY VOLUNTEER
FIREMEN’S ASSOCIATION
$20,000 Loan Will Expedite Construction of New Firehouse;
Rent Controls, Roads Also Receive Attention
A Special Town Meeting was held at the Bethany Town Hall on November 20, with
nearly 100 persons present. . . .
Irving W. Clark then moved that Rainbow Road be repaired, and former Fire
Chief O. D. Crooker seconded the motion with the explanation that an improved
Rainbow Road would provide better fire protection by giving fire apparatus a
shorter run to the east side of town. Chief Crooker was rudely interrupted by
a Town Hall mouse, which chose this moment to enter the hall in search of
food or guidance. The motion was lost on a voice vote, with the mouse
abstaining. . . .
December 8, 1950
THE STAR REPORTER
Having expressed in issue No. 1, a determination to acquire maturity and
wisdom as rapidly as possible, we now take pleasure in calling attention to
what may be an encouraging sign: in this, issue No. 2, we are printing our
first retraction (see page 1, column 1), to correct the first error of fact
to be called to our attention. Surely this must indicate that we are on our
way. One of the most popular indoor sports of some of the Larger Newspapers
is printing retractions, and the practice has given many of them an air of
sophisticated old age greatly to be envied by their upstart colleagues.
To have an error “creep in” (this being the traditional mode of ingress
habitually chosen by errors) grieves the flinty heart of any editor, but his
grief is effectively dispelled as soon as someone points out the mistake and,
by so doing, bears witness, beyond a reasonable doubt, to the fact that the
paper (or a portion thereof) has been read.

Naming a child or a newspaper is a serious business, for an infelicitous
choice at the time of the launching can have a profound effect for good or
evil in later life. With the help of a good many volunteers, most of whom
approached the problem with a disconcerting note of frivolity, the staff of
this journal cast about for an appropriate name. Suggestions poured out at
the rate of twelve for a dime. The first one – “The Bethany and Woodbridge
Weekly Palladium-Intelligencer” – proved to be too costly to set in type and
would have required a front page almost four feet in width. It was, for these
and other reasons, abandoned. Other offerings selected the name of one town
and omitted the other, thus inviting disaster at the outset. “The Bethany
Bee” and “The Woodbridge Pantograph” were both ruled out in the interests of
harmony. Understandably brief consideration was also given to “The Bethbridge
Weekly Herald and Examiner” – and not wholly on the strength of its mileage.
. . .

“The Amity Star” is happy to announce that no increase in the newsstand price
of 10¢ per copy is being contemplated at this time.
The “Star” is one of the few papers in the country which can boast that it
has, to date, maintained its original price, in spite of nationwide increases
in material and labor costs.
January 11, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
In an early issue of this paper, we carried an advertisement which announced
that George S. MacKenzie, of Bethany Wood, had two saddle horses for sale. He
still has – but that’s not what we are concerned with at the moment. One day
last week the horses somehow got out of their pasture and were roaming about
the neighborhood, minding their own business and doing the normal sort of
thing that you would do if you were a horse. They were spotted by the
children in the school bus, and pandemonium broke loose. One seven-year-old,
steeped in the lore of Hop-a-you-know-who and the Lone Whatzis, raced from
the bus to his home, burst into the house, and yelled: “Mommy! Where is my
lasso? The MacKenzies’ horses are out!” And we are happy to report that,
riding a small pedal-powered tractor, he joined in the general shouting and
pursuit of the docile animals – and was somehow instrumental in helping to
corral them, though we haven’t yet found out just what he did. We do know
that he didn’t stop to strap on the customary holster and two guns, so it
must have been a hand-to-hand contest.
January 25, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
We received a rude shock last Saturday upon encountering a troop of city-bred
Boy Scouts who were invading the country, laden with pots and pans, hatchets,
flitches of bacon, and other scoutish paraphernalia. Here, we thought, is
tomorrow’s citizen, bright-eyed, alert, ready to meet adventure and danger
with a cool head and a strong arm. Then came the shock – and we realized how
well-prepared to meet the realities of life these young adventurers were:
their conversation, which was carried on in ear-splitting explosions, was
laced with enough profanity and naughty words to make the first mate on a
whaler blush. Not content with such tame subjects as woodcraft and wild
animals, they were obviously training themselves for the more stimulating
life of the barroom, the poolhall, and the headquarters of the ward political
boss. Somehow they seemed out of place in Woodbridge.
February 1, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
Tomorrow, so help us, is Groundhog Day, and although it is one of the least
important of those outstanding annual festivals which have barely escaped
being designated National Holidays, it will, nevertheless, inspire thousands
of newspaper writers throughout this fair land to write columns of globber
about the whole unfortunate business. Falling in line as duty dictates,
therefore, we add our note to the general clamjamfry of the fourth estate.
The Groundhog, having stuffed himself with this and that last November, and
having thereafter slept like a log deep in his burrow, will suddenly wake up
tomorrow morning, crawl out of his hole, and proceed to eat his shadow. If he
gets indigestion, he will sneak back into the ground and die of shadowpoisoning. If the shadow agrees with him, it means that you won’t get your
income tax return filed on time – or something like that. It’s all pretty
mysterious. And no one is more mystified over the whole thing than the dirty
old Groundhog himself (who doesn’t even realize that he is a Groundhog).
February 8, 1951
Town of Orange Invaded
Orange, Conn., Feb. 8 (By special correspondent in forward area) – This
peaceful town of 2,019 inhabitants was invaded early today, without warning,
by powerful forces moving in from the Woodbridge and Bethany area under the
cover of darkness and camouflage. . . .
Bethany, Con., Feb. 8 – An official spokesman for “The Amity Star” admitted,
in a terse statement this morning, that orders for the invasion of Orange had
been issued during the night, in accordance with a top-secret plan which has
been in preparation for some time. . . .
Lake Success, N.Y., Feb. 8 – Correspondents at the United Nations
headquarters were unable early this morning to learn what action, if any,
will be taken to brand “The Amity Star” an aggressor in its surprise invasion
of the Town of Orange, Connecticut. One spokesman, who declined to allow the
use of his name, said: “As far as I know, no official word of the invasion
has reached the United Nations. I am not authorized to make any statement on
the subject. I am only a doorman here. Please step aside – you’re blocking
the passage.”
March 15, 1951
[Note: Before 1955, March 15 was the deadline for filing income tax returns.]
THE STAR REPORTER
Resisting the strong temptation to let this day pass without mentioning The
Subject, we call your attention, briefly, to the wisdom of an anonymous
writer who said: “Another great difference between death and taxes is that
death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” And also to Mark Twain,
who exhibited some familiarity with the matter when he said that the
difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector is that the taxidermist
takes only your skin. Any conclusions you wish to draw may be your own – but
don’t forget to figure the surtax on them.
March 29, 1951
Fishin’, Huntin’ and Lyin’
with Bull Moose
(Several readers who are interested in field sports have suggested that we
print a column on fish and game. One of them has been persuaded to produce
the column himself. A resident of Bethany, “Bull Moose” is of medium build,
erudite, and soft-spoken. Equally at home in waders or a scientific
laboratory, he here gives us his initial offering concerning the rod and the
gun.
-Ed.)
Well boys pull up them chairs and sit awhile. There is certain matters
pertainin’ to this column that needs discussin’. Feller comes up to us the
other day and says “Bull, that Amity Star is a first rate paper fer indoor
folks but there ain’t much in it fer a coupler old wood’s rats like us.”
“Shame ain’t it,” I says, “why don’t you write this here editor and publisher
and tell him.” “Shucks, he wouldn’t do nothin’ about it,” says my pal. “Dare
him to print it,” I says, “that always gets them editors.” “Tell yuh what,
Bull,” he says, “Let’s write a column about huntin’ and fishin’ and chasin’
girls and things like that, that’ll interest them boys out in Bethany and
Woodbridge and Orange and send it to this here George Vaill and then we’ll
find out is this here Amity Star a liberal paper.” “I don’t know much about
chasin’ girls, Jake,” I says, “But huntin’ and fishin’ is right down my line
and I’ll write that part and yuh kin handle the rest.” Well to make a long
matter short we did, and darned if that George Vaill didn’t go and print it
which is why our faces is so red, and this brings me round to what we was
goin’ to discuss before I started tellin’ yuh about Jake.
Yuh see I can’t be everywhere to onc’t and unless some of you fellers write
in and tell me how many short trout you snatched out of Race Brook or about
all those bunnies yuh would have shot last fall if yer beagle hound had been
any good, I’m goin’ to have a tough time keepin’ this here column full of the
kind a’ stuff you boys want to read.
Don’t know about you boys, but I git awful tired a readin’ in the papers
about some dude kethin’ tuna out of Montauk, or about whing dings up on
Pistapaug Mountain and nary a word about whut’s goin’ on out here in the best
huntin’ and fishin’ territory within ten miles of New Haven. Jake says he
likes to hear about them foreign goin’s on, but you know Jake, he’s
interested in chasin’ girls too! Guess we’ll have to write a little about
whut goes on outside our towns just to keep him happy.
Then there is some of them political minded feller’s around thet just can’t
rest easy ‘less they know whut’s goin’ on up to Hartford every minute, and
we’ll have to slip them a few tips every once in so often when them experts
up there get to messin’ around with the statutes. If I kin lift a phrase from
the Senator from Texas, it seems to me if them politicians would approach
this business of takin’ care of the fish and game in this state with an open
mind instead of an open mouth we’d be a lot better off. Well feller’s thet’s
about the size of it. Fishin’ season is comin’ up and we got a bunch of flies
to tie but we’ll try and git around to the prospects fer getting’ a messa’
trout on openin’ day, even if the state isn’t goin’ to send those fish trucks
out this way so frequent as they used to. In the meantime if yuh don’t like
what we aims to write about here, all yuh got to do is write in and das’t us
to print your ideas on same. Be seein’ yuh.
April 5, 1951
[This was the first appearance of James Beehatch, opening sentence to the
contrary notwithstanding.]
THE STAR REPORTER
James Beehatch is back. He just dropped in late Monday afternoon, as though
nothing had happened, and asked us if we’d like to print some of his stuff.
It may not be right to encourage him, but it can’t do any permanent harm –
not to him, at any rate. Personally we’ve never gone along with his ideas,
but you can’t help feeling sorry for a man who’s been through so much, what
with his accident and his third wife’s tumor and all. We told him we’d give
him just one more chance, as long as he’d agree to keep off Communism,
religion, and women’s hats. This (which he calls “The Origin of the Horse”)
is what he pulled out and handed to us for a starter:
“People are divided into two classes: strong, small, and women. The first are
quite frequent, although not as frequent as the second are rampant. The third
are only half as frequent (but twice as rampant) as the sum of the first and
second plus the remainder of any given part of whatever results if the first
is deducted. Therefore, and for other reasons, people are said to be divided
into two classes.
“People are also said to be divided against themselves. This is more
difficult, since a person subtracted from other persons, as in the former
example, cannot be divided or multiplied again in the same quarter, local
ground rules to the contrary notwithstanding somewhat.
“If, then, conclusions are to be drawn, let them not presume to stand upon
their own merits alone, but rather upon the division thereof. Conclsions, I
the long run, may be said to be divided into two classes: strong, small, and
women.”
We read it over a couple of times and handed it back to him. After a decent
pause, conversation sprang to life between us.
“Beehatch,” we said, “we can’t print that. It’s too controversial. People
would begin to talk. We’ve got to keep people quiet.”
“People?” said Beehatch.
“Subscribers,” we said.
“Oh,” said Beehatch.
So we refused to print it, and Beehatch walked out and slammed the door, mad
as a hornet. He’s probably gone for good this time.
DOUBLE-DUTY PAPER
If you do not keep a file of your copies of The Amity Star, or use them to
wrap fish, or stuff them into rat-holes, we suggest that you tie them up
neatly in a bundle and save them for the next paper drive in your area.
Organizations in Bethany, Orange, and Woodbridge conduct regular waste rpaper
drives, notices of which appear in our columns.
April 12, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
James Beehatch is back again. We met him at last night's Civil Defense
meeting at the Bethany Town Hall, full of his usual complaints. He said Civil
Defense reminded him of air raids, and air raids reminded him of some things
he had written in an earlier defense period, before the days of the atom bomb
and two television sets in every mortgage. As usual, we said we couldn't
print it, and we didn't. It went like this:
1. Air raids come in two sizes, soft and loud.
2. A soft raid consists of bombs, fire bombs, incendiary donations, and the
Molotov Breadbasket, with or without.
3. A loud raid consists of other bombs, many of which are explosive.
4. Don’t start running until the bomb is within a certain number of feet of
something. If there is a noise, lie down and count ten. Then get up and start
running again. If there is no noise, it wasn't a bomb. Lie down and count ten
anyway. You can’t get too much practice counting nowadays.
5. If you find an unexploded bomb, pick it up and shake it. Maybe the
firingpin is stuck. If shaking doesn’t work, try a hammer—but keep your eyes
open! Many corpses have been found with their thumbs covered with hammer
bruises.
6. If you should be the victim of a direct hit, don’t go to pieces. You will
be picked up when your turn comes.
7. Don’t drink anything stronger than whiskey.
Needless to say, Beehatch left town in a huff, maybe for good.
April 19, 1951
Fishin’, Huntin’ and Lyin’
with Bull Moose
Well boys pull up them chairs and set awhile. Trout season is pretty near
hear and we got to figure out how we’re goin’ to git thet mess of ten
inchers. Jake was over to my place t’other night and he let slip that he has
got a spot located that is loaded. Says it is right handy by, but is so
common lookin’ yuh wouldn’t imagine it would float a trout. Yuh know it
occurs to me that if some of you fellers started followin’ Jake instead of
one of them State fish trucks yuh just might ketch yourself a string of
decent trout fer a change.
Opening day last year I took out fer this here Mill River over to Mt. Carmel.
It sure was a sight, musta been ten fishermen fer every trout, jest lashin’
the water white and wearin’ the finish off the darndest assortment of flies,
plugs, spinners and doodads yuh ever seen. Onc’t in awhile yuh could even see
some old fashioned geezer drownin’ a worm. I asks some of these fellers did
they catch any fish. Most of them says “Naw, there has been a bunch of
poachers in here afore the season started and they cleaned out the trout”.
After awhile when I couldn’t stand the hooks whistlin’ past my ears no more I
get up on a bridge out of the way and set on a rail to watch the fun. There
is an old duffer up there looking over at the mob scene down there in the
river and shakin’ his head. After awhile I siddles over and asks him did he
have any luck. He pulls up the top of his basket and there is as pretty a
batch of trout as yuh could ask fer. They was bright and fat and they weren’t
just three days out of a hatchery.
“Looks like the poachers didn’t git ahead of yuh on this stream”, I says. He
just grins and allows as how it ain’t fish hogs and kids messin’ around
before the season starts thet is spoilin’ fishin’ in the Mill River. He just
nods down at this stampede thet is goin’ on in the river below us and says
“Mister, its all these fellers rammin’ up and down this crick which is
causin’ the difficulty today. They is plenty of trout in thet stream but they
is not goin’ to be snagged out by any such tactics as thet”. “Yuh mean”, I
says “yuh got a special bait?”. “I got soemthin’ better’n thet”, says this
old gaffer, “I got imaginachun, I kin figure out whut I’d do were I a trout
and did fifty million guys comeo paradin’ thru my front yard”. From the looks
of his basket he warn’t jest talkin’ either.
We chewed on awhile and then he says “Come on, young feller, I’m agoin’ to
show yuh where I ketched them trout”. We hike downstream aways and pretty
soon we hit a little culvert thet runs into the main stream out of a weedy
old pasture. Up this trickle aways we find a little pool, must been all of
thre feet across and two feet deep. “Now son”, he says, “drop your fly in
thet puddle, real careful”. “Whut fly”, I says. “Don’t make no never mind
whut fly”, he says, “Just drop any old fly in there and when it hits bottom
let it lie fer a minute and then twitch it a mite.” I follers directions jest
to humer him and pretty soon things starts to happen. Pretty soon I am the
proud owner of thirteen inches of nice wild trout. From the color of thet
fish it was a long time since he had his last meal of liver. “Well son, I’ll
be seein’ yuh”, says this old duffer startin’ off downstream, “Yuh might jest
keep up thet run, I left some up there fer seed”.
What’s thet you’re sayin’ Joe, yuh wants to know where thet culvert is?
Shucks son, if I told yuh thet some of them poachers might git there first.
What’s the matter with your imaginachun? This here country is full of
culverts but yuh ain’t goin’ to find them by readin’ colums and follerin’
fish trucks.
May 10, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
A THOUGHT FOR MOTHER’S DAY
As though there weren’t enough troubles in the world already, James
(“Author”) Beehatch is back again, as full of notions as a variety store. He
dropped in last week and said he’d written something special which he was
sure we’d like to print. In fact, he said, it was irresistible. And short –
just one sentence. “I call it A Thought for Mother’s Day,” he said, “and I’m
the author.” We reserved comment. “In fact, I wrote it,” he redounded. It
was, of course, unfit for printing. We took one brief look at it and
consigned it to the furnace. We can’t quote it exactly, but a verbatim
rendering would say:
“Only those of us who have been mothers at some time or other can fully
appreciate the fact that almost everybody has a mother (at some time or
other), just about, and I say almost everybody for reasons which are about to
become apparent (or a mother), the exception which makes it almost (if we
have enough italics left) being the case of a man (at that time a mere child)
named Mushberry, who was born without benefit of mother in the small New York
State town of Upper Birth (confusing, isn’t it?), and this Mushberry was (to
put it frankly) brought by a stork, so that his friends used to rib him a
good deal and say that they should have let him go and kept the stork, which
would have been kind of silly, considering the condition that stork was in,
because it seems that when the people got a good gander at Mushberry, they
just picked up stork clubs and beat the poor bird to a pulp (or what, in
those days, passed for pulp, which hadn’t been invented), and what happened
to Mushberry’s stork (later known as Storkberry’s mush, considering the
condition it was in) can happen to you unless we defeat this vicious piece of
legislation now, so a vote for Mushberry is a vote for decency, and let’s
save our horsecars and pull the top lever.”
The weather being somewhat nasty, although quite stormy, we persuaded
Beehatch to leave town – and we may be rid of him for good this time, which
is as good a time as any.
May 17, 1951
OPEN LETTER TO THE STAR REPORTER:
Dear Sir:
Ah! Ben, je vous souhaite du plaisir! La dernière, elle n’a pas tenu deux
mois. Elle avait toujours la larme à l’oeil. J’vais vous donner un conseil,
vous en ferez ce que vous voudrez : ne pleurez pas, jamais, quoi qu’il vous
dise, parce que du jour où il vous aura amenée là, il continuera! Sans
offense, hein?
Man är allvarligt rädd för att tobakshandlarnas inkomster kommer att sjunka I
oroväckande grad i år. När tobaksnämnden i november förordade en till 8,4
proc. sänkt rabatt på utförsäljningspriset, hade nämnden trott på en ökning
av omsättningen med 86 milj. kr. eller med 15 proc. och en omkostnadsstegring
för tobakshandlarna med 10 proc. –
(James Beehatch, who wrote the foregoing anonymous letter, has requested that
his name be withheld.—Ed.)
May 31, 1951
Fishin’, Huntin’ and Lyin’
with Bull Moose
Well boys pull up them chairs and set while. Wen yuh git a long dry spell and
then some rain it jest makes them trout frantic to git on a hook. Leastwise
thet’s the way Jake puts it. Along on Saturday when it commenced to look like
rain he calls up and says, “Say, Bull, let’s go up on the Shepaug and ketch
all them trout thet has been eludin’ us since the season opens.” “Fine with
me,” I says. Pretty soon Jake calls back and says, “No dice, Bull, gotta take
my family in to town.” It sure is awful the way Jake lets them wimmen impose
on him. We leaves it thet we will get onto the river at sunup the next day.
Comes mornin’ Jake drives over and we head up country to Roxbury Falls. I’m
grumblin’ most of the way cause it has rained and probably ruint the fishin’.
When we gets to the bridge it is jest gittin’ light and the water isn’t high
enough to do no harm. Light drizzle fallin’ and dang near perfect fishin’
conditions.
I says “Jake, let’s head upstream aways and get ahead of the competition,” so
we hikes up about five miles and starts to fish. No fishermen in sight and no
trout neither. We threw the fly book at ‘em, likewise all the worms, grubs,
hellgrammites, crawfish and other crawlin’ things we can pry out from under
rotten logs, boards, and rocks along the stream. Trout ain’t interested. Jake
says “Bull, when a coupla old poachers like you and me can’t ketch ‘em on a
day like this, something’s wrong.” I agrees and we try some more tricks but
it don’t impress the trout none. Finally we has tried everything ‘cept
throwin’ dynamite in the pools. We is skunked fer sure and starts headin’
downriver. Pretty soon we comes to a little culvert leadin’ into the stream.
I remembers all the free advice I give you fellers about fishin’ culverts so
I drowns a worm in the little puddle where it runs into the main creek. Out
comes a nice brookie. Jake trys his hand and does likewise. Fur awhile we has
a picnic till our creels start to sag a mite. Then we decide we has enough
fer breakfast so starts downstream again. ‘Bout a hundred yards down Jake is
crossin’ over with his bait trailin’ in the water when I hears him give a yip
and see his pole bendin’ over real sharp. Pretty soon he hauls in as pretty a
rainbow as yuh could ask fer.
“Looks lik ewe are goin’ to make a killin’, Jake,” I says. Thet does it, not
another trout do we see in four miles of stream. All the way down we don’t
see no one till we get to the bridge. Here is about forty fellers clustered
around beatin’ the water and raisin’ foam. “Must be a rise on under thet
bridge,” says Jake. We asks ‘em “Whut luck?” and gits the usual answer. We
figures they is jest too danged lazy to walk upstream. All of which jest goes
to prove these days yuh gotta work fer your trout.
Been havin’ dog trouble lately. Got me a pup awhile back to make into a
coonhound. He don’t start so good. Don’t show no interest in coons or fer
thet matter in much else ‘cept cans of dog food. I’m getting’ plumb
discouraged tryin’ to git him to open on a track. Coupla nights ago a blonde
stops in to visit with the wife. She is wearn’ acouple of handsome silver fox
skins around her neck. She walks in and this pup takes one look at them fox
pelts and opens up with the most beautiful bawl yuh ever heard and makes a
dive fer them. I hauls him off real pleased cause this is the first time he
has go interested in anythin’ and when she leaves I tell the old lady it
looks like maybe we got us a fox hound. She says it looks to her more like we
was goin’ to have a blonde hound. I tell her it don’t make a mite of
difference to me which he hunts, I like ‘em both. Maybe I’ll be seein’ yuh
next week.
June 7, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
PICK POND PECKNICK
The Peck Pond Committee is planning what they call a “Box Supper Work Day”
(or Pick Pond Pecknick) for the afternoon of Saturday, June 16. All who are
interested and who want to help are invited to save their callouses and
garden blisters for a workout. The program includes activities for all the
family; the fathers will lay pipe to insure a good flow of water for the
summer; the mothers will grade and seed the grass area; the children will
fetch tools, run errands, quarrel, play tag on the newly-seeded plot, fall
into the pipe-ditch, and impede operations in general. Even the family dog
may be useful in disposing of supper remainders and burying the bones of any
mammoths which may have died on the beach during the winter.
June 14, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTION
It was reported nearby that a motorist had been arrested in a nearby town for
traveling 30 miles per hour after passing a sign reading REDUCE SPEED 25 MPH
– MEN WORKING. He said he had been going 55 and had obeyed what the sign said
– reduce speed 25 miles per hour. After the laughter has subsided, we will
take up this oppressed motorist’s cause and defend him. Too many of our signs
are unnecessarily abbreviated. The addition of the word “to” in this case
wouldn’t have increased the sign’s size materially, and it would have made
its directive immediately clear to the driver. (We once encountered a sign in
New Hampshire which said GO SLOW WHEN WET – and we’ve been obeying it when
wet ever since.)
But to get back to our oppressed motorist: we went over and drove past the
same sign, just to see what effect it might have on our reflexes. There it
was, REDUCE SPEED 25 MPH – and our reflexes really went to work. We happened
to be going 20 at the time, so we came to a full stop and began backing up at
the rate of 5 MPH. Then the trouble started. You see, judge, the man
following us was going 63 when he saw the sign. He whipped out a slide-rule
and began to calculate 63 minus 25, 5 from 13, carry the 1, 3 from 6 – WHAM!
– 63 minus 25 plus the minus 5 at which we were traveling brought us together
at a combined adjusted rate of 43 MPH, with his radiator sitting on our back
seat. Then we were both in trouble: staring us in the face was another sign
reading STOPPING ON PAVEMENT PROHIBITED.
June 21, 1951
HUNTIN’ FISHIN’ & LYIN’
with Jake Smeller
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Bull Moose, his nerves worn to a frumpit by arduous idleness,
has laid his pencil aside and, on orders from his veterinary, has taken to
the woods for a much-needed vacation. IN his absence this column will be
conducted by his boon companion and fellow-Ananias, Jake, who will strap on
his snowshoes and tromp over from Orange each week to deliver his
manuscribble to our editorial doorstep.)
Fellers, while The Bull is up Noth some place huntin fer some fish and lies
I’m goin’ to put the tracks on the paper. The Bull says it’s a job he’s goin’
on, but he takes six rods with him; tough life.
You’ve heard a pack of tall stories in this column, so fer a change you’re
goin’ t’get some lowdown fer onct. It all happened a couple a days ago when
Bull’s little woman, Shorty, told him to go out and catch some of the big uns
he’s always written bout. Meat’s high these days.
Rained all nite before we left, and was pouring at 6 a.m. as we headed for
Lake Saltinstall when The Bull sez, “Jake, with this flood after the dry
spell we’ve had, it just might be good fishen.” Two hours later The Bull sez,
“Never cought any fish on a cold East wind with so much rain.” After you get
just so wet you can’t get any weter, but
you sure can get warmer. So we ate
sinkers and drank coffee for two hours in a diner while warmin’ up. That rain
wouldn’t let up and our strategy went something like this: no fish in the
lake, then we’ll try a river, a stream, and then give up. The river looked
perfect for sea-run browns and some beauaties have come out of the Farm
River; I cought a nice 11-inch brown and one 12-pound snapping turtle. The
Bull couldn’t even get the mosquits to bite.
The Branford river looked equally good and turned out to be dead – then’s
when our strategy paid off. We found a little unnamed trickle out in North
Madison, and before I could put a worm on, The Bull sezz, “Got one workin’,
it looks good.” And it was good. We brought in eighti little brookies of
which five were keepers. I cought the five.
I could see the way The Bull was chewin’ his cigar he was burnin’ more’n a
little, the day was getting’ on, bein’ after 3 p.m., when yours truly
suggested we head cross country to a stream we had seen on a map. The Bull
was eager, and in no time we had got into the worst swamp you ever see. Two
hours later the swamp was getting worse. Bogs two and three feet high all
covered with lush vegetation, brush, briers, and everything like an African
jungle. We were plum lost, wet to the skin, cold, and on such a dark rainy
day night falls early. Just when we were most depressed and making plans to
spend the night and just wait for bloodhounds to find us, old mother nature
played her part. Yep, you know most of us have one leg just a bit shorter
than tother’ so lo and behold we came right back to that little stream we had
left a long four hours before. If The Bull was writtin’ this, wou’ld never of
heard of it, ‘cause he considers himself a better woodsman than that. So do
I.
Guess it was just plain fury that gave our friend strength to bait one last
hook with one last worm and to drop it into the water. I can tell you from
observation that knowone ever had a broader grin on his face than The Bull as
he played the monster of that little stream. Yes, it was a full 12 inches of
the fightenest native brookie you ever see.
And this just points up what The Bull sez so often: “Don’t give up too easy.”
Now let me add a bit of observation: never go into the woods without a
compass, and never go into the woods with The Bull unless you’re ready for
anything.
July 5, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
PEDICULUS CAPITIS
This somewhat impressive name belongs to the common head louse, who is the
subject of a recent release from the State Department of Health, which says,
among other things, that “It’s no disgrace to get lice, but it is to keep
them.” Having never kept a louse, domesticated or otherwise, we cannot speak
from experience. Those who find themselves infested may, however, take
comfort from another statement in the release: “People who have lice …
usually feel fine otherwise.” Look out for that happy-looking neighbor of
yours. He may be lousy.
If you haven’t anything better to do, consider, for a moment, one of the
complexities of louse-keeping. The problem concerns one house mouse (A) who
is providing nesting-room for one louse (B). Being an enterprising pediculus,
B builds himself a small house in A’s fur. Along comes a very small house
mouse (C) and takes up residence in B’s louse house. By rare coincidence, C
is providing taxi service for his own very small louse (D). By simple
deduction, therefore, and for no fault of his own, D becomes a house mouse
louse house house mouse louse. Now if D builds a very, very small house …
hey, where is everybody going?
WHO WON? OR WHY TELEVISION IS POPULAR
Recently a group of boys and girls from Bethany journeyed to New York City to
witness a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White
Sox. They were guests of Yankee Juniors, Inc. One of the leaders of the group
has written an impression of the game as he saw it for those who have never
tingled with such an experience.
“. . . we’re certainly up high in the air (highest tier of seats in the far
left field stands) . . . not too noisy . . . yet . . . they’re playing the
Star Spangled Banner . . . whole Stadium at attention . . . . . game started
. . . . ball looks like a marble from here . . a hit . . . ten thousand
Yankee Juniors making noise like a boiler factory with freight trains running
through it . . . 2 outs . . . kids fighting in seats below . . . peanuts
flying around . . . another hit . . . can’t see whether he’s safe or not . .
everybody standing up . . . ‘please stop dropping ice cream down the back of
my neck . . . thank you’ . . . head begins to ache . . . 2 strikes on batter
. . . getting noisier . . . . . can’t hear nearby elevated trains anymore . .
. . . weather vane is baseball bat instead of arrow . . . 2 outs . . . man on
second trying to steal . . . good big scoreboard . . . ten thousand husky
voices shouting ‘we want a hit’ . . . using feet to help keep time . . . feel
the stands wiggling . . . 3 outs . . . pigeon flies calmly into stands . . .
gets out in a hurry . . . score 2 to 1 . . . yelling continuous . . . getting
louder . . . vender tries to throw large cup soft ice cream to boy 15 rows up
. . . cover comes off spraying last five rows . . . aim bad . . . boy catches
soft mush full in face . . . . . much laughter . . . . no charge . . .
somebody hits somebody else in . . . score 3 to 1 . . . players unconcerned
with confusion in upper left field stands . . . upper left field stands in
part unconcerned with players . . . nice hit . . . boy drops hotdog on cement
step . . . leaves roll . . . continues on up . . . eating hotdog . . .
shadows getting longer . . . still can’t hear trains . . . there goes
somebody’s hat . . . another fight . . . game’s over . . .”
July 26, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
J. BEEHATCH, MILLIONAIRE
James Beehatch, whom we periodically kick out of the office, has slithered
back in with an idea which, he says, is going to make him a fortune. He
explains it this way: in some of the grocery stores you will find a ready-tocook Popover Mix, bearing the instructions: “To the contents of this package,
add 2 unbeaten eggs and 1 cup milk…” The resulting magic is supposed to give
you 12 fluffy, golden-brown popovers, all for fifteen cents. But, he points
out (with the help of his wife) popovers contain only eggs, milk, flour, and
salt – so you are paying fifteen cents for a cup of flour and a quarterteaspoon of salt. The eggs and milk – the expensive ingredients – you have to
supply yourself. “In a packaged mix,” says the Beehatch, “it’s not what they
put in that counts – it’s what they leave out.”
Delivering himself of this wisdom, he proceeds to expound further: I ppropose
to leave out one more ingredient, increase the amount of the remaning one,
and coin money faster than the government can take it away from me.” And with
that he lays before us the whole scheme, which we give you verbatim and also
in his very words:
Form a company called “Vox Popovers, Inc.” and start marketing the
product like mad, according to any of these plans –
Plan A – Vox Popovers, Regular Size: Take an ordinary box of kitchen
salt (3¼ inches in diameter, 5¼ inches high), containing 100
teaspoonfuls of salt. This will cost you about $.08. Remove the maker’s
label and substitute your own, which should read: “To the contents of
this package, add 800 unbeaten eggs, 400 cups milk, and 400 cups
flour.” This recipe will make 4,800 popovers. At the current rate of
$.0125 per popover (based on the mix I
bought), this batch is worth
$60.00. Now sell your newly-labeled 8-cent box of salt for $50.00,
which will give you a pretty fair profit and assure you of a satisfied
customer – he’s saving $10.00!
Plan B – Vox Popovers, De Luxe Package: Take a 100-pound sack of salt.
Pay as much as $10.00 if you have to. Now crochet on the sack a new
label to cover the old one: “To the contents of this sack, add 48,000
unbeaten eggs, 24,400 cups milk, and 24,400 cups flour.” The yield from
this will be 292,800 popovers, which would cost, at prevailing prices,
$3,660.00. You now sell the sack for $3,500.00, making a neat profit of
$3,490.00 and saving the customer $160.00 (which he can spend on
bicarbonate).
Plan C – Vox Popovers, Economical Family Size: Take a six-ton carload
of salt. Pay $1,000.00 if necessary. At the time of delivery to the
customer, go along with the carload yourself, prepared to recite (from
memory) the directions: “To the contents of this car, add 5,866,000
unbeaten eggs, 2,928,000 cups milk, and 2,928,000 cups flour, sir.”
Here you will have the makings for 35,136,000 popovers – worth
$439,200.00 in the open market. On this one you can offer a special
come-on price of $399,999.98 and still pocket a tidy sum for your
trouble.
You will note that these plans are all devised to save money for the
customer. The only things he has to furnish are the eggs, the milk, and
the flour.
Beehatch suggested that we set him up to an experimental fling at Plan B, but
when we reminded him that he is already on our cuff for a considerable number
of pussyskins, he settled for a try at Plan A. Surely he’s gone for good this
time.
[This column was reprinted in 1953 by popular demand]
August 2, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
DISQ UIS ITI ON
FROM A TO Q
(A True Story)
And there were in the land of Beth-any certain good citizens and honest
burghers who tilled their fields and tended their stills and kept their
houses in sound fettle, and lived good and quiet lives, not causing any of
trouble to their neighbors.
And it came to pass that in the autumn season, not far off from the feast of
Thanks-giving, one burgher called A did sell to one burgher B, for certain
valuable considerations, the entire person of one heifer, a black and white,
immature, female bovine creature of giddy temperament and somewhat given to
wanderlust – a heifer called C. (It should be noted, but not too well, that C
was not a burgher – nor yet even a hamburgher, she being very much on the
restless hoof.) Burgher B, thinking to turn a fast buck with the doe, did
sell C, his lawful chattel, to D, a butcher and slaughterer of meat animals,
both the lean and the fat. But before D could lay hold on and take possession
of C, the latter deceitfully, with malice aforethought, and in unseemly
haste, did escape, scamper, make off, run away, and scram. Thereafter, at
large and free of restraint, the said C did run in accordance with the
dictates of her conscience and appetite, caring for neither fence, wall, nor
clothesline. In her wild career of uprooting gardens and charging innocent
bystanders, C was hotly pursued not only by the hue and cry, but also by
posses both armed (with guns, knives, picks, bats, ropes, truncheons, and
pickling-lime) and unarmed (without guns, knives, picks, bats, ropes,
truncheons, or pickling-lime). Exercising the gamut of evasive tactics and
trickery, she eluded all capturous attempts.
And it also cane to pass that on a certain day in July, two groups of
huntsmen were engaged in the chase: one a posse of burghers on foot, horse,
and motorcycle, led by one burgher E; and one single group consisting of one
man, yclept F, carrying a 30-30 rifle loaded with powder and ball, primed,
and at the ready. While thus protected and in pursuit of C, F passed over
certain grounds belonging to G, an householder of the town. Suddenly, without
warning, there appeared within the vision-range of F (although partially
concealed behind a stone wall), at a distance of two-bedcord dead ahead, a
live animal – black and white, immature, bovine, and munching. F, following a
somewhat natural impulse, raised all 60 of the 30-30, took deliberate aim,
and fired at point-blank range, the shot striking the animal in parts unknown
and dropping it into its lunch. Upon observing the results of his
triggership, F. apparently for reasons of squeam, did not advance to
administer the customary coup de grace or other rites. Instead he did retrace
his steps and seek out G, to report triumphantly the long-sought demise of C,
the elusive girl-child, heretofore slandered.
The next transpirations found G sending a hasty summons to E and his posse,
who forthwith sped to the place of death to inspect and collecdt the boveal
remains of C. To their astonishment, however, they found not C at all, but H,
a black and white, immature bovine character of the masculine gender, and all
very defunct.
Events now ran a rapid course: E took H to the freeze-house of I and divided
H into a convenient number of pieces (identified as J, K, L, M, Nd N). Then
came O, H’s late owner, to claim injury and damages against G (proprietor of
the death-grounds), P (lessor of pasturage to Q, into whose hands and custody
H had been paroled by O), and Q (who had failed to keep his fences in repair
and thus had permitted H to stray from the pasture which he, Q, had leased
from P, to the property of G, where H had met a sudden obliteration at the
hands of F). The damages which O claimed against G, P, and Q ran into a
three-figured hamper of wampumpeag, O claiming that H was a nearly-mature
servant almost ready to pursue a useful and profitable trade. Then also came
E, claiming the dismembered parts of H as compensation for dragging H out of
G’s woods and for converting H into J, K, L, M, and N, that they might be
hung in the frost-chambers of I. What claims for rent and storage I intends
to advance, no one knows.
This much only is certain: C is still at large, uprooting gardens, charging
innocent bystanders, and exercising the gamut of evasive tactics and trickery
like a very poltergeist – which she may be.
August 23, 1951
“HAVING WONDERFUL TIME . . . . WISH YOU WERE HERE”
With Belinda Beehatch
Something seems to stall Belinda on Press Night. Her promise to outline some
nice excursion each week has failed miserably. But if all her rejected copy
were placed end to end, you would have travelled quite some miles.
This being the season for country fairs, we’ll list a few nearby. They are
all fun to go to, and more fun to be an exhibitor in. These fairs are
wonderful proof that home industry and self-sufficiency are still thriving.
. . .
September 6, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
INCREDIBLE
In celebration of the opening of school (which we greet with unmixed
emotions), there has arrived at hand, by native runner, an advance copy of
“James Beehatch’s Primer, A Compendium of Decent Stories for the Very Young,”
which promises to revolutionize the teaching of everything but algebra within
the next few months. It deserves a place on the shelf of every school – the
shelf where they keep the dust-rags and soap-powders.
Mr. Beehatch calls the first section of his book “Terribly Incredible
Stories,” and Chapter 1 is the story of
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD
“Of all the silly, viciously deceptive fabrications set before an
unsuspecting public by the hand of man, the story of Little Red Riding Hood
is the worst. This absurd tale is familiar to everybody – an innocent little
girl, wearing a rather flashy set of gladrags, starts out with a basket of
indigestibles to visit her poor, sick grandmother, who lives ‘on the other
side of the forest’ – a location sufficiently indefinite to arouse immediate
suspicion if you’re on your guard. On the way this lovely child meets a wolf,
who asks her where she is going. Does she run away or climb a tree or flop
into a faint? She does not. Being a simple and inexperienced moppet (and not
at all startled at hearing an obviously uneducated wolf talking her native
dialect), Red tells him she is going to Granny’s house. Now this particular
wolf has never heard of Granny before, and five will get you ten that he has
never seen her house – but does this give him any trouble?: Of course it
doesn’t. He races ahead, by a shortcut, and proceeds to do what some wolf
would have done long before if they hadn’t all been waiting for this story to
be written: he dashes into Granny’s house and eats the old lady in one gulp,
puts on her nightcap, hits the sack, and waits for Red to cross the goal-line
with the goodies. You know the rest, if you’ve been wasting any of your time
at all.
“Now this is all pretty incredible stuff. In the first place, wolves have no
organized family life as we know it, so they cannot possibly understand the
word ‘grandmother’ used in the true grandmother sense. And if this wolf is so
hungry, why doesn’t he eat Little Red when he first meets her? (Then, after a
dessert of goodies, he can go on and collect Granny for his deep-freeze.) But
no. He is a stupid chucklehead who runs around the woods in his bare feet,
only to get, as his richly-deserved reward, a rather severe and fatal brain
concussion administered by a woodsman who just happens (for the sake of the
story) to be loafing near the shack. No smart wolf would lay himself open to
any such punch-line as that. As for the woodsman and his perfectly-timed
entry, you just have to accept him – otherwise there would have been a
victorious wolf and no story – which isn’t such a bad idea at that, if you
think it over.
“Let us now consider the unbelievable stupidity of Little Red, who, without
making one single intelligent move, survives this entire tussock of horrid
mistakes – and gains immortality! In the beginning this squarehead blithely
tells a completely strange wolf where she is going (and probably how fat and
well-kept dear Granny is). Then later, in a scene unsurpassed in the annals
of gullibility, she mistakes that squalid animal, fur and all, for her poor
grandmother (who was ordinarily sober and clean-shaven). In the famous
bedside-dialogue sequence, she makes those pungent observations and
excessively rude, personal remarks (“What big ears you have, Grandmother!”)
which have made her name a household word – or several household words. We
are told not only that Red Riding Hood actually existed, but that she
survived in spite of boneheadedness that would have been fatal to any child
three times her size and weight.
“Some distorted, unverified versions of the story say that the old lady
merges, unscathed, from the belly of the wolf after that unhappy creature has
been divided up, into unequal shares, by the woodsman’s axe. You are entitled
to your own opinion, of course, but she’d have to be a pretty small person
(definitely less than grandmother-size) to pass through a wolf’s mouth and
throat without injury of some sort. According to these versions, however, she
comes out without a scratch and happily embraces her grandchild, who has
caused the whole unpleasant mess. The author neatly avoids committing himself
as to how long Granny spends inside the wolf – but it is a well-known fact
that the amount of undistributed oxygen in a wolf’s stomach is insufficient
to support human life for more than two or three minutes at the most.
“The reporter who dug up this trash is probably prepared to prove his ‘facts’
by forged documents and trick photographs. Let him produce his proof! I say
the story is a tissue of lies!”
September 13, 1951
Huntin’ Fishin’ and Lyin’
with Bull Moose
Well boys pull up them chairs and set awhile. Feller name of Wiley Bass writ
me awhile back and sent along a picture of a trout he sez he caught out in
that Yellowstone Park place accordin’ to directions furnished in this column.
Looks to me like he did not read them directions too good or else he shoulda
stayed to home in Connecticut fer his fishin’. Thet trout looked to be about
the size Jake and me has been usin’ fer bait lately.
Speakin’ of Jake minds me of somethin’ thet happened a coupla nights ago.
Neighbor of mine calls up and says a bunch of coons has been makin’ free with
her seet corn and whut did I think had baest be done about it? Now when it
comes to coons accordin’ to Jake there is jest one authority around these
parts, so I calls him up.
“Jake, they’s a lady down the road havin’ trouble with coons, whut do yuh
advise?”
“Why,” says Jake, “I’d advise puttin’ these coon hounds of mine into the
cornfield and we’ll have thet coon up a tree quicker than it takes to tell.
Then we’ll ketch him alive, dump him in a sack, and lug him off about ten
miles an dturn him loose. Thet will settle everyone’s problems includin’ the
coon’s.”
Them experts kin sure make things sound simple, so I says, “Okay, Jake, when
does all this bring-‘em-back-alive act come off?”
“No time like now,” says Jake. “Let’s go.” In about twenty minutes he shows
up with a car full of dogs and we proceeds to whut them Englishmen call “The
Chase.”
When we turns the dogs into the corn they tear around like they really mean
business, and Jake says, “Won’t be long now.” Pretty soon they llose interest
and come over and set by us. “No coons in here tonight,” says Jake. “Let’s
take us a circle up in them woods and see if we can’t cut a track.”
After a piece we come out in a feller’s yard and set off his watch dogs. His
old lady sticks her neck out the winder and hollers, “What’s comin’ off, a
raid?”
“Naw,” we says, “we’re jest lookin’ fer a coon whut has been messin’ up
cornfields in this vicinity. Hev yuh seen it?” They ain’t seen it, but this
feller decides he’ll come along and help make Bethany safe fer cornfields. We
hunts on, and after bullin’ thru a coupla swamps and some blowdowns, one of
the dogs strikes somethin’ and goes away buglin’ real good. Pretty good Jake
says he is barkin’ treed. Time we git there he isn’t barkin’ nothin’ – fact
is we can’t even find him.
We rest and ketch whut is left of our wind, and after a spell the dog shows
up. “Musta ledged thet coon,” says Jake. This feller thet is with us decides
he has done his stint of controllin’ predators and goes home to bed. Jake and
me, bein’ fools and persistent, hunt on.
In an hour or so Jake says, “Hey, Bull, this is a slow night fer huntin’.
Let’s go home.” So we starts out and ram thru a coupla more swamps on whut we
think is the way to where we left the car. We don’t get there as quick as
Jake thinks we oughta and after mutterin’ awhile he says, “Say, Bull, where
are we?”
“Well,” I says, “there is roads on all sides of us and my house ain’t more’n
a half a mile off, so we can’t be lost. Jest take a squint at your compass
and we’ll be on our way.”
“Uh, Bull, I left my compass in my other pants.”
“Well,” I says, “let’s listen fer cards.”
We listen fer quite a spell but it it three a.m. and cars are scarce as hen’s
teeth in Bethany thet time of day. So Jake says, “My sense of direction is
pretty good. I think we should go over thataway.” We do and it ain’t long
before we get right back to where we started relyin’ on Jake’s sense of
dirctoin.
Bout then the moon comes up and we get a bearin’ and start out again. Next
thing we know one of the dogs is barkin’ treed back where we came from, and
we backtrack quick to ketch thet coon. Sure enough, we shine the tree and
there is a pair of eyes shinin’ down at us. “It’s a nice young coon,” says
Jake. “He’ll be easy to ketch.” We makes preparations and Jake gets set to
climb. By now the critter has shifted position, and when we shine him again
he don’t look so much like a coon. Fact is, he has a tail like a snake and a
long rat nose. “Dang it, Bull, thet’s jest a lousy old possum,” says Jake,
and he won’t even climb fer it. So we hauls the dogs off and starts fer the
moon. Finally we comes outa the brush only about a mile from where we should
be.
It sure was some hunt, even if thet coon is still terrorizin’ Bethany.
September 20, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
3,876 BOXES OF BITZIES
And now there cometh one James Beehatch, who doth set down and depose and
remark somewhat as follows (if you can believe him):
“No self-respecting manufacturer of breakfast cereal dares allow a box to
escape him nowadays without including with it some kind of premium or extra
inducement – a ring or a whistle or a card or a coupon of some sort. The
buyer is no longer expected to purchase the cereal for its food value. He is
expected to buy it in order to get a boxtop which he may exchange (along with
a nominal fee for wrapping and mailing) for an atomic garbage pail, or a
secret magic cardboard device for decoding Indian smoke signals, or a hair
from the mane of some cowboy’s horse.
“I ran across a golden opportunity in a box of Bitzies the other day. (The
name, of course, is fictitious, and any resemblance to any actual cereal,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.) In this Bitzies box was a coupon and
an offer of a set of silverware which you may acquire, piece by piece, by
sending in Bitzies coupons (1 to the box) plus a small charge (5¢) for the
kitty. ‘Think of it,’ I said to myself, ‘a whole set of fine silver
teaspoons, knives, forks, soup spoons, salad forks, and everything – ten
items in all. I shall have to start building a set of six of each. Let’s see
how it’s done.’
“Well, for a teaspoon – one teaspoon, that is – you send in 34 coupons plus
the nickel. That’s 34 boxes of Bitzies. Assuming that you can do away with a
box of Bitzies in four days (and that’s packing it in pretty well), you will
have your first teaspoon in 136 days, or roughly 4½ months. If you’re not
sick of Bitzies by this time, you can go on and build your set up to six
teaspoons in a matter of another 22½ months. At the end of 27 months (or 2¼
years), therefore, you will be able to serve dinner for six – provided you
limit your table service to one piece, a teaspoon, at each place.
“Now that you have made such a promising start, you’d better go on and
complete your set of ten items. How about some dinner forks? A fork requires
only 69 coupons, or a little over 9 months. To get your set of six forks, you
eat Bitzies for 54 months, or 4½ years. You have now eaten your way through
6¾ years of Bitzies, and you have only 12 out of a possible 60 pieces of
silverware.
“Six of the remaining items require 69 coupons each. At the established rate
of 4½ years per item, you will have these in 27 years, which makes your total
elapsed time 33¾ years.
“But wait! You ought to have some knives in all this. Passing rapidly over
the solid-handle knife, which calls for a mere 89 coupons, you go for the
hollow-handle job, a 129-coupon bargain. One knife will cost you slightly
over 17 months of Bitzies Bitzies Bitzies Bitzies (excuse me) – or 8½ years
for the six. So at last you have your complete set – six of each of ten items
– and it has taken only 42½ years and 3,876 boxes of those crunchy, healthgiving, golden-brown, ready-to-burst Bitzies.
“On the outside of the box, it says: ‘Start your set now!’ That’s fine. At
the age of about 83, I shall have my set of silverware and will be able to
invite some friends in to dine. But by that time I shall have eaten 3,876
boxes of Bitzies – or 2,907 pounds, and I may not be very hungry.
“I guess I’ll buy a boz of Strangled Wheat instead – they’re giving away a
cowboy hat and a pair of spurs. Or better still is the Peppered Oats offer: a
cinder-block for each boxtop. ‘Build that dream house for your old age!’
Beehatch’s castle! Pass the Peppered Oats, Belinda.
GENERAL STATEMENT
It may not have any serious or lasting effect on the conduct of the war in
the Far East, but General James A. Van Fleet was quoted in a daily newspaper
the other day as having told a reporter in Tokyo, with deathless ambiguity:
“I never miss a day without reading Blondie.”
This statement leaves us, to say the least, somewhat in the dark as to the
General’s daily reading habits, and we hope he doesn’t carry this sort of
straight-from-the-shoulder talk onto the battlefield.
“General,” asks the Colonel, “shall I order the men to attack or to retreat?”
“You shall,” replies the General, and the battle is won/lost with great
glory/loss of life. Ambiguous, did we say? It’s positively ambagious, if not
battologous.
September 27, 1951
Huntin’ Fishin’ and Lyin’
with Jake Smeller
No news from the Bull in Wisconsin – may be lost with or without a compass
and if he ever comes home I’ve got some bones to pick clean with him. Old
Jake’s in the skunk house ‘cause of him. Yep, I said “skunk house” and here’s
how it all happened.
Bout 4 weeks ago, the phone jingled and a sweet, well-built voice asked, “Are
you the big game hunter my friend Bull Moose tells of?”
I sez, “Well, not exactly ‘big game’ but I do my share of hunitn’. Why?”
“Well,” sez the sweetie, “I have a little skunk in my garbage pail – will you
pleeze help me?”
I sez, “Shore,” and late that nite, drove over to see the situation.
She sure was a sweet young thing in distress, so I rolled up my sleeves and
went to work like the colume often tells of. On close lookin’, thet was no
small pole cat, but an old boar. Wot a situation! Well, I think a few times
what my woman would say if thet pussy cat cut loose in the car, but thet
girlie smiled, and I jes up with the swill pail and poured old skunk into the
trunk of the car, tipped my coon skin cap, and drove home.
Ole polecat was still in the car in the mornin’ when my woman wanted to drive
it. Some fuss. Gritted my teeth and just pulled old pussy out by the tail and
set him in an ole wire crate. So far the skunk was good as gold. Began to
think my friend was a pet already deodorized.
An for four weeks I fed that pet, hound dogs smelled the crate, and kids
hammered it for fun. Then it happened. Little Lotor (latin name for raccoon),
which we named our three-year-old daughter, was playin’ with her pet snappin’
turtle, Eli. Lotor decided to show Mr. Skunk her snapper – she poked Eli
through the wire of the crate, and that old boar skunk just poured it on –
WOW – what a scent. And my woman jes fergot her church lessons. Can’t
understand it. Lotor wasn’t hurt – she jes smelled higher’n the skunk and
didn’t seem to mind much. But her ma – Gad zooks. When she began to cool
down, she jes said, “Jake, you kin jes sleep in thet skunk house ‘til all the
stink is gone.”
Thet’s what I mean by “bones to pick clean” with the Bull. Turned that skunk
loose quick, and I kin tell ya it’s cold in thet hot crate these nights. ADV:
Wanted: good man fer nocturnal huntin’ with understandin’ wife who doesn’t
cuss from strong smells. Apply Jake Smeller, care of The Amity Star, Box
3030.
October 11, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
J. BEEHATCH, HISTORIAN
James Beehatch, eminent historian, hop-scotch champion, and inventor of the
spiral, dropped in the other day with another chapter of his Primer (wrapped,
as usual, in an old occidental rug) – this one a very timely contribution, in
consideration of tomorrow’s anniversary. Without further distangle,
therefore, we give you the business in its entirety, for what it’s worth.
AMERICA: COLUMBUS DISCOVERS IT
“At 2:45 on the afternoon of October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus stepped
out of a dinghy into about four inches of water. (The ‘October 12’ is, of
course, ‘old time.’ The ‘2:45’ has sometimes been called ‘hot old time.’)
Anyway, he stepped out of a dinghy.
“This here name ‘Christopher Columbus’ was obviously an alias. It has been
fairly well established that his name actually was ‘Christophoro Columbo.’
Scholars and the more serious researchers have detected a striking similarity
between the two versions: note that ‘Christoph-’ and ‘Columb-’ are common to
both; and we know that the ‘-er’ and the ‘-us’ forms were often used to
disguise a name with an ‘-o’ ending, especially by explorers. This fact,
coupled with the definite evidence that there was an explorer by the name of
Columbus (or Columbo) actively living at the time, leads to the obvious
conclusion that this man, whom we now see stepping into four inches of water,
must have been the real Columbo (or Columbus) of whom we are speaking.
“It is interesting to note that 16th Century puzzleheads, unable to agree on
whether ift should be ‘-us’ or ‘-o’ (or either), finally joined forces and
combined the two. This resulted in what we now know as the USO, an
organization formed by combining a ‘US’ with an ‘O’ to make an abbreviation
known as ‘USO’ – or ‘the USO.’ Columbus had nothing to do with this.
“Therefore we celebrate Columbus Day on October 12.”
(NOTE: Beehatch prepared 19 inches of additional copy on Columbus – but space
is lacking. If there is a popular demand for the balance . . . well . . .)
OCTOBER 18, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
COLUMBUS, AGAIN
(EDITOR’S NOTE: In response to popular demand, we are continuing this week
the Columbus story which was shortened, in the last issue, by popular
demand.)
“Well, anyway, he stepped out of the dinghy into three inches of water (the
tide was going out) and walked briskly up the beach. He then planted his foot
(some say the left, some say the right) on a spot which has seldom, if ever,
been called ‘Plymouth Rock’ (it even has a sign on it now, saying ‘This is
not Plymouth Rock’), and said as follows:
“‘. . . . . . . . . . .!’
“There are extant so many versions of just what he said or did not say that
it is foolish to choose any one, arbitrarily, and quote it as the true
version. Witnesses, interviewed after the event (and note that their
credibility was not established before the event) differed widely in their
recollections. One thing they all were agreed on, however: he spoke in
Italian. (This fact should be borne in mind.)
“Historians have since proven, to our complete satisfaction, that he didn’t
really say anything. Some say the Indians heard him speak. Nonsense. The
Indians, not having been named yet, were not Indians, and they were (as we
now know) not within earshot. Besides, they didn’t understand Italian, which
was or was not the language which he used when he spoke (or did not speak).
Not being within earshot, they couldn’t have heard him. It is a well-known
fact that if there is no one present to hear a sound, there is no sound, as
is the case in “A Tree Falls in Brooklyn” – if there is no one in Brooklyn at
the time.
“(You can well imagine the astonishment of the people of Brooklyn when they
return and find that a tree has fallen, leaving no noise.)
“Therefore, we are forced to conclude that Columbus merely opened his mouth
and made no sound. The witnesses testified that he opened his mouth. Would
they not have reported it if he had actually made sounds? The evidence is
preponderantly: a body legally exhumed many years later (and said, by old
residents, to be the body of one C. Columbus, Explorer) was found, via
autopsy, to contain the remains of primitive vocal chores which showed
definite traces of having been used during the lifetime of the owner. We
must, therefore, conclude, again that Columbus could speak – and we incline
to the theory that he probably did, this being a momentous occasion in an
otherwise-uneventful life. Uneventful, that is, as far as discoveries were
concerned. Europe had already been found and established. Africa was of minor
importance. Asia was more Chinese and Indian than anything else, according to
reliable reports. Columbus, it is true, had discovered other things here and
there, but he was not, by and large, a big operator in the business.
“In making his well-known declaration, Columbus claimed all the land which
was then under his feet and ‘for as far as a horse can run in a week’ in
several directions, all in the name of Spain, because the Queen of Spain had
pawned her jewels to buy him ‘three galleons’ named Santa Maria, Nina, and
Pinta. (The Pinta, while it was a full third of his fleet, was actually only
one-eighth of a galleon.)
“The Queen’s jewels, known as the ‘Hope Diamond’ and ‘Plymouth Rock,’
respectively, were later returned to the Queen, who had no use for three used
ships. One of the ships was given to Columbia University (afterward known as
‘King’s College’ in honor of the King, who was under the impression that it
was his, since his wife’s ships had been given to it) and the other two were
given to the Trustees of King’s College, which was then renamed ‘Columbia
Univeristy,’ in honor of Isabella Columbia, the foster-mother of Columbus,
whose ships had been bought with the mondy derived from the sale of the
jewels of Queen Isabella, owner of the ‘Hope Diamond’ and of ‘Plymouth Rock’
– on which, to this day, there is a sign saying: ‘This is not the Hope
Diamond.’”
October 25, 1951
Huntin’ Fishin’ and Lyin’
with Bull Moose
Well boys pull up them chairs and set awhile. Things has been kinda quiet
around here since old Jake decided huntin’ in Conn. Wasn’t up to snuff and
loaded his potlickers into the trailer and took off to Maine. Says he’s goin’
to hunt ringtails by night and horned beef daytimes. In the meantime I’ll bet
all the coons around here is takin’ a deep breath and figurin’ they’ve got a
week of grace till he gets back. I been keepin’ my eye peeled cause I kind of
expect to see Jake comin’ thru here strapped to someone’s fender. Beard a
rumour from Maine thet there is so many hunters up there that this year they
expect to shoot one hunter fer every two deer.
Last Saturday mornin’ I heard the annual barrage start up at sunrise so
pulled the covers back over my head and slept on. One place I don’t ever aim
to get caught is in the woods within ten miles of New Haven on openin’
mornin’ of huntin’ season. Too many fellers is workin’ off all accumulated
grudges against humanity on thet day. Accordin’ to all the boys I’ve talked
to since then the birds is somewhat less than abundant around here this year,
which brings up a question I been meaning to discuss fer some time, namely
where is the birds went to?
I’ve heard it blamed on too much huntin’, too little stockin’, new diseases,
and too much wet weather. Some folks even thinks they can lay it all on the
foxes. If yuh work at it yuh kin build up a pretty good case fer any or all
of them factors, but accordin’ to my observations none of them theories
really stack up to much if yuh get scientific about it. Now my own pet theory
goes somethin’ like this: if yuh look at the history of Connecticut yuj’ll
notice thet fer the first coupla hundred years after the palefaces settled
here it was an agricultural state and the soil was pretty fair and most
everbody farmed it and lived pretty good. Then ‘bout 1800 the soil started to
thin out and folks began havin’ a tough time squeezin’ a livin’ out of the
rock ledges thet formed the backbone of this state. Since most of the topsoil
had run down to Long Island Sound people who was serious about farmin’ took
off fer the Mississippi valley where the topsoil was ten feet deep and would
last forever, they said. Lots of farms grew up to brush and whut farmers was
left either moved to cities and started to eat regular or else congregated
down in the river bottoms and went to raisin’ fruit and cattle and chickens
instead of croppin’ grain like they used to. Course durin’ this time there
was lots of game left cause farmin’ took a lot of time and shootin’ irons
warn’t whut they are nowadays, and city slickers couldn’t git into the
backwoods so easy as they can now. Nevertheless there wasn’t much bein’ done
to improve the land or keep whut soil was left in place.
Then long in the early nineteen hundreds the chestnut blight hit this country
and wiped out the tree thet probably was the best food supply fer all the
bigger animals and birds around here. So the game gets another kick in the
teeth. Now you boys know it takes a lot longer to build up soil than it does
to wash it away and in a hilly country like Connecticut a hundred years don’t
amount to nothin’ in layin’ down a layer of topsoil. If yuh don’t believe me
take a stroll out into one of those old woodlots thet was abandoned about a
hundred years ago and see how much soil there is on top of the rocks. Then if
yuh got any imagination at all yuh’ll understand why berry bushes and
grapevines and wild nut trees don’t bear around here like they do out west
where there’s still a little somethin’ left in the soil besides chunks of
rock.
Nowadays lots of people is movin’ back into the country but they is fer the
most part jest squattin’ on the land enjoing the scenery and breathin’ the
pure country air. They ain’t farmin’ or improvin’ the land but jest
contentin’ themselves by puttin’ up posted signs. Once in awhile a woodlot
gets cut off and sold fer firewood or a feller puts in a crop of corn or
potatoes, but it don’t add up to whut them economists call a sustained
agriculture.
Now birds and animals is jest like people, when the eatin’s poor the livin’s
poor too. If you boys jest open your eyes and see whuts taking place in
Connecticut in terms of eating and livin’ space fer game yuh won’t be in such
an all fired hurry to blast the fish and game commission fer not givin’ you
so many birds to waste ammunition on.
Now a lot of you fellers are goin’ to say well this is fine but what’s to do
about it. If you’ll bear with me I aim to stick my neck out pretty soon and
publish some practical suggestions about whut we can do, and without
strippin’ the linings out of our pocketbooks neither.
November 8, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
FILLERS
The headlines of a newspaper play a glamorous role. To them is given the
privilege of announcing, often with great noise, the startling and
spectacular things which are going on in the world. Their distant
journalistic cousins, the so-called fillers which live at the bottoms of the
columns, play just as important a part and usually hand out much more
important information – but they do their job quietly, without ostentation,
without screaming. It’s time somebody gave them a little publicity.
Fillers are constructed and composed with consideration only for their size
and weight. Content is secondary. They must be of 1, 2, 3, 4, or more lines –
whatever is necessary to complete the column and prevent the occurrence of an
ugly white space between the end of an article and the top of the first ad or
the bottom of the sheet. Being step-children, they don’t necessarily have to
make sense, but they do have to fit a prescribed area. They peddle
information by the line, which is just as important a literary measurement as
is the color of a book.
A daily paper in a nearby city uses lots of fillers, and they teach us a good
many important facts. Here, for example, are some harvested within a two-week
period and set down in accordance with their weight-classifications – a 1liner, a 2-liner, and so on (the italics are ours):
_____
Iceland has about 100 volcanoes.
_____
The male horsefly lives on
nectar and tree sap.
_____
The true stork, the bird traditionally supposed to bring babies,
is not found in the United States.
_____
Whales sometimes live to be
500 years old.
_____
The American plum crop is
about 20% larger this year than
last.
_____
Flying down a chimney at Weymouth, England, an owl laid an
egg on the rug.
_____
These are fine, and they engender useful cerebration. But they haven’t the
punch, the salty quality of these others, which also appeared during the same
period. Note how these strive for recognition by affecting eccentricities
seldom employed by headlines:
Only male firelies can fly.
_____
The U. N. flied 60 flags.
_____
A new forging process makes it
possible to construct rivet-less
wing panels for airplones.
_____
Composer Johann Sebastian
Bach lied at Leipzig at the age
of 65.
_____
Almost all thoroughbred horses
trace their ancestry to three
sires East in 1728.
_____
the Arctic, according to explorers.
There are few, if any, fleas in
_____
Now we think it is time we set aside a library of irrelevancies to use as
filler. Be not surprised if, in the near future, we begin using such gems as
these listed below. Everybody seems to do it, and we don’t want to be out of
step.
_____
Two times two equals four.
_____
Democracy is spelled d-e-m-o-
c-r-a-c-y.
_____
Many people’s faces are completely covered with skin.
_____
Those parts of the ocean which
are the deepest have lots of water
in them.
_____
Early American Indians had few
electrical appliances.
_____
You can’t make a bird in the
hand out of a sow’s ear.
_____
If a man’s legs are not long
enough, his feet will not reach the
ground.
_____
In the United States more people
sleep in beds than anybody.
HUNTIN’ FISHIN’ AND SUBSTITUTIN’
with Cow Moose
The Bull sez to me, “Now stow yer gab. I’ll git thet colum done fer that
there paper when I git thru runnin’ the dawgs.” Well, he aint home yet, so I
sez, “The old lady’ll have to fill up the colum this time.” Seems like I aint
got enuf to do what with mendin’ them torn chair covers that new pup of his
chawed up, or wiping- up them critters’ foot prints and worse, when I aint
carryin’ food and water to them dawgs. And the thing thet gets my goat the
worstest is I kinda like them little fellers too. A course I allus sez it’s
better to hev a man out barkin’ up a tree with a coon hound than jest sittin’
in front of the fire with his eyes shut not doin’ nothin’, not even choppin’
the wood. Other day the Bull lugs a hunnert pound sack down celler fer me,
then he sez, “See whut a good man yuh gots, lotsa fellers woulda left that
fer their wimmin to do.” Allus wisht I was one of them bitsy blondes what
couldn’t heft a hunnert pounds, then he’d hafta do it more frequent.
One good thing about old Bull tho is he’s got some sens, no matter how he
looks in his picture, low brow and all. Some guys I know aint got no more
sense’n to leave a live coon all night in a car trunk to make a tunnel thru
the back seat. Thet seat paddin’ sure didn’t look so good after 18 pounds of
coon had bedded down on it fer awhile. I’d a liked to a heard whut Jake’s old
lady said to him when she saw thet job.
Speakin’ of coon hunts, seems like thet daylight coon chase they had up the
Bethany school yard the other day is kinda startin’ them kids in pretty
young. Anyway’s I hear Frenchie’s dog give a good account of himself but I
kinda wisht the coon had made a better job of thet jump. Might go back to
school and finish up if things keep on interestin’ like that, whut with
movies, coons, snakes, and skunks all in one week.
If this aint so long winded as the Bull usually rights, it only goes to show
that wimmen do say lessen men, in print anyways. Got to slip this over to
that there editor afore the Bull finds out.
November 15, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
SUPER-HEATED-“X”-FACTOR
James Beehatch’s Primer has not yet been accepted as part of the official
curriculum of our schools, but we predict that it probably, if at all.
Permission having been thrust upon us, we give you an advance peek into
Chapter 9, which he calls “Where Are Your Children?”
“Call me an inconostas if you will – but I venture to advance an opinion
which, if unpopular, has been actively overlooked by many well-established
opinion-overlookers. Transmigratory obfuscation to the contrary
notwithstanding, I say: the story of Rip Van Winkle is not true.
“The way Washington Irving heard it this Van Winkle went hunting in the
hills, hooked up with a gang of bowlers, polished off a few quick ones (out
of a cask, mind you), lapsed into a state of severe passout, and stayed right
where he fell – for twenty years!
“Now, I ask you, can a man sleep for twenty years, without food or drink, in
a place where the winters get very cold and cheerless? It just isn’t
possible. If you ask me, that’s fiction, pure and fairly simple.
“Now I don’t know what this Rip Van Winkle drank (out of the cask) or what
really happened to him, but my guess is that he actually died, was buried by
the bowling ream, stayed in a shallow grave for twenty yers, and then
underwent some sort of resurrection – which can be accomplished by a process
which I am perfecting. Rather than have a lot of people killing themselves
trying it out, I am withholding the details for the moment – but I can
divulge one fact: the process makes use of the super-heated ‘X’ factor which
I developed some years ago.
“Rip Van Winkle must have stumbled across some obscure type of this superheated ‘X’ factor and, by accident, applied it to the lobes of the varynx –
if he had a varynx. Since some varieties of the varynx were not developed
until after the invention of muscles in 1853, however, this possibility seems
doubtful. Van Winkle is known to have lived and died (permanently) in 1853,
so he obviously did not have muscles and probably did not have a varynx, as
we know it today. He could not, therefore, have applied the factor to a
varynx which he didn’t have (if he didn’t have it) – and naturally could not
have engaged in super-heated-‘X’-factor-resurrection. Perhaps, you will
suggest, he used the sliding-toe bronchibus method. Perhaps you are talking
through your hat.
“My opinion is that he did discover the old ‘X’ – and that he is still using
it today, lying in wait to spring up from his shallow grave, to steal into
your brunderschiml and shake his scalp, and to make off with your children.
Incidentally, where are your children? Or, as the nearby carbon copy of an
old movie puts it, where are your children? Are they ‘X’-factoring around
town, bandying and lurking with a gang of hoodwinks? You can’t be too careful
about children, now that muscles have been invented.”
EXTRA FEATURE:
Further adventures of
THE STAR REPORTER
BEEHATCH AND THE BEANSTALK
James Beehatch has done a considerable amount of research in tracking down
untruths in our common fairy stories, and he now reports that he has blown
the “Jack and the Beanstalk” story wide open – and to date the author has
offered neither explanation nor retraction. The generally accepted version,
as you know, runs like this:
One day, in a far-off country, a dull-witted boy named Jack and his mother
ate up the last crust of bread1 in the house, so the old lady said to him, she
said, “Jack,” she said, “all we hve left in the world is our dear old-prizewinning Jersey cow, Kershaw’s Dumpling of Overshot, Best of Show at
Hackensack in 1903,” she said. “Take her to the fair,” she said, “and sell
her. And mind you,” she said, “bring home a good heavy sack of gold. And no
loitering in the hop joints or the horse parlors,” she said.
1
One crust is always saved for this last-ditch ceremony.
So Jack set off for the fair with Kershaw’s Dumpling of Overshot, and heavy
was the heart in him, too, you may be sure, for he and the cow had been
friends since he was a weanling. Many’s the quart of unpasteurized milk she
had given him – and many’s the kick in the slats he’d repaid her with. On the
way to the fair they met a tout, and the following conversation sprang up
spontaneously betwixt them:
“Good morning, Jack.”
“Good morning, tout.”
“Where are you going with that scrawny beast?”
“I’m going to sell her at the fair, for my poor old mother and I have not a
crust of bread2 left in the house, and this worthy cow is solus all we have in
this world.”
“Tut, tut, why do ye go all the way to the fair?” asked the tout. “I have
here a rich gift to give you in exchange for your fine cow, which is what I
shall do,” said the tout, and so saying, he gave Jack a small bag of dried
beans and took Jack’s cow and went on his way with a song on his lips, little
knowing that the animal was both dry and spavined.
Jack took the beans and went home. His mother met him at the door of their
rude hovel. “And have you sold dear old Dumpling, Jack?” she asked.
“That I have, mother,” said Jack.
“And for how much gold and silver money, with which to buy victuals for our
stomachs and clothes for our backs?” asked his mother.
“For this handful of valuable beans,” Jack answered.
With a cry of rage and hunger, Jack’s mother took the beans and threw them
out the window3 -- and the beans, landing on excessively fertile ground,
immediately took root. By morning there was a gigantic bean stalk growing
right into the clouds.
2
3
Technically true, but Beehatch has discovered that they had a few canned goods.
There was no glass in the window.
As far as can be ascertained, the story is substantially true up to this
point. It begins to sound fishy, however, when Jack starts climbing the bean
stalk and goes right out of sight at the top. He walks into a giant’s castle
and, in a petty larceny scene which is unrivaled in any similar book with a
red cover, he steals a hen which lays golden eggs, a self-playing harp, and a
sword which will cut through anything – and runs away with them, despite
their noises of protest (“Cluck, cluck, Master” and “Strum, strum, Master”
and “Clang, clang, Master”). The balance of this pack of lies is too familiar
to require repetition.
What actually happened was this: after sleeping the innocent sleep of the
very hungry, Jack woke up and rolled out the window, right on top of the
beans, which uttered remarks of protest. ‘Look out where you’re going,” said
the beans. “Who do you think you are, anyway?” they said.
“Sure and I don’t know,” said Jack, unrolling off the beans.
At this moment his mother stuck her head out the window and heard what was
going on. “Faith,” she cried, “this is the end,” she said. “Jack and the
beans talk,” she said, and after kicking Jack to death with her bare feet,
she stabbed herself with a beer-can opener and expired without further
comment.
Well, if this is what Beehatch considers “blowing the story wide open,” we
will eat our hat.4
_____
“IF WISHES WERE HORSES. . .”
Another chapter of The Autobiogrsphy of James Beehatch has just come creeping
out of the press, and he has graciously given us permission (wrapped in a
twenty-dollar bill) to reprint it here. The chapter bears the subhead “The
Patter of Tiny Feet” – and runs substantially as follows:
4
Pass the mustard, please.
“During my first term as President of the United States, I spent a
considerable amount of time. One thing I did was to coin an expression which
now keeps haunting me as it pops up continually from the pages of the comic
books and from the backs of cereal boxes. The expression, reduced to its
simplest terms is: ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’
“I am beginning to realize that was a pretty stupid thing for me to say,
especially (if I remember correctly) at a Cabinet meeting. Why I said it is,
for the moment, beside the point. The cold fact remains that I did. ‘If
wishes were horses,’ I said, dogmatically, ‘beggars would ride.’ Just like
that, with all the self-assurance you can imagine. How I wish I had said,
merely, ‘If wishes were horses. . .’ and let it go at that. But in my
youthful enthusiasm, I rushed ahead heedlessly and added that joker about the
beggars – you know, ‘. . .beggars would ride.’
“And now it comes back to haunt me – and all because some nosy scientist in a
place called California has turned a wish into a horse, by the usual method
involving plastics, deep freeze, streamlining, and sunshine.
“What is even worse is that he has sent this horse on to me, with the biting
remark: ‘Here, you’re responsible for this. See what you can do with it.’ Do
with it? I can’t get near it. My yard is a mass of beggars, twenty deep
around the horse, six abreast on its back. They ride the poor thing day and
night, giving it only a few minutes off each morning to get new shoes. I’ve
had a good many offers for the horse, and I’ve even sold him once, but I
can’t get to him to make delivery. Those beggars just ride, ride, ride.
“Having been greatly impoverished by this situation, I have tried to join the
beggars union, to get at least a short ride on my horse, but I am defeated by
seniority rules, which require that I serve a two-year apprenticeship
learning to ride imaginary horses before I can touch a real one. They have
even set up a picket line to keep me out of my own house – and even the horse
won’t cross it.
“‘Smart patter,’ the papers said when I first coined the expression.
“‘The President’s thoughts come on tiny feet,’ said an editorial in one of
the racing sheets.
“As an ex-President, out of a job, locked out of his home, I appealed to the
Common Man through a wide distribution of the accompanying self-explanatory
photograph.
“The following year my family struck out through the wilderness for the West.
No one dreamed it then, but I was destined, a few short weeks later, to
discover the Hudson River and start it on its way to the sea.”
November 29, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
James Beehatch, who claims he began life as a baby, celebrates his birthday
today, along with the best second-rate offset-printed weekly newspaper in
northern New Haven County. In honor of the occasion, he has, with
enthusiastic reluctance, dropped the following contribution into the
wastebasket, where it shall remain.
THE FOX AND THE GRAPES
According to Harry Aesop, the Greek fabulist, a certain unidentified fox was
skulking along the road one day minding his own business and that of his
neighbors. Suddenly, if not abruptly, he spied some grapes inoffensively
hanging from a vine 9 feet, 8½ inches above the highway. Crouching for a
strong start, the fox jumped up and made as though to grab a fistful of the
grapes – but missed by 4 feet, 10 inches. Again he jumped – and again and
again. Finally realizing that he couldn’t reach them, he resumed his journey,
making a sort of sour-grapes remark as he departed.
“Them grapes,” he said, “is probably sour anyway.”
A short time later the grapes looked out and saw another fox coming down the
road. There was considerable excitement.
“Pull up the vine,’ one grape yelled, “here comes another!”
The grapes pulled the vine up out of reach just as the fox arrived. He looked
up and surveyed the situation. Then, pocketing his surveying instruments, he
took breath to speak.
“Aha!” he said in foxese. “Sour grapes! Just the thing for my arthritis.”
Pocketing his arthritis and sneaking into a nearby quarry, the fox stole a
ladder, which he placed against the wall from which the grapes were quietly
springing. Although the sight of the fruit made him drool so that the steps
of the ladder became quite slippery, he soon gained the summit and began to
eat the grapes, which were, by this time, a pretty sorry-looking bunch.
The fact that Aesop owes a great debt to the art of printing goes without
saying (or had better be left unsaid). Most of his works as published today
are printed, if fit. Thus we see in his printed works an interpretation of
the man himself, provided we know where to look. His grapes cannot be lightly
dismissed, either. Is it not by way of the press that they, too, reach the
public eye?
Aesop, who considered himself an authority on the public eye, was never able
to prove his claim that he had ridden a wheelbarrow, single-handed, from New
York to Boston.
The fact that the foxes of Boston eat a good many wheelbarrow loads of grapes
is purely and simply.
My grandfather, Aesop Beehatch, was a merry fellow. He was born with a ladder
in his mouth. Have I told you about the bees and the hatches?
Why doesn’t somebody empty these office wastebaskets?
“HAVING WONDERFUL TIME . . . . WISH YOU WERE HERE”
With Belinda Beehatch
In the fall of the year, and as the holiday season approaches, a great many
good housewives are concerned with turning their homes upside down for what
is known as fall housecleaning. Quite a few other housewives hear the term
bandied about and tossed lightly off the lips of their more industrious
friends but persuade themselves that they are operating under the system
known as “thoroughly cleaning one room a week all year round”. There then
remain a few black sheep who are very skilled in rationalizing the nee dout
of existence altogether. Our house is operated under a system something like
this. All windows are darkened on the outside by strategically planted
shrubbery. All windows under this system just naturally are dark anyway. This
has the beneficial effect of keeping the state of the rooms in some
obscurity. All lamps are low (to avoid taking note of cobwebs in ceiling
area), all light bulbs are only 20 watt, and of course darkened by a natural
process. All rugs, slipcovers, and curtains are of dull hues or multicolored.
The usual array of paraphernalia (i.e. books, caps, magazines, skates,
hammers, etc. spread on the various chairs, tables, and other flat surfaces)
gives what is known as a “lived-in” look.
In case of emergency, though, such as dinner guests or great Aunt Lucy coming
to tea, you must be adept in the art of quick camouflage. This strategy takes
a little thought; but most guests can be persuaded to hang their coats in the
one closet that hasn’t been nailed bulging shut, or to primp in the one
bedroom where the sewing and ironing has been shoved under the bed (the one
with the long-ruffled bedspread). Guests can be seated, too, so as to look
only at the side of the room where you have had just time to arrange a large
bunch of leaves in front of the spot on the wallpaper. It may seem odd to
some people to have a coffee table in the traffic lane between the living and
the dining rooms, but you can hide the hole in the rug that way. You and your
husband can use the unironed napkins, if you carelessly disarrange them the
minute you sit down. Other little evidences of your housekeeping methods can
be camouflaged by a casually placed half-knit sweater or that needlepoint you
started before Mary was born. (Darning won’t do – hardly in character
anyway.) Another obvious proof of your industry is an open book on How to
Weave Mats or Bird-house Building – The Easy Way. It all hinges on the old
red herring dodge. As far as preparing the dinner goes, you can get away with
everything out of cans if you take just enough time to add a couple of
ingredients to tomato paste to make “your Sauce.” Then when your polite
guests say, “You seem to have a great many interests – how do you do it
all?”, you can top off your show by saying, “Oh, it’s really nothing at all.
. . .”
This way a little scheming will get you through most situations. Anyone with
children can always play that angle, even though a quick-witted guest might
ask whether they didn’t spend most of their time in school now. In which
case, if the guests are out-of-towners, you can answer, “Yes, but I feel that
Church (or Grange, or P.T.A.) work is so important---”
Anyhow, this sort of housekeeping is more relaxing, and the nice part of it
is that pretty soon, you have persuaded yourself that unwashed windows
prevent eyestrain and that all those things on the living room mantel just
show what a full life you lead. I’m sure that none but my closest friends
realize that most of these same things have been on my living room mantel for
2 years: Church envelopes – 1949, 6 used flash bulbs, the current week’s
mail, 17 assorted screws and nails, one glass bird broken, parts of a light
fixture, 5 shells, and a toothbrush; somebody’s wallet – empty, a collection
of flower cards, and a key to Kentucky; 2 tickets to a church supper in
September, a measuring tape, 3 wing nuts, and an ox shoe; a clock, a
painting, and the children’s 1950 report cards; the rung of a chair, a rubber
stamp, a screw driver, two broken china pigs, the nozzle of the hose, seven
sample labels, 2 flashlight batteries, 1950 church envelopes, a spring, 6
envelopes of snapshots, 3 fountain pens, 10 pencils, several pipe cleaners,
and that other canasta card.
HUNTIN’, FISHIN’ AND COOKIN’
with Iva Smeller
T’other night, Jake, he sez t’me, “Iva, why don’ you jes scribble down a few
notes for them people what read my colyum about what yer do with them coons
I’m alluz tellin’ ‘em about?”
So this mornin’ I decided it war time I kep’ the old man happy. Tied the kids
up to a tree with the five coonhounds, the two pet raccoons, the two skunks
and the one ‘possum. Then I gave em each a coupla snakes and snappin’ turtles
to play with to keep ‘em happy, an’ set myself down to tell yer all about it.
Y’ see by the time Jake catches them ole coons and gets home in time fer
breakfast he’s plumb tuckered out. So while he’s a-sleepin’ the kids and I
skin em out. Ole Jake taught me that trick before we wuz married. Sez thar
warn’t much sense havin’ a woman around jes settin’ and I might as well be of
some use to him.
Ain’t many of our friends around whut ain’t tasted our “mock lamb” an’ this
week I aim to tell you women folk all about cookin’ em. First off, yuh gotta
clean all the fat off the critter to get rid of that strong taste. (Sometimes
the nimrod himself will do that, but poor ole Jake – he cain’t quite stomach
it.) You drop the coon in a big pot of cold water and bring it to a boil.
Pour that water off, rinse and cover again with cold water and add a
tablespoonful of black pepper and one of soda. Bring that to a boil again and
repeat the process with plain water for the third boilin’.
Then you fill it up with stuffin’ and roast the varmint fer about 2 hours at
325 degrees. Thar’s no finer eatin’ this side of Paree – jes like a mixture
of lamb and chicken. Because of Jake’s tender stomach I alluz find it best to
cut the coon up in small pieces before bringin’ it to the table. Jake always
seems to get over his tired spells when he smells the ole coon cookin’. He
gobbles it up faster’n you kin say “Bull Moose” – gives him energy fer more
huntin’ fishin’ and lyin’ he sez.
Gotta get this off to the editor now but I’ll be back with you soon to tell
you how to cook snappin’ turtles, rattlesnakes an enythin’ else yore man
might come home with.
HUNTIN’ FISHIN’ AND PECKIN’
with Cow Moose
This here husbin and wife thing is reely something, and there all alike. Thet
cold day last week sure proved it. How many houses had screens down and storm
winders up? Bet ya two ta one if twas done the husbin ain’t had the doing of
it. I aim to start a new club (ther eain’t enuf clubs in Bethany) and eny
wife thet hefts screens er storm winders kin jine. Meetins the second week in
April an the first in November. We could let in some of you folks from
Orange, Prospect er Woodbridge too, but seems like you got yer men better
broke down.
Another thing, these husbins go out and get critters saying they’ll feed an
water em. Whut happins is jest like an eight year old with her first flock of
ducks. Only thing is, ducks don’t have fleas and ducks don’t ever need to git
worm pills every hour til done. Then the wurst is that husbins even git to
expectin thet when the dogs win a blue ribbon er a turkey thet they kin
afford to ack modest cause the old ‘oman’ll be so proud thet she’ll have to
brag up the dog an the husbin both.
Then now and agin some outlander comes in an says “Do you enjoy fishin’ and
huntin’ with yer husbin, Mrs. Moose?” So (remembering the time Mrs. Moose
hung up the last “Yellow Sally” fly in the book on an alder shoot with the
bass jumpin’ up and down cryin’ fer Yellow Sallies) I says, “Wal, sometimes
when I kin git someone to set with the kids for as long as the Bull likes to
fish er hung.” An Bull never says a word about the trip fer smelt when Mrs.
Moose couldn’t ever see a smelt to net, let alone net one.
So I says, still an’ all, on a cold winter night its mighty comfortin to hev
a lazy coon-huntin’, beagle-lovin’ husbin with a bunch of pups millin about
the room or lyin’ dog-tired from nuthin on the hearth. If anything out of the
way happins, the pups bark and the husbin says, big-like: “Who’s thar?” Lotsa
burglars git scared away thet way.
December 13, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
SIMPLE COMPOUND
The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station has announced the development
of a new weapon to fight the Dutch elm disease – a chemical compound which
has given better results than any material previously used. The report says
the compound acts chemotherapeutically (that’s che-mother-ape-utica-lly, if
you divide it in the right places). We don’t believe it. It is obvious that
the tree physician merely stands a few feet away from the elm and pronounces
the name of the compound in a quiet voice – and the Dutch elm disease drops
off like crazy. The name is “2-methylcarboxymercaptobenzothiazole” – which,
of course, can be almost as easily rendered (and pronounced) me-thy-l-carboxy-mer-capt-oben-zot-hia-zole.
While they are about it, the Connagexsta might like to try its hand with an
idea which has excited us for some time: the development of a strain of
Japanese beetle which will feed on nothing but poison ivy . . . which we
shall call “toxicodendronophagianipponensis.”
December 20, 1951
THE STAR REPORTER
BREAKING SILENCE
Mrs. Godey’s interesting account of her Washington visit, in this issue,
mentions both President Truman (who attended her sister’s wedding) and
General MacArthur (who did not). As far as we can recall, this is the first
time that either of these gentlemen has been mentioned in this paper. This
slighting of such prominent figures indicates not so much an editorial bias
as it does a provincial spirit. This paper is designed primarily to carry
news of local interest; the great screaming dailies tell everything about the
outside world – and very little about us. We have been asked whether or not
we would carry an obituary notice if a certain well-known public figure were
to die in office. Our stock answer is, “Yes, if he dies in the sacred
territory of The Amity Star.”
December 20, 1951
Huntin’ Fishin’ and Lyin’
with Jake Smeller
The Bull and me wuz jus’ hashin’ the problems that befall most married men
and their hounds Wednesday nite when we comes to talkin’ ‘bout cats. Now
there’s cats and there’s cats and wat a coincidence when jus then the phone
jingled and who wuz it but Pedro Kickinlocker from up Winsted way. Pedro’s
deader lookin’ from the shoulders up than Bull Moose and that’s sayin’
sumpthin’. Pedro sez, “Jake – snow’s flyin’ here an’ you know wat that
means.”
I sez, “Yep”, and he sez, “Call Bull Moose fer me ‘cuz whenever I calls him
the line’s busy – must be Cow Moose juz gabs too much.” I sez thet one or two
of us would see him at 6 A.M. Ya see Pedro never misses callin’ up ‘bout this
time of year when snow fust flies fer a bob cat hunt.
So I tells Iva I’m leavin’ early and I suspect The Bull sneaks out without
permission and without sayin’ nothin’ to The Cow – and off we gopes fer
Pedro’s shelter. Gets there at 6 A.M. sharp and after a cup of postum we each
takes us a gun and a dog. The Bull draws a purty bitch – and I mean purty –
name of Cleopatra and ol’ Jake gets Mark, but we should oughter left him
homoe ‘cuz they jus wanted to play around. Pedro’s dog, name of Buttercup,
wuz a real cat hound and homely as my baby, Lotor.
Well, we comes on a big cat track not two mile from Pedro’s shack – an’ wat
tracks!
In cat huntin’ ya don’t jus turn the hounds alose but ya keep ‘em on leash
til they gets real anxious like – then ya know the cat’s not mor’n a mile
away. So when the hair stood up on them hounds backs an’ they begun tuggin’
like everythin’, Pedro yells, “Turn ‘em loose!” Those hounds went off with
the snow flyin’ up behind ‘em – over a hill and down a valley to a big lake
and barked tree most as purty as my coon hounds.
We beates it over the hill an’ long before we reaches that hemlock we could
see thet big cat stretched out like he wuz about to jump on the hounds. He
didn’t even look at us ‘til we got under the tree. He reminded me of a nice
house cat ina a way but as we watched he seemed meaner and meaner, curlin’
his lips and snarlin’.
The Bull sez, “Let me hit him in the head with my 30/06,” but Pedro sez,
“Nope! – if ya should miss he’d jump and the hounds would ketch him and thet
cat would cut em up bad.” So Pedro raises his shotgun with double nought
buckshot an’ blasts without hesitatin’. That cat jumped, screamin’ like
nothin’ ya ever heared, and landed in a pile “chawin’ up the ground and
kickin’ all around”. Cleo an’ Mark kept their distance an’ afore Pedro kin
ketch Buttercup, she jumps in and grabs thet cat who wuz over on his back.
The blood spurted! Ee-ee-ee, that dastardly cat give his last kicks with his
big hind legs, an jus’ tore Buttercup’s side over the shoulder and ribs about
twelve inches long and deep. That killer cat didn’t quite kill Buttercup as
his last dirty deed.
Knowed we shoulda let The Bull shoot that cat cuz even if he does look most
blind he kin sure shoot good.
January 3, 1952
Editorial
VOLUME II, NUMBER 1
For the benefit of those who missed the note in our Anniversary issue, we
repeat: the December issues carried the Volume I numbering system on through
No. 57, in order that we might begin 1952 with a new volume number. The
labors of archivists, a hundred years hence, will be simplified by the fact
that each calendar year (beginning with 1952) will encompass a complete
volume of the paper.
January 10, 1952
Huntin’ Fishin’ and Lyin’
with Bull Moose
Well boys pull up them chairs and set awhile. You fellers musta been
wonderin’ why so much talk about conservation in this here colum recently and
so little about huntin’ and fishin’. I ain’t heard anybody wonderin’ about
the lyin’ tho. I kin tell yuh when Jake starts jawin’ about conservin’
rabbits instead of ketchin’ coons something drastic is goin’ on. Well seems
like the last few weeks all the folks in these parts has been concentratin’
on sociable and leavin’ the fish and game in peace, and Jake and me has been
roped up by our better halves and dragged around to the dangdest set of hawg
rassles, hoedowns, and huskin’ bees yuh ever saw. Jake says he’s been
subsistin’ exclusive on moonshine, and I got to admit I sampled the drippin’s
of one or two stills myself. Yuh know once in awhile it’s kinda fun to come
in outa the cold and see how the human beeuns around here live.
A coupla days back this here medicine man what’s been doctorin’ Jake since
thet tree fell on him says there ain’t no reason why Jake can’t get back to
his trap line again stead of jest layin’ around moanin’ about his stiff leg,
so Jake rings me up and says, “Bull, I’m a free man again and there is one
night left to the coon season. Lets.”
I consults the cow and asks her is there any shindigs goin’ on I can’t get
out of. She says, “Nope, the revenoors closed up the last still in Bethany
yesterday and I don’t guess there’s goin’ to be any more goin’s on fer
another year.”
So I heads fer Jake’s and when I gets there Iva meets me comin’ in and says,
“Now listen here, Bull, I want thet no account invalid of mine in early
tonight and I mean early.” I takes one look at the color of her eye and
decides that tonight jest fer once we’ll get in early. Jake slinks out the
back door inconspicuous like and throws the dogs in the jalopy and we heads
up the Housatonic.
It is one of them nice warm nights with a thick fog and the ground thawed out
good and squashy, and the hounds jest find the trailin’ perfect. Old Jake’s
leg is still gimpy and he can’t take to the woods like usual, so we jest set
by the road and listen to them potlickers make music along the mountainside.
After an hour or so the dogs swing down to us and Jake says, “There agoin’ to
tree right close by.” Pretty soon them hounds come tearin’ off the mountain
and right down to the river, and danged if they don’t take to the water.
Well, the Housatonic is runnin’ bank full, and about the time they hits the
current they starts downstream so fast we figures we is goin’ to have to hire
a boat to pick ‘em out of Long Island Sound. Anyhow about a mile downstream
they hit a sandbar and pull out.
We never did figure out whut happened to the coon. Myself I figured mebbe
they was on a deer track, but Jake says, “Bull, I ashamed of yuh; you know
them dogs don’t run nothin’ but coon.”
We goes along apiece and starts in all over again, and this time them hounds
get a coon up a tree in only a coupla hours or so. Jake’s been tellin’ Iva
thet he couldn’t do the chores on account of thet game leg of his, but
somethin’ musta cured it awful fast the night cause it didn’t seem to slow
him down none getting’ to that tree – and it was pretty near straight up
hill. We sacked thet coon pronto and then we notice it is beginnin’ to get
light over east. Bout that time I recalls whut I told Iva about getting’ home
early, so we makes tracks fer Jake’s wigwam. Jake is limpin’ real good again
when he goes in the door, and I hear him explainin’ somethin’ to Iva about a
flat tire or getting’ stuck in the mud or somethin’.
Wisht some of you feller’s had been along – yuh mighta liked it. Fact is I
can’t think of a better way to end the huntin’ season.
January 17, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
TWISTER
Several weeks ago we commented on a new compound to fight the Dutch Elm
Disease – a multisyllabic chemical twister calculated to frighten the disease
as well as to shrivel it. Dr. Albert Dimond, of the Connecticut Agricultural
Experiment Station, believes we may be interested in presenting another
twister which he has encountered. In England, aluminum is sometimes called
aluminium, with the accent on the min. The pot-mender, when questioned about
the material he was using to mend the pots, is said to have remarked: “No,
mum, I’m not tinnin’ ’em. I’m aluminiumin’ ’em, mum.” Which just goes to show
you.
January 31, 1952
Huntin’ Fishin’ and Lyin’
with Bull Moose
Some of yuh boys musta been wonderin’ whut all thest shootin’ yu’ve heard
recently out in the woodlots is about. Seems like all the hunters out here
has been carryin’ on a personal feud with the foxes lately, but from whu I’ve
seen it looks like the feud is still in favor of the foxes. I’ve heard a
powerful lot of shootin’ but I ain’t seen many foxes hangin’ over feller’s
shoulders when they come draggin’ in at night. All the boys I’ve talked to
this year say, “Yep, them foxes is awful wild these days.” Course there’s
lots of ways of lookin’ at this and it jest could be that there ain’t so many
good fox dogs around nowadays as there was back a few years. In this business
of shootin’ fixes the dog does about nine tenths of the work, and if you get
a really good dog and kin hit the side of a barn with a scattergun you kin
get your share of foxes without half tryin’. But fellers if yuh haven’t got
that dog yuh kin be the best darn shot in Connecticut and lucky to boot, and
you’re old lady still ain’t goin’ to get that fox scarf she’s hankerin’
after, leastwise not unless she buys it of’nen Seasrs and Roebuck.
I usta hunt with an old feller whut had a real foxhound and it sure was a
caution to see that pair outwit a fox. We’d take off bout sunup and find us a
good bushy pasture or a cutover woodlot and turn old drive loose. Some guys
claim yuh gotta hev fresh snow to hunt foxes but old drive he didn’t care was
it snow or ice or frost or jest plain bare dry ground. He’d find him a fox
track and start to work and the hotter the track the faster his old bugle
voice would come rollin’ up.
February 7, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
DARK DAY
We used to make reasonably noisy and gladsome celebration of October 30,
since it coincides in all respects with our birthday, which is also October
30. From now on, however, the day will be celebrated with the booming of
muffled cannon, the wearing of bagcloth and cinders, the wailing of
bittersnipes and studges – at least, it will be so observed until our august
lawmakers come to their senses and exercise their rescinding-pencils.
For it was on October 30 of last year that the Congress gave its approval to
Public Law No. 233, which provides (in part) that the purchase of more than
49 government postal cards (now 2¢ each) shall be accompanied by the payment
of an additional 20% in lawful money. In attempting to raise supplementary
revenue to help offset its mammoth deficit, the Post Office Department (via
the Congress) has struck at the very roots of one of its chief sources of
income – the former penny postal card. No one has raised much clishmaclaver
over the doubling of the price of the card: it is still a useful and
economical vehicle for the disseminating of intelligence of many kinds. But,
after urging the public to use more cards, the P. O. people turn around and
slap on a penalty for the use of too many. Of course, there is nothing to
prevent your buying packages of 49 cards each over and over again, until
you’re blue in the face, but who has the physical endurance or the time for
such romping? On an order of 10,000 cards, for example (and that’s not
unusual for a printer), you’d have to make 204.0816 trips to the window.
Write your Congressman now and tell him to repeal this brainchild of
muttonheaded bureaucracy before somebody starts dumping postal cards into
Boston Harbor with the tea.
February 14, 1952
FILL ER
An island is a lump of land completely surrounded by the water of whatever
body of water surrounds it (or by the milk, in the case of a body of milk).
March 20, 1952
SKUNKS DON’T HAVE TO BELONG
Last week we printed a picture of Craig Brand and Dr. George D. Whitney’s
skunk, both of Orange, reporting that they were to be on a television program
on Saturday night. Those who watched the program were disappointed: the skunk
appeared (with a little girl), but Craig did not. The explanation is now
available: it seems that Craig could not appear because he is not a member of
the AGVA Union (whatever that is). The girl, with Hollywood experience behind
her, was able to show a card. As for the skunk – it seems that skunks don’t
have to belong to any union. Maybe it’s because they can’t get anybody to go
around and collect their dues. Who will volunteer to put a stop to this
discrimination by organizing the skunks?
March 27, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
RETURN TO SANITY
Some weeks ago we added our voice to the extensive public clamor against the
government’s charge of 10 per cent extra on purchases of 50 or more two-cent
postal cards. Apparently this paper is carefully read both at the Capitol and
in the White House, for the two branches of the government occupying those
locations, respectively, have combined to abolish this senseless, confusing
tax.
Something of a record for levy shortevity has apparently been set in this
case: the tax became effective on January 1; it died last Friday, March 21.
There were no mourners.
Incidentally, a nearby city’s daily paper fell into a more or less common
error in reporting that the “extra charge on postcards” was about to be
dropped. Our understanding of the proper terminology is bolstered by the
disciples of Noah Webster, who state that “a card with a printed postage
stamp sold by the government for transmission through the mails” is a postal
card. If it is a “private or unofficial card admitted to the mail on the
affixing of a postage stamp,” it is a post card. (In both cases two words are
used – never postcard or postalcard. The short form postal is acceptable,
however, for the government card.)
April 10, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
It is only after reaching maturity that one realizes how inconsiderate, how
guilty of negligence adults are in the matter of making things to children.
Unconsciously adults weave into their conversation all manner of obscure
snares to trap and perplex the infant mind. One has to reach voting age
before he can begin to feel sincere indignation over the way in which he has
been duped by his elders. And while licking his ancient wounds, he himself is
busy carrying on the adult tradition – of talking obscurely and subjecting
young minds to unnecessary confusion. A few examples from my own recollection
may suffice to illustrate how parents and teachers nourish the ignorance of
their young.
The Dawnzerly Light. Being unfamiliar with geography, I did not know where
Dawnzerly was, but I had a pretty good mental picture of it – a lonely point
of land with a gigantic lighthouse on it, a famous lighthouse which everyone
else seemed to be familiar with. Such a big lighthouse naturally gave a
tremendous light – yet people took the trouble to inquire of others (whose
eyesight seemed to be perfectly normal): ‘O say, can you see, by the
Dawnzerly Light. . . .?’ Before this problem had been entirely solved, I had
even translated it into a question directed at a mysterious Hibernian named
O’Say – who never seemed to give a satisfactory answer. To this day Dawnzerly
still exists as a real place.
The Glad-Tidings Bear. Here was a mysterious animal which no one ever took
the trouble to explain to me. In a Sunday School Easter play, I was pushed
onto the state and persuaded to announce: ‘Little bells Glad-Tidings Bear.’
My mental image of this friend was a pleasant one – a sort of wolly teddy
bear, sedately happy, but somehow out of place in a church ceremony. I was
not sure whether his name was Little Bells, or whether that was just another
irrelevant idea designed to confuse the little mind. It was many years before
I was able to discover this bear’s relationship to his well-known cousin,
Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear. It might have helped if I’d heard of him
earlier.
Forspashush Skies. Here was a kind of sky which I had never seen – or else a
common variety given a foolishly complicated name by adults. Somehow the
adjective suggested darkness and evil portents. It was almost as though we
were trying to propitiate sinister thunderheads and escape their wrath by
falsely addressing them, ‘O beautiful, forspashush skies. . . .’ The fact
that this idea was unrelated to the rest of the song did not bother me – or
even occur to me.
The Lender Bee. I don’t know where or when I first encountered this unusual
insect, but I recall hearing him spoken of long before my vocabulary included
‘lender’ in any sense, and I somehow imagined him to be an uncommonly thin
sort of bee – ‘lender’ being a diminutive of ‘slender’ – but my mental
picture of him always had him flying to the left, in counterclockwise
circles. He had been out of my consciousness for quite a while when suddenly,
at a more mature stage of things, I encountered him in my first reading of
Hamlet: ‘Neither a borrower, nor a lender bee. . .’
I have, of course, been guilty of the same sort of adult carelessness of
which I here complain, and on one occasion my own daughter showed me how
slipshod adults can be in the matter of making things clear to children. I
was fighting the eternal (and futile) fight, trying to break her of the habit
of putting into her mouth everything she could lay hand on. Her mind (at the
age of four) was unreceptive to my pleadings. I decided to try terror,
reinforcing it with unfamiliar gibberish. “Take that out of your mouth,” I
bellowed. “It’s covered with microbes!” The recollection of her response
deflates me even now: “Lemme see your crobes.”
April 24, 1952
“HAVING WONDERFUL TIME . . . . WISH YOU WERE HERE”
With Belinda Beehatch
You remember Betty MacDonald’s “The Egg and I”? Well, I now understand the
compulsion that results from prolonged association with a project like
that. .not that Miss MacDonald laid an egg, nor do I intend to. . .but the
urge to draw attention to the ordeal is undeniable. In my case, it’s, “The
House and I.” Perhaps you remember that I had a slight rebuff from my living
room mantel when it came time to clear it to put up Christmas cards. Now,
opposition is taking another form. No matter what portion I decide to paint,
the result is more paint on me than on the wall or whatever. It’s strange,
too, because I take the utmost precaution. I wear my most torn shirt, the
oldest blue-jeans, use three weeks’ supply of newspapers on the floor, and
approach with utmost respect from left to right or up to down, whichever it’s
supposed to be. However, either I find that I’ve just wiped my hands on my
pants and sat down on the clean bedspread (in blue) or that ladders are
taller than they used to be between rungs, and five feet up, my shaking
dislodges the gallon can of Old English Red all over the new cement steps.
The redeeming feature is that one can present a varied appearance to one’s
family each night. I’m sure that somewhere the psychologists say that “if you
can’t make your family’s life secure, make it interesting.”
And next week, there is a plan on foot to tackle the upper hall ceiling
(sunlight yellow) – well, I always wanted to be a blonde.
May 1, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
IT’S TAFT, 2 TO 1
At the risk of being roughly treated by the followers of General Eisenhower
(whom we lean towards at the moment), we give you here the first report of
returns in The Amity Star Preferential Primary. The score to date gives
Senator Taft a 2 to 1 lead over the General. In terms of actual ballots
received, it is: Taft, 2 ballots; Eisenhower, 1 ballot.
LICENSE DAY
Neither drivers nor dogs should allow themselves to be caught without new
licenses today. After today dog licenses will cost an extra dollar,
operators’ licenses an extra two.
FAME
Our fame is spreading. Comes now a letter from somewhere in Pennsylvania,
addressed to “The Star Amity, Bthny, Conn.” It arrived in Bthny 48 hours
after being mailed.
May 8, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
DEPARTMENT OF SLIGHT DISAGREEMENT
The baseball teams of the Center Schools of Orange and Woodbridge played a
game last week. Orange reports the score as a 2 to 6 defeat. Woodbridge calls
it a 7 to 2 victory. The question is: did Woodbridge continue to play after
Orange had gone home, or was the extra run counted when some enthusiastic
supporter ran the bases in celebration of the victory? Who has the official
box-score?
June 5, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
DISCOURAGING
It is almost impossible to instill any terror or superstition in our children
these days – and now our schools go out of their way to make it een harder.
Witness: closing date – Friday, the 13th. How can you get any child to believe
what he should about Friday-the-13th when that’s the day on which he gets out
of school for the summer?
June 26, 1952
FILLER
The Amity Star may be a small paper, but it’s not very big.
July 3, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
CANDIDATE
James Beehatch, our personal representative and on-the-scene correspondent at
the Republican Convention in Chicago, wires us as follows:
RESIGNING FROM STAR TO BECOME CANDIDATE. SEEMS TO BE ANYBODY’S RACE AT THIS
POINT. HAD BRIEF ENCOUNTER WITH PARTY SYMBOL LAST NIGHT, WITH RESULTS AS
SHOWN IN PICTURE WHICH FOLLOWS.
BEEHATCH
The picture just came in by carrier-pigeon. Here it is.
SPIDERS IN THE ATTIC
In the newspaper business one must not be too openly crucial of one’s
competitors, especially when one is in a relative position such as may give
rise to remarks about the mouse attacking the elephant. We find it difficult
to refrain from a few words, however, about a common inconsistency among some
of our elder sistern: in the face of the rising cost of newsprint (and,
during the war, the scarcity of same), they continue to waste a considerable
amount of paper by repeating statements and quotations in their news stories.
Once is never enough. If it’s worth saying (and sometimes even if it isn’t)
they think it is worth repeating. The following example, parts of which are
imaginary, illustrates what we mean.
Upper Bumboat, Mo., July 3 – The nation’s chief executive today declared that “the attic of the White house is full
of spiders as big as rocking-horses.”
Speaking before an enthusiastic crowd of happy officeholders at the formal dedication of the new governmentsponsored mink farm here, President Harry S. Strooman said that the White house attic, recently discovered during
the renovation, is tenanted by spiders, some of which are very large.
“The attic,” Mr. Strooman told his audience, “is full of spiders.” He went on to describe them, saying: “Some of
them are as big as rocking-horses.”
In a gay, holiday mood, jaunty and casual, and exuding Democracy from every pore, the President caught his
delighted audience off-balance when he suddenly changed his tone from light to serious and mentioned the White
house, his official residence in Washington. “It is high time you were told,” he said, that the attic of the White
house is full of spiders as big as rocking-horses.”
Although he did not name the Republican Party by name, the President’s reference was obviously directed at
certain members of that group, which claims credit for the invention of the spider.
“Ever since the McKinley administration,” the President said, “the attic has been closed.” (An obvious reference to
William McKinley, President from 1896 to 1901.)
“And everybody knows who first encouraged the importation of rocking-horses into this country,” he continued.
*********************************************************************************************
FULL TEXT OF SPEECH ON PAGE 42
*********************************************************************************************
Before a stunned and hushed crowd of mink-lovers, he went on: “The attic was opened on my orders and over the
objections of the ‘Do-Nothing’ 77th, 78th, 79th, 80th, 81st, and 82nd Congresses. You will not b’lieve me when I tell
you what we found there: that attic is full of spiders as big as rocking-horses.”
The next time you read the lead story in one of the big dailies, try counting
the repeated lines which might have been omitted without the loss of
continuity or defeat. Over a month’s time they add up to a lot of newsprint.
LAX MALADIE DES GRIFFES
As though things weren’t bad enough already, our spirits are now further
dashed by a release from the State Department of Health about a new disease –
or maybe it’s an old disease which has finally been named. They call it “CatScratch Disease,” an affliction of fairly obvious origin (i.e., caused by the
scratch of an animal called a “cat”) sometimes closely resembling tularemia,
which you may catch if you pick up a rabbit after scaring it to death in the
manner of Bull Moose.
In case you are interested in the detailed discussion of symptoms, diagnosis,
and treatment, you may examine the document at our office. (The cat is not
allowed inside.) Or you may write to the State D. of H. for a bulletin. We do
not intend to engage in a clinical disquisition here.
What took our eye immediately was the statement: “The first references to
(the disease) in medical literature appeared in 1950 when it was described by
Debré and his associates in France under the name of ‘Lax maladie des griffes
de chat.’”
It is wholly possibile that “Lax” is a typographical error for the normal
French “La” – that seems fairly reasonable – but we rather prefer the “x”
form as circulated out of Hartford. We can just imagine some cat-lover
basking in the glory of a noble death via lax maladie. “Lax maladians, hold
your ground! Clip my lovely cat’s griffes? Never!” (Without griffes, cats
cannot climb arbres and catch oiseaux.)
As an afterthought, the D. of H. bulletin says: “The name Benign Inoculation
Lymphoreticulosis has been suggested for this disease.” Imagine that. Instead
of lax maladie. What won’t people do to oversimplify?
July 10, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
UNSUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE
By this time you know that our favorite candidate, James Beehatch, has lost,
by a nose, his battle for the nomination in Chicago. The political analysts
and radio commentators have not discussed the reasons at any length, but we
know where some of his trouble lay. For example – Beehatch is not a
registered Republican. He vacillates between the Vegetarian Party and the
National Let’s-Reverse-the-Mississippi Party, neither of which has had a
strong candidate on the ballot in a good many years.
Another source of trouble was in his choice of backers. He did not know, for
instance, that Peru sends no delegates, and he hasa been sending literature
to Peru by the bale ever since last winter. (Also to several of the smaller
island groups of the Pacific.)
The main reason for his failure to get the nod (as we newspaper people are
accustomed to saying) is that he left the White House discredited and unwept,
a broken man, after his brief four-year term as President. (He left it so
fast that he didn’t have time to pack everything, and one of his reasons for
running again was that he wanted to go back and find his slippers, his
tobacco pouch, and a corset he was advised to wear when he started putting on
weight.) His career since the end of the administration is too well-known to
warrant discussing here. He has gone completely to pieces in recent years.
Beehatch has applied for reinstatement on our staff. And with a softness of
heart and head which is typical of editors, we shall probably take him back –
but he will have to promise to stop running for President every time the
country sends out a call for help. After all, we need help, too – as the
foregoing so patently illustrates.
August 7, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEE
James Beehatch, scientist, reports as follows in an exclusive interview:
“One night last week, while I was busy with another new invention (a sort of
curved blade which I call a ‘scythe’ attached to a handle which I am calling
a ‘snath’ – which is going to put this power-mower business out of business),
there was a sudden rush of sound over my head, and an object about the size
and shape of a bollick went zooming past at a speed somewhere between that of
sound and that of fury. Jumping into my space-ship and throwing it into
supersonic phase, I gave chase.
“The object immediately took evasive action, climibing straight up into the
ionoclysm at a terrific rate, diving under full power into the earth to a
depth of several hundred feet, and, upon emerging in another steep climb,
zig-zagging horizontally from the azimuth to the bismuth. Twice it circled
and passed close by the clopters of my space-ship. On the second pass I
spread a thin film of degaussing ointment on my port side, and for a distance
of about 1,400 miles, he was forced to stay abreast of me, not more than
three feet from my head.
“You won’t believe me when I tell you what the object was. It was a cup! Just
an ordinary teacup, complete with handle and – I am almost certain – a few
tea-leaves stuck in the bottom. It moved with an undulating motion, as though
it were trying to stir something, and it seemed to emit a sort of orangepekoe light – more a luminescence than a light, really.
“When the ointment had finally lost its gravitational pull, the cup dropped
back and fell off towards Washington, and I lost sight of it. I landed and
went back to my scythe.
“I know this sounds fantastic, and I am at a loss to explain it. Within the
framework of physics as we know it, it is all impossible. Please don’t say
anything about it until I have discussed it with my colleagues. If a
premature story gets out, someone is sure to report seeing a saucer – and
there was nothing to indicate that that cup belonged to a saucer. Besides,
they’ll say I’m crazy – because I believe in flying cups! I’ve seen one!”
August 14, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
SAUCERS
Beehatch had another adventure all written up for us – but competition has
caught us on the offbeat, and we must suppress the story. J.B. had already
written of another trip, in which he encountered saucers, cups, plates, and
other crockery, and we had agreed to run it. Then, on Sunday, one of the best
of the Sabbath cartoonists filched the monsoon right out of our spinnaker
with a picture of an airplane surrounded by “a whole dinner service.”
Anything we might say now would be purely coincidental.
September 4, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
DEPARTMENT OF THE PARTIAL RUMOR
The air is full of rumors – some good, some very bad, and all unreliable.
Several people have asked us why we don’t pick up these rumors and publish
them. The answer is so oblavious as to be positively stridicated.
We do go in for something along this line, though – partial rumors. The
beauty of these is that anyone may interpret them as he pleases, substituting
names of his own choice and fabricating whatever situations he chooses to
infiliate into the mankle.
The examples given here are typical types, but customary:
“Mr. John ----- and Mrs. Fred ----- were seen on ----- carrying a ----- into
the back door of a -----. Can this mean that Mrs. ----- is -----, or were we
right when we hinted that they ----- a ----- with their ----- about two
months ago? What ----- is going to be ----- when she hears this?”
“----- has been arrested on charges of -----, but the whole affair is being ---- by the police, who suspect that -----, -----, -----, and ----- were at
the same place. All we know (for publication) is that -----, when Mrs. ----was told about it, she ----- and said, ‘Those ----- can’t ----- my ----without ----- ----- -----.’ What is Orange coming to?”
“Last Monday, ----- was ----- in ----- at -----. Caught with the goods, ----claimed to know nothing about it. And with all that -----, too! I know this
to be a fact. I saw the -----.”
The correct words to fill the blanks will be supplied upon payment of the
usual fee.
September 25, 1952
Editorial
BACK IN THE ORBIT
After the issue of September 4, we suspended publication for two weeks – for
purposes of vacation and reorganization. The first, we regret to note, is
over, all too soon. The second is still incomplete, and this fact may be
blamed, in part, for the sparseness of the present offering and the omission
of many news items which deserve a better fate. The job of returning an
eccentric Star to its orbit is not to be accomplished without a few
irregularities.
We note with some satisfaction that, while the four towns which we serve have
not gone completely to pot during this hiatus, there have been anxious
inquiries and a few impatient growls about the paper’s suspension. It’s nice
to be missed.
October 16, 1952
Lead Story on Church Bazaar Mysteriously Vanishes at Presstime
EDITOR’S NOTE: There was prepared for this issue (and for this very spot) a
detailed story of tomorrow’s Bazaar conducted by the ladies of the Orange
Congregational Church, including a long list of the names of those
participating. We regret that as we go to press, in the dead of night, that
story has completely disappeared, leaving no visible trace. There is not time
to reconstruct it. We trust that the omission will be excused – and that the
Bazaar will be patronized even more heavily than in previous years.
October 30, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
James Beehatch, presidential candidate on the Restoration ticket (“Leave us
restore old Harry to Missouri!”) made an unscheduled visit to this area the
other day, whistling and stopping somewhat at random and giving out with the
Restoration doctrine in deathless pros (and cons). The following is taken
from an adhesive-tape recording of his remarks before the Melancholy Seniors
3-H Club (3-H’ers have no heads) and is a sample of what he has been saying
to the vast crowds of two and three which have gathered every time Beehatch
has (1) whistled or (2) stopped or (3) stopped whistling or (4) been sober:
“A doctor a day will keep a rotten apple out of the barrel, so why burn the
barn at both ends to get rid of the rats, which are the first ones to leave a
sinking Ship of State’s rights of the working man to bargain collectively and
individually, and this is one of the corner stone’s throw the rascals out of
sight, out of mind over matter of grave importance to the common and
preferred stock in trade our heritage for a mess in Washington, first in war,
first in peace at any price supports for the farmer in the dell, the farmer
in the dell, heigh-oh the dairy owes nothing to liberty or give me death and
taxes the powers that be or not to Beehatch. I like James!”
CAMPAIGN TRAIN AT BETHANY WHISTLESTOP
The election campaign special of James Beehatch made a completely unscheduled
stop in Bethany a few days ago when the candidate ran out of chewing tobacco.
Members of the official party (shown above) have been standing this way since
Sunday, waiting for a photographer to show up. So far their picture has not
been taken.
Beehatch himself is inside the car, lying in the aisle (where he has been
since last Thursday, when the train hit a wallaby near Buffalo – or a buffalo
near Wallaby – no one knows which).
November 6, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
. . . One final word on the late candidacy of James Beehatch is irrelevant,
dismaterial, and palpably out of order, so we shall not deprive you of it.
Dissatisfied with the inadequacies of the double-talk employed by other
candidates, the Champion of Restoration has devised a campaign lingo of his
own which is widely but seldom known as “Beehatch Tripletalk” or
“Stumbletongue.” On the question of the liberation of Cuba and the repeal of
Prohibition, he says:
“The abomnistrax of our red moggle swetch clearly frumpicates the segulary
prandling of the bragwater demoskids and the harpforthing of the lallipreds
in our very stunch. Another indiclaps of such a spag will be all we need for
utter and complored ranstigation. This I can not vote for. This I cannot even
vetch without a total quist of transmordistets!”
It is not surprising to find the candidate, after this bit of gunglestum,
signing himself
Jameswith Beeplehatch.
(P.S. – He was not elected. If you doubt our word, see almost any other
newspaper.)
December 4, 1952
 Second Anniversary Issue 
Paper’s Growth From 16
To 40 Columns Noted;
Still Has No Comics
This issue, being the one published nearest to the founding date, marks this
paper’s second birthday. When Number 1 appeared on December 1, 1950, this
area was just picking itself up after the hurricane blasts of late November,
and the arrival of a new enterprise had to take a rear seat in public
affairs. The opening splash did not dampen much territory. . . .
December 11, 1952
THE STAR REPORTER
LAST OF THE BEEHATCHES
James (Author) Beehatch, snapped as he left the office of the Editor, after
his final tearful visit early this week. He is believed to have returned to
Parts Unknown, Wyoming, but he left no forwarding address.
THE NIGHT BEFORE BEEHATCH
Braking our chain-drive Metz to a full stop, we droped anchor at the door of
one James Beehatch, the elder. He admitted us without ceremony and said we
were just in time to hear his annual reading of a famous classic (appropriate
to the season). Slippoing off our goggles and our blue bombazine
gallisgaskins, we crept into a neutral corner and observed a tableau of
enviable domestic felicity – James Beehatch, surrounded by all of his 18
children (many of them cold sober), and Plywood Beehatch, his wife, quietly
shoeing a pair of oxen in the corner. Rapping for order (and unwrapping for
ventilation_, our host faced the millpond of eager, upturned countenances and
began to recite:
“’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house. . . . .”
“Wait, Daddy,” interrupted young Augusta Beehatch. “Why did they all throw
the house?”
“. . . . not a (Shut up!) creature was stirring – not even a mouse. . . .”
“Why would anybody want to stir a mouse, anyway?” asked Bandaid Beehatch.
“. . . . The stockings (Shut up!) were hung by the chimney with care. . . .”
“Daddy, why did they. . . .”
“. . . . in hopes (Shut up!) that Saint Nicholas soon would be there.”
Mrs. Beehatch finished her job of shoeing the oxen and turned them loose to
roam in the kitchen. Beehatch droned on in a monosong singtone:
“. . . . Away to the window I flew like a flash. . . . .”
“How could he fly, Daddy?” asked little Eggwhite. “Did they used to have
wings in the olden days? Did you have them in the olden days, Daddy?”
“. . . . Tore open (I said shut up!) the shutters and threw up the sash.
. . .”
“Gee, Pop, I should think he would throw it up,” said Dulp Beehatch. “A sash
is pretty hard to digest.”
“. . . . The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow. . . .”
“Wait a minute, Daddy! Wait a minute!”
“. . . . gave a (No cracks, Matilda!) lustre of midday to objects below.
. . .”
The oxen scratched at the kitchen door, and Momma Beehatch let them back into
the room. They lay down by the fire, and the voice of James the elder went
on:
“. . . . And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof. . . .”
“In a twinkling?” exclaimed Foolsgold. “You said he had on a cap. What’s he
doing in a twinkling?”
“. . . . the prancing (Be still!) and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head. . . .”
“That’s a funny place to draw – in his head,” said Rachael Streep Beehatch.
“I’ve got a drawing book and a coloring book and. . . .”
“. . . . A bundle (Shut up!) of toys he had flung on his back. . . .”
“Why did he have flung on his back, Daddy?” interrogated Battledore Beehatch.
“Couldn’t he get it off?”
“It probably wasn’t flung,” said Ralph Beehatch. “It was probably. . . .”
“. . . . And he looked (Don’t say it!) like a peddler just opening his pack.”
Mother Beehatch lay down on the hearth with the oxen and went to sleep.
Somewhere out in back a door slammed, and an old man rat scurried up the
stairs with a pat of butter. James the tireless went on:
“. . . . and a round little belly
That shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.”
“Why did he want to laugh like a bowlful of jelly, Daddy?” asked Mamie
B’hatch.
“. . . . (Shut up!). . .,” continued J.B., unruffled.
“. . . . He spoke not a word but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk. . . .”
Philomena Beehatch broke the silence. “Was that you, was it, Daddy? Were you
the jerk, Daddy?”
“. . . . He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle. . .”
“What, one whistle for all those reindeers? That’s pretty stingy! I’ll bet he
had lots of whistles in his bag. If I was Santa Claus. . . .”
Madame Beehatch woke up, went to the door and scratched, and was let out.
James tucked his hand into his toga and took breath for the stirring finale:
“. . . . Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
We looked around the room. Not a creature was, not even a – yes there was –
just one mouse, nibbling at the scraps of ox-hoof in the corner. Everyone was
asleep – except James Beehatch. He got down on all fours, scratched at the
door, and was let out.
That was the last we saw of him, but it has since been reliably reported that
was the last we saw of him, but it has since been reliably reported that was
the last we saw of him, but it has since been reliably reported that.