Evening Star Newspaper, March 3, 1935, Page 76

THIS WEEK SEVEN MILL "I)OLLARS SYNOPSIS OF FIRST CHAPTER €6 £ YOrRDWOOD" McGash tilted C back his chair in front of the Sunset Hotel in Jack- rabbit Creek, stuck thumbs in suspenders, and surveyed a world with only one flaw. As climax to a (partly) sober career as sewing machine salesman, prospector, for- tune teller, store keeper and lumber- man, he had faced bankruptcy. Then iron ore had been discovered on his cut-over acres and he had sold — handsomely. Now he possessed seven million dollars but no way to spend them! Supplies of bright vests and socks, candy for every child in town — these had made no dent. A $500,000 Community Hall had taken some, and Les Doggins, master of six musical instruments including the mouth organ, and now studying in Paris at Cordwood’s expense, had taken more; but there was still a lot of cash left. It was at this auspicious moment, in June, 1933, that Percy Willoughby, former Jack- rabbitite but more recently ‘‘cashier or president or something in a Milwaukee bank,"” dropped into town for a visit. He remained to be Cordwood's secretary, business manager and social guide. He helped him buy a big house and furnish it grandly, and persuaded him to entertain not only friends of lumbering and prospecting days, but more respectable citizens, including the widow Benner, intel- lectual leader of Jackrabbit. Percy was even willing to help when Cord- wood had his big inspiration. He would make a trip to Paris — so glowingly described in letters by Les Doggins - and take the whole town along! “Yes," said Percy, “there'd be a lot of planning necessary, a lot of cash to handle, but it could be done. Shall we start in June?" CHAPTER 11 HEN he went out, all innocence and glee, to inform his fellow townsmen what he was going to do for them, Cordwood was bewildered to find that they weren't as excited about suddenly picking up and going to Paris as he was. He was a wanderer, chickless and childless, even if not Percyless, while they had familiar homes, wives, children, jobs. They liked to be able to find their slippers or the bathroom in the dark. He had to argue with them, to persuade them that they really would like it. But he was not altogether without craft. He explained to Mrs. Maybelle Benner that they would all enjoy the treasures of Art and Architecture for which Paris was, and justly, so celebrated; he warmly pictured the entire expedition, particularly himself, as spending all its Parisian afternoons and evenings in following professors about and being lectured at about painters and the Helmet of Na- varre. (He remembered that there had been some Frog named Navarre — quite a long while ago, he believed — and that he had had a helmet, for some fool reason or other.) Maybelle Benner seemed very much pleased about Navarre and his helmet. Then Cordwood convinced Oley Tengbom, Manny llgenfritz, Sime Bendelari, and Milt Cohen that they would spend all their after- noons and evenings, under the inspiriting guidance of Les Dog- gins, in lapping up strange and peculiarly excellent sorts of licker —arrack and akivit and vodka. To Mr. Scallion, the banker, and Mr. Mitch he hinted that his dear- est desire was to make a serious study of the financial, religious, and educational systems of France —- if there were any such systems in so barbarous a land. Now there were but few persons in Jackrabbit who had ever been abroad. Oh, of course there were three or four hundred who had been born in Europe, and lived Hllustration by Harry Beckhoff The Lure of Paris and the Big Heart of (ordwood N cGash Start Something in Fackrabbit (‘reck The Second Installment of a New Satire on Americans Abroad By SINCLAIR there from five to thirty years, but they were merely foreigners, and didn’t count as people who could go over and understand Europe. The real Americans, the people who had some right to travel and investigate, began to ponder gravely on Cordwood's offer, and after a week he held a mass-meeting to which every inhabitant of Jackrabbit was invited. Cordwood ruggedly gave the invitation to his proprietary crusade, but it was Percy Willoughby who, with elegance, anecdotes, a dinner jacket, and tasteful references to the American Eagle, the Pilgrim Fathers, and Lafayette, really outlined the plan. Special trains. Chartered steamer. Sightseeing in New York. Respectable hotels in Paris — i.e., those in which all servants spoke American. To go in summer, when the children would be out of school — the children, God bless them, whose little prattling voices were the sweetest music this side o' Paradise. (It is probable that Percy forgot that, as far as was known, neither he nor Cordwood had any children to prattle.) Experts to be brought from the Twin Cities to care for the town and all necessary business while the citizenry were away. The noble Mr. McGash to pay all ex- penses, including tips — no one need spend a cent except for such presents as he might care [.LEWIS to bring home. Office now established down- stairs, under the expert guidance of Miss Minnie Berklund, and all who wished to take the trip please hurry and register with her, - first come to get best accommodations on trains and steamer, and he wished to thank them one and all and to express - He was interrupted by Ben Pilshaw of the feed store, who wanted them to give three cheers for good ole Cordwood McGash. They did, even the Reverend Mr. Mitch. Some were sick, some could not leave their posts, as doctors or powerhouse engineers or post-oftice employees or railroaders, some were afraid, some plain did not want to go, but out of the 1231 permanent inhabitants of Jackrabbit Creek, 887 persons did actually register for this gaudy chance of a lifetime, March 3, 19735 and accompany Cordwood — and Perce — on the European spree. As commandant and genera fixer of the town while the in- ’ habitants were away, Percy brought in a man for whom, he admitted, he had an almost prayerful respect ; one Colonel Blight, who had been a soldier, a policeman, a banker, a stock-broker, and the city manager of Septemia, Ohio. Cordwood was vaguely astonished that a colonel could look so much like a colonel as Colonel Blight did. He had it all — the broad shoulders and slim waist, the white hair and small white mustache, the port complexion, the hearty voice, the ability, and extreme willingness, to tell what he had said to Pershing and Lady Astor. After the good colonel, came an entire corps of persons skilled to guard property, extinguish fires, answer mail, for- ward mail. They were needed even before the caravan took the golden road to Samarkand. Now that they had committed themselves to help- ing Cordwood spend his money, most of the citizenry felt that he was thereby obligated to heal all their troubles, spiritual and temporal, so that they might start off blithely. He was expected to pay up all mortgage interest for at least two years ahead — and most of the mortgagees thought it would be all right if he paid off the mortgages entirely and, if he wanted to, he could burn the documents up and forget them. Three persons wanted to have slight operations — to be arranged and paid for by Cordwood — and sixteen wanted their teeth put in shape, and they spoke to Cordwood, sadly or angrily, as though he might just as well admit that it was he who had done dirt to their teeth in the first place. One lady wanted to know if he would mind, personally, escorting her seven grandchildren to an aunt's, in Waco, Texas -— which, she said brightly smiling, would make her ever so ( Continued on Page 9) ‘“We Ain’ ¢ to March Up N Fifth dvenue, and Not in Paris, France?”’ BECrSm g e ~w g - 4 ] $ g £ $