Evening Star Newspaper, October 27, 1935, Page 61

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, OCTOBER 27, 1935—PART FOU. F—§ - LITERARY NOTABLES MARCH IN WEEK’'S BOOK PARADE MADAME UNDSET REMEMBERS Harold F. Stearns Writes Wistfully of the Expatriates—Sin- clair Lewis Pictures Washington, and America, Under the Dictatorship—Runyan and O’'Hara Scan the Half World. . . By Mary-Carter Roberts. THE LONGEST YEARS. By Sigrid Undset. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ADAME UNDSET, that very great writer, tells here of her childhood—not in a novel, but in a simple record of her reminiscences. She tells how the world looked to her when she was young— how it looked, tasted, smelt and felt. 1t is a level narrative, as the memory of any happy childhood, seen in perspective, must needs be level, high on its own plateau above the the peaks and deserts which make up the labor of maturity. But, in this rare and Joyous atmosphere, Madame Undset paints very clearly. All those moments when her young being was arrested by some sensation, at the time super- nally vivid, are there, recaught and Rreserved in her lucid, leisurely prose. It is a book that must have value to every one who has similar treasures in his memory—and who, one won- ders, has not? Reading this work, one is reminded naturally of Selma Lagerlof's book about her young days, “Marbacka.” It is interesting that two of the world's greatest writers, having achieved such profound maturity, should have the same impulse to write down the small details of their childhood. For it is unquestionably the same impulse that thas made both books, even though there is a difference in manner be- tween them. Miss Lagerlof wrote with ® spirit of gay fancy, making each of her chapters a sort of complete story in itself; whereas, Madame Undset has set down an unbroken narrative that s usually sober. But it is a noteworthy thing that in ®ach of these great women there has remained alive a wide-eyed little girl, sitting at all times on the edge of adult groups, a small attentive savage observing photographically the behavior of her elders, those who re, per se, civilized. Relentless dis- secters of the eternal life of genius mmight possibly find some significance in this. The thought is tendered them in all humility. THE STREET I KNOW. By Harold E. Stearns. New York: Lee Fur- man, Inc. THE author of this autobiography 11" Gas editor of the old Dial and of the two works, “Liberalism in Amer- fca” and “Civilization in the United Btates.” He was also one of the liter- ary group that came distinctively to be known as “post war,” and he was & member of the colony of American artistic expatriates which grew up in Paris in those now dimly remembered years. Before that he was a Harvard student and a New England boy of *poor but honest parents.” He has returned to America and, in the pres- ent vork, seems to be trying to gather up all the various strands of his ex- perience and see what they mean—if they mean anything. Apparently he is Dot sure. It is a book that has been praised, but still it must affect the sensitive reader as being curiously level. Mr. Stearns writes lucidly; he recounts his meniories, one feels, with painstaking truth, and yet one cannot escape the notion that, somehow, he is bored with them. His book is, in substance, an account of a series of efforts to escape, and while he applies objective names to the things from which he fled, there is a constant impression to be received from his book that it was seally his own boredom that drove him. Be that as it may, his account of the life of a poor writer in Paris is interesting, as are his pictures of that group that made the French capital its city of refuge. His pages are full of names of present eminence, some of which seem destined to have a some- what longer lease on fame. He does hot, to be sure, go far into character- fzation of these individual fellow ex- patriates, but he does re-create the mtmosphere of their lives, and the gra which they represented. That era, one feels, is at an end. In wview of this, Mr. Stearns’ book may jwell become a valuable record in fu- ture years. At present it seems to be pust a sad, but somehow an unstir- ring, narrative. MONEY FROM HOME. By Damon Runyon. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. ALTHOUGH the period when Mr. ‘Runyon could be hailed as a dis- covery is now a few years past, it is still reasonably fashionable to write appreciations. It is still in vogue to yemark that he is a latter-day O. Henry, or that Ring Lardner, leaving the press box for the Flysian flelds, bequeathed his spirit to him, while to dispute that he is the great ex- ponent of the American argot and a grand short-story writer is to avow a literary backwardness that ought to be distinctly embarrassing to the sensitive critic. This review, therefore, will begin by stating that Mr. Runyon is no latter-day O. Henry and that if Ring Lardner did attempt to drop his mantle on him, Mr. Runyon muffed . the catch. And having stated this, the present review will add that he s no exponent of the American argot and hardly a short-story writer at all. He is, however, a writer of excellence and one who seems likely to be im- portant in any future account-taking of our times and customs, It a.curieus thing that whenever a bright light arises in any art there is haste and fury on the part of the critics to compare it to earlier beacons. It is not remarkable, in view of this historic tendency, that Mr. Runyon should have been compared to O. Henry and Ring Lardner. It is only remarkable that he has not been com- pared to De Maupassant, Henry James and Mrs. Felicia Hemans. In the case of as interesting a writer as in critictsm 1s to find out what that Amplies. E One may begin with the claim— which is the most general one—that he is the exponent of the national argot. Take, then, an example of the speech of one of his characters, as set down 1n the present volume. This s & doorman speaking, the doorman of & club from which has just been ejected the real guest-of honor, as part of a plot based on mistaken fdentity. Mr. Runyon makes the ., doorman say to the bogus honor guest: “Mr, Bearles’ the doorman ssys, % most obnoxious character is here 2 just a little while ago claiming he is you. Yes, sir,;’ the doorman says, ‘he has the gall to claim he is the Honor- able Bertie Searles, and he is slightly under the influence and he has several dolls with him, including a very savage blond. Of course, we know he is not you, so we throw him out. “‘He is very cheerful about it, at that, Mr. Searles,’ the doorman says. ‘He says it does not strike him as a very lively place, anyway, and that he is having more fun where he is. But the savage blond is inclined to make much of the matter. In fact, she tries to bite me. It is a very strange world, Mr. Searles.’” Do doormen talk like that? Would that they did! But when, in the name of “realism,” we are told that this is the common speech of the common people, in literal recording, it is plain that our informérs are just marching hay-foot straw-foot down the dictionary columns of critical conventionality, seeking whither the aiming of their own noses may lead them. It is not the common people speak- ing at all. It is Mr. Damon Runyon, exhibiting a wickedly polished and most uncommonly perfect style. | For those who disagree with this a | test is suggested. Try reading the | supposed argot in the mouths of his | characters with the quotation marks removed. 1t is indistinguishable from the rest of the story. Ring Lardner did not write thus. His argot was { argot, recorded as on a phonograph disk. His ball player did not talk like | his old rustic on the golden wedding | trip. And neither of them talked like Mr. Lardner. This brings up another point of disagreement—that Mr. Runyon is a great short-story writer, or, for that matter, a short-story writer at all. If you take the view that a story has a plot and characters, then he is not. He himself is his only character, and his plots are the least of his interest. ‘They are often shamelessly borrowed, as in the case of “Earthquake” in the present volume, or they are embar- rassingly shoddy, as in the case of the beloved “Little Miss Marker” (not in this collection), a pure tear-jerker if there ever was one. O. Henry’s genius was for plots—too well-made plots, at times. As for characters, in his whole gal- lery of gangsters, touts and card sharps, which has been so joyfully ac- claimed as ‘“realistically” painted, there is not one who is more than a name. They might as well be called A, B and C. Saving the picturesque- ness of such titles as Philly the Weep- er, Frankie Ferocious and Saul the Soldier the stories would lose nothing by it. Yet no one in his senses would deny that the present volume, and, for that matter, all of Mr. Runyon’s work, is work of great individuality. But it is the author’s individuality, triumphing alike over the absence of plots and characters, transmitted to the reader by the mechanics of a style that car- ries the very soul and essence of the genial cynicism and hypocrisy that makes one distinct stratum in our social structure. It may be said that Damon Runyon writes out of the corner of his mouth, but that, at the same time, he keeps his eyebrows very piously elevated. It may also be said that he accomplishes this manner of expression by his mastery of a subtle style, and not by any other de- vice. And—further—it may be said that it is for his style that people read him, If any other learned sports writer had attempted to perpetuate such down- right clap-trap as “Miss Marker” he name. And then nobody but the ‘Youth’s Companion would have pub- lished it. IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE. By Sin- clair Lewis. Garden City: Double- day Doran. R. SINCLAIR LEWIS, who has the honor of being the only pub- licity man ever to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, here turns his flair for writing brilliant ad copy to an examination of the ques- tion of whether America would sub- mit to a dictator of the Fascist model. He is not as funny as he can be, and readers probably know that when Mr, Lewis is not funny he is dull. If “It Can’t Happen Here” had been written by a promising undergraduate, it would be an arresting book be- cause of the precocity it displayed. But the Great Genius of the American Novel (and, since he has been called that, one may as well mention it) ought to be better than precocious. It is unfair to his lesser countrymen for him to fall short of immortality in any work—it is unfair, for exam- ple, to Willa Cather, to James Branch finishing chapter four. We beg him for stones and he gives us bread. It is not thus that grand literary tradi- tion is nourished. In brief, the plot of “It Can't Hap- gress and lock it up in the District Jail, very shortly after Berzelius comes ton go down in an indignant throng to storm the bastille and get Congress out. (Perhaps Mr. Lewis is funni than one had suspected.) The Minute Men charge us (it would be you and I and our neighbors, naturelly, not more than a few months away, either) with machine gunning and trunch- of the country would have to do it under an assumed | to power. The citizens of Washing- | you 2 State, a saturnine bachelor named Sarason, who promptly fills all offices with the more promising youths of the military and devotes himself to what Mr. Lewis severely calls “orgies.” The dreadful state of the Nation by this time is pretty well set forth by the description of Sarason’s due over- “Haik (Secretary of War) marched into the White House with his picked storm troops, found President Sarason in violet silk pajamas among his friends, shot Sarason and most of his companions dead, and proclaimed himself President.” Most of the book reads just like this. Meanwhile, during the course of these sinister goings-on, the 1936 Re- publican candidate for the presidency & (not Mr. Hoover) from the safety of Canada is organizing a counter-revo- lution. It has not succeeded when the book ends, but Mr. Lewis allows a cer- | tain optimism. | To give his horrid nightmare veri- similitude, Mr. Lewis has been very careful to avoid any outward resem- blance to European methods in the beginnings of the usurpation. His Berzelius is extolled as the personi- fication of Americanism as that qual- ity exists in the populaf mind. He is & homespun person, fond oi Bour- bon, of Chesterfleld cigarettes, flap- jacks and Moon Mullins. He has a Lincolnian humorousness and actually ; persuades most of the Nation to be- leve in the indispensability of his military measures until, of course, it is too late. But just what Mr. Lewis wants to prove by this, beyond making his story a little probable, one does not see, unless it be that potential dictators are lurking everywhere ex- cept in the Republican party. One is glad to report that the bril- | liant pyrotechnics that have made previous works by the author joyful | reading in spots are not wholly lack- ing here, and there are flashes of his unique knock - down - and - drag - out humor from time to time, enlivening the otherwise heavy going. The best of these are in the chaptet headings, which are excerpts from the .uzo-{ biography of Berzelius, ghost-written for him by the highly literate Sarason. Here is a sample: “In the little towns, ah, there is the abiding peace that I love, and that can never be disturbed by even the noisiest Smart Alecks from these haughty megalopolises like Washing- ton, New York and etc.” And again, “I don't pretend to be a very educated man, except maybe edu- cated in the heart, and in being able to feel for the sorrows and fear of every ornery fellow human being. Still and all, Tve read the Bible through, from kiver to kiver, like my wife's folks say down in Arkansas, some eleven times; I've read all the | law books they've printed, and as to contemporaries, I don't guess I've missed much of all the grand litera- ture produced by Bruce Barton, Edgar Guest, Arthur Brisbane, Elizabeth Dilling, Walter Pitkin and William Dudley Pelley.” And 3o on. One can sum up by saying that if it is true that Mr. Lewis, when not funny, is dull, it is likewise a fact that when he is not dull he is funny, Uncle Sam 1 Tax-Exempt Realty in City Valued Above Half Billion. BY DON BLOCH. OR every hop of the three it takes a squirrel to cross the little bricked-over triangle at the head of Thirteen-and-a- half street on the Avenue he covers just $21,000 worth of tax-exempt United States property. Should you hesitate on that spot a moment, with both your feet together, it, according to the as yet unreleased 1935-36 books of District Assessor Wiliam P. Richards. Across the street, where the tran- sients and the starlings keep company with the statue of Gen. Pulaski, is 2§ 311 i 5 B ! Hii Eii 1 g i ] | E » 8 E i Sigrid funnier than almost anybody else. One wishes that he would reverse the proportion. As a comedian he can be incomparable. BUTTERFIELD 8. By John O'Hara. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. IS novel is a plece of very high- grade trash, conceived with cun- ning and executed with engaging plau- sibility. It seems to proceed along the level once trodden by Michael Arlen, who, in his turn, followeds the footsteps of the greates: literary busi- ness man of them all, our own Robert ‘W. Chambers. Both Arlen and Cham- bers, in their days, were hailed as bearers of the true light of realism by large sections of the reading popula- tion. “Butterfield 8” will certainly be best seller. It has everything. Times have changed since Mr. Chambers acquainted the receptive Undset. hol polloi with the intimate living of | dipsomaniac millionairesses. And there |is an even bigger gap between Arlen and O'Hara than there is between | Chambers and Arlen, as far as the| | label on the bottle goes. But one rec- | | orgnizes the contents almost un- | changed. Your nose knows, as the ad used to have it. The “Butterfield 8" formula is ancient and, for qyick re- | turns, still unbeaten. But, whereas Messrs. Chambers and | Arlen dealt with such delighttul exclu- | siveness, with no neuroses less exotic | than those supported by dollar prin- cesses or members of the peerage, Mr. O’Hara has taken his characters from | a relatively low position in life. | They are expensive but, alas, they are not swell. They are denizens of New York City in the late speakeasy era. Where the Hispano-Suiza used to hurtle in such sweet (bittersweet, of | s Land Rich in Capitl of th ™ This tiny triangle, at the junction of Thittem-ami- a-half street and Pennsylvania avenue, is% $63,000 segment of Uncle Sam’s realty holdings. assessed value of about $1.15"s square foot. Some of it, however, plumbs depths below a dollar (Reservation 92, ‘for example, at 50 cents); much lists at a dollar even, such as the 12,201 “Tops” property value in Washing- ton is lot 29, on the northeast corner of F at Fourteenth, whose 2,481 square feet have $150 on each of them. The Boy Scouts took a traffic count on that corner recently, found it the Capital's busiest. ) ‘The heaviest among these exempted i Published by His Descendants, Few Copies of Which Are in Library of Congress—Humor Lives. By Thomas R. Henry. ITHIN two years after his death in the Alamo, David Crockett had become a legendary hero along the Kentucky frontier. He was made the central figure every “good story” told in the lonely wilderness settlements for a genera- tion. He became, for a few years, the type figure of his race. Hence the Davy Crockett Almanack, published at Nashville for five years starting in 1838, constituted a rich re- pository of frontier lore and humor. At that time almanacs, issued in every section of the country, constituted Books Received Non-Fiction. | PIONEERING WITH THE RED CROSS. Ernest P. Bicknell. New | York: The Macmillan Co. FROM FARM BOY TO FINANCIER. By Frank A. Vanderlip and Boyden | Sparkes. New York: D. Appleton- Century Co. THE COMMAND OF WORDS. By S. Stephenson Smith. New York: ‘Thomas Y. Crowell Co. ART IN THE WESTERN WORLD. By David M. Robb and J. J. Gar- | rison. New York: Harper & Bros. Fiction. GOLD OF TOULOUSE. By John | Clayton. New York: Claude Ken- dall & Willoughby Sharp, Inc. DRUMS OF MONMOUTH. By Emma Gelders Sterne. New York: Dodd Mead & Co. | THE ROAD TO GLORY. By Britten | Austin. New York: Frederick A.| Stokes Co. A MAN FORBID. By Else Reed. New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc. | WIVES OF THE PROPHET. By Syd- | ney Bell. New York: The Macau- lay Co. VALIANT IS THE WORD FOR CAR- | RIE. By Barry Benefleld. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock. Poetry. ‘THE SONG OF THE MESSIAH. By John G. Neihardt. Macmillan Co. KAY THE LEPT-HANDED. By Leslie ~ Barringer. Garden City: day Doran & Co. UNQUIET. By Joseph Gollomb. New | York: Dodd Mead & Co. CHLOE DUSTS HER MANTEL. By Frances Gill. New York: The Press of the Pioneers. GIVE ME TOMORROW. By William Farquhar Payson. New York: Dodd Mead & Co. Double- | course) mad flight along the byways of Mayfair, we now have a prosaic Packard. By such marks we may recognize the decadence of our once proud standards. But—again, perhaps this despair is | untimely. A healthy nation, it would | seem, ought to be able to support one | O'Hara, even in the style to which Robert W. Chambers nas accustomed him. And who would begrudge him it? In undiluted entertainment he cer- tainly gives his customers their money’s worth. e Nation Few Steps Carry Pedes-| trian Over Areas Worth Huge Sums. properties are, of course, the Capitol and grounds (857,990.640), the Washington Monument and grounds ($24,588,980), and the White House and grounds ($25,873,170). The Monu- ment itself accounts for $1,500,000 of the total; the White House, $2.- 250,000. The Treasury “tax rate” by the way, at $60 a square foot, is twice that at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue, al- though the total valuation of the for- mer is very close to White House as- sessment. Across from the President’s house, La Fayette Square carries a value of $12,138,000, which, for unimproved land, is pretty good. Judiciary Square and thereabouts lists at about half that, and taxes for the little spot of soil whereon the statue of Benjamin Franklin stands would be based on the value of $2,758,242. The Peace Monument grounds come much |into his knows like he war going to New York: The | & ! picked up her ears like a squirrel when almost the sole reading material in many a home. @his one was intended for the sparsely settled Southwest. In many a log cabin it lay beside the Bible. Children learned to read with it, and when the weary frontiersman wanted a good laugh he picked up a tattered copy and tried to read it. The almanac was published “by the heirs of Col. Crockett,” whosoever they may have been. Besides the cus- tomary astronomical and weather nformation, it contained only Crockett anecdotes. Always they were told in the first person. The hero of the Alamo is supposed to have re- lated them himself to his kin folks. Of course, he did nothing of the sori. 1t is probably all purely fictitious. These old almanacs constitute the richest possible storehouse of the broad humor of the old frontier. Very few copies remain in the world. But a few of them have just been rescued by Volta Parma, custodian of the Rare Book Division of the Library of Congress, and stored away for the use of students of American folklore. Otherwise, it is probable, even the memory of the almanac would have been lost—and with it the source of some of the best frontier legendry. 'VEN the love-making of the people of whom Crockett served as a prototype was on an heroic scale. The North woods had its Paul Bun- yan, but the Kentucky frontier had Davy’s girl friend Zipporina. after story is told of this redoubtable young woman. The frontiersman hated nothing— not even Indians or rattlesnakes—so much as the educated, stylishly clad Easterner who tried to make an im- pression with his polished manners and ready tongue on the romance- hungry maids of the log cabins. But Zipporina was loyal to her race and knew how to deal with such fellows. As Crockett supposedly tells the story: “I wonst had an cld flame that I tuk something of a shine to bekase other game war skarse that season of the year, and she lived rite along- side the path where I used to go 0 hunt for bears. When I coodn’t find nothing else that was wurth tending to I got on the trail of Zipporina. 1 named her the wildcat of the forest. She noed how to talk good keer of number one, and never cook a piece of meat that she hadn’t kilt with her own hand. She cood jump up and strike her heels togither twice whilst a rifle was taking.time to flash. She She was a most butiful piece of wom- an flesh and when I lookt at her I used to feel as if sumbody was run- ning off with my rifie and I didnt ker nothing about it. | “But somehow it so fell out or fell | in that I found out a new hunting ground whar the bears war as thick | as mullasses, and so somehow I didn't | go that way where the girl lived. | Maybe I got the bag. but if any pesky | he what warks on two legs war to tell me so, I would put him right in my pocket. Shortly after I shifted my | tracks thair war a fellow cum down in them parts to chawlk down ngzursi and keep accounts at the Wisskonsin | mines. The way he didn’t noe nothing | ~was most butiful, and he poked snuff | charge it and fire it off. He got a| squint at Zipporina and lookt at her | through his green spectacles, and so I spose he tuk her to be green, jest bekase she lookt so through the green lass. “But Zipporina squatted low and he sees a rifle looking at him endways. One nite he went to her father’s dore and rapt and the dore opent of itseif, | as all the dores in old Kaintuck is tort | to do when a stranger kalls. Zippyi sort a had a notion what he war kum arter, and she put up her hair with an iron comb that I had giv her, and put on her bearskin shawl to look as grashus as she cood. He set down and begun to tork to her about the sun and the moon and about her eyes that he sed was like the seven stars. She noed that war a lye, because her eyes were like her muther’s. Then he went away, but he kept kolling all the time | and stuck to her like a buzz to a| sheep’s wool. At last he got as furce as & bear with his tail choppt off and swore he wood put his arm round her | neck if she wood taik off that ruff bearskin that she wore. This war a | little too much for Zipporina and she | intarmined not to bare it. “ONE day he axed her to taik a walk | with him. She shouldered her rifle and slung her powder horn and went out with him. He was pesky perlite and offered to carry her rifle for her, which she thought was a great affront, and so she war intarmined to pay him for it. She tuk him to a place where thare was a bear's nest, and by this time it had got to be darkish. She pertended she wanted to g0 a leetle ways off and telled him to wait until she cum back. So she went | stir up the bears with a branch. They made a terrible noise and the young | spark run for his life. “He wandered about the woods all nite and the next day he found the house. He telled Zipporina that he heard a noise as if of wild beasts shortly after she left him and thought she was in danger and hunted after her but got lost in the dark. She knowed how much of this to belief but squatted low and did not say & word. He went on courtin’ and she pertended to be mighty tickled with his fine speeches. “At-last he got rail saucy. He pro- posed to Zippy to meet him alone. She was mad as a buffalo but agreed to meet him that night and give him his answer about marrying him. As soon as it was dork he sneaked out of the house and went to the place. He waited about harf an hour and cheaper, at $38,340. ‘Washington's squares and parks, by the way, assess high. Six of them, with Seaton ($4,649,350) at the top in value, through Henry, McPherson, Garfield and Rawlins , incidentally, and | ¢ only then he heard a rustling among the leaves. Zippy had tod him she wud wear her bearskin cloak and he thought he seed her coming. It was alfired dark and he couldn't tell a big lack bear Zippy had driven along be- Story | She was a partikerler skreemer and cood ride a krokadile till he sweat. | you will choke me with you,lov o “At last the bear began % efatch and he bawled right out ffke a carf that has lost its muther. Then Zijj went up behind the bear and stuck a knife into its side and the varmint tumbled down, but the young spark didn’t see her and he run orf with a bloody shirt and his coat torn off him. 'He never cum back to our place agin and he told his akwaintances all along the Massissippy never to go up into our parts a-courting, for the gals up there loved so hard that they wud { have squeezed his lungs out if he | hadn’t ‘got away from there.” THEY didn't like “Yankees” down there in the Wildernes., because | the New Englanders were .00 sharp |for them. Ome of this hated breed opened a saloon in Davy's territory while he was away in Washington, serving as a member of Cpagress. The saloon keeper becatae involved in a law-suit. None of the frontier lawyers would serve «& his attorney. The client was too usyopular. Back came Crocke® from Wash- ington. The saloon keeper appealed to him. He took the case as a mat- ter of abstract justice. Court was held in a clearing His opponent was | one Ephraim Griseell, hardly more | popular than the Yankee himself. Words soon were exhausted. They | decided to dispense with the‘law and settle the mader in a good old- fashioned way—a gouging and biting | match. As Davy describes it: “He gritted his teeth and poked out | his tongue at me about six inches. | “With that I telled him I was a | pickax and would dig him out of his | stump. Then I telled him my gizzard | was a wasp's nest and I breathed rifle balls. | “He telled me he could double up a i‘ltrclk of litning and thrash me with ione end of it. | “Then I was pesky oneasy and spit {at him so hard that if he hadn't | doged it he’d have had his knows knocked flat. | “He came at me feet foremost and I caught his grate toe in my gouth, ! but the nail came off, very lucky for | him, and he got his toe back again. “But whilst he was bringing his foot to the ground I caught the slack tof his breeches in my teeth and lifted him up in the air swinging like a | scale beam. But his trousers tore through 1 a minute ‘and he cum down sprawling. “He jumped up speechless. He seed I was jest ready to lay my paw on | him again. He turned pale and telled the people that was looking on how | they had better interfere as he was afeared he wud be the death of me if we come to scratch again. I TELLED the lying sarpent to own her war drawed up or I would | make fiddle string of his tripe. So he squatted low and felt mean. He sneaked off like an injun in a clear- ing.” Thus the Yankee saloon keeper's ex-Congressman advocate won his case for him. But then the victor turned on his client: “Now I tell you as a friend, and my name’s Davy Crockett, that you'd bet- ter make tracks out of this clearing as fast as dry dust in a thunder squall. For I only pled yur case bekase the other varmint was a streak or two meaner than you. But you are mean enuf to put the sun to eclipse.” “And,” he concludes, “that war the last seen of him in these parts.” He engaged in many a fight of this sort. One of the funniest, as he sup- posedly relates in the first person in the 1838 almanac, follows: “One day as I was setting in the stern of my broadhorn, the old Free and Easy, on the Massissippy, taking a horn of midshipman’s grog with tin pot in each hand, first a draught of whiskey and then one of river water, who should float down past me but Joe Snag. “He was in a snooze, as fast as a church, with his mouth wide open. {He had been ramsquaddled with shikey for a fortnight and as it evaporated from his body it looked like steam from a vent pipe. Knowing the feller would be dammed hard to wake as he floated past me, I hit him a crack over his knob with my big steering oar. “He walked in a thundering rage. Says he: “‘Halloe, stranger; who axed you to- crack my lice?" “Sez I: ‘Shet up your mouth or your teeth will get sunburnt.” “Upon this he crooked up his neck and neighed like a stallion. I clapped my arms and crowed like a cock. “Says he: ‘If you are a game chicken I'll pick all the pin-feathers offn’ you.' “I had not had a fight for as much as 10 days. Sez I: ‘I want none o' your chin music,. but set your knuckles on land and I'll give you & severe liking." “The fellow now jumped ashore and he war so tall he cudn't tell when | down to the bear’s nest and begun to | his feet war cold. He jumped up & rod. Sez he: “ ‘Take kare how I lite on you." "H!: GIVE me a sockdologer that made my very liver and lites turn to jelly. But he had found a real scrouger. I broke three of his ribs and he knocked out five of my teeth and one eye. I finally got a bite holt on his leg (‘posterious’ in copy) that he cud not shake off. “We were now parted by some boate men and we were s0 exhausted that it was more than a month before either cud have a fight. It seemed to_me like a little eternity.” Come to Our Lending Library For all the new fiction, non- fiction, mystery and adventure books. Browse around if you wish or, if you'd rather, we'll help you select a book that fits in with your “reading mood.”