Mince Pie Part 8

THE URCHIN AT THE ZOO

I don't know just what urchins think about; neither do they, perhaps; but presumably by the time they're twenty-eight months old they must have formed some ideas as to what is possible and what isn't. And therefore it seemed to the Urchin's curators sound and advisable to take him out to the Zoo one Sunday afternoon just to suggest to his delightful mind that nothing is impossible in this curious world.

Of course, the amusing feature of such expeditions is that it is always the adult who is astounded, while the child takes things blandly for granted. You or I can watch a tiger for hours and not make head or tail of it--in a spiritual sense, that is--whereas an urchin simply smiles with rapture, isn't the least amazed, and wants to stroke the "nice p.u.s.s.y."

It was a soft spring afternoon, the garden was thronged with visitors and all the indoor animals seemed to be wondering how soon they would be let out into their open-air inclosures. We filed through the wicket gate and the Urchin disdained the little green go-carts ranked for hire. He preferred to navigate the Zoo on his own white-gaitered legs. You might as well have expected Adam on his first tour of Eden to ride in a palanquin.

The Urchin entered the Zoo much in the frame of mind that must have been Adam's on that original tour of inspection. He had been told he was going to the Zoo, but that meant nothing to him. He saw by the aspect of his curators that he was to have a good time, and loyally he was prepared to exult over whatever might come his way. The first thing he saw was a large boulder--it is set up as a memorial to a former curator of the garden. "Ah," thought the Urchin, "this is what I have been brought here to admire." With a shout of glee he ran to it. "See stone,"

he cried. He is an enthusiast concerning stones. He has a small cardboard box of pebbles, gathered from the walks of a city square, which is very precious to him. And this magnificent big pebble, he evidently thought, was the marvelous thing he had come to examine. His custodians, far more anxious than he to feast their eyes upon lions and tigers, had hard work to lure him away. He crouched by the boulder, appraising its hugeness, and left it with the gratified air of one who has extracted the heart out of a surprising and significant experience.

The next adventure was a robin, hopping on the lawn. Every child is familiar with robins which play a leading part in so much Mother Goose mythology, so the Urchin felt himself greeting an old friend. "See Robin Red-breast!" he exclaimed, and tried to climb the low wire fence that bordered the path. The robin hopped discreetly underneath a bush, uncertain of our motives.

Now, as I have no motive but to attempt to record the truth, it is my duty to set down quite frankly that I believe the Urchin showed more enthusiasm over the stone and the robin than over any of the amazements that succeeded them. I suppose the reason for that is plain. These two objects had some understandable relation with his daily life. His small mind--we call a child's mind "small" simply by habit; perhaps it is larger than ours, for it can take in almost anything without effort--possessed well-known cla.s.sifications into which the big stone and the robin fitted comfortably and naturally. But what can a child say to an ostrich or an elephant? It simply smiles and pa.s.ses on. Thereby showing its superiority to some of our most eminent thinkers. They, confronted by something the like of which they have never seen before--shall we say a League of Nations or Bolshevism?--burst into shrill screams of panic abuse and flee the precinct! How much wiser the level-headed Urchin! Confronting the elephant, certainly an appalling sight to so small a mortal, he looked at the curator, who was carrying him on one shoulder, and said with an air of one seeking gently to rea.s.sure himself, "Elphunt won't come after Junior." Which is something of the mood to which the Senate is moving.

It was delightful to see the Urchin endeavor to bring some sense of order into this amazing place by his cla.s.sification of the strange sights that surrounded him. He would not confess himself staggered by anything. At his first glimpse of the emu he cried ecstatic, "Look, there's a--," and paused, not knowing what on earth to call it. Then rapidly to cover up his ignorance he pointed confidently to a somewhat similar fowl and said sagely, "And there's another!" The curious moth-eaten and shabby appearance that captive camels always exhibit was accurately recorded in his addressing one of them as "poor old horsie."

And after watching the llamas in silence, when he saw them nibble at some gra.s.s he was satisfied. "Moo-cow," he stated positively, and turned away. The bears did not seem to interest him until he was reminded of Goldylocks. Then he remembered the pictures of the bears in that story and began to take stock of them.

The Zoo is a pleasant place to wander on a Sunday afternoon. The willow trees, down by the brook where the otters were plunging, were a cloud of delicate green. Shrubs everywhere were bursting into bud. The Tasmanian devils those odd little swine that look like small pigs in a high fever, were lying sprawled out, belly to the sun-warmed earth, in the same whimsical posture that dogs adopt when trying to express how jolly they feel. The Urchin's curators were at a loss to know what the Tasmanian devils were and at first were led astray by a sign on a tree in the devils' inclosure. "Look, they're Norway maples," cried one curator. In the same way we thought at first that a llama was a Chinese ginkgo.

These errors lead to a decent humility.

There is something about a Zoo that always makes one hungry, so we sat on a bench in the sun, watched the stately swans ruffling like square-rigged s.h.i.+ps on the sparkling pond, and ate biscuits, while the Urchin was given a mandate over some very small morsels. He was much entertained by the monkeys in the open-air cages. In the upper story of one cage a lady baboon was embracing an urchin of her own, while underneath her husband was turning over a pile of straw in a persistent search for small deer. It was a sad day for the monkeys at the Zoo when the rule was made that no peanuts can be brought into the park. I should have thought that peanuts were an inalienable right for captive monkeys.

The order posted everywhere that one must not give the animals tobacco seems almost unnecessary nowadays, with the weed at present prices. The Urchin was greatly interested in the baboon rummaging in his straw.

"Mokey kicking the gra.s.s away," he observed thoughtfully.

Down in the grizzly-bear pit one of the bears squatted himself in the pool and sat there, grinning complacently at the crowd. We explained that the bear was taking a bath. This presented a familiar train of thought to the Urchin and he watched the grizzly climb out of his tank and scatter the water over the stone floor. As we walked away the Urchin observed thoughtfully, "He's dying." This somewhat shocked the curators, who did not know that their offspring had even heard of death. "What does he mean?" we asked ourselves. "He's dying," repeated the Urchin in a tone of happy conviction. Then the explanation struck us. "He's drying!" "Quite right," we said. "After his bath he has to dry himself."

We went home on a crowded Girard Avenue car, thinking impatiently that it will be some time before we can read "The Jungle Book" to the Urchin.

In the summer, when the elephants take their bath outdoors, we'll go again. And the last thing the Urchin said that night as he fell asleep was, "Mokey kicking the gra.s.s away."

FELLOW CRAFTSMEN

Robert Urwick, the author, was not yet so calloused by success that he was immune from flattery. And so when he received the following letter he was rather pleased:

Mr. Robt. Urwick, dear sir I seen your story in this weeks Sat.u.r.day Evn Cudgel, not that I can afford to buy journals of that stamp but I pick up the copy on a bench in the park. Now Mr. Urwick I am a poor man but I was brought up a patron of the arts and I am bound to say that story of yours called Bra.s.s Nuckles was a fine story and I am proud to compliment you upon it. Mr. Urwick that brings me to another matter upon which I have been intending to write you upon for a long time but did not like to risk an intrusion. I used to dable in literature to some little extent myself if that will lend a fellow feeling for a craftsman in distress. I am a poor man, out of work through no fault of mine but on account of the illness of my wife and my sitting up with her at nights for weeks and weeks I could not hold my job whch required mentle concentration of a vigorous sort. Now Mr. Urwick I have a sick wife and seven children to support, and the rent shortly due and the landlord threatens to eject us if I don't pay what I owe. As it happens my wife and I are hoping to be blessed again soon, with our eighth. Owing to my love and devotion for the fine arts we have named all the earlier children for noted authors or writers Rudyard Kipling, W.J. Bryan, Mark Twain, Debs, Irvin Cobb, Walt Mason and Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x. Now Mr.

Urwick I thought that I would name the next one after you, seeing you have done so much for literature Robert if a boy or Roberta if a girl with Urwick for a middle name thus making you a G.o.dfather in a manner of speaking. I was wondering whether you would not feel like making a little G.o.dfathers gift for this innocent babe now about to come into the world and to bare your name. Say twenty dollars, but not a check if it can be avoided as owing to tempry ambarra.s.sment I am not holding any bank account, and currency would be easier for me to convert into the necesity of life.

I wrote this letter once before but tore it up fearing to intrude, but now my need compels me to be frank. I hope you will adorn our literature with many more beautiful compositions similiar to Bra.s.s Nuckles.

Yours truly

Mr Henry Phillips 454 East 34 St.

Mr. Urwick, after reading this remarkable tribute twice, laughed heartily and looked in his bill-folder. Finding there a crisp ten-dollar note, he folded it into an envelope and mailed it to his admirer, inclosing with it a friendly letter wis.h.i.+ng success to the coming infant who was to carry his name.

A fortnight later he found on his breakfast table a very soiled postal card with this message:

Dear and kind friend, the babe arrived and to the joy of all is a boy and has been cristened Robert Urwick Phillips. Unfortunately he is a sicly infant and the doctor says he must have port wine at once or he may not survive. His mother and I were overjoyed at your munificant gift and hope some day to tell the boy of his beanefactor, Mr. Kipling only sent five spot to his namesake. Do you think you could spare five dollars to help pay for port wine Yours gratefully

Henry Phillips?

Mr. Urwick was a little surprised at the thought of port wine for one so young, but happening to be bound down town that morning he thought it might be interesting to look in at Mr. Phillips' residence and find out how his G.o.dchild was faring. If the child were really in distress he might perhaps contribute a small sum to insure proper medical care.

The address proved to be a shabby tenement house hedged by saloons. A ragged little girl (he wondered whether she were Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x Phillips) pointed him to Mr. Phillips's door. Meeting no answer, he entered.

The room was empty--a single room, with a cot bed, an oil stove and a table littered with stationery and stamps. Of Mrs. Phillips, his namesake or the other seven he saw no signs. He advanced to the table.

Evidently Mr. Phillips was not a ready writer and his letters cost him some pains. Several lay open on the table in different stages of composition. They were all exactly the same in wording as the first one Urwick had received. They were addressed to Booth Tarkington, Don Marquis, Ellen Glasgow, Edna Ferber, Agnes Repplier, Holworthy Hall and Fannie Hurst. Each letter offered to name some coming child after these Parna.s.sians. Near by lay a pile of old magazines from which the industrious Mr. Phillips evidently culled the names of his literary favorites.

Urwick smiled grimly and tiptoed from the room. On the stairs he met a fat charwoman. He asked her if Mr. Phillips were married. "Whisky is his wife and child," she replied.

A month later Urwick put Phillips into a story which he sold to the _Sat.u.r.day Evening Cudgel_ for $500. When it was published he sent a marked copy of the magazine to the father of Robert Urwick Phillips with the following note:

"Dear Mr. Phillips--I owe you about $490. Come around some day and I'll blow you to lunch."

THE KEY RING

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I know a man who carries in his left-leg trouser pocket a large heavy key ring, on which there are a dozen or more keys of all shapes and sizes. There is a latchkey, and the key of his private office, and the key of his roll-top desk, and the key of his safe deposit box, and a key to the little mail box at the front door of his flat (he lives in what is known as a pushb.u.t.ton apartment house), and a key that does something to his motor car (not being an automobilist, I don't know just what), and a key to his locker at the golf club, and keys of various traveling bags and trunks and filing cases, and all the other keys with which a busy man burdens himself. They make a n.o.ble clanking against his thigh when he walks (he is usually in a hurry), and he draws them out of his pocket with something of an imposing gesture when he approaches the ground gla.s.s door of his office at ten past nine every morning. Yet sometimes he takes them out and looks at them sadly. They are a mark and symbol of servitude, just as surely as if they had been heated red-hot and branded on his skin.

Not necessarily an unhappy servitude, I hasten to remark, for servitude is not always an unhappy condition. It may be the happiest of conditions, and each of those little metal strips may be regarded as a medal of honor. In fact, my friend does so regard them. He does not think of the key of his roll-top desk as a reminder of hateful tasks that must be done w.i.l.l.y-nilly, but rather as an emblem of hard work that he enjoys and that is worth doing. He does not think of the latchkey as a mandate that he must be home by seven o'clock, rain or s.h.i.+ne; nor does he think of it as a souvenir of the landlord who must be infallibly paid on the first of the month next ensuing. No, he thinks of the latchkey as a magic wand that admits him to a realm of kindness "whose service is perfect freedom," as say the fine old words in the prayer book. And he does not think of his safe deposit box as a hateful little casket of leases and life insurance policies and contracts and wills, but rather as the place where he has put some of his own past life into voluntary bondage--into Liberty Bondage--at four and a quarter per cent. Yet, however blithely he may psychologize these matters, he is wise enough to know that he is not a free man. However content in servitude, he does not blink the fact that it is servitude.

"Upon his will he binds a radiant chain," said Joyce Kilmer in a fine sonnet. However radiant, it is still a chain.

So it is that sometimes, in the lulls of telephoning and signing contracts and talking to salesmen and preparing estimates and dictating letters "that must get off to-night" and trying to wriggle out of serving on the golf club's house committee, my friend flings away his cigar, gets a corncob pipe out of his desk drawer, and contemplates his key ring a trifle wistfully. This nubby little tyrant that he carries about with him always makes him think of a river in the far Canadian north, a river that he visited once, long ago, before he had built up all the barbed wire of life about his spirit. It was a green lucid river that ran in a purposeful way between long fringes of pine trees. There were sandy shelves where he and a fellow canoeist with the good gift of silence built campfires and fried bacon, or fish of their own wooing.

The name of that little river (his voice is grave as he recalls it), was the Peace; and it was not necessary to paddle if you didn't feel like it. "The current ran" (it is pathetic to hear him say it) "from four to seven miles an hour."

The tobacco smoke sifts and eddies into the carefully labeled pigeonholes of his desk, and his stenographer wonders whether she dare interrupt him to ask whether that word was "priority" or "minority" in the second paragraph of the memo to Mr. Ebbsmith. He smells that bacon again; he remembers stretching out on the cool sand to watch the dusk seep up from the valley and flood the great clear arch of green-blue sky. He remembers that there were no key rings in his pocket then, no papers, no letters, no engagements to meet Mr. Fonseca at a luncheon of the Rotary Club to discuss demurrage. He remembers the clear sparkle of the Peace water in the suns.h.i.+ne, its downward swell and slant over many a boulder, its milky vexation where it slid among stones. He remembers what he had said to himself then, but had since forgotten, that no matter what wounds and perplexities the world offers, it also offers a cure for each one if we know where to seek it. Suddenly he gets a vision of the whole race of men, campers out on a swinging ball, brothers in the common motherhood of earth. Born out of the same inexplicable soil bred to the same problems of star and wind and sun, what absurdity of civilization is it that has robbed men of this sense of kins.h.i.+p? Why he himself, he feels, could enter a Bedouin tent or an Eskimo snow-hut and find some bond of union with the inmates. The other night, he reflects, he saw moving pictures of some Fiji natives, and could read in their genial grinning faces the same human impulses he knew in himself. What have men done to cheat themselves of the enjoyment of this amazing world? "We've been cheated!" he cries, to the stenographer's horror.

He thinks of his friends, his partners, his employees, of conductors on trains and waiters in lunchrooms and drivers of taxicabs. He thinks, in one amazing flash of realization, of all the men and women he has ever seen or heard of--how each one nourishes secretly some little rebellion, some dream of a wider, freer life, a life less hampered, less mean, less material. He thinks how all men yearn to cross salt water, to scale peaks, to tramp until weary under a hot sun. He hears the Peace, in its far northern valley, brawling among stones, and his heart is very low.

"Mr. Edwards to see you," says the stenographer.

"I'm sorry, sir," says Edwards, "but I've had the offer of another job and I think I shall accept it. It's a good thing for a chap to get a chance----"

My friend slips the key ring back in his pocket.