Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming) - Skookum Chuck Fables

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The climax came at the annual Clinton ball. This was one of those
historic functions to which everyone is extended a hearty invitation,
and it is one of the great events of the season. The entire Lillooet,
Yale and Cariboo districts participate--it is a regular meeting of the
clans. And that year was no exception. All our friends were there,
including our heroes and heroines. The music was throwing its waves of
delightful chords through the hall and over the heads of the throng of
dancers. Something happened! No one knew just what it was, but in the
middle of the floor two ladies were seen tearing each other's hair and
draperies. Heavens! it was our two heroines. The tension had reached the
limit--the strings were broken. In a moment our two heroes were on the
scene, and each one seized his bundle of property and rushed with it to
safety. The two ladies were bundled into their autos and hurried home to
Ashcroft in the middle of the night.

The next day a council of war was held by the two husbands and it was
unanimously agreed that something must be done.

"I have it!" exclaimed Mr. Fivedollars. "Now, listen. I will take you in
as a partner in business. I will give you twenty years to pay your
share, and we will dress our wives exactly alike." The plan was adopted,
and the result was phenomenal. Mr. Onedollar had at last multiplied his
insignificant unit by five and had a concrete accumulation. The two
ladies dressed themselves alike extravagantly, and all rivalry ceased.
They became great friends again and lived happily ever after. And all
this disturbance and discord of human hearts was over a miserable bundle
of inanimate drapery.

Of the Ruse That Failed

Once upon a time in Ashcroft there lived a lady who had the wool pulled
over her husband's eyes to such an extent that he had optical illusions
favorable to the "darling" who deceived him. His most alluring illusion
was a booby idea that his "pet" was an invalid, and she kept pouring oil
on the joke to keep it burning, and pulled the wool down further and
further so that hubby could not see the combustible fluid she was
pouring into the flames. Her illness was one of those "to be continued"
story kinds--better to-day, worse to-morrow--and she "took" to the
blankets at the most annoying and inopportune moments; and every time
she "took" an indisposition she expected hubby to pull down the window
curtains and go into mourning. But he, the hardhearted man, would
continue to eat and smoke and sleep as though no volcanic lava were
threatening to submerge the old homestead. His sympathy was not enough;
he should stop eating, stop sleeping, and stop smoking--he should be in
direct communication with the undertaker and negotiating about the price
of caskets.

His wife had the misleading conviction that when she was ill her case
was more serious than that of anyone else. In fact, no one else had ever
suffered as she suffered; their ailments were summer excursions to the
antipodes compared with hers, and when hubby argued that all flesh was
subject to ills and disorders, that almost every unit of the human
species had toothaches and rheumatics, the argument was voted down
unanimously by the suffragette majority as illegitimate argument.

Gradually hubby became convinced that his wife was an invalid, and he
went into mourning as much as a man could mourn the loss of a joy that
he had grasped for, and just missed in the grasping. He enjoyed the
situation as much as a man could who had discovered that he had
amalgamated himself with an hospital which was mortgaged for all it was
worth to the family physician. Out of his salary of seventy-five dollars
per month sixty-five was devoted towards the financing of the doctor's
time payments on his automobile; the balance paid for food, clothing,
water, light, and fuel, and supplied the wolf with sufficient allowance
to keep him from entering the parlor in the concrete. But the
philosopher, as all men must ultimately become, concluded to make the
best of his bad real estate investment. He resigned himself to a life of
perpetual, unaffected martyrdom. After all, it was his personal
diplomacy that was at fault--he should not have bought a pig in an
Ashcroft potato sack.

During the first year of their matrimonial failure they had rooms at the
"Best" Hotel, and the girls carried breakfast to the bride's room seven
mornings of every week at about 10.30, where the "invalid" devoured it
with such greed and relish that they became suspicious and talked "up
their sleeves" about her. Three days each week she had all meals carried
up to her, and the girls wondered how she could distribute so much
proteid about her system with so little exercise. The extreme
healthfulness of her constitution was the only thing that saved this
woman from dying of surfeit. The only occasions on which she would rise
from her lethargy was to attend a dance or social of some kind given at
Walhachin or Savona--she did not avoid one of them, and on those
occasions she would be the liveliest cricket on the hearth, the biggest
toad in the puddle, while the husband was pre-negotiating with the
physician for some more evaporated stock in the auto. How she ever got
home was a mystery, for she would be more disabled than ever for weeks
to come. Of course she had just overdone her constitutional
possibility--she said so herself, and she should know.

Whispers went abroad that she was lazy, and they became so loud that
hubby heard them over the wireless telephone. He became exasperated. "My
wife a hypocrite? Never! The people have hearts of stone--brains of
feathers--they do not understand."

One day--it had never occurred to him before--he suggested that they
consult a specialist in somnolence. But she would not hear of it; there
was nothing wrong with her; all she wanted was to be left alone. In a
short time hubby began to consider her in the light of a "white man's
burden," and had distorted visions of himself laboring through life with
an over-loaded back action.

One day the hotel proprietor advised him of a contemplated raise in his
assessment to re-imburse the business for extras in connection with
elevating so much food upstairs, which was not part and parcel of the
rules and regulations of the house in committee. Besides, the
accommodation was needless.

"Needless!" exclaimed hubby. "Would you degenerate a lady and gentleman
wilfully. I will leave your fire-trap at once and cast anchor at the
'Next Best.'" The proprietor argued that his competitor was welcome to
such pickings, so he made no comment on the debate.

The "Next Best" was "full up," as it always is, so they carried the
living corpse out on a stretcher, and hubby went batching with his
burden in a three-roomed house on Bancroft Street. When it became
hubby's duty to cook the meals and carry half of them to bed for his
better half every morning before breakfast he began to taste silly and
smell sort of henpeck like. He persisted humbly, lovingly,
self-sacrificingly, henpeckedly, however, until one morning his sun rose
brighter than it had ever done before and he saw a faint glimmer of
light through the wool that was hanging in front of him.

"Perhaps there is such a commodity as superfluous personal sacrifice to
one's matrimonial obligations," he soliloquized. "Perhaps this spouse of
mine with the pre-historic constitution can be cured by an abstract
treatment. Is she ill, or is she playing a wild, deceitful part? Is she
sitting on me with all her weight?" He was willing to allow her the
usual proportion of female indisposition, but a continued story of such
nightmare proportions was beginning to unstring his physical telephone
system. So, to we who have no wool over our eyes, this was one of the
most pitiful and criminal cases of selfish indolence, perhaps coupled
with a belief that a husband, through his sympathy, will love a woman
the more because of her suffering. No supposition, of course, could be
farther from the concrete--a husband wants, requires, admires, loves, a
healthy, active working-partner. Failing this the husband as a husband
is down and out.

When hubby began to realize this an individual reformation was at the
dawning. The very next morning no breakfast arrived by private parcel
post.

"Harry," she exclaimed, "bring me my porridge and hot cakes; I am
starving."

"If you are starving get up and eat in your stall at the table," said
Harry, sarcastically, although it pained him.

"Harry!" she shouted, "you selfish beast!"

For diplomatic reasons Harry was silent.

Harry made an abrupt exit without waiting for adjournment, and went up
town. A new life seemed to be dawning upon him. It was the emancipation
from slavery. He went into the drug store, into the hardware store, into
the hotels and all the other stores--he talked and laughed as he had
never done before.

It was 3 a.m. the following morning when he found himself searching for
the door-knob in the vicinity of the front window. Having gained an
entrance, he was accosted by his wife, who exclaimed: "Harry, you
drunk?"

"Well, y'see, it was the pioneer shupper," said Harry, and he tumbled
into bed.

This was Harry's first ruse. His next move was an affinity. He would
cease to pose as a piece of household furniture--a dumb waiter sort of
thing.

At that time there was a vision waiting table at the "Best" who had most
of the fellows on a string. Harry threw his grappling irons around her
and took her in tow. This went on for some time without suspicion being
aroused on the part of the "invalid," but the wireless telegraphy of
gossip whispered the truth to her one day when she was wondering what
demon had taken possession of her protector. She dropped her artificial
gown in an instant and rushed up Railway Avenue like a militant
suffragette. Just about the local emporium Harry was sailing along under
a fair and favorable wind, hand in hand with his new dream, when he saw
his legal prerogative approaching near the "Next Best" hotel. He
dislodged his grappling-hooks in an instant, stepped slightly in
advance, and feigned that he had been running along on his own steam.
But she saw him and defined his movements. They met like two express
engines in collision, and what followed had better be left buried
underneath the sidewalk of the local emporium. There were dead and dying
left on the field, and they reached home later by two rival routes of
railway.

The stringency endured some days, which time she huffed and he read
Charles Darwin. At the end of that period the ice broke, as it always
does; the clouds rolled away, and the sun began to shine, and they began
to negotiate for peace. They had a long sitting of parliament, and it
was moved and seconded, and unanimously carried, that each give the
other a reprieve. It meant the amalgamation of two hearts that became so
intertwined with roots that nothing earthly could pull them asunder. It
was the founding of one of the happiest homes in Ashcroft. He left his
affinity--she left her bed. They became active working partners. Long
years after he told her of his ruse. She laughed.

"You saved me," she said.

He endorsed the note, and they had one long, sweet embrace which still
lingers in their memory.

Of the Real Santa Claus

I.

CHRISTMAS EVE

Once upon a time it was Christmas eve in Vancouver, B.C., and the snow
was falling in large, soft flakes. The electric light plants were
beating their lives out in laborious heart-throbs, giving forth such
power that the streets and shop windows had the appearance of the
phantom scene of a fairy stage-play rather than a grim reality; they
were lighter than day. There was magic illumination from the sidewalk to
the very apex of the tallest sky-scraper. Being Christmas eve, the
streets were thronged with pleasure seekers, and eager, procrastinating,
Christmas gift maniacs. They were all happy, but they were temporarily
insane in the eagerness of their pursuit. They all had money, plenty of
it; and this was the time of year when it was quite in order to squander
it lavishly, carelessly, insanely--for, is it not more blessed to give
than to receive?

The habiliments of the hurrying throng were exuberant, extravagant and
ostentatious in the extreme. Everyone seemed to vie with every other,
with an envy akin to insanity, for the laurels in the fashion world, and
they were talking and laughing gaily, and some of them were singing
Christmas carols. They did not even seem to regret the soft wet snow
that was falling on their costly apparel and soaking them--they seemed
rather to enjoy it. Besides, they could go home at any time and change
and dry themselves--and, was it not Christmas, the one time of the year
when the whole world was happy and lavish? The persons of the ladies
were bathed in perfume, and the clothing of the gentlemen was spotless,
save where the large, white snowflakes clung for a moment before
vanishing into fairyland. Vancouver was certainly a city of luxury, a
city of ease, a city of wealth, and it was all on exhibition at this
time of approaching festival. Everyone was rich, and money was no
obstacle in the way of enjoyment.

But we have seen one side of the picture only. We have been looking in
the sunlight; let us peer into the shadows. There was a reverse side. A
girl of about thirteen years of age was standing at the corner of
Hastings and Granville offering matches for sale to the stony world. She
was bareheaded, thinly clad, shivering. Her clothing was tattered and
torn. Her shoes were several sizes too large, and were some person's
cast-off ones. It was Christmas, and no one was seeking for matches.
They were all in search of gold and silverware, furs and fancies, to
give away to people who did not require them.

"Matches, sir?" The solicitous question was addressed to a medium-sized,
moderately dressed man who was gliding around the corner and whistling
some impromptu Christmas carol; and she touched the hem of his garment.
This unit of the big world paused, took the matches, and began to
explore his hemisphere for five cents. In the meantime he surveyed the
little girl from head to foot, and then he glanced at the big world
rushing by in two great streams.

"Give me them all!" he said with an impulse that surprised him, and he
handed her one dollar. "Now, go home and dry yourself and go to bed," he
continued. He did not stop to consider that she might not have a home
and a bed, but continued on his way with his superfluity of matches. His
home was bright, and warm, and cheery when he arrived there, and his
wife welcomed him. "I have brought you a Christmas present," he said,
and he handed her the matches. When she opened the package he found it
necessary to explain.

II.

CHRISTMAS

It was Christmas, and the snow was still falling in large, soft flakes.
It was about ten inches deep out on the hills, among the trees out along
Capilano and Lynn Creeks, but it had been churned into slush on the
streets and pavements of Vancouver. The church bells were ringing, and
our gaily clad and happy acquaintances of the evening before were again
thronging the streets; but to-day they were on their way to church to
praise the One whose birthday they were observing. Our friend of the
large heart was also there, and so was his wife--two tiny drops in that
great bucketful of humanity. The match vendor was also there--another
very tiny drop in that great bucketful. "What! Selling matches on
Christmas day?" remarked a passer-by. "You should be taken in charge by
the Inquisition."

"Matches, sir?" said the tiny voice, and she again touched the hem of
our hero's garment. The big-hearted man looked at his tender-hearted
wife, and the tender-hearted wife looked at her big-hearted man. "Yes,
give me them all," he said again, and he handed her another dollar. He
was evidently trying to buy up all the available matches so that he
could have a corner on the commodity. "Here," he continued, "take this
dollar also. Buy yourself something good for Christmas, and go home and
enjoy yourself."

"I have no home, and the shops are all closed," she said, brushing the
wet snow from her hair.

"No home!" exclaimed the lady, incredulously, "and the world is
overflowing with wealth and has homes innumerable. Is it possible that
the world's goods are so unevenly divided?"

The girl began to cry.

"Come and have your Christmas dinner with us," said the lady.

The girl, still weeping, followed in her utter innocence and
helplessness.

Ding-dong, went the merry bells. Tramp, tramp, went the feet of the big,
voluptuous world. Honk, honk, went the horns of the automobiles; for it
was Christmas, and all went merry as a marriage bell.

The fire was burning brightly. The room was warm and cozy. The house was
clean, tidy, and cheery. It was a dazzling scene to one who had been
accustomed to the cold, bare, concrete pavements only.

"My!" exclaimed the girl as they entered. It was a perfect fairyland to
her. It was a story. It was a dream.

"Now, we are going to have the realest, cutest, Christmas dinner you
ever saw," said the lady, producing a steaming turkey from the warming
oven. The girl danced in her glee and anticipation. "But first you must
dress for dinner. We will go and see Santa Claus," smiled the
foster-mother. She retired with a waif, and returned with a fairy, and
they sat down to a fairy dinner.

"What a spotless tablecloth! What clean cups and saucers, and plates and
dishes! What shining knives and forks! What kind friends!" thought the
orphan. "I had no idea such things existed outside of Heaven," she
exclaimed aloud in her rapture.

"It is all very commonplace, I assure you," said the man, "but it takes
money to buy them."

"And yet," philosophized the lady, "if we are dissatisfied in our
prosperity, what must a life be that contains nothing?"

Ding-dong, went the bells. Tramp, tramp, went the feet of the big world
outside. Honk, honk, went the horn of the automobile; but the happiest
heart of them all was the little waif who had been, until now, so
lonely, so cold, so hungry, so neglected. They were the happiest moments
in her whole life. Her time began from that day. But that is many years
ago. The orphan is a lady now in Vancouver; and every Christmas she
gives a dinner to some poor people in honor of those who adopted her and
saved her from the slums.

Of the Retreat from Moscow

Once upon a time four Ashcroft Napoleons, known locally as "Father,"
"Deacon," "Cyclone," and "Skookum," invaded Vancouver to demonstrate at
an inter-provincial curling bonspiel that was arranged to take place at
that city. Their object was to bring home as many prizes and trophies as
they could conveniently carry without having to pay "excess baggage,"
and donate the balance to charity. It was decided later not to take any
of the prizes, as it was more blessed to give than to receive, and they
did not only give away all the trophies, but they gave away all the
games as well--games they had a legitimate mortgage on--and they were
glad to see the other fellows happy.

As a man often gets into trouble trying to keep out of it, so the
Ashcroft chaps lost by trying to win; and here it is consoling to know
that all a man does or says in this world sinks and lies motionless in
the silent past, for in this case it will only be a matter of time when
people will cease to remember. But to leave all joking aside, we beg to
advise that the adventurers were dumped unceremoniously into Moscow by
the C.P.R. officials at about three good morning and had not where to
lay their heads. You could not see the city for buildings; but even at
that embryo hour of the morning the streets were not entirely deserted.
Some people seem to toil day and night, for there were dozens of forms
moving hither and thither like phantoms in the powerful glare of the
electric illuminations. Being Ashcroft people our heroes were accustomed
to city life, and the embarrassment of the situation soon evaporated.
They bundled themselves into a nocturnal automobile which was no sooner
loaded than it "hit" the streets of Vancouver like Halley's comet. It
went up and down, out and in, hither and thither. It tried to leap from
under the invaders, but they kept up with it. It went north forty
chains, east forty chains, south forty chains, and thence west forty
chains to point of commencement. It went here, then there, and
ultimately arranged to stop on Richards Street (named after our John),
at the foot of the elevator of the Hotel Canadian. This was the end of
steel for the auto, the rest of the journey had to be made on foot via
the elevator. It is a very pleasant sensation to have the floor rise and
carry you with it to the third landing, and it only takes three seconds
to make a sixty second journey. At the third floor, after having been
shown their stalls for the night, the bandits went out on an exploring
expedition while the stable man let down some hay.

They located the fire escape, as it is always better to come in by the
front door like a millionaire and leave by the fire escape in the dead
of the night when the stableman is asleep at his post.

Early next morning, at about ten o'clock, they invaded the dining-room
as hungry as hyenas, and had a lovely breakfast of porridge and cream,
ham and eggs, toast and butter, tea or coffee. To encourage the coffee
somewhat the Deacon "dug" his front foot into the lump-sugar bowl and
extracted a couple of aces; and the other mimics followed suit with two,
three, and four spots. The breaking of this fast cost forty-five cents
for the meal, and fifty-five for the waiter just to make the "eat" come
to even money, and they were too large socially to take away small
change economically. Every meal they put into their waste baskets
necessarily extracted one day from the other end of their excursion via
the fire escape, and that is one reason why they returned so soonly.
Cyclone, having drawn on his personal account at a Vancouver branch of
the Ashcroft bank for enough to pay his next meal and car fare, and
Skookum having jotted down the usual morning poetic inspiration on the
sublimity of the situation, the army, led by Father, marched full breast
upon the curling rink building. There were no knights at the gate to
defend the castle, nor did the band meet them at the portal--neither did
the Vancouver curling club. Their arrival, strange to say, created no
commotion; they did not seem to have been anticipated. Things went along
as though nothing extraordinary had taken place.

The appearances at the rink, however, were intoxicating, which largely
made up for the invisibility of the receiving committee. The rink was
somewhat larger than the town hall at Ashcroft, and the great, high,
arched, glass ceiling was studded with electric lights like stars in
the heavens. Extensive rows of seats for spectators encircled the entire
room, and in the centre, the arena was one clear, smooth sheet of hard,
white ice. Several games were in progress, and they saw their old friend
"Tam" playing with his usual Scotch luck and winning for all he was
worth.

Ashcroft selected the ice upon which the first blood was to be
sprinkled. The battle began on schedule time, and as they had
anticipated, they won without a single casualty. As a result of this
"clean up," a private conference was held that night by the Vancouver
and other clubs behind closed doors, at which it was moved, and
seconded, and adopted, that Ashcroft was a dangerous element in their
midst, and that drastic measures must be set in motion at once to arrest
such phenomenal accomplishments or the bonspiel would be lost. All
unconscious of the conspiracy against them, Ashcroft spent the afternoon
riding up and down the moving stairs at Spencer's, led by the "Deak,"
who had had previous practice at this amusement. Curling to them was as
easy as this stairway, and as simple as eating a meal if you cut out the
tipping of the waiter. That night they took in a show which was a "hum
dinger," and should have endured a life-time. What a sweet life it was;
nothing to do but live, and laugh, and curl, and win; if it would only
continue indefinitely without having to worry about the financing of it!
Napoleon "had nothing" on Father, and he felt that he could even "put it
over" on the local star. But something happened the next day. Whether it
was the private conference, or the moving stairs, or the Pantages, or
whether it was that Ashcroft became more careless with success, and
Vancouver more careful with defeat, will never be known. They pierced no
more bull's eyes--and sometimes they missed the entire target. They had
every qualification essential to the successful curler but talent. They
had the rocks, the brooms, the ribbons, the sweaters--they even had the
will. It is strange with all those requisites that they could not win.

The retreat from Moscow took place three days later, and they went
straggling over the Alps in one long string. As though the mortification
of defeat was not enough, a huge joke was prepared for them by the
reception committee of the local curling club, and lemons have been at a
premium in Ashcroft ever since.

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