Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming) - Skookum Chuck Fables
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Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming) >> Skookum Chuck Fables
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This is a little domestic scene of the year A.D. 1425, and how homelike
and real and familiar it all is. What a sweet peace spot, among all the
bloodshed and horror that was going on throughout France at that time.
Joan of Arc is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable characters in all
history. She was born at Domremy, France, in 1412, and was executed in
1431. Before she had reached twenty this girl had practically freed
France from the English, or at least put the country upon such a footing
that a few years accomplished its freedom.
The superstitions of the times are no doubt responsible to a great
extent for the success which was attained by this Maid of Orleans. "The
English believed in her supernatural mission as firmly as the French
did, but they thought her a sorceress who had come to overthrow them by
her enchantments," and so on. The fact remains that this innocent
peasant girl of eighteen years of age freed France from the English and
accomplished things which no man of France at that time was able to do.
Either the French generalship of the times was very incompetent or the
army was very much demoralized--at all events they had been awaiting the
advent of a leader who was both determined and fearless, for skill does
not seem to have been a requisite--and this appeared in the person of
Joan of Arc.
It is difficult to believe that an entirely inexperienced person of this
kind could take charge of an army of ten thousand men and lead them to
victory when the best trained generals of the time could do nothing and
suffered defeat at every turn.
With the coronation of the King the Maid felt that her errand was over.
"Oh, gentle king, the pleasure of God is done," she cried, as she flung
herself at the feet of Charles, and asked leave to go home. "Would it
were His good will," she pleaded with the archbishop, as he forced her
to remain, "that I might go and keep sheep once more with my sisters and
my brothers; they would be glad to see me again."
But the policy of the French court detained her. France was depending on
one of its peasant girls for its very national existence. The
humiliation of the thing should make all good Frenchmen blush with
shame. So she fought on with the conviction that she was superfluous in
the army, and a slave to the French court. It does not appear that she
was even placed upon the payroll, or that she received reward of any
kind for her services--and there were no "Victoria crosses" in those
days. She fought on without pay; rendered all her services for
nothing--perhaps for the love of the thing. During the defence of
Compiegne in May, 1430, she fell into the hands of one Vendome, who sold
her to the Duke of Burgundy. Burgundy sold her to the English--her
remuneration for her self-sacrificing, voluntarily-given services.
And now comes the tragic part of a most pathetic story enacted out at a
time when the name civilization, applied to the French and English, is a
mockery. "In December she was carried to Rouen, the headquarters of the
English, heavily fettered, and flung into a gloomy prison, and at
length, arraigned before the spiritual tribunal of the Bishop of
Beauvais, a wretched creature of the English, as a sorceress and a
heretic, while the dastard she had crowned king left her to die." She
was not even granted a legal, judicial trial.
Some say that her sentence was at one time commuted to perpetual
imprisonment, which proves that there was a glimmer of humanity hid away
in some corner of the world, knocking hysterically in its imprisonment
for admission. "But the English found a pretext to treat her as a
criminal and condemned her to be burned." And at this juncture it may be
well to say that we have good reason to be proud of ourselves to-day,
and ashamed of our ancestors.
"She was brought to the stake on May 30th, 1431. The woman's tears dried
upon her cheeks, and she faced her doom with the triumphant courage of
the martyr." During her last awful moments, as she left this world with
the torture of the flames slowly consuming her body, what were the last
impressions of this girl of nineteen who left home and happiness to free
a people who allowed her to be thus tormented to death? "A court was
constituted by Pope Calixtus III., in 1455, which declared her innocent
and pronounced her trial unjust. And through the whole civilized world
her memory is fittingly commemorated in statuary and literature." But
this is poor consolation and does not undo the mischief. So far as Joan
of Arc is concerned, she is still burning, scorching, suffering at that
stake, and the world and the English are her torturers, still tormenting
her, while the man she made king stands looking on indifferently,
heartlessly. All the honor and statuary that ever had creation on this
green earth cannot atone for this crime of "civilization" on the
innocent. But it is only one blot of many with which the world moves
on, branded indelibly to its unknown end; and beneath a pleasant
exterior we know, but try to hide, those blots, with apologies for our
ancestors. And yet some say the world is getting no better. Out of this
chaos of blood, crime and heathendom we sprang with all our pride and
greatness, and with such a record it behooves us to be rather humble
than high-minded, for crime and disgrace are lying at our very
door-step.
"The story of Joan has been a rich motive in the world of art, and
painter and sculptor have spent their genius on the theme without as yet
adequately realizing its simple grandeur."
Of Voices Long Dead
The following is not history, although we have placed it under this
heading. It is the literal translation of a poem by Theocritus, a light
in the ancient literature of the Greeks. Although the actual incident
never occurred, it is typical of what was going on among that long dead
people, and it is of as much importance to us as the most valuable
record of history, and is of vital interest when viewed in retrospect
from the year 1915, because it gives us a rare glimpse into the domestic
manners of a people who lived when all the present civilized world was
in the hands of savages--and how modern it all seems. The scene might
have been enacted yesterday even to the smallest detail.
Imagine yourself in the city of Alexandria about the year 280 B.C.
"Some Syracusan women staying at Alexandria, agreed, on the occasion of
a great religious solemnity--the feast of Adonis--to go together to the
palace of King Ptolemy Philadelphus, to see the image of Adonis, which
the Queen Arsinoe, Ptolemy's wife, had had decorated with peculiar
magnificence. A hymn, by a celebrated performer, was to be recited over
the image. The names of the two women are Gorgo and Praxinoe; their
maids, who are mentioned in the poem, are called Eunoe and Eutychis.
Gorgo comes by appointment to Praxinoe's house to fetch her, and there
the dialogue begins."
We are following the translation of William Cleaver Wilkinson.
Gorgo. Is Praxinoe at home?
Praxinoe. My dear Gorgo, at last! Yes, here I am. Eunoe, find a
chair--get a cushion for it.
G. It will do beautifully as it is.
P. Do sit down.
G. Oh, this gadabout spirit! I could hardly get to you, Praxinoe,
through all the crowd and all the carriages. Nothing but heavy boots,
nothing but men in uniform. And what a journey it is! My dear child, you
really live too far off.
P. It is all that insane husband of mine. He has chosen to come out here
to the end of the world, and take a hole of a place--for a house it is
not--on purpose that you and I might not be neighbors. He is always just
the same--anything to quarrel with one! anything for spite!
G. My dear, don't talk so of your husband before the little fellow. Just
see how astonished he looks at you. Never mind, Zopyrio, my pet, she is
not talking about papa.
P. Good heavens! the child does really understand.
G. Pretty papa!
P. That pretty papa of his the other day (though I told him beforehand
to mind what he was about), when I sent him to shop to buy soap and
rouge, he brought me home salt instead--stupid, great, big,
interminable animal.
G. Mine is just the fellow to him.... But never mind; get on your things
and let us be off to the palace to see the Adonis. I hear the queen's
decorations are something splendid.
P. In grand people's houses everything is grand. What things you have
seen in Alexandria! What a deal you will have to tell anybody who has
never been here!
G. Come, we ought to be going.
P. Every day is holiday to people who have nothing to do. Eunoe, pick up
your work; and take care, lazy girl, how you leave it lying about again;
the cats find it just the bed they like. Come, stir yourself; fetch me
some water, quick! I wanted the water first, and the girl brings me the
soap. Never mind, give it me. Not all that, extravagant! Now pour out
the water--stupid! why don't you take care of my dress? That will do. I
have got my hands washed as it pleases God. Where is the key of the
large wardrobe? Bring it here--quick!
G. Praxinoe, you can't think how well that dress, made full, as you've
got it, suits you. Tell me, how much did it cost?--the dress by itself,
I mean.
P. Don't talk of it, Gorgo; more than eight guineas of good hard money.
And about the work on it I have almost worn my life out.
G. Well, you couldn't have done better.
P. Thank you. Bring me my shawl, and put my hat properly on my
head--properly. No, child (to her little boy), I am not going to take
you; there is a bogey on horseback, who bites. Cry as much as you like,
I'm not going to have you lamed for life. Now we'll start. Nurse, take
the little one and amuse him; call the dog in, and shut the street door.
(They go out.) Good heavens! what a crowd of people! How on earth are we
ever to get through all this? They are like ants--you can't count them.
My dearest Gorgo, what will become of us? Here are the Royal Horse
Guards. My good man, don't ride over me! Look at that bay horse rearing
bolt upright; what a vicious one! Eunoe, you mad girl, do take
care!--that horse will certainly be the death of the man on his back.
How glad I am now that I left the child at home!
G. All right, Praxinoe, we are safe behind them, and they have gone on
to where they are stationed.
P. Well, yes, I begin to revive again. From the time I was a little girl
I have had more horror of horses and snakes than of anything in the
world. Let us get on; here's a great crowd coming this way upon us.
G. (to an old woman). Mother, are you from the palace?
Old Woman. Yes, my dears.
G. Has one a tolerable chance of getting there?
O.W. My pretty young lady, the Greeks got to Troy by dint of trying
hard; trying will do anything in this world.
G. The old creature has delivered herself of an oracle and departed.
P. Women can tell you everything about everything. Jupiter's marriage
with Juno not excepted.
G. Look, Praxinoe, what a squeeze at the palace gates!
P. Tremendous! Take hold of me, Gorgo, and you, Eunoe, take hold of
Eutychis!--tight hold, or you'll be lost. Here we go in all together.
Hold tight to us, Eunoe. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Gorgo, there's my
scarf torn right in two. For heaven's sake, my good man, as you hope to
be saved, take care of my dress!
Stranger. I'll do what I can, but it doesn't depend upon me.
P. What heaps of people! They push like a drove of pigs.
Str. Don't be frightened, ma'am; we are all right.
P. May you be all right, my dear sir, to the last day you live, for the
care you have taken of us! What a kind, considerate man! There is Eunoe
jammed in a squeeze. Push, you goose, push! Capital! We are all of us
the right side of the door, as the bridegroom said when he had locked
himself in with the bride.
G. Praxinoe, come this way. Do but look at that work, how delicate it
is! how exquisite! Why, they might wear it in heaven!
P. Heavenly patroness of needle-women, what hands we hired to do that
work? Who designed those beautiful patterns? They seem to stand up and
move about, as if they were real--as if they were living things and not
needlework. Well, man is a wonderful creature! And look, look, how
charming he lies there on his silver couch, with just a soft down on his
cheeks, that beloved Adonis--Adonis, whom one loves, even though he is
dead!
Another Stranger. You wretched woman, do stop your incessant chatter.
Like turtles, you go on forever. They are enough to kill one with their
broad lingo--nothing but a, a, a.
G. Lord, where does the man come from? What is it to you if we are
chatterboxes? Order about your own servants. Do you give orders to
Syracusan women? If you want to know, we came originally from Corinth,
as Bellerophon did; we speak Peloponnesian. I suppose Dorian women may
be allowed to have a Dorian accent.
P. Oh, honey-sweet Proserpine, let us have no more masters than the one
we've got! We don't the least care for you; pray don't trouble yourself
for nothing.
G. Be quiet, Praxinoe! That first-rate singer, the Argive woman's
daughter, is going to sing the Adonis hymn. She is the same who was
chosen to sing the dirge last year. We are sure to have something first
rate from her. She is going through her airs and graces ready to begin.
* * * * *
And here the voices die away in the remote past. How difficult it is to
believe that this dialogue took place more than two thousand years ago!
As a last glimpse of such a beautiful, modernly remote gem of
conversation, we will give a few more words to show what those ancient
gossipy ladies thought of their husbands.
The following are the last surviving words which Gorgo gave to the
world:
Gorgo. Praxinoe, certainly women are wonderful things. That lucky woman,
to know all that; and luckier still to have such a voice! And now we
must see about getting home. My husband has not had his dinner. That man
is all vinegar, and nothing else; and if you keep him waiting for his
dinner he's dangerous to go near. Adieu! precious Adonis, and may you
find us all well when you come next year!
He might have been a husband of yesterday!
For how many years have the husbands been coming home from work daily to
partake of a meal which an attentive and tender wife has prepared for
him? This was twenty-two hundred years ago.
Of the White Woman Who Became an Indian Squaw
The early history of the northwest frontier of Massachusetts is fraught
with blood-curdling tales of savage invasions against the home-builders
and empire-makers of that once troubled boundary between the French of
Canada and the English of the New England States, but there is not a
more pitiful story than that which has been recorded touching the
Williams family of Deerfield, who were captured by the Indians during
one of their inroads in the year 1704. John Williams was a minister who
had come to Deerfield when it was still suffering from the ruinous
effects of King Philip's war. His parishioners built him a house, he
married, and had eight children. The story of the Indians' invasion, the
destruction of the village, and the capture of over one hundred
prisoners is admirably told by Francis Parkman in one of those excellent
works of his dealing with the old regime of Canada and New England.
"A war party of about fifty Canadians and two hundred Indians left
Quebec about mid-winter, and arrived at Deerfield on the 28th of
February, 1704. Savage and hungry, they lay shivering under the pines
till about two hours before dawn the following morning; then, leaving
their packs and their snowshoes behind, they moved cautiously towards
their prey. The hideous din startled the minister, Williams, from his
sleep. Half naked, he sprang out of bed, and saw, dimly, a crowd of
savages bursting through the shattered door. With more valor than
discretion he snatched a pistol that hung at the head of the bed, cocked
it and snapped it at the breast of the foremost Indian. It missed fire.
Amid the screams of his terrified children, three of the party seized
him and bound him fast, for they came well provided with cords, as
prisoners had a great market value. Nevertheless, in the first fury of
their attack, they dragged to the door and murdered two of the children.
They kept Williams shivering in his shirt for an hour, while a frightful
uproar of yells, shrieks, and gunshots sounded from within. At length
they permitted him, his wife, and five remaining children to dress
themselves. After the entire village had been destroyed and the
inhabitants either murdered or made captive, Williams and his wife and
family were led from their burning house across the Connecticut River to
the foot of the mountain, and the following day the march north began
with the hundred or more prisoners."
The hardships of the prisoners, and the crimes of the victors during
that long and arduous march north through snow and ice, forms a chapter
of pathos in the early history of those eastern states.
"At the mouth of the White River the party divided, and the Williams
family were separated and carried off in various directions. Eunice, the
youngest daughter, about eight years old, was handed over by the
Indians to the mission at St. Louis on their arrival there, and although
many efforts were made on the part of the Governor, who had purchased
and befriended Williams, to ransom her, the Jesuits flatly refused to
give her up. On one occasion he went himself with the minister to St.
Louis. This time the Jesuits, whose authority within their mission
seemed almost to override that of the Governor himself, yielded so far
as to allow the father to see his daughter, on condition that he spoke
to no other English prisoner. He spoke to her for an hour, exhorting her
never to forget her catechism, which she had learned by rote. The
Governor and his wife afterwards did all in their power to procure her
ransom, but of no avail.
"'She is there still,' writes Williams two years later, 'and has
forgotten to speak English.' What grieved him still more, Eunice had
forgotten her catechism." But now we come to this strange
transformation, unprecedented, we think, which made an Indian squaw out
of a white woman. "Eunice, reared among Indian children, learned their
language and forgot her own; she lived in a wigwam of the Caughnawagas,
forgot her catechism, was baptized in the Roman Catholic faith, and in
due time married an Indian of the tribe, who henceforth called himself
Williams. Thus her hybrid children bore her family name.
"Many years after, in 1740, she came, with her husband, to visit her
relatives at Deerfield, dressed as a squaw and wrapped in an Indian
blanket. Nothing would induce her to stay, though she was persuaded on
one occasion to put on a civilized dress and go to church, after which
she impatiently discarded her gown and resumed her blanket."
Could a sadder instance of degeneration be written in the annals of the
human family? "She was kindly treated by her relatives, and no effort
was made to detain her. She came again the following year, bringing two
of her children, and twice afterwards she repeated the visit. She and
her husband were offered land if they would remain, but she positively
refused, saying it would endanger her soul. She lived to a great age, a
squaw to the last. One of her grandsons became a missionary to the
Indians of Green Bay, Wisconsin."
This is one of the most drastic instances of a woman's devotion to
husband, and mother love for children driving her back to the forest of
her ancestors, and making her sacrifice all that her race had gained for
her during thousands of years. Thus the most natural and primitive
instincts of the human race will prevail against all our arts, science
and accomplishments.
THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE
Through the Microscope
Life is full of impossibilities.
After all it is not money we want so much as something to do.
Every man should have an accomplishment of some kind.
Some music is like a jumble of misplaced notes.
If you have reached forty and have done nothing, get busy.
We sometimes lose dollars by being too careful with our cents.
We should try to arrange ourselves so that we will appear as plausible
as possible to posterity.
We must have something to worry about or we will become stagnant.
Music should be rendered slowly and softly so that each note may have
time to tell its story before the next one comes on the stage.
When we are young our time is all present. When we are old there is no
present, but our time becomes the aggregate days and years.
We sometimes get into trouble trying to keep out of it.
It is not what we would _like_ to do, but what we _can_ do.
Let us take our medicine philosophically.
A dollar looks larger going out than it does coming in.
What is that we see falling like grain before the reaper? It is the
days, and the weeks, and the months, and the years.
Every dog wonders why the other dog was born.
We are so constituted in temperament that one may love what the other
hates.
A face is like a song, it has to be learned to be thoroughly
appreciated. You have to acquire a taste for it, and when it is once
memorized it is never forgotten.
Most of our best words are derived from dead, heathen languages.
If you have married the wrong man, or the wrong woman, cheer up and be a
philosopher over it. Philosophy is a good substitute for love if
properly applied.
If you do not go about sniffing the air you will not find so many
obnoxious odors.
If you have a mental wound of any kind, do not mind; time, the great
healer, will cure it.
We despise the ancient heathen, yet in some cases we have risen from his
ashes.
A woman dresses for appearance, not for comfort.
An ounce of domestic harmony is worth a ton of gold.
We should adjust ourselves as much as possible to circumstances.
It is better to be a dummy than to be a gossip.
Every man thinks _his_ dog is an angel.
It is not always the one who can afford it who keeps the hired servant.
Since we can grow a new finger nail, why cannot we grow a new finger?
The mouse is destructive only from man's point of view.
When a man reaches forty he usually settles down to make the best of
things.
Sometimes we are called cranks because we will not be sat upon.
The passing of time so quickly would not be so regrettable were life not
so short.
A good book has no ending.
It is nothing to win a girl if you do not win her love also.
The passing of time so quickly takes the pleasure out of everything.
If you are popular, anything you say will rise into the air like a
Zeppelin. If you are unpopular anything you say or do will sink into the
ocean of oblivion like a Titanic.
It is a pity we have to do so much to get so little.
It sometimes pays to accept a few cents on the dollar and let it go at
that.
Sometimes men become so parasitical to their occupation that, were they
to lose it, they would drown.
"Help ye one another." It pays.
Our mistakes keep us perpetually on the convalescence.
Woman is equal to man--sometimes more than equal.
While the years are with you freeze on to them as tightly as ever you
can.
The "Give-in-to-nothing-or-nobody-for-anything" spirit nurses a great
deal of evil.
It takes forty years for a man to become a philosopher. Some never
graduate.
Our generation is to be pitied. It is living in the most extravagant age
the world has ever known.
When the church does not ameliorate the objectionable dispositions of
its adherents, it has failed in its mission.
It is diplomacy to be on friendly terms with all men.
Politics are sometimes dangerous things.
Be cheerful under all circumstances.
The human race has mounted a treadmill which it must tread or perish.
The strenuous industries of this world are man's unconscious efforts to
preserve his increasing numbers from annihilation.
Courtesy in business is the best policy.
It takes three men's wages to sustain one family in an up-to-date
fashion.
Under the circumstances, it is almost necessary to be greedy and
grasping.
To be perfectly healthy we should adopt the exercises followed by our
ancestors in climbing among the trees.
It is not how much you can do or how quick you get through it, but the
care that you take and how well you can do it.
It is not the gift but the giving.
It is quality, not quantity, that counts.
Do not measure a person's length by your personal prejudices.
The man who never had an enemy is too good for this world.
"You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink." You can
send a boy to college, but you cannot make him think.
The dog hates the cat, and the cat hates the dog, but when they are
friends there are no truer ones.
Just take the world as it is; take things as to be had. Your friends may
not be quite so good, your foes not quite so bad.
It is the aggregate that counts.
The almighty dollar is getting smaller every day.
It is fashionable to be lazy.
Money is man's passport through the world.
The one who is most jealous is the one who is least in love.
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