nut? (
You Can't Take It
So Why
Bia
Headed?
First Thanksgiving Turkey
IT teems as though the Indians
Met our Grandpa's at the dock
The day they landed on that bleak
But very famous rock
And we suspect, although of course.
We never have been told
That Indian friends kept them from want
And hunger and from cold
And showed them where they might plant
corn
As well as where to build
In order that when winter came i
They might be warm and filled.
This brings us to Thanksgiving day
And to this little story
About an Indian boy and White
Who ought to have some glory.
By R. Remlow Harris
THEIR fathers, so it seems, were scalped
Or sick or out of luck
And so thejwys went out to hunt
With true and manly pluck
They would not let their households starve
Not them we mean, not they
Besides all that, tomorrow
Was to be Thanks Giving Day.
So little Narry Gann Sett took
His papa's trusty bow
And Daniel had his father's gun.
What Turkey had a show?
THERE it was. The big bird fell
As Daniel's weapon blazed
But Narry Gann Sett saw that it
Was only slightly dazed.
So from his father's trusty bow
He sped deadly arrow
Which killed the gobbler much more dead
Than any frozen sparrow.
So proudly homeward both our hunters
With their turkey marched
Their heads wjere high, as though
They had been very stiffly starched.
But being manly little boys
They did not brag nor boast
Although of course, their deed did give
More flavor to their roast.
We Can't Stand Criticism! Why
Do We Think We Are So Big That
Nobody Can Find Fault With. Us?
IB0OI&S OIF TIH1 IE MOM IE NT
By Jane Archer
"Green Margins" by E. P. O'Donnell (Houghton
Mifflin).
LIKE ninny novels that have won prize contests
E. P. O'Donnell's "Green Margins," which
took the Houghton Mifflin Fellowship Prize, la
over-written, Mr. O'Donnell treats his reader to
great reams of poetry, so that one has, after
reading his book, the same sensation that results
from overindulgence in French pastry and choc
olate bars.
Of course, Mr. O'Donnell la entitled to tome of
book. A delta Poloniua, full of philosophy and
advice calculated to make those about him dis
contented with their lot, Grampaw believes In
Individualism, Living with Grampaw, she meets
Loretta from New Orleans, a city woman who
makes Sister, for a time, yearn for town life.
Sister's baby is bom, Grampaw dies of a heart
attack, and the story continues with Sister's
trials and tribulations. She meets Rene, an
artist, is his friend for a lohg time, Tony dies,
Mocco goes to New Orleans, Mitch Holt, with
Illustration from book jacket of "Green Margins."
his poetic binges, for the country of which ho
writes is a strange lusty one, one fairly new to
the literary world. Ho couldn't be too re
strained in writing of an unrestrained, lush
country,
The scene Is that part of tbo country where
the Mississippi meets the sou. It is a land of
fiddler crabs, sluggish waters, swollen wators,
hurricanes, rooring alligators, orange groves,
Irish laborers, levee workers, soldiers, Slavon
ians, Frenchmen, Negroes. Mr. O'Donnell has not
been afraid to splash exotic colours on a
mighty canvas, but I am afraid the canvas was
too mighty for him. The characters are blurred
and unreal, in most cases, like figures in a
dream. They are people seen in the dark. The
outlines are seen but the features Indistinct.
The central character In the story is Sister
Kalavlch, hard and lovely, whose story, for all
Mr. O'Donnell's efforts might well have remained
unwritten. Moving in so grand a scene, she,
with all her problems, seems small and unneces
sary, trivial. Sister, living with her father
Tony, a tubercular drunkard, ami her brother
Mocco, a laiy futile person, meets Bruce and
becomes pregnant by him. Her father casta her
out and she goes to live at Grnmpaw'a camp.
Grampaw la the most annoying character in the
PA66 TWO
whom Sister has been in love all her life, gets
out of jail, and they marry, having many chil
dren. THE most clearly drawn character In the book
is Mocco. He Is the nearest approach to
underslandabillty and reollty. A poor, discon
tented person, is Mocco, always going to go to
New Orleans and carve his niche in tho world.
After making statements to the effect that he la
leaving Grass Margins year after year, he is
finally put on a barge drunk and carried to
New Orleans. He gets a Job there, marries, and
la fired for dishonesty. Returning to Gross Mar
gins, he sinks bark to his usual lazy life, beaten
because he only had wishes, and no strength
with which to carry them ouv.
Kene, the artist, is too obvious from the start.
He Is a dreamer, an artistic soul who prefers
squalor to comfort, for the sake of art. He
falls in love with Sister, starts painting pictures
Instead of abstractions, falls out of love, and
finds contentment with a mulatto until his mur
der by a jealous Negro rival.
Mitch Holt, who marries Sister, has been a
smuggler. He spends several years In' the peni
tentiary, comes out determined to lead his peo
pie, and as fur as I can gather, changes his
mind.
Laid In so fabulous a scene, perhaps it is a
mistake to portray clear cut characters. Some
of Mr. O'Donnell's prose-la beautiful, but his
book is cluttered with passages of this sort:
"Sister was unwell. She was happy and sad.
She felt like fleeing down the road with loosened
hair, or finding a place to lie on the earth to
weep, or plunging her hands among the stars,"
And
"Sister was highly excited now, eager to
plunge into the living of a new life. She waa
tired of the tea. Her growth, somehow, had
stopped. She wanted to feel dry land under
her. She was hungry for the earth. She longed
to plunge her hands Into the soft rich land."
AMD Rene: "'A tree Is a creature of con
trary rhythms like a man, vertical flow of
sap and the planetary movement of fruit around
the swollen boughs. That observation would
have made a stir among my old gong, , , , Is
she thinking of me tonight! She shall think of
me! My will must never wa'.er! That night In
the lighthouse she was very near to submitting.
Next time her head rests on my shoulder It will
remain , . . Lovely mouth, the trumpet of her
soul! Ripe lips, drooping like fruit, heavy with
songs unsung! In this plare she is wippr than
I, saddened by the secrets of the soil . . , This in
escapable network of stars! Rlurred stars, blur
red hedges, blurred footfalls. 1 am a footstep
in the mist! My thoughts grope softly as quick
roots fumble for the sweet secretions of the
night. . . . Saddened by the secrets of the soil!
I must tell her that! No it Is too full of
hisses. . , . "'
Too much is too much, and 409 pages cram
med with this sort of thing Is what 1 call too
much. It's too bad too, for Mr. O'Donnell has
a definite feeling for lovely words and lovely
sounds. He hns created an atmosphere that is
truly exciting.
After completing his manuscript Mr. O'Donnell
should have laid It aside for several years to
let It get cold. He might then have seen that
h could cut about half of It out and have had
a better book. He drugged himself with his
own poetry.
Mr. O'Donnell won the Fellowship Award. He
presumably is a man of some education. He
knows words and he knows the Kngllsh langu
age. He strung 499 pages of words together
and got them published. He even won a prise
'contest on them.
How then has he the temerity to do this?
"She bosomed her letter."
"She evened them with a last lingering
touch."
Despite that' fact Mr. O'Donnell has written
a fairish book. A book that is too extravagant.
A greedy book, it la true, but a book that is, in
a few spots, well written. We can over-look
many of tha author'! fault.
DONT BE AN EGO-MANIAC!
Don't get the idea that some one is crazy
over you when perhaps they have been feeling
sorry for you and trying to be nice about it!
DONT GET THE IDEA, EITHER, THAT
YOUR PROBLEMS AND DIFFICULTIES ARE
GREATER THAN ANYONE ELSE'S FOR
THEY PRORBI,Y ARE NOT HALF SO BAD
AS YOUR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR'S.
It's odd how we use a magnifying glass when
we look at ourselves and our problems and half
shut our natural eyes when we look at others.
Enlarging our own virtuea and minimizing our
friends' la a good old pastime.
There is a modern expression which says "You
just can't take It," and ita popularity Is due to
the fact that so many of us can't take it! We
can't stand criticism, we won't be big enough to
admit that there Is a flaw In our make-up.
Why, In heaven's name, do we think we are so
jrnM tht no one has any right to find fault
with us?
If you really want to find a friend (and a
friend is ten times more valuable than some one
In love with you there are few real friends)
just take someone who has criticized you with
Intelligence, sit down and see If they are right
about you, admit the fault and set to work cor
recting it. Get on to yourself! ABRAHAM
LINCOLN SAID: "I DON'T THINK MUCH OF
A MAN WHO IS NOT WISER TODAY THAN
HE WAS YESTERDAY."
If there isn't any room for improvement how
could life be worth living? A part of the joy
of facing each fresh morning is the conscious
ness of power to achieve. Who said, writing
of a prospector, "It isn't gold that I'm wanting
so much as Just hunting the gold."
All of life Is pursuit of something and It
wouldn't be worth curing if it wasn't! So when
you feel important take down a list of things
you do wrong and start correcting them. It's
grand for what ails you and is guaranteed to
keep you sweet and unassuming and modest in
short, a real person I
WITH THE EXCEPTION OF BREATHING
AND EATING. PRAYER IS PROBABLY
THE MOST UNIVERSAL ACTIVITY KNOWN
TO MAN!
There are peaceful natives who dwell In ob
scure mountain passes of practically unexplored
regions of the earth who do not care greatly for
fighting, but they pray. There are warlike
tribes that dwell in other regions that also pray.
The Mohammedans bow their heads reverent
ly at sunset in sublime submission to Allah; the
Orientals make obeisance to strange golden Idola
and the Christian nations kneel in holy worship
to their God. Different in clothes, different In
customs, different in moral standards and edu
cation, yet they all have the divine urge to plead
for guidance. No stronger argument could be
found to uphold the fact that there is a God, a
creator who lends ear to the supplications of
mortals.
PRAYER IS FAITH; and faith is a sixth
sense given to man as surely as he has been
given the other five. It wields a greater .influ
ence than any other one thing in the world, and
yet it is within reach of the lowest individual.
Newspaper readers of 20 years ago will re
member the fire which threatened to wipe At
lanta, Georgia, from the map. The fire ran
with uncontrolled force from housetop to house
top; block after block was ravished. The shack
of an old Negro mammy was directly in the
path of the conflagration. Firemen breathless
ly urged her to move from her home but the
old white headed woman hadn't gone to her
hallelujah meetings in vain. Her faith in "God
Almighty" was not shaken by the fury of the
flames until Mammy's shack was completely
surrounded. There was no way to save her.
Georgians tell us that when the flames died
down the old darkey was sitting safe and sound
singing spirituals thanking God. Its worth
thinking about her supreme faith I
THE ancient Spartan mothers who sent their
sons forth to battle with the admonition to
BRING HOME THEIR SHIELDS AS VICTORS
OR BE BROUGHT HOME ON THEM in other
words FIGHT FOR VICTORY UNTIL DEATH
were not so unmerciful as they may seem to
many modems.
It was the old rule of the survival oi the fit.
test, which is a pretty good rule, by and large.
THE YOUTH WHO GROWS UP UNDER
SUCH TUTORING WILL NEVER FLINCH
BEFORE THE DEMANDS OF CARVING A
CAREER. The reporter who Ib sent out to get
"facts" if he is a good reporter, will either go
until he gets them or is certain that they do not
exist in a form which can be published. The
trapper in the northern woods knows that HE
MUST EITHER GET HIS ANIMALS OR FACE
STARVATION.
It is the failures, the driftwood of humanity
and the unsuccessful mass who utter the dia
tribe against this rule of the ancient shield. No
really successful man or woman has ever ac
cepted a half way compromise with life. Com
promises were not made for them. To them if it
is worth doing at all it is worth doing well. .
The one who fights to the bitter end, if a fail
ure, at least learns a lesson which will make the
next fight worth while. Mistakes are the step
ping stones to progress. EVERY MISTAKE
WE MAKE IS A SOLID ROCK BENEATH
OUR FEET WHICH LIFTS US HIGHER UP
THE LADDER. If we make enough of them
we are likely to reach the top. The wrong
things we do serve as guiding posts.
NOT EVEN MISTAKES SHOULD DIS
COURAGE US NOR KEEP US FROM FIGHT
ING TO THE END.
MAYBE Steinach was wrong. Who knows?
This would be Gertrude Atherton to the
contrary.
Rejuvenation is something more than glands,
and even if it were not most doctors (including
the great Steinach, we are told) declare th.'.t
the effect of reactivation operations is tempo
rary. It is said that the Steinach operation is
somewhat more lasting thon others "because it
atlmulates the creation of hormones within tho
body itself. However, its effect rarely lasts
more than a few years at the most."
It would occur to me, after roaming over a
goodly portion of the world and talking to a
good many medical men, philosophers, and
morons, that to stay young requires something
more than just the physical mechanism. If ynj
can't change the mind of a man or a woman
by changing the glandc, pray tell me what good
it will do to change the glands, Bince the mind
will, after a few years, produce the same face
as it produced before.
Plastic surgeons, also devoted to restoring
youth, claim that. their operations are likewise
only temporary. Doesn't it sound reasonable
that the individual with a nasty disposition is
going to succeed in ruining the most perfect
face a surgeon can build up by repeated pulling
of the muscles in order to growl at the world?
Jealousy, fits of temper, unhappy and discon
tented thoughts distill and discharge poisons in
the system tearing down the work of nature and
surgeons.
So In the final analysis we say Maybe
Steinach is wrong after all! '
Jean Rendlcn
Seascapes
AT SEA: broken from the orbit of my dally
dozen, I'm north-bound on the good ship
"Cricket." Wing-weary land-birds shelter them
selves from sea-gulls. Their refuge is beneath
life-boats. If they live until we reach Columbia
River well and good. They look tired and cold.
Food and water may save them. If some of us
should fly Into space, and suddenly find our
selves on Mars, I imagine our bewilderment
might not be unlike that of these poor wind
driven birds. Gone is their song of the forest
Gone are their native haunts perhaps as the
smoke-filled fog tells a gruesome story. Forest
fires along the coast of Oregon are bringing
damage to trees that grew before the white man
came. A nasty fog has closed in upon us. Its
sticky fingers penetrate to the bone. With
monotonous regularity the ship's vibrant siren
warns every Mother's Son of our presence. A
steady throb Indicates that all is well below. Tho
ship's engines, turn with the same dependable
regularity as the pendulum of Grandfather's
clock. '
I shudder at the thought of what a forest fire
may do. The sight of grotesque figures of men,
drawn by heat, the muscles of their backs and
necks pull their heads up, while they lay upon
their bellies; seared Hps leave grinning teeth.
Empty eye-sockets; neither ears nor nose re
mained Drawn fingers, burned short.
AHY should these things be? To change
yV the subject, I shall tell you of this ship's
officers. Each one, representative of those who
built the West. I might have said, thoae who
used up the West beyond which there is no
more. After that, it's East again!
The early white settlers, came by ship and
wagon. Later, by trains.. Today we fly!
Far away Latvia gave this Coast Captain
John Wehman, Master of the "Cricket" thci-e
nineteen years. He first landed at San Fran
cisco in November, 1887. Todoy, his birth-ploco
may well be proud of the lad who wandered far
to make a home. He helped build the West I
Norway gave us Tonnes Berensen. He is the
healthy looking Chief Mate, who left a Danish
"The Cricket"
By Captain C. E. Barry
Whaler to join the Big Parade westward. Ex
cept when he tried what all sailors dream about
a chicken ranch American ships have known
him since lflOO. This ship has felt the heavy
tread of his feet for eight years.
When Sweden got too many "Sons" a law wa3
passed to compel all Government employees to
change their names. That's why a Pilot In South
Sweden named Jepson changed his name to
Malmgren. His son, William F. H. Malmgren,
first arrived at San Francisco in 1901, and 13
Second Mate here. Comes now the Third Mate,
Leonard Olsen, who was bom at Stavanger, Nor
way, 1896. Still a young man, but, he has spent
much time under the American flag. Few men
can boast of a western heritage comparable to
our Chief Engineer Thomas Herman Dittman.
His father, Carl Dittman left Stettin, Germany,
and made his way to America. On board n
Yankee Trader, young Dittman arrived at
Monterey, California, 1842. . He married Mar
garet Whitfield, who was bom at Half-Moon
Bay, California. This union brought forth eight
children. Four still survive. Carl Dittman, left
Germany in a British ship. He took the name of
Charles Brown. This name, he used while with
Fremont's Army, mining, and catching the wllv
sea-otter with Captain Nidiver. Both of thew
gentlemen made Santa Barbara, California, their
home.
Upper New York state, lost Albert and Ger
trude Wright, in 1905. That's when they took
their son Paul, and moved "Out West." The
parents live in Hillsdale, Oregon. Paul, is First
Assistant Engineer on the "Cricket." There's a
"stump" Ranch In Washington that belongs to
Charles George Coles, our second Assistant
Engineer. In the days of sun-bonnets, and light
ning-rods, he left the Sunflower state of Kan
sns with his parents, to settle at Roache Har
bor, San Juan Island, Washington. That waa in
1890. Charlie, looks forward to the time, when
he can sit on these stumps and ponder.
Truly these men belong to the West. In the
years to come, when generations yet unborn scan
the pages of history that depict the West, I hope
their names will not have been forgotten. May
the Lord see fit to eliminate fogs by thenl