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diff --git a/1222-h/1222-h.htm b/1222-h/1222-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd7e981 --- /dev/null +++ b/1222-h/1222-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1780 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + Cobb's Anatomy, by Irvin S. Cobb + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1222 ***</div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + COBB'S ANATOMY + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Irvin S. Cobb + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h4> + To G. H. L.<br /><br /> Who stood godfather to these contents + </h4> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Preface + </h2> + <h5> + This Space To-Let to Any Reputable Party Desiring a Good Preface + </h5> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> Preface </a> + </p> + <br /> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> TUMMIES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> TEETH </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> HAIR </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> HANDS AND FEET </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + TUMMIES + </h2> + <p> + Dr. Woods Hutchinson says that fat people are happier than other people. + How does Dr. Woods Hutchinson know? Did he ever have to leave the two top + buttons of his vest unfastened on account of his extra chins? Has the + pressure from within against the waistband where the watchfob is located + ever been so great in his case that he had partially to undress himself to + find out what time it was? Does he have to take the tailor's word for it + that his trousers need pressing? + </p> + <p> + He does not. And that sort of a remark is only what might be expected from + any person upward of seven feet tall and weighing about ninety-eight + pounds with his heavy underwear on. I shall freely take Dr. Woods + Hutchinson's statements on the joys and ills of the thin. But when he + undertakes to tell me that fat people are happier than thin people, it is + only hearsay evidence with him and decline to accept his statements + unchallenged. He is going outside of his class. He is, as you might say, + no more than an innocent bystander. Whereas I am a qualified authority. + </p> + <p> + I will admit that at one stage of my life, I regarded fleshiness as a + desirable asset. The incident came about in this way. There was a circus + showing in our town and a number of us proposed to attend it. It was one + of those one-ring, ten-cent circuses that used to go about over the + country, and it is my present recollection that all of us had funds laid + by sufficient to buy tickets; but if we could procure admission in the + regular way we felt it would be a sinful waste of money to pay our way in. + </p> + <p> + With this idea in mind we went scouting round back of the main tent to a + comparatively secluded spot, and there we found a place where the canvas + side-wall lifted clear of the earth for a matter of four or five inches. + We held an informal caucus to decide who should should go first. The honor + lay between two of us—between the present writer, who was reasonably + skinny, and another boy, named Thompson, who was even skinnier. He won, as + the saying is, on form. It was decided by practically a unanimous vote, he + alone dissenting, that he should crawl under and see how the land lay + inside. If everything was all right he would make it known by certain + signals and we would then follow, one by one. + </p> + <p> + Two of us lifted the canvas very gently and this Thompson boy started to + wriggle under. He was about halfway in when—zip!—like a flash + he bodily vanished. He was gone, leaving only the marks where his toes had + gouged the soil. Startled, we looked at one another. There was something + peculiar about this. Here was a boy who had started into a circus tent in + a circumspect, indeed, a highly cautious manner, and then finished the + trip with undue and sudden precipitancy. It was more than peculiar—it + bordered upon the uncanny. It was sinister. Without a word having been + spoken we decided to go away from there. + </p> + <p> + Wearing expressions of intense unconcern and sterling innocence upon our + young faces we did go away from there and drifted back in the general + direction of the main entrance. We arrived just in time to meet our young + friend coming out. He came hurriedly, using his hands and his feet both, + his feet for traveling and his hands for rubbing purposes. Immediately + behind him was a large, coarse man using language that stamped him as a + man who had outgrown the spirit of youth and was preeminently out of touch + with the ideals and aims of boyhood. + </p> + <p> + At that period it seemed to me and to the Thompson boy, who was moved to + speak feelingly on the subject, and in fact to all of us, that excessive + slimness might have its drawbacks. Since that time several of us have had + occasion to change our minds. With the passage of years we have fleshened + up, and now we know better. The last time I saw the Thompson boy he was + known as Excess-Baggage Thompson. His figure in profile suggested a man + carrying a roll-top desk in his arms and his face looked like a face that + had refused to jell and was about to run down on his clothes. He spoke + longingly of the days of his youth and wondered if the shape of his knees + had changed much since the last time he saw them. + </p> + <p> + Yes sir, no matter what Doctor Hutchinson says, I contend that the slim + man has all the best of it in this world. The fat man is the universal + goat; he is humanity's standing joke. Stomachs are the curse of our modern + civilization. When a man gets a stomach his troubles begin. If you doubt + this ask any fat man—I started to say ask any fat woman, too. Only + there aren't any fat women to speak of. There are women who are plump and + will admit it; there are even women who are inclined to be stout. But + outside of dime museums there are no fat women. But there are plenty of + fat men. Ask one of them. Ask any one of them. Ask me. + </p> + <p> + This thing of acquiring a tummy steals on one insidiously, like a thief in + the night. You notice that you are plumping out a trifle and for the time + being you feel a sort of small personal satisfaction in it. Your shirts + fit you better. You love the slight strain upon the buttonholes. You + admire the pleasant plunking sound suggestive of ripe watermelons when you + pat yourself. Then a day comes when the persuasive odor of mothballs fills + the autumnal air and everybody at the barber shop is having the back of + his neck shaved also, thus betokening awakened social activities, and when + evening is at hand you take the dress-suit, which fitted you so well, out + of the closet where it has been hanging and undertake to back yourself + into it. You are pained to learn that it is about three sizes too small. + At first you are inclined to blame the suit for shrinking, but second + thought convinces you that the fault lies elsewhere. It is you that have + swollen, not the suit that has shrunk. The buttons that should adorn the + front of the coat are now plainly visible from the rear. + </p> + <p> + You buy another dress-suit and next fall you have out-grown that one too. + You pant like a lizard when you run to catch a car. You cross your legs + and have to hold the crossed one on with both hands to keep your stomach + from shoving it off in space. After a while you quit crossing them and are + content with dawdling yourself on your own lap. You are fat! Dog-gone it—you + are fat! + </p> + <p> + You are up against it and it is up against you, which is worse. You are + something for people to laugh at. You are also expected to laugh. It is + all right for a thin man to be grouchy; people will say the poor creature + has dyspepsia and should be humored along. But a fat man with a grouch is + inexcusable in any company—there is so much of him to be grouchy. He + constitutes a wave of discontent and a period of general depression. He is + not expected to be romantic and sentimental either. It is all right for a + giraffe to be sentimental, but not a hippopotamus. If you doubt me consult + any set of natural history pictures. The giraffe is shown with his long + and sinuous neck entwined in fond embrace about the neck of his mate; but + the amphibious, blood-sweating hippo is depicted as spouting and + wallowing, morose and misanthropic, in a mud puddle off by himself. In + passing I may say that I regard this comparison as a particularly apt one, + because I know of no living creature so truly amphibious in hot weather as + an open-pored fat man, unless it is a hippopotamus. + </p> + <p> + Oh how true is the saying that nobody loves a fat man! When fat comes up + on the front porch love jumps out of the third-story window. Love in a + cottage? Yes. Love in a rendering plant? No. A fat man's heart is supposed + to lie so far inland that the softer emotions cannot reach it at all. Yet + the fattest are the truest, if you did but know it, and also they are the + tenderest and a man with a double chin rarely leads a double life. For one + thing, it requires too much moving round. + </p> + <p> + A fat man cannot wear the clothes he would like to wear. As a race fat men + are fond of bright and cheerful colors; but no fat man can indulge his + innocent desires in this direction without grieving his family and friends + and exciting the derisive laughter of the unthinking. If he puts on a + fancy-flowered vest, they'll say he looks like a Hanging Garden of + Babylon. And yet he has a figure just made for showing off a + fancy-flowered vest to best effect. He may favor something in light checks + for his spring suit; but if he ventures abroad in a checked suit, ribald + strangers will look at him meaningly and remark to one another that the + center of population appears to be shifting again. It has been my + observation that fat men are instinctively drawn to short tan overcoats + for the early fall. But a fat man in a short tan overcoat, strolling up + the avenue of a sunny afternoon, will be constantly overhearing persons + behind him wondering why they didn't wait until night to move the bank + vault. That irks him sore; but if he turns round to reproach them he is + liable to shove an old lady or a poor blind man off the sidewalk, and + then, like as not, some gamin will sing out: "Hully gee, Chimmy, wot's + become of the rest of the parade? 'Ere's the bass drum goin' home all by + itself." + </p> + <p> + I've known of just such remarks being made and I assure you they cut a + sensitive soul to the core. Not for the fat man are the snappy clothes for + varsity men and the patterns called by the tailors confined because that + is what they should be but aren't. Not for him the silken shirt with the + broad stripes. Shirts with stripes that were meant to run vertically but + are caused to run horizontally, by reasons over which the wearer has no + control, remind others of the awning over an Italian grocery. So the fat + man must stick to sober navy blues and depressing blacks and melancholy + grays. He is advised that he should wear his evening clothes whenever + possible, because black and white lines are more becoming to him. But even + in evening clothes, that wide expanse of glazed shirt and those white + enamel studs will put the onlookers in mind of the front end of a dairy + lunch or so I have been cruelly told. + </p> + <p> + When planning public utilities, who thinks of a fat man? There never was a + hansom cab made that would hold a fat man comfortably unless he left the + doors open, and that makes him feel undressed. There never was an + orchestra seat in a theater that would contain all of him at the same time—he + churns up and sloshes out over the sides. Apartment houses and elevators + and hotel towels are all constructed upon the idea that the world is + populated by stock-size people with those double-A-last shapes. + </p> + <p> + Take a Pullman car, for instance. One of the saddest sights known is that + of a fat man trying to undress on one of those closet shelves called upper + berths without getting hopelessly entangled in the hammock or committing + suicide by hanging himself with his own suspenders. And after that, the + next most distressing sight is the same fat man after he has undressed and + is lying there, spouting like a sperm-whale and overflowing his + reservation like a crock of salt-rising dough in a warm kitchen, and + wondering how he can turn over without bulging the side of the car and + maybe causing a wreck. Ah me, those dark green curtains with the overcoat + buttons on them hide many a distressful spectacle from the traveling + public! + </p> + <p> + If a fat man undertakes to reduce nobody sympathizes with him. A thin man + trying to fatten up so he won't fall all the way through his trousers when + he draws 'em on in the morning is an object of sympathy and of admiration, + and people come from miles round and give him advice about how to do it. + But suppose a fat man wants to train down to a point where, when he goes + into a telephone booth and says "Ninety-four Broad," the spectators will + know he is trying to get a number and not telling his tailor what his + waist measure is. + </p> + <p> + Is he greeted with sympathetic understanding? He is not. He is greeted + with derision and people stand round and gloat at him. The authorities + recommend health exercises, but health exercises are almost invariably + undignified in effect and wearing besides. Who wants to greet the dewy + morn by lying flat on his back and lifting his feet fifty times? What kind + of a way is that to greet the dewy morn anyhow? And bending over with the + knees stiff and touching the tips of the toes with the tips of the fingers—that's + no employment for a grown man with a family to support and a position to + maintain in society. Besides which it cannot be done. I make the statement + unequivocally and without fear of successful contradiction that it cannot + be done. And if it could be done—which as I say it can't—there + would be no real pleasure in touching a set of toes that one has known of + only by common rumor for years. Those toes are the same as strangers to + you—you knew they were in the neighborhood, of course, but you + haven't been intimate with them. + </p> + <p> + Maybe you try dieting, which is contrary to nature. Nature intended that a + fat man should eat heartily, else why should she endow him with the + capacity and the accommodations. Starving in the midst of plenty is not + for him who has plenty of midst. Nature meant that a fat man should have + an appetite and that he should gratify it at regular intervals—meant + that he should feel like the Grand Canyon before dinner and like the Royal + Gorge afterward. Anyhow, dieting for a fat man consists in not eating + anything that's fit to eat. The specialist merely tells him to eat what a + horse would eat and has the nerve to charge him for what he could have + found out for himself at any livery stable. Of course he might bant in the + same way that a woman bants. You know how a woman bants. She begins the + day very resolutely, and if you are her husband you want to avoid + irritating her or upsetting her, because hell hath no fury like a woman + banting. For breakfast she takes a swallow of lukewarm water and half of a + soda cracker. For luncheon she takes the other half of the cracker and + leaves off the water. For dinner she orders everything on the menu except + the date and the name of the proprietor. She does this in order to give + her strength to go on with the treatment. + </p> + <p> + No fat man would diet that way; but no matter which way he does diet it + doesn't do him any good. Health exercises only make him muscle-sore and + bring on what the Harvard ball team call the Charles W. Horse; while + banting results in attacks of those kindred complaints—the Mollie K. + Grubbs and the Fan J. Todds. + </p> + <p> + Walking is sometimes recommended and the example of the camel is pointed + out, the camel being a creature that can walk for days and days. But, as + has been said by some thinking person, who in thunder wants to be a camel? + The subject of horseback riding is also brought up frequently in this + connection. It is one of the commonest delusions among fat men that + horseback riding will bring them down and make them sylphlike and willowy. + I have several fat men among my lists of acquaintances who labor under + this fallacy. None of them was ever a natural-born horseback rider; none + of them ever will be. I like to go out of a bright morning and take a + comfortable seat on a park bench—one park bench is plenty roomy + enough if nobody else is using it—and sit there and watch these + unhappy persons passing single file along the bridle-path. I sit there and + gloat until by rights I ought to be required to take out a gloater's + license. + </p> + <p> + Mind you, I have no prejudice against horseback riding as such. Horseback + riding is all right for mounted policemen and Colonel W. F. Cody and + members of the Stickney family and the party who used to play Mazeppa in + the sterling drama of that name. That is how those persons make their + living. They are suited for it and acclimated to it. It is also all right + for equestrian statues of generals in the Civil War. But it is not a fit + employment for a fat man and especially for a fat man who insists on + trying to ride a hard-trotting horse English style, which really isn't + riding at all when you come right down to cases, but an outdoor cure for + neurasthenia invented, I take it, by a British subject who was nervous + himself and hated to stay long in one place. So, as I was saying, I sit + there on my comfortable park bench and watch those friends of mine + bouncing by, each wearing on his face that set expression which is seen + also on the faces of some men while waltzing, and on the faces of most + women when entertaining their relatives by marriage. I have one friend who + is addicted to this form of punishment in a violent, not to say a + malignant form. He uses for his purpose a tall and self-willed horse of + the Tudor period—a horse with those high dormer effects and a + sloping mansard. This horse must have been raised, I think, in the + knockabout song-and-dance business. Every time he hears music or thinks he + hears it he stops and vamps with his feet. When he does this my friend + bends forward and clutches him round the neck tightly. I think he is + trying to whisper in the horse's ear and beg him in Heaven's name to + forbear; but what he looks like is Santa Claus with a clean shave, sitting + on the combing of a very steep house with his feet hanging over the eaves, + peeking down the chimney to see if the children are asleep yet. When that + horse dies he will still have finger marks on his throat and the + authorities will suspect foul play probably. + </p> + <p> + Once I tried it myself. I was induced to scale the heights of a horse that + was built somewhat along the general idea of the Andes Mountains, only + more rugged and steeper nearing the crest. From the ground he looked to be + not more than sixteen hands high, but as soon as I was up on top of him I + immediately discerned that it was not sixteen hands—it was sixteen + miles. What I had taken for the horse's blaze face was a snow-capped peak. + Miss Anna Peck might have felt at home up there, because she has had the + experience and is used to that sort of thing, but I am no mountain climber + myself. + </p> + <p> + Before I could make any move to descend to the lower and less rarefied + altitudes the horse began executing a few fancy steps, and he started + traveling sidewise with a kind of a slanting bias movement that was + extremely disconcerting, not to say alarming, instead of proceeding + straight ahead as a regular horse would. I clung there astraddle of his + ridge pole, with my fingers twined in his mane, trying to anticipate where + he would be next, in order to be there to meet him if possible; and I + resolved right then that, if Providence in His wisdom so willed it that I + should get down from up there alive, I would never do so again. However, I + did not express these longings in words—not at that time. At that + time there were only two words in the English language which seemed to + come to me. One of them was "Whoa" and the other was "Ouch," and I spoke + them alternately with such rapidity that they merged into the compound + word "Whouch," which is a very expressive word and one that I would freely + recommend to others who may be situated as I was. + </p> + <p> + At that moment, of all the places in the world that I could think of—and + I could think of a great many because the events of my past life were + rapidly flashing past me—as is customary, I am told, in other cases + of grave peril, such as drowning—I say of all the places in the + world there were just two where I least desired to be—one was up on + top of that horse and the other was down under him. But it seemed to be a + choice of the two evils, and so I chose the lesser and got under him. I + did this by a simple expedient that occurred to me at the moment. I fell + off. I was tramped on considerably, and the earth proved to be harder than + it looked when viewed from an approximate height of sixteen miles up, but + I lived and breathed—or at least I breathed after a time had elapsed—and + I was satisfied. And so, having gone through this experience myself, I am + in position to appreciate what any other man of my general build is going + through as I see him bobbing by—the poor martyr, sacrificing himself + as a burnt offering, or anyway a blistered one—on the high altar of + a Gothic ruin of a horse. And, besides, I know that riding a horse doesn't + reduce a fat man. It merely reduces the horse. + </p> + <p> + So it goes—the fat man is always up against it. His figure is + half-masted in regretful memory of the proportions he had once, and he is + made to mourn. Most sports and many gainful pursuits are closed against + him. He cannot play lawn tennis, or, at least according to my observation, + he cannot play lawn tennis oftener than once in two weeks. In between + games he limps round, stiff as a hat tree and sore as a mashed thumb. Time + was when he might mingle in the mystic mazes of the waltz, tripping the + light fantastic toe or stubbing it, as the case may be. But that was in + the days of the old-fashioned square dance, which was the fat man's friend + among dances, and also of the old-fashioned two-step, and not in these + times when dancing is a cross between a wrestling match, a contortion act + and a trip on a roller-coaster, and is either named for an animal, like + the Bunny Hug and the Tarantula Glide, or for a town, like the Mobile + Mop-Up, and the Far Rockaway Rock and the South Bend Bend. His friends + would interfere—or the authorities would. He can go in swimming, it + is true; but if he turns over and floats, people yell out that somebody + has set the life raft adrift; and if he basks at the water's edge, boats + will come in and try to dock alongside him; and if he takes a sun bath on + the beach and sunburns, there's so everlasting much of him to be sunburned + that he practically amounts to a conflagration. He can't shoot rapids, + craps or big game with any degree of comfort; nor play billiards. He can't + get close enough to the table to make the shots, and he puts all the + English on himself and none of it on the cue ball. + </p> + <p> + Consider the gainful pursuits. Think how many of them are denied to the + man who may have energy and ability but is shut out because there are a + few extra terraces on his front lawn. A fat man cannot be a leading man in + a play. Nobody desires a fat hero for a novel. A fat man cannot go in for + aeroplaning. He cannot be a wire-walker or a successful walker of any of + the other recognized brands—track, cake, sleep or floor. He doesn't + make a popular waiter. Nobody wants a fat waiter on a hot day. True, you + may make him bring your order under covered dishes, but even so, there is + still that suggestion of rain on a tin roof that is distasteful to so + many. + </p> + <p> + So I repeat that fat people are always getting the worst of it, and I say + again, of all the ills that flesh is heir to, the worst is the flesh + itself. As the poet says—"The world, the flesh and the devil"—and + there you have it in a sentence—the flesh in between, catching the + devil on one side and the jeers of the world on the other. I don't care + what Dr. Woods Hutchinson or any other thin man says! I contend that + history is studded with instances of prominent persons who lost out + because they got fat. Take Cleopatra now, the lady to whom Marc Antony + said: "I am dying, Egypt, dying," and then refrained from doing so for + about nineteen more stanzas. Cleo or Pat—she was known by both + names, I hear—did fairly well as a queen, as a coquette and as a + promoter of excursions on the river—until she fleshened up. Then she + flivvered. Doctor Johnson was a fat man and he suffered from prickly heat, + and from Boswell, and from the fact that he couldn't eat without spilling + most of the gravy on his second mezzanine landing. As a thin and spindly + stripling Napoleon altered the map of Europe and stood many nations on + their heads. It was after he had grown fat and pursy that he landed on St. + Helena and spent his last days on a barren rock, with his arms folded, + posing for steel engravings. Nero was fat, and he had a lot of hard luck + in keeping his relatives—they were almost constantly dying on him + and he finally had to stab himself with one of those painful-looking old + Roman two-handed swords, lest something really serious befall him. + Falstaff was fat, and he lost the favor of kings in the last act. Coming + down to our own day and turning to a point no farther away than the White + House at Washington—but have we not enough examples without becoming + personal? Yes, I know Julius Caesar said: "Let me have men about me that + are fat." But you bet it wasn't in the heated period when J. Caesar said + that! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TEETH + </h2> + <p> + One of the most pleasant features about being born, as I conceive it, is + that we are born without teeth. I believe there have been a few exceptions + to this rule—Richard the Third, according to the accounts, came into + the world equipped with all his teeth and a perfectly miserable + disposition; and once in a while, especially during Roosevelt years, when + the Colonel's picture is hanging on the walls of so many American homes, + we read in the paper that a baby has just been born somewhere with a full + set, and even, as in the case of the infant son of a former member of the + Rough Riders, with nose glasses and a close-cropped mustache. This, + however, may have been a pardonable exaggeration of the real facts. As I + recall now, it was reported in a dispatch to the New York Tribune from + Lover's Leap, Iowa, during the presidential campaign eight years ago. + </p> + <p> + In the main, though, we are born without teeth. We are born without a + number of things—clothes for example—although Anthony Comstock + is said to be pushing a law requiring all children to be born with + overalls on; but teeth is the subject which we are now discussing. This + absence of teeth tends to give the very young of our species the + appearance in the face of an old fashioned buckskin purse with the draw + string broken, but be that as it may, we are generally fairly well content + with life until the teeth begin to come. + </p> + <p> + First there are the milk teeth. Right there our troubles start. To use the + term commonly in use, we cut them, although as a matter of fact, they cut + us—cut them with the aid of some such mussy thing as a toothing ring + or the horny part of the nurse's thumb, or the reverse side of a spoon—cut + them at the cost of infinite suffering, not only for ourselves but for + everybody else in the vicinity. And about the time we get the last one in + we begin to lose the first one out. They go one at a time, by falling out, + or by being yanked out, or by coming out of their own accord when we eat + molasses taffy. They were merely what you might call our Entered + Apprentice teeth. We go in now for the full thirty-two degrees—one + degree for each tooth and thirty-two teeth to a set. By arduous and + painful processes, stretching over a period of years, we get our regular + teeth—the others were only volunteers—concluding with the + wisdom teeth, as so called, but it is a misnomer, because there never is + room for them and they have to stand up in the back row and they usually + arrive with holes in them, and if we really possessed any wisdom we would + figure out some way of abolishing them altogether. They come late and + crowd their way in and push the other teeth out of line and so we go about + for months with the top of our mouths filled with braces and wires and + things, so that when we breathe hard we sob and croon inside of ourselves + like an Aeolean harp. + </p> + <p> + But in any event we get them all and no sooner do we get them than we + begin to lose them. They develop cavities and aches and extra roots and we + spend a good part of our lives and most of our substance with the dentist. + Nevertheless, in spite of all we can do and all he can do, we keep on + losing them. And after awhile, they are all gone and our face folds up on + us like a crush hat or a concertina and from our brow to our chin we don't + look much more than a third as long as we used to look. We dislike this + folded-up appearance naturally—who wouldn't? And we get tired of + living on spoon victuals and the memory of past beef-steaks. So we go and + get some false ones made. They have to be made to order; there appears to + be no market for custom made teeth; you never see any hand-me-down teeth + advertised, guaranteed to fit any face and withstand a damp climate. + Getting them made to order is a long and unhappy process and I will pass + over it briefly. Having got them, we find that they do not fit us or that + we do not fit them, which comes to the same thing. The dentist makes them + fit by altering us some and the teeth some, and after some months they + quit feeling as though they didn't belong to us but had been borrowed + temporarily from somebody's loan collection of ceramics. + </p> + <p> + But just about the time they are becoming acclimated and we are getting + used to them, the interior of our mouth for private reasons best known to + itself changes around materially and we either have to go back and start + all over and go through the whole thing again, or else haply we die and + pass on to the bourne from which no traveller returneth either with his + teeth or without them. If Shakespeare had only thought of it—and he + did think of a number of things from time to time—he might have + divided his Seven Ages of Man much better by making them the Seven Ages of + Teeth as follows: First age—no tooth; second age—milk teeth; + third age—losing 'em; fourth age—getting more teeth; fifth age—losing + 'em; sixth age—getting false teeth and finding they aren't + satisfactory; seventh age—toothless again. + </p> + <p> + I knew a man once who was a gunsmith and lost all his teeth at a + comparatively early age. He went along that way for years. He had to + eschew the tenderloin for the reason that he couldn't chew it, and he had + to cut out hickory nut cake and corn on the ear and such things. But there + is nothing about the art of gunsmithing which seems to call for teeth, so + he got along very well, living in a little house with the wife of his + bosom and a faithful housedog named Ponto. But when he was past sixty he + went and got himself some teeth from the dentist. He did this without + saying anything about it at home; he was treasuring it up for a surprise. + The corner stone was laid in May and the scaffolding was all up by July + and in August the new teeth were dedicated with suitable ceremonies. + </p> + <p> + They altered his appearance materially. His nose and chin which had been + on terms of intimacy now rubbed each other a last fond good-bye and his + face lost that accordion-pleated look and straightened out and became + about six or seven inches longer from top to bottom. He now had a sort of + determined aspect like the iron jawed lady in a circus, whereas before his + face had the appearance of being folded over and wadded down inside of his + neck band, so his hat could rest comfortably on his collar. He knew he was + altered, but he didn't realize how much he was altered until he went home + that evening and walked proudly in the front gate. His wife who was timid + about strangers, slammed the door right in his face and faithful Ponto + came out from under the porch steps and bit him severely in the calf of + the leg. There was only one consolation in it for him—for the first + time in a long number of years he was in position to bite back. + </p> + <p> + And that's how it is with teeth—with your teeth let us say—for + right here I'm going to drop the personal pronoun and speak of them as + your teeth from now on. If anybody has to suffer it might as well be you + and not me; I expect to be busy telling about it. As I started to say + awhile ago, you—remember it's you from this point—you get your + regular teeth and they start right in giving you trouble. Every little + while one of them bursts from its cell with a horrible yell and in the + lulls between pangs you go forth among men with the haunted look in your + eye of one who is listening for the footfalls of a dread apparition, and + one half of your head is puffed out of plumb as though you were engaged in + the whimsical idea of holding an egg plant in the side of your jaw. A kind + friend meets you, and, speaking with that high courage and that lofty + spirit of sacrifice which a kind friend always exhibits when it's your + tooth that is kicking up the rumpus and not his, he tells you you ought to + have something done for it right away. You know that as well as he does, + but you hate to have the subject brought up. It's your toothache anyhow. + It originated with you. You are its proud parent but not so awfully proud + at that. Mother and child doing as well as could be expected, but not + expected to do very well. + </p> + <p> + But these friends of yours keep on shoving their free advice on you and + the tooth keeps on getting worse and worse until the pain spreads all + through the First Ward and finally you grab your resolution in both hands + to keep it from leaking out between your fingers and you go to the + dentist's. + </p> + <p> + This happens so many times that after awhile you lose count and so would + the dentist, if he didn't write your name down every time in his little + red book with pleasingly large amounts entered opposite to it. It seems to + you that you are always doing something for your teeth? You have them + pulled and pushed and shoved and filled and unfilled and refilled and + excavated and blasted and sculptured and scroll-sawed and a lot of other + things that you wouldn't think could be done legally without a building + permit. As time passes on, the inside of your once well-tilled and + commodious head becomes but little more than a recent site. Your vaults + have been blown and most of your contents abstracted by Amalgam Mike and + Dental Slim, the Demon Yeggmen of the Human Face. You are merely the + scattered clews left behind for the authorities to work on; you are the + faint traces of the fiendish crime. You are the point marked X. + </p> + <p> + But all along there is generally one tooth that has behaved herself like a + lady. Other teeth may have betrayed your confidence but Old Faithful has + hung on, attending to business, asking only for standing room and kind + treatment. The others you may view with alarm, but to this tooth you can + point with pride. But have a care—she is deceiving you. + </p> + <p> + Some night you go to bed and have a dream. In your dream it seems to you + that a fox terrier is chasing a woodchuck around and around the inside of + your head. In that tangled sort of fashion peculiar to dreams your + sympathy seems to go out first to the fox terrier and then to the + woodchuck as they circle about nimbly, leaping from your tonsils to your + larynx and then up over the rafters in the roof of your mouth and down + again and pattering over the sub-maxillary from side to side. But about + then you wake up with a violent start and decide that any sympathy you may + have in stock should be reserved for personal use exclusively, because at + this moment the dog trees the woodchuck at the base of that cherished + tooth of yours and starts to dig him out. He is a very determined dog and + very active, but he needs a manicure. You are struck by that fact almost + immediately. + </p> + <p> + Uttering some of those trite and commonplace remarks that are customary + for use under such circumstances and yet are so futile to express one's + real sentiments, you arise and undertake to pacify the infuriated creature + with household remedies. You try to lure him away with a wad of medicated + cotton stuck on the end of a parlor match. But arnica is evidently an + acquired taste with him. He doesn't seem to care for it any more than you + do. You begin to dress, using one hand to put your clothes on with and the + other to hold the top of your head on. At this important juncture, the dog + tears down the last remaining partitions and nails the woodchuck. The + woodchuck is game—say what you will about the habits and customs of + the woodchuck you have to hand it to him there—he's game as a lion. + He fights back desperately. Intense excitement reigns throughout the + vicinity. While the struggle wages you get your clothes on and wait for + daylight to come, which it does in from eight to ten weeks. Norway is not + the only place where the nights are six months long. + </p> + <p> + There is nobody waiting at the dentist's when you get there, it being + early. You are willing to wait. At a barber shop it may be different but + at a dentist's you are always willing to wait, like a gentleman. But the + sinewy young man who is sitting in the front parlor reading the Hammer + Thrower's Gazette, welcomes you with a false air of gaiety entirely out of + keeping with the circumstances and invites you to step right in. He tells + you that you are next. This is wrong—if you were next you would turn + and flee like a deer. Not being next, you enter. Right from the start you + seem to take a dislike to this young man. You catch him spitting in his + hands and hitching his sleeves up as you are hanging up your hat. Besides + he is too robust for a dentist. With those shoulders he ought to be a + boiler maker or a safe mover or something of that sort. You resolve + inwardly that next time you go to a dentist you are going to one of a more + lady-like bearing and gentler demeanor. It seems a brutal thing that a big + strong man should waste his years in a dental establishment when the world + is clamoring for strong men to do the heavy lifting jobs. But before you + can say anything, this muscular athlete has laid violent hands on your + palpitating form and wadded it abruptly into the hideous embraces of a red + plush chair, which looks something like the one they use up at Sing Sing, + only it's done more quickly up there and with less suffering on the part + of the condemned. On one side of you you behold quite a display of open + plumbing and on the other side a tasty exhibit of small steel tools of + assorted sizes. No matter which way your gaze may stray you'll be seeing + something attractive. + </p> + <p> + You also take notice of an electric motor about large enough, you would + say, to run a trolley car, which is purring nearby in a sinister and + forbidding way. They are constantly making these little improvements in + the dental profession. I have heard that fifty years ago a dentist + traveled about over the country from place to place, sometimes pulling a + tooth and sometimes breaking a colt. He practiced his art with an outfit + consisting of two pairs of iron forceps—one pair being saber-toothed + while the other pair was merely saw-fretted—and he gave a man the + same kind of treatment he gave a horse, only he tied the horse's legs + first. But now electricity is in general use and no dentist's + establishment is complete without a dynamo attachment which makes a + crooning sound when in operation and provides instrumental accompaniment + to the song of the official canary. + </p> + <p> + I know why a barber in a country town is always learning to play on the + guitar and I know why a man with an emotional Adam's apple always wears an + open front collar. I know these things, but am debarred from telling them + by reason of a solemn oath. But I have not yet been able to discover why + every dentist keeps a canary in his office. Nor do I know why it is, just + as you settle your neck back on a head rest that's every bit as + comfortable as an anvil, and just as a dentist climbs into you as far as + the arm pits and begins probing at the bottom of a tooth which has roots + extending back behind your ears, like an old-fashioned pair of spectacles, + that the canary bird should wipe his nose on a cuttle bone and dash into a + melodious outburst of two hundred thousand twitters, all of them being + twitters of the same size, shape, and color. For that matter, I don't even + know what kind of an animal a cuttle is, although I should say from the + shape of his bone as used by the canary instead of a pocket handkerchief, + that he is circular and flat and stands on edge only with the utmost + difficulty. If you will pardon my temporary digressions into the realm of + natural history, we will now return to the main subject, which was your + tooth. + </p> + <p> + The moment the muscular young man starts up his motor and gives the canary + its music cue and begins pawing over his tool collection to pick out a + good sharp one, you recover. All of a sudden you feel fine, and so does + the tooth. Neither one of you ever felt better. The fox terrier must have + killed the woodchuck and then committed suicide. You are about to mention + this double tragedy and beg the young man's pardon for causing him any + trouble and excuse yourself and go away, but just then he quits feeling of + his biceps and suddenly seizes you by your features and undoes them. If + you are where you can catch a glimpse of yourself in a mirror you will + immediately note how much the human face divine can be made to look like + an old-fashioned red brick Colonial fire place. + </p> + <p> + There are likely to be several things you would like to talk about. You + are full of thoughts seeking utterance. For one thing you want to tell him + you don't think the brand of soap he uses on his hands is going to agree + with you at all. You probably don't care personally for the way your + barber's thumb tastes either, but a barber's thumb is Peaches Melba + alongside of a dentist's. Before you can say anything though he discovers + a cavity or orifice of some sort in the base of your tooth. It seems to + give him pleasure. Filled with intense gratification by this discovery and + fired moreover by the impetuous ardor of the chase, he grabs up a crochet + needle with a red hot stinger on the end of it and jabs it down your tooth + to a point about opposite where your suspenders fork in the back. + </p> + <p> + You have words with him then, or at least you start to have words with + him, but he puts his knee in your chest and tells you that it really + doesn't hurt at all, but is only your imagination, and utters other + soothing remarks of that general nature. He then exchanges the crochet + needle for a kind of an instrument with a burr on the end of it. This + instrument first came into use at the time of the Spanish Inquisition but + has since been greatly improved on and brought right up to date. He takes + this handy little utensil and proceeds to stir up your imagination some + more. You again try to say something, speaking in a muffled tone, but he + is not listening. He is calling to a brother assassin in the adjoining + room to come and see a magnificent example of a prime old-vatted triple X + exposed nerve. So the Second Grave Digger rests his tools against the + palate of his victim and comes in. + </p> + <p> + As nearly as you can gather from hearsay evidence, you not being an eye + witness yourself, one of them harpoons the nerve just back of the gills + with a nutpick—remember please it is your nerve that they are taking + all these liberties with—and pulls it out of its retreat and the + other man takes a tack hammer and tries to beat its brains out. Any time + he misses the nerve he hits you, so his average is still a thousand, and + it is fine practice for him. A pleasant time is had by everybody present + except you and the nerve. The nerve wraps its hind legs around your + breastbone and hangs on desperately. You perspire freely and make noises + like a drunken Zulu trying to sing a Swedish folk song while holding a + spoonful of hot mush in his mouth. + </p> + <p> + In time becoming wearied even of these congenial diversions and tiring of + the shop talk that has been going on, the second dentist returns to his + original prey and the party who has you in charge tries a new experiment. + He arms himself with a kind of an automatic hammering machine, somewhat + similar to the steam riveter used in constructing steel office buildings, + except that this one is more compact and can deliver about eighty-five + more blows to the second. Thus equipped, he descends far below your high + water mark and engages in aquatic sports and pastimes for a considerable + period of time. It seems to you that you never saw a man who could go down + and stay down as long as this young man can. You begin to feel that you + misjudged his real vocation in life when you decided that he ought to be a + boiler maker. You know that he was intended for pearl fishing. He's a + natural born deep sea diver. He doesn't even have to come up to breathe, + but stays below, knee deep in your tide wash, merrily knocking chunks off + your lowermost coral reefs with his little steam riveter and having a + perfectly lovely time. + </p> + <p> + You are overflowing copiously and you wish he would take the time to stop + and bail you out. You abhor the idea of being drowned as an inside job. + But no, he keeps right on and along about here it is customary for you to + swoon away. + </p> + <p> + On recovering, you observe that he has changed his mind again. He is now + going in for amateur theatricals and is using you for a theatre. First + thoughtfully draping a little rubber drop curtain across your proscenium + arch to keep you from seeing what is going on behind your own scenes, he + is setting the stage for the thrilling sawmill scene in Blue Jeans. You + can distinctly feel the circular saw at work and you can taste a hod of + mortar and a bucket of hot tar and one thing and another that have been + left in the wings. You also judge that the insulation is burning off of an + electric fixture somewhere up stage. + </p> + <p> + All this time the tooth is still offering resistance, and eventually the + dentist comes out in front once more and makes a little curtain speech to + you. He has just ascertained that what the tooth really needed was not + filling but pulling. He thought at first that it should be filled and that + is what he has been doing—filling it—but now he knows that + pulling is the indicated procedure. He does not understand how a tooth + that seemed so open could have deceived him. Nevertheless he will now pull + the tooth. + </p> + <p> + He pulls her. She does her level best but he pulls her. He harvests small + sections of the gum from time to time and occasionally he stops long + enough to loosen up the roots as far down as your floating ribs. But he + pulls her. He spares no pains to pull that tooth. Or if he spares any you + are not able subsequently to remember what they were. You utter various + loud sounds in a strange and incomprehensible language and he lays back + and braces his knees against your lower jaw, and the tooth utters the + death rattle and begins picking the cover-lid. And then he gives one final + heave and breaks the roots away from the lower part of your spinal column + to which they were adhering, and emerges into the open panting but + triumphant, and holds his trophy up for you to look at. If you didn't know + it was your tooth you would take it for an old-fashioned china cuspidor + that had been neglected by the janitor. + </p> + <p> + It was a tooth that you had been prizing for years, but now you wouldn't + have it as a gracious gift. You are through with that tooth forever. You + never want to see it again. + </p> + <p> + As for the dentist, he collects the fixed charge for stumpage and corkage + and one thing and another and you come away with a feeling in the side of + your jaw like a vacant lot. Your tongue keeps going over there to see if + it can recognize the old place by the hole where the foundations used to + be. You never realized before what a basement there was to a tooth. + </p> + <p> + As you come out you pass a fresh victim going in and you see the dentist + welcome him and then turn to crank up his motor and you hear the canary + tuning up with a new line of v-shaped twitters. And you are glad that he + is the one who is going in and that you are the one who is coming out. + </p> + <p> + Science tells us that the teeth are the hardest things in the human + composition, which is all very well as far as it goes, but what science + should do is to go on and finish the sentence. It means the hardest to + keep. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HAIR + </h2> + <p> + As I remarked in the preceding chapter of this work, one of the + pleasantest features about being born is that we are born without teeth + and other responsibilities. Teeth, like debts and installment payments, + come along later on. It is the same way with hair. + </p> + <p> + Born, we are, hairless or comparatively so. We are in a highly incomplete + state at that period of our lives. It takes a fond and doting parent to + detect evidences of an actual human aspect in us. Only the ears and the + mouth appear to be up to the plans and specifications. There is a mouth + which when opened, as it generally is, makes the rest of the face look + like a tire, and there is a pair of ears of such generous size that only a + third one is needed, round at the back somewhere, to give us the + appearance of a loving cup. And we are smocked and hem-stitched with a + million wrinkles apiece, more or less, which partly accounts for the fact + that every newborn infant looks to be about two hundred years old. And + uniformly we have the nice red complexion of a restaurant lobster. You + know that live-broiled look? + </p> + <p> + As for our other features, they are more or less rudimentary. Of a nose + there is only what a chemist would call a trace. It seems hard to imagine + that a dinky little nubbin like that, a dimple turned inside out, as it + were, will ever develop into a regular nose, with a capacity for freckling + in the summer and catching cold in the winter—a nose that you can + sneeze through and blow with. There are no eyebrows to speak of either, + and the skull runs up to a sharp point like a pineapple cheese. Just back + of the peak is a kind of soft, dented-in place like a Parker House roll, + and if you touch it we die. In some cases this spot remains soft + throughout life, and these persons grow up and go through railroad trains + in presidential years taking straw votes. + </p> + <p> + And, as I said before, there isn't any hair; only on the slopes of the + cheese are some very pale, faint, downy lines, which look as though they + had been sketched on lightly with a very soft drawing pencil and would + wipe off readily. That, however is the inception and beginning of what + afterward becomes, among our race, hair. To look at it you could hardly + believe it, but it is. Barring accidents or backwardness, it continues to + grow from that time on through our childhood, but its behavior is always a + profound disappointment. If the child is a girl and, therefore, entitled + to curly hair, her hair is sure to come in stiff and straight. If it's a + boy, to whom curls will be a curse and a cross of affliction, he is + morally certain to be as curly as a frizzly chicken, and until he gets old + enough to rebel he will wear long ringlets and boys of his acquaintance + will insert cockle-burs and chewing gum into his tresses, and he will be + known popularly as Sissie and otherwise his life with be made joyous and + carefree for him. If a reddish tone of hair is desired it is certain to + grow out yellow or brown or black; and if brown is your favorite shade you + are absolutely sure to be nice and red-headed, with eyebrows and lashes to + match, and so many cowlicks that when you remove your hat people will + think you're wearing two or three halos at once. Hair rarely or never acts + up to its advance notices. + </p> + <p> + One of the earliest and most painful recollections of my youth is + associated with hair. I still tingle warmly when I think of it. I should + say I was about eight years old at the time. My mother sent me down the + street to the barber's to have my hair trimmed—shingled was the term + then used. Some of my private collection of cowlicks had begun to stand up + in a way that invited adverse criticism and reminded people of sunbursts. + They made me look as though my hair were trying to pull itself out by the + roots and escape. So I was sent to the barber's. My little cousin, two + years younger, went along in my charge. It was thought that the + performance might entertain her. I was mounted in a chair and had a cloth + tucked in round my neck, like a self-made millionaire about to eat + consomme. The officiating barber got out a shiny steel instrument with + jaws—the first pair of clippers I had ever seen—and he ran + this up the back of my neck, producing a most agreeable feeling. He + reached the top of my head and would have paused but I told him to go + right ahead and clip me close all over, which he did. When he had finished + the job I was so delighted with the sensation and with the attendant + result as viewed in a mirror that I suggested he might give my little + cousin a similar treat. From a mere child I was ever so—willing + always to share my simple pleasures with those about me, especially where + it entailed no inconvenience on my part. I told him my father would pay + the bill for both of us when he came by that night. + </p> + <p> + The barber fell in with the suggestion. It has ever been my experience + that a barber will fall in readily with any suggestion whereby the barber + is going to get something out of it for himself. In this instance he was + going to get another quarter, and a quarter went farther in those days + than it does now. I dismounted from the chair and my innocent little + cousin was installed in my place. As I now recall she made no protest. The + barber ran his clippers conscientiously and painstakingly over her tender + young scalp, while I stood admiringly by and watched the long yellow curls + fall writhing upon the floor at my feet. It seemed to me that a great and + manifest improvement was produced in her general appearance. Instead of + being hampered by those silly curls dangling down all round her face, she + now had a round, slick, smooth dome decorated with a stiff yellowish + stubble, and the skin showed through nice and pink and the ears were well + displayed, whereas before they had been practically hidden. She was also + relieved of those foolish bangs hanging down in her eyes. This, I should + have stated, occurred in the period when womankind of whatsoever age and + also some men wore bangs, a disease from which all have since recovered + with the exception of racehorses and princesses of the various reigning + houses of Europe. And now my little cousin was shut of those annoying + bangs, and her forehead ran up so high that you had to go round behind her + to see where it left off. + </p> + <p> + Filled with a joyous sense of achievement and conscious of a kindly deed + worthily performed, I took my little cousin by her hand and led her home. + </p> + <p> + My mother was waiting for us at the front door. She seemed surprised when + I took off my hat and gave her a look, but that wasn't a circumstance to + her surprise when I proudly took off my little cousin's cap. She uttered a + kind of a strangled cry and my cousin's mother came running, and the way + she carried on was scandalous and ill-timed. I will draw a veil over the + proceedings of the next few minutes. At the time it would have been a + source of great personal gratification and comfort to me if I could have + drawn a number of veils, good, thick, woolen ones, over the proceedings. + My mother wept, my aunt wept, my little cousin wept, and I am not ashamed + to state that I wept quite copiously myself. But I had more provocation to + weep than any of them. + </p> + <p> + When this part of the affair was over my mother sent me back to the barber + with a message. I was to say that a heart-broken woman demanded to have + the curls of which her darling child had been denuded. I believe that + there was some idea entertained of sewing them into a cap and requiring my + cousin to wear the cap until new ones had sprouted. Even to me, a mere + child of eight, this seemed a foolish and totally unnecessary proceeding, + but the situation had already become so strained that I thought it the + part of prudence to go at once without offering any arguments of my own. I + felt, anyhow, that I would rather be away from the house for a while, + until calmer second judgment had succeeded excitement and tumult. + </p> + <p> + The man who owned the barber shop seemed surprised when I delivered the + message, but he told me to come back in a few minutes and he'd do what he + could. I drifted on down to the confectionery store at the corner to + forget my sorrows for the moment in a worshipful admiration of a display + of prize boxes and cracknels in glass-front cases—you should be able + to fix the period by the fact that cracknels and prize boxes were still in + vogue among the young. When I returned the head barber handed me quite a + large box—a shoebox—with a string tied round it. It did not + seem possible to me that my cousin could have had a whole shoebox full of + curls, but things had been going pretty badly that afternoon and my + motives had been misjudged and everything, so without any talk I took the + box and hurried home with it. My mother cut the string and my aunt lifted + the lid. + </p> + <p> + I should prefer again to draw a veil over the scenes that now ensued, but + the necessity of finishing this narrative requires me to state that it + being a Saturday and the head barber being a busy man, he had not taken + time to sort out my cousin's curls from among the flotsam and jetsam of + his establishment, but had just swept up enough off the floor to make a + good assorted boxful. I think the oldest inhabitant had probably dropped + in that day to have himself trimmed up a little round the edges. I seem to + remember a quantity of sandy whiskers shot with gray. There was enough + hair in that box and enough different kinds and colors of hair and stuff + to satisfy almost any taste, you would have thought, but my mother and + aunt were anything but satisfied. On the contrary, far from it. And yet my + cousin's hair was all there, if they had only been willing to spend a few + days sorting it out and separating it from the other contents. + </p> + <p> + In this particular instance I was the exception to the rule, that hair + generally gives a boy no great trouble from the time he merges out of + babyhood until he puts on long pants and begins to discern something + strangely and subtly attractive about the sex described by Mr. Kipling as + being the more deadly of the species. During this interim it is a matter + of no moment to a boy whether he goes shaggy or cropped, shorn or unshorn. + At intervals a frugal parent trims him to see if both his ears are still + there, or else a barber does it with more thoroughness, often recovering + small articles of household use that have been mysteriously missing for + months; but in the main he goes along carefree and unbarbered, not greatly + concerned with putting anything in his head or taking anything off of it. + </p> + <p> + In due season, though, he reaches the age where adolescent whiskers and + young romance begin to sprout out on him simultaneously—and from + that moment on for the rest of his life his hair is giving him bother, and + plenty of it. + </p> + <p> + Your hair gives you bother as long as you have it and more bother when it + starts to go. You are always doing something for it and it is always + showing deep-dyed ingratitude in return; or else the dye isn't deep + enough, which is even worse. Hair is responsible for such byproducts as + dandruff, barbers, wigs, several comic weeklies, mental anguish, added + expense, Chinese revolutions, and the standard joke about your wife's + using your best razor to open a can of tomatoes with. Hair has been of aid + to Buffalo Bill, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Samson, The Lady Godiva, Jo-Jo, + the Dog-Faced Boy, poets, pianists, some artists and most mattress makers, + but a drawback and a sorrow to Absalom, polar bears in captivity and the + male sex in general. + </p> + <p> + This assertion goes not only for hair on the head but for hair on the + face. Let us consider for a moment the matter of shaving. If you shave + yourself you excite a barber's contempt, and there is nobody whose + contempt the average man dreads more than a barber's, unless it is a + waiter's. And on the other hand, if you let a barber shave you he excites + not your contempt particularly, but your rage and frequently your undying + hatred. Once in a burst of confidence a barber told me one of the trade + secrets of his profession—he said that among barbers every face fell + into one of three classes, it being either a square, a round or a + squirrel. I know not, reader, whether yours be a square or a round or a + squirrel, but this much I will chance on a venture, sight unseen—that + you have your periods of intense unhappiness when you are being shaved. + </p> + <p> + I do not refer so much to the actual process of being shaved. Indeed there + is something restful and soothing to the average male adult in the feel of + a sharp razor being guided over a bristly jowl by a deft and skillful + hand, to the accompaniment of a gentle grating sound and followed by a + sensation of transient silken smoothness. Nor do I refer to the barber's + habit of conversation. After all, a barber is human—he has to talk + to somebody, and it might as well be you. If he didn't have you to talk to + he'd have to talk to another barber, and that would be no treat to him. + </p> + <p> + What I do refer to is that which precedes a shave and more especially that + which follows after it. You rush in for a shave. In ten minutes you have + an engagement to be married or something else important, and you want a + shave and you want it quick. Does the barber take cognizance of the + emergency? He does not. Such would be contrary to the ethics of his + calling. Knowing from your own lips that you want a shave and that's + positively all, he nevertheless is instantly filled with a burning desire + to equip you with a large number of other things. In this regard the + barbering profession has much in common with the haberdashering or + gents'-furnishing profession as practiced in our larger cities. You invade + a haberdashering establishment for the purpose, let us say, of investing + in a plain and simple pair of half hose, price twenty-five cents. That + emphatically is all that you do desire. You so state in plain, simple + language, using the shorter and uglier word socks. + </p> + <p> + Does the youth in the pale mauve shirt with the marquise ring on the + little finger of the left hand rest content with this? Need I answer this + question? In succession he tries to sell you a fancy waistcoat with large + pearl buttons, a broken lot of silk pajamas, a bath-robe, some shrimp-pink + underwear—he wears this kind himself he tells you in strict + confidence—a pair of plush suspenders and a knitted necktie that you + wouldn't be caught wearing at twelve o'clock at night at the bottom of a + coal mine during a total eclipse of the moon. If you resist his + blandishments and so far forget that you are a gentleman as to use harsh + language, and if you insist on a pair of socks and nothing else, he'll let + you have them, but he will never feel the same toward you as he did. + </p> + <p> + 'Tis much the same with a barber. You need a shave in a hurry and he is + willing that you should have a shave, he being there for that purpose, but + first and last he can think of upward of thirty or forty other things that + you ought to have, including a shampoo, a hair cut, a hair singe, a hair + tonic, a hair oil, a manicure, a facial massage, a scalp massage, a + Turkish bath, his opinion on the merits of the newest White Hope, a + shoeshine, some kind of a skin food, and a series of comparisons of the + weather we are having this time this month with the weather we were having + this time last month. Not all of us are gifted with the power of repartee + by which my friend Frisbee turned the edge of the barber's desires. + </p> + <p> + "Your hair," said the barber, fondling a truant lock, "is long." + </p> + <p> + "I know it is," said Frisbee. "I like it long. It's so Roycrofty." + </p> + <p> + "It is very long," said the barber with a wistful expression. + </p> + <p> + "I like it very long," said Frisbee. "I like to have people come up to me + on the street and call me Mr. Sutherland and ask me how I left my sisters? + I like to be mistaken for a Russian pianist. I like for strangers to stop + me and ask me how's everything up at East Aurora. In short, I like it + long." + </p> + <p> + "Yes, sir," said the barber, "quite so, sir; but it's very long, + particularly here in the back—it covers your coat collar." + </p> + <p> + "Indeed?" said Frisbee. "You say it covers my coat collar?" + </p> + <p> + "Yes, sir," said the barber. "You can't see the coat collar at all." + </p> + <p> + "Have you got a good sharp pair of shears there?" said Frisbee. + </p> + <p> + "Oh, yes, sir," said the barber. + </p> + <p> + "All right then," said Frisbee; "cut the collar off." + </p> + <p> + But not all of us, as I said before, have this ready gift of parry and + thrust that distinguishes my friend Frisbee. Mostly we weakly surrender. + Or if we refuse to surrender, demanding just a shave by itself and nothing + else, what then follows? In my own case, speaking personally, I know + exactly what follows. I do not like to have any powder dabbed on my face + when I am through shaving. I believe in letting the bloom of youth show + through your skin, providing you have any bloom of youth to do so. I + always take pains to state my views in this regard at least twice during + the operation of being shaved—once at the start when the barber has + me all lathered up, with soapsuds dripping from the flanges of my + shell-like ears and running down my neck, and once again toward the close + of the operation, when he has laid aside his razor and is sousing my + defenseless features in a liquid that smells and tastes a good deal like + those scented pink blotters they used to give away at drug-stores to + advertise somebody's cologne. + </p> + <p> + Does the barber respect my wishes in this regard? Certainly not. He + insists on powdering me, either before my eyes or surreptitiously and in a + clandestine manner. If he didn't powder me up he would lose his sense of + self-respect, and probably the union would take his card away from him. I + think there is something in the constitution and by-laws requiring that I + be powdered up. I have fought the good fight for years, but I'm always + powdered. Sometimes the crafty foe dissembles. He pretends that he is not + going to powder me up. But all of a sudden when my back is turned, as it + were, he grabs up his powder swab and makes a quick swoop upon me and the + hellish deed is done. I should be pleased to hear from other victims of + this practice suggesting any practical relief short of homicide. I do not + wish to kill a barber—there are several other orders in ahead, + referring to the persons I intend to kill off first—but I may be + driven to it. + </p> + <p> + After he has gashed me casually hither and yen, and sluiced down my + helpless countenance with the carefree abandon of a livery-stable hand + washing off a buggy, and after, as above stated, he has covered up the + traces of his crime with powder, the barber next takes a towel and folds + it over his right hand, as prescribed in the rules and regulations, and + then he dabs me with that towel on various parts of my face nine hundred + and seventy-four—974—separate and distinct times. I know the + exact number of dabs because I have taken the trouble to keep count. I may + be in as great a hurry as you can imagine; I may be but a poor nervous + wreck already, as I am; I may be quivering to be up and away from there, + but he dabs me with his towel—he dabs me until reason totters on her + throne—sometimes just a tiny tot, as the saying goes, or it may be + that the whole cerebral structure is involved—and then when he is + apparently all through the Demoniac Dabber comes back and dabs me one more + fiendish, deliberate and premeditated dab, making nine hundred and + seventy-five dabs in all. He has to do it; it's in the ritual that I and + you and everybody must have that last dab. I wonder how many gibbering + idiots there are in the asylum today whose reason was overthrown by being + dabbed that last farewell dab. I know from my own experience that I can + feel the little dark-green gibbers sloshing round inside of me every time + it happens, and some day my mind will give away altogether and there'll be + a hurry call sent in for the wagon with the lock on the back door. Yet it + is of no avail to cavil or protest; we cannot hope to escape; we can only + sit there in mute and helpless misery and be filled with a great envy for + Mexican hairless dogs. + </p> + <p> + For quite a spell now we have been speaking of hair on the face; at this + point we revert to hair in its relation to the head. There are some few + among us, mainly professional Southerners and leading men, who retain the + bulk of the hair on their heads through life; but with most of us the + circumstances are different. Your hair goes from you. You don't seem to + notice it at first; then all of a sudden you wake up to the realization + that your head is working its way up through the hair. You start in then + desperately doing things for your hair in the hope of inducing it to stick + round the old place a while longer, but it has heard the call of the wild + and it is on its way. There's no detaining it. You soak your skull in + lotions until your brain softens and your hat-band gets moldy from the + damp, but your hair keeps right on going. + </p> + <p> + After a while it is practically gone. If only about two-thirds of it is + gone your head looks like a great auk's egg in a snug nest; but if most of + it goes there is something about you that suggests the Glacial Period, + with an icy barren peak rising high above the vegetation line, where a + thin line of heroic strands still cling to the slopes. You are bald then, + a subject fit for the japes of the wicked and universally coupled in the + betting with onions, with hard-boiled eggs and with the front row of + orchestra chairs at a musical show. + </p> + <p> + At this time of writing baldness is creeping insidiously up each side of + my head. It is executing flank movements from the temples northward, and + some day the two columns will meet and after that I'll be considerably + more of a highbrow than I am now. At present I am craftily combing the + remaining thatch in the middle and smoothing it out nice and flat, so as + to keep those bare spots covered—thinly perhaps, but nevertheless + covered. It is my earnest desire to continue to keep them covered. I am + not a professional beauty; I am not even what you would call a good + amateur beauty; and I want to make what little hair I have go as far as it + conveniently can. But does the barber to whom I repair at frequent + intervals coincide with my desires in this respect? Again I reply he does + not. Every time I go in I speak to him about it. I say to him: "Woodman, + spare that hair, touch not a single strand; in youth it sheltered me and + I'll protect it now." Or in substance that. + </p> + <p> + He says yes, he will, but he doesn't mean it. He waits until he can catch + me with my guard down. Then he seizes a comb, and using the edge of his + left hand as a bevel and operating his right with a sort of free-arm + Spencerian movement, he roaches my hair up in a scallop effect on either + side, and upon reaching the crest he fights with it and wrestles with it + until he makes it stand erect in a feather-edged design. I can tell by his + expression that he is pleased with this arrangement. He loves to send his + victims forth into the world tufted like the fretful cockatoo. He likes to + see surging waves of hair dash high on a stern and rockbound head. His + sense of the artistic demands such a result. + </p> + <p> + What cares he how I feel about it so long as the higher cravings of his + own nature are satisfied? But I resent it—I resent it bitterly. I + object to having my head look like a real-estate development with an + opening for a new street going up each side and an ornamental design in + fancy landscape gardening across the top. If I permit this I won't be able + to keep on saying that I was twenty-seven on my last birthday, with some + hope of getting away with it. So I insist that he put my front hair right + back where he found it. He does so, under protest and begrudgingly, it is + true, but he does it. And then, watching his opportunity, he runs in on me + and overpowers me and roaches it up some more. + </p> + <p> + If I weaken and submit he is happy as the day is long. If he gets it + roached up on both sides that will make me look like a horizontal-bar + performer, which is his idea of manly beauty. Or if he gets it roached up + on one side only there is still some consolation in it for him I'm liable + to be mistaken anywhere for a trained-animal performer. But once in a very + great while he doesn't get it roached up on either side, but has to stand + there and suffer as he sees me walk forth into the world with my hair + combed to suit me and not him. I can tell by his look that he is grieved + and downcast, and that he will probably go home and be cross to the + children. He has but one solace—he hopes to have better luck with me + next time. And probably he will. + </p> + <p> + The last age of hair is a wig. But wigs are not so very satisfactory + either. I've seen all the known varieties of wigs, and I never saw one yet + that looked as though it were even on speaking terms with the head that + was under it. A wig always looks as though it were a total stranger to the + head and had just lit there a minute to rest, preparatory to flying along + to the next head. Nevertheless, I think on the whole I'll be happier when + my time comes to wear one, because then no barber can roach me up. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HANDS AND FEET + </h2> + <p> + Nearly every boy has a period in his life when he is filled with an + envious admiration for the East India god with the extra set of arms—Vishnu, + I think this party's name is. To a small boy it seems a grand thing to + have a really adequate assortment of hands. He considers the advantage of + such an arrangement in school—two hands in plain view above the desk + holding McGuffy's Fourth Reader at the proper angle for study and the + other two out of sight, down underneath the desk engaged in manufacturing + paper wads or playing crack-a-loo or some other really worth while + employment. + </p> + <p> + Or for robbing birds' nests. There would be two hands for use in skinning + up the tree, and one hand for scaring off the mother bird and one hand for + stealing the eggs. And for hanging on behind wagons the combination + positively could not be beaten. Then there would be the gaudy + conspicuousness of going around with four arms weaving in and out in a + kind of spidery effect while less favored boys were forced to content + themselves with just an ordinary and insufficient pair. Really, there was + only one drawback to the contemplation of this scheme—there'd be + twice as many hands to wash when company was coming to dinner. + </p> + <p> + Generally speaking a boy's hands give him no serious concern during the + first few years of his life except at such times as his mother grows + officious and fussy and insists that they ought to be washed up as far as + the regular place for washing a boy's hands, to wit, about midway between + the knuckles and the wrist. The fact that one finger is usually in a state + of mashedness is no drawback, but a benefit. The presence of a soiled rag + around a finger gives to a boy's hand a touch of distinctiveness—singles + it out from ordinary unmaimed hands. Its presence has been known to excuse + its happy possessor from such chores as bringing in wood for the kitchen + stove or pulling dock weeds out of the grass in a front yard where it + would be much easier and quicker to pull the grass out of the dock weeds. + It may even be made a source of profit by removing the wrappings and + charging two china marbles a look. I seem to recall that in the case of a + specially attractive injury, such as a thumb nail knocked off or a deep + cut which has refused to heal by first intention or an imbedded splinter + in process of being drawn out by a scrap of fat meat, that as much as four + china marbles could be charged. + </p> + <p> + On the Fourth of July you occasionally burned your hands and in cold + winters they chapped extensively across the knuckles but these were but + the marks and scars of honorable endeavor and a hardy endurance. In our + set the boy whose knuckles had the deepest cracks in them was a prominent + and admired figure, crowned, as you might say, with an imaginary chaplet + by reason of his chaps. + </p> + <p> + With girls, of course, it was different. + </p> + <p> + Girls were superfluous and unnecessary creatures with a false and inflated + idea of the value of soap and water. Their hands weren't good for much + anyway. Later on we discovered that a girl's hands were excellent for + holding purposes in a hammock or while coming back from a straw ride, but + I am speaking now of the earlier stages of our development, before the + presence of the ostensibly weaker sex began to awaken responsive throbs in + our several bosoms—in short when girls were merely nuisances and + things to be ignored whenever possible. In that early stage of his + existence hands have no altruistic or sentimental or ornamental value for + a boy—they are for useful purposes altogether and are regarded as + such. + </p> + <p> + It is only when he has reached the age of tail coats and spike-fence + collars that he discovers two hands are frequently too many and often not + enough. They are too many at your first church wedding when wearing your + first pair of white kids and they are not enough at a five o'clock tea. + There is a type of male who can go to a five o'clock tea and not fall over + a lot of Louie Kahn's furniture or get himself hopelessly tangled up in a + hanging drapery and who can seem perfectly at ease while holding in his + hands a walking stick, a pair of dove colored gloves, a two-quart hat, a + cup of tea with a slice of lemon peel in it, a tea spoon, a lump of sugar, + a seed cookie, an olive, and the hand of a lady with whom he is discussing + the true meaning of the message of the late Ibsen but these gifted mortals + are not common. They are rare and exotic. There are also some few who can + do ushing at a church wedding with a pair of white kids on and not appear + overly self-conscious. These are also the exceptions. The great majority + of us suffer visibly under such circumstances. You have the feeling that + each hand weighs fully twenty-four pounds and that it is hanging out of + the sleeve for a distance of about one and three-quarters yards and you + don't know what to do with your hands and on the whole would feel much + more comfortable and decorative if they were both sawed off at the wrists + and hidden some place where you couldn't find 'em. You have that feeling + and you look it. You look as though you were working in a plaster of paris + factory and were carrying home a couple of large sacks of samples. It + would be grand to be a Vishnu at a five o'clock tea, but awful to be one + at a church wedding. + </p> + <p> + About the time you find yourself embarking on a career of teas and + weddings you also begin to find yourself worrying about the appearance of + your hands. Up until now the hands have given you no great concern one way + or the other, but some day you wake to the realization that you need to be + manicured. Once you catch that disease there is no hope for you. There are + ways of curing you of almost any habit except manicuring. You get so that + you aren't satisfied unless your nails run down about a quarter of an inch + further than nails were originally intended to run, and unless they + glitter freely you feel strangely distraught in company. Inasmuch as no + male creature's finger nails will glitter with the desired degree of + brilliancy for more than twenty-four short and fleeting hours after a + treatment you find yourself constantly in the act of either just getting a + manicure or just getting over one. It is an expensive habit, too; it takes + time and it takes money. There's the fixed charge for manicuring in the + first place and then there's the tip. Once there was a manicure lady who + wouldn't take a tip, but she is now no more. Her indignant sisters stabbed + her to death with hat pins and nail-files. Manicuring as a public + profession is a comparatively recent development of our civilization. The + fathers of the republic and the founders of the constitution, which was + founded first and has been foundering ever since if you can believe what a + lot of people in Congress say—they knew nothing of manicuring. + Speaking by and large, they only got their thumbs wet when doing one of + three things—taking a bath, going in swimming or turning a page in a + book. Washington probably was never manicured nor Jefferson nor Franklin; + it's a cinch that Daniel Boone and Israel Putnam and George Rogers Clark + weren't and yet it is generally conceded that they got along fairly well + without it. But as the campaign orators are forever pointing out from the + hustlers and the forum, this is an age calling for change and advancement. + And manicuring is one of the advancements that likewise calls for the + change—for fifty cents in change anyhow and more if you are inclined + to be generous with the tip. + </p> + <p> + Shall you ever forget your first manicure? The shan'ts are unanimously in + the majority. It seems an easy thing to walk into a manicure parlor or a + barber shop and shove your hands across a little table to a strange young + woman and tell her to go ahead and shine 'em up a bit—the way you + hear old veteran manicurees saying it. It seems easy, I say, and looks + easy; but it isn't as easy as it seems. Until you get hardened, it + requires courage of a very high order. You, the abashed novice, see other + men sitting in the front window of the manicure shop just as debonair and + cozy as though they'd been born and raised there, swapping the ready + repartee of the day with dashing creatures of a frequently blonde aspect, + and you imagine they have always done so. You little know that these + persons who are now appearing so much at home and who can snap out those + bright, witty things like "I gotcher Steve," and "Well, see who's here?" + without a moment's hesitation and without having to stop and think for the + right word or the right phrase but have it right there on the tip of the + tongue—you little reck that they too passed through the same + initiation which you now contemplate. Yet such is the case. + </p> + <p> + You have dress rehearsals—private ones—in your room. In the + seclusion of your bed chamber you picture yourself opening the door of the + marble manicure hall and stepping in with a brisk yet graceful tread—like + James K. Hackett making an entrance in the first act—and glancing + about you casually—like John Drew counting up the house—and + saying "Hello girlies, how're all the little Heart's Delights this + afternoon?" just like that, and picking out the most sumptuous and + attractive of the flattered young ladies in waiting; and sinking easily + into the chair opposite her—see photos of William Faversham and + throwing the coat lapels back, at the same time resting the left hand + clenched upon the upper thigh with the elbow well out—Donald Brian + asking a lady to waltz—and offering the right hand to the favored + female and telling her to go as far as she likes with it. It sounds simple + when you figuring it out alone, but it rarely works out that way in + practice. It is my belief that every woman longs for the novelty of a + Turkish bath and every man for the novelty of a manicure long before + either dares to tackle it. I may be wrong but this is my belief. And in + the case of the man he usually makes a number of false starts. + </p> + <p> + You go to the portals and hesitate and then, stumbling across the + threshold, you either dive on through to the barber shop—if there is + a barber shop in connection—or else you mumble something about being + in a hurry and coming back again, and retreat with all the grace and ease + that would be shown by a hard shell crab that was trying to back into the + mouth of a milk-bottle. You are likely to do this several times; but + finally some day you stick. You slump down into one of those little chairs + and offer your hands or one of them to a calm and slightly arrogant + looking young lady and you tell her to please shine them up a little. You + endeavor to appear as though you had been doing this at frequent periods + stretching through a great number of years, but she—bless her little + heart!—she knows better than that. The female of the manicuring + species is not to be deceived by any such cheap and transparent artifices. + If you wore a peekaboo waist she couldn't see through you any easier. Your + hands would give you away if your face didn't. In a sibulent aside, she + addresses the young lady at the next table—the one with the nine + bracelets and the hair done up delicatessen store mode—sausages, + rolls and buns—whereupon both of them laugh in a significant, + silvery way, and you feel the back of your neck setting your collar on + fire. You can smell the bone button back there scorching and you're glad + it's not celluloid, celluloid being more inflammable and subject to + combustion when subjected to intense heat. + </p> + <p> + When both have laughed their merry fill, the young woman who has you in + charge looks you right in the eye and says: + </p> + <p> + "Dearie me; you'll pardon me saying so, but your nails are in a perfectly + turrible state. I don't think I've seen a jumpman's nails in such a state + for ever so long. Pardon me again—but how long has it been since you + had them did?" + </p> + <p> + To which you reply in what is meant to be a jaunty and off-hand tone: + </p> + <p> + "Oh quite some little while. I've—I've been out of town." + </p> + <p> + "That's what I thought," she says with a slight shrug. It isn't so much + what she says—it's the way she says it, the tone and all that, which + makes you feel smaller and smaller until you could crawl into your own + watch pocket and live happily there ever after. There'd be slews of room + and when you wanted the air of an evening you could climb up in a + buttonhole of your vest and be quite cosy and comfortable. But shrink as + you may, there is now no hope of escape, for she has reached out and + grabbed you firmly by the wrist. She has you fast. You have a feeling that + eight or nine thousand people have assembled behind you and are all gazing + fixedly into the small of your back. The only things about you that + haven't shrivelled up are your hands. You can feel them growing larger and + larger and redder and redder and more prominent and conspicuous every + instant. + </p> + <p> + The lady begins operations. You are astonished to note how many tools and + implements it takes to manicure a pair of hands properly. The top of her + little table is full of them and she pulls open a drawer and shows you + some more, ranged in rows. There are files and steel biters and + pigeon-toed scissors and scrapers and polishers and things; and wads of + cotton with which to staunch the blood of the wounded, and bottles of + liquid and little medicinal looking jars full of red paste; and a cut + glass crock with soap suds in it and a whole lot of little orange wood + stobbers. + </p> + <p> + In the interest of truth I have taken the pains to enquire and I have + ascertained that these stobbers are invariably of orange wood. Say what + you will, the orange tree is a hardy growth. Every February you read in + the papers that the Florida orange crop, for the third consecutive time + since Christmas has been entirely and totally destroyed by frost and yet + there is always an adequate supply on hand of the principal products of + the orange-phosphate for the soda fountains, blossoms for the bride, + political sentiment for the North of Ireland and little sharp stobbers for + the manicure lady. Speaking as an outsider I would say that there ought to + be other varieties of wood that would serve as well and bring about the + desired results as readily—a good thorny variety of poison ivy ought + to fill the bill, I should think. But it seems that orange wood is + absolutely essential. A manicure lady could no more do a manicure properly + without using an orange wood stobber at certain periods than a cartoonist + could draw a picture of a man in jail without putting a ball and chain on + him or a summer resort could get along without a Lover's Leap within easy + walking distance of the hotel. It simply isn't done, that's all. + </p> + <p> + Well, as I was saying, she gets out her tool kit and goes to work on you. + You didn't dream that there were so many things—mainly of a painful + nature—that could be done to a single finger nail and you flinch as + you suddenly remember that you have ten of them in all, counting thumbs in + with fingers. She takes a finger nail in hand and she files it and she + trims it and she softens it with hot water and hardens it with chemicals + and parboils it a little while and then she cuts off the hang nails—if + there aren't any hang nails there already she'll make a few—and she + shears away enough extra cuticle to cover quite a good-sized little boy. + She goes over you with a bristle brush, and warms up your nerve ends until + you tingle clear back to your dorsal fin and then she takes one of those + orange wood stobbers previously referred to, and goes on an exploring + expedition down under the nail, looking for the quick. She always finds + it. There is no record of a failure to find the quick. Having found it she + proceeds to wake it up and teach it some parlor tricks. I may not have set + forth all these various details in the exact order in which they take + place, but I know she does them all. And somewhere along about the time + when she is half way through with the first hand she makes you put the + other hand in the suds. + </p> + <p> + Later on when you have had more practice at this thing you learn to wait + for the signal before plunging the second hand into the suds, but being + green on this occasion, you are apt to mistake the moving of the crock of + suds over from the right hand side to the left hand side as a notice and + to poke your untouched hand right in without further orders, hoping to get + it softened up well so as to save her trouble in trimming it down to a + size which will suit her. But this is wrong—this is very wrong, as + she tells you promptly, with a pitying smile for your ignorance. Manicure + girls are as careful about boiling a hand as some particular people are + about bailing their eggs for breakfast of a morning. A two minute hand is + no pleasure to her absolutely if she has diagnosed your hand as one + calling for six minutes, or vice versa. So, should you err in this regard + she will snatch the offending hand out and wipe it off and give it back to + you and tell you to keep it in a dry place until she calls for it. + Manicure girls are very funny that way. + </p> + <p> + Thus time passes on and on and by degrees you begin to feel more and more + at home. Your bashfulness is wearing off. The coherent power of speech has + returned to you and you have exchanged views with her on the relative + merits of the better known brands of chewing gum and which kind holds the + flavor longest, and you have swapped ideas on the issue of whether ladies + should or should not smoke cigarettes in public and she knows how much + your stick pin cost you and you know what her favorite flower is. You are + getting along fine, when all of a sudden she dabs your nails with a red + paste and then snatches up a kind of a polishing tool and ferociously rubs + your fingers until they catch on fire. Just when the conflagration + threatens to become general she stops using the polisher and proceeds to + cool down the ruins by gently burnishing your nails against the soft, pink + palm of her hand. You like this better than the other way. You could + ignite yourself by friction almost any time, if you got hold of the right + kind of a chamois skin rubber, but this is quite different and highly + soothing. You are beginning to really enjoy the sensation when she + roguishly pats the back of your hand—pitty pat—as a signal + that the operation is now over. You pay the check and tip the lady—tip + her fifty cents if you wish to be regarded as a lovely jumpman or only + twenty-five cents if you are satisfied with being a vurry nice fella—and + you secure your hat and step forth into the open with the feeling of one + who has taken a trip into a distant domain and on the whole has rather + enjoyed it. + </p> + <p> + You stand in the sunlight and waggle your fingers and you are struck with + the desirable glitter that flits from finger tip to finger tip like a + heleograph winking on a mountain top. It is indeed a pleasing spectacle. + You decide that hereafter you will always glitter so. It is cheaper than + wearing diamonds and much more refined, and so you take good care of your + fingers all that day and carefully refrain from dipping them in the brine + while engaged in the well known indoor sport of spearing for dill pickles + at the business men's lunch. + </p> + <p> + But the next morning when you wake up the desirable glitter is gone. You + only glimmer dully—your fingers do not sparkle and dazzle and + scintillate as they did. As Francois Villon, the French poet would + undoubtedly have said had manicures been known at the time he was writing + his poems, "Where are the manicures of yesterday?" instead of making it, + "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" there being no answer ready for + either question, except that the manicures of yesterday like the snows of + yesteryear are never there when you start looking for them. They have just + naturally got up and gone away, leaving no forwarding address. + </p> + <p> + You have now been launched upon your career as a manicuree. You never get + over it. You either get married and your wife does your nails for you, + thus saving you large sums of money, but failing to impart the high degree + of polish and the spice of romance noticed in connection with the same job + when done away from home, or you continue to patronize the regular + establishments and become known in time as Polished Percival, the Pet of + the Manicure Parlor. But in either event your hands which once were hands + and nothing more, have become a source of added trouble and expense to + you. + </p> + <p> + Speaking of hands naturally brings one to the subject of feet, which was + intended originally to be the theme for the last half of this chapter, but + unfortunately I find I have devoted so much space to your hands that there + is but little room left for your feet and so far as your feet are + concerned, we must content ourselves on this occasion with a few general + statements. + </p> + <p> + Feet, I take it, speaking both from experience and observation, are even + more trouble to us than hands are. There are still a good many of us left + who go through life without doing anything much for our hands but with our + feet it is different. They thrust themselves upon us so to speak, + demanding care and attention. This goes for all sizes and all ages of + feet. From the time you are a small boy and suffer from stone bruises in + the summer and chilblains in the winter, on through life you're beset with + corns and callouses and falling of the instep and all the other ills that + feet are heir to. + </p> + <p> + The rich limp with the gout, the moderately well to do content themselves + with an active ingrown nail or so, and the poor man goes out and drops an + iron casting on his toe. Nearly every male who lives to reach the voting + age has a period of mental weakness in his youth when he wears those + pointed shoes that turn up at the ends, like sleigh runners; and spends + the rest of his life regretting it. Feet are certainly ungrateful things. + I might say that they are proverbially ungrateful. You do for them and + they do you. You get one corn, hard or soft, cured up or removed bodily + and a whole crowd of its relatives come to take its place. I imagine that + Nature intended we should go barefooted and is now getting even with us + because we didn't. Our poor, painful feet go with us through all the years + and every step in life is marked by a pang of some sort. And right on up + to the end of our days, our feet are getting more infirm and more + troublesome and more crotchety and harder to bear with all the time. How + many are there right now who have one foot in the grave and the other at + the chiropodist's? Thousands, I reckon. + </p> + <p> + Napoleon said an army traveled on its stomach. I don't blame the army, far + from it; I've often wished I could travel that way myself, and I've no + doubt so has every other man who ever crowded a number nine and + three-quarters foot into a number eight patent-leather shoe, and then went + to call on friends residing in a steam-heated apartment. As what man has + not? Once the green-corn dance was an exclusive thing with the Sioux + Indians, but it may now be witnessed when one man steps on another man's + toes in a crowd. + </p> + <p> + We are accustomed to make fun of the humble worm of the dust but in one + respect the humble worm certainly has it on us. He goes through existence + without any hands and any feet to bother him. Indeed in this regard I can + think of but one creature in all creation who is worse off than we poor + humans are. That is the lowly ear wig. Think of being an ear wig, that + suffers from fallen arches himself and has a wife that suffers from cold + feet! + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1222 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |