Miscellany: Aug. 2, 1926

Funeral

In Darlington, S. C., a Negro died, and was laid out, for the admiration of his friends, with a powdered countenance, among banked flowers. Seven little pickaninnies, graded like a flight of steps, from Nathan Ellison, a toddler of 18 months, to the big seven-year-old girl from next door, stood in a line on the pavement to watch the black box carried out of the house, and stared round-eyed until the last carriage had turned the corner. Then, the next-to-largest black boy gave a tremendous leap from the curb into the gutter.

“What we gwine to play, Monk?” he said to his brother. The passing of the thing in the glass carriage had left him with a sense of liberty that made him swing his arm and adorn his preliminary question with rhetoric. “Whata we-all gwina play, Monke-ee-Monk-eee-Monk?”

“Let’s play duck-on-a-rock,” said one of the girls.

Monk shook his head. Grave with a hidden purpose, he bent and whispered something. There was a tight cluster of wooled heads; every one was in the secret save toddling little Nathan, too young to comprehend.

“Wheel” whooped a conspirator, whirling back. “Fulneral! We-all gwina play Fulneral . . . .”

“Shut up,” Monk’s voice was peremptory. He turned condescendingly to Nathan.

“How’d you like to be daid corpse?” he inquired.

The small boy mooned up at his brother, vaguely pleased.

“Come out to the woodshed then,” said Monk.

In a few moments the children emerged from the woodshed into the yard, bearing between them what was to all appearances the lifeless remains of small Nathan Ellison. They deposited their burden on the kitchen floor and adorned its limpness with two sunflowers.

Was it safe to steal some of their mother’s rice-powder? Mrs. Ellison was out laundering at a neighbor’s house. Monk got the powder and sprinkled it upon the “daid corpse’s” face. Then, whoopIng, he led his followers back to the yard. In 15 minutes Mrs. Ellison came in and laid her clean clothes down on a chair. What she saw on the floor gave her a slight start, but her nerves were good; she chuckled and moved nearer. As she bent over the “corpse” uncertainty replaced the laughter in her generous face; her hand, moving very slowly, pushed back the dress that covered the breast of her youngest. The gash left by the woodpile ax was deep and scarlet. It had long since ceased to bleed. “Whee. . . .” A delighted shriek drifted in from the yard. The Ellison children and the big girls— from next door were now playing “frazzle-belly*.”

At Biddeford Pool

Into the ocean at Biddeford Pool, Me., plunged plucky James Montgomery Flagg, famed artist, well-paid pen-and-ink perpetrator of languid women, stout men, old home scenes. Beating through storm-twirled waves, while lightning flashed above him like a white, demented eyeball, he swam to the side of Isaac Cook, drowning realtor, pulled him shoreward. Mr. Cook, safe on shore, offered no word of thanks. His breath made no mist upon a mirror. Saved from drowning, he had died of heart disease.

Credulous

In West New York, N. J., one Paul Bethamen, weaver, husband, father, awoke in a room he had never seen before. It had bars. It was a prison cell.

“Why am I here?” he screamed.

“Shut up,” growled a sour voice from the next cell.

“What have I done?” shrieked Mr. Bethamen.

“You’re in for murder!”

Silence filled the jail. A guard pad-padded in, paused, grunted, swore in horror. Mr. Bethamen had strangled himself. … On the police docket the charge opposite Bethamen’s name read, quite simply: “Intoxication.”

Disgusting

In the great Phoetzensee Prison at Berlin one Fritz Gabriel, famed criminal, kissed his wife.

Her full curving lips closed with an unctuous suction about his thin, bloodless muzzle. Slowly, cautiously his tongue pressed a wadded spitball into her mouth.

When she reached home she unfolded the wad, read it. Following her husband’s instructions she proceeded to effect his escape from prison last week.

Coincidence

Last week jaded Gothamites sweated, many publicly collarless, others privately naked. In front of a cell-like apartment house one Garth Anderson, Negro, 23, sat dull-eyed, knowing not, caring less that Miss Josephine Smith, 20, white, likewise exuded many a salty droplet some miles away. Languor fell upon them. They sighed, yawned—screamed with fearful pain until summoned surgeons set their respectively dislocated jaws.

*An innocent pastime, often perverted by adults into a gambling game; in principle it is the same as drawing lots. Several white pebbles and one black pebble are put in a pot or hat. The players draw one pebble each in turn, without looking. Drawing the black pebble puts a player out of the game, when all pebbles are returned to the receptacle and drawing begins afresh among the survivors. The tension of the drawing between the last two players in a good game is “frazzling” to the nerves.