FullReads

Grand time, Christmas! We vowed to try to take down our weight this winter, and then they put sugar back on the menu, and doughnut shops spring up on every street, and Charles F. Jenkins sent us a big sack of Pocono buckwheat flour and we’re eating a basketful of griddle cakes every morning for breakfast. Terrible to be a coward; we always turn on the hot water first in the shower bath, except the first morning we used it. The plumber got the indicator on the wrong way round, and when you turn to the place marked HOT it comes down like ice. Our idea of a really happy man is the fellow driving a wagonload of truck just in front of a trolley car, holding it back all the way downtown; when he hears the motorman clanging away he pretends he thinks it’s the Christmas chimes and sings “Hark the Herald Angels.”

Speaking of Herald Angels reminds us of a good story about James Gordon Bennett; we’ll spring it one of these days when we’re hard up for copy. Jack Frost must be a married man, did you see him try to cover up the show windows with his little traceries the other day when the shopping was at its height? There was a pert little hat in a window on Walnut Street we were very much afraid someone might see; the frost saved us. Don’t forget to put Red Cross seals on your letters. Delightful to watch the faces on the streets at Christmas time. Everybody trying hard to be pleasant; sometimes rather a strain. Curious things faces–some of them seem almost human; queer to think that each belongs to someone and no chance to get rid of it; sorry we’re not in the mirror industry; never thought of it before, but it ought to be profitable. Happier most of us, if mirrors never had been invented. Hope all our nice-natured clients will have the best kind of a time; forgive us for not answering letters; we are too disillusioned about ourself to make any resolutions to do better. We’re going home now; on the way we’ll think of a lot of nice things we might have said, write them down and use them to-morrow. Hope Dorothy Gish will get something nice in her stocking. Don’t make the obvious retort. Grand time, Christmas!

IN WEST PHILADELPHIA

Climbing aboard car No. 13–ominously labelled “Mt. Moriah”–I voyaged toward West Philadelphia. It was a keen day, the first snow of winter had fallen, and sparkling gushes of chill swept inward every time the side doors opened. The conductor, who gets the full benefit of this ventilation, was feeling cynical, and seeing his blue hands I didn’t blame him. Long lines of ladies, fumbling with their little bags and waiting for change, stepped off one by one into the windy eddies of the street corners. One came up to pay her fare ten blocks or so before her destination, and then retired to her seat again. This puzzled the conductor and he rebuked her. The argument grew busy. To the amazement of the passengers this richly dressed female brandished lusty epithets. “You Irish mick!” she said. (One would not have believed it possible if he had not heard it.) “That’s what I am, and proud of it,” said he. The shopping solstice is not all fur coats and pink cheeks. If you watch the conductors in the blizzard season, and see the slings and arrows they have to bear, you will coin a new maxim. The conductor is always right.

It is always entertaining to move for a little in a college atmosphere. I stopped at College Hall at the University and seriously contemplated slipping in to a lecture. The hallways were crowded with earnest youths of both sexes–I was a bit surprised at the number of co-eds, particularly the number with red hair–discussing the tribulations of their lot. “Think of it,” said one man, “I’m a senior, and carrying twenty-three hours. Got a thesis to do, 20,000 words.” On a bulletin board I observed the results of a “General Intelligence Exam.” It appears that 1,770 students took part. They were listed by numbers, not by names. It was not stated what the perfect mark would have been; the highest grade attained was 159, by Mr. (or Miss?) 735. The lowest mark was 23. I saw that both 440 and 1124 got the mark of 149. If these gentlemen (or ladies) are eager to play off the tie, it would be a pleasure to arrange a deciding competition for them. The elaborate care with which the boys and girls ignore one another as they pass in the halls was highly delightful, and reminded me of exactly the same thing at Oxford. But I saw the possible beginning of true romance in the following notice on one of the boards: