Chapter I: Foreword (1)

A good many harsh things are likely to be said about this collection of humorous stories and I may as well get in first by saying a few of them right here. Not all of them are likely to strike any given reader as being humorous; certainly not all of them are humorous in the same sense nor in anything like the same degree. Humor, from the writer's standpoint, can hardly be defined except as a method of presenting material; from a reader's standpoint, as anything and everything conducive to good-natured laughter. Humor may be brief; perhaps is better so; nevertheless I have aimed to include only humorous writing which also tells a fully-rounded story--writing in which the humor is incidental to the story unless you, the reader, find it otherwise.

There is plenty of evidence that I have had further formulas. Some of it is misleading. I did not, for example, consciously select a humorous negro story, a humorous animal story, a humorous Jewish story, and so on. With more truth it can be alleged that I made this book by culling a specimen of the work of this well-known writer of humorous yarns, and that one. Still, there are one or two stories by less well-known writers. And it is perhaps natural in any department to think of a few who are outstanding and to say, "The collection won't be representative without a story by Blank." In the end you match Blank's tale against one by somebody else and are not thunderstruck if Blank's is the better. It is his faculty for being better that has got him his fame.

That there is only one story by a woman is as much of a surprise to me as it can be to anybody. Probably, if my task were perfectly done, there would be not less than three.

I have, however, failed to include only one story which I wished to put in. This failure was due to the author's refusal of permission, for no given reason.

Of course there are hundreds and probably thousands of stories I have not read, and there must be omissions which, apart from the element of individual appraisement, are mistakes. I shall be glad to know about these. But in suggesting them it is fair to ask you to bear in mind that I have been concerned only with American writers or those who, like P. G. Wodehouse, have as it were adopted us and been adopted by us; and that I have dealt almost exclusively with stories of the last two years. I have also avoided in the majority of cases stories already published in book form.

Should this book meet with favor, another collection of the sort is not impossible, and for that I shall value suggestions to improve on the present volume. They should generally be:

Fully-rounded "stories" of usual length.

By Americans; especially by women.

Published in a magazine in 1926 or 1927.

As yet unpublished in book form.

I can think of no other specification except the fundamental one--that the story should have made you laugh, early and often. I hope some of these may do that.

GRANT OVERTON

1 _July_, 1927

CONTENTS

I'M IN A HURRY
_William Hazlett Upson_

THE CUSTODY OF THE PUMPKIN
_P. G. Wodehouse_

THE MILKY WAY
_Stewart Edward White_

LA BELLA GINA
_Eleanor Mercein Kelly_

CLASSICS IN SLANG: ROBINSON CRUSOE
_H. C. Witwer_

THE PUSHER-IN-THE-FACE
_F. Scott Fitzgerald_

ALMOST A GENTLEMAN
_Edward Hope_

ARABIAN KNIGHTS
_Octavus Roy Cohen_

THE SIXTH MCNALLY
_Montague Glass_

ZONE OF QUIET
_Ring W. Lardner_

I'M IN A HURRY

_By_ William Hazlett Upson

WILLIAM HAZLETT UPSON

William Hazlett Upson was born at Glen Ridge, N.J., on September 20, 1891, the son of a lawyer practicing in New York City. After graduating from the agricultural college at Cornell University he tried farming for three years and was glad to quit to become a soldier. He was a private in the field artillery and saw service in the latter half of the Marne-Aisne offensive and in the St. Mihiel and Argonne operations. After the Armistice he spent the winter in Germany as one of the Army of Occupation.

He returned from abroad to pick up a job as a service mechanic with a tractor company and in the next few years he learned all about tractors and a good deal about how to sell them.

A long convalescence from illness set him to writing. William Almon Wolff showed him how to revise a story that was getting rejections and then sold it for him. Upson was very busy marrying, and writing more stories, which also sold. He went back to work for the tractor company and for almost a year did that job in the daytime and wrote at night. He has been writing since 1922 and said good-by to tractors, except in his stories, a long while ago.

Upson has written nearly all his stories from material that he accumulated in his years as a farmer, his months as a soldier, and his time with the tractor industry. Often a humorist, it is improbable that he will ever write a funnier story than "I'm in a Hurry," which has generally been adjudged one of the most perfect humorous stories in recent years. "I'm in a Hurry" was first published in _Collier's_ for May 2, 1925.

I'M IN A HURRY[1]

[1] Copyright, 1925, by William Hazlett Upson.

DRY RIVER JUNCTION, TEXAS
October 1, 1924

To The Farmers Friend Tractor Company
Earthworm City, Illinois

Dear Sir: I'm in a hurry I want a new main drive gear for my tractor. This tractor was formerly owned by Joe Banks of Llano, Texas, and bought by me at the auction after he died. The main drive gear in the tractor has busted and I just been over and asked the widow Banks where Joe used to buy parts for his tractors and she said she aint sure but she thinks it was The Farmers Friend Tractor Company, Earthworm City, Illinois. So please let me know if you are the folks, and if so please send the gear at once. As I am in a hurry. It is the main drive gear. It is the big bull gear in the back end of the transmission that goes round and round and drives the tractor excuse this paper as my regular business letter paper has not come yet yours truly,

DAVID CROCKETT SUGGS.

FARMERS' FRIEND TRACTOR COMPANY
MAKERS OF EARTHWORM TRACTORS

EARTHWORM CITY, ILL.
October 3, 1924

Mr. David Crockett Suggs
Dry River Junction, Tex.

Dear Sir: This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of October 1, in which we note that you request us to send you a gear for your tractor.

In this connection we are pleased to advise that an inspection of our files reveals the fact that Mr. Joseph Banks of Llano, Tex., was the owner of one of our old-style Model 45 Earthworm Tractors. Mr. Banks acquired this tractor on June 3, 1915. We are changing our records to indicate that this tractor has been purchased by yourself, and we are most happy to assure you that all the resources of the Farmers' Friend Tractor Company are at your service and that we can supply you promptly with everything you may need in the way of spare parts, service and information.

We regret, however, that your description of the gear which you desire is not sufficient for us to identify same, as there are a number of gears in the transmission to which the description "main drive gear" might conceivably apply. Kindly look up this gear in the parts book and advise us the proper part number and name as given therein. When necessary information is received, immediate shipment will be made.

In the meantime, we wish to extend you a most cordial welcome into the happy family of Earthworm users, to congratulate you upon selecting an Earthworm Tractor--even though it be of such an old model--and to assure you of our constant interest and desire to coöperate with you to the fullest extent.

Very truly yours,
FREDERICK R. OVERTON,
Parts Department.

DRY RIVER JUNCTION, TEXAS
October 6, 1924

To The Farmers Friend Tractor Company
Earthworm City, Illinois.

Dear Sir: I got your letter I got no parts book. I asked the widow of Joe Banks, who is the man that owned the tractor before I bought it at the auction after he died, I asked her did they have a parts book for the tractor and she said they once had a parts book but it is lost. I would look up the gear in the parts book if I could, but you can understand that I cant look up the gear in the parts book if I got no parts book. What I want is the big bull gear way at the back. The great big cog wheel with 44 cogs on it that goes round and round and drives the tractor.

I'm in a hurry because the tractor is unfortunately broke down right while I'm doing a very important job for Mr. Rogers of this city. The tractor run fine until 3 P.M. October 1, when there came a loud and very funny noise in the back and the tractor would no longer pull. We took the cover off the transmission case, and this big cog wheel was busted. Six cogs was busted off of it, and the tractor will not pull, only make a funny noise.

I am a young man 24 years of age just starting in business and expect to get married soon, so please send the gear at once as I'm in a hurry and oblige,

DAVID CROCKETT SUGGS.

FARMERS' FRIEND TRACTOR COMPANY
MAKERS OF EARTHWORM TRACTORS

EARTHWORM CITY, ILL.
October 9, 1924

Mr. David Crockett Suggs
Dry River Junction, Tex.

Dear sir: This will acknowledge your valued letter of October 6, stating that you desire a gear for your tractor, but are unable to give us the parts number of same owing to the fact that you have no parts book. We have carefully gone over your description of the gear, but we regret that we have been unable positively to identify what gear it is that you desire. We note that you state the gear has 44 teeth and we feel sure that some mistake has been made, as there is no 44-tooth gear in the tractor.

We are therefore mailing you under separate cover a parts book for the Model 45 Earthworm Tractor, Year 1915, and would suggest that you look up the gear in this book, and let us know the part number so that we can fill your order.

Unfortunately we are not able to supply you with a parts book printed in English.

Nearly all of the old-style Model 45 tractors were sold to the French Government in 1915 to be used in pulling artillery on the western front. As only a few of these tractors were sold in America, the edition of English parts books was very limited and has been exhausted. We are, however, sending you one of the French parts books.

We regret exceedingly that we are obliged to give you a parts book printed in a foreign language; and we realize, of course, that possibly you may be unable to understand it. However, you should be able to find the desired gear in the pictures, which are very plain.

Kindly give us the part number which is given under the picture of the gear, and we will make immediate shipment.

Very truly yours,
FREDERICK R. OVERTON,
Parts Department.

DRY RIVER JUNCTION, TEXAS
October 12, 1924

To the Farmers Friend Tractor Company
Earthworm City, Illinois

Dear Sir: Your letter has come your book has come you was right when you said I might not understand it. I cant understand the Dago printing and I been looking at the pictures all evening and I cant understand the pictures they dont look like nothing I ever seen. So I cant give you no part number, but I'm in a hurry so please send the gear anyway. It is the one way at the back. You cant miss it. Its not the one that lays down its the one that sets up on edge and has 44 teeth and meshes with the little one with 12 teeth. The little one goes round and round and drives the big one. And the big one is keyed on the main shaft and goes round and round and drives the tractor. Or I should say used to go round and round, but now it has six teeth busted out and wont go round--only makes a funny noise when it gets to the place where the teeth are busted out.

I'm in a hurry and to show you that I need this gear quick, I will explain that the tractor is laid up right in the middle of an important job I'm doing for Mr. Rogers of this city. I'm a young man, age 24 years, and new at the house moving business and I want to make a good impression and also expect to get married soon.

When Mr. Rogers of this city decided to move his house from down by the depot up to the north end of town, and give me the job, I thought it was a fine chance to get started in business and make a good impression. I got the house jacked up, and I put heavy timbers underneath, and trucks with solid wheels that I bought from a contractor at Llano. And I bought this second-hand tractor from Joe Banks at Llano at the auction after he died, and all my money is tied up in this equipment and on October 1, at 3 P.M. we had the house moved half way to where they want it, when the tractor made a funny noise and quit. And if I don't get a new gear pretty soon and move the house the rest of the way I'll be a blowed up sucker.

I'm just starting in business and want to make a good impression and I'm expecting to get married so please hurry with the gear. Excuse paper as my regular business paper has not come yet and oblige,

DAVID CROCKETT SUGGS.

FARMERS' FRIEND TRACTOR COMPANY
MAKERS OF EARTHWORM TRACTORS

EARTHWORM CITY, ILL.
October 14, 1924

Mr. David Crockett Suggs
Dry River Junction, Tex.

Dear Sir: This will acknowledge your valued favor of October 12, and we regret exceedingly that you have been unable to locate the part which you desire in the parts book, and that consequently you have been subject to annoying delay. As it is always our desire to render the greatest possible service to Earthworm Tractor owners, we have gone into this matter with the greatest of care; and after checking over very thoroughly the descriptions given in your latest letter, and also in former letters, we have come to the conclusion that the gear you desire is the 45-tooth intermediate spur gear, symbol No. 6843, as illustrated on page 16 of the parts book. We note that you state that the gear has 44 teeth, but as there is no such gear in your model tractor, and as No. 6843 gears fits the description in other particulars, we can only assume that you made a mistake in counting the number of teeth in the gear.

Accordingly we are shipping you by express this afternoon one No. 6843 gear, which we trust will prove to be the part desired. Assuring you of our constant desire to render you every possible service, efficiently and promptly, I remain,

Very truly yours,
FREDERICK R. OVERTON,
Parts Department.

DRY RIVER JUNCTION, TEXAS
October 18, 1924

To The Farmers Friend Tractor Company
Earthworm City, Illinois

Dear Sir: Your letter come yesterday your gear come to-day C.O.D. $41.26 and not only that, but it is no good and it wont fit. It is not like the old gear. It looks like a well made gear but there is nothing like it on my tractor so it is no good to me it is too big it wont go on it wont fit on the shaft. And if it did fit on the shaft, it would not work because it is too big and the teeth would not mesh with the teeth on the little gear, and it ought to have 44 teeth like I said, not 45. So will you look this up again more carefully and send me the right gear and send it as quick as possible? I'm in a hurry, and I will explain to you how things stand so you can see I am no liar when I say I got to have this gear right off or I am a blowed up sucker.

I am new in the house moving business and I am moving a house for Mr. Rogers of this city, and Mr. Rogers is a very stubborn old cuss and he insisted that the house be moved all together--which includes the main part which is two stories high and built very strong and solid, and also the front porch which sticks out in front and is built pretty weak, and also the one-story kitchen which sticks out behind. The kitchen is very frail.

But Mr. Rogers did not listen to me when I wanted to move the kitchen and front porch separate from the house. So, as I am a young man and new at the house moving business and anxious to make a good impression, I tried to do it like he wanted. I jacked up the whole works all together, and put timbers underneath, and heavy trucks that I bought from a contractor at Llano, and we came up from the depot fine--the tractor pulling good and the little old house rolling along smooth and quiet and beautiful. But at 3 P.M. October 1, just as we was going past Jim Ferguson's Drug Store on the main street of this city, there come a funny noise in the tractor, and we have been stuck ever since waiting for a new gear because the tractor will not run with six teeth busted out of the old gear.

So you can see that it is no lie that I am in a hurry, and I will explain that for 2 and ½ weeks, no traffic has been able to go past Jim Ferguson's Drug Store. All traffic on the main street of this city has been detoured--turning to the right through the field next to Johnson's Garage, following the back lane past the shed where Harvey Jenkins keeps his cow, and then around Wilson's Hardware Store and back to the main street, and all this owing to the stubbornness of old man Rogers making me take the porch and the kitchen along at the same time.

The porch is now resting two feet from the drug store and the kitchen just three feet from the post office on the other side of the street. If old man Rogers had listened to me and we had taken the kitchen off, there would have been room for traffic to get past, but now we cant take the kitchen off on account of being so jammed up against the post office, but people dont figger on that and everybody in town blames it on me that traffic is held up, which is very wrong as I am doing the best I can.

And now old man Rogers says I contracted to move his house, and I had better hurry up, and he says why dont I hire some horses but I say horses would be unsafe, because when they get to pulling something very heavy they get to jerking and they would be liable to jerk the house and injure it, owing to the fact that Mr. Rogers was so stubborn as to make me leave the kitchen and the porch on the house, thus weakening it. And besides I got no money to waste hiring horses when I got a tractor already, so you can see why I'm in a hurry being anxious to make a good impression and get married.

Please send at once the right gear which has FORTY-FOUR TEETH (44), because the old gear has 38 good teeth, and 6 busted off, making 44 like I said, not 45. And the right gear is an inch narrower than the one you sent, and the hole through the middle is smaller. I am making a picture so you can see just what gear it is, so please send it at once and oblige,

DAVID CROCKETT SUGGS.

FARMERS' FRIEND TRACTOR COMPANY
MAKERS OF EARTHWORM TRACTORS

EARTHWORM CITY, ILL.
October 21, 1924

Mr. David Crockett Suggs
Dry River Junction, Tex.

Dear Sir: This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of October 18, from which we note that you are having trouble in installing in your tractor gear No. 6843, which we shipped you on October 14.

We regret exceedingly that you have had this trouble, and to the end that the basis of the difficulty might be discovered, we have carefully checked over your former correspondence and have at length come to the conclusion that gear No. 6843, which we sent you, is the proper gear. We are therefore at a loss to understand why you have been unable to use it, and can only suggest that you may possibly have made some error in installing it.

To obviate this difficulty we are to-day mailing you, under separate cover, a copy of our latest instruction book on the care, operation and repair of Earthworm Tractors. We regret that this book was prepared for the new-style tractors, but as the method of installing transmission gears is essentially the same in both old- and new-style tractors, we feel sure that you will have no trouble in applying the instructions to your old-style tractor. Please study carefully the pictures and full descriptions on page 34, and if you proceed as directed we feel sure you will experience no further difficulty in installing the gear.

In case, however, there still remains some minor trouble to interfere with the perfect operation of the tractor, we shall appreciate it if you will notify us, as we are always anxious to give owners of Earthworm Tractors the fullest possible coöperation.

Very truly yours,
FREDERICK R. OVERTON,
Parts Department.

DRY RIVER JUNCTION, TEXAS
October 25, 1924

To The Farmers Friend Tractor Company
Earthworm City, Illinois

Dear Sir: Your letter come yesterday your book come to-day they are no good to me. It takes more than a book for a new tractor to put onto an entirely different old tractor a gear wheel that don't belong to it. I tell you again--you have sent me the wrong gear.

What I want is the big bull gear on the back that has 44 teeth. FORTY-FOUR. _Not_ 45. And it goes round and round and makes the tractor go. It is the great big cog wheel that meshes with the little cog wheel. I bet you have sent me a gear for one of your new-style tractors--how do I know? You told me you had looked it up what model tractor I got, so why don't you send me the gear that will fit?

If you people knew what I was up against, you would get busy, and you would send me that gear in a hurry. The whole town is sore at me. And I will explain that this is a big place with trolley cars and everything.

The trolleys here run on a track, but they are not electric, they are run by gasoline motors inside, and are very modern and up-to-date like everything else in this city. And for over three weeks now the trolley from the depot has been coming up almost as far as Jim Ferguson's Drug Store, and then it has to stop and the conductor will give the people transfers. And they will get out and squeeze past old man Rogers's house, and get on the other trolley and ride on. And it is lucky they have two cars. A few years ago they only had one.

And old man Rogers says if I dont get action by the first of the week, he is going to hire horses himself, and pull the house where he wants it. And if I expect to get a cent for it I can just sue him, and he says he is tired of living in a house sitting in the middle of the street with the front porch poking into the drug store window and the people kidding him all the time. But its all on account of his own foolishness and stubborness, because I told him he had better go live with his brother in Llano while the house was being moved, but he is a guy that you cant tell him nothing and so he is living there with Mrs. Rogers and daughter Mildred, and Mrs. Rogers is cooking on an oil stove on account they dont know coal is safe in moving, and now they blame it on me because the oil stove smokes up the whole house. So you can see I'm in a hurry, and everybody is sore because the traffic is detoured, and me having to hang red lanterns on the house every night so people wont run into it, and the Police Department has served notice on me that I got until next Thursday to move the house or get pinched. And they had given me a permit to move the house. But they say a permit aint no 99-year lease. And that just shows how it is--they all try to make mean cracks like that.

And this afternoon, old Mr. Rogers came up to me and he said, "Dave, I hope you aint still thinking of getting married?"

And I said, "I sure am," because, as I told you in another letter, I'm expecting to get married.

Then Mr. Rogers said, "I may have something to say about that, young man." And I will explain that it is possible that old Mr. Rogers--whose house I am moving with my tractor--may have some influence in the matter, owing to the fact that the girl I expect to marry is named Mildred Rogers, and unfortunately happens to be the daughter of old Mr. Rogers.

So you see, I want that gear, and I want it quick. I am sending back the new gear please credit me with the $41.26 I paid on the C.O.D. I am also sending you the old busted gear. Please look over the old busted gear and send me one just like it, only with the six teeth not busted out. Please hurry and remember FORTY-FOUR TEETH, and oblige yours truly,

DAVID CROCKETT SUGGS.

P.S. _Not_ 45 teeth.

FARMERS' FRIEND TRACTOR COMPANY
MAKERS OF EARTHWORM TRACTORS

EARTHWORM CITY, ILL.
October 29, 1924

Mr. David Crockett Suggs
Dry River Junction, Tex.

Dear Sir: This will acknowledge your valued favor of October 26 in reference to the trouble you are having with your tractor. We regret exceedingly that the misunderstanding in regard to the gear which you need has caused you the annoying delay which you mention.

As soon as your old gear arrives, it will be checked up and every possible effort will be made to supply you promptly with a duplicate of it.

Very truly yours,
FREDERICK R. OVERTON,
Parts Department.

DAVID CROCKETT SUGGS
CONTRACTOR

HOUSES MOVED SAFELY, SPEEDILY AND SURELY

DRY RIVER JUNCTION, TEXAS
October 31, 1924

To The Farmers Friend Tractor Company
Earthworm City, Illinois

Dear Sir: My new letter paper has come your letter has come please send me the gear as quick as possible. I'm in a hurry more than at any time before and unless I can get this mess straightened out I'll be more of a blowed up sucker than anybody you ever seen, and in order that you may see what a rush I am in and send the gear as quick as possible, I will explain 2 very unfortunate events which has took place since my last letter. The first was last night.

Being Thursday night and my regular night to call, I went around to see Miss Mildred Rogers, who, as I have explained before, I had expected to marry very soon, and who used to live down by the depot, but is now located temporarily on Main Street just in front of Ferguson's Drug Store. It is not as much fun as it used to be to call at the Rogers's house. Formerly it was possible to sit in the hammock on the front porch, and as the house set back from the street and there was trees around and no street lights, a very pleasant evening could be had.

But at present the front porch is located in a most unfortunate way just two feet from the windows of Ferguson's Drug Store, which is all lighted up--you know how drug store windows is--lots of big white lights, and all kinds of jars full of colored water with more lights shining through. And people squeezing past between the porch and the drug store and going in to get ice cream sodas or stopping to crack bum jokes about me, which I will not repeat. So you can see that it would not be any fun for me and Mildred to sit in the hammock in the evening, even if it was possible to sit in the hammock which it is not, owing to the fact that the porch pillar to which the hammock is fastened has become so weakened by the jacking up of the house that it would take very little to pull it over and let the whole porch roof down with a bang.

So we decided that we better sit in the parlor and we had no sooner entered and I was not doing any harm in any way when old Mr. Rogers came in and there was a very painful scene which I wont describe only to say that he used such expressions as "Get to Hell out of here," and "I dont want my daughter keeping company with any moron," which is a word he got out of the Dallas News.

So after he had hollered around and Mildred had cried, I left the house in a dignified manner. Being a gentleman and always respectful to old age, I did not talk back to him, the dirty crook. But you can see why it is I am in a hurry for the gear.

The other unfortunate event was just this A.M., when old man Rogers went out and hired twelve horses from all over town and also one small flivver tractor to move his house up to where he wants it. He tried to get a big tractor, but there is none in town or nearby except mine which is broke down. But there is plenty of horses and there is this little flivver tractor that would not be big enough to pull the house all by itself.

So this morning they wheeled my poor old tractor out of the way, and they hooked up to the house and there was about a hundred people from the town and from round about that was helping with advice and hollering and yelling and telling Mr. Rogers how to do it. And there was I--the only practical and professional house-mover in the whole city--and none of them asked my advice about anything and so it is not my fault what happened.

When they was all ready, Mr. Rogers he stands up and hollers out, "All ready,--Go!" And the six drivers yelled at the twelve horses, and all the people standing around began to cheer and shout. And the feller on the little flivver tractor started up the motor so quick it made a big noise and scared the horses and all the horses began jumping and heaving and they jerked the house sidewise, and some of the timbers slipped, and the kitchen that I told you about,--it give a little lurch and fell off the house. Just let go, and fell off.

So that scared them, and they unhooked the horses and the flivver tractor and didnt try no more moving, and the house is still there all except the kitchen which was busted up so bad that they finished the job and knocked it to pieces and took it away in wheel barrows.

One good thing is that now the traffic can get in between the house and the post office so they dont have to detour any more. But one very unfortunate thing was that Mrs. Rogers happened to be in the kitchen when it fell off being shaken up considerable but not seriously injured so you can see that I got to have the tractor running again so I can move the house and I hope you will send the gear at once yours truly and oblige,

DAVID CROCKETT SUGGS.

FARMERS' FRIEND TRACTOR COMPANY
MAKERS OF EARTHWORM TRACTORS

EARTHWORM CITY, ILL.
November 2, 1924

Mr. David Crockett Suggs
Dry River Junction, Tex.

Dear Sir: This will acknowledge your valued favor of October 31 requesting that we use all possible haste in sending you a gear which you need to repair your tractor. We are also pleased to report the receipt of one No. 6843 gear which we shipped you on October 14 and which you returned unused owing to the fact that it will not fit your tractor. We are crediting your account with $41.26 C.O.D. which you paid on this shipment.

The broken gear which you sent as a sample has been carefully checked over by our Engineering Department. They report that they have been unable to identify this gear, and they are of the opinion that no gear similar to this has ever been manufactured by this company. We are, therefore, at a loss to understand how this gear ever came to be in your tractor. We do not make gears similar to the one you have sent in, and it will therefore be impossible for us to supply you with one. However, it is always our policy to be of the greatest possible service to Earthworm owners, and we would suggest that the best thing to do in the circumstances would be for one of our service mechanics to inspect your machine.

Fortunately, it happens that Dry River Junction is the nearest railroad point to the Canyon Ranch, which has just purchased a Ten-Ton Earthworm Tractor. Consequently, Mr. Luke Torkle, one of our service men, will be at Dry River Junction in a few days to unload this tractor and drive it overland to the ranch. If you desire, we will have Mr. Torkle stop off and inspect your machine, advising you what steps to take to put it into first-class running condition; or, if this is impossible, to confer with you in regard to turning in your old machine and purchasing one of our new models. Kindly let us know what you wish us to do in this matter.

Very truly yours,
FREDERICK R. OVERTON,
Parts Department.

TELEGRAM

DRY RIVER JUNC TEX Nov 4 1924

FARMERS FRIEND TRACTOR Co
EARTHWORM CY, ILLS

_Have the guy come quick in a hurry._

DAVID CROCKETT SUGGS.

FARMERS' FRIEND TRACTOR COMPANY

SERVICE MAN'S REPORT

WRITTEN AT: Dry River Junction, Tex.
DATE: November 7, 1924
WRITTEN BY: Luke Torkle, Service Man
SUBJECT: Tractor belonging to D. C. Suggs

Reached here 7 A.M. Unloaded tractor for Canyon Ranch, and will drive it over to-morrow.

Before I had a chance to look up D.C. Suggs, the mayor and prominent citizens urgently requested me to use the new tractor to move a house that was blocking the main street. This looked like good advertising for us, especially as the county commissioner here is expecting to buy a tractor for road work. Accordingly, I spent the morning moving the house to where they wanted it, and then looked up Mr. Suggs.

Found he has left town. It is reported that he was shot at three times yesterday by a man called Rogers, but escaped. Last night he sold his entire property, consisting of a second-hand tractor, an old fliv, one radio set and the good will in a house-moving business for $450. He then took the train north with a girl called Mildred Rogers of this place.

I inspected the tractor formerly owned by Mr. Suggs. No wonder we couldn't supply him with repairs for it. It is not one of our tractors. It has no name plate, but I was able to identify it as a 1920 Model, Steel Elephant Tractor, made by the S.E. Tractor Company of Indianapolis. I talked on the phone with Mrs. Joseph Banks, whose husband formerly owned the tractor. She says her husband sold the old Earthworm Tractor three years ago to a man in Dallas. Mr. Banks owned four or five different kinds of tractors. Mrs. Banks remembered he had once bought tractor parts from the Farmers' Friend Tractor Company.

In regard to your suggestion that Mr. Suggs might be persuaded to buy a new tractor, I think this is hardly possible. It is reported that before he left, Mr. Suggs stated that he and Miss Rogers would be married and would locate in Chicago. He was uncertain what business he would take up, but said very emphatically it would be nothing in any way connected with house moving, or with tractors or any kind of machinery.

THE CUSTODY OF THE PUMPKIN

_By_ P. G. Wodehouse

P. G. WODEHOUSE

P. G. Wodehouse--the initials stand for Pelham Grenville--is an Englishman who divides his time between England and America and whose audience unites the two countries more effectually than most conscious fraternalizing. He writes short stories and novels with equal success and he, Guy Bolton, and Jerome Kern have been responsible for some of the pleasantest musical shows on Broadway. Wodehouse is a consistent purveyor of light entertainment, but sometimes, in one or two of his novels, he has shown serious emotion touching for a moment some depth of character--to rise, the next, to a surface of sparkle. His touch is usually exquisitely deft and no one alive can make the farcically absurd situation more laughable. And this he manages by restraint and understatement; as golfers say, he never "presses" his stroke.

"The Custody of the Pumpkin," which was first published in the Saturday Evening Post for November 29, 1924, is not only a typical Wodehouse story, but concerns two of the principal characters in Wodehouse's most popular novel, _Leave It to Psmith_. It is an earlier episode in the saga of the amiably boneheaded Earl of Blandings Castle and his heir.

THE CUSTODY OF THE PUMPKIN[1]

[1] Copyright, 1924, by The Curtis Publishing Company.

The pleasant morning sunshine descended like an amber shower bath on Blandings Castle, that stately home of England which so adorns the county of Shropshire, lighting up with a heartening glow its ivied walls, its rolling parks, its gardens, out-houses and messuages and such of its inhabitants as chanced at the moment to be taking the air. It fell on green lawns and wide terraces, on noble trees and bright flower beds. It fell on the baggy trousers seat of Angus McAllister, head gardener to the Earl of Emsworth, as he bent with dour Scottish determination to pluck a coy snail from its reverie beneath the leaf of a lettuce. It fell on the white flannels of the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, Lord Emsworth's second son, hurrying across the water meadows. It also fell on Lord Emsworth himself, for the proprietor of this fair domain was standing on the turret above the west wing, placidly surveying his possessions through a powerful telescope.

The Earl of Emsworth was a fluffy-minded and amiable old gentleman with a fondness for new toys. Although the main interest of his life was his garden, he was always ready to try a side line; and the latest of these side lines was this telescope of his--the outcome of a passion for astronomy which had lasted some two weeks.

For some minutes Lord Emsworth remained gazing with a pleased eye at a cow down in the meadows. It was a fine cow, as cows go, but, like so many cows, it lacked sustained dramatic interest; and his lordship, surfeited after a while by the spectacle of it chewing the cud and staring glassily at nothing, was about to swivel the apparatus round in the hope of picking up something a trifle more sensational, when into the range of his vision there came the Honorable Freddie. White and shining, he tripped along over the turf like a Theocritean shepherd hastening to keep an appointment with a nymph; and for the first time that morning a frown came to mar the serenity of Lord Emsworth's brow. He generally frowned when he saw Freddie, for with the passage of the years that youth had become more and more a problem to an anxious father.

The Earl of Emsworth, like so many of Britain's aristocracy, had but little use for the Younger Son. And Freddie Threepwood was a particularly trying younger son. There seemed, in the opinion of his nearest and dearest, to be no way of coping with the boy. If he was allowed to live in London he piled up debts and got into mischief; and when hauled back home to Blandings he moped broodingly. It was possibly the fact that his demeanor at this moment was so mysteriously jaunty, his bearing so inexplicably free from the crushed misery with which he usually mooned about the place that induced Lord Emsworth to keep a telescopic eye on him. Some inner voice whispered to him that Freddie was up to no good and would bear watching.

The inner voice was absolutely correct. Within thirty seconds its case had been proved up to the hilt. Scarcely had his lordship had time to wish, as he invariably wished on seeing his offspring, that Freddie had been something entirely different in manners, morals, and appearance and had been the son of somebody else living a considerable distance away, when out of a small spinney near the end of the meadow there bounded a girl. And Freddie, after a cautious glance over his shoulder, immediately proceeded to fold this female in a warm embrace.

Lord Emsworth had seen enough. He tottered away from the telescope, a shattered man. One of his favorite dreams was of some nice eligible girl, belonging to a good family and possessing a bit of money of her own, coming along some day and taking Freddie off his hands; but that inner voice, more confident now than ever, told him that this was not she. Freddie would not sneak off in this furtive fashion to meet eligible girls; nor could he imagine any eligible girl in her right senses rushing into Freddie's arms in that enthusiastic way. No, there was only one explanation. In the cloistral seclusion of Blandings, far from the metropolis with all its conveniences for that sort of thing, Freddie had managed to get himself entangled. Seething with anguish and fury, Lord Emsworth hurried down the stairs and out onto the terrace. Here he prowled like an elderly leopard waiting for feeding time, until in due season there was a flicker of white among the trees that flanked the drive and a cheerful whistling announced the culprit's approach.

It was with a sour and hostile eye that Lord Emsworth watched his son draw near. He adjusted his pince-nez, and with their assistance was able to perceive that a fatuous smile of self-satisfaction illuminated the young man's face, giving him the appearance of a beaming sheep. In the young man's buttonhole there shone a nosegay of simple meadow flowers, which, as he walked, he patted from time to time with a loving hand.

"Frederick!" bellowed his lordship.

The villain of the piece halted abruptly. Sunk in a roseate trance, he had not observed his father. But such was the sunniness of his mood that even this encounter could not damp him. He gamboled happily up.

"Hullo, guv'nor," said Freddie. He searched in his mind for a pleasant topic of conversation, always a matter of some little difficulty on these occasions. "Lovely day, what?"

His lordship was not to be diverted into a discussion of the weather. He drew a step nearer, looking like the man who smothered the young princes in the Tower.

"Frederick," he demanded, "who was that girl?"

The Honorable Freddie started convulsively. He appeared to be swallowing with difficulty something large and jagged.

"Girl?" he quavered. "Girl? Girl, guv'nor?"

"That girl I saw you kissing ten minutes ago down in the water meadows."

"Oh!" said the Honorable Freddie. He paused. "Oh, ah!" He paused again. "Oh, ah, yes! I've been meaning to tell you about that, guv'nor."

"You have, have you?"

"All perfectly correct, you know. Oh yes, indeed! All most absolutely correct-o! Nothing fishy, I mean to say, or anything like that. She's my _fiancée_."

A sharp howl escaped Lord Emsworth, as if one of the bees humming in the lavender beds had taken time off to sting him in the neck.

"Who is she?" he boomed. "Who is this woman?"

"Her name's Donaldson."

"Who is she?"

"Aggie Donaldson. Aggie's short for Niagara. Her people spent their honeymoon at the Falls, she tells me. She's American, and all that. Rummy names they give kids in America," proceeded Freddie with hollow chattiness. "I mean to say! Niagara! I ask you!"

"Who is she?"

"She's most awfully bright, you know. Full of beans. You'll love her."

"Who is she?"

"And can play the saxophone."

"Who," demanded Lord Emsworth for the sixth time, "is she? And where did you meet her?"

Freddie coughed. The information, he perceived, could no longer be withheld, and he was keenly alive to the fact that it scarcely fell into the class of tidings of great joy.

"Well, as a matter of fact, guv'nor, she's a sort of cousin of Angus McAllister's. She's come over to England for a visit, don't you know, and is staying with the old boy. That's how I happened to run across her."

Lord Emsworth's eyes bulged and he gargled faintly. He had had many unpleasant visions of his son's future, but they had never included one of him walking down the aisle with a sort of cousin of his head gardener.

"Oh!" he said. "Oh, indeed?"

Lord Emsworth threw his arms up as if calling on Heaven to witness a good man's persecution, and shot off along the terrace at a rapid trot. Having ranged the grounds for some minutes, he ran his quarry to earth at the entrance of the yew alley.

The head gardener turned at the sound of his footsteps. He was a sturdy man of medium height with eyebrows that would have fitted better a bigger forehead. These, added to a red and wiry beard, gave him a formidable and uncompromising expression. Honesty Angus McAllister's face had in full measure, and also intelligence; but it was a bit short on sweetness and light.

"McAllister," said his lordship, plunging without preamble into the matter of his discourse. "That girl. You must send her away." A look of bewilderment clouded such of Mr. McAllister's features as were not concealed behind his beard and eyebrows.

"Gurrul?"

"That girl who is staying with you. She must go!"

"Gae where?"

Lord Emsworth was not in the mood to be finicky about details.

"Anywhere," he said. "I won't have her here a day longer."

"Why?" inquired Mr. McAllister, who liked to thresh these things out.

"Never mind why. You must send her away immediately."

Mr. McAllister mentioned an insuperable objection.

"She's payin' me twa poon' a week," he said simply.

Lord Emsworth did not grind his teeth, for he was not given to that form of displaying emotion; but he leaped some ten inches into the air and dropped his pince-nez. And, though normally a fair-minded and reasonable man, well aware that modern earls must think twice before pulling the feudal stuff on their employees, he took on the forthright truculence of a large landowner of the early Norman period ticking off a serf.

"Listen, McAllister! Listen to me! Either you send that girl away today or you can go yourself."

A curious expression came into Angus McAllister's face--always excepting the occupied territories. It was the look of a man who has not forgotten Bannockburn, a man conscious of belonging to the country of William Wallace and Robert Bruce. He made Scotch noises at the back of his throat.

"Y'r lorrudsheep will accept ma notis," he said with formal dignity.

"I'll pay you a month's wages in lieu of notice and you will leave this afternoon," retorted Lord Emsworth with spirit.

"Mphm!" said Mr. McAllister.

Lord Emsworth left the battlefield with a feeling of pure exhilaration, still in the grip of the animal fury of conflict. No twinge of remorse did he feel at the thought that Angus McAllister had served him faithfully for ten years. Nor did it cross his mind that he might miss McAllister.

But that night, as he sat smoking his after-dinner cigarette, Reason, so violently expelled, came stealing timidly back to her throne, and a cold hand seemed suddenly placed upon his heart.

With Angus McAllister gone, how would the pumpkin fare?

The importance of this pumpkin in the Earl of Emsworth's life requires, perhaps, a word of explanation. Every ancient family in England has some little gap in its scroll of honor, and that of Lord Emsworth was no exception. For generations back his ancestors had been doing notable deeds; they had sent out from Blandings Castle statesmen and warriors, governors and leaders of the people; but they had not--in the opinion of the present holder of the title--achieved a full hand. However splendid the family record might appear at first sight, the fact remained that no Earl of Emsworth had ever won a first prize for pumpkins at the Shrewsbury Flower and Vegetable Show. For roses, yes. For tulips, true. For spring onions, granted. But not for pumpkins; and Lord Emsworth, who lived for his garden, felt it deeply.

For many a summer past he had been striving indefatigably to remove this blot on the family escutcheon, only to see his hopes go tumbling down. But this year at last victory had seemed in sight, for there had been vouchsafed to Blandings a competitor of such amazing parts that his lordship, who had watched it grow practically from a pip, could not envisage failure. Surely, he told himself as he gazed on its golden roundness, even Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Badgwick Hall, winner for three successive years, would never be able to produce anything to challenge this superb vegetable.

And it was this supreme pumpkin whose welfare he feared he had jeopardized by dismissing Angus McAllister. For Angus was its official trainer. He understood the pumpkin. Indeed, in his reserved Scottish way he even seemed to love it. With Angus gone, what would the harvest be?

Such were the meditations of Lord Emsworth as he reviewed the position of affairs. And though, as the days went by, he tried to tell himself that Angus McAllister was not the only man in the world who understood pumpkins and that he had every confidence, the most complete and unswerving confidence, in Robert Barker, recently Angus's second in command, now promoted to the post of head gardener and custodian of the Blandings Hope, he knew that this was but shallow bravado. When you are a pumpkin owner with a big winner in your stable, you judge men by hard standards, and every day it became plainer that Robert Barker was only a makeshift. Within a week Lord Emsworth was pining for Angus McAllister.

It might be purely imagination, but to his excited fancy the pumpkin seemed to be pining for Angus too. It appeared to be drooping and losing weight. Lord Emsworth could not rid himself of the horrible idea that it was shrinking. And on the tenth night after McAllister's departure he dreamed a strange dream. He had gone with King George to show His Gracious Majesty the pumpkin, promising him the treat of a lifetime; and, when they arrived, there in the corner of the frame was a shriveled thing the size of a pea. He woke, sweating, with his sovereign's disappointed screams ringing in his ears; and Pride gave its last quiver and collapsed. To reinstate Angus would be a surrender, but it must be done.

"Beach," he said that morning at breakfast, "do you happen to--er--to have McAllister's address?"

"Yes, your lordship," replied the butler. "He is in London, residing at Number 11 Buxton Crescent."

"Buxton Crescent? Never heard of it."

"It is, I fancy, your lordship, a boarding house or some such establishment off the Cromwell Road. McAllister was accustomed to make it his headquarters whenever he visited the metropolis on account of its handiness for Kensington Gardens. He liked," said Beach with respectful reproach, for Angus had been a friend of his for nine years, "to be near the flowers, your lor'ship."

Two telegrams, passing through it in the course of the next twelve hours, caused some gossip at the post office of the little town of Market Blandings.

The first ran: "McAllister, 11 Buxton Crescent, Cromwell Road, London. Return immediately. Emsworth."

The second: "Lord Emsworth, Blandings Castle, Shropshire. I will not. McAllister."