JANUARY, 1904 THE DELINEATOR MRS. OSBORN WRITES ABOUt - THE FASHIONS IN NEW YORK 9 Vo L X 1 1 1 , No. 1 3H ED MONTHLY BY THE B U TT E R I C K PUBLISHING CO. (LTD.) . PARIS-LONDON-N^V, YORK-TORONTO P I ,\J\J A it AR ENTERED AT THE POST OFFICE. NEW YORK, AS SECOND CLASS MAIL MATTER 15 CENTS A COPY m The si, BOY who .cornered flie c MipKFT 1 1/\i\l\Ll/ JAY JOHNS lives in Western Pennsylvania. From the neighbor- ing city of Pittsburg he has apparently absorbed some of the spirit of its gigantic business combinations. Some time ago he started to sell The Saturday Evening Post. During his first day's work he encountered five other boys selling the magazine, and only five regular customers were secured. Still he ordered fifteen copies for the next week. He sold all of them and ordered thirty copies for the next week. By that time three of the other boys had stopped work, and again Jay " jumped " the order. Three weeks later Jay received a special prize of $25.00. He sent back the check and wrote this letter : "7 want to be the only toad in this paddle. I can sell more copies than all of them put together, anyway. Three of these boys have Quit, and to-day I bought out the other two boys by giving them fifty cents a piece. I am now the only boy here who sells THE POST. If you will agree not to appoint anybody else so long as I sell a lot, you can credit this $25.00 and send 100 copies for next week and 125 copies each week thereafter." The publishers did as he desired, and at the end of three months he was selling nearly 200 copies a week. Then he looked up the other boys who had stopped work and engaged them to work for him. They went to work under Jay's direction and the "corner" was complete. ANY BOY willing to work a few hours on Fridays and Saturdays can earn money through The Saturday Evening Post plan. More than 6000 do so each week. We will furnish the first week's supply of ten copies without charge. You can then send the wholesale price for as many as you find you can sell the next week. $300.00 in Extra Cash Prizes Next Month If you will try it the first week's supply and full instructions will be sent. Boy Department, The Curtis Publishing Company 455 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa. GOLDEN POPPY A TRUE NARRATIVE BY JACK LONDON, Author of " The Call of the Wild.' 1H A V E a poppy field. That is, by the grace of God and the good nature of editors, I am enabled to place each month divers gold pieces into a clerical gentleman's hands, and return for said gold pieces I am each month reinvested with certain proprietary rights in a poppy field. This field blazes on the rim of the Piedmont Hills. Be- neath lies all the world. In the distance, across the silver sweep of bay, San Francisco smokes on her many hills like a second Rome. Not far away, Mount Tamalpias thrusts a rugged shoulder into the sky ; and midway between is the Golden Gate, where sea-mists love to linger. From the poppy field we often see the shimmered blue of the Pacific beyond, and the busy ships that go forever out and in. " We shall have great joy in our poppy field," said Queen Bess. " Yes," said I ; " how the poor city folk will envy when they come to see us, and how we will make all well again when we send them off with great golden armfuls ! '' " But those things will have to come down," I added, pointing to numerous obtrusive notices (relics of the last tenant), displayed conspicuously along the boundaries and bearing, each and all, this legend : "Private Grounds. Xo Trespassing" t" Why should we refuse the poor city folk a ramble over ur field, because, forsooth, they have not the advantage of our acquaintance? " " How I abhor such things," said Queen Bess, " the ogant symbols of power.'' " They disgrace human nature," said I. ' They shame the generous landscape," she said, " and ey are abominable." " Piggish ! " quoth I, hotly. " Down with them '. " We looked forward to the coming of the poppies, did Queen Bess and I, looked forward as only creatures of the city may look who have been long denied. I have for- gotten to mention the existence of a house above the poppy field, a squat and wandering bungalow in which we had elected to forsake town traditions and live in fresher and more vigorous ways. The first poppies came, orange-yellow and golden in the standing grain, and we went about glee- fully, as though drunken with their wine, and told each other that the poppies were there. We laughed at unex- pected moments, in the midst of silences, and at times grew ashamed and stole forth secretly to gaze upon our treasury. But when the great wave of poppy-flame finally spilled itself down the field, we shouted aloud, and danced, and clapped our hands, freely and frankly mad. And then came the Goths. My face was in a lather, the time of the first invasion, and 1 suspended my razor in mid- air t ga/e out on my beloved field. At the far end I saw a little girl and a little boy, their arms filled with yellow 'Spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwonted benevolence burgeoning, r what a delight to irre is their delight! It is sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All Summer shall they pick poppies in my field. But they must be little children, I added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the lower end this last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows nodding in the wheat beneath my win- dow. Then the razor descended. Shaving was always an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the window again until the operation was completed. And then I was bewildered. Surely this was not my poppy field. No and yes, for there were the tall pines clustering austerely to- gether on one side, the magnolia tree burdened with bloom, and the Japanese quinces splashing the driveway hedge with blood. Yes, it was the field, but no wave of poppy- flame spilled down it, nor did the great golden fellows nod in the wheat beneath my window. I rushed into a jacket and out of the house. In the far distance were disappear- ing two huge balls of color, orange and yellow, for all the world like perambulating poppies of Cyclopean breed. "Johnny," said I to the nine-year-old son of my sister, "Johnny, whenever little girls come into our field to pick poppies, you must go down to them, and in a very quiet and gentlemanly manner, tell them it is not allowed." Warm days came, and the sun drew another blaze from the free-bosomed earth. Whereupon a neighbor's little girl, at the behest of her mother, duly craved and received per- mission from Queen Bess to gather a few poppies for decorative purposes. But of this I was uninformed, and when I descried her in the midst of the field I waved my arms like a semaphore against the sky. " Little girl ? " called I. " Little girl ! " The little girl's legs blurred the landscape as she fled, and in high elation I sought Queen Bess to tell of the potency of my voice. Nobly she came to the rescue, de- parting forthwith on an expedition of conciliation and explanation to the little girl's mother. But to this day the little girl seeks cover at sight cf me, and I know the mother will never be as cordial as she would otherwise have been. Came dark, overcast days, stiff, driving winds and pelt- ing rains, day on day, without end, and the city folk cowered in their dwelling places like flood-beset rats ; and like rats, half-drowned and gasping when the weather cleared, they crawled out and up the green Piedmont slopes to bask in the blessed sunshine. And they invaded my field in swarms and droves, crushing the sweet wheat into the earth and with lustful hands ripping the poppies out by the roots. " I shall put up the warnings against trespassing," I said. " Yes," said Queen Bess, with a sigh. " I'm afraid it is necessary." The day was yet young when she sighed again : *' I'm afraid, O Man, that your signs are of no avail. People have forgotten how to read, these days." I went out on the porch for verification. A city nymph, in cool Summer gown and picture hat, paused before one of my newly reared warnings and read it through with care. Profound deliberation characterized her movements. She was statuesquely tall, but with a toss of the head and a flirt of the skirt she dropped on hands and knees, crawled under the fence, and came to her feet on the inside with poppies in both her hands. I walked down the drive and talked ethically to her, and she went away. Then I put up more signs. At one time, years ago, these hills were carpeted with poppies. As between the destructive forces and the will " to live," the poppies maintained an equilibrium with their environment. But the city folk constituted a new and terri- 77 f or Jan u JIT. i 004 ble destructive force, the equilibrium was overthrown and possibly one in fifty has heard. Also, I have discovered that the relation of city folk to country flowers is quite analogous to that of a starving man to food. No more than the starving man realizes that five pounds of meat is not so good as an ounce, do they realize that five hundred poppies crushed and bunched are less beautiful than two or three in a free cluster, where the green leaves and golden bowls may expand to their full loveliness. Less forgivable than the unassthetic are the mercenary- hordes of young rascals who plunder me and rob the future that they may stand on street corners and retail " California poppies, only five cents a bunch ! " In spite of my precautions some of them made a dollar a day out of my field. One horde do I remember with keen regret. Reconnoitering for a possible dog, they applied at the kitchen door for " a drink of water, please." While they drank they were besought not to pick any flowers. They nodded, wiped their mouths and proceeded to take them- selves off by the side of the bungalow. They smote the poppy field beneath my windows, spread out fan-shaped six wide, pick- ing with both hands, and ripped a swath of destruc- tion through the very heart of the field. No cyclone travelled faster or destroy- ed more completely. I shouted after them, but they sped on the wings of the wind, great regal pop- pies, broken-stalked and mangled, trailing after them or cluttering their wake the most h i g 11- handed act of piracy, I am confident, ever com- mitted off the high seas. the poppies well-nigh perished. Since the city folk plucked those with the longest stems and biggest bowls, and since it is the law of kind to procreate kind, the long-stemmed, big-bowled poppies failed to go to seed, and a stunted short- stemmed variety remained to the hills. And not only was it stunted and short-stemmed, but sparsely distributed as weH. Each day and every day, for years and years, the city folk swarmed over the Piedmont Hills, and only here and there did the genus of the race survive in the form of miserable little flowers, close clinging and quick bloom- ing, like children of the slums dragged hastily and pre- cariously through youth to a shrivelled and futile maturity. On the other hand, the poppies had prospered in my field ; and not only had they been sheltered from the barbarians, but also from the birds. Long ago the field was sown in wheat, which went to seed unharvested each year, and in the cool depths of which the poppy seeds were hid- den from the keen - eyed songsters. And further, climbing after the sun through the wheat stalks, the poppies grew taller and taller and more royal even than the primordial ones of the open. So the city folk, gazing from the bare hills to my blazing, burning field, were sorely tempted, and, it must be told, as sorely fell. But no sorer was their fall than^that of my beloved poppies. Where the grain holds the dew and takes the bite from the sun the soil is moist, and in such soil it is easier to pull the poppies out by the roots than to break the stalk. Now the city folk, like other folk, are inclined to move along the line of least resistance, and for each flower they gathered, there were also gathered many crisp-rolled buds and with them all the possibilities and future beauties of the plant for all time to come. Ond of the city folk, a middle-aged gentleman, with white hands and shifty eyes, especially made life interesting for me. We called him the " Repeater," what of his ways. When from the porch we implored him to desist, he was wont slowly and casually to direct his steps toward the fence, simulating finely the actions of a man who had not heard, but whose walk, instead, had terminated of itself or of his own volition. To heighten this effect, now and again, still casually and carelessly, he would stoop and pluck another poppy. Thus did he deceitfully save himself the indignity of being put out, and rob us of the satisfaction of putting him out. But he came, and he came often, each time getting away with an able-bodied man's share of plunder. It is not good to be of the city folk. Of this I am con- vinced. There is something in the mode of life that breeds an alarming condition of blindness and deafness, or so it seems with the city folk that come to my poppy field. Of the many to whom I have talked ethically not one has de- veloped who has ever seen the warnings so conspicuously displayed, while of those called out to from the porch, SHE DROPPED ON HANDS AND KNEES, CRAWLED UNDER THE FENCE, AND CAME TO HER FEET WITH POPPIES IN BOTH HANDS. Page 77. One clay I went a-fish- ing, and on that day a woman entered the field under full steam. Appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon her, Queen Bess dis- patched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more poppies. The woman calmly went on picking. Then Queen Bess herself went down through the heat of the day. But the woman went on picking, and while she picked she discussed property and proprietary rights, deny- ing Queen Bess's sovereignty until deeds and documents should be produced in proof thereof. And all the time she went on picking, never once overlooking her hand. She was a large woman, belligerent of aspect, and Queen Bess was only a woman and not prone to fisticuffs. So the woman, still under full steam, picked until she could pick no more, said " Good-day," and sailed majestically away. " People have really grown worse in the last several years, I think," said Queen Bess to me in a tired sort of voice that night, as we sat in the library after dinner. Next day I was inclined to agree with her. " There's a woman and a little girl heading straight for the poppies," said May, a maid about the bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited their advent. They plunged through the pine trees and into the fields, and as the roots of the first poppies were pulled I called to them. They were about a hundred feet away. The woman and the little girl turned 78 The Delincat I And told each other that the poppies were there . 79 to the sound of my voice and looked at me. " Please do not pick the poppies," 1 pleaded. They pondered this for a minute ; then the woman said something in an undertone to the little girl, and both backs jack-knifed as the slaughter recommenced. I shouted, but they had become suddenly deaf. I screamed, and so fiercely that the little girl wavered dubiously. And while the woman went on picking I could hear her in low tones heartening the little girl. I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny, the son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake the dead, and I blew and blew, but the jack-knifed backs never unclasped. I do not mind with men, but I have never particularly favored physical encounters with women ; yet this woman, who encouraged a little girl in iniquity, tempted me. I went into the bungalow and fetched my rifle. Flourish- ing it in a sanguinary manner and scowling fearsomely, I charged upon the invaders. The little girl fled, screaming, to the shelter of the pines, but the woman calmly went on picking. She took not the least notice. I had expected her to run at sight of me, and it was embarrassing. There was I, charging down the field like a wild bull upon a woman who would not get out of the way. I could only slow down, superbly conscious of how ridiculous it all was. At a distance of ten feet she straightened up and deigned to look at me. I came to a halt and blushed to the roots of my hair. Perhaps I really did frighten her (I sometimes try to persuade myself that this is so), or perhaps she took pity on me ; but, at any rate, she stalked out of my field with great composure, nay, majesty, her arms brimming with orange and gold. Nevertheless, thenceforward I saved my lungs and flour- ished my rifle. Also, I made fresh generalizations. To commit robbery women take advantage of their sex. Men have more respect for property than women. Men are less insistent in crime than women. And women are less afraid PICKED UNTIL SHE COULD PICK NO MORE, SAID " GOOD-DAY," AND SAILED MAJESTICALLY AWAY. Page 78. HE REGARDED ME SPEECHLESSLY. IT MUST HAVE MADE A GREAT PICTURE of guns than men. Likewise, we conquer the earth in hazard and battle by the virtues of our mothers. We are a race of robbers, of land-robbers and sea-robbers, we Anglo- Saxons, and small wonder, when we suckle at the breasts of a breed of women such as maraud my poppy field. Still the pillage went on. Sirens and gun-flourishings were without avail. The city folk were great of heart and undismayed, and I noted the habit of " repeating " was be- coming general. What booted it how often they were driven forth if each time they were permitted to carry away their ill-gotten plunder ? When one has turned the same person away twice and thrice an emotion arises somewhat akin to homicide. And when one has once become conscious of this sanguinary feeling his whole destiny seems to grip hold of him and drag him into the abyss. More than once I found myself unconsciously pulling the rifle into position to get a sight on the miserable trespassers.- In my sleep I slew them in manifold ways and threw their carcasses into the reservoir. Each day the temptation to shoot them in the legs became more lurirf, and every day I felt my fate calling to me imperiously. Visions of the gallows rose up before me, and with the hemp about my neck I saw stretched out the pitiless future of my children, dark with disgrace and shame. I became afraid of myself, and Queen Bess went about with anxious face, privily beseeching my friends to entice me into taking a vacation. Then, and at the last gasp, came the thought that saved me : Why not confiscate? If their forays were bootless, in the nature of things their forays would cease. The first to enter my field thereafter was a man. I was waiting for him. And oh, joy ! it was the" Repeater " him- self, smugly complacent with knowledge of past success. I dropped the rifle negligently across the hollow of my arm and went down to him. " I am sorry to trouble you for those poppies," I said in my oiliest tones ; " but really, you know, I must have them." He regarded me speechlessly. It must, have made a great 80 The Delineate picture. It surely was dramatic. With the rifle across my arm and my suave request still ringing in my ears, I felt like Black Bart, and Jesse James, and Jack Shepard, and Robin Hood, and whole generations of highwaymen. " Come, come," I said, a little sharply and in what I imagined was the true fashion ; " I am sorry to inconvenience you, believe me, but I must have those poppies." I absently shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. Without a word he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence, but no longer casual and careless was his carriage, nor did he stoop to pick the occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of the " Repeater." I could see by his eyes that he did not like me, and his back reproached me all the way down the field and out of sight. From that day the bungalow has been flooded with pop- pies. Every vase and earthen jar is filled with them. They blaze on every mantel and run riot through all the rooms. I present them to my friends in huge bunches, and still the kind city folk come and gather more for me. " Sit down for a moment," I say to the departing guest, " and in the fulness of a few minutes your poppies shall be added unto." And there we sit in the shade of the porch while aspiring city creatures pluck my poppies and sweat under the brazen sun. And when their arms are sufficiently weighted with my yellow glories, I go down with the rifle over my arm and disemburden them. Thus have I become convinced that every situation has its compensations. Confiscation was successful, so far as it went ; but I had forgotten one thing ; namely, the vast number of the city folk. Though the old transgressors came no more, new ones arrived every day, and I found myself confronted with the titanic task of educating a whole cityful to the inex- pediency of raiding my poppy field. During the process of disemburdening them I was accustomed to explaining my side of the case, but I soon gave this over. It was a waste of breath. They could not understand. To one lady who insinuated that I was miserly, I said : " My dear madam, no hardship is worked upon you. Had I not been parsimonious yesterday and the day before, these poppies would have been picked by the city hordes of that day and the day before, and your eyes, which to-day have discovered this field, would have beheld no poppies at all. The poppies you may not pick to-day are the poppies I did not permit to be picked yesterday and the day before. Therefore, believe me, you are denied nothing." " But the poppies are here to-day," she said, glaring car- nivorously upon their glow and splendor. " I will pay you for them," said a gentleman, at another time. (I had just relieved him of an armful.) I felt a sud- den shame, I know not why, unless it be that his words had just made clear to me that a monetary, as well as an aesthetic value was attached to my flowers. The apparent sordidness of my position overwhelmed me, and I said, weakly, " I do not sell my poppies. You may have what you have picked." But before the week was out I confronted the same gentleman again. " I will pay you for them," he said. " Yes," I said, " you may pay me for them. Twenty dollars, please." He gasped, looked at me searchingly, gasped again, and silently and sadly put them down. But it remained, as usual, for a woman to attain the sheerest pitch of audacity. When I declined payment and demanded my plucked beauties, she refused to give them up. " I picked these poppies," she said, " and my time is worth money. When you have paid me for my time you may have them." Her cheeks flamed rebellion, and her face, withal a pretty one, was set and determined. Now, I was a man of the hill tribes, and she a mere woman of the city folk, and though it is not my inclination to enter into details, it is my pleasure to state that that bunch of poppies subse- quently glorified the bungalow and that the woman departed to the city unpaid. Anyway, they were my poppies. " They are God's poppies," said the Radiant Young Radi- cal, democratically shocked at sight of me turning city folk out of my field. And for two weeks she hated me with a deathless hatred. I sought her out and explained. I ex- plained at length. I told the story of the poppy as Maeter- link has told the life of the bee. I treated the question biologically, psychologically and sociologically. I discussed it ethically and aesthetically. I grew warm over it, and im- passioned ; and when I had done, she professed conversion, but in my heart of hearts I knew it to be compassion. I fled to other friends for consolation. I retold the story of the poppy. They did not appear supremely interested. I grew excited. They were surprised and pained. They looked at me curiously. " It ill-befits your dignity to squabble over poppies," they said. " It is unbecoming." I fled away to yet other friends. I sought vindication. The thing had become vital, and I needs must put myself right. I felt called upon to explain, though well knowing that he who explains is lost. I told the story of the poppy over again. I went into the minutest details. I added to it, and expanded. I talked myself hoarse, and when I could talk no more they looked bored. Also, they said insipid things, and soothful things, and things concern- ing other things and not at all to the point. I was con- sumed with anger, and there and then I renounced them all. At the bungalow I lie in wait for chance visitors. Craftily I broach the subject, watching their faces closely the while to detect first signs of disapprobation, whereupon I empty long-stored vials of wrath upon their heads. I wrangle for hours with whomsoever does not say I am right. I am be- come like Guy de Maupassant's old man who picked up a piece of string. I am incessantly explaining, and nobody will understand. I have become more brusque in my treat- ment of the predatory city folk. No longer do I take delight in their disemburdenment, for it has become an onerous duty, a wearisome and distasteful task. My friends look askance and murmur pityingly on the side when we meet in the city. They rarely come to see me now. They are afraid. I am an embittered and disap- pointed man, and all the light seems to have gone out of my life and into my blazing field. So one pays for things. T fcr January, 1904 6 ], ..Mi Loveth Knowledge" TO BE- .24, iORItL UHUtf ' Hosiery he world 7 PA.VS ONLV. r r. Every American is irld in manufacturing, d articles that we once This fact is as true of ichinery is far superior mills is invented by us. r hosiery. Twentw Kact twist necessary t uster and does not iger after dyeing than points where it is f knees, heels and toes, triple" Knee "Leather _ boys' "four" thread at the knee. 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