Judge, 1903-09-26 · page 4 of 16
Judge — September 26, 1903 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents a humorous folk tale explaining pumpkin pie's invention. A poor inventor, seeking to extract gold from pumpkins (believing they contained particles of precious metal), boils one down. His skeptical wife, tired of his failed schemes, uses the resulting mush to make dried-apple pie instead. The satire targets two things: first, the gullibility of inventors pursuing absurd schemes; second, the irony that failure produces something genuinely valuable—pumpkin pie becomes beloved by his creditors, who cease their complaints once fed. The accompanying illustrations and verse ("Judge's Favorites") mock the pretensions of inventors while celebrating practical domestic resourcefulness. The joke ultimately celebrates pumpkin pie's worth despite (or because of) its humble, accidental origins.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE'S FAVORITES. PAULA MARR, From curtain unto curtain ‘You are the finest thing, ‘The critics all are certain, ‘That's now upon the wing. ‘That's why from Quogue to Napa The people shout and cheer, Like those of Saccarappa, Whenever you appear. hi So filt upon your travels, iH} Oh, fairy frail and fair! | Your presence e’er unravels The tron knots of care. ‘THE ORIGIN OF PUMPKIN PIE. ONCE upon a time—a long while ago, children—there lived a wise old man who was always trying to see what he could discover. Having made several per- petual-motion machines and one or two air-ships, he was walking through the fields to avoid his creditors, when he came upon a pumpkin. “This,” he said to himself, bending down and feeling of the yellow orb, “is a vegetable growth; but I firmly be- lieve that it acquires its hue from small particles of gold which it extracts from the earth.” So he put the pumpkin on his shoulder and took it home, telling all anxious inquirers that he was going to discover how to extract the gold from it. At home, in spite of all his wife said, he cut the pumpkin up and put it ina pot and boiled it— only he argued that he was melt- ing it. When at last it was a pulpy mass, he poured it out of the pot and right on top of a pan of dough that his wife had rolled out for - the purpose of making a dried- apple pie. Now you know the kind of a wife he had, do you not?’ A wo- man who will feed her husband on dried-apple pie deserves to be married to two or three inventors, doesn’t she? And so, he put the pumpkin and the dough into the oven, asserting that he would harden it with the heat and produce a solid sheet of gold, and be so rich that he could run for office on a reform ticket. But, bless you! when the pumpkin and the dough came out of the oven it THE REAL THING. ‘Have you any real aristocrats in this country?" “Oh, yes. We have lots of poor people who boast of rich relations."" was not a solid sheet of gold at all, but a rich, golden, tan- talizing section of goodness. And the poor inventor was hungry, so he bit into it. A few moments later several of his creditors broke into the house and came upon him, crying, “ Look here! Where is all that gold you were going to get for us?" And he never even looked up at them, but kept right on eating, saying, “ Who cares f"r gold ? (Bite, bite. 0-0-0-oh!) Who cares f'r gold? Men, I have disc ered pumpkin pi And the creditors sat down also and ate, and they, too, were happy ever ay SATH Mntillite AN ELOQUENT OBJECTION. Mrs, Newtystessep—"* But ju certainly don’t object to such a wee little baby Jawrtor—"‘Oh, it aln’t the size as counts, mum—it's the principle uv the thing. after. So now, when you eat pumpkin pie you should be glad that the poor inventor did not succeed in making gold of the pumpkin. For if he had the pumpkin might never have gone further than to fill your teeth. SY SOA WHICH? Boy —"Polly, want a cracker ?” Bird—Fire, nut or Georgia?” comicbooks.com