Judge, 1915-06-26 · page 7 of 25
Judge — June 26, 1915 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains nostalgic humor and light social commentary typical of early-20th-century Judge magazine. **"Appearing for the Old Horsehair Sofa"** is a humorous essay by Homer Croy defending the old-fashioned horsehair sofa against modern scientific criticism that it's unsanitary. The piece uses exaggeration and vivid domestic memories—the sofa's weight requiring multiple people to move it, hair padding constantly shedding, its slippery surface causing people to fall onto the floor, its use as a sickbed—to argue sentimentally that comfort and family tradition outweigh hygiene concerns. It's gentle satire of both scientific progressivism and nostalgic attachment to outdated things. **"The Course of True Love"** is a cartoon showing footprints in sand approaching a couple, suggesting romantic pursuit or the "path" leading to love. **"No Accomplishment"** is a brief joke mocking college education as teaching boys only to "yell and kick"—skills a mule already possesses naturally—implying college is useless.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-- Appearing for the Old Horsehair Sofa By HOMER CROY SEE that some scientist has come forward with the theory that the old horsehair sofa should be done away with, on the ground that it is unhygienic. We don’t care if it is—it gave us a lot of pleasure in our early days, and we shall defend it as long as it has a hair. It was a heavy contraption and should have been accompanied by a folding derrick. In the spring, when we got ready to clean the sitting-room, we would get the family together and call the hired hand to move the sofa. Then always, as we were struggling to get it through the door, one of us would jam our finger—and it usually fell to the lot of the graceful author of these lines. Along the wall was a greasy line, showing where our heads came to, and always some of the hair padding was working out. Its flow was never large, but dependable. When company came, it always tried itself, it livened up wonderfully when it heard a strange footstep on the porch, and by the time the visitor had got in the room, drifts had formed. When summer was beginning to have down on its upper lip, we would slip out into the orchard and fill ourself with Red Junes, believing that they wouldn't hurt us if we ate salt with them; and that night, when we would be doubled up like the hook on a John Deere singletree, mother would tell us we might sleep on the old horsehair sofa, so that we could be near her. But a horsehair sofa was never meant to sleep on. It’s all a person can do to stick on its slick surface in his waking hours; when consciousness begins to go, it’s impossible. All of a sudden we would find ourself on the floor, with the center table around our neck. Patiently we would go back, close our eyes, and in a few moments find ourself trying to crawl out of the maze of a rocking chair. In its old age the sofa would get so bumpy that we could drop accushion in it without missing it, but still mother wouldn't con- sent to have it thrown away. So year after year it would stand in “There she is, now, mother!"" the corner where it had rubbed the plastering off the wall. Mother would keep a blanket carefully spread over the top, but if you lifted up the blanket, you could see where Clara’s medicine had been spilled the time she came so near dying. But now, thank goodness! she’s big and the finest sister in the world. We don’t care if the old slippery sofa is unhygienic; we don't care if it is the stamping ground of some of the most dangerous germs at large, it shall have a shelter in our home till its last hair is shed. No Accomplishment Knicker—College teaches a boy how to yell and kick. Bocker—A mule can do that and still have two legs left over.