Judge — May 4, 1918 — page 6: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The sense of the command was plain; its execution in- volved a measure of responsi- bility from which Grimley recoiled. However, his din- ner was involved, so he braced up and tackled the apparatus. Cautiously lift- ing the lid, he peered within. Nothing could be more reas- suring than the bland inte- rior which, he was relieved to find, was free of the me- chanical complications he had dreaded. The bird was in the refrigerator as per sched- ule, and withdrawing it from its cold seclusion, he laid it tenderly in the cooker and closed the lid. The soap- stone discs troubled him. He saw them lying there peacefully, but why the deuce he should be compelled to courage, she extracted the icy remains and held them out reproachfully towards Grimley, as a mother might the body of a slain child. “QO, you idiot!” she cried, “now there’s no dinner! Didn’t you have sense enough to cook it first, and didn’t I tell you not to forget the soap- stone discs!” A sense of bitter wrong surged up in poor Grimley. “Cook it first!” he shouted, “haven’t you told me, time and again, that it is a FJRE- LESS cooker? I did every- thing exactly as you said. You said to put in the chicken, and I did; you said to remember the discs and I have; if anything is wrong it is all your fault!” For a space, Mrs. Grimley lost her customary command recollect them he couldn’t imagine. He had always sup- posed the fireless cooker re- lied for its caloric upon some chemical, like radium, concealed in its interior, but pos- sibly this was all wrong. This is an age of startling innovations, and if you can cure pneumonia by mental concentration, wh) could one not cook a chicken by the same simple expedi- ent? Possibly, the fireless cooker was a by-product of New Thought and cooked by suggestion. You thought of the soapstone and this cooked the bird. Viewed in this light, the injunction as to the discs became intelli- gible; at any rate, he could do no more, so be con- scientiously clamped the lid and went away. “Now,” he thought, “we will see what the blamed thing is good for!” It was a hard afternoon for Grimley. The shadow of the soapstone discs darkened his life, haunting him like a crime that will not down; so it was with a sense of relief that he opened the door to his wife at six o'clock. “Did you remember to put in the chicken?” she asked, before she was fairly inside the door. “Certainly,” said Grimley, looking aggrieved, “I never forget anything!” “Humph!” snorted Mrs. Grimley. ‘Well, I must hurry and getitout. You can overdo things ina fireless cooker. It’s been in five hours.”” And she made for the kitchen, Grimley following with hope and fear contend- ing for the mastery of his soul. She threw’back the lid, peered curiously in, then drew back as from the edge of an abyss. Grimley didn’t like her expression as she glanced at him. Regaining Drawn by Zia Tue Suavow or tue Soarstone Discs Darkenep His Lire of the resources of the lan- guage. When she did speak, it was with ominous calmness. “Henry,” she said, “it is clear you do not under- stand English. This is a FTRELESS cooker, and just as on wheatless days you get along on a little less wheat than usual, so in a fireless cooker you get along with a little less fire than usual—that’s ali; but to impress this simple fact on you, this will be a dinnerless night, when you will get less—much less—dinner than usual.” And as Grimley dined on a plate of cold oatmeal porridge, he thought sadly of the power of language to conceal thought. The Cause of the Uproar “AW. that rumpus don’t amount to anything,” reassuringly said the landlord of the Petunia tavern. “It is just two oldest inhabitants having their everyday argue. Uncle Tobe Tuck is ninety-three years old, and in all his life has never tasted liquor, used tobacco, bet on a horserace, and so on and so forth, and claims that he alone is the oldest inhabitant. Old Simon Sussions isn’t presizely sure about his age, and most of his. life has done quite copiously all the things that Uncle Tobe hasn’t, and contends that he himseif is the only oldest inhabi- tant. “Tobe says Sime has lived so fast that in years he isn’t no-ways as old as he looks. Sime declares that Tobe hasn’t really lived so thundering much longer than some other people, but that he has lived so slowly that it has ed longer. And so they go, round and round, day after day, like the ragged ras- cal running round the rugged rock, in the story, and never arriving anywhere.” SES “oy Proup PareNTAGE IN THE BARNYARD