Judge — April 3, 1926 — page 6: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Happy Ending" - Analysis This appears to be a humorous comic strip from *Judge* magazine satirizing wartime or Depression-era gardening efforts. The narrative is straightforward: **Panel 1:** "Mr Scott" is too busy to plant a vegetable garden; he stands idle while neighbors' gardens thrive across a fence. **Panel 2:** The neighbors keep chickens that escape and destroy Scott's property through a makeshift shelter. **Panel 3:** The "happy ending"—Scott's garden unexpectedly flourishes abundantly with vegetables, apparently fertilized by the neighboring chickens' droppings. The joke is a practical one: what seemed like a nuisance (escaped chickens) actually benefited Scott's garden through natural fertilization. It's gentle satire about unintended consequences and ironic outcomes during a period when home food production was socially encouraged.