Life, 1918-12-05 · page 18 of 76
Life — December 5, 1918 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces: **"Just Boys"** is a humorous essay about boys' behavior—their tendency to accumulate followers, exaggerate their social success with girls, and their priorities (food, play, sleep). **"Christmas Magic"** is a sentimental poem by Juliet Wilbur Tompkins about metaphorically restoring worn friendships through a magical Christmas pool, representing renewal and care. **"Backing Them Up"** and **"Transferred"** are short satirical anecdotes. The first depicts American soldiers (Yankees) complaining that British shopkeepers don't appreciate being alive, suggesting cultural friction between allies. The second shows a man whose mustard plaster (a heating medical treatment) relieved his back pain but now he's obsessively focused on the plaster itself—a joke about displaced anxiety. The page reflects WWI-era American humor, with references to American soldiers' perspective on European allies and domestic wartime experiences.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
PORTRAIT OF A BOY WITH A QU. Just Boys VD a boy on an errand, and before he reaches his destination he has accumulated four other hoys and a dog. One way of being good to a boy is to get out an interrogation point and encourage him to wear it threadbare. Until a boy is twenty he thinks his efforts in entertaining girls are failures unless their laughter may be heard three blocks away. When mother takes him and tells the teacher he is tiv it she whipping herself, and that there won't be any. When with mother he is ready to leave when he has looked around and found nothing to school “so sensi- means wants to do the he goes calling his No boy ever had to write a good moral copy so often in his copy book that he wrote it on the fence going home. When he discovers he can make two ARTER FOR A TURIFT STAMP girls believe the same compliment he begins to look upon himself as the real thing. He soon that the man’s son in school isn’t “old enough to know better” when as young as a discovers rich poor man’s son. There never was a small boy who could credit that there are only ten commandments, Ask a boy to guess, question is, “Is it something to eat? When a boy hears someone calling him out of bed in the morning, or to come in from his play, are the only occasions when he feels that there is too much noise in the world. first and his Transferred RS. CATTERSON husband) : Has the mu relieved you so that you mind on your work? Catterson : It's relieved the pain in my back, but now I've got my mind focussed on the plaster. (to literary ard plaster an focus your Christmas Magic DEEP hidden in the Woods of Yule There lies a magic Christmas pool, And every year, with love and care, 1 carry all my friendships there. For some are worn and knocked about, And some have long been crowded out, And some are forced and overgrown And some are simply skin and bon And some, of course, are true and fond; But all must go within-the pond. I dip them to my deepest range, And, heavens, if you saw the chan The new come out as good as old, The faded take the shine of gold, The halt go leaping up the path, All glowing from their magic bath 1 wish that I could say with truth It does the same for looks, or youth. There may be ponds for other ends; I only know the one for friends, Deep hidden in the Woods of Yule The heart-renewing Christmas pool Julict Wilbur Tompkins, Backing Them Up COUPLE coming out of a shop, where they undoubtedly had an altercation with the one hehind the counter. Said the first Yank: “Gee! Dese people don't know dey’re alive.” Said the second Yank: “Sure dey don't; d ‘sa of Yank soldiers were ain't. HE vaunted German efficiency, re- cently directed towards revolution, he as inefficient there everywhere else. seems to as WELL, WE'VE GOT TO GIVE THE MOK- MONS CREDIT, THEY’RY WITH US LN THE PINCH,