Life — July 15, 1920 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

-LI FE. Cooper’s Sleeping Porch OY, GG OOPER, who lives in one of those depressing Gi ice, = fp} little towns outside of New York, insisted one 1 MGS Saturday that 1 go out with him. He could I shouldn't care to go to one of those places alone, either. not be blamed for wishing company, body wants to go to week-ends, a are, or rather there | was—at the Coopers’. d there you When evening came, Cooper said, “ Now, old man, we have a real treat for you. You shall have the sleeping porch.” Through years of association with Cooper on the golf course, I had learned to expect almost anything from him, Any man who can drive into the heart of a dense jungle and emerge thirty minutes later with the claim that it took him one stroke to get out, is hardly to be depended upon. me on my guard at once. “Cooper,” I said, “ I'd prefer it.” His enthusiasm set I'd just as soon sleep inside—in fact, Cooper's tribute to the fresh air, which he delivered at this time, was entirely unnecessary. It smelled all right to me, and probably was fresh, just as he said. I told him as much. There was no argument here. 1 also remarked that I would sleep insi¢ “Frankly, Peters,” Cooper returned, “you've got to sleep on the porch. The guest room is being done over.” Silently we went upstairs to the sleeping porch. “ Well,” I said shortly, “we seem to be here. Where's the bed?” “Right here,” he answered, and pointed with his hand. There was something there. I drew nearer. Author: so you LIKE MY ARTICLE. That thing that I was supposed to sleep in might have been sired by a regular bed, but obviously it had been crossed with It had probably been given to Cooper in his extreme youth as a play- thing. I could imagine him putting the animals from Noah’s ark to bed in it. It was a piece of a bed, if you like one of the parts. But it was not a bed. Cooper left me rather hurriedly. 1 ashamed of himself, a footstool or a bassinet, or possibly a bureau drawer. his think that he was I slipped in—or rather through, because most of me pro- jected into space—and, closing my eyes, sheep climbing an imaginary fence. counted imaginary Suddenly I became aware sound, now near, now far away, and decidedly put. It was a mosquito, and, judging from its motor, it was the largest mos- quito in the world, I thought that it would fly away, but it didn’t, and then I realized that the screens which enclosed the porch, while highly effective in keeping other mosquitoes out, were equally efficient in keeping this particular mosquito in. Probably it come in with the carpenter when he screened in the porch, years before, and had fattened on the guests of the Coopers ever since. By swinging my arms about I succeeded in keeping it at a safe distance, and then | must have fallen in a half doze. disconcerting from its positive refusal to sta The merry tinkle of bottles awakened me, It was the milk- man—or rather the first of the milkmen. To hear him whistlir gaily as he dashed up the rear porch next door and then our porch and then the other porches down the street, with the tinkle, tinkle of the bottles and now and then a crash as one of WHAT PART DO YOU PARTICULARLY LIKE? She: OW, 1 THINK THOSE QUOTATIONS FROM BYRON ARE SIMPLY SPLENDID. comicbookg:goim