Life — December 2, 1920 — page 51: what you’re looking at

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

Christmas Afternoon Described in the Manner, if Not the Spirit, of Di. By Robert C. Benchley HAT an afternoon! Mr. Gum- midge said that, in his estima- tion, there never had been such an afternoon since the world began, a sentiment which was heartily endorsed by Mrs. Gummidge and all the little Gum- midges, not to mention the relatives who had come over from Jersey for the day. In the first place, there was the ennui. And such ennui as it A heav overpowering ennui, such as results from was! a participation in eight courses of steam- ing, gravied food, topping off with salted nuts which the little old spinster Gum- midge from Oak Hill said she never knew when to stop eating—and true enough she didn't—a_ dragging, devitalizing ennui, which left its victims strewn about the living-room in various attitudes of pros- tration suggestive of those of the petri- fied occupants in a newly unearthed Pom- peiian dwelling; an ennui which carried with it a retinue of yawns, snarls and thinly veiled insults, and which ended in ruptures in the clan spirit serious enough to last throughout the glad new year. Then there were the toys! Three and a quarter dozen toys to be divided among seven children. Surely enough, you or I might say, to satisfy the little tots. But that would be because we didn’t know the tots. In came Baby Lester Gummidge, Lillian’s boy, dragging an electric grai elevator which happened to be the only toy in the entire collection which appealed to little Norman, five-year-old son of Luther, who lived in Rahwa In came curly-headed Effie in frantic and throaty disputation with Arthur, Jr., over the pos- session of an articulated zebra, In came Everett, bearing a mechanical negro which would no longer dance, owing to a previ- ous forcible feeding by the baby of a marshmallow into its only available aper- ture. In came Fonlansbee, teeth buried in the hand of lithe Ormond, which bore a popular but battered remnant of what had once been the proud false-bosom of a hussar’s uniform. after another, crying, snap- ping, some pulling, some pushing—all ap- pealing to their respective parents for aid in their intra-mural warfare. In they all came, one some some And the cigar smoke! Mrs, Gummidge said that she didn’t mind the smoke from a good cigarette, but would they mind if she opened the windows for just a minute in order to’ clear the room of the heavy aroma of used ars? Mr. Gummidge stoutly maintained that they were good His brother, George Gummidge, said that he, likewise, would say that they At which colloquial sally both the Gummidge brothers laughed testily, there- by breaking the laughter record for the afternoon. Aunt Libbie, who lived remarked dark room that it seemed just like Sunday to her. An amendment was offered to this cigars. were. with George, from the corner of the statement by the cousin, who was in the insurance business, stating that it was “T can't make up my mind whether to buy my wife “Why don’t ye git her 2 milkin’ stool or a fr a nice new washtub, Hen? comicbooks.com