Life, 1922-12-07 · page 34 of 80
Life — December 7, 1922 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous poem about Christmas shopping exhaustion, presented in mock-archaic Scottish dialect. The cartoon depicts three old men discovering an exhausted woman who has collapsed at their door during winter. The "joke" is that her mysterious distress—initially suggesting drama or danger—is revealed as simple holiday shopping fatigue. She rambles deliriously about gift purchases ("What on earth shall I get for Neddie?"), price concerns, and her aching feet, unable to answer the men's serious questions about her condition. The satire targets the frantic materialism and physical toll of Christmas shopping, particularly on women. The darkly comic ending—where she dies from exhaustion and is buried with holly growing over her grave—exaggerates this complaint into absurdist tragedy, mocking both the shopping culture and the romanticized Scottish vernacular often used in sentimental literature of the era. The piece is credited "B. L." and illustrated by what appears to be a professional cartoonist.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Dy) SEAS Peas oN SI) a A Sad but Seasonal Story hree olde men sate around the fire, It was cold, for the wind blew chill-O, They told many tayles of the auld lang syne, An’ they sipped their stoup with a will-O. All suddenlye, from the night outside, Through the door a lassie stumbled, O her face was fair, an’ her eyes were wilde, An” her words were mixed and mumbled.” On her arme was a purse of woven gold, The skins of moles did cape her, An’ she hugged to her breast as she sank in a swoone What looked like a piece of paper. They raised her up and they sate her down, They gave her a good long swallow Of bootlegge gin, an’ she oped her eyne, But her stare was fixed an’ hollow “Whence come ye, lass?” one ancient quoth, “Dost flee from a mad pursuer? Is your hame afire? Doth your mith- er ail? Dost search for an errant wooer?” “Nay, I do not flee from any one, An’ my hame’s not burning, ither, I can't get rid of my wooers at all, An’ I'm blessed with a healthy mither.” “Then why did ye sink to the floor in a swoone? Then why is your strength ex- hausted?” The olde man peered at the night outside Through the windows white and frosted. But she didn't answer his queries at a" Though she talked in a stream that was steady, An’ things like this ‘gan to fall from her lips: “What on earth shall I get for Neddie? “O my poor, poor feet, they ail me sair! How much should I spend on my cozen? Show me something, please, for a lad of ten, Dost sell these flasks by the dozen?” She raved along in that aimless way, Those olde men couldn't stop her, But they knew from the talk and the list in her hand That the lass was a Christmas shopper. An’ she passed right out in the chair where she sate, O her fate was melancholy! They buried her there ‘neath the juniper tree, An’ over her grave grows holly. B. L. a, ee eee comicbooks.com SF nan AW Wife