Life — December 7, 1928 — page 8: what you’re looking at

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

Dear Sooxy: I'm still in the} mountains up at Grand- ma’s, an alla feller can do up here is go tobogganing | or skating, an talk about tobogganing! Late yesterday afternoon I pulled my sleigh up the mountain, an gee, it was beautiful! All quict, an way off in the distance, miles an miles away, purple! mouniains bumped against the sky—it was so blue with ripples of clouds circlin around farrer an farrer, just like a pool of water after a stone’s been plopped in. I go moseying along, chewin the pine needles. Almost all the pines is white pines. Ya can tell a white pine cause it gets growed in a sheaf o' five needles. It looks like 2 hand to me, an I got lookin at it, an I wonders if a guy has as many friends as that. I mean friends that'd stick by a guy. I counted off the first needle, an that was you, Sook. Then I counted the rest of the real guys I know, an it made four, an one for Carol just made five. Maybe that’s why they call it white pine, cause every one of them needles is friends. Then I pass on an see the red pine. They has two needles on a sheaf an look like fangs, so I thought of ene- mies, but I just chucked it away, cause what's the use of botherin with red pines when the whole mountain is filled with white pines? Tain’t worth botherin with, I said to myself. Then Wingo! my heart turned to a by Percy L. Crosby snowball, cause a mess o’ partridges Page 22 — SKIPPY’S LETTERS whirred by in front of me an rumbled through the trees with a noise like a thousand butter tubs tumblin down the carpet stairs. When you get away up on the mountain the village seems like a} jan over. While it’s playin a guy fiddles lot o’ doll houses down below, an the horses an sleighs hitched to the general , store look like ants playin with a spider. Well, off I starts, steering the old flier down through the pines. I goes whizzing down an there before me is the fields of snow, glimmerin in gold an_ purple, beautifuler than a fairy’s wing. An away | below, the lake stretches out like a sheet of tin....then I gets to thinkin it ain't been tried out yet, an it may hold me, an then again it mayn’t. It wasn’t no time to go wonderin cause before I know it I'm skippin clean acrost it. Coastin is all I have to do up here ex- cept skate, but every Saturday night we have the movies, an the whole town goes. The old men sit on the right, an the old women on the left. Right down in the front is the kids. An way in the back is all woodcutters in checker-board shirts, spittin up an acquaintance with each other, The first thing the movie shows is moving pictures of forest fires an what} the blister rust does to the pines. The movies get this for nothin, an then they show you how whole forests gets took on fire, only it’s the same forests every week. The main picture’s nothin like the movies we have. I never seen such actors in all my life! You can hardly see ’em, it’s always rainin so hard in the picture. They play a phonograph over an over. If the picture is a battle scene or a mardy grass it makes no difference. They just play “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” over to keep up with the record, It ain't long before he falls behind, so we have two Bonnies Lie Over the Ocean. Then he gets sneakin up on the record, an before you know it he’s galloped past it an you still get two Bonnies. They just don't seem to be able to hit it off together. An all of a sudden, Plowie! the picture busts, leavin you like you was in a tunnel lookin out ahead at nothin but sky. Then all of a sudden comes Jim’s ad: “Toys, Dolls, Pads, and artickles too numerous to men- tion.” Then off goes the record an the fiddler starts “Halleluia.”” This costs Jim 35¢ a night with awkestra accompna- ment. Then on goes the picture again, whizzin down like a guy slippin off the mountain, Just as you begin to get some idea of what the picture is about, Snappo! — you get Jim’s ad again an “Halleluia.” The only person that gets anything out of the movies is Jim. Well, Sook, I’m comin home pretty soon, an don't forget to tell the gang I'm still captain. Any guy that says I ain't gets a sock in the nose. Affectionately sincere, comicbooks.com