Adventure Magazine Cover, June 18, 1921 — page 144: what you’re looking at

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

134 The big Russian, hands clasped behind his square, close-cropped head, flexed his bi- ceps, which rose and fell in smooth billows. Then he slowly filled his lungs, until his great chest swelled out like a barrel. The little Jap, having no great muscles to dis- play, held an old rusty horseshoe in his hands. His. art demanded extraordinary power of grip; and the veins in his thick wrists stood out as he slowly straightened the iron. K. O. Mooney did a bit of shadow-boxing on his tuft of grass, his swift, feline motions as beautiful in their way as a ballet dancer’s. The cockney—as hairy as an ape—stood on his head, walked about on his hands, and finally led the way by turn- ing a neat back-somersault and landing in the water with a tremendous splash. Squatting in ecstasy on the far shore was the inspiration of this extempore perform- ance. A thin line of little naked boys, their eyes popping, fingers opening and closing, formed an audience that was better than_ The professional strong man is the none. most self-conscious creature alive. Com- pared to him the long-haired pianist, the tragedian, the soap-box orator and the movie star are shy and shrinking blossoms. Spike Halloran’s quartet studiously ignored the little boys, but every attitude was struck for their benefit. . “Gee! Lookit! Betcha his muscle’s more’n a foot round! Golly—look how long he’s holdin’ his breath! He could lick Dempsey, easy. Wait till the other fellers hear ’bout it!” Their treble piping was sweet music in the athletes’ cauliflowered ears. After they had floundered about for a while and gone back to their camp, the little boys had their swim; and all of them performed much more creditably than their elders had. Then they dressed and slipped away. Their folks would have been very angry to find them here, for they regarded the campers with the utmost disfavor, as a little higher than burglars, but much below hoboes. The lat- ter would occasionally split a half-cord of. wood, or even help get in a few loads of hay. The farmers were at their wits’ end for help. That their sons and hired men were all leaving the austere farms for the exor- bitant wages of factory and store was bad enough but comprehensible. That able- bodied men should jog along the dusty highway for exercise, while wood—worth Adventure eighteen dollars the cord—awaited the ax, and apples—worth a nickel apiece—rotted under the trees, and fallow soil was being turned back to pasture for lack of hands to guide the plow and scatter seed, was an abomination in the sweat-blinded eyes of the thinning ranks of men who were trying to feed a hundred million avid mouths by rising before the sun, working steadily for sixteen hours and crawling stiff-legged to bed about the time their chickens went to roost. They raised bent shoulders from cornfield and garden patch to see the great Russian, the little Jap, the American and the hairy cockney, muffled in sweaters, trot past to keep down the flesh made by rivers of un- skimmed milk, batches of wheaten bread thick spread with fresh-churned butter and honey, whole nestfuls of eggs, fried chicken and steaks, roasting ears and potatoes, and home-cured hams, prepared by the tireless Andy. The things they said under their breaths as they gripped hoe and spade again, if overheard by the proud-stepping athletes, would have led to mutilation and death. As it was, they merely stepped a little higher, threw out their great chests a little farther, when they had—as they thought— appreciative spectators. They ate and slept prodigiously and fully justified Spike Halloran’s idea of the boon of getting back to nature before Fall training began. They were a little bored, because they were all city bred; they missed the smells of gasoline, hot asphalt and cheap perfumery, the roar of traffic, cries of news- boys and street vendors, jazz bands and in- ane feminine giggles. They were easily scared by the little garter snakes, the big gray spiders, the mysterious cries of noc- turnal birds, the sound of a fat hedgehog crashing through the underbrush. They fished a little, spelled out the sporting news in the papers Halloran mailed to them, ate, slept, splashed in the pool, took their daily cross-country trot, indulged in rough horse- play and were kneaded and massaged by the solicitous Andy. At night they shot craps by the light of their camp-fire. There was not much loose change in the crowd; what little they had was gradually but surely finding its way into Andy’s pocket, later to be prudently buried by him in.an old tomato can under a flat stone. COmicloo ZN Wf) (©