THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: THE MACMILLAN CO., Ltd.

1907

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1907,

By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.

Copyright, 1907,

By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1907.

Norwood Press

J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

ILLUSTRATIONS

[Pg 1]

HOW DOTH THE SIMPLE SPELLING-BEE

Of course, I know not how it may be with you; but with me the mail brings daily a multitude of communications that I have not sought, and do not want; nor do I refer to bills alone; and so, when there came one day a printed card saying:—

Why Heifer?

I tossed it into my waste-paper basket, and remembered it no [Pg 2]more. Some days had passed, during which I had worked onward at the index of my forthcoming volume, when my memory was jogged by the arrival of a new absurdity:—

Why not Heffer?

Like its predecessor, this card went at once into my basket. I had nearly finished the B's in my index before the mail brought the following:—

It ought to be your custom now To simplify, and spell plough plow; Therefore write quickly on your cuff From this day forth to spell tough tuff. A third must follow these first tu, So you will always spell through thru, [Pg 3]Nor in the midst of things leave off, But joyfully now make cough coff. By this time you must clearly noa Dough can't be doe, do, dow, but doa.

Well, if they purposed to reform our spelling, which has always been a mere rag-bag of lawlessness, I hoped that they would do it right; but I was too deeply immersed in completing the index of my forthcoming volume to spend thought upon this question; nor did I court interruption. My waste-paper basket, therefore, received another willing contribution. And when presently the clue to these cards reached me in the following telegraphic message, just at the outset of my morning's work:—

[Pg 4]

Chickle University, Arkansopolis, October 6, 1906. English spelling rotten to the core. Help us. Masticator B. Fellows.

I responded, not without satire:—

Utterly prostrated by news. Helpless. Thomas Greenberry.

And thinking that thus I was rid of him, I proceeded quietly with the index of my forthcoming volume.

But Masticator B. Fellows, president and proprietor of Chickle University, had not done with me so easily. Since his street-boyhood, sixty years ago, this ardent personality ('tis thus the daily press describes him) had made his own [Pg 5]way, and had his own way; he was his own capital, and there is no record of his ever having sunk a cent of it. Of habits strictly pure, he had never seen a card or a drop of liquor that he had touched, and he had never seen a dollar that he had not touched. He had organized every industry along his path, from paper-selling, boot-blacking, and so upward to his organized lobby at Washington, through which he had caused a heavy tariff to be put upon every commodity necessary to the American people. It was he who had advised his brother organizers to keep Religion on the free list, because, as he assured them, "if we [Pg 6]tax it, they'll do without it, while if we don't, they'll trust us for a while yet." And now, at the age of seventy-five, with uncounted millions, and ten United States

Senators, and a fourth young wife all in his pocket, he proposed to hand his name to Immortality by simplifying the spelling of English all over the earth. Well, let him do it if he would only do it right.

But this he must do without my assistance; there were other professors, many of them. I did not permit the circulars that now began to pour in from Chickle University to distract me from my index. Striking as these circulars were—and I will instance but one of them:—

[Pg 7]

Judge, budge, ridge, acknowledge ARE SLOW Call in and try our Quick Spelling Juj. Buj. Rij. Aknolej—

they went into the basket one after another. To this method of suggestion a second was soon added, and my coat-pockets, as well as my mail, began to be filled with spelling literature. I would go out for a walk, and during this exercise some paper or pamphlet would be slipped into the coat, which I would discover upon my return. I remember pulling out a little book of verse, beginning:—

I am only a primer to teach you to spel, Which is something that nobody does very wel. [Pg 8]A sweet little primer, A dear little primer, Sing hel, bel, tel, fel, sel, nel, quel, swel and smel.

I felt, let me confess it, annoyed the next day on returning from my walk to find a new method of suggestion, in great charcoal letters, on the white marble of my house-front:—

Such nuisances as Solemn Comptroller and Wednesday are preventing THE KING OF SIAM from learning English

Nor was my annoyance decreased by the further announcement that defaced my house-front upon the day following:—

[Pg 9]

MILLIONS OF SCHOOL CHILDREN turn away weeping from PEOPLE MANUŒVRE DIAPHRAGM

Much should be conceded to the man who is fighting for his Immortality, as was Masticator; but not too much. And displeasure, it may fairly be said, began to rise in me, when I found, next morning, a page of the primer introduced in the midst of my index:—

Of the bad English spelling you'll surely beware, When you notice how stair, pear and heir rhyme with there; The sad English spelling, The mad English spelling, [Pg 10]Sing hi! for the mare and the mayor and the prayer. Next consider, for instance, a word like enhearsed: Now what business has it to be rhyming with first? Sing hi! the old spelling, The horrible spelling, The spelling of nursed and of versed and of worst. But our simplified speling can cure every il, And permits nothing foolish like two l's in pil. Sing hi! the new speling, Our comforting speling, Sing pil, bil, fil, wil, til, sil, quil, spil.

Yes, Masticator was going too far—and how had he managed to [Pg 11]tamper with my index? I rang the bell, and questioned my man Edward sharply. He knew nothing of it, nor did the housemaid, whom I also questioned sharply. And I trusted I should be less harassed on the morrow.

But on the morrow, at breakfast, lifting with my fork the top buckwheat cake in order to spread butter upon the second, I found a leaflet between the two cakes, inscribed:—

Phthisis How can you eat while a word like that is allowed?

I flung the cakes at my man Edward, and in five minutes I had dismissed every servant in the house. [Pg 12]Quite unable to work, I left the house myself, and set out to take the air. No; Masticator was not doing it right; he was taking too many sudden liberties, not only with the language, but with myself. Becoming gradually aware that a number of young persons were following me with loud and disconcerting expressions, I stepped into a shop where I am unknown, and where they at once offered to brush off my back. A double mirror showed me these words, chalked plainly:—

He wants a P in Consumtion

Being now without servants, I decided that I should be free from persecution [Pg 13]in the luxurious wilderness of a great hotel. Upon getting into bed in my room in the twelfth story, a dreadful contact caused me to leap to the floor, where my foot dashed down upon some similar dreadfulness, and the shock threw me flat on my face and stomach, only to feel myself instantly plastered with more of the same odious and encasing substance. I believe that I shouted loudly in the dark for some time before hotel employees rushed to my succor; the door was burst open and the light turned on. It was fly-paper; and much time was consumed in relieving my person of it. Every piece bore its motto, such as:—

[Pg 14]

If you'll but drop the e in pi Better on stomach pi will li.

and also:—

The b in lam 's not worth a dam—

and others.

As early as possible the next morning I sent a message of capitulation to Masticator B. Fellows.

What can I do for you?

was the message; and the reply came back:—

Delighted you are with us. Private car train twenty-one to-day.

The secretary of Masticator was at the steps of the car and presented me at once to a most lovely girl. At the news she was to serve on the [Pg 15]Simplified Spelling Committee with me, my heart bounded, every doubt left me, and I exclaimed:—

"I will spell just as you say."

"Then," she most sweetly returned, "never let us consent to any simplification of kiss." And I counted such answer a very happy omen.

She had come from a woman's college, and her important work on the authorship of Shakespeare's plays had demonstrated, beyond refutation, that the plays had been written by Queen Elizabeth, in collaboration with Sir Walter Raleigh and Lady Jane Grey.

"Shall we be in Harrisburg soon, Mr. Kibosh?" she asked the secretary.

[Pg 16]

"It will be ten minutes after seven, Miss Appleby."

"And that is a whole three hours!" she cried, with no pleasure in her voice.

"Here is some good chickle," said Kibosh. And when she would take none, "Then I will," he said. "The private stock of Masticator B. Fellows. The public gets nothing like this."

He took a small object from the box that he held and put it in his mouth; and soon, while the train sped on, his large long jaws were oscillating with a smooth motion, and content, like a lukewarm glaze, overspread his immense bald features.

Thus it came to me what chickle was. "Chewing-gum!" I exclaimed!

[Pg 17]

Kibosh opened gentle eyes upon me. "We do not use that word at Arkansopolis." He smiled, removed the plastic morsel from his mouth, and placed it on the window-sill, that he might speak to me without impediment.

"We always say chickle at Arkansopolis. We like that better. Masticator B. Fellows likes that better. When his genius bought up the small plants——"

"Is there a chewing-gum trust, too?" asked Miss Appleby.

"Chickle, Miss Appleby, chickle, if you please. When Masticator's genius organized this noble industry, thereby placing a superior, pure, cheap, and uniform article within [Pg 18]the reach of eighty million jaws——"

"But the whole nation does not chew gum!" the lovely girl again, with some spirit, interrupted.

"Chickle, Miss Appleby, if you please. Fifty per cent of our population chickles, and that makes eighty million jaws. When the time came to—ahem—float the proposition, after the bonds, there was an issue of one billion preferred, and two billions of common stock. It did not seem fitting, Miss Appleby, it did not seem dignified, that Wall Street should bandy back and forth such an expression as—ahem—'chewing-gum common.' To the eye, such an expression printed in the financial [Pg 19]columns would seem—would—in short, hence chickle, Miss Appleby, noun and verb. Never anything else at Arkansopolis. Will you not chickle now? No? Ah, well. But at least you are with us in the Higher Spelling." His hand sought the window-sill, and then his mouth; and his jaws resumed their placid oscillation.

Miss Appleby had gone out upon the broad rear platform of our car; and there, as she sat alone, I joined her, saying:—

"Shall we talk of the Higher Spelling?"

But she seemed inclined for not much talk upon any subject; and the nearer Harrisburg drew, the more [Pg 20]difficult I found it to engage her attention.

"There is nothing to see," I assured her when, as our train entered the station, she left me with something almost like eagerness.

I did not get out during our somewhat long stop, being occupied in my private stateroom with unpacking and disposing my clothes for the journey. As we started again, I emerged to find Miss Appleby in bright conversation with a newcomer.

"Professor Jesse Willows," said Kibosh, "of Paw-paw University, Mountain Dew City." And as the extraordinarily handsome young man rose, quite six-feet-two, to greet me, Kibosh continued: "The professor's [Pg 21]Dictionary of Deadly Weapons, as well as his great work on Bowie-Knives in the Stone Age, makes him a welcome member of our committee."

I felt, I know not why, less glad to see this Professor Willows than Miss Appleby seemed. His long black coat and black tie were fairly proper for a man of erudition; but his hat was soft and broad of brim, and his trousers were of brown corduroy, drawn over high boots.

"And what, sir," I asked him, "may your views be on the Higher Spelling?"

"Bless yore heart, suh," he gayly responded, "what's spellin', anyway? Just alphabet lettuhs fixed like some [Pg 22]man chose to fix 'em befo' you an' me were bawn. An' so I say such a man's had his notions more'n long enough, and it's high time we-all took a whirl at the dictionary."

"I admit, sir," I responded, "that our spelling is but a rag-bag of lawlessness. But it has been ratified by a noble army of great writers. They and the daily press have spread it over the world. Therefore we must go slowly. We must do it right. Derivation——"

"Bless yore heart, suh," the impetuous youth interrupted me, "what's derivation? Just conquest follo'd by mispronunciation. Julius Cæsuh he lambastes Gaul; and he talks Latin to 'em; he says 'honor,' [Pg 23]an' he goes home; an' the Gauls retain Cæsuh's idea, as all puffeck gennlemen should, but the nearest they kin git to the Latin is 'honneur.' An' then, whoop they come over to England, an' they lambaste the Anglo-Saxons, an' talk to 'em about 'honneur.' An' the Anglo-Saxons, bein' also puffeck gennlemen, they ketches on to the idea, but be-Jeroosalemmed if they kin say it straight, either; an' so it gits to be 'honour.' An' then comes our glorious Revolution; an' we tell the English, 'Good-by to yo', King Geawge. Good-by to yore iniquitous parliament. Good-by to yore whole dog-goned outfit of tyrants and helots. We-all don' keer how you-all spell anything whatsoever, [Pg 24]an' the language of Washington, an' Jeffuhson, an' Patrick Henry, an' all the glorious fathuhs of libuhty, is goin' to spell it honor without a u.' An' there you are, back to yore original Latin."

"A noble sentiment, Professor," said Kibosh. "A truly noble sentiment. Will you not join me in a chickle?"

The professor bounded to his full, long height, with all the agility of the felis catus of his own wild, native mountains.

"I'm with you, suh!" he exclaimed. "Be-Jeroosalemmed if I wasn't pow'ful thirsty."

"Chickle is not liquid refreshment," said Kibosh, mildly; and [Pg 25]he held out the box to his tall guest.

The professor glared at it for a moment. "You and yore chickle," he then began, with alarming deliberation, "can go right——"

A quick, girlish cough sounded behind him.

"——to my private cabin in this cyah," the professor continued, with no change in countenance or voice, "where I will join you, and where we will find liquid refreshment."

Kibosh did not dare refuse him, and I came without being asked.

"It's a glorious exercise, suh," said the professor to me, in the private cabin.

"In moderation, yes," I answered.

[Pg 26]

"May I inquiuh to what you-all are referrin'?" he asked haughtily.

"Why, to this," I answered, tapping my glass.

The professor grew more stiff. "I referred to simplifyin' the spellin' of our language," he said.

"A glorious exercise?" I repeated vaguely.

"Fo' the imagination, suh. Turn yore eye whah you will, you'll see words that need refawmin', words that need our help, words that cry an' clamuh to be relieved of the stigma of their congested and nonsensical appearance; nouns, adjectives, verbs, all stuck in the hopeless mud of antiquity, an' holdin' out their hands for we-all to drag 'em out an' bring [Pg 27]'em up to date." He now gave me a list. "Look, suh, at those pore, sufferin', aged cripples, awaitin' the renewal of their youth."

"You have a magnificent collection," I remarked to him, after a glance at the list.

"Pshaw!" he returned. "I could double that in an hour. I just jotted that down as I came up the valley from Paw-paw in the Chattanooga Limited. Why, just lookin' out of the cyah windo' would give me notions. I saw a thistle. Down she went on the list, an' down went whistle next her, suggested by our locomotive. Thistle. Whistle. Look at those disgraces. Look at the dead wood in 'em. Are not they [Pg 28]just congested all up with pitfalls for the young? Once we get to work at Arkansopolis, and they'll be thissl and wissl, or my name is not Jesse Willows."

He paused, and I looked at his list again. The railway journey had given him a number of suggestions; I saw, in hasty writing:—

Freight. That's dopy. Should be frate. Bridge. Another has-been. Brij.

My perusal was interrupted by his seizing the list away from me. "The po'tuh has turned the gas higher," he said. "That gives me another whole big line of 'em." And he wrote:—

Light should be lite. So also fight, and tight and others on the same plan.

[Pg 29]

"Po'tuh!" he called out, "what is yore name?"

"Michael, Colonel," the man answered.

"Another!" exclaimed the professor. And he wrote:—

Michael, Mycle, because cycle. Bicicle because icicle.

I kept various doubts to myself, and resolved that such must continue my policy if I were ever to have peace; but, no matter how I might agree to spell bicycle, I was secretly determined never to address my younger brother as Mycle. Imagine thus mutilating a name that had been in our family for generations!

Professor Willows showed his list [Pg 30]to Miss Appleby; I saw him, and I saw her evidently add some words to it. But, to my surprise, this seemed to cause them mirth. They did not seek my company, and conversed together without ceasing, in a corner of our car, while Kibosh slumbered; and I wondered if the Higher Spelling was the subject that brought their heads so close to each other. That girl was more and more a disappointment to me; and I retired in no very good humor.

Mycle was not the only word to which, as I dressed myself next morning, I found my opinion to be entirely adverse; frate seemed to me objectionable, nor did I feel any leanings toward brij and lite. And the surprising [Pg 31]readiness with which Professor Willows accepted my criticism failed to make upon me the happy impression which the adoption of one's views by another is apt to cause.

"You don't like frate, suh?" he said, whipping out his pencil, and quickly writing on his list. "Bless yore heart, then we'll just make it frait. How does that hit yore fancy?"

I thanked him for his amiability, but my fancy was as little hit by frait as it had been by frate; and it was still less hit when he came to me with his customary enthusiasm some twenty-five minutes after breakfast, to show me forty-three more words [Pg 32]that he had simplified since rising from table. Still keeping all thoughts to myself, I read:—

Earth and dearth to irth and dirth, like mirth. Also worth to wirth. Pheasants whirr. Cats should pirr.

I passed the list back with I know not what commendations of his rapidity. He retired with it to the rear platform, where sat Miss Appleby; and almost immediately I heard egregious peals of laughter coming from them both. This, for some reason, kindled in me such annoyance that I put my head out of the door, and cried loudly to them: "Do you intend to make flirt flurt, or hurt hirt? And how about squirt?" And I shut [Pg 33]the door sharp upon my words before they could make answer to me. But still, even through the closed door and thick plate-glass windows, their shameless merriment reached me, and seemed, if anything, louder than ever.

The outlook for the Higher Spelling was scarce a bright one, I thought, if the rest of my colleagues, whom I had yet to meet, should approach their solemn responsibilities in anything of the spirit shown by Professor Willows and Miss Appleby. His facile adoption of a new spelling, and equally facile relinquishment of it, gave but poor evidence of any deep thought on this matter; and to see him through the plate-glass as he [Pg 34]talked to her on the rear platform, no one would easily be persuaded that spelling was the subject of their colloquy; and lastly, when he fetched a large shawl and hung it across the window outside, so that they were wholly screened from view, I found it no light effort to believe that it was to shield her from the cold blast, as he informed me.