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SKOOKUM CHUCK
FABLES

BITS OF HISTORY,
THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE

(Some of which appeared in the Ashcroft Journal)

BY

SKOOKUM CHUCK

Author of "Songs of a Sick Tum Tum,"
and some others





Copyright, Canada, 1915, by R.D. Cumming





Preface


It is more difficult to sell a good book by a new author than it is to
sell a poor one by a popular author, because the good book by the new
author must make its way against great odds. It must assert itself
personally, and succeed by its own efforts. The book by the popular
author flies without wings, as it were. The one by the well-known author
has a valuable asset in its creator; the one by the new author has no
asset but its own merits.

I am not contending by the above that this is a good book; far from it.
Some books, however, having very little literary recommendation, may be
interesting in other ways.

There are several things instrumental in making for the success of a
book: first, the fame of the author; second, the originality of the
theme or style; third, the extent of the advertising scheme, and fourth,
the proximity of the subject matter to the heart and home of the reader;
and this last is the reason for the "Skookum Chuck Fables."

If the following stories are not literature, they are spiced with
familiar local sounds and sights, and they come very close to every
family fireside in British Columbia. For this reason I hope to see a
copy in every home in the province.

                                                          THE AUTHOR.






Contents


SKOOKUM CHUCK FABLES:                            PAGE

  OF THE ROLLING STONE                              9

  OF CULTUS JOHNNY                                 17

  OF THE BOOBY MAN                                 24

  OF HARD TIMES HANCE                              35

  OF THE TOO SURE MAN                              55

  OF THE UNLOVED MAN                               60

  OF THE CHIEF WHO WAS BIGGER THAN HE LOOKED       66

  OF SIMPLE SIMON UP TO DATE                       72

  OF THE HIGH CLASS ESKIMO                         79

  OF THE SWEET YOUNG THINGS                        89

  OF THE TWO LADIES IN CONTRAST                    97

  OF THE RUSE THAT FAILED                         100

  OF THE REAL SANTA CLAUS                         107

  OF THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW                      113

  OF SICAMOUS                                     118

  OF THE UBIQUITOUS CAT                           122


BITS OF HISTORY:

  OF THE FOOLHARDY EXPEDITION                     127

  OF THE LAWS OF LYCURGUS                         133

  OF JOAN OF ARC                                  138

  OF VOICES LONG DEAD                             144

  OF THE WHITE WOMAN WHO BECAME AN INDIAN SQUAW   151


THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE                            157




Of the Rolling Stone


Once upon a time in a small village in Bruce County, Province of
Ontario, Dominion of Canada, there lived a man who was destined to
establish a precedent. He was to prove to the world that a rolling stone
is capable at times of gathering as much moss as a stationary one, and
how it is possible for the rock with St. Vitus dance to become more
coated than the one that is confined to perpetual isolation. Like most
iconoclasts he was of humble birth, and had no foundation upon which to
rest the cornerstone of his castle, which was becoming too heavy for his
brain to support much longer.

His strong suit was his itinerate susceptibility; but his main anchorage
was his better five-fifths. One of his most monotonous arguments was to
the effect that the strenuousness of life could only be equalled by the
monotony of it, and that it was a pity we had to do so much in this
world to get so little out of it.

"Why should a man be anchored to one spot of the geographical
distribution like a barnacle to a ship during the whole of his mortal
belligerency?" he one day asked his wife. "We hear nothing, see nothing,
become nothing, and our system becomes fossilized, antediluvian. Why not
see everything, know everything? Life is hardly worth while, but since
we are here we may as well feed from the choicest fruits, and try for
the first prizes."

Now, his wife was one of those happy, contented, sweet,
make-the-best-of-it-cheerily persons who never complained even under the
most trying circumstances. It is much to the detriment of society that
the variety is not more numerous, but we are not here to criticise the
laws that govern the human nature of the ladies. This lady was as far
remote from her husband in temperament as Venus is from Neptune. He was
darkness, she was daylight; and the patience with which she tolerated
him in his dark moods was beautiful though tragic. It was plain that she
loved him, for what else in a woman could overlook such darkness in a
man?

"You see," he would say, "it is like this. Here I am slaving away for
about seventy-five dollars per month, year in and year out. All I get is
my food and clothing--and yours, of course, which is as much necessary,
but is more or less of a white man's burden. No sooner do I get a dollar
in my hand than it has to be passed along to the butcher, baker, grocer,
dressmaker, milliner. Are our efforts worth while when we have no
immediate prospects of improvement? And then the monotony of the game:
eat, sleep, work; eat, sleep, work. And the environs are as monotonous
as the occupations. I think man was made for something more, although a
very small percentage are ever so fortunate as to get it. Now, I can
make a mere living by roaming about from place to place as well as I can
by sitting down glued to this spot that I hate, and then I will have
the chance of falling into something that is a great deal better, and
have an opportunity to see something, hear something, learn something.
Here I am dying by inches, unwept, unhonoured and unsung."

To be "blue" was his normal condition. His sky was always cloudy, and
with this was mingled a disposition of weariness which turned him with
disgust from all familiar objects. With him "familiarity bred contempt."
One day when his psychological temperament was somewhat below normal the
pent up thunder in him exploded and the lightning was terrible:

"Here I am rooted to one spot," he said, "fossilized, stagnant, wasting
away, dead to the whole world except this one little acre. And what is
there here? Streets, buildings, trees, fences, hills, water. Nothing out
of the ordinary; and so familiar, they have become hateful. Why,
everything in the environment breeds weariness, monotony, a painfully
disgusting sameness. The same things morning, noon and night, year after
year. Why, the very names of the people here give me nervous
prostration. Just think--Cummings, Huston, Sanson, Austin, Ward, McAbee,
Hobson, Bailey, Smith, Black, Brown, White--Bah! the sound of them is
like rumors of a plague. I want to flee from them. I want to hear new
names ringing in my ears. And I hate the faces no less than I do the
names. I would rather live on a prairie where you expect nothing; and
get it--anything so long as it is new."

Now, that which is hereditary with the flesh cannot be a crime. The
victim is more to be pitied in his ancestral misfortune, and the monkey
from which our hero sprang must have been somewhat cosmopolitan.

Of course his wife had heard such outbreaks of insanity from him before,
so she only laughed, thinking to humor him back to earth again with her
love and smiles.

"Conditions are not so bad in Bruce county as you paint them," she said,
"and if you do not go about sniffing the air you will not find so many
obnoxious perfumes. Why, I _love_ the locality; and I like the people.
And I like you, and my home; and I am perfectly satisfied with
everything. Things might be a great deal worse. You should have no
complaint to make. You have a steady situation, a good master, a
beautiful home, plenty to eat--and then you have me," she exclaimed, as
though her presence should atone for all else in the world that he did
not have. And perhaps a treasure of this kind should have been a
valuable asset, and an antidote against all mere mundane cares.

"Look out through the parlor door," she continued. "Could anything be
more beautiful? The sun is just setting. The lake is asleep. See the
reflection of the trees beneath its surface. How peaceful, how restful!
My mind is just like the lake--perfectly at ease. Why do you not control
your storm and calm down like the lake? Look at the tall shadows of the
contented firs reaching away out across its bosom. How like a dream."

"Bah! Don't mention lake to me. I hate the sight of it. I have seen it
too long. It is too familiar. It is an eyesore to me. I am weary of it
all. I want a rest. Here comes Brown now. Let me hide in the cellar. It
would be hypocrisy to remain here and smile welcome to him when I hate
the sight of his physiognomy and detest the sound of his name. No, he
has gone by. He does not intend to call. Thank heaven. Five minutes of
his society would be equal to ten years in purgatory. New sights, new
scenes, new voices, new faces; all these are recreation to a mentally
weary constitution."

"I would consider it a crime to leave this beauty spot," said his wife,
"and it is a sin against heaven to decry it."

"Then I am a sinner and a criminal," said the hereditary crank, "because
I hate it and am going to leave. I will take fifty dollars and go, and
if I do not return with fifty thousand I will eat myself. I have said
all there is to say. Those dull, uninteresting faces give me the
nighthorse. I am going to-morrow. Of course you remain, because it is
more expensive to travel double than single," he snorted, "and I have
not the plunks."

He embarked into the big world a few days later with his wife's warm
kiss burning his lips--faithful even in his unfaithfulness. She was
cheerful for some time, thinking that he would return, but the magnetism
which attracted him to the woman whom he had picked from among the
swarming millions was of very inferior voltage.

He wandered about Canada and the United States for about two years. He
had many ups and downs. On the average he made enough to induce his soul
to remain in his body in anticipation of something better. To do him
justice he remitted all odd coin to his wife in Bruce county, and he
wrote saying he was perfectly happy in his new life. He awoke one
morning and found himself in the "Best" Hotel, Ashcroft, British
Columbia, Dominion of Canada, and the first thing he saw was the
sand-hill. He thought Ashcroft was the most desolate looking spot he had
ever seen. It looked like a town that had been located in a hurry and
had been planted by mistake on the wrong site.

He fell in with a Bruce county fellow there who was running a general
store, and they became very friendly. He secured employment from this
friend, who proved to be a philanthropist.

"I have a proposition to make to you," the friend said one day.

"What is it?" asked the iconoclast.

"Buy me out," said the philanthropist. "I have all the money I can
carry. When the rainy day comes I will be well in out of the drip, and
my tombstone will be 'next best' in the cemetery."

"But I have no bank balance," said the aspirant eagerly. "I have no
debentures of any kind; I have not even pin money."

"Bonds are unnecessary," said the friend. "Besides, when I sell you this
stock and building you will have an asset in the property. I will sell
outright, take a mortgage for the balance, which you will disburse at
the rate of five hundred dollars per year. You can do it and make money
at the same time. You will kill two birds with half a stone. Why, in
twenty years