Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 303
The last to withdraw from the woods were our colonel, Albert and my Molly. The colonel was leaning on Albert’s arm. Molly appeared to be trying to hold his other hand. I was joined by this little group and with Albert’s help put our colonel on to Molly. He sat well forward and practiced soul stirring groans. Foxes would have little to fear from our colonel for many days to come. Very little was said. There was hardly anything either fit or safe to be said unless we talked about the weather. Albert steadily refused to meet my eyes.
After an interminable walk we at last approached the smooth green lawn of my host’s home. Several members of the hunt were grouped round the rumpled tablecloth. They were looking down sadly on a large inert body. Mrs. Albert was saying things. We listened.
“Would you believe it?” she was saying. “Ever since you all got out of sight he’s been sleeping there just like a lamb. Must have eaten too much hunt breakfast. Isn’t he sweet?”
We, too, gazed down at the slumbering figure. The expression in Albert’s eyes was too terrible for man to behold. I felt inclined to withdraw quietly to leave him alone with his sorrow. The figure, as if feeling our eyes upon it, feebly attempted to raise its head. Slumber overcame it. A gnawed chicken bone slipped from its mouth as it drifted off to sleep. A tail moved with propitiatory intentions. A gentle sigh fell upon the evening air.
The our colonel lifted up his voice.
“Yonder’s Henry!” he howled, and then there was a touch of maddness in his eyes. “Hear him!” He paused, squared his shoulders, then confronted Albert.
The rest is silence...
THE END
The Children’s Book
Greenwich Village, on the west side of Lower Manhattan, New York City — Smith spent several years in Greenwich Village, working part-time as an advertising agent.
Lazy Bear Lane (1931)
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1. The Unwanted House
CHAPTER 2. Catalogue Stew
CHAPTER 3. The Lane That Knocked
CHAPTER 4. More Magic and Mr. Budge
CHAPTER 5. The Left-Behind Circus Tent
CHAPTER 6. Winter City At Christmas
CHAPTER 7. The Enchanted Christmas Tree
CHAPTER 8. The Return of Lazy Bear
CHAPTER 9. The Forest of Floating Melody
CHAPTER 10. The Old Man of the Forest
CHAPTER 11. Lazy Bear’s “At Home”
CHAPTER 12. The House of the Waiting Toys
CHAPTER 13. Aboard the Penguin Ship
CHAPTER 14. The Twins Leave Home
CHAPTER 15. The Adventures of Albert and Rudy
CHAPTER 16. Mr. Bingle Takes a Bride
The first edition
The first edition’s title page
DEDICATION
FOR MY DAUGHTERS
JUNE AND MARION
In memory of Cabane Bambou and a Lazy Bear with a Lively Squirrel wandering now in spirit among the pines of Esterel Plage.
Also for all other nippers who like slightly peculiar animals and people with just a touch of magic to help the author out of difficult situations.
CHAPTER 1. The Unwanted House
PETER AND MARY lived in the little old house. It was a square house and not at all interesting. To Peter and Mary it had never been interesting. And what’s more, it never would be interesting.
It was just like having too much of something you didn’t want or wanting too much of something you didn’t have — and never could get.
It was a house that nobody wanted.
And Peter and Mary could not find it in their hearts to blame anyone for not wanting the house. They didn’t want it themselves.
Certainly not. Why should they?
Even the field mice, who were not at all particular about the houses they visited, turned up their noses at the house in which Peter and Mary lived. Of course the field mice might have done this because there were never any refreshments in the house to make a visit worth the time and trouble, but for all that it does not make you feel any better to have a field mouse turn up its nose at your house. And you don’t have to be so very fond of field mice to feel this way about it, either. It’s just a feeling you get.
“The least they could do,” complained Peter to Mary one Thursday in August, “would be to creep in and take a quiet look about on the off chance that just possibly there might be a little something worth nibbling.”
“And if one ever found anything,” she replied, “it would be that field mouse’s last meal. The poor thing would never leave this house alive. You’d fight for that nibble to the bitter end.”
“And why not?” asked Peter. “If it’s a mouse’s life against mine, I intend to do my best.”
But no. It seemed to be generally understood among local field mice that there was never anything worth nibbling in that house.
“Never waste your time on it,” one old dowager field mouse kept reminding her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, and incidentally her great-great grandchildren. “It’s not that they don’t know how to set a good table, but they never have anything to set, the poor dears. Just a table, and not much of a table at that. I’m sure I don’t know how those two old people ever manage to keep body and soul together.”
This so worked upon the sympathies of a certain young field mouse that one day when it found a nice piece of cheese in a rich man’s pantry it nearly brought it to Peter and Mary. It nearly did so, but while thinking of how much they were going to enjoy it, the little fellow grew so excited that it ate the cheese all up. The heart of the little field mouse was in the right place, but unfortunately, so was its stomach. And that’s where the cheese went.
So the field mice kept away from the house. Not even passing tramps came to the back door to beg for food. There was just as much back door to the house as there was food inside it, which means there wasn’t any back door at all.
This made no difference anyway. The moment a tramp set eyes on the house, he would lose his appetite. This, in a way, was a good thing because the tramp wasn’t hungry any more, which is nearly as good as having had a delicious dinner, but not quite so good. The tramp would go away without his appetite but also without the pleasant memory of having tasted anything nice to eat. This would make him feel puzzled, and tramps hate to feel that way because it makes them tired, which they always are anyway, so after all, perhaps it made no difference. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Not much.
To begin with, no magic could ever happen to such a house. Peter and Mary were sure of that. This was one of the reasons why they had never been so fond of the house. Both Peter and Mary, as old as they were, still believed in magic and had believed in it through all the long years of their lives. Every day and every night they had hoped for magic, but so far no magic thing had ever happened to them.
Magic had passed them by.
On this day, Mary was looking out of the window.
She could see nothing much but sun-baked mud and old tin cans. She had seen those same old tin cans so long that she knew them all by heart. That is, she knew exactly where each one of them lay and just how many there were. Peter refused to look at them, because they made him even more hungry than he was. There was nothing green near the house, no grass or bushes, but far off Mary could see tall trees, rolling fields, and green hillsides. They were happy places to be in, cool, amusing places, but the rich farmers and their families lived over there.
And as Mary looked she was thinking of the days when she and Peter had green fields and trees around them and a nice house of their own. And somehow the old smile would not come back to her lips when she turned to look at her husband, for in her heart she was sad and wanting a bit of a change for both of them.
Peter was sitting cheerfully on his stool. He was cheerful because he was making up a poem about the house. He never grew tired of doing this, because it always made him feel better.
Mary listened to him as he announced in a loud voice:
The Unwanted House
By Peter
“This house is only a box —
Oh, dear, what a horrible house! —
It will fall if anyone knocks,
It’s too bare for even a mouse.
“This house has only one room,
So it’s easy to keep the place neat.
There is no space for a broom —
It’s nearly too small for our feet.
“This house has nothing on top.
There isn’t even a cellar.
Wherever you go you must stop —
It simplifies life for the dweller.
“There is nothing to carry or fetch.
A stamp would carpet the floor.
My legs, whenever I stretch,
Must wait till I’ve opened the door.
“My wife, my silly old spouse,
Is feeble and foolish and lame,
She brought me to live in this house.
I hold her entirely to blame.”
There is no telling how long Peter would have kept on with this poem if Mary had not interrupted him.
“Listen to me, old, old man,” she said, “it’s time we were thinking about supper.”
“Very good,” replied Peter, agreeably. “Let’s think about supper.”
So Mary sat down opposite Peter on another stool and both of them thought about supper, which was quite easy to do because there was no supper to think about.
“I’m all tired out thinking about supper,” said Peter at last. “Let’s think about no supper. That’s much more reasonable. I’m no good at thinking about something that isn’t. How do you do it?”
“You just keep on thinking until it is,” said Mary, “or until you see that it’s going to stay isn’t or not.”
“Do you mean,” asked Peter, “that if I sat here and kept on thinking of a nice beef stew for supper we’d really have that stew?”
“If you had any brain to think with,” said Mary, and added, “but you haven’t.”
Now, while Peter was thinking, he was looking at the pages of a seed catalogue. In this book there were lovely pictures. There were pictures of big red tomatoes, pearl white onions, and slim golden carrots. On another page there were pictures of spinach and peas and beans and ears of corn all in their real colors.
And Peter kept looking at these pictures so hard that he began to feel they really were real. They seemed to pop right out of the pages at him and to fall plop into his lap. It was wonderful — almost like magic.
Peter was paying little attention to Mary. He had lived so long with her that he knew the only way to stop her was to let her talk herself tired or until her face became quite blue from lack of breath. So instead of listening to her he got up from his stool and began to get busy.
“I’ll make her a stew for supper,” he said to himself. “I’ll make her a delicious stew and I know just what I’ll call it. I’ll call this stew I’m going to make:
“Catalogue Stew
Created by Peter
Chief Chef of the
Unwanted House
(patent pending)”
Peter had no idea what the last part meant, the “patent pending” part, but he put it down because he had seen it somewhere and also because it made the whole thing sound more and better.
Peter was like that.
CHAPTER 2. Catalogue Stew
NOW, AS HARD as it may be to believe, it just so happens that Catalogue Stew is one of the easiest things in the world to make — that is, if you have a catalogue from a reliable seed house. Peter had the catalogue, and so he found it easy.
First he filled a pot with water and put it on the stove to boil. Then he grabbed the seed catalogue and ran a trembling finger through its pages until he came to the one numbered thirty-two. On this page was a lovely colored picture of some tomatoes, carrots, and onions. With a scream of delight he tore out this page and plunged it into the boiling water, stirring it furiously with a long-handled spoon. As if there weren’t a moment to lose he rushed back to the catalogue and, with a finger trembling more nervously than before, searched through it until he had found page forty-five. This was the page that showed a picture of some spinach, peas, beans, and some beautiful ears of corn.
“In they go,” he shouted as he tore out this page, too, and plunged it into the bubbling water.
After stirring it as furiously as he had the other one, he stooped over the pot and thrust his twitching nose into the rising steam.
“What fragrance!” he murmured, showing the whites of his eyes. “What aroma!”
“You’ll burn it,” cried Mary.
“What?” asked Peter.
“Your nose,” said Mary.
“I have,” said Peter, “but not the stew.”
He rubbed his nose recklessly and once more showed the whites of his eyes, which made him look like a horse that had lost all self-control and didn’t care.
“I can hardly wait until it’s done,” he said, waving the spoon in the air. “Burn, nose, burn. I must smell that stew.”
And once more he plunged his burned nose back into the steam.
Of course, all this sort of thing was more than a little trying for Mary. She was sure now that her husband was far gone in madness.
“Potatoes!” he called out suddenly in a hoarse voice, kicking the stool out of the way in his excitement. “Must have potatoes. Can’t get along without them.”
With this he seized the seed catalogue, and with a finger that fairly danced with nervousness, ran through the pages until he found one showing a handsome group of a large family of potatoes.
“Just the thing!” he cried, and snatching out the page he flung himself at the stove and tossed it into the pot.
“Skins and all,” he shouted gayly. “What do we care!”
His eyes darted about the room until they came to rest on a calendar pasted to the wall. Many years ago the butcher in the village had given Mary this calendar. She had brought it home because there was on it a beautiful picture of a stout-looking leg of lamb. Peter’s eyes lighted up as they studied this picture. The very thing!
“You don’t want that old calendar any more, do you?” he asked. “It’s a used-up year. We spent all the time on it ages and ages ago.”
“Oh, not at all,” said Mary huskily. “Not at all. Go right ahead and take it. Take whatever is left in the house. Why not toss in the curtains for good measure?”
But Peter paid no attention to this last remark. He sprang at the calendar and clawed it from the wall. Then he tore the picture of the leg of lamb into small strips and dropped them into the steaming pot.
“There goes the stew meat,” he explained to Mary with a greedy leer. “Won’t it make a beautiful stew?”
“Magnificent,” said Mary. “Gorgeous.”
She sniffed the air delicately, and for a minute or more she felt quite dizzy. The room smelled of paint and glue and printer’s ink and all sorts of eye-smarting odors. She clung on to her stool to keep herself from falling off it, and through the thick air she tried to smile at her husband.
Suddenly Peter clapped one hand to his head. Then he thought. Then he opened his mouth as wide as it would go. Then noises began to come from his mouth, and these noises turned into words. Peter was singing. He was singing this song which later he called:
CATALOGUE STEW
Also By Peter
“Catalogue Stew. Catalogue Stew.
It’s really quite simple and easy to brew.
Just tear out some pages and toss in the pot
And you will have something as likely as not.
“Catalogue Stew. Catalogue Stew.
Delicious and pungent was page thirty-two,
But page forty-five was the best of them all.
The leg of the lamb I removed from the wall.
“Catalogue Stew. Catalogue Stew.
It’s turning a deep and a desperate blue.
Perhaps it will kill us. Perhaps we will live.
I only regret I’ve but one life to give.
“Catalogue Stew. Catalogue Stew.
It smells not unlike an old bottle of glue.
Just stir with a ladle until it gets thick,
Then gulp it down steaming before it can stick.
“Catalogue Stew. Catalogue Stew.
You swallow a mouthful and then you are through.
The thought came unbidden and lodged in my brain.
That’s why I suspect I’m a trifle insane.
“Catalogue Stew. Catalogue Stew.
Someone may like it — I’d like to know who?
A dog wouldn’t touch it, nor even a cat.
But we will because we’re as hungry as that.”
Mary, who was forced to listen to this noise with words, couldn’t decide which was worse, the song or the stew. Peter seemed to think that both were pretty good.
“For a first sing,” he proclaimed, “that’s not such a bad song. As a matter of fact it’s a splendid song and with each singing it will get splendider and splendider.”
Presently he picked up the pot and carried it to the table.
“Bowls! Bowls!” he cried. “Lucky Mary, she gets first whack.”
Mary looked unhappily around her. She felt that this was about the last healthy moment she would ever know. She wanted to remember it. This terrible stew would certainly be the end of her. Even the smell of it made her feel faint.
Mary dipped the spoon into the bowl and raised it slowly to her lips. Nearer and nearer it came. She closed her eyes and was about to swallow down the stew when there came a loud knocking on the door.
“Let me go,” said Mary quickly, as she put down the spoon untouched. “It’s my place to open the door.”
