Sing Nonino! The Sports Of Winter

A Protest Against the Growing Spirit of Professionalism in Our Week-Ends

COREY FORD

I THINK that the American week-end should be regulated. It has become a grim business; the guest has got to be entertained if it kills him. Which is why I develop that old throat trouble whenever an invitation from the Wadsworth Swivels arrives in the mail.

"George," I said huskily over the telephone (George Furbish; friend of mine. Good chap, but he does put Lucky Strikes in a Benson and Hedges box) "arc you going?"

"Swivel's?" asked George. "O, God, I suppose so. What do you think? "

"What docs the weather say?" I suggested; and I heard George mutter to himself: "Weather! Weather!" and there was a rustle of newspapers. "Hum . . ."

Presently George replied, in the dull and measured tones of a business man who is reading aloud: " 'Fair and continued . . . cool today and . . . tomorrow strong . . . northeasterly winds highest temperature hmm! It seems to say clear," he announced to me.

"That sounds safe," I ventured cautiously.

"O, God, I suppose so," sighed George.

"And they do serve your breakfast in your room," I added hopefully.

"That's something," conceded George.

"And I can trust his boot-legger," I continued, 'hand it's too late in the year for those morning dips, and too early for polo, and as for hiking, Mr. Swivel has fallen arches—"

"Sold," said George. "Shall we make the ten-thirty? "

IT IS just about this time of year that Mr. and Mrs. Wadsworth Longfellow Swivel (invested heavily in American Can at fifty) throw open their little lodge at Placid for the week-end; and a merry party they make of it. Not that Mrs. Swivel's parties ever actually go in for vice and depravity. When I say that an evening there is broad, it is only because I am looking at it stretching across the face of the clock from eight to two-thirty. It is wild in the sense of a native wood-note.

But if you are one of those who gather from this that a week-end at Liberty Hall has any place in it for a comfortable moment with last summer's Literary Digest, or a quiet discussion of Dostoievsky before the cobble-stone fireplace, you may as well let yourself down from the bath-room window on the cord of your dressing-gown and prowl away toward the railroad tracks before the break of day; for you arc likely to find out your mistake in almost no time at all.

Dear Mrs. Swivel has the idea of a hostess down to a nicety. She has read that the secret of a good party is to keep things moving; and now that her guests have come all that distance to enjoy themselves, she, for one, is going to see that they do it. She prowls about the house all day long, like a panther; and not a chimneycorner escapes her. Just as you arc congratulating yourself on the prospect of a quiet round of solitaire, she appears grimly with a snowshoe in one hand and a woolen skating-cap in the other. Then there are only two wavs out; and the other would make such a nasty stir in the papers.

On the face of it, things looked safe enough when we arrived. Flic ground was hard and bare, and the very suggestion of a snow-storm would have been laughed down as absurd. That evening found us all in a jovial and reckless mood. We were seated before the iireplace in coats and shawls, with gusts of wood-smoke in our eyes and icy drafts on the backs of our necks—Mrs. Swivel explained that the house was entirely heated by open fires, though there were those of us who doubted her statement— and George was taking the opportunity to lament the fact that the absence of snow alone prevented him from exhibiting his skill on skis.

"Used to do quite a bit of it at St. Moritz," he was saying. "Carried off a couple of cups; amateur, of course . . ."

"Mainly snow-shoeing,myself," I continued, taking the cue. "Sure wish we could have had a chance to get back on one of those old snowshoes again!" And I pointed sentimentally to a pair of tennis-rackets on the wall.

"Rotten shame there's no snow," interrupted George hurriedly. "Like to have had a chance to get out a little. Well, you can't have eventiling ... a bit too much ginger-ale, Swivel old man, you might stick in a little more Scotch." And we all shook our heads over the lack of snow; and presently wandered off for just one rubber of bridge (a rubber which stretched, as it happened, till after three-thirty) leaving the general impression about that we could have fairly mopped up with the Placid Tournament, or Canada, if we cared a snap about it.

THAT is why Mrs. Swivel was so delighted when we woke up the following morning to find the drifts half over the windows, and all the water in and around Liberty Hall frozen as solid as the Grand Central Terminal.

Now, as far as Winter goes (and that is plenty far enough) I have always been able to take it or leave it alone. I don't want to seem to take any mean blows at Mother Nature, but there are several things about Winter that I never could work up any enthusiasm over. One of them is the cold weather.

Another has been dubbed "Winter Sports". It is well to recall in this connection that they also call the Subway System a System, and the Telephone Service a Service.

Winter Sports are perfectly all right in their way, so long as they don't get in mine. I can stagger from one den of vice to another, and tear the commandments as. wide open as the next; but somehow I just don't take my fun out in the snow that way. If there is a Bob-Sled Party to be had, I can usually be found at home before the fire with a good book. Unfortunately this free-and-easy attitude toward winter sports, this takc-it-or-leave-it spirit that I have in mind, has utterly failed to enter into Mrs. Swivel's conception of a good time.

Directly after breakfast there was the skiing to be got out of the way. This little game, as I gather it from the original diagrams drawn by Peter F. Ski, a Swiss inventor, depends, oddly enough, on the very same principles that put the Temperance Society on its feet—keep to the straight and narrow path, and don't spread yourself.

"Nothing to it," Mrs. Swivel reassured us happilv, "just strap the skis to your feet, and there! you are off down the hill like the wind, while the scenery rushes by now sideways, now at an angle." She glowed with enthusiasm. "The thrill that comes once in a lifetime!"

"Usually at the very end," I muttered, surveying the hillside dubiously.

IT WAS a rather silent and forlorn little line that tagged single-file up the mountainside. Not a few of us were mumbling to ourselves, and there was a sort of finality about the last hand-clasp that was not at all pleasant. I stood and watched the rest of the party take off down the slide one by one. George was the last to go.

"Bv the way, George," I called after him, "don't forget that barbed-wire fence that we crossed on the way up." I don't believe he heard me.

It occurred to me that I was left quite alone; and since it seemed rather a pity to take off with nobody watching me, I put the skis under my arm and walked back down the path the way I had come. To my surprise I was the first to arrive at the foot of the slide.

"Well, what's been keeping you folks?" I called, as the little line presently appeared floundering down through the snow with their skis under their arms. "I didn't see any of you as I passed."

No one spoke.

"Been rather cold waiting here," I said reproachfully.

There was a loaded silence.

"The thrill that comes once in a lifetime," I reminded them pleasantly "Fh, George?"

"Never mind, old boy," snarled George, limping ahead of me. "You've survived for the ice-skating."

Now I don't go to say I am any dub at skates. In my heyday I could write my initials with the best of them, and what times I fell on the ice I think I did it with a certain air, as though I had really intended to fall all the time, and it was no surprise to me.

But out on the lake near Liberty Hall things were different. It was particularly cold, for one thing, and my hands were pretty numb before I got mv skates on. And then I delayed everybody a little longer by mislaying one of my fingers. I assured Mrs. Swivel that I had had all ten fingers when I started; but the whole crowd searched a good half hour, and evervbodv got thoroughly chilled and angry with me for being so careless, before George final!v discovered that I had buckled it, by mistake into my skate.

We took the better part of the afternoon going around the cove once. Mrs. Swivel thought it was wisest not to hit it too hard the first day, and there were those of us who agreed with her thoroughly.

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"Mrs. Swivel says ice-skating is like everything else," reminded George nastily, as he helped me to my feet for the eighth time. "It has its ups and downs."

"That statement," I replied, feeling my elbow tenderly, "is just about half true."

There is nothing quite like a BobSled Party to come at the end of a crowded, happy day at Liberty Hall. Of course, a word might be said for fooling with nitroglycerine, or spending a night with the African headhunters; but for real excitement and sensations a Bob-Sled Party has it on all of them. As Mrs. Swivel says herself, fun isn't the word for it. In fact, I could think up a much better word myself.

In the first place, Mrs. .Swivel gave the idea of sex a run for its money, and added just that touch of spice to the evening by working out a couple of racy little schemes of her own in the seating arrangements. It was on the way up the hill, for example, that George discovered he was scheduled to make the trip holding onto Miss Kinney, whose teeth ought to straighten out nicely by the time she is twentythree. For my own part I learned that my bachelordom was slated for an ugly bruise that night when Mrs. Swivel paired me off with Miss McAnkle, a regular girl, you know, just a real good pal, with a Radcliffe sweater and a slight moustache, As a match-maker Mrs. Swivel was much sought after—sometimes with rifles.

"Come on!"*shouted our hostess as she reached the top of the hill, leaping on the Bob-Sled and beckoning us to follow. "A real Bob-Sled—whirling downhill—off we go! Hurrah!"

"What happens if you fall off:" whispered George.

"You stick upside down until somebody finds you," explained Mrs. Blackwood dubiously, "or the snow melts."

"By the way, isn't there a trolley line at the bottom of this hill?" I suggested hesitatingly.

"Come on, com on!" called Mrs. Swivel, sitting on the front of the sled and calling back of us over her shoulder, "Climb aboard! Feal thrill! Let's go! We live only once!"

"That," I muttered, "is precisely the point."

Now, how it happened I have r.c idea, but just at .this moment ct neone's foot accidentally touched the runners ever so slightly; and the next moment, with a hip and a hurrah, and several piercing screams Mrs. Swivel solitary on her Bob-Sled, was off like a flash down the hill.

"Funny way for a hostess to act," I grumbled.

"Leaving us all alone," muttered George. "Fancy that!"

"By the way," I mentioned casually, "there's a nine-fifteen back to the city tonight."

"So?" said the rest of the group with a show of interest.