The New Mother Goose

What Has Become of Mary's Little Lamb, Now That the Fiction Magazines Are With Us?

E. E. CUMMINGS

MOTHER Goose is supposed to be for children. A grown-up individual who openly absorbed vast quantities of Mother Goose would be considered mentally deranged; in fact, the friends of such a freak would probably have him immediately psycho-analysed. If analysis proved unsuccessful and the patient persevered in his passionate penchant for "Mary had a little lamb", he would no doubt be gagged, handcuffed, forcibly fed, made to kiss the American flag and placed in an institution for the feeble-minded.

Why, then, are multitudes of "mature" people violently encouraged to indulge ad libitum in preferences which are not—like lively Mary and Mary's lively lamb—merely childish but are positively infantile? We refer to that deadly preference for the so-called "fiction magazine", which fires scientifically aimed salvos of high-powered idiocy all over the civilized world at regular intervals, causing millions upon millions of mental casualties. And we point out that this imposing masterpiece of human unintelligence proves, upon examination, to be nothing more nor less than an infantile perversion of something originally childish. Indeed, when we inspect the fiction magazines carefully, we find (hidden within a lyrical sheath of atmosphere, innuendo, balderdash, etcetera) the Mother Goose epic of Mary and her little lamb.

The readers of Vanity Fair who find this assertion surprising will experience heartfailure anent the statement following. We maintain that the changes rung on Mother Goose by writers of cheap magazine fiction are not, as would appear at first glance, innumerable. A patiently conducted inquiry tends to show that only three fundamental variations actually exist. These fundamental variations,—thanks to whose lyrical quality the underlying childish epic is often so obscured as to become well nigh unintelligible— deserve titles. Accordingly we have entitled them: the Heart Kick, the Soul Kick and the Kick Direct. The first is the technique of pure or pastoral sentimentality; the second, of fancy million-volt emotion; the third wings straight to first principles and resuscitates the technique of that mediaeval favourite, Peeping Tom.

NO matter what its setting, atmosphere, plot, it dialect, every cheap fiction magazine projectile is loaded with "Mary had a little lamb" and primed with one or more of these three standardised Kicks. For illustration: suppose we pick up the first fiction magazine in sight—mentioning no names—which happens to be incurably addicted to the highly inexcusable vice of Heart Kicking. Upon opening this magazine at random, our bewildered eyes immediately encounter lyrical applesauce of the following infantile brand (or worse):

"An old man, seated in the yellow glow of a barn lantern, fingered his violet suspenders thoughtfully. Her birthday! A musing look, coupled with incessant moisture, stole into the gently puzzled eyes, causing their owner from time to time to remove clouded spectacles from a vigorous, well-modelled nose, about which something of the nobility of youth indelibly lingered."

Are we awake? Can this be the twentieth century? Help!

"For Herb Rattlesnake, one thing anti one thing only really mattered: the child whose tumbling curls and wistful smile he had just tucked into the tiny white crib, stooping a little longer than usual over this wee being, who looked up so trustingly with his dead sister Sarah's mouth anil ears, because tomorrow was her birthday.

"Then he had gone to the barn to think."

WE recognise the 'Gene O'Neill touch about tbe barn and feel reassured.

"He always went to the barn to think. Perhaps it was the almost inaudible murmur of the peacefully slumbering animals, or the deep, soothing aroma of lofts piled with newly cut hay, which disposed old Herb's mind to thought. Herb probably could not have told you himself, but anyhow, his old feet always began going to the barn whenever something had turned up that required thinking. And now, the old man's mind was focussed feverishly on a question of the gravest importance —a question which directly concerned, not himself, but someone a thousand times dearer to him than himself: little Mary."

With pleasure we note the entrance of the main theme.

"What should he give her for her birthday? Over and over again, as he sat alone in the old barn, Herb had asked Providence to help him decide. What could he give her, beyond the unfaltering love which had always been hers from the day when she first looked at the world through timid, mischievous baby eyes? His old spectacles fogged so much at this reminiscence that Herb Rattlesnake had to take them off and wipe them with the very same brightly checkered bandana handkerchief which he had faithfully carried ever since that never-to-be-forgotten day, thirty odd years ago, when Sarah had brought it to him as a birthday present from Boston."

But, thank Heaven, we are about to get a little action.

"All at once, the old man started violently from his reverie. A cry—an almost human cry—had echoed through the barn's tranquil silence. Hastily, fumblingly, Herb adjusted the spectacles on his nose, tucked the precious bandana in the left hip pocket of his tattered old overalls, seized the lantern from its hook and stood, erect, listening. Yes! Again the cry —this time even more almost human, more obviously fraught with incipient meaning— came to his straining ears.

"'Wal, I swan,' the old man murmured rapidly. 'If it ain't that sheep, by tunket!' And as he tottered rapidly down a rickety flight of stairs leading to the sheep-pen. the rays of his lantern casting abrupt halos here and there on planks and timbers, his old heart beat wildly with the realization that Providence had answered his prayer and problem! He had asked Providence to help him find a fit ting present for Mary; and Providence had spoken (as Providence always will, when the heart really and truly asks) by sending Mar\ a little lamb."

Now really and truly, gentle reader, such twaddle occurs in fiction magazines not only occurs, but buds; not only buds, but blossoms like the rose. Even as these very words are written, Providence alone can tell how many minds are eagerly lapping up yards and miles of it.

Heart kicking, however, is not a bit more prevalent than Soul Kicking. No, indeed. Breathes there a man with soul so dead who never has enjoyed one genuine, undiluted, high-powered Soul Kick? How about the movies? Where do our five hundred a week scenario writers get nine-tenths of their inspiration? From unambiguous bunk of this unmitigated variety, to be sure:

"The tear-strained echo of David Lamb's confession died and was immediately buried by silence. He waited for an eternity, but still she did not speak. Then he rose slowly through the moon-streaked air which suffused their diminutive pup-tent with magic odours of the mysteriously throbbing jungle and strode to the open flap of the tent-door, moving his putteed legs gradually one after the other like some defeated beast, clenching and unclenching hands which resembled not so much enormous and pathetic paws as empty and quivering symbols of despair."

OF course, this might all have occurred in a suite at the Kitz, or even in New Mexico, but Africa is a trifle more picturesque.

"Her immovable gaze pursued him mutely to the tent-door where his height, pausing for one awful moment, hung itself: a picture of overgrown agony, framed in the bloodcurdling shriek of a pygmy head-hunter.

"'Goodbye,' he dimly articulated, through wisdom teeth."

Richard Dix, the film actor, at seven hundred a day, would do that part well. Anil now for the familiar miracle.

"Somehow the girl's limp spirit tensed with pity for this big, helpless, tortured boy and the orange with which she had been nervously toying rolled to the tent-floor with a soundless crash as in her pale eyes there flashed a ruddy fire. Her slim, voluptuous form sprang from the patented folding camp cot like a jaguar and landed beside him: alert, angelic, luminous.

" 'Stop!' she guttered."

Nor does it take a crystal gazer to see Gloria Swanson guttering for the movies at two dollars a minute.

"Her interlocutor swung round, his gaze squarely fixed upon her.

" 'Goodbye,' his teeth repeated, dark with anguish. And his lips added, 'I'm going.'

" 'Don't,' she commanded quietly.

Continued on page 82

Continued from page 65

This time it was his tongue which spoke: "Why not—Mary?''

"Because—I forgive you. Dave.''

And with those wondrous words site wilted toward him hungrily—not daemon nor angel, hut Woman.

".My Mary!" Feeling seven feet tall in his newly purchased happiness, he turned to her a face crucified by emo-

"My Lamb!"

And all of Mary's soul-transfigured loveliness allowed itself to he irrevocably swallowed by her Lamb's awaiting arms. . . .

With these few, well-chosen words we leave the Soul Kick and turn to the third or final variation: the Kick Direct (and long may it wave) —

"O—" She blushed, from the brim of her stylish but faded cloche hat to the buckles of her modish hut worn suede slippers.

"W by not? he asked coolly.

I he question seemed to sear Mary's flesh and her young voice quivered.

lie pointed briefly. "Behind that screen ..."

Desperately, her eyes sought his. "But . . . but ..."

Abruptly, L'Estrade turned, went to a corner of the studio and picked up a palette and some camel's-hair brushes.

"Everything?" Her very syllables throbbed.

"Of course ..." the artist replied in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone, adding, "Hurry please ... I have at: inspiration." »

His voice, or was it his manner, oi something about the magnetism of his flowing necktie, seemed to hypnotize her and, moving as if in a trance Mary Dolittle stepped behind the fateful screen . . .

The audience is respectfully requested to observe the three little dots motif. No word in the entire diction ary, no phrase in the whole language, is as valuable to a composer of the Kick Direct type of magazine fiction as these unassuming yet indispensable little dots. Without their assistance the author is worse than helpless. With them alone he can do wonders. They are his quid pro quo and his sine qua non, his urim and thummin, his indestructible, always dependable Cape Cod lighter which makes the greenest log burn merrily.

And stories with the Kick Direct invariably end as follows:

About a week later, Lucille came running up to Mary on the street, Lucille was all excitement. "My dear, where have you been?" she cried. "Everyone at the biscuit factory is asking. I told them you had the mumps but nobody believed it." Then, with a sudden change of expression: "What a beautiful mink coat! What happened to your old coat with the lamb collar?"

"I ... I lost it," Mary murmured softly.