Delphi complete works of.., p.252
Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 252
“What was that?” asked several of us eagerly.
“It happened last year at the time of the spring races,” continued Y, “and the person concerned, I mean the person who had the presentiment was my brother George, or perhaps I had better call him merely J.”
“Don’t call him J,” interrupted one of the group. “X’s friend was called J.”
“Very well,” said Y, “I will call my brother G, and will mention that he, G, was at the time to which I refer in Toronto and on his way to the Woodbine Races, or perhaps I had better say he was in T and on his way to the W. Races, or, if you like, to the W. R.
“I happened to meet him, and it seemed to me that he was deeply depressed. ‘Where are you going, G?’ I inquired. ‘To the W. R.,’ he answered, and I’ve got a peculiar presentiment (I think G said “Hunch”) that I am going to get stung.’ I learned later that he went to the races and immediately lost a bet, in dollars, at two hundred to one.”
“Lost two hundred dollars!” we all exclaimed.
“No,” corrected Y, “lost a dollar.”
amazing story by mrs. z
There was a silence for some time after the completion of Y’s narrative, each of us no doubt being engaged in puzzling over the strange case of clairvoyance, or prevoyance, that he had related.
When our conversation was resumed, it was one of the ladies of the group who spoke first. The lady in question, the wife of one of those present (whom I may call Z) and whose wife, therefore, may be designated for our present purpose as Mrs. Z, was an old and valued friend of several of those around the fire.
She was in no way addicted to idle fancies, and was distinguished rather by her matter-of-fact common sense than by a tendency to over-belief. There can, therefore, be no reason to doubt in any way the entire truthfulness of what she told me, incredible though it seems.
“I sometimes think,” began Mrs. Z, “that we women are perhaps endowed with keener faculties towards insight into the future than you men.”
There was a pause of several minutes, after which Mrs. Z continued:
“I certainly have known one case of clairvoyance that made the deepest impression upon my mind, especially as it concerned the most impressive of all portents, the portent of death itself.”
There was a still longer pause, half as long again as the first one, and then Mrs. Z continued once more:
“I had a very dear friend,” she said, “whom I will call G — —”
“I beg your pardon,” said Y quietly. “I must apologize for interrupting, but we agreed to call my brother G.”
“Pray excuse me,” murmured Mrs. Z. “I fear I was lost in my recollections. Suppose, then, that I call my friend M.”
There was a general murmur of assent and then a pause, and then Mrs. Z went on:
“M from her girlhood up, and down, had always been of a highly-strung psychic temperament, much addicted to vivid dreams and profound introspection. Meeting her one day on the street, dressed as if for a journey, I was surprised to learn that she was leaving for Europe immediately. What was my further astonishment when M told me that she had a profound conviction that she was going to be taken ill on the steamer and die on board ship.”
A murmur of something like horror went round the little group.
“And she died on the way?” asked X.
“No,” said Mrs. Z, “that was the strange part of the portent. She reached England safely, spent the summer there, and then after the summer embarked on a ship for Stockholm, in Sweden.”
“And died on board!” we gasped.
“No, got to Stockholm, where she spent the winter.”
Mrs. Z paused. We all waited without speaking, conscious in some way that a tragedy was coming. At length Mrs. Z resumed:
“From Stockholm my friend took a boat for Dantzig, in Germany.”
“And died on it!” we all exclaimed.
“No, she got to Dantzig. And then oddly one day she took a small canal boat for a mere passage of a few hours to Hootch, in Poland.”
No one spoke for some time, and then Y asked very quietly, “Did she die on the canal boat?”
“No,” said Mrs. Z, “she did not.”
After which Mrs. Z fell into a deep silence which we did not care to disturb.
extraordinary experience of q
We therefore remained silent for some time, and indeed it was not until the stillness had grown almost painful that Mr. Q, a young married member of the circle, at length broke the silence. I ought, perhaps, to add that his name is not really Q.
“I suppose,” began Q, “that most of you have the usual prejudice against paid mediums and clairvoyants, and people who undertake for money to read the secrets of the future.”
A murmur that might have been either dissent or assent (or anything else) went around the auditors.
“What about it?” said X firmly.
“Well, at any rate,” said Q, “I always had such a prejudice and had it very strongly till it got rudely shaken a few years ago — shortly after our marriage, in fact.”
“Tell us the circumstances,” we all exclaimed with immediate interest, our faculties instantly alert.
“They were these,” said Q. “My wife and I were newly married, and there were certain things about our future that we were most anxious to find out. We went to a professional medium, Madame Zend Avesta, a Persian, I believe, though she spoke English as well as I do. I saw from her card in a magazine, however, that she was a native of Ispahan, and had been second assistant prognosticator to the Shah.”
There was a pause. No one felt inclined to urge Q to begin again, but presently he began.
“This woman actually told us some of the most extraordinary things. She foretold that I would be moved by my firm to Milwaukee, that I would get an increase of salary, that an uncle would leave me ten thousand dollars — in fact, a heap of things.”
We literally held our breath at these staggering disclosures from Mr. Q.
“Yes,” he continued, “we went right to Madame Avesta and put the questions to her. They were a dollar a question, and naturally we had thought them out pretty carefully. I first said to her:
“ ’My firm talks of moving me to Milwaukee. Am I going there?’
“ ’Yes,’ she answered without a second’s hesitation.
“I gave her a dollar. ‘Uncle John,’ I said, ‘always promised to leave me ten thousand dollars. He died in New Orleans a week ago. Has he done it?’
“ ’He has,’ she answered.
“I was so amazed and astounded at the evident ease of her clairvoyance that, after paying her another dollar, I ventured to put a question of even more moment.
“ ’Our manager, Mr. Niel,’ I explained, ‘promised me before last Christmas that I would have an increase of $1,000 a year this coming spring. Do I get it?’
“ ’You do,’ she said.
“We asked her in all about twenty-five questions before we desisted, which we did not do until our money ran out and Madame Avesta said that her contact was weakening.”
“And did the prophecies come true?” asked several of us breathlessly — in fact, we had not recovered our breath since Q began.
“Most of them,” said Q, “or, at any rate, without exaggeration I should say that fifty per cent., or something very close to it, turned out to be absolutely correct.”
A long silence followed the conclusion of Q’s relation. After which we rose quietly one by one, groped our way out of the house, and then groped home as best we could.
Rural Urbanity
SHOWING HOW THE Country is Now Certified Citified
About a generation ago the country newspaper was an unfailing source of merriment for the city people. There were columns of personal news items from such places as Price’s Corners and East Pefferlaw, which announced that Miss Posie Possum was over Sunday with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Hamcake; that Edward Falls was back around town for a week Sunday (good boy, Ed! come again), and that some of our young people were over to Fesserton Friday, where a good time was had by all.
There was the description of the tea social held in the meeting-house on the town line, where forty-two people sat down to forty-two buckets of strawberries with forty-two quarts of ice cream, the pastor being untiring in his efforts, after which Cherry Blossom recited Hiawatha’s farewell to Mudgekewiss and a collection was taken in silver by Miss Phœbe Floss, aged 12.
There was the entertainment in the schoolhouse and — but there is no need to enumerate all these things. Everybody has read of them or has read parodies of them.
The point is, however, that all this is entirely changed. What with the motor-car and the rural telephone, hydro-electric power and the radio, the normal school and the speedway and the community movement, the farmers’ Rotary Club and the Farm Girls’ Social Improvement Circle, the country has become quite unrecognizable.
It is more citified than the city itself, and the only country left is in the immediate suburbs of the city where they keep hens in Maplewood and grow garden peas in Floraldale and have a local paper that likes to talk of the weather and the chance of raising ducks in the pond in the park.
But as for the country itself, you have only to compare the local press of the parody days, say in 1898, and the up-to-date local press of 1930. Put together, for example, side by side, the columns of the Midge’s Corners Sentinel and Advocate, 1898, and the columns of the paper into which it has developed by merging with three other Sentinels and two other Advocates under the name of the Midge’s Corners Metropolitan.
rural transports
1898. We noticed Wednesday friend Ed Wildman out for a spin with a lady friend in his new top buggy. We have seldom seen anything that struck us as daintier or cleaner.
1930. We observed with interest on Wednesday afternoon our friend Mr. Edward Wildman, Junior, trying out a circling flight in his new two-seater monoplane.
Mr. Wildman was accompanied by a lady passenger, who seemed thoroughly to enjoy the exhilarating and exciting sport. They effected their landing on the top of Joe Thompson’s new barn, which has been adapted for the purposes of an aerodrome. We congratulate the young people in helping to encourage aeronautics in this section. We are informed that it is in the air that the aeronautic society of the Corners will soon put up an aerodrome, the need for which is felt by all the farming community.
personal items
1898. Charlie Neal was around all last week, looking pretty spry. Charlie still has work in the city and tells us he is making big money. Well done, Charlie!
1930. We were glad to observe Mr. Charles Neal, the financier, as a visitor last week to this district, once his boyhood home. We understand that Mr. Neal is now planning a merger of the United States Steel Corporation with the principal European steel interests. We are certain that he will receive warm local support.
vagrants in trouble
1898. Two of our boys from the Corners, Archie Riddell and Joe Thayer, got safely back from the City to-day after a pretty hard experience. Archie and Joe lost their cash to a stranger, found themselves stranded with nowhere to go and with no knowledge of the city. Being naturally ignorant of where to look for help, the boys might have fared badly but for the kind offices of a city constable who got the boys safely on their home train. Our advice to our young people is to keep away from the city till they are of sufficient years and experience to be able to go there without risk.
1930. Two unfortunate youths from the city found their way somehow to the Corners yesterday. They seem to have been mere immigrant youngsters acquainted only with the city and ignorant of everything. Some smart young local slicker, it seems, had relieved them of their cash. Quite unable to look after themselves, having never been out of the city, they might have fared badly but for the kind offices of our local constable, who put them on the train for the city. Our advice to young people in the city is they should not attempt to leave it until they reach years of experience.
correspondence
1898
The Editor,
The Midge’s Corners Sentinel and Advocate.
Dear Sir:
I think that some of your readers need to be reminded that the culvert on the fourth concession is still not yet fixed right and more than one team has been through the top of it, endangering the horses’ legs, to say nothing perhaps of human life. Now, Mr. Editor, I think it is high time our people showed more public spirit in a thing like this culvert, which is a public danger. Mr. Nath. Gordon, as all know, has offered time and again to set it straight either on time and material or for money, and so far our Solons of the township council have done nothing about it. I think, sir, that if the farmers of the section would pay a little less interest to their own concerns and a little more to general interests of the world such as this culvert, it would be a good thing. Thanking you for the esteemed use of your valued space.
correspondence
1930
The Editor,
The Midge’s Corners Metropolis.
Dear Sir:
The rather meager attendance at the Open Forum debate over the grocery on the League of Nations seems to show a lamentable lack of public spirit in this community. The failure of Poland to give a proper guarantee for the status quo of the Dantzig corridor is a matter that ought not to be complacently accepted by the people of our district. Most of our farmers, I am certain, are not in favor of a Polish sovereignty over an enclave of non-Slavonic groups, but if so they ought to speak out more definitely. I hope that this section will soon let the world know what it thinks.
the crops and the weather
1898. Josh Peters says that the signs are for a bumper crop in this section as soon as the warm spell opens up. There is less fur on the chipmunks, so Josh tells us, and less tail on the woodchucks than for many seasons, and the tail feathers of the crows are thinning out already. All this points to hot, dry weather and a good growing season. Tell us some more, Josh.
1930. Mr. Josiah Peterson has just prepared an interesting statistical forecast of the grain crop of this section, printed in another column of this paper, and based on an index average covering the last twenty years, with 1913 as the base. The humidity curve on Mr. Peterson’s chart shows a high upward tendency, with an average barometric pressure of over 94 per cent. Mr. Peterson estimates the world price of wheat at $1.51 cents, with a crop of 21.58 bushels to the acre, omitting, however, the Argentine and Soviet Russia, for both of which his calculations fall short of certainty.
music
1898. The school concert last week was voted by all a success. Miss Posie McPhee sang “Pull for the Shore, Sailor,” and Miss Ettie Tomlinson sang “Yes, We Will Gather at the River.” Both were encored and both sang their songs again, the conclusion being applauded by all present.
1930. The Ladies’ Every Other Morning Club held its second Chamber Music Recital yesterday in the school house, presenting an excellent program, both vocal and instrumental. Miss Posie McPhee’s singing of “O! Qual Orrore!” and her interpretation of “O! Quel Inferno!” scored a decided hit, while the rendition of Handel’s “Largo” in nine flats by Miss Ettie Tomlinson on the pianoforte was decidedly one of the triumphs of the local musical season. If we may venture a criticism, we would say that possibly the Price’s Corners’ quartet in presenting Braga’s “Serenata” took the aria with a little too much brio, a fault that further experience will easily rectify.
foreign news
1898. A letter has reached us all the way from London, England, where Ed. Farrell reached safely last month after a voyage across the entire Atlantic. Ed. says that London is a great place. Mr. Farrell arrived there on the 10th ult. and his letter, dated on the 15th, arrived here yesterday. In another column we publish his description of the interior of Westminster Abbey as seen from the outside.
1930. The news that Mussolini has a cold, posted on the grocery window, attracted quite a crowd last night. Considerable expressed alarm.
IV
COLLEGE NOW AND COLLEGE THEN
All Up!
AVERAGE LIFE AT the Average College, as Gathered from the Pages of Any College Daily at Any Alma Mater
Monday, First of the Month. Extracts from the Daily Ding Dong, Alma Mater College.
All up, Boys, for the big basket-ball game to-night. We want to see every man turn out and root and shout for Alma Mater. Remember, this is the first big game there has been for ten days, and there will be no other for over a week. Every man up! We want every man who has proper college spirit to be right there in the grand stand, rooting. You can buy right on the spot a program that will tell you who the players are, and how the game is played, and how to know which side is which. All up!
But at the same time: ——
Don’t forget that before the game begins you have time to come and hear the Banjo and Mandolin Semi-Final Tryout in Hoot-It-Up Hall. All free, no charge. Remember that the Banjo Club and the Mandolin League need support. These things can’t live on mere love of music. They need enthusiasm, they need rooting, they need support. They need you. One dollar a year from every student at Alma Mater will buy a banjo for every man in the fourth year.
But, remember, best of all! Everybody up for the big all-alma-mater sorority and frat feed right after the big basket-ball game! Buy your flowers early, as the College Chrysanthemum Shop reports a big run already. We want to see everybody at this feed and dance! It will be the last dance but two before the final three. Don’t miss it! All up!
We call your attention also to our advertising columns under the head of where to go after the dance. Do you want a cozy feed for a dozen or so at a table and a high-class cabaret show? Drop in at the Students’ Alma Mater Union. Cover charge, only two dollars.
So ends Monday.
Tuesday, Second of the Month. The Daily Ding Dong Speaks Again.
