by W. C. Fields
To give you an example of my comprehension of infant psychology, on my last swing around the corn-belt states, I always carried a number of sterilized blindfolds, which I would casually place over each baby's eyes before I kissed it. This prevented its growth from being stunted through terror.
It was more than any other candidate was willing to do for American babyhood, and, believe me, the parents of the nation appreciated my thoughtfulness.
Rarely a day passes that I do not receive letters from anxious mothers soliciting my advice and counsel on the care of their nippers. Only last Sunday morning I was reading one of these pathetic missives as I trudged down to the cellar in search of a eucalyptus log (I always keep a supply of these on hand in case I contract a dry throat).
The letter was from one Mrs. G. Waldo Pearlfender and it read, in part: "What can we do with our three-year-old Junior? He becomes positively violent whenever we try to give him a bath."
It was an interesting coincidence that just at the moment I was reading those lines my gaze fell on an old washing machine—ball-bearing with a rubber crank—which I bought for Mrs. Fields as a wedding present. It is outmoded now, but it was considered a whiz in its day. Mrs. F. was very proud of it and often sobbed audibly with sentiment as she heaved at the crank.
But, gentle readers, the point is that the moment I viewed that noble engine, I knew what I would write to Mrs. Pearlfender. "My dear Mrs. P.," I would caution her, "due to an unfortunate experience of my own, I have come to the conclusion that bathing children too often is apt to be extremely dangerous."
Only too well do I remember the above mentioned incident. It occurred when my nephew Kermit came to live with us twenty years ago. During the first month we tried to put the little fellow in the bathtub twice. Once he stuck his baby foot down my throat and, on another occasion, in my eye. Ultimately Mrs. F. and myself seized him unawares and emptied him into the washing machine. Mrs. F. then fell to at the crank, and little Kermit bounded about in the vat with a heartwarming rattle. We repeated this treatment several times with good results. Alas, one day while Mrs. F. was doing yeoman's work at the crank, I was called away to the telephone and forgot to tell her when to stop. Half an hour later I descended to the cellar—and she was still cranking. "Halt!" I cried, and snatched the cover off the vat. Too late! The soapy water had shrunk Kermit to the size of my grandfather's beaver hat. If I had not had the presence of mind to run him hastily through the wringer, thereby bringing him back to his normal height, he might have spent the rest of his life as a midget with the circus. As it is, poor Kermit is still only a shell of his former self.
"The soapy water had shrunk Kermit to the size of my grandfathers beaver hat"
My Little Chickadee (© 1940, Universal Pictures)
Over and above that experience, I thought of my own father's deep distrust of water. In Daddy's time there were many normal citizens who thought water a pleasant refreshment, never dreaming of its diabolical effects. Papa in '78 journeyed up the River of Doubt with a party of explorers headed by the then-eminent Dr. Hugo Phirst. One afternoon their boat capsized and their supply of medicinal spirits floated down to the mouth of the turbulent, cayman-infested stream. Thenceforth poor Father was compelled to rely on water—for the first time in fifty years. He contracted yellow fever as a result, and though he was not the type to say, "I told you so," he was very cross about the whole incident.
In the light of both these unfortunate experiences, I finally concluded that a program of moderation was what Mrs. Pearlfender needed. There should be a board of mediation set up, consisting of, say, a senator, a jurist and an industrial head—all of whom must be men both Junior and Mrs. P. trusted implicitly—and that board should decide just when Junior was to be dunked and how often.
I must acknowledge that the inspiration for this brilliant plan of mine came directly from Mr. John L. Lewis's N. L. R. B., the miraculous success of which has left us all a little dazed. It has long been a mystery to me why the present incumbent of the White House, Franklin D. Roosevelt, doesn't form such a board of moderators for himself.
Indeed, moderation is my middle name (though I do not often use it in signing legal documents). The value of moderation I learned from my very wise mother when I myself was but a tot. I was a restless little fellow, possessed of a lusty mezzo-soprano larynx. At twelve-thirty each night I was wont to make the frame of "Bless Our Happy Home" tremble on the wall. At such times my good mother would wake and carry me to and fro about the nursery. After a half-hour of this she would cry out exhaustedly to my father, "John, you come and carry the thing!" One warm night in July I was in particularly good voice, and my mother carried me for a good three-quarters of an hour. Then she gasped to my father, "John, you carry the thing!" Father came and carried me violently all over the house for over an hour. Finally, with a scream of despair, he carried me right out of the house and down to Joe's Place where he washed down some potato chips with a glass of cheer. I can still remember the stern but self-composed look on my mother's face as she swept majestically into that barroom after Father. She looked straight into his eye. "John," she said evenly, "this is what I call carrying the thing too far."
While still phrasing my answer to Mrs. P. in my mind, I found a suitable eucalyptus log and started for the stairs. My eye lit once more on the trusty washing machine, and I speculated sadly on the fact that the women of today must dress and taxi to gymnasium clubs for their exercise. There they must content themselves with a rowing machine, or tossing a medicine ball, which is much heavier than a washbasket, and more awkward, having no handles.
I was just about to mount the stairs when the doorbell rang violently. It gave me such a start that I ascended the stairs three to five at a time—in my excitement I forgot to count the exact number. Suffice to say that when I opened the front door, there before me stood Mrs. Neville Pratt, a friend of long standing. She had run down hastily from a near-by nudist camp without even stopping to comb her hair.
"Godfrey Daniel! What brings you here?" I cried. "Aren't you cold without your gloves?" I invited her into my tastefully arranged sitting room and sat her down on our horse-hair sofa. I stood silent as she gazed blankly at the opposite wall, where hung a stuffed giant sardine under glass, bagged by a distant relative of my family, and a tapestry that pictured two well-fed beagle hounds, one with a pheasant in his mouth and the other just staring off in the general direction of the umbrella stand.
"Come, speak!" I said, admiring her artistic long fingers, meticulously groomed.
"I suppose you wonder why I came to you at this unearthly hour?" she whispered hoarsely.
She had me flummoxed. Does she want to borrow the lawn mower? I asked myself.
She spoke again: "It is about our little Nathaniel. Last Wednesday we had the brace taken off his teeth, and he has wept bitterly ever since. What, Mr. Fields, oh, what are we to do?"
"Madam!" I cried, deeply shocked. "Do you mean to tell me you have no comprehension of the child mind? Without his brace he feels positively undressed!"
"... it takes only a little discernment to solve the problems of youth. Understanding that comes of a willingness to enter into their thoughts and feelings — even into their games."
(© 1941, Universal Pictures)
You see, my friends, it takes only a little discernment to solve the problems of youth. Understanding that comes of a willingness to enter into their thoughts and feelings—even into their games. Nothing could illustrate this better than an experience of my own several years ago. During a very hot August I was entrusted with the care of my little godson Nesbit, and every day without fail I would take him for a stroll in an improvised carriage made from a soapbox, the sides of which were emblazoned with a well-known manufacturer's name.
One especially warm afternoon I placed Nesbit in the soapbox and wheeled him down to the neighborhood tobacconist. As we approached the gutter on the far side of the street, I doffed my hat to a young lady whom I felt sure I knew.
My heel caught on an Ecuadorian banana peel. I lurched forward, bearing down on the handle of the makeshift gocart. Little Nesbit catapulted into the air and I toppled face-first into his perambulator.
A precipitous hill was before me; I was in a desperate situation. It called for calm nerves and grit. As a boy I was nicknamed "Gritty" by my playmates. As I bumped wildly over the cobblestones I noticed many little boys plunging downhill in contraptions similar to mine. Suddenly a strong breeze whisked my white derby hat into the middle of the street. A horse stepped on it. I was bereft of the last vestige of dignity.
"I placed Nesbit in the soapbox and wheeled him down to the neighborhood tobacconist"
The Old Army Game (Famous Players-Lasky Corp., 1926)
Upon my arrival at the bottom of the hill a gentleman with a flag raised my right hand, patted me on the back and shouted, "The winner of the Soapbox Derby!" I said, "This is a soapbox, all right, but I've lost my derby." The crowd roared with laughter and applauded the clever rejoinder for fully fifteen minutes. Newspaper photographers were flashing bulbs all about me. Women tossed jewelry. Then another official stalked to the fore and rasped, "This little rosy-nosed lad looks more than five to me." So subsequently I was disqualified as being overage (I still think I might have gotten away with it had I had the presence of mind to ditch my cigar). But the resultant publicity made a deep impression on the housewives all over the nation. They realized I was a man who understood the child mind, who could enter into their world with perfect understanding.
That is why, as I previously stated, rarely a day passes that I do not receive letters from busy mothers asking me to take care of their babies for them, offering the union rate of forty cents an hour.
Naturally it would be impossible for a busy man like myself to interrupt my researches at the neighborhood race track for even one afternoon, so into each reply envelope I slip a brief compendium of hints dealing with the most troublesome problems on bringing up children. I regard it as my masterpiece, and out of pure bigness of heart I reprint a bit of it herewith for the benefit of each and every one of my gentle readers.
EXCERPTS FROM THE FIELDS PLAN (SERIES D)
Problem of Diet: A child should never be given pig's knuckles or corn on the cob until the first little toofums have appeared.
Problem of Sleep: Until a tot is at least three, it should be packed off to bed by midnight, even though the party may be just getting really started. It should be warmly covered and have plenty of fresh air. I hesitate, however, to advise that a child sleep outdoors. I tried this practice several times myself but never got a decent night's sleep—policemen were forever waking me up and cautioning me to git goin'.
Problem of Christmas: When a lad is about eight he is apt to become quarrelsome on Christmas Day and insist on playing with his new electric trains. Fathers should be very firm in such cases, asking the boy or girl who he thinks paid for the trains anyway—Santa Claus? (Young ladies have taken me for Santa on so many occasions I'm beginning to hate the name.)
Problem of Education: It is important for boy children, at least, to learn to count money at the age of four, since it is high time that they were out selling papers. If small for its age, the child can sell tabloids.
Problem of Difficult Questions: As a child grows from infancy to adolescence it will, from time to time, belabor you with a series of baffling questions. To lessen the burden on the American parent, I pick three of the knottiest questions and supply Fields-tested, foolproof replies.
1. Question (occurring at the age of four, about two a.m. in the morning): "Daddy, can I have a glass of water?"
Answer: "Certainly, sonny boy, if you'll bring me one, too."
2. Question (age ten): "Daddy, why were you kissing the maid last night?"
Answer: "It's a tarradiddle—a fib! Besides, she mistook me for the plumber."
3. Question (age eighteen, the day before the big football game): dear governor stop am strapped stop can you wire TWENTY DOLLARS?
Answer: no stop male parent.
David Copperfield (© Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. 1935)
"Question: 'Daddy, why were you kissing the maid last night?
Answer: 'It's a tarradiddle —a fib!'"
Chapter 8
"How to Succeed in Business"
My Little Chickadee (© 1940, Universal Pictures)
Most interesting of Fields' business practices was his outrageous system of banking. He made it a habit to open an account in most of the large cities he visited, and he often opened them under assumed names (Mahata Kane Jeeves, Otis Criblecoblis, etc.). Whether he did this to hide his money from greedy relatives or from the government, or just to assure himself that getaway money was always nearby was never entirely clear. For whatever the reasons, his system was quite novel.
Once in 1944 a friend questioned him on his procedures while examining a few dozen of his hundreds of bank books. Fields confided that he even had about $50,000 spread around war infested Germany. "But why?" inquired the astonished friend. "In case that little bastard wins!" gargled the crafty Fields.
ANY OF US who are over twelve years of age—and a great many of us are over twelve years of age—must surely remember the fateful year of 1929. Many world-shaking events took place in 1929, including Mrs. Gann's great White House victory, and Mrs. Gene Tunney's appendectomy. Also, Shirley Temple was born and Clyde Van Deusen won the Kentucky Derby.
Of course these memorable happenings are imprinted indelibly in the minds of all Americans. But one other important thing occurred in October of 1929 that was barely noticed at the time and has been all but forgotten since. I refer to certain irregularities in some of Wall Street's finest stocks.
Now, about a week after this curious mishap—one witty city editor dubbed it "The Crash"—I was dining with several of the nation's greatest financial wizards at the Automat. We were all in a pensive mood, and in the course of conversation the president of a vast department-store chain addressed me. "Mr. Fields," he asked, fumbling in his pockets for an after-dinner cigar butt, "what in your mind has occasioned the recent upset in the market?"
"Gentlemen," I began, in a stern but not unkind tone, "the whole trouble is a simple and fundamental one: briefly, you have tried to sell the American people more than they could pay for."
Each of the moguls nodded their gray pates abashedly.
"I could have told you several years ago," I continued, "that you were heading for this catastrophe. Let me recount an ingenuous little anecdote to illustrate the point. It all began twenty years ago when I first learned the fundamental rule of business success from one of the most astute economics experts who ever trod this green earth. He was a homespun geologist by the name of Doctor George T. Spelvin, and he had amassed a goodly fortune from the sale of several dozen oil wells situated in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. His crude but sound success formula was as follows, stated in his quaint Yankee dialect:
1. Find out how much they gut.
2. Git it.
3. Git!
" . . he had amassed a goodly fortune from the sale of several dozen oil wells situated in the middle of the Great Salt Laker."
The Old Fashioned Way (© 1934, Paramount Pictures)
"In the course of my very first business venture, gentlemen, I learned how very true old Doctor Spelvin's philosophy was. I took a flyer in vacuum-cleaner selling, and on my initial day of canvassing I came across a household that looked like a capital prospect, for through the window I could see a lady busy cleaning the living-room carpet with an old-fashioned carpet sweeper. I knocked at the front door and introduced myself with my never-failing gallantry. The lady seemed skeptical—said not a word. 'Madam,' I said, 'allow me to demonstrate this miraculous contrivance.' Whereupon I brought the vacuum cleaner in and fell to work upon the living room. I toiled over that carpet until it was clean enough to eat off—though a regular table would have been more comfortable, I'll admit. The lady, however, merely stared.
"My stic
k-to-it-iveness asserted itself and I spent another half hour on the dining-room rug. Still there was no word of approval forthcoming. Determined not to lose a possible sale, I carried the apparatus upstairs and spent the rest of the morning on the bedroom rugs. But silence still greeted my efforts.
"Finally I lost patience. 'Madam,' I gasped, 'will you tell me one thing—are you or are you not interested in purchasing this machine?'
"'Well, mister.' she replied, 'you'll have to wait til the missus gets home—I only came in to clean.'"
Upon the conclusion of my tale, several of the tycoons drew out their handkerchiefs and wept a little. It was a moving sight. "How true," they whispered. "How very true! Fields, if we had only understood this great principle before. . . ."
"I knocked at the front door and introduced myself with my never-failing gallantry."
Tilly and Gus (© 1933, Paramount Pictures)
Of course it was inevitable that my advice fell on deaf ears in one case. He was a motorcar mogul, and several years after the Automat episode, he defied my stated fundamentals by okaying automobile sales to 5,000 purchasers whom he believed to be W. P. A. workers. It turned out that they were only ordinary job holders and could not meet the payments.