The Thurber Carnival

by James Thurber

  As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest. ‘My husband,’ she said, ‘saw a unicorn this morning.’ The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. ‘He told me it ate a lily,’ she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. ‘He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead,’ she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.

  ‘Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?’ asked the police. ‘Of course not,’ said the husband. ‘The unicorn is a mythical beast.’ ‘That’s all I wanted to know,’ said the psychiatrist. ‘Take her away. I’m sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jay bird.’ So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.

  Moral: Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.

  Excelsior

  By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  The shades of night were falling fast,

  As through an Alpine village passed

  A youth, who bore, ’mid snow and ice,

  A banner with the strange device –

  Excelsior!

  ‘Try not the pass,’ the old man said;

  ‘Dark lowers the tempest overhead;

  The roaring torrent is deep and wide!’

  And loud that clarion voice replied,

  Excelsior!

  ‘O stay,’ the maiden said, ‘and rest

  Thy weary head upon this breast!’

  A tear stood in his bright blue eye,

  But still he answered, with a sigh,

  Excelsior!

  ‘Beware the pine-tree’s withered branch!

  Beware the awful avalanche!’

  This was the peasant’s last good night:

  A voice replied, far up the height,

  Excelsior!

  At break of day, as heavenward

  The pious monks of Saint Bernard

  Uttered the oft-repeated prayer,

  A voice cried through the startled air,

  Excelsior!

  A traveller, by the faithful hound,

  Half-buried in the snow was found,

  Still grasping in his hand of ice

  That banner with the strange device,

  Excelsior!

  There in the twilight cold and grey,

  Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,

  And from the sky, serene and far,

  A voice fell, like a falling star –

  Excelsior!

  O When I Was …*

  By A. E. Housman

  Oh when I was in love with you,

  Then I was clean and brave,

  And miles around the wonder grew

  How well did I behave.

  And now the fancy passes by,

  And nothing will remain,

  And miles around they’ll say that I

  Am quite myself again.

  Barbara Frietchie

  By John Greenleaf Whittier

  On that pleasant morn of the early fall

  When Lee marched over the mountain wall;

  Over the mountains winding down,

  Horse and foot, into Frederick town,

  Forty flags with their silver stars,

  Forty flags with their crimson bars,

  Flapped in the morning wind …

  … the sun

  Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

  Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,

  Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

  Bravest of all in Frederick town,

  She took up the flag the men hauled down;

  In her attic window the staff she set,

  To show that one heart was loyal yet.

  Up the street came the rebel tread,

  Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.

  Under his slouched hat left and right

  He glanced; the old flag met his sight.

  ‘Halt!’ – the dust-brown ranks stood fast;

  ‘Fire!’ – out blazed the rifle-blast.

  It shivered the window, pane and sash;

  It rent the banner with seam and gash.

  Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff

  Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf.

  She leaned far out on the window-sill,

  And shook it forth with a royal will.

  ‘Shoot, if you must, this old grey head,

  But spare your country’s flag,’ she said.

  A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,

  Over the face of the leader came;

  The nobler nature within him stirred

  To life at that woman’s deed and word;

  ‘Who touches a hair of yon grey head

  Dies like a dog! March on!’ he said.

  All day long through Frederick street

  Sounded the tread of marching feet

  All day long that free flag tossed

  Over the heads of the rebel host.

  Ever its torn folds rose and fell

  On the loyal winds that loved it well;

  And through the hill-gaps sunset light

  Shone over it with a warm good-night …

  The Sands O’ Dee

  By Charles Kingsley

  ‘O Mary, go and call the cattle home,

  And call the cattle home,

  And call the cattle home,

  Across the sands o’ Dee!’

  The western wind was wild and dank wi’ foam,

  And all alone went she.

  The creeping tide came up along the sand,

  And o’er and o’er the sand,

  And round and round the sand,

  As far as eye could see;

  The blinding mist came down and hid the land:

  And never home came she.

  ‘Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair –

  A tress o’ golden hair,

  O’ drownèd maiden’s hair –

  Above the nets at sea?

  Was never salmon yet that shone so fair

  Among the stakes on Dee.’

  They rowed her in across the rolling foam,

  The cruel, crawling foam,

  The cruel, hungry foam,

  To her grave beside the sea;

  But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home

  Across the sands o’ Dee.

  Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight

  By Rose Hartwick Thorpe

  ‘Sexton,’ Bessie’s white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,

  With its turrets tall and gloomy, with its walls dark, damp, and cold,

  ‘I’ve a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die,

  At the ringing of the Curfew, and no earthly help is nigh;

  Cromwell will not come till sunset,’ and her lips grew strangely white

  As she breathed the husky whisper –

  ‘Curfew must not ring tonight.’

  ‘Bessie,’ calmly spoke the sexton – every word pierced her young heart

  Like the piercing of an arrow, like a deadly poisoned dart –

  ‘Long, long years I’ve rung the Curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower;

  Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight hour;

  I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right,

  Now I’m old I will not falter –

  Curfew, it must ring tonight.’

  With quick step she hounded forward, sprang within the old church door,

  Left the old ma
n threading slowly paths so oft he’d trod before;

  Not one moment paused the maiden, but with eye and cheek aglow

  Mounted up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro:

  As she climbed the dusty ladder, on which fell no ray of light,

  Up and up – her white lips saying –

  ‘Curfew must not ring tonight.’

  She has reached the topmost ladder; o’er her hangs the great dark bell;

  Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell.

  Lo, the ponderous tongue is swinging – ’tis the hour of Curfew now,

  And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow.

  Shall she let it ring? No, never! flash her eyes with sudden light,

  As she springs and grasps it firmly –

  ‘Curfew shall not ring tonight!’

  Out she swung – far out; the city seemed a speck of light below,

  There ’twixt heaven and earth suspended as the bell swung to and fro,

  And the sexton at the bell rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,

  Sadly thought, ‘That twilight Curfew rang young Basil’s funeral knell.’

  Still the maiden clung more firmly and with trembling lips so white,

  Said to hush her heart’s wild throbbing –

  ‘Curfew shall not ring tonight!’

  O’er the distant hills came Cromwell; Bessie sees him, and her brow,

  Lately white with fear and anguish, has no anxious traces now.

  At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;

  And her face so sweet and pleading, yet with sorrow pale and worn,

  Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light:

  ‘Go! your lover lives,’ said Cromwell,

  ‘Curfew shall not ring tonight.’

  Wide they flung the massive portal; led the prisoner forth to die –

  All his bright young life before him. ’Neath the darkening English sky

  Bessie comes with flying footsteps, eyes aglow with love-light sweet;

  Kneeling on the turf beside him, lays his pardon at his feet.

  In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and white,

  Whispered, ‘Darling, you have saved me –

  Curfew will not ring tonight!’

  7

  FROM THE OWL IN THE ATTIC

  The Pet Department

  Q. I enclose a sketch of the way my dog, William, has been lying for two days now. I think there must be something wrong with him. Can you tell me how to get him out of this?

  MRS L. L. G.

  A. I should judge from the drawing that William is in a trance. Trance states, however, are rare with dogs. It may just be ecstasy. If at the end of another twenty-four hours he doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere, I should give him up. The position of the ears leads me to believe that he may be enjoying himself in a quiet way, but the tail is somewhat alarming.

  Q. Our cat, who is thirty-five, spends all of her time in bed. She follows every move I make, and this is beginning to get to me. She never seems sleepy nor particularly happy. Is there anything I could give her?

  MISS L. MC.

  A. There are no medicines which can safely be given to induce felicity in a cat, but you might try lettuce, which is a soporific, for the wakefulness. I would have to see the cat watching you to tell whether anything could be done to divert her attention.

  Q. My husband, who is an amateur hypnotizer, keeps trying to get our bloodhound under his control. I contend that this is not doing the dog any good. So far he has not yielded to my husband’s influence, but I am afraid that if he once got under, we couldn’t get him out of it.

  A. A. T.

  A. Dogs are usually left cold by all phases of psychology, mental telepathy, and the like. Attempts to hypnotize this particular breed, however, are likely to be fraught with a definite menace. A bloodhound, if stared at fixedly, is liable to gain the impression that it is under suspicion, being followed, and so on. This upsets a bloodhound’s life, by completely reversing its whole scheme of behaviour.

  Q. My wife found this owl in the attic among a lot of ormolu clocks and old crystal chandeliers. We can’t tell whether it’s stuffed or only dead. It is sitting on a strange and almost indescribable sort of iron dingbat.

  MR MOLLEFF

  A. What your wife found is a museum piece – a stuffed cockatoo. It looks to me like a rather botchy example of taxidermy. This is the first stuffed bird I have ever seen with its eyes shut, but whoever had it stuffed probably wanted it stuffed that way. I couldn’t say what the thing it is sitting on is supposed to represent. It looks broken.

  Q. Our gull cannot get his head down any farther than this, and bumps into things.

  H. L. F.

  A. You have no ordinary gull to begin with. He looks to me a great deal like a rabbit backing up. If he is a gull, it is impossible to keep him in the house. Naturally he will bump into things. Give him his freedom.

  Q. My police dog has taken to acting very strange, on account of my father coming home from work every night for the past two years and saying to him, ‘If you’re a police dog, where’s your badge?’, after which he laughs (my father).

  ELLA R.

  A. The constant reiteration of any piece of badinage sometimes has the same effect on present-day neurotic dogs that it has on people. It is dangerous and thoughtless to twit a police dog on his powers, authority, and the like. From the way your dog seems to hide behind tables, large vases, and whatever that thing is that looks like a suitcase, I should imagine that your father has carried this thing far enough – perhaps even too far.

  Q. My husband’s seal will not juggle, although we have tried everything.

  GRACE H.

  A. Most seals will not juggle; I think I have never known one that juggled. Seals balance things, and sometimes toss objects (such as the large ball in your sketch) from one to another. This last will be difficult if your husband has but one seal. I’d try him in plain balancing, beginning with a billiard cue or something. It may be, of course, that he is a non-balancing seal.

  Q. We have a fish with ears and wonder if it is valuable.

  JOE WRIGHT

  A. I find no trace in the standard fish books of any fish with ears. Very likely the ears do not belong to the fish, but to some mammal. They look to me like a mammal’s ears. It would be pretty hard to say what species of mammal, and almost impossible to determine what particular member of that species. They may merely be hysterical ears, in which case they will go away if you can get the fish’s mind on something else.

  Q. How would you feel if every time you looked up from your work or anything, there was a horse peering at you from behind something? He prowls about the house at all hours of the day and night. Doesn’t seem worried about anything, merely wakeful. What should I do to discourage him?

  MRS GRACE VOYNTON

  A. The horse is probably sad. Changing the flowered decorations of your home to something less like open meadows might discourage him, but then I doubt whether it is a good idea to discourage a sad horse. In any case speak to him quietly when he turns up from behind things. Leaping at a horse in a house and crying ‘Roogie, roogie!’ or ‘Whoosh!’ would only result in breakage and bedlam. Of course you might finally get used to having him around, if the house is big enough for both of you.

  Q. The fact that my dog sits this way so often leads me to believe that something is preying on his mind. He seems always to be studying. Would there be any way of finding out what this is?

  ARTHUR

  A. Owing to the artificially complex life led by city dogs of the present day, they tend to lose the simpler systems of intuition which once guided all breeds, and frequently lapse into what comes very close to mental perplexity. I myself have known some very profoundly thoughtful dogs. Usually, however, their problems are not serious and I should judge that your dog has merely mislaid
something and wonders where he put it.

  Q. We have cats the way most people have mice.

  MRS C. L. FOOTLOOSE

  A. I see you have. I can’t tell from your communication, however, whether you wish advice or are just boasting.

  Q. No one has been able to tell us what kind of dog we have. I am enclosing a sketch of one of his two postures. He only has two. The other one is the same as this except he faces in the opposite direction.

  MRS EUGENIA BLACK

  A. I think that what you have is a cast-iron lawn dog. The expressionless eye and the rigid pose are characteristic of metal lawn animals. And that certainly is a cast-iron ear. You could, however, remove all doubt by means of a simple test with a hammer and a cold chisel, or an acetylene torch. If the animal chips, or melts, my diagnosis is correct.

  Q. My oldest boy, Ford Maddox Ford Griswold, worked this wooden horse loose from a merry-go-round one night when he and some other young people were cutting up. Could you suggest any use for it in a family of five?