Sparks Walker, Robert

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THE HUMOROUS SIDE OE THE SERIOUSBY ROBERT SPARKS WALKERAS serious as she appears to be, Nature is sometimes veryhumorous. From the high flying eagle to the humble doodle-bug in the dry sheltered soil, and to the lowly ant that sneaks intothe pantr\', there is a touch of humor as rare and as rich as theamusing product found in the human family.And, it is not always the animal life that monopolizes the humor-ous actions that cause the observer to see the amusing side. Forexample, an opening flower will sometimes get itself into a veryridiculous situation, and the person who has a trained eye forobserving the amusing sight will see in the face of the helplessflower bud an expression that is certain to beget laughter. Almostevery week during the months of July and August, I find an unfor-tunate bud of the wild sweet-potato which has gotten itself into arather amusing situation.The flower-bud of a wild sweet-potato vine measures about twoinches long, is cream colored, and reminds one of a small cigar.Hungry beetles and voracious caterpillars eat holes in this vine's foli-age. The wind sometimes blows one of the perforated leaves overthe flower-bud. The wild sweet-potato usually opens its floral budearly in the morning before daylight. When one of its flow^er-budsgets its head through a hole in a leaf, it cannot open, and there itsits and grunts and groans, securely shackled throughout the day,and while its brother blossoms are spread wide open and are enter-taining insect beaux, it seemingly begs for assistance. As soon asthe leaf is slipped off, the bud gets a hump on itself and spreadslike a person opens a parasol, provided the handicap is removedbefore midday.A few years ago, I went to Wildwood, Georgia to assist in56 THE OPEN COURTmaking a motion picture of the Periodical Cicada, or Seventeen-yearlocust as it emerged from the ground, ascended a tree and slippedoff the old skin jacket, which it had been wearing for seventeenlong years without laundering or starching. A person who knowsanything at all about this insect, knows that it has the habit ofemerging from the ground during the night. On the evening thatwas set for it to come forth at Wildwood, a heavy downpour ofrain that afternoon had brought Lookout Creek out of its banks.The torrents went on a wild spree and the overflow had filled thethousands of holes which had previously been dug by the cicadas.The water held them to the ground in their earthen chambers.By morning the flood had receded. During the forenoon thatwooded land was the busiest place I have visited in many years.The locusts were coming forth from the grotmd by tens of thous-ands, climbing the trees and splitting their old skins. Slowly butsurely each one crawled out, leaving the old husk firmly anchoredto the rough bark of the tree. It presented as humorous a spectacleas one might find at some summer resort where the outdoor crowdhas been soaked in a heavy downpour of rain. It was amusing asthe presentation by expert actors of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.In the year 1925 some parts of the South experienced one ofthe severest drouths ever recorded. I happened to be living in thedrouth-stricken area. One Sunday, the middle of June, beforethe drouth reached its worst state, I visited a farmer living on theChicamauga Creek, seven miles east of Chattanooga. We werewalking through his meadow when I observed tens of thousands ofweed pests known as bracted plantain which had gone to seed.There were also other weeds like wild asters, flea-banes, trumpetcreeper, and swamp loosestrife, all green. I suggested that if thedrouth persisted two weeks longer that he might touch a match tothe meadow and destroy the bracted plantain with its hundreds ofmillions of seeds before they fully matured.As we walked along, he unconsciously acted on my suggestion,removed a match from his vest pocket, struck it and dropped it intothe weeds. The blaze that followed startled us completely. Asgreen as the vegetation seemed to be, it quickly ignited. The flamesspread speedily over an acre of ground, and burned rapidly in twodirections. Bracted plantain and other weed pests fell as grace-fully before the flames as if they were being cut with a mowingmachine.THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF THE SERIOUS 57There were tens of thousands of grasshoppers feasting in thatfield, all ages, all sizes. When the flames disturbed their peace,they leaped into the air and struggled frantically to escape. Sonumerous were thev that the air was almost darkened by their flightahead of the long fire line. There was a wild stampede for a fewfeet in front where they took wing and fled. Up they flew by thethousands, some like old grey bearded men grasshoppers, wobblyfrom age, hobbling with canes ! Young men grasshoppers with hatsand canes in hands ! Boy grasshoppers fleeing bare- footed ! Flappergrasshoppers scurrying wildly in advance of the crackling fire!Onward the population thus moved. The flames steamed andsizzled and crackled, but void of other sounds save the clatteringof grasshopper wing cases. The host of tenants moved steadilyonward. However, with all the wild excitement, no grasshoppercitizen stirred until the blaze had advanced near enovigh that itcould feel the heat.By standing in direct line of the stampede, I sensed ten thousandgrasshopper feet that roughened my cheek and neck as the_\' flewwildl}' through the air, careless of what they were running u\) against.I wrinkled the skin on my nose and face a thousand times underthe tickling sensation of rough tmshod grasshopper feet. Like atraffic officer handling a mob of human pedestrians, I kept my armsin constant motion forcing the wild creatures away from m}' face.\Mthout a single traffic policeman of their own tribe to manage thelarge crowd, if there were one boy or girl, or man or woman grass-hopper burned, I did not learn about the tragedy. A dozen timesor more, I investigated the fire-line, but no grasshopper was stupidenough to let the flames reach his body, and none was so terriblyconfused that it fled towards the blaze instead of away from it!What would an equal number of human beings have done undera similar catastrophe, with a raging fire in their midst as large asthis one? Of the many experiences that I have had with insectlife, this is one of the most amusing that I have witnessed in manyyears.In the meanwhile, this farmer's rat-terrier had treed a boxturtle in a nearby pea patch. When we reached the house, we sawthe dog was carrying the boxed up pedestrian in his mouth. Theturtle's hard shell was slobber-soaked. Whatever the dog thoughtthe animal was, I do not profess to know, unless he believed it to58 THE OPEN COURTbe an animated bone of some sort, for when he reached the house,he carried it into the garden and buried it!Back to the turtle-field the dog hurried, and succeeded in findingand in bringing in four other box turtles all of which he interred inhis turtle-burying ground. It was no punishment for the boxturtles, for they had simply been cast into a turtle's heaven ! Assoon as the dog was ofif guard, the turtle opened his front window,clawed out of the prison and was soon tramping lightly back home!But when the slow traveler was passing the house, the terrier liftedhis ears in surprise, ran out, grabbed the hard-shelled trophy up,carried it back and re-interred it in his turtle-graveyard. This putthe dog on guard, and thereafter he tried to keep a keener vigil onhis burial grounds. However, despite his watchfulness, his victimswere shrewd enough to slip out of the ground and make theirescape.Many animals possess human traits. Even the detested houseflyand other flies are somewhat human-like in their manners. In mycity, the superintendent of the construction work for a gas com-pany, tells me that in sending men out to seek gas leaks, that hecautions them to be on the lookout for green flies, for these greencomplectioned aviators disclose the gas leaks by gathering aboutthem in great numbers.Like the human being who seeks his fill of moonshine liquor,and who sometimes gets poisoned on a swallow of wood alcohol,these green flies seek the gas leaks, and there they sit and absorbthe ill smelling stuff until their bodies turn greener and greener, andsooner or later, one by one they topple over dead!To my peach and persimmon trees there come every eveningjust at dusk in summertime, thousands of hard-shelled May beetleswhich alight on the green foliage and devour it. Just as it growsdark I can see them buzzing about in swarms between me and thesky, and when I turn on the flashlight under the branches, the lightreveals here and there a beetle sitting astride the leaf-edge takingin food to last it until the following evening. When I touch oneof these beetles, it turns loose and makes no attempt to fly, butdrops into the grass at my feet, hiding in the herbage. Thus itpreserves its life.I sometimes wonder who first taught those beetles about thehabits of the insectivorous birds,—those that are fond of snappingTHE HUMOROUS SIDE OF THE SERIOUS 59up just such beetles in daytime! How do these beetles know thatbirds which are fond of beetles come to the peach and persimmontrees while the sun is shining? How do they know that if theythemselves should also go there in daytime to feast that instead offeasting they would be feasted on. and that their race would bethreatened with extinction? At any rate, it is a humorous sightto witness these beetles emerging at evening from the grass in whichthey have been concealed. And then they go boldly to their greendinner tables at a time they are sure that the birds have gone toroost IIt is a hot day in August that I am writing these observationsand notes, and as the perspiration flows from my forehead andcheeks, and while my stomach fusses for a cool refreshment ofsome kind, a fidgety brown wren intensifies my thirst by alightingin front of my open window, and bobbing his stubby tail up anddown, screams loudly into my ears in pure English, "Sherbet!sherbet! sherbet!"A False Newspaper ReportIt is not an easy matter to feel that it is just as natural for aman to perish as it is for a clump of grass to wither. Love offriends and family, love of pleasure, and a desire to accumulateproperty, and best of all the craving to achieve something worthwhile, are some of the things that make a person struggle to live.It is a fact that we seldom heed the sad event which we calldeath until it concerns our immediate family. Every being, nomatter how deeply he is engrossed in his personal affairs, and thoseof the world, at intervals, must seriously meditate on this eventwhich is surely coming to him.But, really, to hear that you are dead, and then to read the fact,not only in the daily newspapers, but to see the glaring tale pro-claimed in a special newspaper bulletin, brings one face to face witha subject that he would rather not discuss, and it so arouses histhoughts that he must put to test some act that will prove thereport false or true.When the astounding report of my death came to me, it wasduring the World War when Germany was sinking every craft ofthe Allies that she could approach. At five o'clock in the after-noon, I was waiting for a street car one block away from the daily60 THE OPEN COURTnewspaper office, where special bulletins were being written anddisplayed almost hourly.The street car finally came, much belated, and, as usual at thathour not only every seat was occupied, but there was scarcelystanding room in the aisle and on the platforms. Just as I squeezedthrough the crowd into the aisle, I heard a man say, "Yes, he'sdead," and then I was startled to hear my name mentioned. "Iwas acquainted with him," declared another, and I know it is he,since he is the only man by that name who ever lived in this city,"and then my name was repeated over and over.I halted and breathed with some difficulty, as I stood therelistening to the conversations and the opinions regarding my char-acter, as is customary when a citizen has passed away. The crowdwas so sure of my death that I did not dare dispute the fact atfirst, and since I was entirely ignorant of the source of their infor-mation, the news came as a serious shock to me, though ridiculous.I could not, however, repress a feeling that in all probability thereport might be true!Like a flash, for the moment, I really thought that which I hadbeen listening to probably might be true, but of one thing I wascertain : my ability to observe physical bodies was still undestroyed!Tho bring some physical test on which I might rely, I looked overthe crowd, peeped out of the window, grasped hold of the leatherstrap over my head, examined my hands thoroughly, yanked oneach of my ears, and I found I still was not robbed of the sense oftouch. I took out my watch, and while everything about me seemednatural, yet there was that sensation that I was dreaming. Theconversations concerning my demise continued uninterruptedly,and I was quite anxious to learn the details, but dared not makeinquiry. When I had traveled a mile, I was confident that I wasnot literally dead, and I gave a man a weighty slap on his shoulderand said, "Here I am!" He and his companion looked me in theface through excited eyes, and one face paled. The other man wasspeechless. Finally, one of them said, "A special bulletin postedat the daily newspaper office declares that you lost your life withthe sinking of the President Lincoln.""Ah, that solves the mystery," I told him, "but I believe thereport is untrue!" I hurried on through the crowd to the frontplatform. At intervals, while traveling the rest of the way home,THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF THE SERIOUS 61I had the privilege of listening to further conversations concerningmy death by a number of passengers, the most of whom were rankstrangers to me. But even after I had convinced myself that therewas a mistake somewhere, during the next few minutes, as I lis-tened to the grave discussions of my death, doubts came to my mindthat I was really alive and in the flesh!When I reached home, I was feeling trembly over the reports,and I immediately broke the news to my family. A half hour later,I learned from my neighbors that friends had been calling on themto ascertain if there were any truth in the report. The pastor ofthe church of which I was a member, had been asked concerningmy welfare, and the newpaper reporters had directed their inquiriesto my near relatives to avoid agitating grief or uneasiness amongthe immediate members of my small family.That evening while en route to the Red Cross headquarters tohelp in some work, I was driven to the daily newspaper office, andwas permitted to behold with my own eyes the large bulletin pro-claiming my death ! It was an unusual experience, and when Iread the display announcement written in heavy script, there I stoodshivering in my tracks like some old fool!That was all there was to it, except for a month afterwards, Iwas frequently hailed on the streets by friends and acquaintances,who thoughtlessly, though quite naturally, asked many questions,some of which might have been classed as being foolish."Was that you who went down with the sinking of the PresidentLincoln?""Didn't you die a few weeks ago?""Was that a false report?"Finding that I was not quite gone from this sphere, a few dayslater the newspapers reproduced the photograph of a young manwho owned my full name, and who lived in a nearby suburb. Itwas declared that he was the person who lost his life in the sinkingof the boat. However, a few weeks later, this young man escapedthe briny depths as safely as I, for when the final report was made,the man who bore my full name who really lost his life was a resi-dent of the State of New York, almost a thousand mlies away!This verified report brought me back to normalcy again!

The Humorous Side of the Serious.

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The Humorous Side of the Serious.

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