The Literary Shop, and Other TalesFord, James L. (James Lauren)
General
The Literary Shop, and Other Tales
Ford, James L. (James Lauren)
American periodicals; Authorship -- Humor
On the occasion of a recent Saturday visit to this model settlement I
found scores of well-fed, happy-looking prosers and poets riding their
bicycles up and down the village street or sitting in rows on the fence
rails eagerly discussing the condition of the literary market and the
business prospects for the coming year. In the large playground which
lies to the north of the village an exciting game of football was in
progress between two picked elevens, one selected from the various
“reminiscence-of-celebrities” gangs employed about the works, and the
other made up from the day shift of “two-rhyme-to-the-quatrain” poets.
The Scotch dialect authors were seated on the piazza in front of their
quarters, mending their shoes, washing their clothes, and preparing in
other ways for the impending “Sawbath.” Mr. McClure tells me that they
are very shy and suspicious, and refuse to mingle socially with the
other hands. One of them, Dr. Bawbee MacFudd, was confined to his room
with brain fever, the result of having been asked to spend something
the last time he went out of the house.
Just beyond the barn devoted to the Scotchmen Mr. McClure showed me
a building which he erected last spring and which is now used as a
canning factory and warehouse for the storage of perishable goods.
“You see,” said Mr. McClure, “we are doing a very large business here,
and supplying not only my own magazine and newspaper syndicate with
matter, but also various other publications, which I cannot name for
obvious reasons, so it frequently happens that we find ourselves at
the close of some holiday season with a number of poems, stories, or
essays relating to that particular holiday left on our hands. These
‘perishable goods,’ as we call them in the trade, were formerly a total
loss, but now we can and preserve them until the holiday comes round
again.”
Mr. McClure directed my attention to the wooden shelves which encircled
the main room of the building, and which contained long rows of
neat tin cans and glass jars, hermetically sealed and appropriately
labelled. In the Thanksgiving department were to be found cans
containing comic turkey dinners in prose and verse, “First Thanksgiving
in America” stories of the old Plymouth Rock brand so popular in New
England, serious verses designed for “Woman and Home” departments in
provincial newspapers, and other seasonable goods. Some of these were
marked with a red X, indicating, as Mr. McClure informed me, that
they were of the patent adjustable brand, made popular throughout the
country by his syndicate, and could be changed into Christmas goods by
merely altering the name of the holiday.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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