Life — December 14, 1928 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Smith Family Outlaws War My name’s Smith, S-M-I-T-H. The spelling’s important, for Lord knows there are enough members of our branch of the family | as it is, without mixing us up with the | others. Not that we're on bad terms with the rest, understand; as a matter of fact, the girls rather make it a point to go over every summer and kind of visit around. Only, things aren’t the same as they were before the big family row—oh, yes, we had a family row. It didn’t get into the | papers much, because everybody was talk- ing about the McCoy-Hatheld feud, down in Kentucky. Just the same, I often think ours was worse, because it was among relatives. We Smiths didn’t get into at right away. Living across the river the way | we do, we've always been sort of left to ourselves. Busy working the farm, for one thing—and a mighty nice farm it is, if I do say so. Sometimes, of course, | wonder if we deserve all the credit for the money we've made; the land's so rich, I | guess the others could have done pretty well on it, too, if only they'd had the gumption to move over this way, But then they didn’t, and that’s that. But about the row. There’s always been more or less squabbling among them. You know how it is, people living close to- gether like that, and especially when they're all related and don’t have to be polite. There were the Smythes—they’re really our closest kin (as a matter of fact, Dad was born on the Smythe place, and ran away from home when he was a kid). Then there were the Schmied Brothers—Big Schmied and Little Schmied, we used to call them; and the Forgerons and the Fabbros, who were cousins. Just what all the trouble was about nobody ever seemed to know. Of by Deems Taylor j course there had been a lot of landgrab- bing in the past, which caused a good deal of hard feeling; and the Smythes ran a general store, and so did the Schmieds, and what with customers be- ing scarce, and too many mouths to feed, and both cutting prices, things weren't} any too pleasant in that quarter. The rumpus started over some little thing—I forget exactly what. Something about a pet goat of Little Schmied’s that got killed by a stray dog. Anyway, before long they were all calling names, and in | no time there were Big Schmied and Lit- tle Schmied mixing it up with the Forgerons, and the Smythes. Then old man Fabbro and his boys got in it, and by golly, pretty soon, damned if we ‘n't in it—why, I don’t recoilect— the lot of us biting and clawing and raising general heli all over the Forgerons’ front yard. Of course, we finally licked the Schmieds. And believe me, brother, they were a mess! Still, I can’t say the rest of us were much better off. The Forgeron place was a wreck. Fabbro came out all over red spots—malnutrition it was—and nearly passed out. And the Smythes had lost a lot of customers and had run up a terrible heap of bills. | had a nasty black eye, myself (Please turn to page 42) Motner’s Voice (from the next room): What are you doing at the piano, darling? Daruinc: I'm making it into a flute. comicbooks.com