Adventure Magazine Cover, October 30, 1924 — page 187: what you’re looking at

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

The Camp-Fire seem far-fetched to some but if it tended to im- prove conditions as old Birdseed maintained it would, I do not think permission to establish it would have been refused him. Of course there are different viewpoints, but with our Canadian Corps I imagine it would have gone across flying. The average reader of “Tub Tobin Repeats”’ will infer, I had hoped, that there were no obstacles in Bird- seed’s path once he had the necessary money in hand. Your point on D. A. D. O. S. supplying all requirements—equipment, etc., is well taken. However I feel that it bears little on the story, as I have tried to show in the narrative that the money question was the great question with Birdseed; that all other matters pertaining to the establishment of his pet school had been worked out. I tried to get in touch with Brig. Gen. King of London, O. C. our No. 1 Military Division, regard- ing your first question, but I couldn’t raise him— out of the city, I presume.—Dovucras OLIVER. While not convinced that our queries have been shoved off the board, the story as it stands makes good reading and we’ve let it go as written, merely bringing up at the same time the above points, as to facts in the material used. Ordinarily we’d have threshed the matter out thoroughly before the story went into print, but in this case there was pressure of time. Ne here’s another one concerning cow- ‘ milking snakes and such. As toast- master or sergeant at arms or janitor or whatever it is of Camp-Fire I ought to pre- serve a neutral attitude as much as possible in discussions of this kind. Well, I’ve come out flat as a non-believer in hoop-snakes and several other queer kinds of snake, and, to be fair, I ought to believe in, say, milk- snakes. Have already declared for ’em, in fact, to the extent of declining to dismiss ‘cm as non-existent because scientists say a snake’s jaws are such that he can’t milk a cow with them. That’s easy to get around, for one theory of us believers is that the snake coils around the udder, squeezing it gently and in the best agricultural manner with its body while it swings its head down, opens its mouth and receives the stream as it is milked out. Of course, one snake can’t hold very much milk, but if one snake can milk why can’t there be lots of snakes around at milking-time? And anyhow, if a snake can swell up and hold a young rab- bit, a rat or two and an armful of toads and such, why can’t he swell up and hold that much milk? But my main reason for believing in cow- 177 milking snakes is to be neutral on the gen- eral question of eccentric snakes. Also I like to believe in ’em. There’s too much skepticism in this age anyhow and these cow-milking snakes strike me as a darned good idea. As to the scientists, well, I wish one of them would tell me why my own cows give so little milk after we’ve had them a while. Several scientists have tried, both by mail and from personal observation and study, and beyond prescribing new ineffec- tive diets, they don’t get us or the cows any- where. None of the local practical farmers offers any better advice, but of course they may know what the trouble is and be just waiting for me to get plumb disgusted and sell the cows off cheap—to them. What I’m asking the scientists is: If snakes aren’t milking them, then what zs the matter? Snakes are just as good a theory as any I’ve heard so far. AFTER very serious consideration of the following letter I’m rather inclined to think that comrade Roe is not a believer in cow-milking snakes. All right, comrade Roe, but then what the is the matter with my cows? Hibbing, Minnesota. My grandfather once told me that he used to have a cow that was part Holstein and part Jersey and part Alderney and part something else, Southdown, I guess, but it was some cow as cows ran in those days and every day she used to give down fifteen quarts and three gills at a milking, if properly ap- proached, and one Sunday night in* August in 1834 —my grandfather said he remembered the year the Stars were so few and thin owing to so many of them having fallen down the year before; why, for months at a time there wouldn’t be more than six or seven stars in the sky at one time, they were the longest time getting back, my grandfather said—well this cow, her name was Juliet, come that Sunday night only gave down twelve quarts and three gills and my grandfather said he put it down to the hot weather for the next morning’s milking was the usual fifteen quarts and three gills, and he wouldn’t have thought much of it, only next night, being Monday and another hot day there were only nine quarts and three gills in the pail when my grand- father had finished milking and Tuesday night there were only six quarts and three gills, and Wed- nesday night she only yielded three quarts and three gills, and Thursday night only the three gills, all this while the mornings’ milking being the full amount, my grandfather being so interested in the arithmetical retrogression that he didn’t worry as to the cause much, but spent each day wondering how much she’d give that evening, he having a job in Hoskin’s shoe-shop running a pegging-machine, so all day Friday he was wondering how much she would give that night, and she didn’t give anything, but Instead drank two quarts one pint and one gill out of a pail he had filled from another cow—of A.OOK C© in