You Should Worry Says John Henry Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT SNAP SHOTS

  When Aunt Martha gave friend wife that newfangled camera this Spring Ihad a hunch that the dealers in photographic supplies would be joyouslyshrieking the return of good times and hot-footing it to the bank withthe contents of my wallet.

  Peaches just grabbed that camera and went after everybody and everythingin the neighborhood.

  She took about 800 views of Uncle Peter's country home before shediscovered that the camera wasn't loaded properly, which was tough onPeaches but good for the bungalow.

  Like everything else in this world picture pinching from still lifedepends entirely on the point of view.

  If your point of view is all right it's an easy matter to make afour-dollar dog-house look like the villa of a Wall Street broker atNewport.

  Ten minutes after friend wife had been given the camera she had me setup as a statue all over Uncle Peter's lawn, and she was snapping at melike a Spitz doggie at a peddler.

  I sat for two hundred and nineteen pictures that forenoon and I posedfor every hero in history, from William the Conqueror down to DoctorCook, with both feet in a slushy little snowbank representingnearly-the-North-pole.

  But when she tried to coax me to climb up on a limb of a tree and staythere till she got a picture of me looking like an owl I swore softly inthree languages, fell over the back fence, and ran for my life.

  When I rubbershoed it back that afternoon friend wife was busydeveloping her crimes.

  The proper and up-to-date caper in connection with taking snap-shotsthese days is to buy a developing outfit and upset the household frompit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures of every dearly belovedfriend that crosses your pathway.

  Friend wife selected a spare room on the top floor of Uncle Peter's homewhere she could await developments.

  A half hour later ghostly noises began to come from that room andmysterious whisperings fell out of the window and bumped over the lawn.

  When I reached the front door I found that the gardener had left, thewaitress was leaving, and the cook was telephoning for a policeman.

  "Where is Mrs. Henry?" I asked Mary, the cook.

  "She is still developing," said Mary.

  "What has she developed?" I inquired.

  "Up to the present time she has developed your Uncle's temper and shehas developed your Aunt's appetite, and a couple of bill collectorsdeveloped a pain in the neck when she took their pictures, and, ifthings go on in this way, I think this will soon develop into a foolishhouse!" said Mary, the cook.

  A half hour later, while I was hiding behind the pianola in the livingroom, not daring to breathe above a whisper for fear I would get mypicture taken again, friend wife rushed in exclaiming, "Oh, joy! Oh,joy! John, I have developed two pictures!"

  I wish you could have seen the expression on Peaches' face.

  In order to develop the films a picturesque assortment of drugs andchemicals have to be used.

  Well, friend wife had used them.

  A silent little stream of wood alcohol was trickling down over her leftear into her Psyche knot, and on the end of her nose about six grains ofextract of potash was sending out signals of distress to some spirits ofturpentine which was burning on the top of her right eyebrow.

  Something dark and lingering like iodine had given her chin thedouble-cross and her apron looked like the remnants of a porous plaster.

  Her right hand had red, white, green, purple, and magenta marks all overit, and her left hand looked like the Fourth of July.

  "John!" she yelled; "here it is! My goodness, I am so excited! See whata fine picture of you I took!"

  She handed me the picture, but all I could see was a woodshed with thedoor wide open.

  "A good picture of the woodshed," I said; "but whose woodshed is it?"

  "A woodshed!" exclaimed friend wife; "why, that is your face, John. Andwhere you think the door is open is only your mouth!"

  I looked crestfallen and then I looked at the picture again, but mybetter nature asserted itself and I made no attempt to strike thisdefenseless woman.

  Then she handed me another picture and said, "John, isn't thiswonderful?"

  I looked at the picture and muttered, "All I can see is Theodore, thecolored gardener, walking across lots with a sack of flour on his back!"

  "John, you are so stupid," said friend wife. "How can you expect to seewhat it is when you are holding the picture upside down?"

  I turned the picture around, and then I was quite agreeably surprised.

  "It's immense!" I shouted. "It's the real thing, all right! Why this isaces! I suppose it is called, 'Moonlight on Lake Champlain'? Did thisone come with the camera or did you draw it from memory?"

  "The idea of such a thing," friend wife snapped, "can't you see thatyou're holding the picture the wrong way. Turn it around and you willsee what it is!"

  I gave the thing another turn.

  "Gee whiz!" I said, "now I have it! Oh, the limit! You wished tosurprise me with a picture of the sunset at Governor's Island. Howlovely it is! See, over here in this corner there's a bunch of soldierslistening to what's cooking for supper, and over here is the smoke fromthe gun that sets the sun--I like it!"

  Then my wife grabbed the picture out of my hands and burst into speech.

  "Why do you try to discourage my efforts to be artistic?" she volleyedand thundered. "This is a picture of you holding Mrs. McIlvaine's babyin your arms, and I think it's perfectly lovely, even if the baby is theonly intelligent thing in the picture."

  When the exercises were over I inquired casually, "Where, my dear, whereare the other 21,219 pictures you snapped to-day?"

  "Only these two came out good because, don't you see, I'm an amateuryet," was her come-back.

  Then she looked lovingly at the result of her day's work and began topeel some bicarbonate of magnesia off her knuckles with the nutcracker.

  "Only two out of 21,219--I think you ought to call it a long shotinstead of a snap shot," I whispered, after I had dodged behind a sofa.

  She went out of the room without saying a word, and I took out mypocketbook and looked at it wistfully.