Skookum Chuck Fables Bits of History, Through the Microscope   By: R. D. (Robert Dalziel) Cumming (1871-1958)

BITS OF HISTORY, THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE

(Some of which appeared in the Ashcroft Journal)

BY

SKOOKUM CHUCK

Author of "Songs of a Sick Tum Tum," and some others

Copyright, Canada, 1915, by R.D. Cumming

Preface

It is more difficult to sell a good book by a new author than it is to sell a poor one by a popular author, because the good book by the new author must make its way against great odds. It must assert itself personally, and succeed by its own efforts. The book by the popular author flies without wings, as it were. The one by the well known author has a valuable asset in its creator; the one by the new author has no asset but its own merits.

I am not contending by the above that this is a good book; far from it. Some books, however, having very little literary recommendation, may be interesting in other ways.

There are several things instrumental in making for the success of a book: first, the fame of the author; second, the originality of the theme or style; third, the extent of the advertising scheme, and fourth, the proximity of the subject matter to the heart and home of the reader; and this last is the reason for the "Skookum Chuck Fables."

If the following stories are not literature, they are spiced with familiar local sounds and sights, and they come very close to every family fireside in British Columbia. For this reason I hope to see a copy in every home in the province.

THE AUTHOR.

Contents

SKOOKUM CHUCK FABLES: PAGE

OF THE ROLLING STONE 9

OF CULTUS JOHNNY 17

OF THE BOOBY MAN 24

OF HARD TIMES HANCE 35

OF THE TOO SURE MAN 55

OF THE UNLOVED MAN 60

OF THE CHIEF WHO WAS BIGGER THAN HE LOOKED 66

OF SIMPLE SIMON UP TO DATE 72

OF THE HIGH CLASS ESKIMO 79

OF THE SWEET YOUNG THINGS 89

OF THE TWO LADIES IN CONTRAST 97

OF THE RUSE THAT FAILED 100

OF THE REAL SANTA CLAUS 107

OF THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW 113

OF SICAMOUS 118

OF THE UBIQUITOUS CAT 122

BITS OF HISTORY:

OF THE FOOLHARDY EXPEDITION 127

OF THE LAWS OF LYCURGUS 133

OF JOAN OF ARC 138

OF VOICES LONG DEAD 144

OF THE WHITE WOMAN WHO BECAME AN INDIAN SQUAW 151

THROUGH THE MICROSCOPE 157

Of the Rolling Stone

Once upon a time in a small village in Bruce County, Province of Ontario, Dominion of Canada, there lived a man who was destined to establish a precedent. He was to prove to the world that a rolling stone is capable at times of gathering as much moss as a stationary one, and how it is possible for the rock with St. Vitus dance to become more coated than the one that is confined to perpetual isolation. Like most iconoclasts he was of humble birth, and had no foundation upon which to rest the cornerstone of his castle, which was becoming too heavy for his brain to support much longer.

His strong suit was his itinerate susceptibility; but his main anchorage was his better five fifths. One of his most monotonous arguments was to the effect that the strenuousness of life could only be equalled by the monotony of it, and that it was a pity we had to do so much in this world to get so little out of it.