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Supply and Demand part 5

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March 26, 2019

“`I conquered `em, spectacularly,` goes on King Shane, `and then I’ went at `em with economical politics, law, sleight-of-hand, and a kind of New England ethics and parsimony. Every Sunday, or as near as I can guess at it, I preach to `em in the council-house (I`m the council) on the law of supply and demand. I praise supply and knock demand. I use the same text every time. You wouldn`t think, W. D.,` says Shane, `that I had poetry in me, would you?`

“`Well,` says I, `I wouldn`t know whether to call it poetry or not.` “`Tennyson,` says Shane, `furnishes the poetic gospel I preach. I always considered him the boss poet. Her`s the way the text goes:

“For, not to admire, if a man could learn it, were more

Than to walk all day like a Sultan of old in a garden of spice.”

“`You see, I teach `em to cut out demand that supply is the main thing. I teach `em not to desire anything beyond their simplest needs. A little mutton, a little cocoa, and a little fruit brought up from the coast that`s all they want to make `em happy. I`ve got `em well trained. They make their own clothes and hats out of a vegetable fiber and straw, and they`re a contented lot. It`s a great thing,` winds up Shane, `to have made a people happy by the inculvitation of such simple institutions.`

King`s permission

“Well, the next day, with the King`s permission, I has the McClintock open up a couple of sacks of my goods in the little plaza of the village. The Indians swarmed around by the hundred and looked the bargain-counter over. I shook red blankets at `em, flashed finger-rings and earbobs, tried pearl necklaces and side-combs on the women, and a line of red hosiery on the men. `Twas no use. They looked on like hungry graven images, but I never made a sale. I asked McClintock what was the trouble. Mac yawned three or four times, rolled a cigarette, made one or two confidential side remarks to a mule, and then condescended to inform me that the poeple had no money.

“Just then up strolls King Patrick, big and red and royal as usual, with the gold chain over his chest and his cigar in front of him.

“`How`s business, W. D.?` he asks.

“`Fine,` says I. `It`s a bargain-day rush. I`ve got one more line of goods to offer before I shut up shop. I`ll try `em with safety-razors. I`ve got two gross that I bought at a fire sale.`

“Shane laughs till some kind of mameluke or private secretary he carries with him has to hold him up.

`“O my sainted Aunt Jerusha!` says he, `ain`t you one of the Babes in the Woods, W. D.? Don`t you know that no Indians ever shave? They pull out their whiskers instead.`

“`Well,` says I, `that`s just what these razors would do for `em they wouldn`t have any kick coming if they used `em once.`

“Shane went away, and I could hear him laughing a block, if there had been any block.

Supply and Demand part 4

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March 26, 2019

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“He leads me into the biggest house, and sets the chairs and a kind of a drink the color of milk. It was the finest room I ever saw. The stone walls was hung all over with silk shawls, and there was red and yellow rugs on the floor, and jars of red pottery and Angora goat skins, and enough bamboo furniture to misfurnish half a dozen seaside cottages.

`“In the first place,` says the man, `you want to know who I am. I`m sole lessee and proprietor of this tribe of Indians. They call me the
Grand Yacuma, which is to say King or Main Finger of the bunch. I`ve got more power here than a chargd d`affaires, a charge of dynamite, and a charge account at Tiffany`s combined. In fact, I`m the Big Stick, with as many extra knots on it as there is on the record run of the Lusitania. Oh, I read the papers now and then,` says he. `Now, let`s hear your entitlements,` he goes on, `and the meeting will be open.`

“`Well,` says I, `I am known as one W. D. Finch. Occupation, capitalist. Address, 541 East Thirty-second`

“`New York,` chips in the Noble Grand. `I know`, says he, grinning. `It ain`t the first time you`ve seen it go down on the blotter. I can tell by the way you hand it out. Well, explain, “capitalist.”`

Funny

“I tells this boss plain what I come for and how I come to came. “`Gold-dust?` says he, looking as puzzled as a baby that`s got a feather stuck on its molasses finger. `That`s funny. This ain`t a goldmining country. And you invested all your capital on a stranger`s story? Well, well! These Indians of mine they are the last of the tribe of Peches are simple as children. They know nothing of the purchasing power of gold. I`m afraid you`ve been imposed on,` says he.

`“Maybe so,` says I, `but it sounded pretty straight to me.`

“ `W. D.,` says the King, all of a sudden, `I`ll give you a square deal. It ain`t often I get to talk to a white man, and I`ll give you a show for your money. It may be these constituents of mine have a few grains of gold-dust hid away in their clothes. To-morrow you may get out these goods you`ve brought up and see if you can make any sales. Now, I`m going to introduce myself unofficially.

My name is Shane Patrick Shane. I own this tribe of Peche Indians by right of conquest single handed and unafraid. I drifted up here four years ago, and won `em by my size and complexion and nerve. I learned their language in six weeks it`s easy: you simply emit a string of consonants as long as your breath holds out and then point at what you`re asking for.

Supply and Demand part 3

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March 26, 2019

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“After this man and me got through our conversation, which left him dry of information, I shook hands with him and told him I was sorry I couldn`t believe him. And a month afterward I landed on the coast of this Gaudymala with $1,300 that I had been saving up for five years. I thought I knew what Indians liked, and I fixed myself accordingly.

I loaded down four pack-mules with red woolen blankets, wrought-iron pails, jeweled side combs for the ladies, glass necklaces, and safety-razors. I hired a black mozo, who was supposed to be a mule- driver and an interpreter too. It turned out that he could interpret mules all right, but he drove the English language much too hard. His name sounded like a Yale key when you push it in wrong side up, but I called him McClintock, which was close to the noise.

One afternoon

“Well, this gold village was forty miles up in the mountains, and it took us nine days to find it. But one afternoon McClintock led the other mules and myself over a rawhide bridge stretched across a precipice five thousand feet deep, it seemed to me. The hoofs of the beasts drummed on it just like before George M. Cohan makes his first entrance on the stage.

“This village was built of mud and stone, and had no streets. Some few yellow-and-brown persons popped their heads out-of-doors, looking about like Welsh rabbits with Worcester sauce on `em. Out of the biggest house, that had a kind of a porch around it, steps a big white man, red as a beet in color, dressed in fine tanned deerskin clothes, with a gold chain around his neck, smoking a cigar. I`ve seen United States Senators of his style of features and build, also head-waiters and cops.

“He walks up and takes a look at us, while McClintock disembarks and begins to interpret to the lead mule while he smokes a cigarette.

`“Hello, Buttinsky,` says the fine man to me. `How did you get in the game? I didn`t see you buy any chips. Who gave you the keys of the city?`

`“I`m a poor traveler`, says I. `Especially mule-back. You`ll excuse me. Do you run a hack line or only a bluff?`

`“Segregate yourself from your pseudo-equine quadruped`, says he, `and come inside.`

“He raises a finger, and a villager runs up.

“`This man will take care of your outfit,` says he, `and I`ll take care of you.`

Supply and Demand part 2

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March 26, 2019

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“I heard it from a king,” said Finch “the white king of a tribe of Indians in South America.”

I was interested but not surprised. The big city is like a mother`s knrr to many who have strayed far and found the roads rough beneath their uncertain feet. At dusk they come home and sit upon the door-step. I know a piano player in a cheap cafe who has shot lions in Africa, a bellboy who fought in the British army against the Zulus, an express-driver whose left arm had been cracked like a lobster`s claw for a stew-pot of Patagonian cannibals when the boat of his rescuers hove in sight. So a hat-cleaner who had been a friend of a king did not oppress me.
“A new band?” asked Finch, with his dry, barren smile.

“Yes,” said I, “and half an inch wider.” I had had a new band five days before.

Every pocket

“I meets a man one night,” said Finch, beginning his story “a man brown as snuff, with money in every pocket, eating schweinerknuckel in Schlagel`s. That was two years ago, when I was a hose-cart driver for No. His discourse runs to the subject of gold. He says that certain mountains in a country down South that he calls Gaudymala is full of it. He says the Indians wash it out of the streams in plural quantities.

“`Oh, Geronimo!` says I. `Indians! Ther`s no Indians in the South,` I tell him, `except Elks, Maccabees, and the buyers for the fall dry- goods trade. The Indians are all on the reservations,` says I.

`“I`m telling you this with reservations,` says he. `They ain`t Buffalo Bill Indians; they`re squattier and more pedigreed. They call `em Inkers and Aspics, and they was old inhabitants when Mazuma was King of Mexico. They wash the gold out of the mountain streams,` says the brown man, `and fill quills with it; and then they empty `em into red jars till they are full; and then they pack it in buckskin sacks of one arroba each an arroba is twenty-five pounds and store it in a stone house, with an engraving of a idol with marceled hair, playing a flute, over the door.`

“`How do they work off this unearth increment?` I asks.

“`They don`t,` says the man. `It`s a case of “He fares the land with the great deal of velocity where wealth accumulates and there ain`t any reciprocity.”`

Supply and Demand part 1

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March 26, 2019

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O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) (1862 1910)

William Sydney Porter who wrote under the pen-name “O. Henry” was born at Greensboro, N. C., in 1862. He received only the rudiments of an education. As a young man he went to Texas, working in the General Land Office and later in a bank. He was implicated in a business deal and served a short prison sentence.

While in prison he began writing stories for the magazines. By the time of his death he was one of the most popular story writers in the country. Between the time of his death and 1920 his work became known throughout the entire English-speaking world. He is one of the ablest short-story writers who ever lived: fertile in invention, clever, amusing, and amazingly deft in the handling of the trick plot. Though he is limited in the subject-matter which he treats, and too fond of telling a story simply for the sake of the point, he must be accorded the credit of perfecting his own type of story.

Supply and Demand appears in the volume Options, copyright, 1909, by Harper & Bros., by whose permission it is here used.

Supply and Demand

Finch keeps a hats-cleaned-by-electricity-while-you-wait establishment, nine feet by twelve, in Third Avenue. Once a customer, you are always his. I do not know his secret process, but every four days your hat needs to be cleaned again.

Finch is a leathern, sallow, slow-footed man, between twenty and forty. You would say he had been brought up a bushelman in Essex Street. When business is slack he likes to talk, so I had my hat cleaned even oftener than it deserved, hoping Finch might let me into some of the secrets of the sweatshops.

One afternoon I dropped in and found Finch alone. He began to anoint my headpiece de Panama with his mysterious fluid that attracted dust and dirt like a magnet.

“They say the Indians wear `em under water,” said I, for a leader. “Don`t you believe it,” said Finch. “No Indian or white man could stay under water that long. Say. do you pay much attention to politics? I see in the paper something about a law they`ve passed called `the law of supply and demand.`”

I explained to him as well as I could that the reference was to tt politico-economical law, and not to a legal statute.

“I didn`t know,” said Finch. “I heard a good deal about it a year or so ago, but in a one-sided way.”

“Yes,” said I, “political orators use it a great deal. In fact, they never give it a rest. I suppose you heard some of those cart-tail fellows spouting on the subject over here on the east side.”

The Old Bell-Ringer part 4

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March 10, 2019

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And there was his rich enemy, kneeling and praying to be forgiven for the many tears he had caused orphans to shed. He crossed himself ardently and struck his forehead against the ground.

Mikheyich`s heart boiled within him, and the dusky faces of the ikons frowned down upon human sorrow and human wickedness.

All that was past, behind him. For him the whole world was now bounded by this bell-tower, where the wind moaned in the darkness and stirred the ropes. … “God be your judge!” muttered the old man, drooping his gray head, while tears rolled gently down his cheeks.

“Mikheyich, ay, Mikheyich! Have you fallen asleep up there?” shouted someone from below.

“What?” the old man answered, rising to his feet. “God! Have I really been sleeping? Such a thing never happened before!”

Ant hill

With quick, experienced hands he grasped the ropes. Below him, the easant mob moved about like an ant-hill; banners, sparkling with gilt rocade, fluttered in the air. … The procession made the circuit of the church, and soon the joyous call reached Mikheyich, “Christ is risen from the dead!”

The old man`s heart responded fervently to this call.

It seemed to him that the tapers were burning more brightly, and the crowd was more agitated; the banners seemed to be animated, and the wakened wind gathered the billows of sound on its wings, floated them up and blended then with the loud festal pealing of the bells.

Never before had old Mikheyich rung like this!

It seemed as if the old man`s heart had passed into the lifeless brass, and the tones of the bells sang and laughed and wept, and, welding in a sublime stream of harmony, rose high and higher into a heaven resplendent with myriad stars, and, trembling, flowed down to earth.

A powerful bass bell proclaimed, “Christ is risen!” And two tenors, trembling with the alternate beats of their iron tongues, repeated joyfully, “Christ is risen!”

And two small sopranos, seemingly hastening so as not to be left behind, crowded in among the more powerful voices and, like little children, sang hurriedly, cheerfully, “Christ is risen!”

The old belfry seemed to tremble and shake, and the wind, flapping its wings in the old bell-ringer`s face, repeated, “Christ is risen!”

The old heart forgot its life, full of cares and grief. The old bellringer forgot that his life was confined to the narrow limits of the dreary bcl fry, that he was alone in the world, like an old storm-broken stump.

He heard those singing and weeping sounds that rose to heaven and fell again to the sorrowing earth, and it seemed to him that he was surrounded by his sons and grandsons, that he heard their joyful voices; the voices of young and old blend into a chorus and sing to him of happiness and joy which he had never tasted in his life. … He pulled the ropes, while tears rolled down his cheeks, and his heart beat violently with the illusion of happiness.

Below, people listened and said to each other that never before had old Mikheyich rung so well.

Suddenly the large bell uttered an uncertain sound, and grew dumb. The smaller ones rang out an unfinished tone, and then stopped, as if abashed, to listen to the lugubrious echo of the prolonged and palpitating note gradually dying away upon the air. … The old bell ringer, utterly exhausted, fell back on the bench, and the last two tears trickled slowly down his pallid cheeks.

“Hi, there! Send up a substitute; the old bell-ringer has rung his final stroke.”

The Old Bell-Ringer part 3

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March 10, 2019

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But the hour had come. Mikheyich looked once more at the stars, took off his cap, made the sign of the cross, and grasped the bell-ropes. In a moment, the night air echoed with the resounding stroke. Another, a third, a fourth… one after the other, filling the quiescent, holy eve, there poured forth powerful, drawn-out, singing sounds.

The bell stopped. The church service had begun. Mikheyich had formerly been in the habit of going down to stand in the corner by the door in order to pray and hear the singing. This time he remained in the belfry. It was too much to walk the stairs, and, moreover, he felt rather tired. He sat down on the bench and, as he listened to the melting sounds of brass, fell to musing. About what? He would have been unable to say. … The tower was dimly lit by the feeble light of his lantern. The still vibrating bells were invisible in the darkness; from time to time a faint murmur of singing in the church below reached him, and the night wind stirred the ropes attached to the iron tongues of the bells.

Confuse fancy

The old man let his head droop upon his breast, while his mind was confused with fancies. “Now they are singing a hymn,” he thought, and imagined himself in church, where he heard the children`s voices in the choir, and saw Father Naum, long since dead, leading the congregation in prayer; hundreds of peasants` heads rose and fell, like ripened stalks of grain before the wind. … The peasants made the sign of the cross. …

All of these are familiar, although they are all dead. … There he beheld his father`s severe face; there was his brother fervently praying. And he also stood there, abloom with health and strength, filled with unconscious hope of happiness…. And where was that happiness?… For a moment, the old man`s thoughts flared up, illuminating various episodes in his past life.

He saw hard work, sorrow, care… where was this happiness? A hard lot will trace furrows even in a young face, will bend a powerful back and teach him to sigh as it had taught his older brother.

There on the left, among the village women, with her head humbly bowed, stood his sweetheart. A good woman, may she inherit the kingdom of Heaven! How much she had suffered, poor woman. … Constant poverty and work, and the inevitable sorrows of a woman`s life will wither her beauty; her eyes will lose their luster, and instead of the customary serenity, dull fear of unexpected calamities will settle perpetually on her face. … Well, then, where was her happiness? …One son was left to them, their one hope and joy; but he was too weak to withstand temptation.

The Old Bell-Ringer part 2

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March 10, 2019

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Where would he be a year hence? Would he again climb to this height, beneath the brass bell to awaken the slumbering night with its metallic peal, or would he be lying in a dark comer of the graveyard, under a cross? God knows!… He was prepared; in the meantime God granted him the happiness of greeting the holiday once more.

“Glory be to God!” His lips whispered the customary formula as his eyes looked up to the heaven bright with a million twinkling stars and made the sign of the cross.

“Mikheyich, ay, Mikheyich!” called out to him the tremulous voice of an old man. The aged sexton gazed up at the belfry, shading his unsteady, tear-dimmed eyes with his hand, trying to see Mikheyich.

“What do you want? Here I am,” replied the bell-ringer, looking down from the belfry. “Can`t you see me?”

“No, I can`t. It must be time to ring. What do you say?”

Both looked at the stars. Myriads of God`s lights twinkled on high. The fiery Wagoner was above them. Mikheyich meditated.

“No, not yet a while. … I know when. …”

Need a watch

Indeed he knew. He did not need a watch. God`s stars would tell him when. … Heaven and earth, the white cloud gently floating in the sky, the dark forest with its indistinct murmur and the rippling of the stream enveloped by the darkness all that was familiar to him, part of him. Not in vain had he spent his life here.

The distant past arose before him. He recalled how for the first time-he had mounted to this belfry with his father. Lord! how long ago that was, and yet how recent it seemed!… He saw himself a blond lad; his eyes sparkled; the wind not the wind that raises the dust in the streets, but a strange one, that flaps its noiseless wings, tousled his hair…. Way down below, tiny beings walked about, and the village huts looked small; the forest had receded, and the oval clearing on which the village stood seemed enormous, so endless…

“And there it is, all of it!” smiled the gray-haired old man, gazing at the little clearing. … That was the way of life. As a young man one can not see the end of it. And now, there it was, as if in the palm of on`s hand, from the beginning to the grave over there which he had fancied for himself in the comer of the cemetery. … Well, glory be to God! it was time to rest. The burden of life he had borne honor- ably, and the damp earth seemed like his mother. … Soon, very noon!…

Read More about Lludd and Llevelys part 4

The Old Bell-Ringer part 1

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March 10, 2019

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Vladimir Korolenko (1853-1921)

Korolenko spent a great part of his life in exile. Much of his writing is based on incidents gathered in Siberia. It is surprising that his exiledid not embitter him. His stories, which are half romances, are sympathetically and simply told.The Old Bell-Ringer is one of his most beautiful tales.The present version is by Maxim Lieber.

The Old Bell-Ringer

It was growing dark.The tiny village, nestling by the distant stream, in a pine forest, was merged in that twilight peculiar to starry spring nights, when the fog, rising from the earth, deepens the shadows of the woods and fills the open spaces with a silvery blue mist. … Everything was still, pensive and sad. The village quietly slumbered.The dark outlines of the wretched cabins were barely visible; here and there lights glimmered; now and then you could hear a gate creak; or a dog would suddenly bark and then stop. Occasionally, out of the dark, murmuring forest emerged the figure of a pedestrian, or that of a horseman; or a cart would jolt by. These were the inhabitants of lone forest hamlets going to their church for the great spring holiday.The church stood on a gentle hill in the center of the village. The ancient belfry, tall and murky, was lost in the blue sky.The creaking of the staircase could be heard as the old bell-ringer Mikheyich mounted to the belfry, and his little lantern, suspended in mid-air, looked like a star in space.It was difficult for the old man to climb the staircase. His leg served him badly, and his eyes saw but dimly. … An old man like him should have been at rest by now, but God spared him from death. He had buried his sons and his grandsons; he had accompanied old men and young men to their resting place, but he still lived on. `Twas hard. Many the times he had greeted the spring holiday, and he could not remember how often he had waited in that very belfry the appointed hour. And now God had again willed that…The old man went to the opening in the tower and leaned on the banister. In the darkness below, around the church, he made out the village cemetery in which the old crosses with their outstretched arms seemed to protect the ill-kept graves. Over these bowed here and there a few leafless birch trees. The aromatic odor of young buds, wafted to Mikheyich from below, brought with it a feeling of the melancholy of eternal sleep.

Read More about Supply and Demand part 7

Phrygian valley cradle

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October 20, 2017

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Cradle of Culture: Phrygian valley

On one side monumental tumuli, giant rock-carved reliefs, altars and cave dwellings, on the other fairy chimney formations like works of art and the thermal springs that have warmed the lofty steppes of the Anatolian plateau for centuries. While wandering in the valleys and highlands, you grasp more easily the place in human history of the Phrygian civilization and its rich cultural heritage.

The region that includes the provinces of Afyonkarahisar, Kutahya and Eskisehir, where the monuments of the Phrygian civilization are located, is known today as the Valley of the Phrygians. Three cities still preserve their historic links with this magnificent geography, which illumines the present with the light of the past. Countless local riches, such as Afyonkarahisar`s marbles, Kutahya tiles and Eskisehir`s alabaster, are the touchstones of this cultural journey.

Every day at dawn, first the castle perched on the colossal rock mass that rises behind it is illuminated at Afyonkarahisar. Then, spreading across the lower reaches of Afyonkarahisar Castle, the light reaches the historic texture of a house close to four hundred years old.

This region, where you can find vestiges of traditional Afyonkarahisar life, is among the finest living examples of Anatolian civil architecture. Strolling about here, a person is astonished to encounter old-fashioned grocery stores with their characteristic smell that brings back childhood memories.

Afyonkarahisar

Situated at the point of intersection of the inter-city highways to Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, Afyonkarahisar is always alive and humming. The hotels and large shopping centers that have spread to the province keep the region ever vibrant.

Like a virtual continuation today of the ancient trade routes, this junction and its dynamics are a major contributor to the city`s economy.

Another city center exhibiting vestiges of history in the Phrygian Valley is Kutahya, which stands out for its mosques, baths, mausoleums, fountains, old mansions and museums. It is easier to get a handle on the city`s magnificent past on Germiyan Sokak, which is lined with old houses.

You can also find rich examples of the local handicrafts all over the city. The pottery that dates all the way back to the Phrygians and the tiles that symbolize the city are among the branches of industry that contribute to the local economy.

To understand the place where one lives and to appreciate its beauty, sometimes one has to look at it from another angle. To be able to say that one has seen Eskisehir, which could be considered the modem face of the Valley of the Phrygians, one should pay a brief visit to Kent (City) Park, which has been dubbed the `lungs `of Eskisehir, or survey the city`s skyline from Selale (Waterfall) Park.

Watered by the Porsuk River, this progressive city is Anatolia`s rising star with its green cover, its transportation net that functions like clockwork, and its refreshing parks. Eskisehir also boasts a young and highly educated population, in which the university and its extensive campuses undoubtedly play the largest part. You`ll encounter young lovers on almost every street here, or students on an outing by gondola on the Porsuk, livening up the atmosphere with their cries of glee.