International rivalries became a new hurdle in the Olympic games.

Amid the celebration of the 30th Olympiad, it’s worthwhile recalling the 1908 London Olympics, and and how it changed the international games.

The Fourth Olympiad was the first truly international Olympic games held outside of Greece. It was the first Olympics to include winter events and women’s gymnastics. It introduced the rule that prohibited individual competitors; only members of national teams were allowed to participate.

And it was at the London Olympics that international squabble first began to intrude.

The feuding began at the opening ceremony, when the British Olympic committee failed to fly a U.S. flag over the stadium. The American athletes saw this and were furious. When the U.S. flag bearer marched past King Edward and the royal family, he refused to dip his flag in salute.

The British officials responded to this insult with a gesture intended to “restore the importance of the monarchy.” They changed the route of the marathon so that it would begin at Windsor Castle, directly beneath the windows of the Royal Nursery, and end at the royal box where the King awaited the winner. The fact that the new route  added another 195 meters to the race didn’t seem important. (In fact, this precedent caused the Olympic committee to change the 25-mile marathon to a 26-mile event.)

Opening ceremonies, April 27, 1908.

Soon the complaining and protests began. After the Americans lost to England in the tug-of-war, they protested that the British team’s shoes were illegal. The United States also protested the pole-vault regulations, the official medal count, and the set-up of the 800-meter and the 1,500-meter race. And American runners were outraged when the British disqualified the American winner of the 400-meter race for foul play.

Fans from the United States added to the situation: Throughout the games, they displayed what the British felt was raucous, partisan cheering and generally poor sportsmanship. It was particularly noticeable at the finish of the marathon, as the Post reported:

When the Italian had fallen and Hayes, the American, had won, several more Americans came in, pretty fresh, then some runners of other nationalities, and, finally, an Englishman arrived.

The Americans were very sore over the treatment they had received, they had heard nothing for days but boasts that an Englishman could win the Marathon, and when the English runner finally did appear, way back in the nick, an immense American, leaning far out of his box, bellowed through a megaphone:

“Welcome to our fair city!”

Dorando Pietri struggling to the finish line with a little help from his friends.

The marathon is a story in itself. The leader was Italian Dorando Pietri who entered the stadium within sight of the finish line, but collapsed repeatedly. Two British officials stepped forward and ‘helped’ Pietri across the finish line. It might not have been an intentional effort to prevent the American Johnny Hayes from winning, but the American team didn’t see it that way. The Irish-American Athletic Club protested vehemently. Pietri was disqualified. Hayes won the gold.

The American team complained so often about biased British judges that the International Olympic Committee made a ruling—another first!—that future games would use judges from several different countries in future games.

Today it’s surprising to read of the intense, often bitter rivalry between Britain and America. But in the early 1900s, America’s sudden emergence as a colonial power in the Pacific challenged Great Britain’s global dominance.

Americans were still considered by many (including the future King George V) as rude and overbearing. Many in England didn’t like the American women who were marrying English lords for their titles. And Americans didn’t like the $220 million of U.S. wealth that accompanied these brides to England to shore up their noble husband’s estates.

Johnny Hayes, American gold medalist, when he was still trying to catch up with Pietri

Many Americans felt it was patriotic to dislike the British, even 120 years after the Revolution. Irish-Americans, who made up a sizeable portion of our immigrants, had more recent grievances with the United Kingdom. And now that the United States saw a possibility of becoming a global power, it needed to show it was the equal of England, and would tolerate no hint of American inferiority.

So it’s not surprising to find an occasional slap at Britain in Post editorials, like “The Desire to Win” from 1905. The editors said Britain’s sportsmanship, like its military, had become decadent because it was no longer interested in “excelling in all things, small as well as great.”

Then, shortly before the London Olympics, the English Olympic committee announced it would closely examine the qualifications of American athletes to ensure they were truly amateurs. The Post’s editors responded with a blistering editorial:

This is a proper and timely advertisement of a promise to do full duty. We hope [it indicates] the committee’s courageous intentions regarding entries from its own country.

Certainly American sportsmen trust the English committee will give its home athletes a more thorough inspection, as to their ethical qualifications, than has been the case in any previous competition of an international character.

Some Americans have taken this announcement of the English committee as a bit of mud-slinging, but, if so intended, as I doubt, it may be overlooked as another Swettenhamism.*

*This refers to a recent dispute in Jamaica. When a hurricane struck the island, the admiral on a U.S. Navy vessel sent marines ashore to protect the property of Americans. The island’s British governor, Alexander Swettenham, issued a harsh criticism, which asked how America would like Royal marines landing in New York to protect British property. He was soon ordered to issue an apology, but Americans remained incensed for months afterward.

Americans who are familiar with the athletic conditions of the two countries will not take very seriously any covert attack by Englishmen, who are hardly in a position to indulge in the smallest character-besmirching foray.

Well-informed Britishers know, to their sorrow, the depth of their athletic degradation. Outside of the Oxford and Cambridge Universities, track athletics in England reek with professionalism and dishonesty. There is an athletic association which pretends to govern the amateur sport of Great Britain, but it has proved wholly incompetent. The bookmakers rule at track meets, and their corrupting influences upon certain (and the best, athletically speaking) grades of non-university athletes have swept over the half-hearted efforts of the governing body.

If the London Olympic committee lives up to its advertised intention, the English team will have few prominent athletes outside of those who are numbered on the university lists.

The situation is different in America, where the Amateur Athletic Union holds the lines in a firm grasp. Here track athletic laws are made comprehensive and are honestly enforced, which is more than can be said for England. We have our troubles, it is true, now and again—and man is not infallible on either side of the Atlantic.

It will be well, if for the protection of its own athletes, the American Union scans with careful eye the list of English non-university entries.

Johnny Hayes and Humphrey O'Sullivan

1908: The Olympics Get Political. And Commercial. The Saturday Evening Post

Women, the company reasoned, were tactful, helpful, dedicated, attentive to details—and they could work harder than most men thought possible. They could deftly handle the callers who became furious when told the number they were calling was busy.

In those days, the job of a telephone operator—also called a “Hello Girl” or “Central”— was far from easy. First, she had to take all responsibility for electric shocks she received from her “operating board.” She also had to memorize the position of 300 phone numbers on the board directly in front of her.

She was expected to use only the language approved by the company. Numbers could be read only one way. (The number 2000 could only be spoken as “two oh, double-oh.” 4001 was “four, double-oh, one.”) The company also directed them to give the time in “railroad style”: not “twelve minutes to nine” but “eight forty-eight.” The rest of her speech was limited to a handful of approved expressions:

“Number?”

“They don’t answer.”

“Line busy.”

“Line out of order.”

“I have no such number; please refer to your directory.”

“Telephone has been taken out.”

“I will give you Information.”

“I will give you Chief Operator.”

Lastly, an operator had to be fast.

Central … takes care of six or seven customers a minute. During the rush hour she supplies 360 connections in 60 minutes; under stress of intense public excitement she has a record of answering 15 calls per minute. [“‘Hello’ Girls” by Harris Dickson, Sept 26, 1908]

There was one small compensation to all the drawbacks of being a “Hello Girl,” according to Dickson:

In her spare time, she dearly loves to listen to telephone chatter—by way of novelty and recreation.

Officially, the Bell Systems didn’t allow operators to listen in to conversations, Dickson reported. (In France, he added, privacy was enforced by the Government.) Operators were prohibited to marry anyone on a long list of forbidden bridegrooms: police employees, detectives, government officials, foreigners, etc. so they wouldn’t be tempted to divulge any secrets they overheard.

The anonymous author of “The Diary of a Telephone Girl: The Work of a Human Spider in a Web of Talking Wires” readily admitted eavesdropping.

There are sometimes long enough intervals … for me to be able to read or write letters. They put on a bell attachment that rings for every call, so I can’t fail to answer.

Of course I had plenty of time for listening, and it was so exciting sometimes that I hated to stop long enough to answer another call.

The other night I switched a friend of mine on to the line, opened his listening key and others in turn, so that for an hour he could overhear all sorts of private conversations, one after the other.

It’s so queer to press down the row of “listening keys” one after another and get bits of the different conversations!  Different voices, different dialects, different emotions, tempers, subjects! All sliced off like Neapolitan ice cream—little bits of pulsing human lives.  The girls do awfully mean things when they’re exasperated by angry subscribers. You can, for instance, switch three or four couples together—a pair of lovers, maybe, two business men and one woman gossiping to another—and then sit and hear them rage at each other.

It was interesting, too, to notice how the character of the talk changed as the hour grew late. The conversations seemed to grow more familiar and confidential and affectionate toward eleven o’clock.

There are several distinct types that I can recognize immediately and I almost know what they’re going to say.

First, at 7 o’clock, there are scattered calls, usually important, for doctors, perhaps; and you have to ring and ring, because the subscribers hate so to get up and answer the ‘phone.

At 8 o’clock, the nice, early-morning women come on to market with patient, affable butchers. They always want a tender joint and fresh vegetables. “Yes, ma’am!” say the butchers.

At 9, the business man in a hurry, in a loud, violent tone, impatient and cross, bullying the operator, and then, when he gets his number, lowering his voice to an amiable growl.

At 10, interminable conversation between women over the “flat-rate” ‘phones with infinite details as to clothes. There’s no five-minute limit to talks with this company and you can’t cut them off. I’ve known them to keep it up for three-quarters of an hour. [Imagine: talking on the phone for 45 minutes!—ed.]

At 11 to half-past there’s a lull, punctuated, perhaps, by nippy ladies calling up employment agencies [looking to replace a servant], or stupid servant girls replying.

At 11:30 till 12:30 there’s a wild rush, everybody trying to catch everybody else for lunch.

From then till 3 or so there are characteristic calls of all sorts: peevish, hurried females who use the nickel ‘phones in the downtown drug stores, and who have just got to have their numbers; silly schoolgirls mischievously calling up men they don’t know; sporting men [placing bets] in an unintelligible racing jargon, and so on.

From 3 to 4 it slows down again. Then there’s likely to be a flurry of women trying to call up stores before they close, or in time to catch the last deliveries.

At 5, wives begin to call up to know if husbands are coming home, and if not, why not? Apologetic replies from offices as business men attempt to explain. Or, if he’s coming, “Be sure to bring home a steak or a lobster.” He (in disgust): “Why couldn’t you have ordered them this morning?”

From 6 till 7 everybody seems to be too busy to call up, except the younger people, girls and youths, who joke and [plan to meet later]. This is a good hour, too, for the obsequious underling, the club hallboy or the clerk of a garage, who has taken orders and been respectful all day, to talk down to the telephone operator. Now, along toward 8, comes the nervous maiden, calling up her men, too uncertain of their reception to bully Central as she usually does.

From 9 on not many calls.

After 10:30 come the calls [for taxis and chauffeurs] and the hotel private exchanges begin to get busy.

Then, at 11 and on through till 2, the reporters with strange tales.

I hate the reporters. They always have the most thrillingly interesting conversations, but if I listen on the line they always know it and get mad. “ Get off the line, Central,” they say, “or I’ll stop talking!” No matter how softly I press back my listening key, they seem to know I’m listening, and then they talk so horridly that I simply have to shut the key.

With automation replacing most phone operators, there are far fewer people to eavesdrop on your conversation. Besides, the whole idea of private phone conversations seem quaint in an age of cell phones. You don’t need to become an eavesdropping operator when callers walk through airports and stores handing out free samples of their private lives.

What The Operators Overheard in 1907 The Saturday Evening Post

Woman With Basketball by Carol Aus

Woman with BasketballCarol AusNovember 20, 1909

Dr. James Naismith is credited with inventing basketball in 1891, and apparently it didn’t take long for the ladies to try their hand at the sport. A Norwegian artist named Carol Aus (1868-1934), about whom little is known, painted this young player for a 1909 Post cover.

Woman Playing Tennis by George Brehm

Woman Playing TennisGeorge BrehmAugust 3, 1907

We have plenty of cover art showing a pretty lady posing with a tennis racket or other sports equipment, but an action shot like this tennis player makes a person wonder how the artist did it. A person might also wonder how the lady was so active in a long skirt. This is from 1907.

Lady Fishing by Harrison Fisher

Lady FishingHarrison FisherAugust 16, 1902

We have dozens of covers depicting the art of fishing, the first of which was Grover Cleveland fishing in 1901. The second, in 1902, was of a lady reeling one in! Harrison Fisher was a big name in Post covers, doing nearly 80 between 1900 and 1915.

The Finals and Alice Gray by Pete Fountain

The Finals and Alice GrayPete FountainMarch 21, 1903

We have numerous depictions of the great game of golf, also. This is one of the earliest, from 1903. Maybe they couldn’t vote, but women could certainly golf…and fish, hunt, play tennis, basketball and baseball.

Woman Archer by J.J. Gould

Woman ArcherJJ GouldJune 1, 1907

This is another action painting. Early Post artist J.J. Gould went for verisimilitude in this one from 1907. The lady looks like she knows what she’s doing.

Woman on Horseback by Philip R. Goodwin

Woman on HorsebackPhilip R. GoodwinJune 9, 1906

Hundreds of covers depict a lady reading, holding flowers or a fan, or simply looking lovely in a beautiful gown. This 1906 cover shows many of the fair sex were made of sterner stuff.

Classic Covers: Women in Sports in the 1900s The Saturday Evening Post

Naturally the event prompted me to look through the archives for past reports about the oil industry. I found scores of stories on the subject spanning the past century. Taken altogether, these articles present a story of America’s troubled relationship with oil and its producers.

As early as 1908, for example, the Post was criticizing Standard Oil, particularly its Vice President John D. Archbold who announced his company would be more vocal in defending its reputation.

“It was entirely unnecessary for Mr. Archbold to urge upon his readers that the Standard Oil trust is a powerful and successful commercial organization, or that it has adopted many useful and important economies in the conduct of its extensive and diversified business.

“But his denial of the often repeated charge that the business success of the Standard Oil Trust has been largely contributed to by unlawful special favors from railroad companies can hardly be accepted as conclusive, contradicted as it is by testimony in numerous cases and investigations. And when the amount and frequency of these special privileges, which have been conclusively proven to exist, are considered, the statement is clearly justified that the ability of the Standard Oil trust to defeat competition and achieve its remarkable success has been due to illegal privileges from railroad companies more than to any other one cause.

“It has been proven that during the early period of its existence it had contracts with railroad companies by which it secured a rebate of from 10% to 68% on the published tariffs of the roads on all oil that it shipped. This would have been an advantage over competitors that would have satisfied the avarice of most people. But not the geniuses of the Standard Oil Trust. They demanded and received the same amount as a rebate upon the shipments of their competitors, who were compelled to pay the full tariff rate by the railroads.”

Historically, the Post was a tireless cheerleader for development and business success. Throughout the 1920s, it  heaped praise on every prospering American industry. But it never lost an ambivalence toward the oil industry.

For example, Post writer Samuel G. Blythe rhapsodized over the oil industry’s accomplishments in 1930. He proudly announced America’s oil production:

“The daily average oil output in the United States in 1929 was 3,196,000 barrels. Multiply that by 36, for oil wells, when they work, work every day. Thus we find that our total oil output in 1929 was 1,166,540,000 barrels. Almost one and one-sixth billions.”

“Oil is the giant of our national products… Oil is indispensible to our progress and prosperity. The use of it ramifies in nearly every commercial, manufacturing, distributing, motor, lubricative, heating and transport direction. It warms us and lights us. It runs our tractors and trucks and automobiles, pulls our passenger and freight trains on great railroad systems, propels our ships, whirls countless factory wheels, generates much of our power, fights our wars and flies our airplanes. The by-products of it are used in hundreds of utilitarian ways.”

Yet, at article’s end, Blythe drops his worshipful tone for one of stern warning against “the business idiocy of producing more than can be sold.” He encourages major oil-producing states to voluntarily curtail “wasteful and unneeded oil production.”

“the benefits have been clearly demonstrated. Oil can be conserved. Oil should be conserved, not because there isn’t plenty of oil but because it is sheer business lunacy not to recognize the imperative economic law of supply and demand.

“There is hope. Conservation will continue unless the oil producers are the biggest and greediest business jackasses the world has ever known.”

In a 1933 article, Harold Ickes, FDR’s new Secretary of the Interior, provided details about the wastefulness of oil exploration.

“One billion dollars is not an insignificant fortune even for the country that holds within its treasury most of the gold of the world. Yet the same people who would avidly scan tales of such a theft have permitted, practically unheeded, a loss in their oil resources amounting to much more than one billion dollars.

“We have suffered and are continuing to suffer stupendous losses in the exploitation of our oil resources. We are just as indifferent about oil as our forefather were about our forests, our plains and our streams. What if oil is being wasted? There will always be more oil; and even if it should, in time, give out, there will be plenty for our own needs in our own day. ‘May the devil take the hindmost’ is still sound American doctrine.

“I challenge any other present-day industry in the United States to show greater waste, inefficiency and mismanagement than seem to be inherent in the oil industry, whether of its own making or because of inadequate laws. These are grave charges, but they are less grave than the situation to which they relate.

The oil-drilling practices of the time, Ickes relates, encouraged drillers to grab up the easy oil, close to the surface, and leave behind the most costly oil.

“A quantity of oil on top can readily be skimmed off, and below, there is more oil clinging to rocklike sand, while still farther down in the lank there are coal and shale from which oil might be manufactured.

“If we drive a hole… a certain amount of the very cheapest oil will flow out naturally from the top. When the natural flow has ceased, it becomes necessary to install pumps in order to draw out the oil that remains stubbornly sticking to the rocklike sand. This makes the crude oil cost more. When this is gone it is now customary to abandon an oil field.

“But it may become necessary, expensive though the process will be, to go down and dig out the oil-saturated rock to wring from it oil which no pumps will bring up. It may even become necessary, at a still greater cost, to go to the bottom of our tank and dig out our coal and shale, from which, if the consumer will pay enough, it is possible to process motor fuels. “Already in many areas in the United States the cream from the top of the tank has been skimmed. The former great flush oil fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, New York and Indiana are gone.

“Millions upon millions of barrels of oil have been allowed to become bogged in the earth’s reaches, beyond cheap recovery, because of the loss of the driving pressure of the gas.

Natural gas, rich in caloric energy, was the force that pushed oil to the earth’s surface. But the oil companies were little interested in natural gas at first. Once they realized it could be just as valuable as oil, they made efforts to capture it at the well head, instead of letting it escape into the atmosphere. However many get-rich-quick operations didn’t spare the time and money to capture this gas, but just grabbed the easy oil. The energy-rich gas was simply discarded.

“In the Panhandle of Texas, 1,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas a day go utterly to waste. Expert engineers estimate that the loss of this gas means that from 400,000,000 to 500,000,000 barrels of easily recoverable crude oil will stick in the sands. This is a direct loss of crude oil sufficient to supply the entire nation for approximately six months.

“From 200,000,000 to 250,000,000 barrels of gasoline could have been made from that crude oil. Enough is being lost in that one field to fill up every car in the country more than forty times.

“A year’s output of that wasted gas — 365,000,000,000 cubic feet — represents as much heat energy as 62,634,000 barrels of fuel oil—enough to heat the average home 1,252,680 years, or, to turn it around, to heat 1,252,680 homes a year. The staggering total of 62,634,000 barrels of fuel oil is difficult for most of us to grasp. But it would heat every home in Cleveland for three years. Dallas, Texas has 83,000 homes, every one of which could be heated for 132 months. Likewise every home in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Portland, Oregon, Providence, Erie, Lansing, Topeka and Racine could be kept warm for a whole twelve months’ year, not just the winter season.

“Some of the early wells in Michigan were allowed to spew 18,000,000 cubic feet of gas a day, each, into the air. Visualize the worth of that gas if piped into Detroit or Lansing to make automobiles, or into Chicago for use as fuel. Just as a measuring rod, consider that our capital city of Washington consumes for domestic and industrial purposes approximately 7,000,000,000 cubic feet of gas a year.

“My own opinion is that if the oil industry cannot control its affairs in the public interest, then the Federal Government, of necessity and to protect all the people, must take a hand. This business of oil is so important to all of us that private control must promptly and drastically mend its ways. We must, as a people, have oil, and plenty of it, at reasonable prices from our own wells. We cannot continue recklessly to pour this precious resource over the whole world. One can almost hear the sardonic laughter of nations, jealous of our prestige and covetous of our wealth, as they watch our headlong course toward national bankruptcy in oil while they count every drop of their own hoarded stores of this precious mineral.”

Over the next forty years, critics kept up their demands that oil companies use less wasteful methods. The companies had little interest in the arguments until the 1970s. To be fair, the oil companies would have had little incentive to reduce waste in the early 20th Century. As far as they could see, there was a nearly unlimited wealth of inexpensive oil in the 1930s — far more than would ever be needed by America’s 26 Million cars and trucks. (The number of vehicles has grown 1,000% since then.)

In 1970, though, America’s supply of cheap oil began to disappear, and we became more reliant on foreign oil. Suddenly the industry was working hard to extract every bit of oil and gas at every well head. And, as the oil executives, critics, and politicians had expected, energy prices rose.

I’ll close the first part of this Retrospective with a nostalgic glimpse at historic gasoline prices.

Oh, those happy days.

Read “This Billion Barrel Oil Country” by Samuel G. Blythe [PDF].

Read “After the Oil Deluge, What Price Gasoline?” by Harold Ickes [PDF].

Next:

America’s Common Wealth of Energy: The Long Battle for Oil Conservation

America’s Century of Oil Problems The Saturday Evening Post

Among his numerous short stories is the classic “To Start a Fire,” which captures the despair of a man trying to build a fire in a snow-bound wilderness to save his life.

London wrote over 25 novels and 65 short stories, in addition to an assortment of essays, poetry, non-fiction, and plays, despite the fact that he died in 1916 at the young age of 40. “A Goboto Night” is one of 18 stories the Post printed by London.

At Goboto the traders come off their schooners and the planters drift in from far wild coasts, and one and all they assume shoes, white duck trousers and various other appearances of civilization. At Goboto mail is received, bills are paid, and newspapers, rarely more than five weeks old, are accessible; for the little island, belted with its coral reefs, affords safe anchorage, is the steamer port of call, and serves as the distributing point for the whole wide-scattered group.

Life at Goboto is heated, unhealthy and lurid, and for its size it asserts the distinction of more cases of acute alcoholism than any other spot in the world. Guvutu, over in the Solomons, claims that it drinks between drinks. Goboto does not deny this. It merely states, in passing, that in the Goboton chronology no such interval time is known. It also poins out its import statistics, which show a far larger per capita consumption of liquors. Guvutu explains this on the basis that Goboto does a larger business and has more visitors. Goboto retorts that its population is smaller and that its visitors are thirstier. And the discussion goes on interminably, principally because the disputants do not live long enough to settle it.

Goboto is not large. The island is only a quarter of a mile in diameter, and on it are situated an Admiralty coalshed—where a few tons of coal have lain untounched for twenty years—the barracks for a handful of black laborers, a big store and warehouse with sheet-iron roofs, and a bungalow inhabited by the manager and his two clerks. They are the white population. An average of one man out of the three is always to be found down with fever. It is the policy of the company to treat its patrons well, as invading companies have found out, and it is the task of the manager and clerks to do the treating. Throughout the year traders and recruiters arrive from far dry cruises and planters from equally distant and dry shores, bringing with them magnificent thirsts. Goboto is the Mecca of sprees, and when they have spreed they go back to their schooners and plantations to recuperate.

Some of the less hardy require as much as six months between visits. But for the manager and his assistants there are no such intervals. They are on the spot, and week by week, blown in by monsoon or southeast trade, the schooners come to anchor, cargoed with copra, ivory, nuts, pearl shell, hawksbill turtle and thirst.

It is a very hard job at Goboto. That is why the pay is twice that on other stations, and that is why the company selects only courageous and intrepid men for this particular station. They last no more than a year or so, when the wreckage of them is shipped back to Australia, or the remains of them are buried in the sand across on the windward side of the islet. Johnny Bassett, almost the legendary hero of Goboto, broke all records. He was a remittance man with a remarkable constitution and he lasted seven years.

Nevertheless, at Goboto they tried to be gentlemen. For that matter, though something was wrong with them, they were gentlemen and had been gentlemen. That was why the great unwritten rule of Goboto was that visitors should put on pants and shoes. Breech-clouts, lavalavas and bare legs were not tolerated. When Captain Jensen, the wildest of the blackbirders though descended from old New York Knickerbocker stock, surged in, clad in loin-cloth, undershirt, two belted revolvers and a sheath-knife, he was stopped at the beach. This was in the days of Johnny Bassett, ever a stickler in matters of etiquette. Captain Jensen stood up in the sternsheets of his whaleboat and denied the existence of pants on his schooner. Also he affirmed his intention of coming ashore. They of Goboto nursed him back to health from a bullet-hole through his shoulder, and in addition handsomely begged his pardon, for no pants had they found on his schooner. And finally, on the first day he sat up, Johnny Bassett kindly but firmly assisted his guest into a pair of pants on his own. This was the great precedent. In all the succeeding years it had never been violated. White men and pants were undivorceable. Only niggers ran naked.

II

ON THIS night things were, with one exception, in nowise different from any other night. Seven of them with glimmering eyes and steady legs had capped a day of Scotch with swivelsticked cocktails and sat down to dinner. Jacketed, trousered and shod they were: Jerry McMurtrey, the manager; Eddy Little and Jack Andrews, clerks; Captain Stapler, of the recruiting ketch Merry; Darby Shryleton, planter from Tito-Ito; Peter Gee, a half-caste Chinese pearl-buyer who ranged from Ceylon to the Paumotas; and Alfred Deacon, a visitor who had stopped off from the last steamer. At first wine was served by the black servants to those who drank it, though all quickly shifted back to Scotch and soda—pickling their food as they ate it ere it went into their calcined, pickled stomachs.

Over their coffee they heard the rumble of an anchor-chain through a hawspipe, tokening the arrival of a vessel.

“It’s David Grief,” Peter Gee remarked.

“How do you know?” Deacon demanded truculently, and then went on to deny the half-caste’s knowledge. “You chaps put on a lot of side. I’ve done some sailing myself, and this naming a craft when its sail is only a blur, or naming a man by the sound of his anchor—it’s—it’s unadulterated poppycock.”

Peter Gee was engaged in lighting a cigarette and did not answer.

“Some of the niggers do amazing things that way,” McMurtrey interposed tactfully.

As with the others, this conduct of their visitor jarred on the manager. From the moment of Peter Gee’s arrival that afternoon Deacon had manifested a tendency to pick on him. He had disputed his statements and been generally rude.

“Maybe it’s because Peter’s got Chink blood in him,” had been Andrews’ hypothesis. “Deacon’s Australian, you know, and they’re daffy down there on color.”

“I fancy that’s it,” McMurtrey had agreed. “But we can’t permit any bullying, especially of a man like Peter Gee, who’s whiter than most white men.”

In this the manager had been in nowise wrong. Peter Gee was that rare creature, a good as well as clever Eurasian. In fact it was the stolid integrity of the Chinese blood that toned the recklessness and licentiousness of the English blood that had run in his father’s veins. Also he was better educated than any man there, spoke better English as well as several other tongues, and knew and lived more of their own ideals of gentlemanliness than they did themselves. And, finally, he was a gentle soul. Violence he deprecated, though he had killed men in his times. Turbulence he abhorred. He avoided turbulence as he would the plague.

Captain Stapler stepped in to help McMurtrey:

“I remember when I changed schooners and came into Altman the niggers knew right off the bat it was me. I wasn’t expected, either, much less was I expected to be in another craft. They told the trader it was me. He used the glasses and wouldn’t believe them. But they did know. Told me afterward they could see it sticking out all over the schooner that I was running her.”

Deacon ignored him and returned to the attack on the pearl-buyer.

“How did you know from the sound of the anchor that it was this whatever-you-called-him man?” he challenged.

“There are so many things that go to make up such a judgment,” Peter Gee answered. “It’s very hard to explain. It would require almost a textbook.”

“I thought so,” Deacon sneered. “Explanation that doesn’t explain is easy.”

“Who’s for bridge?” Eddy Little, the second clerk, interrupted, looking up expectantly and starting to shuffle. “You’ll play, won’t you, Peter?”

“If he does, he’s a bluffer,” Deacon cut back. “I’m getting tired of all this poppycock. Mr. Gee, you will favor me and put yourself in a better light if you tell how you know who that man was that just dropped anchor. After that I’ll play you piquet.”

“I’d prefer bridge,” Peter answered. “As for the other thing, it’s something like this: By the sound it was a small craft—no square-rigger. No whistle, no siren was blown—again a small craft. It anchored close in—still again a small craft, for steamers and big ships must drop hook outside the middle shoal. Now the entrance is tortuous. There is no recruiting nor trading captain in the group who dares to run the passage after dark. Certainly no stranger would. There were two exceptions. The first was Margonville. But he was executed by the High Court at Fiji. Remains the other exception, David Grief. Night or day in any weather he runs the passage. This is well know to all. A possible factor, in case Grief were somewhere else, would be some young dare-devil of a skipper. In that connection, in the first place, I don’t know of any, nor does anybody else. In the second place, David Grief is in these waters, cruising on the Gunga, which is shortly scheduled to leave here for Karo-Karo. I spoke Grief on the Gunga in Sandfly Passage day before yesterday. He was putting a trader ashore on a new station. He said he was going to call in at Babo and then come on to Goboto. He has had ample time to get here. I have heard an anchor drop. Who else than David Grief can it be? Captain Donovan is skipper of the Gunga, and him I know too well to believe that he’d run in to Goboto after dark unless his owner were in charge. In a few minutes David Grief will enter through that door and say: ‘In Guvutu they merely drink between drinks.’ I’ll wager fifty pounds he’s the man that enters and that his word will be: ‘In Guvutu they merely drink between drinks.’”

Deacon was for the moment crushed. The sullen blood rose darkly in his face.

“Well, he’s answered you,” McMurtrey laughed genially. “And I’ll back his bet myself for a couple of sovereigns.”

“Bridge!—who’s going to take a hand?” Eddy Little cried impatiently. “Come on, Peter.”

“The rest of you play,” Deacon said. “He and I are going to play piquet.”

“I’d prefer bridge,” Peter Gee said mildly.

“Don’t you play piquet?”

Peter nodded.

“Then come on. Maybe I can show I know more about that than I do about anchors.”

“Oh, I say—” McMurtrey began.

“You can play bridge,” Deacon shut him off. “We prefer piquet.”

Reluctantly Peter Gee was bullied into a game that he knew would be unhappy.

“Only a rubber,” he said, as he cut for deal.

“For how much?” Deacon asked.

Peter Gee shrugged his shoulders. “As you please.”

“Hundred up—five pounds a game?”

Peter Gee agreed.

“With the lurch double, of course, ten pounds?”

“All right,” said Peter Gee.

At another table four of the others sat in at bridge. Captain Stapler, who was no card-player looked on. McMurtrey, with poorly concealed apprehension, followed as well as he could what went on at the piquet table. His fellow Englishmen as well were shocked by the behavior of the Australian, and all were troubled by fear of some untoward act on his part. That he was working up his animosity against the half-caste and that the explosion might come any time was apparent to all.

“I hope Peter loses,” McMurtrey said in an undertone.

“He won’t if he has any luck,” Andrews answered. “He’s a wizard at piquet. I know by experience.”

That Peter Gee was lucky was patent from the continual badgering of Deacon, who filled his glass frequently. He had lost the first game handily and, judging from his remarks, was about to lose the second, when the door opened and David Grief entered.

“In Guvutu they merely drink between drinks,” he remarked casually to the assembled company ere he gripped the manager’s hand. “Hello, Mac! Say, my skipper’s down in the whaleboat. He’s got a silk shirt, a tie and tennis shoes all complete, but he wants you to send a pair of pants down. Mine are too small, but yours will fit him. Hello, Eddy, how’s that gari-gari? You up, Jack? The miracle has happened. No one down with fiver.” He sighed happily. “I suppose the night is still young. Hello, Peter, did you catch that big squall an hour after you left us? We had to let go the second anchor.”

While David Grief was being introduced to Deacon, McMurtrey dispatched a house-boy with the indispensable pants, and when Captain Donovan finally came into the room he was garbed as a white man should be—at least in Goboto.

Deacon lost the second game, and an outburst heralded the fact. Peter Gee devoted himself to lighting a cigarette and keeping quiet.

“What?—are you quitting because you’re ahead?” Deacon demanded.

Grief raised his eyebrows questioningly to McMurtrey who frowned back his own disgust.

“It’s the rubber,” Peter Gee answered.

“It takes three games to make a rubber. It’s my deal. Come on.”

Peter Gee acquiesced and the third game was on.

“Young whelp—he needs a lacing,” McMurtrey muttered to Grief. “Come on, let us quit, you chaps. I want to keep an eye on him. If he goes too far I’ll throw him out on the beach, company instructions or no.”

“Who is he?” Grief queried.

“A left-over from last steamer. Company’s orders to treat him nice. He’s looking to invest in a plantation. Has a ten-thousand-pound letter of credit with the company. He’s got ‘all-white Australia’ on the brain. Thinks because his skin is white and because his father was once Attorney-General of the Commonwealth that he can be a cur. That’s why he’s picking on Peter, and you know Peter’s the last man in the world to make trouble or incur trouble. Confound the company! I didn’t engage to look after infants with bank accounts. Come on, fill your glass, Grief. The man’s a blighter, a blithering blighter.”

“Maybe he’s only young,” Grief suggested.

“He can’t contain his drink—that’s clear.” The manager glared his disgust and wrath. “If he raises a hand to Peter, so help me, I’ll give him a licking myself—the little, overgrown cad!”

The pearl-buyer pulled the pegs out of the cribbage board on which he was scoring and sat back. He had won the third game. He glanced across to Eddy Little, saying:

“I’m ready for the bridge now.”

“I wouldn’t be a quitter,” Deacon snarled.

“Oh, really, I’m tired of the game,” Peter Gee assured him with his habitual quietness.

“Come on and be game,” Deacon bullied. “One more. You can’t take my money that way. I’m out fifteen pounds. Double or quits.”

McMurtrey was about to interpose, but Grief restrained him with his eyes.

“If it positively is the last, all right,” said Peter Gee, gathering up the cards. “It’s my deal, I believe. As I understand it, this final is for fifteen pounds. Either you owe me thirty or we quit even?”

“That’s it. Either we break even or I pay you thirty.”

“Getting blooded, eh?” Grief remarked.

The other men stood or sat around the table and Deacon played again in bad luck. That he was a good player was clear. The cards were merely running against him. That he could not take his ill luck with equanimity was equally clear. He was guilty of sharp, ugly curses and he snapped and growled at the imperturbable half-caste. In the end Peter Gee counted out, while Deacon had not even made his fifty points. He glowered speechlessly at his opponent.

“Looks like a lurch,” said Grief.

“Which is double,” said Peter Gee.

“There’s no need your telling me,” Deacon snarled; “I’ve studied arithmetic. I owe you forty-five pounds. There, take it!”

The way in which he flung the nine five-pound notes on the table was an insult in itself. Peter Gee was even quieter and flew no signals of resentment.

“You’ve got fool’s luck but you can’t play cards,” Deacon went on. “I could teach you cards.”

The half-caste smiled and nodded acquiescence as he folded up the money.

“There’s a little game called casino; I wonder if you ever heard of it—a child’s game?”

“I’ve seen it played,” the half-caste murmured gently.

“What’s that?” was the resulting snap from Deacon. “Maybe you think you can play it!”

“Oh, no, not for a moment! I’m afraid I haven’t head enough for it.”

“It’s a bully game, casino,” Grief broke in pleasantly. “I like it very much.”

Deacon ignored him.

“I’ll play you ten quid a game—thirty-one points out,” was the challenge to Peter Gee. “And I’ll show you how little you know about cards. Come on, where’s a full deck?”

“No, thanks,” the half-caste answered. “They are waiting for me in order to make up a bridge set.”

“Yes, come on,” Eddy Little begged eagerly. “Come on, Peter, let’s get started.”

“Afraid of a little game like casino!” Deacon girded. “Maybe the stakes are too high. I’ll play you for pennies—or farthings, if you say so.”

The man’s conduct was a hurt and an affront to all of them. McMurtrey could stand it no longer.

“Now hold on, Deacon. He says he doesn’t want to play. Let him alone.”

Deacon turned raging upon his host; but before he could blurt out his abuse Grief stepped into the breach.

“I’d like to play casino with you,” he said.

“What do you know about it?”

“Not much, but I’m willing to learn.”

“Well, I’m not teaching for pennies tonight.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Grief answered. “I’ll play for almost any sum—within reason, of course.”

Deacon proceeded to dispose of this intruder with one stroke.

“I’ll play you a hundred pounds a game, if that will do you any good.”

Grief beamed his delight. “That will be all right—very right. Let us begin. Do you count sweeps?”

Deacon was taken aback. He had not expected a Goboton trader to be anything but crushed by such a proposition.

“Do you count sweeps?” Grief repeated.

Andrews had brought him a new deck, and he was throwing out the joker.

“Certainly not,” Deacon said. “That’s a sissy game.”

“I’m glad,” Grief coincided. “I don’t like sissy games, either.”

“You don’t, eh? Well, then, I’ll tell you what we do. We’ll play for five hundred pounds a game.”

“I’m agreeable,” Grief said, beginning to shuffle. “Cards and spades go out first, of course, and then big and little casino, and the aces in the bridge order of value. Is that right?”

“You’re a lot of jokers down here,” Deacon laughed, but his laughter was strained. “How do I know you’ve got the money?”

“By the same token I known you’ve got it. Mac, how’s my credit with the company?”

“For all you want,” the manager answered.

“You personally guarantee that?” Deacon demanded.

“I certainly do,” McMurtrey said. “Depend upon it, the company will honor his paper up to and past your letter of credit.”

“Low deals,” Grief said, placing the deck before Deacon.

The latter hesitated in the midst of the cut and looked around with querulous misgiving at the faces of the others. The clerks and captains nodded.

“You’re all strangers to me,” Deacon complained. “How am I to know? Money on paper isn’t always the real thing.”

Then it was Peter Gee, drawing a wallet from his pocket and borrowing a fountain pen from McMurtrey, went into action.

“I haven’t gone to buying yet,” the half-caste explained, “so the account is intact. I’ll just indorse it over to you, Grief. It’s for fifteen thousand. There, look at it.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. It’s just the same as your own and just as good. The company’s paper is always good.”

Deacon cut the cards, won the deal and gave them a thorough shuffle. But his luck was still against him and he lost the game.

“Another game,” he said. “We didn’t say how many, and you can’t quit with me a loser. I want action.”

Grief shuffled and passed the cards for the cut.

“Let’s play for a thousand,” Deacons said when he had lost the second game. And when the thousand had gone the way of the two five-hundred bets he proposed to play for two thousand.

“That’s progression,” McMurtrey warned, and was rewarded by a glare from Deacon. But the manager was insistent. “You don’t have to play progression, Grief, unless you’re foolish.”

“Who’s playing this game?” Deacon flamed at his host; and then, to Grief: “I’ve lost two thousand to you. Will you play for two thousand?”
Grief nodded, the fourth game began and Deacon won. The manifest unfairness of such betting was known to all of them. Though he had lost three games out of four Deacon had lost no money. By the child’s device of doubling his wager with each loss he was bound, with the first game he won, no matter how long delayed, to be even again.

He now evinced an unspoken desire to stop, but Grief passed the deck to be cut.

“What?” Deacon cried. “You want more?”

“Haven’t got anything yet,” Grief murmured whimsically, as he began the deal. “For the usual five hundred, I suppose?”

The shame of what he had done must have tingled in Deacon, for he answered: “No, we’ll play for a thousand. And say! Thirty-one points is too long. Why not twenty-one points out—if it isn’t too rapid for you?”

“That will make it a nice quick little game,” Grief agreed.

The former method of play was repeated. Deacon lost two games, doubled the stake and was again even. But Grief was patient, though the thing occurred several times in the next hour’s play. Then happened what he was waiting for—a lengthening in the series of losing games for Deacon. The latter doubled to four thousand and lost, doubled to eight thousand and lost, and then proposed the double to sixteen thousand.

Grief shook his head. “You can’t do that, you know. You’ve only ten thousand credit with the company.”

“You mean you won’t give me action?” Deacon asked hoarsely. “You mean that with eight thousand of my money you’re going to quit?”
Grief smiled and shook his head.

“It’s robbery, plain robbery,” Deacon went on. “You take my money and won’t give me action.”

“No, you’re wrong. I’m perfectly willing to give what action you’ve got coming to you. You’ve got two thousand pounds of action yet.”

“Well, we’ll play it,” Deacon took him up. “You cut.”

The game was played in silence, save for irritable remarks and curses from Deacon. Silently the onlookers filled and sipped their long Scotch glasses. Grief took no notice of his opponent’s outbursts, but concentrated on the game. He was really playing cards, and there were fifty-two in the deck to be kept track of and of which he did keep track. Two-thirds of the way through the last deal he threw down his hand.

“Cards put me out,” he said. “I have twenty-seven.”

“If you’ve made a mistake!” Deacon threatened, his face white and drawn.

“Then I shall have lost. Count them.”

Grief passed over his stack of takings, and Deacon with trembling fingers verified the count. He half shoved his chair back from the table and emptied his glass. He looked about him at unsympathetic faces.

“I fancy I’ll be catching the next steamer for Sydney,” he said, and for the first time his speech was quiet and without bluster.
As Grief told them afterward: “Had he whined or raised a roar I wouldn’t have given him that last chance. As it was he took his medicine like a man, and I had to do it.”

Deacon glanced at his watch, simulated a weary yawn and started to rise.

“Wait,” Grief said. “Do you want further action?”

The other sank down in his chair, strove to speak but could not, licked his dry lips and nodded his head.

“Captain Donovan here sails at daylight in the Gunga for Karo-Karo,” Grief began with seeming irrelevance. “Karo-Karo is a ring of sand in the sea, with a few thousand cocoanut trees. Pandanus grows there, but they can’t grow sweet potatoes or taro. There are about eight hundred natives, a king and two prime minsters, and the last three named are the only ones who were any clothes. It’s a sort of God-forsaken little hole and once a year I send a schooner up from Goboto. The drinking water is brackish, but old Tom Butler has survived on it for a dozen years. He’s the only white man there, and he has a boat’s crew of five Santa Cruz boys who would run away or kill him if they could. That is why there were sent there. They can’t run away. He is always supplied with the hard cases from the plantations.

“Naturally you are wondering what it is all about. But have patience. As I have said, Captain Donovan sails on the annual trip to Karo-Karo at daylight tomorrow. Tom Butler is old and getting quite helpless. I’ve tried to retire him to Australia, but he says he wants to remain and die on Karo-Karo, and he will in the next year or so. He’s a queer old codger. Now the time is due for me to send some white man up to take the work off his hands. I wonder how you’d like the job. You’d have to stay two years.

“Hold on, I’ve not finished. You’ve talked frequently of action this evening. There’s no action in betting away what you’ve never sweated for. The money you’ve lost to me was left you by your father or some other relative who did the sweating. But two years of work as trader on Karo-Karo would mean something. I’ll bet the ten thousand I’ve won from you against two years of your time. If you win, the money’s yours. If you lose, you take the job at Karo-Karo and sail at daylight. Now that’s what might be called real action. Will you play?”

Deacon could not speak. His throat lumped and he nodded his head as he reached for the cards.

“One thing more,” Grief said. “I can do even better. If you lose, two years of your time are mine—naturally without wages. Nevertheless, I’ll pay you wages. If your work is satisfactory, if you observe all instructions and rules, I’ll pay you five thousand pounds a year for two years. The money will be deposited with the company, to be paid to you with interest when the time expires. Is that all right?”

“Too much so,” Deacon answered. “You are unfair to yourself. A trader only gets ten or fifteen pounds a month.”

“Put it down to action then,” Grief said with an air of dismissal. “And before we begin I’ll jot down several of the rules. These you will repeat aloud every morning during the two years—if you lose. They are for the good of your soul. When you have repeated them aloud seven hundred and thirty Karo-Karo mornings I am confident they will be in your memory to stay. Lend me your pen, Mac. Now, let’s see.”

He wrote steadily and rapidly for some minutes, then proceeded to read the matter aloud:

“I must always remember that one man is as good as another, save and except when he thinks he is better.

“No matter how drunk I am I must not fail to be a gentleman. A gentleman is a man who is gentle. Note: It would be better not to get drunk.

“A good curse, rightly used and rarely, is an efficient thing. Too many curses spoil the cursing. Note: A curse cannot change a card sequence nor cause the wind to blow.

“There is no license for a man to be less than a man. Ten thousand pounds cannot purchase such a license.”

At the beginning of the reading Deacon’s face had gone white with anger. Then had arisen, from neck to forehead, a slow and terrible flush that deepened to the end of the reading.

“There, that will be all,” Grief said, as he folded the paper and tossed it to the center of the table. “Are you still ready to play the game?”

“I deserve it,” Deacon muttered brokenly. “I’ve been an ass! Mr. Gee, before I know whether I win or lose I want to apologize. Maybe it was the whisky, I don’t know, but I’m an ass, a cad, a bounder—everything that’s rotten.”

He held out his hand and the half-caste took it beamingly.

“I say, Grief,” he blurted out, “the boy’s all right. Call the whole thing off and let’s forget it in a final nightcap.”

Grief showed signs of debating, but Deacon cried:

“No; I won’t permit it. I’m not a quitter. If it’s Karo-Karo, it’s Karo-Karo. There’s nothing more to it.”

“Right,” said Grief, as he began the shuffle. “If he’s the right stuff to go to Karo-Karo, Karo-Karo won’t do him any harm.”

The game was close and hard. Three times they divided the deck between them and “cards” was not scored. At the beginning of the fifth and last deal Deacon needed three points to go out and Grief needed four. “Cards” alone would put Deacon out, and he played for “cards.” He no longer muttered or cursed, and played his best game of the evening. Incidentally he gathered in the two black aces and the ace of hearts.

“I suppose you can name the four cards I hold,” he challenged, as the last of his deal was exhausted and he picked up his hand.

Grief nodded.

“Then name them.”

“The knave of spades, the deuce of spades, the tray of hearts and the ace of diamonds,” Grief answered.

Those behind Deacon and looking at his hand made no sign. Yet the naming had been correct.

“I fancy you play casino better than I,” Deacon acknowledged. “I can name only three of yours, a knave, and ace and big casino.”

“Wrong. There aren’t five aces in the deck. You’ve taken in three and you hold the fourth in your hand now.”

“By Jove, you’re right,” Deacon admitted. “I did scoop in three. Anyway, I’ll make ‘cards’ on you. That’s all I need.”

“I’ll let you save little casino—” Grief paused to calculate. “Yes, and the ace as well, and I’ll make ‘cards’ and go out with big casino. Play.”

“No ‘cards,’ and I win!” Deacon exulted as the last of the hand was played. “I go out on little casino and the four aces. Big casino and ‘spades’ only bring you to twenty.”

Grief shook his head. “Some mistake, I’m afraid.”

“No,” Deacon declared positively. “I counted every card I took in. That’s the one thing I was correct on. I’ve twenty-six and you’ve twenty-six.”

“Count again,” Grief said.

Carefully and slowly, with trembling fingers, Deacon counted the cards he had taken. There were twenty-five. He reached over to the corner of the table, took up the rules Grief had written, folded them and put them in his pocket. Then he emptied his glass and stood up. Captain Donovan looked at his watch, yawned and also arose.

“Going aboard, Captain?” Deacon asked.

“Yes,” was the answer. “What time shall I send the whaleboat for you?”

“I’ll go with you now. We’ll pick up my luggage from the Billy as we go by. I was wailing on her for Babo in the morning.”

Deacon shook hands all around, after receiving a final pledge of good luck on Karo-Karo.

“Does Tom Butler play cards?” he asked Grief.

“Solitaire,” was the answer.

“Then I’ll teach him double solitaire.” Deacon turned toward the door where Captain waited, and added with a sigh—”And I fancy he’ll skin me, too, if he plays like the rest of you island men.”

A Goboto Night, by Jack London The Saturday Evening Post

N. C. Wyeth

Cowboy in Setting Sun
November 30, 1997
N. C. Wyeth

The father of painter Andrew Wyeth and grandfather of present-day artist Jamie Wyeth, Newell Convers Wyeth was a student of Howard Pyle and the Brandywine School of art. Wyeth’s first professional work was a commissioned illustration for the Post. His sense of color and mood was particularly suited to Western subjects, which also appealed to Lorimer. So the Post sent Wyeth to gain firsthand knowledge of his subject. On trips to the western United States, he worked as a ranch hand in Colorado and rode mail routes in New Mexico and Arizona.

Charles Livingston Bull

Fox and Goose
Charles Livingston Bull
September 9, 1905

Known chiefly as an animal illustrator, Bull literally drew from his experience as a taxidermist at the National Museum in Washington, D.C. Bull’s images, whether an eagle soaring in flight or a fox on the prowl, gave a majestic, even startling, life and grace to his wild subjects.

Angus MacDonall

St. Bernard for SaleAngus MacDonall
October 8, 1921

MacDonall, who came from the Midwest but eventually migrated east to become part of the Westport, Connecticut art colony, did only a few covers for the Post, but they were memorable, especially his poignant depictions of children. The forlorn boy and his dog were real, seen by a reader in Oregon, who described the scene vividly in a letter to the editor.

Ellen Pyle

Ice Cream Cone
Ellen Pyle
August 12, 1922

Like N.C. Wyeth, Ellen Bernard Thompson Pyle was a student of Howard Pyle’s Brandywine School, later marrying Howard’s brother Walter. When they started a family, Pyle set painting aside, but after Walter’s death in 1919, as a widow with four children, Pyle resumed her career to make ends meet. She struggled at first, but then her sister-in-law took three of Pyle’s paintings to the Post—and Lorimer promptly bought two of them, in addition to the girl with the ice cream cone, which became a cover in 1922 (after Lorimer insisted that the dog, originally shown drooling, be retouched). Pyle painted 40 Post covers in all, often using her children as models. The girls sipping sodas here are Pyle’s daughters.

J. C. Leyendecker

Carnival
J. C. Leyendecker
February 25, 1933

Joseph Christian Leyendecker received his first commission to paint a Post cover the same year George Horace Lorimer began running them, in 1899. Before Norman Rockwell arrived, no other artist had been so closely identified with the Post. Leyendecker famously created the iconic New Year’s Baby and the pudgy red-garbed rendition of Santa Claus, among other enduring images. Rockwell himself idolized the artist, calling him “a superb draftsman and a fine colorist,” as evidenced here. Leyendecker had an eye for the humor in everyday life, too (as in the case of the ample bathing beauty and her water wings, witnessed by a Post editor, who later described her to Leyendecker), which always delighted readers.

For more cover art, visit saturdayeveningpostcovers.com.

The Art of the Post The Saturday Evening Post