II.—THE IDEA AND ITS EMBELLISHMENT.
In the construction of a joke the chief requisite is the Idea.
Making jokes without ideas is like making bricks without straw; and the people who tried that were sent out into the Wilderness to wander for forty years and live exclusively on manna and water—a diet which is not provocative of humor. Indeed it is a noteworthy fact that although the children of Israel were accompanied in their journeying by herds of goats, and were constantly hearing stories of the huge squashes and clusters of grapes which grew in the Promised Land—the California of that period—yet we have no record that they availed themselves of such obvious opportunities for jesting.
The humorist, having procured his Idea, should divest it of all superfluities, place it on the table before him, and then fall into a reverie as to its possibilities. Let us suppose, for example, that his Idea, in a perfectly nude condition, looks something like this:
“A girl is thin enough to make a good match for any one.”
Now it will not do to offer this simple statement as a joke. It is merely an Idea, or the nucleus of a short story, and can be greatly improved by a little verbiage.
There would be no point gained in calling the girl a New Yorker, or even a Philadelphian, though the latter city is usually fair game for the paragraphist. She should certainly hail from Boston. The girls of that city are identified in the popular mind with eye-glasses, long words, angularity and other outward and visible signs of severe mental discipline and parsimony in diet. The ideal Boston girl is not rotund. On the contrary, she is endowed with a sharply defined outline, and a profile which suggests self-abnegation in the matter of food. A little dialect will help the story along amazingly; therefore let the scene be laid in rural New England, and let the point be made with the usual rustic prefix of “Wa-al!” This will afford an opportunity to utilize a few minor ideas relative to New England rural customs, the maintenance of city boarders, the food provided, the economy practised, and other salient features of country life.
So, by judicious expansion—not padding—the humorist will stretch his little paragraph into a very respectable story, something like this:
Sample of Short Story Erected on Paragraph.
A summer evening of exquisite calm and sweetness. The golden haze of sunset sheds its soft tints on hill and plain, and pours a flood of mellow light over the roofs and trees of the quaint old village street. The last rays of the sun, falling through the waving boughs of elm and maple, form a checkered, ever-moving pattern on the wall of the meeting-house; they kindle beacon-fires on the distant heights of Baldhead Mountain, and linger in tender caress on the dainty auburn tresses of Priscilla Whitney, who is displaying her flounces, furbelows, and other “citified fixin’s” on the front piazza of Deacon Pogram’s residence.
(It will be seen that the beginning of this paragraph is written in a serious vein; but the last two lines prepare the reader for a comic story. He now makes up his mouth for the laugh which awaits him a little farther along.)
From the kitchen comes a pleasant aroma of burnt bread-crusts, as dear old Samanthy Pogram, her kindly face covered with its snow-white glory, prepares the coffee for supper. Meanwhile the worthy deacon, in stocking-feet and shirt-sleeves, sits by the open door and enjoys the cool evening breeze that sweeps in refreshing gusts down the fertile valley of the Pockohomock.
“There ye be again, Sarah,” says Aunt Samanthy to the hired help, a shade of annoyance crossing her fine old face. “Hain’t I told ye time ’n’ again not to put fresh eggs in the boarders’ omelet? I suppose ye think there hain’t such a thing as a stale egg in the haouse, but ye must be wastin’ good ones on the city folks! Sakes alive! but I’ll be glad when they’ve cleaned aout, bag ’n’ baggage. I’m nigh tuckered aout a-waitin’ on ’em ’n’ puttin’ up with their frills ’n’ fancy doin’s.”
“They tell me, Samanthy,” says the deacon, “that young Rube Perkins is kinder makin’ up to one of aour boarders. I s’pose ye hain’t noticed nothin’, mebbe?”
“I’ve seen him a-settin’ alongside o’ that dough-faced critter times enough so he’d like ter wear aout the rocker on the piazzy; but I guess Rube had better not set enny too much store by what she says to him. Them high-toned Whitney folks o’ hern daown Bosting way hain’t over ’n’ above anxious to hev Rube Perkins fur a son-in-law, I kin tell ye.”
“Wa-al,” drawls the deacon, reflectively, “I kalkerlate they’ve got an idee she’d better make a good match while she’s abaout it.”
“She’s thin enough to make a lucifer match,” rejoins Aunt Samanthy; and with this parting bit of irony she goes in to put the saleratus biscuit on the tea-table.
Of course this is not a model of a humorous story, but it will pass muster. It is, however, a very creditable specimen of a story built up, as I have shown, on a very slender foundation. Some humorists would give it an apologetic title, such as “Rural Sarcasm,” or “Aunt Samanthy’s Little Joke,” in order to let the reader down easy.