The Man Who Lived in a Shoe

by Henry James Forman

The somewhat isolated position of my châlet on the rock and the lack of a wife in the household has saved me from making intimate acquaintances among my Crestlands neighbors. But there is one young man, Judkins, an architect in the stucco house opposite, who strides over to my porch and insists upon talking of his performances at golf.

"Ought to join the Club," he keeps reiterating. "Nothing like eighteen holes to take the kinks outa your brain after the hullabaloo in the city."

"Er—do I seem to have many kinks?" I ask, whereat he laughs in his harsh voice.

"All got 'em!" he cries. "Can't get away from 'em. Books!" he adds explosively, "books are no good! They give you the willies!"

And that man claims to have studied at the Beaux Arts! Edmond de Goncourt, that neurasthenic philosopher, prayed that he might make a hundred thousand francs from his play "Germinie Lacerteux," so that he might buy the house opposite and put this notice on it: "To be let to people who have no children, who do not play any musical instrument, and who will be permitted to keep only goldfish as pets." As for me, I should waive the children, the pets and the musical instruments; I would merely say, "No proselyting golfers need apply."

Alicia, to mitigate my mood, I suppose, devised a picnic in the woods. No one was to come save the children and I and that gawky companion of Randolph's, the boy John Purington, lest Randolph should be bored. Randolph, it appears, is easily bored. The consciousness of my recent hypochondriac behavior led me to accept the suggestion with alacrity.

The luncheon Griselda prepared was packed in paper boxes by Alicia and together, en masse, our little procession set forth and made its way to a grove less than two miles distant bordering on the great Croton aqueduct.

Randolph and the gawky boy fell at once to tossing a baseball, Jimmie rolled delightedly about the lush grass, still grappling with his insoluble problem of rolling up a slope and still perplexed as to why it should be easier to roll down. Laura ran to his aid and Alicia sat beside me and laughed.

"That is the whole problem of life that Jimmie is facing," I observed gloomily.

"No, it isn't, Uncle Ranny," she put her hand on my arm as she contradicted. "That is only the law of gravitation. There is a lot more to life than that!"