GRIMM TALES
MADE GAY
By Guy Wetmore Carryl
With GAY PICTURES
By Albert Levering
This shows the sword that Blue-Beard used full sore,
After he’d led his young wife to a door.
GRIMM TALES
MADE GAY
By Guy Wetmore Carryl
author of
this …… and many …… other …… things!
PICTURES BY
ALBERT LEVERING
artist of
that …… the other …… and this
boston & new york
houghton, mifflin & co.
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY GUY
WETMORE CARRYL AND
ALBERT LEVERING
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published in October, 1902
TO
CHARLES
WALTON
OGDEN
NOTE
I have pleasure in acknowledging the courteous permission of the editors to reprint in this form such of these verses as were originally published in Harper’s Magazine, The Century, Life, The Smart Set, The Saturday Evening Post, The Home Magazine, and the London Tatler.
G. W. C.
The Contents
[How the Babes in the Wood Showed They Couldn’t be Beaten]
[How Fair Cinderella Disposed of Her Shoe]
[How Little Red Riding Hood Came to be Eaten]
[How the Fatuous Wish of a Peasant Came True]
[How Hop O’ My Thumb Got Rid of an Onus]
[How the Helpmate of Blue-Beard Made Free with a Door]
[How Rumplestilz Held Out in Vain for a Bonus]
[How Jack Made the Giants Uncommonly Sore]
[How Rudeness and Kindness Were Justly Rewarded]
[How Beauty Contrived to Get Square with the Beast]
[How a Fair One no Hope to His Highness Accorded]
[How Thomas a Maid from a Dragon Released]
[How a Beauty was Waked and Her Suitor was Suited]
[How Jack Found that Beans May go Back on a Chap]
[How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted]
[How Much Fortunatus Could Do with a Cap]
[How a Princess Was Wooed from Habitual Sadness]
[How a Girl was too Reckless of Grammar by Far]
[How the Peaceful Aladdin Gave Way to His Madness]
[How a Fisherman Corked up His Foe in a Jar]
How the Babes in the Wood
Showed They Couldn’t be
Beaten
A man of kind and noble mind
Was H. Gustavus Hyde.
’Twould be amiss to add to this
At present, for he died,
In full possession of his senses,
The day before my tale commences.
One half his gold his four-year-old
Son Paul was known to win,
And Beatrix, whose age was six,
For all the rest came in,
Perceiving which, their Uncle Ben did
A thing that people said was splendid.
For by the hand he took them, and
Remarked in accents smooth:
“One thing I ask. Be mine the task
These stricken babes to soothe!
My country home is really charming:
I’ll teach them all the joys of farming.”
One halcyon week they fished his creek,
And watched him do the chores,
In haylofts hid, and, shouting, slid
Down sloping cellar doors:—
Because this life to bliss was equal
The more distressing is the sequel.
Concealing guile beneath a smile,
He took them to a wood,
And, with severe and most austere
Injunctions to be good,
He left them seated on a gateway,
And took his own departure straightway.
Though much afraid, the children stayed
From ten till nearly eight;
At times they wept, at times they slept,
But never left the gate:
Until the swift suspicion crossed them
That Uncle Benjamin had lost them.
Then, quite unnerved, young Paul observed:
“It’s like a dreadful dream,
And Uncle Ben has fallen ten
Per cent. in my esteem.
Not only did he first usurp us,
But now he’s left us here on purpose!”
*****
For countless years their childish fears
Have made the reader pale,
For countless years the public’s tears
Have started at the tale,
For countless years much detestation
Has been expressed for their relation.
So draw a veil across the dale
Where stood that ghastly gate.
No need to tell. You know full well
What was their touching fate,
And how with leaves each little dead breast
Was covered by a Robin Redbreast!
But when they found them on the ground,
Although their life had ceased,
Quite near to Paul there lay a small
White paper, neatly creased.
“Because of lack of any merit,
B. Hyde,” it ran, “we disinherit!”
The Moral: If you deeply long
To punish one who’s done you wrong,
Though in your lifetime fail you may,
Where there’s a will, there is a way!
How Fair Cinderella Disposed
of Her Shoe
The vainest girls in forty states
Were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates;
They warbled, slightly off the air,
Romantic German songs,
And each of them upon her hair
Employed the curling tongs,
And each with ardor most intense
Her buxom figure laced,
Until her wilful want of sense
Procured a woeful waist:
For bound to marry titled mates
Were Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates.
Yet, truth to tell, the swains were few
Of Gwendolyn (and Gladys, too).
So morning, afternoon, and night
Upon their sister they
Were wont to vent their selfish spite,
And in the rudest way:
For though her name was Leonore,
That’s neither there nor here,
They called her Cinderella, for
The kitchen was her sphere,
Save when the hair she had to do
Of Gwendolyn (and Gladys, too).
Each night to dances and to fêtes
Went Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates,
And Cinderella watched them go
In silks and satins clad:
A prince invited them, and so
They put on all they had!
But one fine night, as all alone
She watched the flames leap higher,
A small and stooping fairy crone
Stept nimbly from the fire.
Said she: “The pride upon me grates
Of Gwendolyn and Gladys Gates.”
“I’ll now,” she added, with a frown,
“Call Gwendolyn and Gladys down!”
And, ere your fingers you could snap,
There stood before the door
No paltry hired horse and trap,
Oh, no!—a coach and four!
And Cinderella, fitted out
Regardless of expense,
Made both her sisters look about
Like thirty-seven cents!
The prince, with one look at her gown,
Turned Gwendolyn and Gladys down!
Wall-flowers, when thus compared with her,
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys were.
The prince but gave them glances hard,
No gracious word he said;
He scratched their names from off his card,
And wrote hers down instead:
And where he would bestow his hand
He showed them in a trice
By handing her the kisses, and
To each of them an ice!
In sudden need of fire and fur
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys were.
At ten o’clock, in discontent,
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys went.
Their sister stayed till after two,
And, with a joy sincere,
The prince obtained her crystal shoe
By way of souvenir.
“Upon the bridal path,” he cried,
“We’ll reign together! Since
I love you, you must be my bride!”
(He was no slouch, that prince!)
And into sudden languishment
Both Gwendolyn and Gladys went.
The Moral: All the girls on earth
Exaggerate their proper worth.
They think the very shoes they wear
Are worth the average millionaire;
Whereas few pairs in any town
Can be half-sold for half a crown!
How Little Red Riding Hood
Came to be Eaten
Most worthy of praise
Were the virtuous ways
Of Little Red Riding Hood’s Ma,
And no one was ever
More cautious and clever
Than Little Red Riding Hood’s Pa.
They never misled,
For they meant what they said,
And would frequently say what they meant,
And the way she should go
They were careful to show,
And the way that they showed her, she went.
For obedience she was effusively thanked,
And for anything else she was carefully spanked.
That Red Riding Hood’s range
Of virtues so steadily grew,
That soon she won prizes
Of different sizes,
And golden encomiums, too!
As a general rule
She was head of her school,
And at six was so notably smart
That they gave her a cheque
For reciting “The Wreck
Of the Hesperus,” wholly by heart!
And you all will applaud her the more, I am sure,
When I add that this money she gave to the poor.
At eleven this lass
Had a Sunday-school class,
At twelve wrote a volume of verse,
At thirteen was yearning
For glory, and learning
To be a professional nurse.
To a glorious height
The young paragon might
Have grown, if not nipped in the bud,
Struck her smiling career
With a dull and a sickening thud!
(I have shed a great tear at the thought of her pain,
And must copy my manuscript over again!)
One day on her arm
A basket she hung. It was filled
With jellies, and ices,
And gruel, and spices,
And chicken-legs, carefully grilled,
And a savory stew,
And a novel or two
She’d persuaded a neighbor to loan,
And a hot-water can,
And a Japanese fan,
And a bottle of eau-de-cologne,
And the rest of the things that your family fill
Your room with, whenever you chance to be ill!
She expected to find
Her decrepit but kind
Old Grandmother waiting her call,
But the visage that met her
Completely upset her:
It wasn’t familiar at all!
With a whitening cheek
She started to speak,
But her peril she instantly saw:—
Her Grandma had fled,
And she’d tackled instead
Four merciless Paws and a Maw!
When the neighbors came running, the wolf to subdue,
He was licking his chops, (and Red Riding Hood’s, too!)
This shows the bad wolf that came out of the wood,
And proved by his actions to be robbin’ Hood.
Some readers will pale,
And others with horror grow dumb,
And yet it was better,
I fear, he should get her:
Just think what she might have become!
For an infant so keen
Might in future have been
A woman of awful renown,
Who carried on fights
For her feminine rights
As the Mare of an Arkansas town.
She might have continued the crime of her ’teens,
And come to write verse for the Big Magazines!
The Moral: There’s nothing much glummer
Than children whose talents appall:
One much prefers those who are dumber,
But as for the paragons small,