Current Book Read: The Girls of Friendly Terrace

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Gutenberg, History, Illustrations

But there are thirteen of us. Do you think I’d sit down thirteen at the table, and on the thirteenth of the month, too?” Amy was very much in earnest. Her plump, good-natured face was actually pale. “I tell you I wouldn’t think of such a thing.”

“I believe there are thirteen. Rae Fletcher couldn’t come.” Priscilla had recovered herself in a moment. “But that silly old superstition, Amy. You don’t mean–“

“Yes, I do mean it. And there’s lots of other people who feel just the same about it.” Amy suddenly opened the door of the front room. “Come here, Ruth, we want you a minute.”

Ruth made her appearance, expecting to be consulted on a very different matter. Amy’s tragic explanation took her by surprise, and she smiled a little. “O, well,” she was beginning, and then checked herself, as the possibility of turning Amy’s superstitious terrors to good account flashed upon her.

“I simply won’t do it,” Amy was insisting. “And on the thirteenth of the month, especially. I wouldn’t have another peaceful minute all the year. Ruth, why don’t you say something?

Such is one of the scenes from the book: The Girls of Friendly Terrace by Harriet Lummis Smith published in 1912.

The story involves four girls who live on a street named Friendly Terrace: Peggy, Priscilla, Amy and Ruth. When a new girl, Elaine, moves into their neighborhood, they find her a little hard to understand. Thus begins a series of mysteries along with good times.

Reading about the description of life then was quite enjoyable and sometimes entertaining. There were a lot of words I had to look up in my reader! Amazing how the words in general conversation or book reading has changed in 100 years. A great glimpse into the lives of teenage girls in the early 1900’s.

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Current Book Read: Perfect Behavior

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1900s, Gutenberg, Illustrations

PERFECT BEHAVIOR by Donald Ogden Stewart

From the title, you would think the book is about etiquette and how to act appropriately. In a way, it is. However, once you dive into the book, you realize very quickly, it’s actually a parody on social protocols!

The following subjects are covered:

• Courtship
• Engagements and weddings
• Travel
• Concerts and the opera
• Dry Agents
• Chapter for schoolgirls
• Games and sports
• Correspondence and invitations
• Dinners and balls

Sprinkled throughout the book are illustrations by Ralph Barton.

Nowhere is the etiquette of travel more abused than our subways. The gentleman shown above is en route to his fiancee’s flat in the Bronx. He has neglected to purchase the customary bouquet for his intended and has offered his seat to the lady, who is standing, in exchange for her corsage bouquet. Should she accept the proposition without further ado, or should she request the guard to introduce the gentleman first?

A quote from the chapter on Courtship.

FLOWERS AND THEIR MESSAGE IN COURTSHIP

Great care should be taken, however, that it is a plant of the correct species, for in the etiquette of courtship all flowers have different meanings and many a promising affair has been ruined because a suitor sent his lady a buttercup, meaning “That’s the last dance I’ll ever take you to, you big cow,” instead of a plant with a more tender significance. Some of the commoner flowers and their meaning in courtship are as follows:
Fringed Gentian—”I am going out to get a shave. Back at 3:30.”
Poppy—”I would be proud to be the father of your children.”
Golden-rod—”I hear that you have hay-fever.”
Tuberose—”Meet me Saturday at the Fourteenth Street subway station.”
Blood-root—”Aunt Kitty murdered Uncle Fred Thursday.”
Dutchman’s Breeches—”That case of Holland gin and Old Tailor has arrived. Come on over.”
Iris—”Could you learn to love an optician?”
Aster—”Who was that stout Jewish-looking party I saw you with in the hotel lobby Friday?”
Deadly Nightshade—”Pull down those blinds, quick!”
Passion Flower—”Phone Main 1249—ask for Eddie.”
Raspberry—”I am announcing my engagement to Charlie O’Keefe Tuesday.”
Wild Thyme—”I have seats for the Hippodrome Saturday afternoon.”
The above flowers can also be combined to make different meanings, as, for example, a bouquet composed of three tuberoses and some Virginia creeper generally signifies the following, “The reason I didn’t call for you yesterday was that I had three inner tube punctures, besides a lot of engine trouble in that old car I bought in Virginia last year. Gosh, I’m sorry!”

The book gives great insight of etiquette habits through humor. That’s why I love Gutenberg books. I can see what my ancestors may have been reading plus it gives me a glimpse into their world.

Current Book Read

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1800s, England, George Cruikshank, Gutenberg, Illustrations, Ireland

Three Courses and a Dessert: Three Sets of Tales, West Country, Irish, and Legal; and a Melange. With Fifty Illustrations. Author: Anonymous. Illustrator: George Cruikshank. Published in London:1867.

First Course: West Country Chronicles. And it is just that, chronicles of people living old west England. It rambles like listening to a relative two or three generations above you. Full, vivid descriptions of life at that time.

Second Course: The Neighbors of an Olde Irish Boy. Even more rambling than the first course, but in a good, funny sort of way. More than a peek into mid-1800s life in Ireland.

Third Course: My Cousin’s Clients. A lot of legalize, stirred in with some personalities of the people involved in it. Haven’t read real far in this section yet.

Dessert: Various short stories which, according to the author, provide a delicacy after the previous three courses. The Introduction says, “At a table of three courses, the guests have a right to expect some sort of a dessert; it is the necessary consequence of a certain order of dinners…”

The first story in Dessert starts thus: “In the month of January, 1804, Joey Duddle, a well-known postilion on the North Road, caught a cold, through sleeping without his night-cap; deafness was, eventually, the consequence.”

See? Little peeks at life in the 1800s. How could you not want to finish reading that explanation of going deaf.

Great book if you enjoy illustrations from the mid-1800s (50 of them). Good portrayal of life in Ireland and England. Not so good if you like a logical sequence with a plot in your books.