Cobb, Irvin S.: From Place to Place (collected shorts). v1. 02 Aug 2017
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FROM PLACE TO PLACE
A collection of short stories BY IRVIN S. COBB (1876–1944)
The contents of this book first appeared 1917–1919 in various magazines. This collection, From Place to Place, was published in 1920. Text is in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life + 70” or less, and in the USA.
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Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was an American author, humorist, editor, and columnist from Paducah, Kentucky who relocated to New York in 1904 for the remainder of his life, writing for the New York “World”, “The Saturday Evening Post”, “Cosmopolitan”, and other newspapers and magazines. Cobb wrote more than 300 short stories and 60 books (most of these being collections of his stories and articles). Some of his works were adapted for film.
Cobb was one of America’s most popular humorists during the first third of the 20th century, but his writing was not limited to comedy only. His descriptive writing was masterful, and his stories were often dramatic, poignant, tragic – even terror-ridden.
Herewith, a tasty buffet serving up tidbits of the many flavors of Irvin S. Cobb.
EXCERPT (from “The Bull Called Emily”)
Spoiler:
This here Windy Jordan was one of them human drafts; hence the name. At all hours there was a strong breeze blowing out of him in the form of words. If he wasn’t conversing, it was a sign he had acute sore throat. But to counteract that fault he was the sole proprietor of the smartest and the largest bull on this side of the ocean, which said bull answered to the name of Emily.
• • • • •
“Did you say a bull?” I asked.
“Sure I said a bull. Why not? Ain’t you wise to what a bull is?”
“Certainly I am, but a bull named Emily——”
• • • • •
Listen, little one: To them that follow after the red wagon and the white top, all elephants is bulls, disregardless of genders, just the same as all regular bulls is he-cows to refined maiden ladies residin’ in New England and points adjacent. Only, show-people ain’t got any false modesty that way. In the show-business a bull is a bull, whether it’s a lady-bull or a gentleman-bull. So very properly this here bull, being one of the most refined and cultured members of her sex, answers to the Christian name of Emily.
Well, this Emily is not only the joy and the pride of Windy Jordan’s life, but she’s his entire available assets. Bull and bulline, she’d been with him from early childhood. In fact, Windy was the only parent Emily ever knew, she having been left a helpless orphan on account of a railroad wreck to the old Van Orten shows back yonder in eighteen-eighty-something. So Windy, he took her as a prattling infant in arms when she didn’t weigh an ounce over a ton and a half, and he adopted her and educated her and pampered her and treated her as a member of his own family, only better, until she repaid him by becoming not only the largest bull in the business but the most highly cultivated.
Emily knew nearly everything there was to know, and what she didn’t know she suspected very strongly. Likewise, as I came to find out later, she was extremely grateful for small favors and most affectionate by nature. To be sure, being affectionate with a bull about the size and general specifications of a furniture-car had its drawbacks. She was liable to lean up against you in a playful, kittenish kind of a way, and cave in most of your ribs. It was like having a violent flirtation with a landslide to venture up clost to Emily when she was in one of her tomboy moods. I’ve known her to nudge a friend with one of her front elbows and put both his shoulder-blades out of socket. But she never meant no harm by it, never. It was just a little way she had.
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Text was obtained from gutenberg.org. Transcription errors were corrected; punctuation, diacritics, and italics formatted; American spelling restored (as in initial magazine publication); some spelling and punctuation modernized to provide consistency.
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