The Crow's Nest Part 15

Mrs. Prometheus purses her lips and her face becomes obstinate. "I don't think _any_ married man has a right to take such risks," she observes.

"Well, you ought to hear what the single men say about that," he retorts. "It's pretty thick to expect _them_ to die, they say, for other men's wives."

Mrs. Prometheus shrugs at the shallowness of those silly bachelors, and doesn't bother even to comment on their point of view. Instead, she says tactfully that she sees Prometheus has set his heart upon going, and she wants him to feel perfectly free to do just what he likes. Only there are certain practical matters that one must consider. There's the mortgage, and the laundress--unless he'd like to have her do the washing herself, which she'd be glad to do only he never took those stones out of her way, in the brook--and there's the bill for that last set of bear-skins that she got for the windows; and she doesn't see exactly how she can keep the home up by herself, if he is to wander around neglecting his real-estate business.

He says he won't be chained by his business.

She reminds him that she has already explained he's perfectly free. But she just wants to know how he wishes her to arrange in his absence.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Very well, then," he blazes out, "I will give up my plan: let it go!

let men go to the devil! I'm a prisoner, that's what it comes to. Like all married men. There isn't a d.a.m.n one of us that's allowed to do what the world needs, or anything fine and unselfish."

She says that's unjust. She'd _love_ to have him be a great hero, and she always has said so, but she doesn't see why he can't be one without leaving his wife.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pegged down]

Prometheus, with a groan at his bondage, walks out of the house, leaving her feeling injured and wondering at the hardness of men. And he stamps up and down the yard, working himself up into a state, and filling his mind with dark pictures. Must every married man sit at home with his wife in his arms, yearning for roving and achievement, but yearning in vain? Pegged down, with a baby as a peg, and a mortgage as jailer. Must every young fellow choose between a fiancee and adventure? Even when he does choose adventure, they won't let him alone. There will always be some girl at a window as he pa.s.ses by, who will tempt him to stop and play dolls with her, and stay indoors for keeps, and wrestle with a mortgage for exercise, and give up the road. Prometheus swears. He tries to imagine what our epics would be like if wives wrote them: what heroes they'd sing. Tidy, amiable, hearthstone heroes, who'd always wind up the clock regularly, and never invent dangerous airplanes or seek the North Pole. Ulysses knitting sweaters by the fireside. George Washington feeding canaries....

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Mrs. Prometheus sticks her head out of the window: "I'll say just one word. I had supposed we were partners, who had gone into the homemaking business."

He says what good are homes if they emasculate spirited men.

She says what good are spirited men if they make the world homeless.

"_I_ don't intend to make the world homeless."

"No, only your wife."

Well, Prometheus gives in, of course, and abandons his plan, as millions of others have done, after talks with their wives. But ah, there is another great force besides wives in the world.

It happened, as you know, that Prometheus didn't get on well with Zeus.

They had different ideas as to how the world should be arranged.

Prometheus had more experience, but Zeus had the power. Rivalry, combined with dislike,--that is the great force I speak of. Zeus didn't wish men to have fire. That was enough for Prometheus. He told himself how incompetent Zeus was to manage the world, how selfish he was, how indifferent to men's need of fire. And that was what braced him, at last, to escape from his wife, and bring down an ember from heaven, and bestow it upon men.

"General Rejoicing on Earth," said the newspapers, when the deed had been done. To get anything from heaven seemed as remarkable then as it would now. Prometheus having accomplished something was immediately ranked as a hero. The Chamber of Commerce still privately thought he had been rather wild, but after a debate on the subject they gave him a dinner. He was also presented with a loving cup and the keys of the city. (He had no use for either, but those primitive men thought them honors.) And after the public reception Prometheus went home, and had another reception behind closed doors from Mrs. Prometheus, who had had to sell preserves and take in sewing while he was away.

Meanwhile everybody was using this new-fangled thing, fire, except old folks who were set in their ways and who said it was dangerous. And presently men found it _was_ dangerous. It wasn't just a question of scorched fingers--it burned out two caves. It roasted the toes of a lady who went to sleep while cooking sliced elephant. And although Prometheus had warned them and warned them about being careless, and had shown them exactly how to use it, he was blamed for each burn.

Some citizens were sarcastic and wrote him elaborate letters, thanking him so much for the suffering he had caused them and wishing him lots of the same. Some were reasonable and patient, but said he ought to have perfected this thing, before exposing the lives of the community to a bungling device. Others were seriously angry. They wished him imprisoned. Why should a man who had caused so much damage walk about, free? They inquired where justice was, at that rate; and held a ma.s.s-meeting.

It was owing to this that the G.o.ds discovered what he had done. A volley of terrible thunder-claps at once shook the skies, and Zeus had Prometheus arrested. He was led off to Scythia--the Siberia of those times--without trial, and the police left him chained to a rock there, and hurried back home. And everybody sympathized greatly with Mrs.

Prometheus, for having a husband who had wilfully disgraced his poor wife. And they tried to be nice to her, but of course she was under a cloud, and had to take in more sewing than ever, and was never asked out. And a year or two later some books were written, psychoa.n.a.lyzing Prometheus; and a professor who had made a study of the economic interpretation of heroes wrote an interesting paper discussing his probable motives, pointing out that he must have had relatives who wished to sell fire-insurance.

So his great deed ended in confusion. Like other great deeds. All he got was a tumult of mixed praise and blame from the crowd; and in his dark moments he must have felt completely discouraged, and wished that he'd just lived along in comfort and minded his business.

His friend, who had warned him originally, thought of him at times. He used to sit at home and feel glad that for his part he'd kept out of it.

Then he would stir up the fire in his grate and comfortably get into bed, and forget about Prometheus, facing the winds and the vulture.

The Death of Logan

c.o.c.kroaches, like the Wise Men, originally lived in the East. They were at first far from hardy--wretched travelers, hating changes of climate.

But when England began trading with the Orient, the c.o.c.kroach grew venturesome, and began putting to sea as a stowaway. It was thus he reached England.

He settled down at first in her seaports. Remained there for years.

People inland heard of him, or saw him if they went to the coast, but supposed themselves immune from his visits. Now he owns the whole island. And wherever the Englishman has journeyed, or settled, or trafficked, except perhaps on the ice-floes of Labrador, we now find the c.o.c.kroach.

We all know his habits. He prefers to live in kitchens and bakeries.

Eats all kinds of food. Eats shoes and the bindings of books. Also eats his own relatives. Any relative that isn't good and lively is at once eaten up.

You can tell the s.e.xes apart (if you want to) by this: The males don't drag their stomachs on the ground the way the females do, and they have better wings. Their wings are not good enough to use much, but still, they have little ones.

The most surprising thing about roaches is that they live several years.

Scientists say maybe five. Owing to this they get to know all of a family's ways, and can't be caught napping; they have plenty of time to study roach powders and learn to digest them. They dislike castor oil, though, and keep away from where it has been rubbed.

c.o.c.kroaches are intelligent beings. Their natures are human. They are not like other insects, any more than dogs are like other animals. I wish some man of science and sympathy would interpret their lives.

That book that I dream of on roaches: will it ever be written? Brown Beauty, or Only a c.o.c.kroach, by Mary Gook Twillee--a book that little children would read with wet eyes Sunday evenings. No, that sounds like a pamphlet from the Society for the Prevention of Stepping on c.o.c.kroaches. We want nothing humanitarian. Still less, a Work on the subject. We want a poet to do for the c.o.c.kroach what Maeterlinck has done for the Bee.

If n.o.body else will, I shall probably have to do it myself.

Since boyhood (I shall begin) I have felt the injustice of men to the roach. Or not men, no; but women. Men are in this matter more tolerant, more live-and-let-live in their ways. But women have condemned the roach not only unheard, but unjudged. Not one of them has ever tried petting a roach to gain his affection. Not one of them has studied him or encouraged him to show his good side. Some c.o.c.kroaches, for instance, are exceedingly playful and gay, but what chance have they to show this, when being stepped on, or chased with a broom? Suppose we had treated dogs this way; scared them; made fugitives of them!

No, the human race, though kind to its favorites, is cruel to others.

The pale little, lovable c.o.c.kroach has been given no show. If a housewife would call to her roaches as she does to her hens, "Here chick-chick, here c.o.c.k-c.o.c.k, here roaches," how they would come scampering! They would eat from her hand and lay eggs for her--they do now, in fact.

"But the eggs are not legible--I mean edible," an excited reader objects. How do you know, my poor prejudiced reader? Have you ever tried them? And suppose they are not. Is that the fault of the c.o.c.kroach or G.o.d?

We should learn that blind enmity is not the att.i.tude to take toward strangers. The c.o.c.kroach has journeyed from Asia to come to our sh.o.r.es; and because he looked queer, like most Asiatics, he has been condemned from the start. The charges are that he is dirty and that he eats the food we leave lying around. Well, well, well! Eats our food, does he? Is that a crime? Do not birds do the same? And as to his being dirty, have you ever kept dogs in your home? One dog will bring in more dust and mud and loose hairs in a day, than a colony, an empire, of c.o.c.kroaches will in a year.

It is easy enough to drive c.o.c.kroaches away if you wish. Not with powder or poison: this only arouses their obstinacy. The right way is to import other insects that prey upon roaches. The hawk-ticks exterminate them as readily as wimples do moles. The only thing to remember is that then you have the hawk-ticks on hand, and they float around the ceiling, and pounce down, and hide in your ears.

You may be sure that _some_ insects will live with you. It's only a question which kind.

I remember Mr. Burbank once denied this when we talked of the matter.

Alluding to the fact that the c.o.c.kroach likes to eat other roaches, he said why not breed a roach that wouldn't eat anything else? When one introduced these into the home they would first eat the old timers, and then quietly devour each other until all were gone.

But how could a home remain bare of insects? Nature abhors such a vacuum. Some men would like to cover the whole world with porcelain tiles, and make old Mother Earth, as we know her, disappear from our view. They would sterilize and scrub the whole planet, so as to make the place sanitary. Well, I too feel that way at times: we all have finicky moments. But in my robust hours I sympathize with Nature. A hygienic kitchen is unnatural. It should be swarming with life. (The way mine is.)

I see a great deal of the roach when I visit my kitchen. His habits, to be sure, are nocturnal. But, then, so are mine. However, with a little arranging, it is simple to prevent awkward clashes. I do not like c.o.c.kroaches on my table at supper, for instance. Very well, I merely get me a table with carved spiral legs. The roach cannot climb up such legs.