course.

come to me then my girls was gone Doc stops by. He says to me: from me.

“You got to get goin', Jamie. It's I was stewin' over it in my mind time you stepped out. there in the dark, when I slipped on But I tell him: “Oh, I step about the ledge an' fell. An' the rock come a bit. I got to get the use back, o' after, an' pinned me down.

It comes slow." I lay there quite a while. But it “Keep at it, Jamie,” Doc says. got so I had to call to 'em. I couldn't But I'm doin' fine. stand it no longer.

Don't the wind blow outside there! They got me out, an' to the house. Lately he's been comin' in 'most Doc Gordon come. He fixed me every day. He's naggin' at me. fine. It was terrible.

He used to nag at Pop, I remember. I must stop thinkin' o' that. I He shouldn't speak to me like he can't stand it, even now.

done. Well—this all is right comfortable "By God, Barlow!” he says this anyway. I never was rested before. morning--different, he sounded.

Yes, the city fellers got me out an' “Can't you see what's happenin' to up to the house an' helped Doc too. you? Get up, man, an' do for An' I been here ever since.

yourself. I can't help you no more.”

. Mom took care o' me good. But “I got to take it easy,” I says. He it was hard on Mom.

made me feel bad, speakin' like that The girls started in when the schools opened, a couple weeks after. “You big fool," he says, like I By Gar, that was six months ago. never heard him; an' then he says, Don't time fly!

“I never would 'a' believed it o' you, Glen there to the Ridge school, an' Jamie.” He's different someway, Molly to the Center. Twelve dol- an' I feel bad. I like Doc fine. lars a week apiece they makes. I kind o' wish Pop was here, now Twelve dollars a week, startin' in. I'm in the house this way. Six Next year they figger to get more, months. I got to take it easy. It

would be comp'ny, even though he They ain't so brash spendin' of it never was one to talk neither. Only neither, now they see how it's come there ain't hardly space for two good by-an' Mom an' me to do for. chairs, an' this one o’his is right They is lookin' ahead, like me. comfortable.

to me.

THE MENACE OF LEISURE

What to Do with the Sixteen-Hour Day

HELEN MCAFEE

T

IN THE good old times before Labor Although Mr. Santayana's world

was capitalized, the “twelve- does not seem imminent, "over

hour day,” which then pre- production” has become a bugbear vailed, quite naturally meant the of the hour, and it is already possible working half of man's existence. to see a good deal of truth in these The other half was hardly worth speculations. Despite a temporary mentioning. Among the workers, reaction here and there, as in Fascist there was little energy left over for Italy, the work period in many discussing it; and among the capi- activities and in many countries has talists, little interest-only a few fallen well below the classic eight visionaries bothered their heads hours, if an average be taken for the about a division of their employees' whole year, and especially if time be lives so perfectly balanced that it taken out, as in football matches, was easy to accept it as a part of for breaks in routine-like relighting God's plan for the universe.

tobacco and waiting for Central. Then we awoke one morning (no This decrease in working hours in longer ago than yesterday in the the formal employments is, of course, scheme of history) and found that due to the new organization of inthe workday had been cut to eight dustry, with its “mass production” hours. Here was a true revolution and its machinery-so abhorred by in human affairs. But this was not the Butlerites. But the picture is all. Talk was at once let loose nearly as impressive when one turns about a still further reduction of to the less organized and more inthe “day.” An eminent English in- formally employed. Think of the dustrialist ventured the prophecy housewife of to-day and the comthat if every one of his fellow- parative nothingness to which laborcountrymen did his part, none need saving devices and electrical applilabor more than four hours out of ances, antiseptics and contraceptics, the twenty-four. And Mr. San- have transformed her once endless tayana, alarmed by the idea of drudgery. No wonder we have on overproduction, went so far as to our hands a Woman Problem, alsuggest that “in a world composed though this—to come straight to entirely of philosophers, an hour or the point—is merely a part of the two a day of manual labor ... larger problem of human leisure. would provide for material wants. Considering the dramatic fashion

in which it has overtaken us, one may be true, but it is true of only a might have thought that this prob- small part. The great masses in lem of leisure would be everywhere England as elsewhere in the West recognized. One might have sup- must reckon up all their present posed, too, that the revolutionary resources and then proceed to imreduction in work time which caused prove and extend them if they are it would have led to a revolution in to solve their problem of the long terms. It is patently absurd to keep non-working day. on calling the scant third of the How well provided are we with earth's spin that we now devote to the wherewithal to fill it profitably? wage-earning a “day.” It is equally At the moment, reading, riding, and absurd to keep on centering our radio would seem to be the three discussions, as we do, almost wholly fundamental R's in the modern about work, when what Western program of leisure. Outside of eatcountries are being more and more ing, which offers fewer possibilities confronted with is the prospect of as

a diversion in countries where it is its disappearance. Business men, divorced from genial drinking, and it is true, are beginning to realize the sleeping, which appears to grow dilemma to which production of an less attractive as artificial lighting increasing amount of unused goods is increases in efficiency, these are the giving rise; but, except for a handful voluntary activities on which the of sociologists and philosophers, few masses must mainly depend for aid people seem to realize the dilemma of in the consumption of spare time. its alternative, the production of an Sports and games, and social occuincreasing amount of unused time. pations that exist for the betterment Indeed the majority of us, living in of mankind, such as “charities,” or an age when men have more leeway for the stimulation of the individual, than ever before, frequently insist such as the arts, are, after all, only that we have "no time."

How are

for the chosen few. Formerly talk we to get rid of this strange delusion? was one of the great human recreaThe first step is to abandon the tions, but we have been warned that obsolete phrases of a bygone age talk, except of the most desultory when a man's employment consumed telephone type, is, like letter-writing, at least half of his life, and to throw on the decline. Our restless Time

. the emphasis where it now belongs, Spirit is all against the revival of on the sixteen-hour day. Let us conversations of the comfortable cease to worry exclusively about the Gargantuan proportions with which bare third of existence that is de- Dr. Johnson and his friends used to voted to work and take thought for pass an evening. (The same decline the remaining two thirds that are seems to have begun in thinking, devoted to leisure.

beyond the confines of the job. Pro

longed contemplation, always more Mr. Santayana has observed that popular in the Orient than on our a part of the English people have side of the world, is apparently alien developed to a greater extent than to the nervous nature of the modern Americans the arts of leisure. This Occidental.)

But although we cannot, as we

Nor has the older and more confrequently say, “stop to talk,” we servative book trade been unresponcan and do stop to read-perhaps sive to the pressure exerted by because this requires less construc- mounting leisure for greater abuntive effort. The growing demand dance of matter. The day of the for reading-matter has generally small biography, the compact novel, been put down to the spread of the slim duodecimo of verse is over. literacy; but, like literacy itself, it We want bulk.

We want bulk. No Life can expect should primarily be credited to the to attain a great sale unless it makes spread of leisure. Naturally it is a thick volume-preferably two of being everywhere exploited. The them.

them. Mr. Page's "Letters” may good talkers and thinkers whom we have been too long for a burdened are still fortunate enough to have chief executive, but they are not too with us are reserving their expres- long to please a public with sixteen sions more and more for print. So

So vacant hours to get through. No it is to books, magazines, and news- abbreviated editions of copious papers that we must go for one of the memoirs for us; we cannot afford to really solid substances with which to miss a word. The classics must be fill our unemployed time. Probably reprinted with all the original text most people would agree that the restored, and a generous introducmodern newspaper is the greatest tion thrown in. Miss Rebecca ameliorative device that civilization West's suggestion that stories should has yet provided for the victims of be made both longer and harder was the sixteen-hour day. If you take a straw to show the way the wind is the daily journals with all their blowing. Recently Mr. Wells, alfeature stories and signed columns, ways a generous entertainer, has and the Sunday editions with all heartened his readers by executing their sections, not forgetting Real a novel in two volumes-an adEstate and Finance, Advertisements, venture for which we were well Sports, and the Funnies, you cer- prepared

prepared by the group-novels of tainly have a time-filler of no mean Proust and Rolland, Mr. Galsworthy importance.

and Mr. Bromfield, from each of whom But the magazines are also doing we have already had many volumes, their part to lighten the load of with the end not yet in sight. Bigleisure. The number and variety ger novels and more of them has of current covers would dazzle a been the slogan of successful pubvisitor who had not seen a news

lishers. Houses that insist upon stand since the nineties. And how issuing works in pocket size are rapidly they are still multiplying! obliged to placate the public by A magazine that exists to-day only guaranteeing in advance a whole inside the brain of some ingenious series or library in one field. So pioneer may in six months be travel- fearful are we of being left high and ing around the globe in half a million dry, with nothing to read. Choice gay bindings. The size of the edi- collections of lyrics of the “Out, out tions is one of the outstanding eco- brief candle” kind no longer satisfy nomic wonders of the age.

We must have verse, preferably