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How to Be a Hermit (World Cultural Heritage Library)
How to Be a Hermit - World Cultural Heritage Library Author:Will Cuppy CONTENTS: I DISCOVER MY ISLAND — BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE — LIVING FROM CAN TO MOUTH — MY KITCHEN BEAUTIFUL — CONFESSIONS OF A SARDINE FIEND — HARD-BOILED RECIPES — THE HOME IN BUM TASTE — COFFEE, PLEASE! — DIOGENES, OR THE FUTURE OF HOUSEKEEPING — THE SECRET OF FREDERICK BARBAROSSA — THE HERMIT'S EMERGENCY SHELF — THE DUKE'S DILEMMA — A FEW HI... more »NTS ON ETIQUETTE
SPINACH AND THE GOOD LIFE
LITERATURE AND OTHER SPINACH
WATCH YOUR BUDGET
SIMPLIFIED CLAMS
BEDROOMS ARE WHAT YOU MAKE THEM
CONSIDER THE LETTUCE
A PLEA FOR BETTER BATTER
PERILS OF THE HOME
DOWN WITH BRILLAT-SAVARIN!
HOW TO ENTERTAIN
SO WHY BE PRESIDENT?
WHAT CABBAGE HAS MEANT TO ME
NEXT TO GODLINESS
IF CHRISTMAS COMES
THE FEAST OF THE BEAN
IF YOU HAVE TEARS a selection from the first chapter:DISCOVER MY ISLAND All was excitement that June morning among the clams of Jones's Island (pronounced, by your leave, in two good healthy syllables, thus: Jone'-zez). Softies by the bushel dug themselves deeper into the shoreward mud, and whimpering little quahogs out in their watery beds clung closer to their mothers as they heard the dread news relayed by their kinsfolk of Seaman's Neck, Black Banks Channel, Johnson's Flats and High Hill Crick. To say that uneasiness pervaded the community would be putting it far too mildly. Those clams were scared plumb out of a week's growth; which, as the clam flies, is a lot of growth. In a word, panic reigned, if not pandemonium. And well it might, for the scouts along the meadows, the deep water observers and the liaison officers on the sandbars had forwarded marine intelligence of no mean importance. As one clam they reported the swift approach by rowboat across Great South Bay of a sinister stranger, by every sign a very devil for chowder, raging and roaring in the throes of starvation and flying the strange device, "Jones's Island or Bust!" Yes, downright terror gripped even the hardest of the clams. "He ought to be here at any moment!" shuddered a visiting cherry-stone. And see! Even now the hellish bark rounds Hawkins's Point, splashes its desperate way through the shallows and crashes into Savage's Dock with a sickening thud, hurling the oarsman from his position amidships to a point which may be defined as galley-west. Dizzily the skipper regains his feet, and as he rises to the general view his singular and touching appearance sends thrills of relief up and down the calcareous shells of the bivalves still on watch. Dame Rumor is wrong again! Here is no demon with murder in his heart. Here is no devil incarnate. For there in the full sunshine, the cynosure of every clam, he weeps, the stranger weeps. Anon, he sneezes, and again his eyes drip blinding tears. 'Tis plain some nobler grief than the want of a square meal is bothering this chap. All told, it was pretty pathetic.« less