The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-23
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

Jack Spratt and his wife were Hoover izing long before Hoover got fin the spo I light The nursery rhyme is a classic. ss
 Jack spratt could eat no fat, and hi! wife could eat no lean,
 And so between the two they managed tt
 lick the platter clean.
 
 Please bear in remembFance that have confessed that I have no verba memory and I know I am bungiing UT the couplet or is it a auatrain, but think I have got the sense of the happy relation which existed in the sprat' household.
 have a well read relative who knows ancient and modern philosophy and be, fore kultur got under cloud could bab- ble about metaphysics, psychiatry, and all the latest nuances in German rnys- ticism. He said that if he ever found time he was going to write book on the underlyingi domestic philosophy em- bodied in the Spratts domestic relations as regards food
 It was hobby of his and he use to bore me with it just as did another friend who got a bit dyspeptie browsing among Teuton universities, for he held to the theory that if man went deep enough into the question of why some men per sisted ih eating beans with their knife that it would be to show the weak spot in mans ascent
 I am much too matter of fact. to go off in philosophie bypatlis ever Mother Goose rhymes or occasional doggereb even though it has the virtue of being touted as embedded in folk lore. One might as well get nutty over the famous adver- Using motto: There is reascn,' and in itself the answer to the riddle of the universe.
 Now take the Uncle Remus stories. enjoy them in my middle age as set out in literature by Joel Chandler Harris, but not quite as much as when as child I heard them fresh from the lips of 'Mahattie, the old negro nanny who used to hold me spellbound with them as she told them with all the pie turesque frills of one who had the power to make me visualize them
 
 I have heard that the author said that he owed to her many of the stories which he took and put in his wonder ful book, for after she left Eufauia was for years the nurse for his children, l only know that in reading his versions ran across many which had sunk into my mind in my childhood.
 Joel Chandler Harris will live in liter ature when many name literary star now high in the heavens is faded out of view, fer as long as there are ohil- dren in the world they Will go with eagerness to the pages in which he has caught 'Brer Rabbit and the rest of the animals.
 Kiping, in his Jungle Tales, also struck rich mine, but to me his tales have not the simplicity of the ones told by the great Georgia story teller, who IT my mind will have aa Immortality like unto that of Aesop, and be read and enjoyed by thousands who will never know or care anything about the elas- sicists who claim so much of the at teption of the scholarly.
 
 Now my typewriter got to going so fast I ran far from Jack Spratt and his spouse. and the fact that if their CO., partnership to eliminate food waste was emulated by Americans that enough to feed themselves and their allies could be rescued from the garbage pail. Mr Jack Spratt and Mesdames Jack Spratt were the original apostles of the clean platter" and no one should try to rob them of the honor which they have en- joyed for so many years.
 I got to thinking about the two be- cause the other night I landed in a nearby town late at night and was shown to my room by cheery hotel proprietor who was as chipper as I was weary and worn, and ready to crack jokes, or dis cuss the war, or talk about the price of cotton, or speculate about the Span ish influenza. In other words he was conversationally ripe and all you had to do was shake the tree and the words came falling down like leaves in late fall.
 His good humor was contagious and in spite of the long ride and the cold room I went to bed and forgot that was to be called at 4:3o, My, how l did hate to get up. I sure had Uncle Wills prayer running through my mind if did not put it into audible words. The story is too old to be repeated, but for fear you may have escaped it, tell it.
 Little Johnny left the city to go out and spend a week with his uncle Will, an old bachelor, who lived in the coun- try He was warned to say his prayers each night. which he did. But he came home and reported that his Uncle Will always said his in the morning, and when questioned as to what form they took, told how he turned over and fer vently said: "Oh, Lord, how I do hate to get up.n His sentiments were mine.
 
 I got up reluctantly and went down with a grouch which melted as looked into the motherly face of the woman be- hind the desk, who ehirped me morn ing greeting that took away all my bad feelings and sent illA on my tourney