Evening star., 1932-09-06
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
I. C.. NJ.

AeSbNSSo IuISdlill 4siC4uOA. 4sAdA
Graham Bonner. New York: Covici-
Friede.
Dark that night around the lake iIf
one OF Chicago's parks. The moon no.
where about. Stars of on some far
dimmed business of their own. Park
lights no more than candle CLEANS.
Five years ago, 1t might have been
on a night like this, the ashes of Re-
becca McCann were scattered upon this
lake.
There had been the joyous round
Chicago, Salt Lake City. San Francisco,
Albuquerque. The swift illness. Then
back home to Chicago and the lake
side
In the darkness and a silence oddly
strange to midcity scenes, picture
grows. The stricken group. the pitiful
gesture of human impotence, less than
a handful of ashes. Lonely. even as
dust, it seems to me, this spirit so COM
panionable in life:
THE lake holds lives unknown to me:
Cold, loveleSs lives the sun can't reach
A dim strange world I'll never see
Laps at my feet under the beach,"
Right now in the dusk upon the
WdtcI llSdl SIlUlt lllcIC ID lIiOtlOiiy q
dancing merriment. A tiny figure, a
pirouettes, tip-toe and arms upf1ung.
Beside it, sharing every mood and ges-
ture, Is square little dog with Hopping
ears Around them tiny lights play,
firef1y lights. Why? To be surel 1t
is the Cheerful Cherub denying death
and dust and a forgetting. The
Cheerful Cherub claiming for its own a
perpetual play spot upon a parkside
lake in Chicago, Rebecca McCann's
home city. And, when the night falls,
dark, with the moon away and the stars
unmindful. you may, If you are lucky
in spirit and mood, see this ritual of
memory and love in celebration upon a
certain point Of that midcity lake.
\
But, denied that, there Is still the
daily world-around tour of the Cheer
full Cherub, by way of companies of
newspapers. Every night I say aloud to
myself, as people alone are likely to-,
We'll. let's see what you are doing to-
night" and I hunt up the Cheerful
Cherub.
Once I had a frieze Of cherubs up
and down and across my mirror. This
galldnI youlBSCSi SlioWiHs AAC INV "
get along with life in some OF its
peskiest behaviors.
Then I grew curious about the
creator of this simple, everyday philos-
opher. But the information was scant-
"a man, McCann, dead now" That
was about all until this book came
with its intimate story Of Rebecca Nc
Cam, by Mary Bonner, her friend.
And I'm hurrying to pass 1t on to you,
the thousands of you" who pay daily
due to this gifted girl-woman.
Illinois-Quincy, Peoria, Chic go.
These, the home places. Our Frederic
j. Haskin of Washington was q neigh
Dor of the McCanns in Quincy and he
thought that Becky was a good deal
more than the precocious child, OF
common accounting in respect to her
Years later she worked for while
in the Haskin news service Of the
Capital. In the meantime she went to
school, grades and high school, mov-
ing swiftly along in lessons and in q
capacity for friendship and popularity
Whatever else might be on hand, the
passion for drawing never stalled. Of
by herself, pencil and pad in hand,
bug and worm and bird, every sort OF
small wild thing, just naturally, 1t
seemed, came to graphic terms with
that pencil at some significant point
in its one business of telling what 1t
thought about life, of how it was get
ting along in the great adventure. So
dripping scraps OF picture from an
overflowing bag, Rebessa McCann was
more often than otherwise in the pos
ture of scraping these up from floor
or street, of cramming them back into
the crowded pocket Of SO much OF i'm
passioned industry.
Then, one day, Rebecca grew prac-
tical. and courageous, too. She de-
termined to try marketing her goods
Upon such errand bent she went to
the Office Of the Chicago Evening Post
There she saw Julian Mason, later ed
itor of the New York Evening Post.
Prodigiously excited and not a little
scared, Rebecca lapsed to her usual
form, that of scooping up from the
floor q snowstorm Of pictures and little
verses attached to them. Mr.. Mason,
kindly and amused, gathered up some
of them. Slipping through his hngers
he read them. And at that moment
the Cheerful Cherub came into being,
faced success and began its career OF
going round the world like the verlest
sound, sane philosopher, given to
rhyming his notions of life. free from
any shadow of sentimentality, and a
consummate artist in posturing his
every mood by way of an adorably at
tractive little body.
That is about all of direct concern In
respect to the authorship of 1.-THE Cheer
full Cherub." Yet we are proverbially
curious about our successful folks. So
we listen in sympathy to the story of
Rebecca McCann'S years OF romance.
A most attractive girl. Married to an
aviator who flew away to the World
War and, then, off into the unknown
with only a budget of letters sent on
from one and another point in Europe.
In the course of time the girl was mar
take and the usual release was sought
and gained. Then Rebecca McCann
married the novelist Harvey Ferguson,
happy and congenial partners, separated
by the tragedy of Miss McCanns sud-
den death.
1.-THE Complete Cherub" is well worth
any ones possession. One thousand and
one verses here keep company with as
many appearances of the cherub in as
many distinct moods. He disports him.
self upon the cover, joyous as the flying
things around him. On the double
page ulSlQe OI Tie cover Is portrayed
the ritual of the days doings. The sun
looking over the crest of the book into
the cherub's bed, the little square dog
lending paw to the business of waking
the fellow up. Then plunge into a pool
Breakfast and work A stretch of ten
mis-, the dog assisting. An hour of
reading under the tree shadows, the
dog deep in his midday siesta. Then
nightfall.
You will be grateful to Mary Bonner
for the sketch that we have all wanted.
And you are sure to be delighted with
the book itself, complete in the verses
that have heretofore come to you in q
more scattered way.
Nobody claims great genius for Re
becca McCann save. perhaps, genius
for sticking to her job, in every sort of
spiritual weather, in every sort of dis
traction. No form of social gayety could
seduce this naturally companionable
girl away from her work. She took it
along with her, just pencil and pad, for
the snatched recordings that, in the