Imperial Valley press., 1945-01-04
NUBBINS
Nv
BURRIS JENKINS

"Old Snooks' could almost talk
the human language. He could say
many things quite plainly, such as,
Pardon me-" Thank you sir,
After you." "An my fault" I'm
very sorry"
Once this columniSt wrote book
about the old fellow and named 1T,
THE Autobiography of Neighbor-
hood Dog" IL had about 10000 words
and thc writer thought il was
a pretty good book; but the publish
ers didn't think SO and were o. e
clear in expressing their opinion.
The most sympathetic and under
standing of these publishers and
the closest personal friend said to
me kindly, "You are intensely in
| terested i'm this dog because he is
your dog; but you have not made
him interesting enough to the pub
! lie that they will pay out money
| for book about him."
This might be a good place to
advise all those who think of be-
coming writers not to kill time sub
mitting their stuff to their friends,
but to send it straight to the mar
ket place where men buy and sell
things of that sort. AS matter OF
fact one has no right to take the
time of ones friends TO read some
thing that may or may not have
any worth what ever. No body but
the man i'm the business can ap-
praise your stuff. The sensible thing,
then, is to enclose postage enough
to- bring il back home if yOu want
il any more, because the chances
are quite high that ii will be COM
ing back. Send your stuff to news
paper, where il probably wont be
paid for even if used, send it to a
pulp magazine or even aspire to the
slick ones, you can get the names
of book publishers off the front
inside pages Of any of their books.
Then you can send your stuff on
perfectly assured that it will be
carefully read and examined. Those
men are just as eager to find ne%
writer's as new writers are to be
found.
Shocks, being a very handsome
black collie-that apparently is
the proper name for these Ameri-
can shepherds--used to visit every |
house for three or four blocks round
and every body knew him, was
fond of him, and fed him. We'd go
away from home for days at time
and leave him to shift for himself |
which he did admirably. Sometimes
we would pack the car with bag
gage and go for the entire summer.
When we came back he was always |
there to welcome us.
But one year he was not. Our
-neighbors and his told lis that he
had died under the spiren bush in
the corner of our yard. Somebody !
had done him dirty turn by put
ting arsenic on a piece of meat.
Then ten-year- old boy had grown
to manhood and gone to college
when one year his older brothers
found some little kOdaks as big as
your thumb rail among the younger
boys effects. They took them down
to the newspaper office, had them
enlarged, and framed four of them
in a row for She younger boy for
Christmas. Giving out the presents
Christmas morning, they handel
him the frame underneath which
they had printed the epitauh of
Rotert Louis Stevenson in far away
Samoa:
"Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and there let me
lie,
Gladly i lived and gladly die,
And / lay me down with will :.
And this be the verse you grave
for me,
Here he lies where he lOnged to
be,
Home is the sailor, homo from the
sea,
The hunter home from the hills"
The young college boy took one
glance at it and disappeared up
stairs where he stayed all MORN
ing, much to the dismay of the
Older brothers.
But those pictures went back to
college and stayed with him until
finally a fraternity house fire des-
trOyed them.