JOHN HENRY ON AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY
Peaches, my wife, acquired the amateur photography bug last week,and it was really surprising how quickly she laid the foundation ofa domestic Rogue's Gallery.
She bought a camera and went after everybody and everything in theneighborhood.
She took about eight million views of our country home before shediscovered that the camera wasn't loaded properly, which was toughon Peaches but good for the bungalow.
Like everything else in this world picture pinching from still lifedepends entirely on the point of view.
If your point of view is all right it's an easy matter to make afour dollar dog-house look like the villa of a Wall Street brokerat Newport.
Ten minutes after my wife had brought the camera home she had meset up as a statue all over the lawn, and she was snapping at melike a Spitz doggie at a peddler.
I sat for two hundred and nineteen pictures that forenoon, so Isuppose if she snapped like a Spitz I must have looked like aSetter.
Anyway, before I was through setting I felt like a hen, but whenshe tried to coax me to climb up on a limb of a tree and stay theretill she got a picture of me looking like an owl, I swore softly inthree languages, fell over the back fence, and ran for my life.
When I rubbershoed it back that afternoon my wife was busydeveloping her crimes.
The proper and up-to-date caper in connection with taking snapshots these days is to buy a developing outfit and upset thehousehold from pit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures ofevery dearly beloved friend that crosses your pathway.
My wife selected a spare room on the top floor where she couldawait developments.
A half hour later ghostly noises; began to come from that room andmysterious whisperings fell out of the window and bumped over thelawn.
When I reached the front door I found that the gardener had left,the waitress was leaving, the baby had discharged the nurses andthe nurse was telephoning for a policeman.
"Where is Mrs. Henry?" I asked Mary, the nurse.
"She is still developing," said Mary.
"What has she developed?" I inquired.
"Up to the present time she has developed the cook's temper and shehas developed the baby's appetite, and a couple of bill collectorsdeveloped a pain in the neck when they couldn't see her; and ifthings go on in this way I think this will soon develop into afoolish house!" said Mary, the nurse.
A half hour later while I was hiding under the hammock on the frontporch, not daring to breathe above a whisper for fear I would getmy picture taken again, my wife rushed out exclaiming, "Oh, joy!Oh, joy! John, I have developed two pictures!"
"Oh, joy! John, I have developed two pictures"]
I wish you could have seen the expression on Peaches' face.
In order to develop the films a picturesque assortment of drugs andchemicals have to be used.
Well, my wife had used them.
A silent little stream of wood alcohol was trickling down over herleft ear into her Psyche knot, and on the end of her nose about sixgrains of bichloride of potash was sending out signals of distressto some spirits of turpentine which was burning on the top of herright eyebrow.
Something dark and lingering like iodine had given her chin thedouble cross and her apron looked like the remnants of a porousplaster.
Her right hand had red, white, green, purple and magenta marks allover it, and her left hand looked like the Fourth of July.
"John!" she yelled; "here it is! My goodness, I am so excited!See what a fine picture of you I took!"
She handed me the picture, but all I could see was a wood-shed withthe door wide open.
"A good picture of the woodshed," I said; "but whose woodshed isit?"
"A wood-shed!" exclaimed my wife; "why, that is your face, John.And where you think the door is open is only your mouth!"
I looked crestfallen and then I looked at the picture again, but mybetter nature asserted itself and I made no attempt to strike thisdefenceless woman.
Then she handed me another picture and said, "John, here is one Itook of you and little Peaches!"
Little Peaches is the name of our baby.
We call her Little Peaches because that's what she is.
I looked at the picture and then I said to big Peaches, "All I cansee is Theodore, our colored gardener, walking across lots with asack of flour on his back!"
"John, you are so stupid," said my wife. "How can you expect tosee what it is when you are holding the picture upside down?"
I turned the picture around, and then I was quite agreeablysurprised.
"It's immense!" I shouted. "It's the real thing, all right! Whythis is aces! I suppose it is called 'Moonlight On LakeChamplain?' Did this one come with the camera or did you draw itfrom memory?"
"The idea of such a thing," my wife snapped; "can't you see thatyou're holding the picture the wrong way. Turn it around and youwill see yourself and Little Peaches!"
I gave the thing another turn. "Gee whiz!" I said, "now I have it!Oh, the limit! You wished to surprise me with a picture of thesunset at Governor's Island. How lovely it is. See, over here inthis corner there's a bunch of soldiers listening to what's cookingfor supper, and over here is the smoke from the gun that sets thesun--I like it!"
Then my wife grabbed the picture out of my hands and burst intospeech.
When the exercises were over I inquired casually, "Where, my dear,where are the other 21,219 pictures you snapped to-day?"
"Only these two came out good because, don't you see, I'm anamateur yet," was her come back.
Then she looked lovingly at the result of her days work and beganto peel some bicarbonate of magnesia off her knuckles with the nutcracker.
"Only two out of 21,219--I think you ought to call it a long shotinstead of a snap shot," I whispered, after I had dodged behind atree on the lawn.
She went in the house without saying a word and I took out mypocketbook and looked at it wistfully.