Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson

Author:Shirley Jackson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241198216
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2015-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

As I say, after so much reading starting off like this, the reviewer’s wife begins to wonder about it all. Maybe two cents a word isn’t a living wage. Maybe vacuum cleaners aren’t selling so well these days, but they’re honest. Maybe she ought to have married Cedric. Maybe she’d better call the whole heartrending thing an invidious flop.

Hex Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar

EVER SINCE I MET ONE OF MY GRANDMOTHER’S OLD CRONIES—THE one with the evil eye—down on Sullivan Street the other day, I have had an uneasy feeling that I am being followed by something supernatural and malignant. Twice since then I have narrowly escaped destruction by fire, and in addition I have developed a particularly severe case of hives—out of season, I might add. In order to combat the superstitious fear that is beginning to prey on my mind, I stopped the other day in a secondhand bookstore and asked the young man on the high stool what would be good for Visitations. After some misunderstanding, the thought of which still makes me hot and cold all over, I procured a copy of a slim paperbound volume called Pow-Wows: Art and Remedies for Man and Beast.

This is by way of testimonial for John George Hohman, who compiled the book. Since I first picked up your little collection, brother, I haven’t needed another thing to keep me well and happy. From the very first remedy for mother-fits, right straight through to the punch line, the cure for wind-broken horses, it holds me. I tell you honestly that I couldn’t stir out of my chair until I had finished it. Every page is packed full of thrills. Take, for instance, page 74, with its stirring recipe for destroying spring-tails or ground-fleas. Or page 62, which explains how to “Retain the Right in Court and Council.” Let me pass that one on to all you poor devils who fear the law as I used to. It must only be employed, I might point out, when the judge is not favorably disposed toward you. You must stand in court, courageous and unabashed, and say slowly: “I appear before the house of the Judge. Three dead men look out of the window; one having no tongue, the other having no lungs, and the third being sick, blind, and dumb.” O brethren, what a cure this has worked in me! No longer do I fear the light; the haunts of the underworld see me no more, lurking in the shadows and the hidden places. No indeedy!

Sometimes Mr. Hohman is pretty short with us neophytes, all things considered. For instance, on page 30—a particular pet of mine, since it also tells me how to make cattle return home and how to cause fish to collect—we have the plaintive request: “To Prevent Cherries from Maturing Before Martinmas.” To which Mr. Hohman replies smartly: “Engraft the twigs on a mulberry tree, and your desire is accomplished.” That’s Hohman for you. No patience for the trivial.

Or take what we call “A Very Good Plaster,” on page 26.

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