ON GETTING LUCKY

by Rob Lopresti

When I was young and someone (usually me) had a bit of undeserved good fortune my father would always mutter “Lucky the boy scout.” Dad is no longer around to make this observation but I recently found myself filling in for him.

And then it occurred to me that I had no idea where that phrase came from. Naturally I went to the Web and discovered that this was the title of a children’s book written by Elmer Sherwood (pseudonym) and produced by Whitman Publishing in 1916. It was the first of a series.

I found a website (which appears to have vanished in the last month) that describes the series unlovingly as poorly written and racist. I decided to see one for myself, and used the magical services of my library’s Inter Library Loan Department to borrow a copy from the University of Wisconsin.

Well. This volume doesn’t have much of the promised racism (except for the lament that “the poor Indian is so wealthy and has waxed so fat, thanks to a paternal government, he won’t fight”). However, the low quality of the writing is right on target.

The book begins in true Horatio Alger style with Ted Marsh, a Chicago newsboy, meeting a wealthy Canadian ranchman. The next seventy pages include three staggering coincidences. (Boy-meets-rancher is not a coincidence; it’s the premise.) Here are the coincidences: on the day of the famous meeting, Ted’s apartment burns down. On that same day the rancher meets the love of his life, who left Alberta five years ago, and whom he had no idea was living in Chicago. And – here’s the big whammy – one of the rancher’s cowhands is Ted’s long-lost father. That’s not the big ending, remember – we’re only one-third of the way through the book.

Perhaps most dazzling to our jaded twenty-first century view is the fact that no one objects to the wealthy man whisking a twelve-year-old boy off to Neverland Ranch – Sorry! Double X Ranch. In another country, no less.

Ah, but what about the quality of the writing? Here is my favorite example. A bunch of wild cowpokes are chatting in the best Western style. Such as: “‘You sarcastic creature,’ said Pete, lovingly.”

Producers of Deadwood, please call your office.

But I haven’t actually gotten to the main plot of this masterpiece. It takes place just before World War One begins and Ted almost single-handedly stops a plot that involves invading Canada from the United States with 125,000 German-Americans (“they are actually Germans,” we are assured) and 40,000 Irishmen. Our author takes great pains to tell us, several times, that the “Germans are brave and wise, as well. Dislike them as we do, they are strong men, and we must not and cannot despise their wonderful ability.” Very weird talk in the middle of a war.

But the “strong men” thing may be the key. Sherwood is very concerned about Ted becoming a manly man (thus he must get out of the corrupting city and into the wild west). Fist-fighting and riding a horse are at least as important as stopping the dreaded German-Irish invasion.

And speaking of manliness, one of the oddest things about the book is that Ted seems to be the Lone Boy Scout. We never see him doing anything with a troop of scouts, except listening to a militant speech about the boys being future soldiers. I always saw being a Boy Scout as an activity but Sherwood believes it is an existential condition, as if you can be a parachutist or trombone-player without benefit of parachute or trombone.

I think I will excuse myself from reading the other eight books in the series. I wonder if my father read all of them. It could explain a few things about him.

I wonder what the kiddie books I read did to me?