A Barbadoes Gentleman

The history* of a superior colored feller with a heap of style The Story. One brilliant noon a comely Negress made her way to the waterside at Barbadoes, leading by the hand her nine-year-old boy. At the quay she entered a small boat to carry her out to a barque, the captain of which had volunteered to take her along "kind o' friendly-like" to Panama. But she left the boy at the water's edge with the remark, "Dere is plenty of bananas and yams and things in B'bayados, also fowls." So Young Jehu Sennacherib Dyle was launched upon the world. He grew up helter skelter, but at last an empty stomach induced him to try to make a living. So he enlisted as butler in the family of a puisne judge. There he learned to put on style, and as the gayest and sassiest man on the island he became a wooer of the local belle, Jezebel Pettyfer. At this flowing tide of his affairs he lost his position because of an unfortunate argument with his mistress over the disposition of the cadaver of her lamented dog Aristotle. That same night he proposed to Jezebel, offering her Jehu Sennacherib Dyle in holy matrimony. Jezebel, though coy, finally decided: "I no mind livin' wid yo' here in dis house. But de marryin', it can come later on." Dyle reluctantly agreed looking forward to the day when she would make him "a legitimate man."

So Dyle lived on Jezebel's earnings, augmenting them occasionally by borrowing a neighbor's hen, until one day she mistakenly guessed he was untrue and reported him to the police for thieving. While he was in jail she entered into holy wedlock with a rumshop keeper from Jamaica and sailed away with her husband. Released at last Dyle joined the Zouaves and shortly he too was transferred to Jamaica. There he cut a sumptuous figure. He was the best man in Port Royal and in much demand at weddings. He was a most successful gambler, for he had a way with the dice and cards as well as with women. And if he was no end of trouble to his captain, he was none the less cock of the walk in the Negro quarter.

Meanwhile Jezebel was leading her husband a merry chase. Finally the poor rumshop keeper, rising in wrath, fell with the knife of an English sailor in his side. After nine days' mourning, Jezebel blossomed forth in magenta, and the handsome widow was soon an object of hate to all the married women of the island and a landmark of delight to visiting sailor-men.

What with Jezebel's "gigglin' fine ways" and Dyle's witty tongue and proclivity for "borrowing" things, developments were almost bound to come about in the society of the neighborhood, but after all matters went on just about as they had in Barbadoes before Dyle's mother set out for Colon with her friend the skipper.

The Significance. It happens that the story of Jehu Sennacherib Dyle was set down in the last century and consigned to comparative obscurity, but its complete realism might tag it as written yesterday. Haldane Macfall wrote of Negro life in all its comic fullness, yet refused to write the regulation Negro comic story. Saith Carl Van Vechten, according to the blurb: "The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer is probably the best novel yet written about the Negro." And Critic Van Vechten is not far wrong, for Haldane Macfall can write. He has an extraordinarily observant eye and an equally effective pen. He has the turn of the epigrammatist, but makes no ostentatious display of it. He has a mental balance that is quite above pessimism--a rare attribute in a realist. Neither moralist nor sentimentalist, he writes a thoroughly first rate novel simply by being an incisive observer with an ironic humor and a measurable amount of sympathy.

Good Gifts

These are some of the books which, in the light of current criticism, may make suitable Christmas gifts for people who do not care for current novels, poetry, etc.:

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS (1892-1916) --Viscount Grey--Stokes, 2 vols. ($10). Memoirs of Britain's famous Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was intimately concerned with the outbreak of the Great War.

WHEN AMERICA WAS YOUNG-- John T. Faris--Harper ($6). Early American topics like housing, commerce, education, travel, holidays, pirates, each brought out by a series of quotations from contemporaneous descriptions.

THE ADVENTURES OF AN ILLUSTRATOR--Joseph Pennell--Little, Brown ($12.50). The memoirs of a famous artist who made famous acquaintances and has his own way of looking on life. Illustrated.

ONE MAN'S LIFE--Herbert Quick --Bobbs-Merrill ($5). A posthumous autobiography of extraordinary interest and literary merit.

SUNLIGHT IN NEW GRANADA-- William McFee -- Doubleday, Page ($3.50). Travels in South America set down by a first rate literary

artist.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THOMAS R. MARSHALL -- Bobbs-Merrill ($5). The whimsical recollections and good natured cogitations of a man who was a personality even as Vice President.

THE SENATE AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS -- Henry Cabot Lodge -- Scribner's ($4). The late Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee telling a story that arouses the ire of Wilsonians.

AARON BURR--Samuel H. Wandell & Meade Minnigerode--Putnam's, 2 vols. ($10). To show that a man is not always so black as he is painted, here are told the intimate details of the life of the third Vice President of the U. S.

MORE CHANGES, MORE CHANCES-- H. W. Nevinson -- Harcourt, Brace ($5). Memoirs of an English newspaper correspondent, who championed many an under dog with such adroit charm that he won the unstinted praise of so exacting an editor as the late H. W. Massingham.

FORTY YEARS OF IT--Brand Whitlock--Appleton ($2.50). Memoirs, politics and public life in the Middle West, which William Allen White describes in a brief preface as "an adventure in easy reading and high thinking."

SOCIAL CLASSES IN POST-WAR EUROPE -- Lothrop Stoddard -- Scribner's ($2). A study of European peasants, industrial laborers, middle class, intellectuals and upper class, showing how they fare now as compared with 1913, with the conclusion that the small farmers fare best and the intellectuals worst.

JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON --Claude G. Bowers--Houghton, Mifflin ($5). The story of one of the greatest political battles in U. S. history.

THE LIFE OP JUDGE GARY--Ida M. Tarbell--Appleton ($3.50). "The Story of Steel" by the famed historian of the Standard Oil Co., telling the development of the great steel combine, with anecdotes of the men who participated, principally Judge Gary.

GOLD OF OPHIR--Sydney and Marjory Greenbie -- Doubleday, Page ($4). The story of the lure of the Orient in early America, how it drew Yankee clippers around the Horn, how it propelled the movement westward across the continent.

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE, Vol. Ill--Burton J. Hendrick -- Doubleday, Page ($5). More of the personal documents of our Ambassador at London.

ALMOST HUMAN -- Robert M. Yerkes--Century ($3). A professor of psychology at Yale tells the story of three weeks spent studying the mental processes of a colony of apes at Havana. Remarkable stories of how these animals actually think.

IN THE DAYS OF MY FATHER, GENERAL GRANT--Jesse R. Grant & Henry Francis Granger -- Harper ($3.50). Lighter reminiscences of a President by his son.

THE FIRST WORLD FLIGHT--Lowell Thomas--Houghton, Mifflin ($5). The story of the first circumnavigation of the world by air, the first- person narratives of the participants being set down by an official appointed by the War Department.

THE DIARIES OF GEORGE WASHINGTON--John C. Fitzpatrick (Editor) -- Houghton, Mifflin, 4 vols. ($25). The complete diaries of our pater patriae, showing how dull was his daily round and how much liquor he bought for his establishment.

CALVIN COOLIDGE--William Allen White -- Macmillan ($3.50). An estimate and a portrait of a famed Vermonter by a famed Kansan.

THE MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN -- Himself and Mary Baird Bryan--Winston ($3.75). An autobiography completed by his wife.

THE GRAMMAR OF POLITICS -- Harold J. Laski--Yale University Press ($6). A book on the theory of politics by a man well versed in political science, who has definite ideas on the functioning of governmental institutions.

JUNGLE DAYS--William Beebe-- Putnam ($3). A naturalist tells colorful stories of jungle folk.

Children's Books

These are some of the books which, in the light of current criticism, seem appropriate gifts from elders to their youngers:

OLD SWEDISH FAIRY TALES (translated) --Anna Wahlenberg-- Penn Publishing Co. ($3.50). Charming fairy tales, well known abroad, retold in English and handsomely illustrated.

MADE-TO-ORDER STORIES--Dorothy Canfield--Harcourt, Brace ($2.50). Mrs. Fisher's concoction made to the order and delight of her ten-year-old son. Illustrated.

A GALLERY OF CHILDREN--A. A. Milne -- McKay ($3.50). Twelve stories of little children with lovely illustrations in color. It will be enjoyed by parents as well.

NUMBER THREE JOY STREET -- Appleton ($2.50). A collection of stories and verse by several authors--Eleanor Farjeon, G. K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, A. A. Milne, Compton Mackenzie and others. Handsomely got up with illustrations in color and black and white.

THK FLYING CARPET--Scribner's ($2.50). Also a collection of prose and verse for children with selections by J. M. Barrie, Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, Clemence Dane, Thomas Hardy, Walter de la Mare, A. A. Milne and others. Illustrated in color and black and white.

CHIMNEY CORNER STORIES--Veronica S. Hutchinson--Minton, Balch ($2.50). Sixteen well wrought little tales retold to suit those who still delight in beef juice and junket. Cleverly illustrated.

MOTHER GOOSE SECRETS--Barbara W. Bourjaily -- Small, Maynard ($1.50). Satisfying explanations for those whose curiosity is baffled by such secrets as, Why did Little Boy Blue go to sleep?

LITTLE SEA DOGS AND OTHER TALES OF CHILDHOOD -- Anatole France--Dodd, Mead ($2.50). Entertainment for the youngest generation. Beautifully garnished in color and otherwise.

THE DISAPPOINTED SQUIRREL-- W. H. Hudson--Doran ($2.50) True stories about animals from a master pen held by a man who understood animals. Excerpts from The Book of a Naturalist. Illustrated.

THE FORGE IN THE FOREST--Padraic Colum -- Macmillan ($2.25). Celtic fairy tales for those children with brilliant imaginations.

DOCTOR DOLITTLE'S Zoo--Hugh Lofting -- Stokes ($2.50). The now famous Doctor (he is appearing in the fifth book of his series) brings together a marvelous zoo in which many exciting things happen. Illustrated.

300 THINGS THAT A BRIGHT BOY CAN Do--Lippincott ($1.75). Outlets for the constructive urge.

DAVID GOES VOYAGING -- David B. Putnam--Putnam ($1.75). A twelve-year-old's story of hunting on the high seas with William Beebe's expedition on the Arcturus.

BROOMSTICKS AND OTHER TALES-- Walter de la Mare--Knopf ($2.50). The delicate fabrications of a poetic writer, graphically illustrated with woodcuts.

THE SLY GIRAFFE--Lee Wilson Dodd--Dutton ($2). A fantastically funny animal story. Illustrated.

THE KATHARINE PYLE BOOK OP FAIRY TALES -- Dutton ($2.50). The favorite tales of her childhood retold and illustrated by Katharine Pyle.

Handsome new editions, most of them beautifully illustrated, have been published of such classics as ALICE IN WONDERLAND--Boni, Liveright ($3); PINOCCHIO--Macmillan ($5.00); A CONNECTICUT YANKEE AT KING ARTHUR'S COURT--Harper ($2.50); THE PILOT--Minton, Balch ($2.50); THE ARABIAN NIGHTS-- Dodd, Mead ($5); THE DEERSLAYER --Scribner's ($2.50); WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG--Dutton ($3).

*THE WOOINGS c? JEZEBEL PETTYFER--Haldane Macfall--Knopf ($3).