James Thurber Cartoon # 7

"It's Parkins, Sir; We're 'Aving a Bit of a Time Below Stairs"

THE FAT BUDGIE

From "A SPANIARD IN THE WORKS" - John Lennon, 1965

I have a little budgie
He is my very pal
I take him walks in Britain
I hope I always shall.

I call my budgie Jeffrey
My grandads name's the same
I call him after grandad
Who had a feathered brain.

Some people don't like budgies
The little yellow brats
They eat them up for breakfast
Or give them to their cats.

My uncle ate a budgie
It was so fat and fair.
I cried and called him Ronnie
He didn't seem to care

Although his name was Arthur
It didn't mean a thing.
He went into a petshop
And ate up everything.

The doctors looked inside him,
To see what they could do,
But he had been too greedy
He died just like a zoo.

My Jeffrey chirps and twitters
When I walk into the room,
I make him scrambled egg on toast
And feed him with a spoon.

He sings like other budgies
But only when in trim
But most of all on Sunday
That's when I plug him in.

He flies about the room sometimes
And sits upon my bed
And if he's really happy
He does it on my head.

He's on a diet now you know
- From eating far too much
They say if he gets fatter
He'll have to wear a crutch.

It would be funny wouldn't it
A budgie on a stick
Imagine all the people
Laughing till they're sick.

So that's my budgie Jeffrey
Fat and yellow too
I love him more than daddie
And I'm only thirty two.

Fables For Our Times # 6

The Glass in the Field

James Thurber, from Fables for Our Time. New York, 1940

A SHORT time ago some builders working on a studio in Connecticut, left a huge square of plate glass standing upright in a field one day. A goldfinch flying swiftly across the field struck the glass and was knocked cold. When he came to he hastened to his club, where an attendant bandaged his head and gave him a stiff drink. "What the hell happened?" asked a seagull. "I was flying across a meadow when all of a sudden the air crystallized on me," said the goldfinch. The sea gull and a hawk and an eagle all laughed heartily. A swallow listened gravely. "For fifteen years, fledgling and bird, I've flown this country," said the eagle, "and I assure you there is no such thing as air crystallizing. Water, yes; air, no." "You were probably struck by a hailstone," the hawk told the goldfinch. "Or he may have had a stroke," said the sea gull. "What do you think, swallow?" "Why, I - I think maybe the air crystallized on him," said the swallow. The large birds laughed so loudly that the goldfinch became annoyed and bet them each a dozen worms that they couldn't follow the course he had flown across the field without encountering the hardened atmosphere. They all took his bet; the swallow went along to watch. The sea gull, the eagle, and the hawk decided to fly together over the route the goldfinch indicated. "You come, too," they said to the swallow. "I - I well, no," said the swallow. "I don’t think I will." So the three large birds took off together and they hit the glass together and they were all knocked cold.

Moral: He who hesitates is sometimes saved.

Charles Addams # 16

We could never have done it without him.

Fables For Our Times # 5

The Crow and the Oriole

James Thurber, from Fables for Our Time. New York, 1940

ONCE UPON a time a crow fell in love with a Baltimore oriole. He. had seen her flying past his nest every spring on her way North and every, autumn on her way, South, and he had decided that she was a tasty dish. He had observed that she came North every year with a different gentleman, but he paid no attention to the fact that all the gentlemen were Baltimore orioles. “Anybody can have that mouse,” he said to himself. So he went to his wife and told her that he was in love with a Baltimore oriole who was as cute as a cuff link. He said he wanted a divorce, so his wife gave him one simply by opening the door and handing him his hat. “Don’t come crying to me when she throws you down,” she said. “That fly-by-season hasn’t got a brain in her head. She can’t cook or sew. Her upper register sounds like a streetcar taking a curve. You can find out in any dictionary that the crow is the smartest and most capable of birds - or was till you became one.” “Tush!” said the male crow. “Pish! You are simply. a jealous woman.” He tossed her a few dollars. “Here,” he said, “go buy yourself some finery. You look like the bottom of an old teakettle.” And off he went to look for the oriole.

This was in the springtime and he met her coming North with an oriole he had never seen before. The crow stopped the female oriole and pleaded his cause—or should we say cawed his pleas? At any rate, he courted her in a harsh, grating voice, which made her laugh merrily. “You sound like an old window shutter,” she said, and she snapped her fingers at him. “I am bigger and stronger than your gentleman friend,” said the crow. “I have a vocabulary larger than his. All the orioles in the country couldn’t even lift the corn I own. I am a fine sentinel and my voice can be heard for miles in case of danger.” “I don’t see how that could interest anybody but another crow,” said the female oriole, and she laughed at him and flew on toward the North. The male oriole tossed the crow some coins. “Here,” he said, “go buy yourself a blazer or something. You look like the bottom of an old coffeepot.”

The crow flew back sadly to his nest, but his wife was not there. He found a note pinned to the front door. “I have gone away with Bert,” it read. “You will find some arsenic in the medicine chest.”

Moral: Even the llama should stick to mamma.