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125 pages

English

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This is the story of Sam Small, a man from Yorkshire who wakes up one morning and decides that he can fly on his own two hands. So he does. This is for all those who know that dogs talk, Sundays can be repeated seven days in a row so that Monday never comes, and other dreamy escapism. You'll have to read to believe how he learned to fly like a bird, by faith; how he changed a dog into a girl and back again; how he coped with the two selves of his split personality; and how he was called upon to explain the tricky foreign phrase, droit de seigneur, which said in effect that the duke of the neighboring parish was required by law to go to bed with Ian Cawper's Mary Ann the night of their wedding. Here are fun humourous fantasies and shaggy dog stories by the author who would create "Lassie."

Sujets

Fantastique

Fantasy Burlesque

Fantasy

Action

Fiction

Adventure

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Publié par	Rare Treasure Editions
Date de parution	05 novembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781774643099
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0050€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Sam Small Flies Again: The Amazing adventures of the Flying Yorkshireman
by Eric Knight

First published in 1937
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
Trava2909@gmail.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Sam Small Flies Again

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES of the
FLYING YORKSHIREMAN

by ERIC KNIGHT

TO

Bob Clarke, Sam Schwab, Charlie Kapnic,
Harry Parsons, Curly Wolfe, Harry Nason,
Roy Wolfe, Hal Borland, Jack Flynn,
Warren Cawley, James O. G. Duffy

All good American newspapermen
who at some time or other sweated
over the job of trying to make me
write readable English —

THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED
Author’s Note
This saga of the life and times of Sam Small and hismates was mostly written when the world was a happierplace. Bits of it were published in big and littlemagazines in England, the United States, Canada, andAustralia. These bits were written—or rather they madethemselves up—at various times and places; mostlywhen I was very homesick or feeling low or hopelessand wanted to cheer myself up.
When a man has little else to rely on, I think he fallsback on his blood and background. And so, curiouslyenough, nearly all of these stories were written five andsix thousand miles away from my native Yorkshire. Itwas mostly being homesick, I think.
I like to feel that these stories are original with me,but to be truthful they were created by my blood andbackground. For they are just the same kind of storiesthat Yorkshire people have made up to tell for whoknows how many generations.
The Yorkshire people, as you may gather from thesetales, are a very wonderful lot. (So are Texans and NovaScotians and so on—but I’m Yorkshire.) Yorkshire peopleare truly full of fine, strong virtues. Life is oftenhard for them, so they cling to those virtues—courage,patience, truth, sticking it out as best you may—andthey pass them on to their children by example andprecept—and by story.
When I was young they told me a lot of stories aboutSam Small. He was fabulous—the epitome of all thatwas Yorkshire. He was a folk tale.
You may notice that Sam’s character is quite flexible.Sometimes he is just an ordinary mortal, limited byhuman abilities—and then suddenly sometimes heseems godlike, like a dream come true. Don’t let thatworry you. Fiction is just dreaming out loud, that’s all.Tanglewood Tales, John Henry, Paul Bunyan, Superman,Sam Small—they’re all the subconscious desire ofman to be nearer the angels. And Sam could do anythingin my childhood.
One day I had my first bad toothache. (We didn’tgo to a dentist, I don’t think there was one for milesaround.) My aunt said: “We’ll rub it with a bit o’laudanum, lad—and if tha just bides patient it’ll goaway.”
While I bided, she told me the story about Sam Smalltraining his frightened pup—trying to make it into areal, fighting Yorkshire kind of dog. He teased it somuch that in desperation it bit his nose one night, andwhat is more, it held on. His friend, hearing the row,came in, and Sam roared for him to pry the dog loose.
“Nay, Sam,” said the friend. “Bide it, lad, for it’ll bet’makin’ o’ t’pup.”
You might try this story on yourself as alleviation foryour next toothache. But it’s the Yorkshire way, a typicalexample: biding what fate brings in undying faiththat if you stick it out, there’ll be better times to come.
I suppose it was all that, the ineradicable influencesduring childhood, that made up these stories. WhereverI was—under palms and blue-gum trees of California,or looking down on the Hudson Valley where the thunderstormscome booming along, or cooped up in someapartment in a city, or farming in the red hills of Pennsylvania—thesestories would evolve and I’d hang themon Sam Small.
It is curious, I never made up any of them in England.
Some of them may be fantasy and some not. I thinkthey are just “telling” stories, and so may not havemuch point or moral or sense or continuity. In fact, Itold most of these stories before I wrote them. Sometimesthey even got told three or four times before theywere written, and they’d get twisted and changed insome spots.
That’s good for a story, because you try it on the dog.The parts that don’t go, or perhaps drag a bit, or thatgo over very well—you note all those and adjust thestory each time. You add new and funny bits at points.The dialogue gets all straightened out.
It’s a good way to build a story—you can always goon getting it more and more nearly perfect. But thebig thing is, you’ve got to get it down on paper sometime.That’s a hard job, because in a way the tale isdead then. It can’t grow and flower and change anymore. It is over, done with, fixed permanently.
But you’ve got to get them down some day and havedone with them. That’s the sad part. Probably the fineststories ever made up by writers weren’t put down, anddied with them.
In a way, to be born in print is a story’s death. Tellingthem, in the old Yorkshire way, by word of mouth,made them live much longer.
Eric Knight

Atlantic City, N. J.
October, 1941

ADVENTURE I
ALL YANKEES ARE LIARS

You can always tell the Irish,
You can always tell the Dutch.
You can always tell a Yankee;
But you cannot tell him much.
Mr. Smith was pleased with The Spread Eagle. Hewas pleased with Polkingthorpe Brig. The village wasoff the beaten track—the truly rural sort of English villagethe American always wants to see.
The inn was low and rambling, with great slopingroofs. Over the door swung the sign—a darksome birdin a weather-beaten setting.
Everything justified his decision to take this bicycletrip up into the north—the mullioned windows, theroaring fire, the Yorkshire accents of the men who shuffledover the sanded stone floor of the low-ceilingedroom as they played darts. Mr. Smith was almost beginningto understand what they were talking about.During his excellent high tea he had sorted out thefour men playing darts. One was Saw Cooper, a farmer;a small old man was referred to as Sam; a young, bright-facedlad who played darts left-handed was GollickerPearson; and the fourth, a huge man, was just calledIan.
Mr. Smith watched them play, listening to the endlessthwock of the darts in the cork board as he finishedhis meal. The barmaid, plump, corn-haired, cametoward him, her apron rustling stiffly.
“Would there be owt else?”
“No. It was a very good meal.” Mr. Smith smiled. Hewanted to make the girl talk some more. “Er—what dothey do for fun in this place of an evening?”
“Foon?” she repeated. “Well, they sit here—or o’Sat’day neights lots o’ fowk goa ovver to Wuxley to t’pictures.”She waited. “They gate Boock D’Arcy i’ T’SingingCowboy,” she added suggestively.
Mr. Smith had already become acquainted with Britishcinemas in small towns. Also, he was a SouthernCalifornian, and had that familiarity with movies thatbelongs to all Southern Californians. He had no inclinationto go four miles to see a last year’s Class B Western.“No. I think I’ll have another ale and sit here,” he said.
“If tha’ll sit ovver by t’fire, Ah’ll bring it to theetheer. Then Ah can clean oop here.”
Mr. Smith sat on the bench by the generous fire andnursed his ale. The dart game came to an end with SawCooper losing and paying for the round. The menbrought their mugs to the fire. Mr. Smith shiftedpolitely. The men, in the presence of a stranger, grewquiet. Mr. Smith decided to put them at ease.
“Pretty chilly for an October evening, isn’t it?”
The men considered the remark, as if looking at bothsides of it. Finally Saw Cooper spoke.
“Aye,” he said.
The others nodded. There was silence, and the fiveregarded the fire. Then, suddenly, young Gollickersmiled.
“Tha shouldn’t heed t’cowd, being a Yankee,” hesaid.
“Ah, but I’m not a Yankee,” Mr. Smith said.
They stared at him in disbelief.
“Yankees,” explained Mr. Smith, “come from NewEngland.”
They looked from Mr. Smith to one another. The bigman named Ian took a deep breath.
“Yankees,” he said, “coom fro’ t’United States.”
“Well, yes. New England is a part of the UnitedStates,” Mr. Smith said. “But it’s thousands of milesaway from where I live. In fact, believe it or not, Ishould think you’re closer to the Yankees than I am.You see, the United States is a big country. In the partwhere the Yankees come from, it gets very cold in thewinter. Where I am—in Southern California—it neversnows. Why, I’ve never known it to snow there in allmy life.”
“No snow?” Gollicker breathed.
Mr. Smith smiled. For, after all, he was a SouthernCalifornian—and they were discussing climate. “Nosnow,” he said. “In wintertime we have a bit of a rainyseason, but after February it clears, and then it doesn’teven rain for nine months—not a drop.”
“Noa rain for a nine month—noan at all?” SawCooper asked.
“Not a drop. Day after day, the sun comes out, clearskies, never a drop of rain for nine months. Never!”
“Whet do ye graw theer, lad?” Saw asked, slyly.
“Lots of things. Truck, vegetables, oranges—all kindsof things.”
There was a silence again. Big Ian took a breath.
“Orinjis,” he said, and then took another breath,“graw i’ Spain.”
He looked at Mr. Smith so emphatically that Mr.Smith nodded.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “They grow in Spain, too, I understand.”
“Orinjis,” Ian repeated, “graw i’ Spain.”
That seemed to settle the question. They all lookedin the fire in silence. Saw Cooper sniffed.
“Whet else graws theer?”
“Well, I have a ranch there; we grow alfalfa.”
“Whet’s that off to be?”
“Alfalfa? We use it for hay. It’s a desert plant originally,but it thrives in California. We get eight cuttingsa year.”
“Eight cuttings o’ hay a year?”
“Eight cuttings a year.”
The little man,