Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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M A S M I D be accomplished now. And somehow, they juBt couldn ' t get through their heads an understanding of how much arduous toil the Jivs— er, Sir Scudges — were doing now. Why they were the real leaders of the Beaver Society, their work was more im- portant by far. However, after grumbling a bit, they began to realize these inescapable truths and settled down to their work as before. Only now they had to report at the end of every day to a Sir Scudge and find out their duties for the next day. How wonder- ful it was they soon realized — now we ' re going to accomplish something, no more aimless working! And at the end of a hard day, they just ate as much as they could hold, and went to sleep. The Sir Scudges thought up some more wonderful plans as time went on. Why let everyone ecrt as much as his belly could hold? That ' s just foolish extrava- gance. Why not ration to everyone a cer- tain amount of food and save the rest in case of an emergency. Scudgel agreed immediately and blessed the sagacity of his clever advisors. So the Scudges were told to bring all the fool they found to central headquarters, and there equal por- tions were given to all, and a large per- centage was saved. The foolish Scudges couldn ' t understand the reasons for this, but since Scudge 1 ruled it so, they com- plied, at first reluctantly, later without sec- ond thought. After all, it was all for the advancement of Beaverdom. . . . Lo and Behold! after a few years the system was working smoothly and perfectly. A Scudge was allowed to sleep a certain number of minutes a day, he received a daily allotment of food from a Sir Scudge he was told where to work and just how much he was expected to do each day. Of course no one said anything — perhaps they were a little inconvenienced, but it was all planned out by Scudge I cuid his noble assistants. No one dared to complain — why should he? — if everyone else did as he was told without squawking why shouldn ' t he? Everything was wonderful. The Golden Age of Beaverdom had arrived. The sons of Sir Scudges became Sir Scudges and directed Scudges who were the progeny of other Scudges. But Time, which has a unique v ay of passing, did so even in Beaverdom. And something terrible happened. If seems that a young Scudg e began to complain under his breath! He was probably a descendar.t of the Scudge who had first chased a Jiv. And this Scudge had the most naive ideas. He said to all who cared and dared to listen. Look, we Scudges work and work and work, and sleep and get a bite to eat and then work some more, and then we die. The only recreation we get, it seems to me, is the by-play involved in bringing some more Scudges into the world to work and eat and die. Now I don ' t mind too much, but why don ' t the Sir Scudges work the way we do? They eat the food we bring them, but they don ' t do anything for it. One old Scudge explained to him that on the contrary the Sir Scudges really worked hard — they did all the planning. Besides, it had been like this for as far back as he could remember, so why should they complain now? The young fellow just couldn ' t see the wisdom and philosophy to be found in these words and continued to complain. One dcry a Sir Scudge heard him. The next day this foolish one was assigned to no work, and at the end of the day was given no food (very simple — no work, no food). After a few days he was forced to leave Beaverville and go farther up the river, for having such dan- gerous and foolish ideas and for CTitidzin.5 the system. The other Scudges. though, felt vaguely tha ' somehow, something was wrong. No

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Dke R eauerd by JEROME BOBBINS flN EVENT which did not receive the recognition it should hcfve in the dcdly press occurred some time ago in the animal world. I think it only fair to report in de- tail on this matter which is or is not im- portant depending upon your point of view. . . . It seems that long ago there was only one type of Beaver — the Scudges . All worked hard, took only a moment or two off every few hours to rest, and then con- tinued with their duties, building dams, changing the course of rivers, and gnawing down trees foolishly placed in their way by silly men. Everything went along nicely until a few of them began to see how futile it all was and gradually decided not to work at all. These lazy ones — they were called Jivs by the Scudges — who got away with as much work as possible, were scorned and disliked by the hard workers. One day, a Scudge got into on argument with a Jiv, and chased him out of the woods. He was a silly Scudge, young and headstrong. When his fellow Scudges criti-. cized him for wasting his time on a lazy Jiv, he said, 1 don ' t understand why we Scudges allow a Jiv to sit around and do nothing while we do all the work. He eats the same as we do, and sleeps in our palatial mud homes, but he doesn ' t deserve to, I think. The other Scudges, older and wiser, of course laughed at this silly young fellow and his foolish talk. A few more Scudges reported casually, as time passed, that they too had quarreled with Jivs who were insolent and spent their days lying on their backs and getting sunburned. What follows now I didn ' t get quite clearly from the one who told me the entire affair, but it seems that somehow the beav- ers suddenly became convinced that they needed some sort of system — they were working aimlessly, they were told, and needed some efficient planning. It came about like this — It seems that the Jivs, in order to pro- tect their honor, got together and formed a Mutual Aid Society. Then they approached Scudge 1 who had nothing whatever to do because of his elevated position as King of the Beavers. Well, they went to work on him with flattering words, and by good use of their persuasive tongues — you ' d never think beavers were such talkers, to look at them — they put a bug into his ear. After careful deliberation. Scudge I realized that he needed such an honest, sincere, patriotic group as the Jivs to help him with his laborious work for the betterment of Becrverdom. Why, he needed them for plorming out further expansion of the Beav- er empire, figuring out the size of dams, the number of trees to be cut down, and scores of other things which no one had even thought of before. Foolish Scudges, to be working aimlessly without definite plans and never coming to him with a plan like this. . . . Anyway, one morning the Scudges awoke and found that the Jivs were now to be called Sir Scudge, the name Jiv was outlawed, and the Scudges were to follow out the plans and instructions laid out by all the Sir Scudges, as seen fit by the infinite wisdom of Scudge 1. The Scudges were amazed. They just couldn ' t realize the benefit to themselves and to the cause of Beaverdom in general of this new system. They couldn ' t under- stand at first how much more work would Thirty

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M A S M I D one said anything, of course, but the crazy ideas they had heard expressed by the banished one remained with them. Some- how, they reasoned, everything must be O.K. Things hove been going on like this , tor years and years, which naturally proves it ' s the best way. Still, we seem to be doing more than the Sir Scudges. And what the Devill If a Sir Scudge decided that he didn ' t like one of us he would jusl not assign us work, and then no foodl That can ' t be right, can it? These thoughts were tossed back and forth in the little beaver brains, and finally like a disease they all caught it and came down with the com- plaining sickness. They even had the nerve to say things out loudl Anyway, they finally decided to com- plain to Scudge 1. He of course, was angry at them — why, the progress of all Beaverville lay in the hands of the Sir Scudges and here the ungrateful Scudges couldn ' t get it through their hairy heads that all they had they owed to the Sir Scudges. They beat an awkward and hasty retreat — after all, they didn ' t really have a decent argument, did they? One day, another young fellow who got up at a meeting — it ' s funny — the old beav- ers ore usually content with the way things are run— -after all, this is the way that things always have been run, so why look for scm.ething else? This argument is of course iron-clad and irrefutable. But the young silly ones with none of that myste- rious virtue known as experience always try to change things, leally a nasty habit. Well, anyway, this inexperienced one arose and said words to this effect — these words were never really recorded, the way sen- sible speeches are — I just heard it from someone who heard it from someone else. Well, he said: Look, brother Scudges. As things stand now, we are being ungrateful to the Sir Scudges, for their wonderful efficiency in planning out our work and carefully di- viding the food and making other pro- gressive laws. It ' s perfectly right for them to step giving us food if we complain about the way things are being run. But look! It seems to me that if many of us com- plained, many of us wouldn ' t eat. It all depends on the way the Sir Scudges feel toward us, and we ore really in their power! Now I have a question. Here he took a deep breath before continuing. Why must there be Sir Scudges? Here there was deep laughter in the audience — of course, there had always been Sir Scudges, so there always would be! Is it because they make all the plans for us? Well, then, why couldn ' t we, the Scudges, make the plans? If we do the work, why can ' t we also make the plans, and have every- one work equally, so that no one would have to fear that his work would be taken away from him and he ' d starve? Is it fair that most of us hove to depend on a small group of Sir Scudges and if we displease them we ' re sent up the creek. (This inci- dentally may be the origin of the pic- turesque expression used by another crowd of animals.) Why, he continued after another pause to let some of this sink in, don ' t we all have on equal share in the planning, all have an equal share in the work, and all have cm equal share in the food? Why not? It seems that this young fellow had a pretty convincing manner and knew how to sway an audience. We, of course, see how ridiculous his audacious and naive theories were, but everyone of those beavers — even the old ones, who should have known better, got up on their hind legs and cheered him till they were hoarse. . . . The very next day, the Scudges just got up and drove out of Beaverville every single one of the Sir Scudges, and went Thirty-two