Buttered Side Down

"And so," the story writers used to say, "they lived happily ever after." Um-m-m -- maybe. After the glamour had worn off, and the glass slippers were worn out, did the Prince never find Cinderella's manner redolent of the kitchen hearth; and was it never necessary that he remind her to be more careful of her fingernails and grammar? After Puss in Boots had won wealth and a wife for his young master did not that gentleman often fume with chagrin because the neighbors, perhaps, refused to call on the lady of the former poor miller's son? It is a great risk to take with one's book-children. These stories make no such promises. They stop just short of the phrase of the old story writers, and end truthfully, thus: And so they lived. * This volume includes "The Frog and the Puddle," "The Man Who Came Back," "What She Wore," "A Bush League Hero," "The Kitchen Side of the Door," "One of the Old Girls," "Maymeys from Cuba," "The Leading Lady," "That Home-Town Feeling," "The Homely Heroine," "Sun Dried," and "Where the Car Turns at 18th."