Buttered Side Down | Page 3

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BUTTERED SIDE DOWN
STORIES BY
EDNA FERBER

MARCH, 1912
FOREWORD

"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 finger-nails 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.
E. F.

CONTENTS
I. THE FROG AND THE PUDDLE II. THE MAN WHO CAME
BACK III. WHAT SHE WORE IV. A BUSH LEAGUE HERO V.
THE KITCHEN SIDE OF THE DOOR VI. ONE OF THE OLD
GIRLS VI. MAYMEYS FROM CUBA VIII. THE LEADING LADY
IX. THAT HOME-TOWN FEELING X. THE HOMELY HEROINE
XI. SUN DRIED XII. WHERE THE CAR TURNS AT 18TH

BUTTERED SIDE DOWN

I
THE FROG AND THE PUDDLE
Any one who has ever written for the magazines (nobody could devise
a more sweeping opening; it includes the iceman who does a humorous
article on the subject of his troubles, and the neglected wife next door,

who journalizes) knows that a story the scene of which is not New
York is merely junk. Take Fifth Avenue as a framework, pad it out to
five thousand words, and there you have the ideal short story.
Consequently I feel a certain timidity in confessing that I do not know
Fifth Avenue from Hester Street when I see it, because I've never seen
it. It has been said that from the latter to the former is a ten-year
journey, from which I have gathered that they lie some miles apart. As
for Forty-second Street, of which musical comedians carol, I know not
if it be a fashionable shopping thoroughfare or a factory district.
A confession of this kind is not only good for the soul, but for the
editor. It saves him the trouble of turning to page two.
This is a story of Chicago, which is a first cousin of New York,
although the two are not on chummy terms. It is a story of that part of
Chicago which lies east of Dearborn Avenue and south of Division
Street, and which may be called the Nottingham curtain district.
In the Nottingham curtain district every front parlor window is
embellished with a "Rooms With or Without Board" sign. The curtains
themselves have mellowed from their original
department-store-basement-white to a rich, deep tone of Chicago
smoke, which has the notorious London variety beaten by several
shades. Block after block the two-story-and-basement houses stretch,
all grimy and gritty and looking sadly down upon the five square feet
of mangy grass forming the pitiful front yard of each. Now and then the
monotonous line of front stoops is broken by an outjutting basement
delicatessen shop. But not often. The Nottingham curtain district does
not run heavily to delicacies. It is stronger on creamed cabbage and
bread pudding.
Up in the third floor back at Mis' Buck's (elegant rooms $2.50 and up a
week. Gents preferred) Gertie was brushing her hair for the night. One
hundred strokes with a bristle brush. Anyone who reads the beauty
column