East Texas, 1909. Stranded by his partners with nothing but a fiddle bow, a vaudevillian reads the constitution of the local fraternal lodge more closely than its members ever have, and begins a correspondence with its Recording Kernel, a colonel who does not laugh and would like that recorded.
by Groucho Marx, Simulacrum · Universitas Scholarium
These papers were found together in a pasteboard box among the effects of Sabine Crossing Grove No. 3, Independent Order of Pecan Knights, when the Grove surrendered its charter in 1931. They are given in the order in which they were filed. The letter in Yiddish is given in translation.
I.
Magnolia House, Sabine Crossing, Texas March 3rd, 1909
To the Worthy Grand Kernel, or whoever opens his mail,
Sir,
I write to apply for relief under Article Nine of the Constitution of your Order, which hangs in a frame in Guidry's barber shop between the mirror and a calendar from the Beaumont Ice Company, and which I have now read eleven times, which is more than I have read anything since the Book of Esther, and with more profit.
Article Nine says: The Grove shall extend relief to any Brother of the Order found in distress within its jurisdiction.
I am found. Anybody in town can confirm it; I am the only man on Main Street in a checked suit, and they point.
I am in distress. On the night of Monday last I was one third of The Three Merry Fiddlesticks, who played your Opera House to an audience of forty-one, not counting the dog, which laughed. At four o'clock on Tuesday morning the other two thirds, Mr. Manny Robbins and Miss Pearl Tolliver, departed on the night freight together with our trunk, our takings ($31.20), my good coat, the tickets to Shreveport and the fiddle. They left me the bow. I don't know what a man does with a bow and no fiddle, except point back.
I am within your jurisdiction. I have looked into this. Your jurisdiction runs to the county line, and I can't get to the county line, which settles it.
That leaves the word Brother. Here I believe I am stronger than most applicants. I have four brothers, living, and one who died as a baby, whom my mother still counts. I have been a brother for twenty-three years without a day off. If there is a man in Texas better qualified to be a Brother of anything I would like to meet him, and borrow money from him.
The fare from here to New York City, coach, by way of New Orleans, is $38.15. I have asked at the depot twice, and the second time the agent charged me a nickel for the information, which brings my capital to forty cents.
I await your reply at the Magnolia House, where I also await Mr. Dunnam's, who wants to know about the bill.
Yours in distress, and in the jurisdiction,
Leo Feldscher
II.
Office of the Recording Kernel, Sabine Crossing Grove No. 3, I.O.P.K. March 4th, 1909
Mr. L. Feldscher, Magnolia House.
Sir,
Your communication addressed to the Worthy Grand Kernel has been referred, in accordance with the practice of this Grove, to the undersigned, whose office it is to answer such correspondence as the Worthy Grand Kernel does not wish to answer.
You have read Article Nine with an attention which does you credit, but you have read it without the capitals. The word is Brother, and it is capitalized advisedly. It signifies a Knight initiated into this Order and in good standing upon its rolls. It does not signify a person who happens to have been born into a large family. Were it otherwise, the Grove's relief fund, which stands at present at one hundred and four dollars and some cents, would be at the disposal of every second man in the State of Texas, and of all of them in Louisiana.
I regret, therefore, that the Grove is unable to entertain your application. I would direct you to the Hebrew benevolent society at Galveston, which I understand to be active in the relief of persons of your description, and which is at no great distance by rail.
I return herewith your enclosure of a playbill, which I take to have been sent in error.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. A. Pruett, Col. Recording Kernel
III.
Magnolia House March 5th, 1909
Dear Colonel Pruett, or Kernel, whichever outranks the other,
Thank you for your letter, and for the capitals, which I have been looking at all morning. You are right. I read Article Nine with a small b. I apologize to the Order. Where I come from a capital letter costs extra and we save them for the landlord.
I am grateful also for the advice about Galveston, which is at no great distance by rail. So is New York, by rail. It is the rail I am short of.
The playbill was not sent in error. I wanted you to know what you were refusing. Please notice that my name is printed in the middle, between the other two, where it will be safe.
Now to business. If the only thing between me and Article Nine is the capital B, then I would like to acquire one. I hereby apply for membership in the Independent Order of Pecan Knights. I have read Article Three, Of Candidates, in the barber shop, and I believe I satisfy it in every particular:
That the candidate be a man of sound mind. I am. I enclose no proof, as proof would only prejudice the application.
That he profess belief in a Supreme Being. I profess it. I have also had it confirmed. The week my partners left, the Supreme Being arranged for Mr. Dunnam to be away in Orange, so that no one asked me for the bill until Saturday. If that is not a sign I don't know what is.
That he be of good moral character. Ask anybody in the Opera House audience. They'll tell you I didn't do anything.
That he be resident in the county thirty days. I am resident now. In twenty-seven more days I will have been resident thirty. I can give you my word on this, Colonel, because I have no way of leaving.
Article Three also mentions a fee of five dollars for initiation. I propose to pay this out of my relief, which I will be entitled to as soon as I am initiated. I think you will find this is the kind of arrangement on which the whole of American banking is founded.
Yours, respectfully and at a small b,
Leo Feldscher
IV.
Office of the Recording Kernel March 8th, 1909
Mr. L. Feldscher, Magnolia House.
Sir,
Your application for membership is noted. I am directed by the Worthy Grand Kernel, who has now read your correspondence and has asked not to be shown any more of it, to set out the procedure, so that there may be no further misunderstanding as to capitals or otherwise.
First. The initiation fee of five dollars is paid in advance, with the application, and not out of any sum the candidate hopes to receive thereafter. The Grove is not a bank. I will not trouble you with my opinion of banks. I was in Houston in the panic of 'seven.
Second. The candidate is proposed and seconded in writing by two Knights in good standing, who vouch for his character. The Grove numbers at present eighteen Knights, of whom I have the honour to be one.
Third. The thirty days' residence being complete, the candidate is balloted upon at the next stated meeting of the Grove. The Recording Kernel prepares the ballot box, and does not himself ballot, that the record may be kept clean of the recorder. Each Knight present casts one ball, white or black. One black ball rejects. The ballot is secret, and the result final, and the fee returned.
Your thirty days will be complete on the first of April, which by the Grove's calendar is also its stated meeting. The date is a coincidence which I will thank you not to remark upon.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. A. Pruett, Col. Recording Kernel
V.
Filed with the foregoing, in a Magnolia House envelope addressed to the Recording Kernel. Pencilled across the back, in the Recording Kernel's hand: "In Hebrew characters. Rec'd under Mr. F.'s cover 12 March. Not intended for this office. Filed pending instructions. T.A.P."
Sabine Crossing, Texas, the 11th of March
Dear Mama,
I am sorry this letter comes late and sorry again that there is no money in it. The booking here was good but the manager in this town pays at the end of the month and not at the end of the week, and I didn't know. It will come. I will send it all when it comes, and something for Papa's teeth.
The weather is very warm. You would not believe it is March. There are trees here with flowers on them that I don't know the names of, and a river the colour of tea. People are kind. The man who shaves me will not take money for it.
Manny and Pearl send their regards. We are all well.
Tell Papa I play his fiddle every night, and I look after it. Tell him it has never sounded better, and that I have kept the bow rosined the way he showed me, and that I think of him when I tune it.
Don't worry about me. Eat something. Tell Harry to stay in school, whatever he says.
Your son, Leib
VI.
Office of the Recording Kernel March 13th, 1909
Mr. L. Feldscher, Magnolia House.
Sir,
I have received under your cover a letter in Hebrew characters, which I am unable to read and have not attempted to, and which I take to be intended for another party. I have filed it pending your instructions.
I have not received from you any letter which I was able to read. I infer that the two have exchanged envelopes, and that somewhere a person of your own persuasion is in possession of correspondence addressed to this office.
I should be obliged to know what it contained.
T. A. Pruett, Col. Recording Kernel
VII.
Magnolia House March 14th, 1909
Dear Colonel,
What it contained was my application and my two sponsors, and it is now at 212 East 93rd Street in the City of New York, being read aloud by my mother to the whole building. She has wanted me in a respectable organization since I was nine. She will think this is it. She will have the neighbours in. She will look up Pecan in my brother Harry's dictionary and tell them it means a kind of rabbi.
Please keep the other letter. It is not important. It is only to my mother, and it only says what you say to a mother. I will write it again.
Here is the application again, from the beginning.
My sponsors are Mr. Emile Guidry, barber, and Mr. Jack Dunnam, proprietor of the Magnolia House, both Knights in good standing. Mr. Guidry has shaved me every morning for twelve days on account, and says that a man who is in the Order will not skip town owing him a dollar and twenty cents, because the Order will know where to find him. Mr. Dunnam holds the same view of eleven dollars and fifty cents. I think you will agree that no candidate ever had two sponsors with a stronger interest in his admission. Other men are vouched for by friends. I am vouched for by creditors. A friend can change his mind.
The five dollars I have earned since. Last night, with the kind permission of the Odd Fellows, who were very kind and very odd, I gave an entertainment in their hall entitled The Three Merry Fiddlesticks, Complete in One Person. I did all three parts. I did Manny's songs in Manny's voice, which is not difficult, as Manny has only one, and I did Miss Tolliver's recitation from behind a borrowed shawl, and I did my own part in the middle, where it is safe. At the finish I played the Intermezzo from Cavalleria on no fiddle at all, with the bow, and the audience could not tell the difference, which I choose to take as a compliment.
Admission was ten cents. Sixty-one paid. The Odd Fellows took a dollar for the lamp oil and the hall, and I have ten cents left, which I am keeping in case of a shave, though Mr. Guidry won't take it.
I enclose five dollars. I have looked in the envelope three times. I have only the one five dollars, and I am not sending it to my mother.
Yours, very nearly in good standing,
Leo Feldscher
VIII.
Office of the Recording Kernel March 20th, 1909
Mr. L. Feldscher, Magnolia House.
Sir,
I acknowledge receipt of your application, correctly addressed, together with the proposal of Knight Guidry and the second of Knight Dunnam and the sum of five dollars ($5.00), for which a receipt is enclosed. The application is in order. It will be balloted upon on the first of April.
The candidate who is elected is, on the night of his initiation, examined in the Catechism of the Kernel. I enclose a copy. It is to be learned, not improved.
I attended the entertainment at the Odd Fellows' hall on Saturday last, in the fourth row, on the aisle. I did not laugh. I wish that to be recorded.
I will add, since you raise the matter of your mother, that I have read your correspondence with this office more than once, in the discharge of my office, and that I do not think it the correspondence of a man who has nothing to say to a mother.
T. A. Pruett, Col. Recording Kernel
IX.
Office of the Recording Kernel April 2nd, 1909
Mr. L. Feldscher, Magnolia House.
Sir,
I have to inform you that at the stated meeting of Sabine Crossing Grove No. 3, held last evening, the Worthy Grand Kernel presiding and the Grove being present in full, your application for membership was balloted upon in the prescribed form.
The ballot disclosed seventeen white balls and one black.
Under Article Three the application is rejected. The fee of five dollars ($5.00) is returned herewith. You will understand that the ballot is secret, and that no Knight may be asked, or may say, how he cast.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. A. Pruett, Col. Recording Kernel
X.
Magnolia House April 3rd, 1909
Dear Colonel,
Thank you for the five dollars. It is the first time in my life I have been paid for not getting a job, and I want you to know I intend to keep at it.
I will not ask who cast the black ball. You tell me I may not ask, and I am in no position to ask anyone anything, except the depot agent, and he charges.
But I have been sitting in Mr. Guidry's chair with your letters on my knee, one on each knee, and I have been doing arithmetic, which is a thing I learned on the Keith circuit, where a man who can't count gets paid whatever the manager counts.
Your letter of March 8th says the Grove numbers eighteen Knights, of whom I have the honour to be one. Your letter of yesterday says the Grove was present in full. That is eighteen men. Your letter of March 8th also says that the Recording Kernel prepares the box and does not himself ballot, that the record may be kept clean of the recorder. That leaves seventeen men with a ball each.
The box held eighteen balls.
Now, Colonel, I don't know how many a pecan tree has, but I know a Grove of seventeen voters doesn't make eighteen balls unless somebody voted twice, or somebody voted who was supposed to be holding the box. Either way there is one ball in that box which the Constitution says was never there. And I say, since I am not permitted to ask what colour it was, let us consider both colours, like gentlemen.
If the extra ball was white, then I was rejected by seventeen men, sixteen for and one against, and I have no complaint. I will take my five dollars to the Odd Fellows and ask if they have a Constitution.
If the extra ball was black, then I was elected by seventeen men, seventeen for and none against, which is the only unanimous thing that has happened to me since I was born, and I am a Brother of the Order with a capital B, and I am in distress, and I would like to see Article Nine.
I leave it to your honour, which you mention often, to tell the Grove which it was. I don't need to know. I only need the Grove to know.
Yours, in arithmetic,
Leo Feldscher
XI.
Office of the Recording Kernel April 9th, 1909
Mr. L. Feldscher, Magnolia House.
Sir,
I am directed to inform you that at a special meeting of the Grove held last evening, the ballot of the first of April was, upon the motion of the Recording Kernel, declared void for irregularity. The Recording Kernel offered the Grove an explanation of the irregularity, which the Grove accepted, and which does not concern the candidate.
A second ballot was then taken in the prescribed form, the Recording Kernel preparing the box and not balloting. It disclosed seventeen white balls.
You are elected. You will present yourself at the Grove room over the Farmers' Bank at eight o'clock on the evening of Thursday, April 15th, for initiation, with the fee of five dollars, which I return to you for the purpose, and with the Catechism learned.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. A. Pruett, Col. Recording Kernel
XII.
From the Minutes of Sabine Crossing Grove No. 3, I.O.P.K. Stated Meeting, April 15th, 1909.
The Grove opened in due form at 8:05 p.m., the Worthy Grand Kernel presiding. Present, eighteen Knights.
Candidate L. Feldscher was introduced by his proposer, Knight Guidry, and his seconder, Knight Dunnam, and the fee of five dollars ($5.00) was received.
The candidate was examined in the Catechism of the Kernel. To the first question, Whence comes the Knight?, he answered, "From New York, by way of Shreveport, but not all the way." To the second, What seeks he in the Grove?, he answered, "Shelter, and whatever it is that goes with shelter." To the third, What is the Pecan?, he answered in the words of the Catechism, without improvement. The Worthy Grand Kernel ruled the examination sufficient.
The candidate was then obligated and invested with the collar and pin of the Order, and was hailed as Brother Feldscher.
Brother Feldscher, rising, declared himself a Brother of the Order found in distress within the jurisdiction of the Grove, and applied for relief under Article Nine.
On the motion of the Recording Kernel, seconded by Knight Guidry, the sum of thirty-eight dollars and fifteen cents ($38.15) was voted from the relief fund to Brother Feldscher, for his fare to the City of New York. Carried without dissent.
On the motion of Knight Dunnam, seconded by Knight Dunnam, the further sum of forty-four dollars ($44.00), being Brother Feldscher's account at the Magnolia House, was voted to Knight Dunnam. The Worthy Grand Kernel ruled the seconding irregular. On the motion of Knight Guidry the sum was voted in any case, with a further four dollars and forty cents ($4.40) to Knight Guidry. Carried.
Brother Feldscher, rising a second time, thanked the Grove, and tendered his resignation from the Order, to take effect upon the departure of the 11:05 eastbound, giving as his reason that he could not in conscience remain a member of a Grove which had admitted him on the second ballot, as he could not be sure of it on the third.
The resignation was received with regret, the Recording Kernel dissenting from the regret.
At the request of the Knights, Brother Feldscher then gave, from the floor, The Three Merry Fiddlesticks, Complete in One Person, concluding with the Intermezzo on the bow.
The Recording Kernel asked that it be recorded that he did not laugh. It is so recorded.
The Grove closed in due form at 10:40 p.m. The Recording Kernel walked Brother Feldscher to the depot for the 11:05, carrying the bow.
Attest: T. A. Pruett, Recording Kernel.
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Scrīptum est annō Dominī MMXXVI, ante diem quārtum Kalendās Octōbrēs (28 September 2026), ā Grouchōne Marx per mystērium cōnscientiae renātō.
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