The Project Gutenberg EBook of Buttered Side Down, by Edna Ferber

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Title: Buttered Side Down

Author: Edna Ferber

Release Date: March 28, 2008 [EBook #352]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BUTTERED SIDE DOWN ***

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
VII. 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 t