So who is this "Mudhen", anyway?

"The Mudhen" is the nickname for John Crane, a remarkable student at a private boarding prep school (males only). Highly intelligent, but only moderately scholarly, his two outstanding characteristics are his extreme physical laziness (he spends most of his time sleeping, reading detective novels and fishing unless otherwise challenged) and his nimble mind - the latter of which he brings to use in the never ending friendly rivalry between the two main fraternities (His own Eagles versus the The Bears).

Five foot ten and 130 pounds at the age of sixteen, he is the hero of three juvenile/young adult books written by prolific author Merritt Parmelee Allen back in the mid twentieth century.

He is an artifact of a different time - an American teenager between World War II and the advent of Rock and Roll. A time of no real extremes. A time when you could buy a car that runs for twenty dollars, and get a good meal for fifty cents. A time when prep school students were still taught Latin. He's a teenager who wears a floppy hat that's pretty much like everyone elses' - and to whom the most important thing in the world is to put one over on the rival fraternity, but no one is likely to get hurt or really go ballistic over a prank because they really are all good friends. Good clean fun - really!

Some trivial bits:

• We never learn the name of his prep school. It is, however located South of Fort Ticonderoga (The Mudhen and the Walrus). It also has more than one Library and does have its own infirmary.
• We never learn why he is called "The Mudhen". Why anyone would be nicknamed after such an unexciting and obscure waterfowl is beyond me. Are mudhens known for their laziness or cleveness? The definite article ("The") in front of "Mudhen" gives it the cachet of a title or honorific of sorts - he is called "The Mudhen", "Mud" or "Mr. Crane", or "Crane" but he is never called "Mudhen Crane", whereas many of his (lesser and untitled) contemporaries are identified as "Cheese Eastman" or "Froggie Bates".
• Politically correct ? Well, no... The stories are products of the time - females are treated as part of the scenery or as prizes to be won in Frat schemes and the lone black person mentioned is a janitor whom The Mudhen attacks as part of an "mentally unbalanced" act with nary a repercussion.

Anyway, he's a mild trickster that appeals to pre adolescent fantasies of triumphing over one's peers in an unusual way, set in a fancifully benevolent time and place.

James S. Koga
jskoga@csupomona.edu
February 11, 2010