Hast thou gumption, my child?
And hast thou vim?
My gumption is matched only by my vim, O Prince!
Then thou shalt not wilt with weediness when I send thee hence to the huge and terrifying fiery Mountains of Awfulness?
I merely await your word of command, O Prince, and I shall be on my way.
Thou hast gumption and vim indeed, tiny one!
What is it you would have me do when I reach the Mountains of Awfulness, O mighty one?
Come close, small heroic person, and I shalt breathe into thine ear what thou must do. Psst psst psst psst psst.
Gosh! I understand, O ye who command me to go hence to the huge and terrifying fiery Mountains of Awfulness and there to subjugate the legions most foul of terrifying fiery Demons that therein do dwell, armed as I am with the Pin-cushion of Righteousness.
Thou speakest well, my child. Go then hence.
Yea, young tinker, that I shall.
What’s that behind the chair on which the Child of Gumption is perching? Looks like the muzzle of a defeated Jabberwock or similar, presumably slain with that bellows-operated scissor which the CoG clearly won’t relinquish from his stalwart right hand.
I suspect he’d have made short work of that pesky owl deity.
Hmmm… the Child of Gumption versus the Aztec Owl God could indeed be dubbed a “clash of the Titans”, were it not that the Child of Gumption is diminutive rather than titanic, and the Owl God is an owl. Still, it’s certainly worth thinking about, though I’m not as confident as R that it would be quite so one-sided.
One feels that the photographer might have allowed the Child of Gumption to visit the lavatory before subjecting him to the Spirit Capture Camara Box.
The fastest films that this era’s photographic technology had to offer was approximately ISO 4 (in today’s scale). A typical photographic film today is ISO 400.
Given that this is an indoor shot and that it would have been shot in large format with the era’s notoriously crappy lenses this child would have had to stay rooted to his chair for perhaps 30s at a time. This perhaps explains his unhinged stare. Gumption indeed.