THE NUMPORAUCUS
MISTER GIPPLE he said: “Johnny, di ever tell you about the numporaucus?”
I said he didnt, and then he said: “The nump is by many considered the king of beasts, for its roar is like the voice of doom, and when it is heard at midnights holy hour the heathen in his blindness says he must put up a lightnin rod first thing in the mornin. But when the day dawns bright and fair like a angels face he knows it was only just the nump a talkin in his sleep. Johnny, as you justly say, the cracky dile is a microbe and the skin of the rhi nosey rose isnt made to measure, but the nump is a one legger and skowers the plane like a thing of life.”
I said where was it found, and he said, Mister Gipple did: “There is a dispute about that among scientificle fellers, cause no body which has found a nump has come back for to tell the tale. Some believes it to inhabbit the equator, but others say it is a scallywag. The one which I seen was in New Jersey, where I was a missonary to the natif niggers. One day I catched a natifand was a lickin him for bowin down to wood and stone, when a big black shadow fel a thwort the scene of spiritual contversy. With a few well choosen words I brought the services to a close and looked up for to pronounce the bennediction and there, between me and the noondy sun towered a giant numporaucus! It was as big as a house of the same size and its eye was as the full moon when lovers whisper their vows of ever lastingness.
“Johnny, I was mighty scary for a man which was married and had met the lightnin eye to eye quite frequent, and I couldnt think of a word to say. The nump it stood on its lonely leg and looked at me a while, mighty reticent, and then it stept forward and took my neck between its teeths and I knew no more! When consience returned I was in my own country, a runnin for office, to which I had the bad luck to be defeated by a over weening majority.
“The years rolled on and one day I read in the paper that on the polmy plains of New Jersey a skulleton had been found with its neck bit in 2! A natif niger which would carry to his grave the marks of his conversion to the Bible was asked what he knew about it. He wank his eye mightymournful, much as to say he could tell a good deal more if he wanted to, and I guess he could, for he was a dandy talker and had arose to high distincktion in the church.”
I asked Mister Gipple who the natif nigger was and he said: “Never mind that, Johnny, for it doesnt matter much. What worries me is who I am my own self.”
But if me and Billy met a nump we would fall up on him with fire and sword and strech him dead up on the plain! The Bible it says to resist evil and it will fle as a bird, and thats why I say be up and doin, for the sluggerd goes to the ant and is bit.
Mister Gipple says that one time Mister Jonnice, which has the wood leg, was a sittin by the road side in the Cannible Island and a big natif nigger came a long with nothing on but a stopipe hat. The stumach of the natif niggers belly it stuck out be fore him, real round, and he was a drummin on it with his 2 hands, mighty cumftable. When he see Mister Jonnice he stopt and looked at him a while, and then he said: “Poor feller, you seem to have lost your laig.”
Mister Jonnice he spoke up and said: “Yessir, and you seem for to have found it and et it.”
My sisters young man says if he had a wood leg he would take it to a massadger and tell him to put some ginger in to it.
Ginger bread, nice and sticky is the stuff of life, and makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.