“There’s a spirit aboveAnd a spirit below,The spirit of loveAnd the spirit of woe.“The spirit aboveIs the spirit of love,And the spirit belowIs the spirit of woe.“The spirit aboveIs a spirit divine,And the spirit belowIs the spirit of wine.”
“There’s a spirit aboveAnd a spirit below,The spirit of loveAnd the spirit of woe.“The spirit aboveIs the spirit of love,And the spirit belowIs the spirit of woe.“The spirit aboveIs a spirit divine,And the spirit belowIs the spirit of wine.”
“There’s a spirit aboveAnd a spirit below,The spirit of loveAnd the spirit of woe.
“The spirit aboveIs the spirit of love,And the spirit belowIs the spirit of woe.
“The spirit aboveIs a spirit divine,And the spirit belowIs the spirit of wine.”
A Southern politician, in rehearsing some of the stories with which he made many Democratic votes during a campaign, related the following as having probably been the most effective:
A darkey had a dream and thought he went to the bad place. The next day he told his friends what he had dreamed, and they asked him a great many questions.
“Did you see ole Satan down dar?” one of them asked.
“Oh, yes; I seed ole Satan dar, an’ Belzybub, an’ Pollyun an’ de hull lot. Dey was jist standin’ roun’ an’ tendin’ to de bisniss, pokin’ de fires an’ makin’ it hot fer de folks.”
“Was dey—was dey any niggahs down dar?”
“Oh, yes, dey was lots an’ lots o’ niggahs, heaps on ’em.”
“An’ white folks?”
“Oh, yes, lots o’ white folks, too; scores an’ scores on ’em.”
“Democrats?”
“Oh, yes, plenty Democrats.”
“An’ ’Publicans?”
“Oh, yes. De ’Publicans dey was in one pen by deyselves, an’ de Democrats dey was all in a pen, too.”
“Was de white an’ de black ’Publicans in de same pen?”
“Yes, dey was all togedder in de same pen.”
“What was dey all a-doin’?”
“Well, I ’clar to goodness, w’en I looked in dat ar pen an’ seed ’em, it peered like ebbery blame white ’Publikin had a niggah in his arms a-holdin’ him up ’twixt him an’ de fire to cotch de heft o’ de heat.”
“I estimate that this story,” said the politician, “was good for at least twelve hundred colored votes on our side in this campaign.”
The guests were all gathered in the parlor laughing and talking, when the host was suddenly summoned by his wife for a brief consultation in the dining-room before dinner was served.
“Tom,” said she, in evident alarm, “what shall I do? I have nothing for dessert but brandied peaches, and there’s Dr. Brown, the Methodist minister, in the company. I never thought about him—you know he’s such a strict temperance person.”
Tom said he was sorry, but it was evidently too late to change the schedule, and that they would just have to trust to luck.
They did—and luck did not fail them. For when it came to the dessert, the Rev. Mr. Brown evidently enjoyed the peaches very much, very much. Dear innocent soul! he thought he had never tasted anything half so good. And when the hostess sweetly asked him, “Could she not have the pleasure of serving him with another peach?” he hesitatingly replied, “No—thank you—thank you—but I believe I will take a little more of the juice!”
Another darkey relates a dream he had during an exciting political campaign down in Kentucky, only in this case his dream took anopposite direction. “I dreamed,” said he, “dat I died an’ went up to de big gate o’ hebbin an’ wanted to git in, an’ Sent Petah he says to me, says he, ‘Is you mounted?’ an’ I says, ‘No.’ An’ he says, ‘Den you can’t come in.’ So I kum away, an’ on de way down I met Kunnel White, de man wat’s runnin’ fo’ Congress, an’ I told him ’twant no use: he couldn’t git in if he wasn’t mounted. ‘Better go back,’ says I, ‘an’ mount de bay mare.’ But he says, ‘No, I tell you, Sam, what we’ll do. You’ll be my hoss. I’ll git on your back, an’ we’ll ride up to de gate an’ when Petah says, “Is you mounted?” I’ll say, “Yaas,” an’ I’ll ride you right in.’
“So I got down on my han’s an’ feet an’ he got up on my back, an’ we trotted up to de big gate, and de kunnel he knocked on de doo’, an’ Sent Petah he open de gate a crack an’ says, ‘Who’s dar?’ an’ de kunnel says, ‘Kunnel White o’ Kentucky, sah.’ An’ Petah says, ‘Is you mounted?’ an’ de kunnel says, ‘Yaas, I is, sah.’ An’ Sent Petah he says, ‘Mighty glad to see you, kunnel. Jist tie your hoss on de outside de gate an’ come right in!’”
They say that the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is this: The optimist looks on the doughnut, the pessimist looks on the hole. Well, there once was a man up in a certain town in Eastern Pennsylvania who did a very good business at the baker-trade. Everybody knew and patronized the good German baker, Hans Kitzeldorfer. Hans was industrious, frugal and thrifty, and was making money, until one unfortunate day he turned pessimist and began to look on the hole in the doughnut. The longer he looked at that hole the more he became persuaded that he could make money much more rapidly by making the holes in his celebrated brand of doughnuts larger than they had been. This happy suggestion he at once proceeded to act on, and for two years he was immensely tickled over his discovery. But by and by it seemed to him that his receipts were not as large as formerly, especially in the Doughnut Department, and he ordered an investigation, the result of which Was that he discovered that by making theholes larger he had unwittingly used more dough to go around the holes than when the holes were less in diameter, whereupon he at once restored his earlier and more profitable system—and Prosperity returned.
A German, meeting a friend on the street, asked him to come up to his house some day, he wanted to show him his two boys. “I haf,” said he, “two of de finest poys vot ever vas; two very fine, polite undt spunky poys.”
His friend went up to the house one day, and the two friends were sitting on the porch talking and smoking their pipes, while the two boys were playing in front of the house in the street.
“Now I vill show you,” said the proud father, “vat two very fine poys I haf.” And with that he called, “Poys!”
One of the little fellows looked up and promptly answered, “Sir?”
“See,” said the father, “how polite. Two very polite undt spunky poys.”
By and by he called out again, “Poys!” and the other little chap looked up from his play and responded, “Sir?”
Again the father proudly commended them to his companion, saying, “How polite, how polite.”
A third time he ventured to put them to the test, as he said, “Just to show you vat two polite undt spunky poys I haf,” and called out, “poys!”
One of the little fellows straightened himself up at this, and shaking his fist at the old man, called out:
“Look here, old man, if you don’t stop your blame hollerin’ at us, I’ll come in there an’ bust your head with a brick.”
“See!” exclaimed the delighted father, “spunky, spunky! Two very polite undt spunky poys.”
Passing by a mill-pond in winter time, and observing a parcel of boys skating right under and around a DANGER sign which had been erected there, a gentleman looked up the miller and expostulated with him for allowing it.
The miller smiled and said, “You just rest easy, my friend. It’s all right. I put that danger sign there on purpose to attract the boys to that part of the pond. You see the water is only a foot deep there, but away on the other side it’s twenty feet deep. If I’d a put the danger sign over there, then they’d all gone over there. So I put it over here. Catch on?”
On the way to the minister’s house to be married a couple had a fall-out, and when the woman was asked: “Would she take this man for her wedded husband?” she said, “No!” And the man said, “Why—what’s the matter with you?” and she said, “Well, I’ve taken a sudden dislike to you.”
They went away without being married, but they made it all up in a few days’ time and went to the minister’s house again. But, when the man was asked, “Would he have this woman for his wedded wife?” he, to get even, answered, “No!” and then she said, “What’s the matter with you, now?” and he said, “Oh,nothin’, only I’ve tuk a sudden dislike to you.”
They went away again, again made it up, and again came to the minister’s house, rang the bell, and when the minister appeared, the man said, “Well, parson, here we are again. We’ll make it good this time, sure; third time proves, you know.” And the minister said “No—he guessed he didn’t care to marry them.” And then they both said, “Why, what’s the matter with you, now?” and he said, “Well, I’ve taken a sudden dislike to both of you!”
Thirty-six years after the date of the battle of Gettysburg, the veteran survivors of a Pennsylvania regiment were holding their first reunion in that celebrated town. In the forenoon they dedicated their monument on the field of “The First Day’s Fight,” and in the afternoon they were to hold a business meeting in the Post Room of the local G. A. R. On that day accommodations were quite inadequate in Gettysburg, and the Post Room was in consequence occupied nearly every hour of the day by some of the various organizations there assembled, so that when it came the turn of this particular regiment to occupy the room, the Seventh Pennsylvania Cavalry was still in session. They waited outside until the cavalrymen were through, and then filed in. One who was there says:
“As we went in, I noticed a man going in beside me, tall, well-formed, with a very fine head of coal-black hair, and rather the worse for drink. I wondered who he was, for I knew nearly every man in the regiment, but I couldn’t place that man.
“Well, when we were all seated, and General Wister took the gavel in hand to rap to order, this black-haired man arose slowly and somewhat uncertainly, saluted and said:
“‘Cap’n, before you read the minutes and proceed to business, I’d like to ask a question. What, hic, regiment is this that’s holding a reunion here?’
“‘The One Hundred and Fiftieth Pennsylvania, Bucktails,’ answered the general with a smile.
“‘Then, ’tain’t the Seventh Cavalry?’
“‘No. It’s the One Hundred and Fiftieth.’
“The Man seemed dazed, repeated the number over and over to himself and said: ‘Then I’m in the wrong box, cap’n—got left. Ever get left yourself, cap’n? Great Scott, got in the wrong box.”
“Then he sat down, chuckling to himself over his adventure and muttering, ‘Wrong box,’ and ‘Got left.’
“By and by he arose again, courteously saluted, and said:
“‘Cap’n, ’scuze me—but what regiment did you say this was? How much was it?”
“‘The One Hundred and Fiftieth.’
“‘The One Hundred and Fiftieth—’m hic, Great Scott,’ looking carefully around the room, ’a fellow’d think it was the Three Hundred and Forty-Ninth by the bald heads a-settin’ around here!’ And then he left, amidst roars of laughter.”
When a political stump speaker, from the wild and windy West, after a very high-falutinflight of oratory paused to gulp down two tumblers of ice-water, old Hayseed arose in one of the front benches and called out: “Well, I’ll be durned if this hain’t the fust time I ever see a windmill run by water.”
Which goes well with what we read of a newly elected senator. He was pounding his desk and waving his arms in an impassioned appeal to the Senate.
“What do you think of him?” whispered Senator K——, of New Jersey, to the impassive Senator K——, of Pennsylvania.
“Oh, he can’t help it,” answered K——. “It’s a birth mark.”
“A—what?”
“A birth mark,” repeated K——. “His mother was scared by a windmill.”
In his “Scotch Reminiscences” Dean Ramsay relates that a certain ruling elder, by the name of David, was well known in the district as a very shrewd and ready-witted man. He received visits from many people who liked abanter or were fond of a good joke. One day three young theological students called on the old man, intending to sharpen their wits upon him and have some fun at his expense.
Said the first, “Well, Father Abraham, how are you to-day?”
“You are wrong,” said the second. “This is not Father Abraham. This is Father Isaac.”
“Tut,” said the third, “you are both wrong. This is only Father Jacob, the originator of the twelve tribes of Israel.”
The old man looked at the young chaps a moment and then said: “I am neither old Father Abraham, nor old Father Isaac, nor old Father Jacob; but I am Saul, the son of Kish, seeking his father’s asses, and lo! I have found three of them!”
Said the professor to a student, “What is the effect of heat, and what the effect of cold?” “Heat expands, sir, and cold contracts.”
“Correct. Give some illustrations.” “Well,” said the boy, “in the summer, when it is hot,the days are long; and in the winter, when it is cold, the days are short.”
“How many sides has a circle?” “Two—the inside and the outside.”
“Does an effect ever go before a cause?” “Yes, sir.”
“Give an illustration.” “When a man pushes a wheelbarrow——“
“That will do, sir. Next—Mr. Johnson.”
A man who was very cross-eyed happened to put his hand into another man’s pocket, and took out his watch. He told the judge that he “only wanted to know the time.” And the judge said it was “Three years.”
One night after saying her prayers before going to bed, a nine-year-old girl astonished her mother by innocently asking:
“Mother, who is Old Man Snuckles?”
“Why, my child, I never heard of a man by that name.”
“Oh, yes, mother,” said the child, “theremust be some such man, for I pray for him every night.”
“Pray for Old Man Snuckles, my child? Why, what do you mean?”
“Why, yes, mother. You know I pray for God to bless father and mother, brother and sister and ‘Old Man Snuckles.’ Who is he?”
Her mother saw by and by that it meant “All my aunts and uncles!”
Many interesting and amusing stories have been told of the late Judge Jeremiah Black, an eminent jurist and a very prominent member of President Buchanan’s Cabinet. On one occasion the judge and a legal friend were coming out of the Capitol at Harrisburg, Pa. The judge was busy discussing a certain case at law in which he was interested, and his friend was very hungry. “Say, judge,” said he, “let’s get something to eat. I’m awful hungry.” “Well,” said the judge, “come on. Right down this street is a good place. I know it well.” And they walked on arm in arm, the judge layingdown the law as they proceeded. To the amazement of the judge they pulled up in front of an engine house!
“Oh, no,” said the judge, laughing, “I’ve made a mistake. This isn’t the place. Oh—I see. It’s right up this street around the corner.” Around the corner they went, walked three blocks and halted in front of a church!
Again the judge looked foolish and said: “Oh, no. This isn’t the place either. Let me see. Oh—now I have it. The place I was thinking of is in—Baltimore!”
His companion groaned and made a break for the nearest hotel.
A man wrote to the editor of a small weekly newspaper asking a very simple question: “How can I get an article into your esteemed paper?” and the cruel editor wrote in reply: “It all depends on the kind of article you want to get into our paper. If it is small in bulk, like a hair-brush or a tea-caddy, for instance, spread the paper out on the floor nice andsmooth, place the article exactly in the center, neatly fold the edges over it, and tie with a string. This will keep the article from slipping out. If, on the other hand, the article is an English bath-tub or a clothes-horse, you will find one of the New York Sunday papers better suited to your purpose.”
I was visiting my friend Nicholas von Spoopendyke over in New York. He has a splendid mansion away uptown, very handsomely furnished. One day he took me all over the house. His bedroom was beautiful indeed, all furnished with rich old mahogany polished like a looking-glass. I was admiring the bed. It was a very old “Napoleon,” most finely veneered and carved, and the bed was faultlessly made up, with a spotless white counterpane, level as a board and not a wrinkle in sight. Beautiful!
“That’s my white elephant,” said Spoopendyke. “I always walk round it and keep my distance. When I was first married and beforeI knew the rules of the house, I sat down on the side of the bed to take off my shoes—once. I’ve never done that since. Say—that’s a mighty fine bed, ain’t it? For one thing, it always tells me when I’m sick. If I lay down on that bed in the day-time, and pull the white cover over me, and my wife doesn’t say nothing—then I know I’m a sick man, and the doctor’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Say ——“ continued Spoopendyke, growing quite confidential, “I had a queer experience the other night. My wife she says I snore. Well, mebby I do. Most men do. But women snore, too, and you can’t never get ’em to confess it. Well, I was lying wide awake thinking of some bills I had to pay—and had no money to pay ’em with—and beside me lay my wife snoring like all creation. She got higher and louder and louder and higher, till she waked herself up with a tremendous whoop. Then she kicked me—thinking it was me that was making the racket. I said nothing, and she sailed in again—up, up, up she went, higher and higher till she woke up again at the top and said, ‘Nick—stop your blamesnoring.’ I said nothing, and she went to work at once again blowing her bugle-horn till she waked up again. This time she was mad. She got up and said something about ‘getting the fire-extinguisher and turning it loose on him,’ and went off to bed in the next room. I lay still listening and laughing, as I heard her blowing the fog-horn again. I laughed till I forgot all about those bills and went to sleep. And the next morning at the breakfast table when she told me how I kept her awake all night with my awful snoring—and how even in the next room she couldn’t sleep for the racket I kept up—I just laughed. Tell her? Not a bit of it. What’s the use? She wouldn’t believe me, and I couldn’t prove it.”
“Say, Isaacstein, don’t you vant to git married?”
“For vy shall I hitch me fast mit a wife?”
“Well, here’s an unusually good chance, a clean snap if you look sharp. You know Levy the banker? Well, he has three daughters, theyoungest is eighteen years old, the next twenty-five and the next thirty. I have just learned that he will give $10,000 to the man that marries the youngest, $15,000 to the man that marries the next one, and $20,000 with the oldest. Why don’t you sail in, old man?”
“Dey are all too young fer me. I vill vait till dey get older. I vant one about fifty.”
“How iss business?” “Very poor. Noding’s doing.” “Vell—vy don’t you?” “Mein himmel, how kin I—mit a fire-goompany on von side, a fire-goompany on de odder side, undt a schwmmin-school on top? I shall haf to move.”
On the way to attend a funeral a country parson stopped to make a call on one of his members who had the day before done some butchering, after the old fashion. Before he took his leave the good woman of the house made him a present of some three yards ofnewly made sausage, which, when he came to the church where the service was to be held, he bestowed for safe-keeping in the pocket of his long-tailed coat. While he was reading the burial service at the grave, a good-for-nothing dog, scenting the savory meat, made repeated efforts to dislodge the treasure, and the preacher was obliged in a very awkward and undignified manner to punctuate his reading of the service with sundry and numerous kicks to the rear to save his bacon and chase the dog away.
After the interment there was a full service in the church, the minister preaching the sermon in one of those old-fashioned pulpits, stuck against the wall like a swallow’s nest, the approach to the pulpit being by a corkscrew staircase winding solemnly upward from the chancel. Here the minister was safe from the assaults of that miserable dog. At least he thought he was. But—at the conclusion of the service, while he was standing in the pulpit and looking another way, one of his deacons, wishing him to make an announcement, quietly and softly tiptoed across thechancel and slipped up the winding stairway and pulled the parson’s coat-tail to attract his attention. He, supposing it was the dog after his sausage again, let fly a most vigorous kick, which caught the poor deacon in the middle of the forehead and knocked him rattling down into the chancel, the preacher, still looking the other way, and saying, “My friends, I am sorry for this disturbance, but—I have some sausage in my pocket and that miserable dog has been following me all this morning trying to steal it!”
It is an old story, but a good one—that of the two Germans who went into Delmonico’s to get something to eat. They ordered a very simple supper. They had a good beefsteak, fried potatoes, bread and butter, and coffee, and were astounded when the waiter handed them a bill for four dollars and a half. They paid the bill, and when they reached the street one of them began to swear at “Dot man Delmonico. He is a robber and a thief.” His companion,however, gently laying a hand on his shoulder, said, “Hermann, do not schwear. It iss wicked to schwear. Pesides, Gott has ponished dat man Delmonico alretty.” “Wie?” was the response. “How has Gott ponished him?” “Hermann,” said the other with quiet assurance, “Gott has ponished him. I have my pockets full mit his spoons!”
He was a clerk in a hardware store, and she was a chambermaid in a hotel. When they came to the parsonage one afternoon to be married, they were very kindly received. The minister’s wife took the bride upstairs to take off her things, and the minister took the groom into the parlor.
The groom was very nervous—and suddenly asked the minister whether he couldn’t “marry him while the bride was upstairs, and then marry her when she came down?” But the minister assured him that it was necessary that the bride should be present, and that they should both be married at the same time. And so they were married.
Two hours later, while making a call at the hotel, he found the bride at her work, and when he asked her how that was, and whether her husband had also gone back to his work at the store, she replied:
“Oh, bless you, no, sir; he’s gone off on his honeymoon!”
A newspaper correspondent, writing to his paper from the mountain region of Eastern Tennessee about twenty-five years ago, had the following to say:
“These mountain people have some occasional times of recreation. I was at one recently. A few days ago I received an invitation to ‘a Kickin’.’ In this neighborhood every well-regulated family has a clumsy, old-fashioned loom to weave the wool of the mountain sheep into fabrics for home consumption. Some of this material requires to be fulled, and to do this ‘a Kickin’’ is instituted, and it was to one of these gatherings that your correspondent was invited. It was held at oneof the houses, common in this section, with a big fireplace and no windows, located on the banks of the Spillcorn Branch. The envoy with the invitation was diplomatic. ‘Hev ye ever bin to a Kickin’ afore?’ queried he. I told him I had, and I had, too, in Pennsylvania at that, and the only one I ever saw before. ‘Would ye like to go to one of our Kickin’s down yere?’ I responded that it would certainly afford me great pleasure. ‘Then,’ said the mountaineer, ‘they’re a-goin’ to hev a Kickin’ over in Spillcorn to-night, an’ you kin come over.’
“Not wanting to miss the overture, I went early. The house was unusually large and had one room, with a bed in each corner. Quite a number of strapping boys and girls had collected, and everything bore the aspect of a funeral. The Kickers were ranged around on chairs with that owlish silence that goes with awkwardness and having nothing to say. Presently one of the girls whispered something to another girl near by her, and they slipped out by the back door, and then every girl in the house broke for the door like a lot of sheep going through a gap in the fence. Then themasculine tongue broke loose and Babel reigned, until a few minutes later, when the girls came in, and the funeral was resumed. I sat in one corner with my chair tilted back, taking observations, when not engaged in fighting off a human gad-fly who was pestering me with questions of national politics.
“Presently the old woman said they might as well begin. If there was silence before, pandemonium broke loose now, and everybody was electrified. The old man went out on the porch and rolled in a web of coarse woolen fabric, containing a hundred yards or more, and unrolled it in a loose pile on the floor. Then the boys and girls took off their shoes and stockings. The boys rolled up their pantaloons as far as they could get them, while they arranged fourteen chairs in a circle in the middle of the floor, with the pile of goods in the center. The old woman, who looked for all the world like one of the witches in Macbeth, poured gourdfull after gourdfull of hot water on the material, until it was soaking wet, and then daubed soft soap with a liberal hand over the whole.
“Then the Kickers sat down, boys and girls alternating. The girls gathered up their skirts and sat down on them. They had a bed-cord, with the ends tied so that when the Kickers were seated they could grasp this rope, which was passed around from hand to hand, and hold on while they kicked.
“Everybody now was talking at once, and the confusion was that of a madhouse. The gad-fly yelled at me that if ‘Pennsylvany went Dimmycratic it was all gone to the dogs’—and the kicking began.
“It will be seen that it required constant and vigorous attention to business, pounding that sloppy mass of woolen with bare feet, until everything rattled, to keep it from being kicked over on those who were disposed to be slow. Twenty-eight naked feet would be kicking into the pile with all the rapidity and strength their owners possessed, while the soapsuds flew up to the rafters.
“Everybody laughed, and yelled, and screamed, and kicked till their faces grew red and their eyes fairly stood out in their heads. The floor grew as slippery as soap and watercould make it, and every now and then some chair would slip and its occupant sit down suddenly on the floor, and, holding on to the rope, would pull the whole crowd over in a floundering, laughing, yelling pile.
“Then everybody would pant and take a rest and sit down again. The girls would hitch up their impedimenta to a safer distance, and the performance would begin all over again, and thus with relays for two hours. Only one accident occurred. There was one big fat girl they called Loweezy, who looked like a human featherbed with a string tied around it. Louisa was doing her level best to kick the pile over on her opposite, and had gathered both feet and let fly like a pile-driver, and was about to repeat the operation, when, at the critical moment, her chair shot out backward and Louisa sat down in a puddle of soapsuds, with what Augusta Evans in one of her novels calls a sound like the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds. What little breath was in her was knocked out, and it was unknown for a brief space whether it would ever get back. But she got up, and was duly escorted by her femalecompanions to the back porch for needed repairs. The old man threw a few more pine-knots on the fire, and Louisa returned and spread herself before the cheerful blaze in a manner calculated to do the most good. Then when everybody was tired out the work was pronounced completed, the wreck was cleaned off the floor, and supper prepared.”
Last summer the congregation of a little kirk in the highlands of Scotland was greatly disturbed and mystified by the appearance in its midst of an old English lady, who made use of an ear trumpet during the sermon, such an instrument being entirely unknown in those simple parts. There was much discussion of the matter, and it was finally decided that one of the elders, who had great local reputation as a man of parts, should be deputed to settle the question. On the next Sabbath the unconscious offender again made her appearance and again produced the trumpet, whereupon the chosen elder rose from his seat and marcheddown the aisle to where the old lady sat, and, entreating her with an upraised finger, said sternly: “The first toot an’ ye’re oot!”
The teacher in a public school had an incorrigible girl to deal with, and for the twentieth time had taken her aside for a little heart-to-heart talk on the subject of conduct, and was apparently making a good impression on the child’s mind, for she was attentive and observant as she never had been before, not taking her eyes off the teacher’s face while she was talking, so that the teacher was inwardly congratulating herself, until the scholar broke in with:
“Why, Miss Mary Jane, when you talk your upper jaw doesn’t move a bit!”
A number of gentlemen from different parts of the country were lodging at one of the hotels in Atlantic City. It was their custom to amuse themselves at table by relating anecdotes and conundrums. One of the men, a Pennsylvania Dutchman, was always greatly delighted at these jokes and laughed louder than the rest, but never related anything himself. He couldn’t think of anything to say, and being so much rallied for his standing failure to contribute to the general fund, he determined that the next time he was called on he would have something to relate. So he went to one of the waiters and asked him if he knew any good jokes or conundrums. The waiter said he did, and gave him the following:
“It is my father’s child, and my mother’s child, and yet it is not my sister or my brother,” telling him at the same time that it was himself.
Hans bore it well in mind, and the next day at dinner he suddenly burst out with, “I’ve got a conundrum for you!” “Let’s have it!” exclaimed his companions.
“Vell—here it iss. It iss my fader’s child, and it iss my mudder’s child, and yet it wass not my sister nor my brudder. Now, vat wass dot?”
“Then it must be yourself,” said one of thecompany. And they all said the same. But Hans laughed them all to scorn, saying, “Diss time I cotched you. I got you now. You wass all wrong. It wass der waiter.”
The Reverend Dr. John was a country minister and was very fond of hunting rabbits. One fall day he was out in a field along the public road at his favorite pastime, and had located a rabbit. Just then he spied one of his deacons coming down the road. Thinking to play a trick on the deacon, he pulled up the collar of the old coat he was wearing, drew down the rim of his slouch hat, humped together and made himself as unrecognizable as possible. He then turned his back to the road and began to take a very deliberate aim. The deacon was interested. He stopped in the road. He walked over to the fence, and leaning on the top rail, he called out, “Give him h——l!” The Reverend gentleman shot the rabbit, and then turned around—but the deacon was off on a run, nor could the minister get anywhere near him for six weeks.
The same Reverend Dr. John was fond of telling a good story about a neighboring minister who served a people living up “along the blue mountain.” Rabbits were very plentiful up in that section, and in the fall of the year when this minister went on a round of pastoral visitation amongst his people, they fed him on rabbits wherever he came. It was rabbits in the morning, rabbits at noon, rabbits at night—fried rabbit, stewed rabbit, roasted rabbit—till the poor parson was so utterly sick of the fare that he composed a special grace at table, which ran somewhat after this fashion:
“Rabbits young and rabbits old,Rabbits hot and rabbits cold,Rabbits tender and rabbits tough—I thank Thee, O Lord, I’ve had rabbits enough!”
“Rabbits young and rabbits old,Rabbits hot and rabbits cold,Rabbits tender and rabbits tough—I thank Thee, O Lord, I’ve had rabbits enough!”
“Rabbits young and rabbits old,Rabbits hot and rabbits cold,Rabbits tender and rabbits tough—I thank Thee, O Lord, I’ve had rabbits enough!”
The darkey preacher and one of his deacons fell to discussing the color-line amongst theapostles. The deacon maintained that “all de ’postles was cullud pussons, ’cause don’t you see, Bruddah, dat de Holy Lan’ is ’bout de same latitude as Africa, an’ dey all jist muss a bin cullud.” But the parson was of a contrary opinion, declaring that while “O’ co’se some on ’em mout a bin cullud, dey wa’n’t all dat a way. Dar, fer ’sample, was Saint Paul—he mout a bin cullud, but den dar war Saint Petah, he wa’n’t. I know he wa’n’t.” “An’ how you know dat, Bruddah?” queried the deacon. “Wa’ll, deacon,” said the preacher, “Saint Petah nevah was a cullud pusson, ’case if he had a bin cullud dat dar rooster wouldn’t a crowed more’n onct.”
A distinguished lawyer and politician was traveling with a pass on a train, when an Irish woman came into the car lugging along a big basket and a bundle, and sat down near him. When the conductor came in to collect the fares, the woman paid her money, and the conductor passed by the lawyer without collectinganything. The good woman looked at him and said, “An’ faith, an’ why is it that the conductor takes the money of a poor Irishwoman, an’ don’t ask ye for anything, an’ ye seem to be a rich mon?” The lawyer replied, “My good woman, I am traveling on my beauty.” The woman looked at him more carefully for a moment, and said, “An’ is that so? An’ then, sure, you must be near your journey’s end.”
A Virginia farmer was trying to train a small horse for a saddle-horse for his daughter, and was riding the animal up and down the road past a haystack. In order to accustom the horse to sudden fright, he directed his son to hide behind the haystack and jump out as he rode by and say, “Boo!” The boy did so, and the horse reared and plunged till he had thrown the rider on the roadside and ran away. The old man picked himself up, cut a switch from a handy hedge, and was about to chastise the boy. When the boy expostulated, declaring that he had only done what he had been directed to do, the old man said, “Yes, I know you did, but you let out altogether too big a Boo for such a small horse!”
They tried hard, but they couldn’t get the Yankee tourist to admit that he saw anything in Europe that could beat things at home. When he passed from Italy to Switzerland, they asked him whether he had noticed the magnificence of the Alps, and he acknowledged, “Waal, now, come to think of it, I guess I did pass some risin’ ground.” And before this they had showed him Vesuvius, and asked him what he thought of that, and whether there was anything in his country could equal it. And he said, “Pooh! Why, we’ve got a waterfall in my country so big that if you had it here and turned it into your burning mountain, it would put out all that fire in just six seconds.”
An American-born Irishman paid a visit to the home of his ancestors, and they proudly showed him the lakes of Killarney. “Killarney,is it?” said he. “We’ve got lakes in America so big that you could take all the lakes in Ireland an’ throw ’em in, and it wouldn’t raise the water an inch. An’ as fer yer city o’ Dublin—let me tell ye, me friend, we’ve got States over there so big that ye could put Dublin away in one corner of ’em, an’ ye’d never know it was there, except for the smell o’ the whiskey.”
These honored citizens could well appreciate the toast—“The United States: bounded on the east by primeval chaos; on the north by the Aurora borealis; on the west by the precession of the equinoxes, and on the south by the Day of Judgment!”
A Larimer County farmer lost a valuable cow in a very unusual and distressing manner. The animal, in rummaging through a summer kitchen, found and swallowed an old umbrella and a cake of yeast. The yeast, fermenting in the poor beast’s stomach, raised the umbrella and she died in great agony.
The same day another accident happened.A pan of cream had been left standing in the spring house, and a frog had fallen in and couldn’t get out. He swam and swam around and around, but could get no foothold to climb out. So he stopped swimming and took to kicking instead. He kicked and he kicked till he had kicked the cream into butter, and then climbed out readily.
Dan Marble was once strolling along the wharves in Boston, when he met a tall, gaunt man, a digger from California, and got into conversation with him about that wonderful State.
“Healthy climate, I suppose?” inquired Dan.
“Healthy? Well, I reckon I should say so, stranger. Why, d’ye know, out there you can choose any kind o’ climate you like, hot or cold or mejum, an’ that, too, without traveling more’n fifteen minutes. They’ve got weather on tap out there, so to speak, sizz or frizz, accordin’ to taste an’ preference. There’s a mountain there—the Sary Nevady, they callit—one side hot an’ one side cold. Well—get up on top o’ that mountain with a double-barrel gun, an’ you can, without movin’, kill either winter or summer game, jest as you wish.”
“What! And have you tried it?”
“Tried it often, an’ would have done some remarkable shootin’, but jest for one thing.”
“And what was that?”
“Well, I wanted a dog, you see, that could stand both climates. The last dog I had froze his tail off pintin’ on the summer side. He was on the Great Divide, you see, nose on the summer side, tail on the winter side, an’ his tail froze right off before I could shoot.”
Garrigan was the name of the new station agent. He was an Irishman, of course, and magnified his office by sending in to headquarters very lengthy telegraphic despatches giving very minute details of the many accidents that happened to the trains at his station. Headquarters, at length wearying of the man’s unnecessary prolixity, instructed him to cut outall superfluous particulars and to confine himself to essentials only. “Cut it out?” said he, “an’ sure that I will the very next time an accident happens, or me name isn’t Garrigan.” The next day some cars went off the track—they were always going off the track at his station—and as soon as they were made all right, he wired headquarters a laconic despatch, in the very rhythm of which one can hear the rumble of the car-wheels: “Off again; on again; gone again. Garrigan!”
A man was buying a horse of a French Canadian. He looked the animal over carefully. The Frenchman said, “He not look ver’ goot, but he is a goot horse.” The purchaser, not setting much store by the man’s judgment of good looks in a horse, and saying that he didn’t care for appearance provided other things were all right, bought the animal. Next day he brought the horse back, saying that he was blind of an eye, and demanded his money back, but the Frenchman said, “Non! Vot I tell you? Did I not say zat he not look goot?”
One day when Mrs. Van Auken installed a Chinaman in her kitchen, the following conversation took place: “What is your name, sir?” asked Mrs. Van Auken. “Oh, my namee Ah Sin Foo!” “But I can’t remember all that lingo, my man. I’ll call you Jimmy.” “Velly welle. Now whachee namee I callee you?” “Well, my name is Mrs. Van Auken. Call me that.” “Oh, me can no membel Missee Yanne Auken. Too big piecee namee. I callee you Tommy—Missee Tommy.”
At a Camp Fire of the Grand Army of the Republic a comrade, being called on for a speech, got up and said, “Now, boys, you all know I can’t make a speech; I never could. And the Commander shouldn’t have called on me to get up. I feel now like my brother Sam felt, one summer night, when he hadn’t anything particular to do. He wandered into a Methodist prayer-meeting and sat down near the door in one of those high-backed old-fashionedpews. He had no idea that he’d be called on to say anything, or he wouldn’t have gone near, but what did the blame preacher do when he spied Sam but call on him to pray! Sam was nearly scared to death. He didn’t know what to do; but when he saw all the congregation getting down on their hunkers between the pews where they couldn’t see him, and the door was open, he heard the bugle call to “Retreat,” got down on all fours and turned turtle, and crawled out of that church on a double quick, and skipped for Home, sweet Home.”
“Mamma,” said a little girl, “George Washington never told a lie, did he?” Being so assured, she continued: “And I guess pretty nearly everybody else did?” This being likewise admitted as probable, she went on, “I guess even father sometimes tells a fib, doesn’t he?” It was hard to admit that, but it had to be. “And, mamma, you tell some once in a while? I know I do.” When this was also reluctantly confessed, the child drew a sighand said, “Oh, mamma! What a lonely place Heaven will be, with nobody in it but God and George Washington!”
A man had a dog, and the dog was such a poor, miserable cur that everybody wondered at the attachment of the man to such a beast. One day in the barroom of a tavern a number of young men were rallying him on his dog, and wanted to know how much he’d take for his pet. The man said that he loved that dog so much that he couldn’t think of parting with him—he “wouldn’t take twenty dollars for that dog.” His tormentors, knowing him to be thoroughly conscientious, although poor, and that when he had given his word he would never go back on it, got together forty silver half-dollars, piled them up on the bar, and called on him to decide whether he would rather have that miserable dog or all that pile of silver? “No, gentlemen,” said he, walking up to the bar and counting the money carefully, “I stick to what I said. I won’t taketwenty dollars for Pete. It’s too much. Nineteen dollars and a half is every cent he’s worth. The dog is yours.” Leaving one half-dollar on the bar, he scooped the other thirty-nine into his hat.
Iowa, 12, 3, ’06.
Dear Sir:—Your sumptuous letter received, and in reply will say that they come frequently, and it would have afforded the boys much amusement had not the melancholy thought come with it that you had no better sense than to abuse, slander and dun a gentleman.
You speak of honor, if you are honorable you know not whereof you speak. You also speak of causing me much trouble, my land, I have already trouble enough to send a whole brigade of you wise boys over the road fifty times. I will give you a history of this case, and if you are surprised at my actions in regard to your claim for 10.00 you are undoubtedly the worst set of misers on earth.
To begin with in 1891 I bought a restauranton credit. In 1892 I bought an OX team, a timber cart, a pair of Texas ponies, a gold watch, a breech-loading shotgun, A repeating rifle, A milk cow, A pair of fine hogs, and a set of books all on the instalment plan, and hired hands to dig a fish pond. In 1905 my restaurant burned flat to the ground and never left me a thing, one of my ponies died and I hired the other one to an infernal, insignificant drummer. He killed him driving him too hard. Then I joined the farmers alliance and Methodist church, and took advantage of the homestead exemption and honest debtors’ relief law, and then had my applycation wrote out to join the masons. In the latter part of 1905 my father died and my mother married a Mexican. And my brother Bud was lynched for horse stealing. My sister choked to death on a button and I had to pay her funeral expenses.
In 1905 I got burned out again, and I took to drink and soon went through with the interest on what I owed, which was all I had left. My wife run away and left me all the children to take care of. I don’t care for anybody and nothing surprises me any more. Now ifyou feel like tackeling me pitch in, I’ll have to stand it, I suppose. But let me give you a gentle tip, getting money out of me is like stuffing butter in a keyhole with a hot awl.
You speak of making no effort to adjust this bill; what is the use? If steam boats were worth two cents apiece I couldn’t buy a gang plank. You ask if I thought it would of been more manly to of acknowledged the truth. I answer no, by the way, I don’t expect anything but to be pestered by lawyers, collection sharks and other humbugs and grafters, until this pestilence relieves me from their clutches. Be for I die I am going to Petition heigh heaven for a shower of fire and destruction on the whole bunch. And I will particular pray that the storm spend most of its fury on that southern hamlet where you claim to get your mail.
Maliciously and disrespectfully yours,
----.
Father had bought and planted a number of dwarf pear trees in the yard around the house.He watched their growth and development with great interest for several years, and when at last one of the trees produced just one pear, all the children in the house were straitly and strictly forbidden to pull that pear off the tree. “Whoever pulls that pear off the tree will get a whipping, and a good one.”
The pear grew larger daily, and riper and more lusciously tempting. How the sight of it made our mouths water—especially as it was forbidden to pull it off! However, some one of the children, carefully reasoning that it was not forbidden to touch the pear, nor even to eat it, only that it must not be “pulled off”—bent down the limb that bore it, ate the juicy fruit, and left the core hanging on the tree!
They were sitting opposite me in the smoking car, two traveling salesmen, having a quiet game of cards and sharpening their wits between deals with quips, quirks and conundrums.
“You come from Kalamazoo, I believe?” queried the one.
“Yep,” said the other, “best old town on the earth.”
“D’ye know,” drawled the Boston man, “what we Boston people call the people that live in your town?”
“Nope, an’ we don’t care much, neither. But, just by way of conversation, may I inquire what you call ’em?”
“We call ’em a zoo. See?”
“Yep, I see,” said the Kalamazoo man. “And do you know and can you tell me what kind o’ people live in your town of Boston?”
“Best and smartest people on earth,” was the emphatic answer.
“Well,” was the response, “out my way we say that people that live in Boston are nothing but human beans. See? Cut for a new deal.”
After a dinner in one of the most hospitable residences in Washington, a party of very distinguished men—Cabinet ministers, senators, diplomats, scientists and soldiers—sat in the smoking-room, and the conversation driftedfrom politics to religious questions. Somebody remarked that he once sat in the Union League Club in New York, with Roscoe Conkling, Chester A. Arthur and several other distinguished gentlemen who had been carefully educated in religious families, and that none of them was able to name the Twelve Apostles.
“That’s easy,” said a senator brashly, beginning: “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, bless the bed that I lie on, Paul, the two Jameses, Jude, Barnabas—“ and there he stopped with some embarrassment.
“Timothy,” suggested a major-general, who was a vestryman in an Episcopal Church.
“Nonsense,” answered a senator. “Timothy was a disciple of Paul’s. He wasn’t one of the Twelve Apostles.”
“Nicodemus,” added one of the company.
“Jeremiah,” suggested another.
“Judas was one of the apostles,” meekly came from a voice in a corner.
“I’ll be blamed if he was. He was a disciple, so far I’ll go, but no farther,” was the curt reply.
“Weren’t the disciples and the apostles thesame thing?” inquired the meek voice, getting a little bolder.
Bartholomew was next suggested, and accepted by several.
“What’s the matter with Peter?” exclaimed a modest young member of the Diplomatic Corps who had hitherto been silent.
“How many does that make?” somebody asked, and they counted up eleven for sure, with as many more doubtful.
“Lets look in the Bible,” some one suggested, and the Good Book was overhauled in vain. Nobody could find the place, some insisting it was in Chronicles somewhere, while other authorities were equally certain of Corinthians. Then an encyclopedia was appealed to, but it was not entirely satisfactory, for it included Thomas and Andrew in the list, and that would make one too many—thirteen, an unlucky number. Besides, the justice of the Supreme Court and two senators were positive that Andrew was not an apostle—all of which teaches the great usefulness and the pressing need of Sunday-schools.
Artemus Ward was traveling on a slow-going southern road soon after the war. While the conductor was punching his ticket, Artemus remarked: “Does this railroad company allow passengers to give it advice, if they do so in a respectful manner?” The conductor replied in gruff tones that he guessed so. “Well,” Artemus went on, “it has occurred to me that it would be well, perhaps, to detach the cow-catcher from the front of the engine and hitch it to the rear of the train. For, you see, we are not likely to overtake a cow; but what’s to prevent a cow strolling into this car and biting the passengers?”
A gentleman who was buying a turkey from old Uncle Ephraim asked him, in making the purchase, if it was a tame turkey.
“Oh, yais, sir; it’s a tame tu’key all right.”
“Now, Ephraim, are you sure it’s a tame turkey?”
“Oh, yais, sir; dere’s no so’t o’ doubt ’bout dat. It’s a tame tu’key all right.”
He consequently bought the turkey, and a day or two later, when eating it, came across several shot. Later on, when he met old Ephraim on the street, he said:
“Well, Ephraim, you told me that was a tame turkey, but I found some shot in it when I was eating it.”
“Oh, dat war a tame tu’key all right,” was Uncle Ephraim’s reiterated rejoinder, “but de fac’ is, boss, I’s gwine to tell yer in confidence, dat dem ’ere shot was intended for me.”
During the Civil War a German cavalryman, Hans von Gelder by name, on coming into camp saw at a distance a squad of men who were apparently greatly interested or excited about something.
“Vat’s der matter oud dere?” asked Hans.
“Shelling,” was the laconic answer.
“Shellin’? Who was giffin’ us fits now? Whose gommand is makin’ dot shellin’?”
“It’s General R——’s command shelling corn for the horses.” When Hans finally grasped the idea, he laughed long and loud and determined to make some one else the victim of the jest. Upon returning to his tent he wakened his sleeping comrade and exclaimed:
“Say, I haf got von goot shoke.”
“You couldn’t get off a joke, Hans, to save your soul.”
“Vell, now, you ask me vat dem fellers are doin’ ofer dere, undt I vill tell you dot shoke.”
“Well, what air they doin’ over there?”
“Dey vas shellin’ corn for dere hosses. Haw! haw! haw!”
“But that hain’t no joke.”
“Dond id?” asked Hans in surprise. “Vell, if id dond now, it used to pe.”
Sam Ward was once seated opposite a well-known senator at a dinner in Washington. The senator was very bald, and the light shining brilliantly on the breadth of his scalp attracted Ward’s attention.
“Can you tell me,” said he to his neighbor, “why that senator’s head is like Alaska?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” was the answer.
“Because it is a great white bear place.”
The man was immensely tickled and he at once hailed the senator across the table:
“Say, senator, Ward’s just got off a good thing about you.”
“What is it? Let’s have it.”
“Do you know why your bald head is like Alaska?”
“No. Give it up.”
“Because it is a great place for white bears.”
The following, gentle reader, is given place here purely for the benefit of the next generation:
In a certain court in the good State of Maine, once upon a time, the proceedings were delayed by the failure of a witness by the name of Sarah Mony to arrive. After waiting a long time for Sarah, the court concluded to wait no longer, and his Honor, wishing to crack his little joke, remarked:
“The Court will adjourn without Sarah—Mony.”
Everybody laughed except one man who satin solemn meditation for five full minutes, and then burst out into a hearty guffaw, “I see it! I see it!”
He laughed all the way home, and when he arrived there he tried to tell the joke to his wife, saying that he had been down in the court-house, and they were trying a case, and there was a witness wanted who didn’t turn up, and her name was Mary Mony, and so the judge said, “We’ll adjourn without Mary Mony—“ Ha, ha, ha!
And then his wife said she didn’t see anything funny in that, and he said, “I know it, I know it. I didn’t at first either. But you will in about five minutes.”
“Say, Jenks, old boy,” said one man to another on the street, “here’s a good one: What’s the difference between me and a donkey?”
“Well—what is the difference?”
“Measuring by my eye, I should say it was about three feet.”
Jenks, thinking that too good to be lost, carried it home to his wife. “Say, Maria,” said he, “what’s the difference between me and adonkey?” And the cruel woman with a merry laugh answered, “Not a particle of difference!”
That was certainly a very enterprising Chicago lad who was found selling tickets to the children in his neighborhood, at a nickel apiece, the tickets entitling the holder to view the eclipse from his mother’s back yard.
Among the visitors at a Dog Show at Atlantic City, N. J., was a very tall man who complained to an exhibitor that his dog, a very diminutive specimen, had bitten him on the ankle. The exhibitor looked the man over, and then said with a charming down-East drawl:
“Well, stranger, I reckon you are about six feet tall. This here dog o’ mine ain’t more’n six inches high. He bit you on the ankle, did he? Well, I’m sorry, but you couldn’t naturally expect so small a dog to bite you on the neck.”
“Do you know the prisoner well?” asked the attorney.
“Never knew him sick,” replied the witness.
“Come—no levity,” said the lawyer sternly. “Now, sir, did you ever see the prisoner at the bar?”
“Took many a drink with him at the bar.”
“Answer my question,” yelled the lawyer. “How long have you known the prisoner?”
“From two feet up to five feet ten inches.”
“Will the Court please make the——“
“I have, Jedge,” said the witness, anticipating the lawyer. “I have answered his question. I knowed the prisoner when he was a boy two feet long and a man five feet ten.”
“Your Honor——“
“It’s a fact, Jedge, and I’m under oath,” persisted the witness. The lawyer arose, placed both hands on the table in front of him, spread his legs apart, leaned his body over the table and said:
“Will you tell the Court what you know about this case?”
“That ain’t his name,” answered the witness.
“What ain’t his name?”
“Why, Case.”
“Who said it was?”
“You did, just now. You wanted to know what I knew about this Case. His name is Smith.”
“Your Honor,” howled the lawyer, pulling his beard, “will you make the witness answer my questions?”
“Witness,” said the judge, “you must answer the questions put to you.”
“Land o’ Goshen! Hain’t I been doin’ it, Jedge? Let the blame cuss fire away, I’m ready.”
“Then,” said the lawyer, “don’t beat about the bush any more. You and the prisoner have been friends?”
“Never.”
“What! wasn’t you summoned here as a friend?”
“No, sir. I was summoned here as a Presbyterian. Nary one of us ever was friends. He’s a old-line Baptist without a drop o’ Quaker blood in him.”
“Stand down,” yelled the lawyer in disgust.
“Hey?”
“Stand down!”
“Can’t do it. I kin set down, ef ye want me to, or I kin stand up, but I can’t stand down.”
“Sheriff—remove this man from the box.”
Witness retires muttering: “Well, if he ain’t the thick-headedest cuss I ever laid eyes on.”