I never see my rector's eyes;He hides their light divine;For when he prays, he shuts his own,And when he preaches, mine.
I never see my rector's eyes;He hides their light divine;For when he prays, he shuts his own,And when he preaches, mine.
I never see my rector's eyes;
He hides their light divine;
For when he prays, he shuts his own,
And when he preaches, mine.
A stranger entered the church in the middle of the sermon and seated himself in the back pew. After a while he began to fidget. Leaning over to the white-haired man at his side, evidently an old member of the congregation, he whispered:
"How long has he been preaching?"
"Thirty or forty years, I think," the old man answered.
"I'll stay then," decided the stranger. "He must be nearly done."
Once upon a time there was an Indian named Big Smoke, employed as a missionary to his fellow Smokes.
A white man encountering Big Smoke, asked him what he did for a living.
"Umph!" said Big Smoke, "me preach."
"That so? What do you get for preaching?"
"Me get ten dollars a year."
"Well," said the white man, "that's damn poor pay."
"Umph!" said Big Smoke, "me damn poor preacher."
See alsoClergy.
After a month's work in intensely warm weather a gardener in the suburbs became ill, and the anxious little wife sent for a doctor, who wrote a prescription after examining the patient. The doctor, upon departing, said: "Just let your husband take that and you'll find he will be all right in a short time."
Next day the doctor called again, and the wife opened the door, her face beaming with smiles. "Sure, that was a wonderful wee bit of paper you left yesterday," she exclaimed. "William is better to-day."
"I'm glad to hear that," said the much-pleased medical man.
"Not but what I hadn't a big job to get him to swallow it." she continued, "but, sure, I just wrapped up the wee bit of paper quite small and put it in a spoonful of jam and William swallowed it unbeknownst. By night he was entirely better."
"What did you do when you met the train-robber face to face?"
"I explained that I had been interviewed by the ticket-seller, the luggage-carriers, the dining-car waiters, and the sleeping-car porters and borrowed a dollar from him."
The master of all trades: He beats the farmer with his fast "hoe," the carpenter with his "rule," and the mason in "setting up tall columns"; and he surpasses the lawyer and the doctor in attending to the "cases," and beats the parson in the management of the devil.
A man arrested for stealing chickens was brought to trial. The case was given to the jury, who brought him in guilty, and the judge sentenced him to three months' imprisonment. The jailer was a jovial man, fond of a smile, and feeling particularly good on that particular day, considered himself insulted when the prisoner looking around the cell told him it was dirty, and not fit for a hog to be put in. One word brought on another, till finally the jailer told the prisoner if he did not behave himself he would put him out. To which the prisoner replied: "I will give you to understand, sir, I have as good a right here as you have!"
SHERIFF—"That fellow who just left jail is going to be arrested again soon."
"How do you know?"
SHERIFF—"He chopped my wood, carried the water, and mended my socks. I can't get along without him."
"Why did the father of the prodigal son fall on his neck and weep?"
"Cos he had ter kill the fatted calf, an' de son wasn't wort' it."
THE RECTOR—"It's terrible for a man like you to make every other word an oath."
THE MAN—"Oh, well, I swear a good deal and you pray a good deal, but we don't neither of us mean nuthin' by it."
FIRST DEAF MUTE—"He wasn't so very angry, was he?"
SECOND DEAF MUTE—"He was so wild that the words he used almost blistered his fingers."
The little daughter of a clergyman stubbed her toe and said, "Darn!"
"I'll give you ten cents," said father, "if you'll never say that word again."
A few days afterward she came to him and said: "Papa, I've got a word worth half a dollar."
Very frequently the winter highways of the Yukon valley are mere trails, traversed only by dog-sledges. One of the bishops in Alaska, who was very fond of that mode of travel, encountered a miner coming out with his dog-team, and stopped to ask him what kind of a road he had come over.
The miner responded with a stream of forcible and picturesque profanity, winding up with:
"And what kind o' trail did you have?"
"Same as yours," replied the bishop feelingly.—Elgin Burroughs.
A scrupulous priest of Kildare,Used to pay a rude peasant to swear,Who would paint the air blue,For an hour or two,While his reverence wrestled in prayer.
A scrupulous priest of Kildare,Used to pay a rude peasant to swear,Who would paint the air blue,For an hour or two,While his reverence wrestled in prayer.
A scrupulous priest of Kildare,
Used to pay a rude peasant to swear,
Who would paint the air blue,
For an hour or two,
While his reverence wrestled in prayer.
Donald and Jeanie were putting down a carpet. Donald slammed the end of his thumb with the hammer and began to pour forth his soul in language befitting the occasion.
"Donald, Donald!" shrieked Jeanie, horrified. "Dinna swear that way!"
"Wummun!" vociferated Donald; "gin ye know ony better way, now is the time to let me know it!"
"It is not always necessary to make a direct accusation," said the lawyer who was asking damages because insinuations had been made against his client's good name. "You may have heard of the woman who called to the hired girl, 'Mary, Mary. come here and take the parrot downstairs—the master has dropped his collar button!'"
Little Bartholomew's mother overheard him swearing like a mule-driver. He displayed a fluency that overwhelmed her. She took him to task, explaining the wickedness of profanity as well as its vulgarity. She asked where he had learned all those dreadful words. Bartholomew announced that Cavert, one of his playmates, had taught him.
Cavert's mother was straightway informed and Cavert was brought to book. He vigorously denied having instructed Bartholomew, and neither threats nor tears could make him confess. At last he burst out:
"I didn't tell Bartholomew any cuss words. Why should I know how to cuss any better than he does? Hasn't his father got an automobile, too?"
They were in Italy together.
"If you would let me curse them black and blue," said the groom, "we shouldn't have to wait so long for the trunks."
"But, darling, please don't. It would distress me so," murmured the bride.
The groom went off, but quickly returned with the porters before him trundling the trunks at a double quick.
"Oh, dearest, how did you do it? You didn't—?"
"Not at all. I thought of something that did quite as well. I said, 'S-s-s-susquehanna, R-r-r-rappahannock!'"—Cornelia C. Ward.
A school girl was required to write an essay of two hundred and fifty words about a motorcar. She submitted the following:
"My uncle bought a motorcar. He was riding in the country when it busted up a hill. I guess this is about fifty words. The other two hundred are what my uncle said when he was walking back to town, but they are not fit for publication."
The ashman was raising a can of ashes above his head to dump the contents into his cart, when the bottom of the can came out. Ethel saw it and ran in and told her mother.
"I hope you didn't listen to what he said," the mother remarked.
"He didn't say a word to me," replied the little girl; "he just walked right off by the side of his cart, talking to God."
A young man entered the jeweler's store and bought a ring, which he ordered engraved. The jeweler asked what name.
"George Osborne to Harriet Lewis, but I prefer only the initials, G.O. to H.L."
For it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.—Shakespeare.
"Talking about dry towns, have you ever been in Leavenworth, Kansas?" asked the commercial traveler in the smoking-car. "No? Well, that's a dry town for you, all right."
"They can't sell liquor at all there?" asked one of the men.
"Only if you had been bitten by a snake," said the drummer. "They have only one snake in town, and when I got to it the other day after standing in line for nearly half a day it was too tired to bite."
It was prohibition country. As soon as the train pulled up, a seedy little man with a covered basket on his arm hurried to the open windows of the smoker and exhibited a quart bottle filled with rich, dark fluid.
"Want to buy some nice cold tea?" he asked, with just the suspicion of a wink.
Two thirsty-looking cattlemen brightened visibly, and each paid a dollar for a bottle.
"Wait until you get outer the station before you take a drink," the little man cautioned them. "I don't wanter get in trouble."
He found three other customers before the train pulled out, in each case repeating his warning.
"You seem to be doing a pretty good business," remarked a man who had watched it all. "But I don't see why you'd run any more risk of getting in trouble if they took a drink before the train started."
"Ye don't, hey? Well, what them bottles had in 'em, pardner, was real cold tea."
Mr. Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, at the British North Borneo dinner, said that a City friend of his was approached with a view to floating a rubber company. His friend was quite ready. "How many trees have you?" he asked. "We have not got any trees," was the answer. "How much land have you?" "We have no land." "What then have you got?" "I have a bag of seeds!"
There are many tales about the caution of Russell Sage and the cleverness with which he outwitted those who sought to get some of his money from him. Two brilliant promoters went to him one time and presented a scheme. The financier listened for an hour, and when they departed they were told that Mr. Sage's decision would be mailed to them in a few days.
"I think we have got Uncle Russell," said one of the promoters. "I really believe we have won his confidence."
"I fear not," observed the other doubtfully. "He is too suspicious."
"Suspicious? I didn't observe any sign of it."
"Didn't you notice that he counted his fingers after I had shaken hands with him and we were coming away?"
Promotion cometh neither from the east nor the west, but from the cemetery.—Edward Sanford Martin.
"Are you first in anything at school, Earlie?"
"First out of the building when the bell rings."
The head of a large business house bought a number of those "Do it now" signs and hung them up around his offices. When, after the first few days of those signs, the business man counted up the results, he found that the cashier had skipped out with $20,000, the head bookkeeper had eloped with the stenographer, three clerks had asked for a raise in salary, and the office boy had lit out for the west to become a highwayman.
"Are you waiting for me, dear?" she said, coming downstairs at last, after spending half an hour fixing her hat.
"Waiting," exclaimed the impatient man. "Oh no, not waiting—sojourning."
A tale is told of a Kansas minister, a great precisionist in the use of words, whose exactness sometimes destroyed the force of what he was saying. On one occasion, in the course of an eloquent prayer, he pleaded:
"O Lord! waken thy cause in the hearts of this congregation and give them new eyes to see and new impulse to do. Send down Thy lev-er or lee-ver, according to Webster's or Worcester's dictionary, whichever Thou usest, and pry them into activity."
"I'm at the head of my class, pa," said Willie.
"Dear me, son, how did that happen?" cried his father.
"Why, the teacher asked us this morning how to pronounce C-h-i-h-u-a-h-u-a, and nobody knew," said Willie, "but when she got down to me I sneezed and she said that was right."
See alsoLiars.
A middle-aged colored woman in a Georgia village, hearing a commotion in a neighbor's cabin, looked in at the door. On the floor lay a small boy writhing in great distress while his mother bent solicitously over him.
"What-all's de matter wif de chile?" asked the visitor sympathetically.
"I spec's hit's too much watermillion," responded the mother.
"Ho! go 'long wif you," protested the visitor scornfully. "Dey cyan't never be too much watermillion. Hit mus' be dat dere ain't enough boy."
A love-smitten youth who was studying the approved method of proposal asked one of his bachelor friends if he thought that a young man should propose to a girl on his knees.
"If he doesn't," replied his friend, "the girl should get off."
A gentleman who had been in Chicago only three days, but who had been paying attention to a prominent Chicago belle, wanted to propose, but was afraid he would be thought too hasty. He delicately broached the subject as follows: "If I were to speak to you of marriage, after having only made your acquaintance three days ago, what would you say of it?"
"Well, I should say, never put off till tomorrow that which should have been done the day before yesterday."
There was a young man from the West,Who proposed to the girl he loved best,But so closely he pressed herTo make her say, yes, sir,That he broke two cigars in his vest.—The Tobacconist.
There was a young man from the West,Who proposed to the girl he loved best,But so closely he pressed herTo make her say, yes, sir,That he broke two cigars in his vest.
There was a young man from the West,
Who proposed to the girl he loved best,
But so closely he pressed her
To make her say, yes, sir,
That he broke two cigars in his vest.
—The Tobacconist.
—The Tobacconist.
They were dining on fowl in a restaurant. "You see," he explained, as he showed her the wishbone, "you take hold here. Then we must both make a wish and pull, and when it breaks the one who has the bigger part of it will have his or her wish granted." "But I don't know what to wish for," she protested. "Oh! you can think of something," he said. "No, I can't," she replied; "I can't think of anything I want very much." "Well, I'll wish for you," he explained. "Will you, really?" she asked. "Yes." "Well, then there's no use fooling with the old wishbone," she interrupted with a glad smile, "you can have me."
"Dear May," wrote the young man, "pardon me, but I'm getting so forgetful. I proposed to you last night, but really forget whether you said yes or no."
"Dear Will," she replied by note, "so glad to hear from you. I know I said 'no' to some one last night, but I had forgotten just who it was."
The four Gerton girls were all good-looking; indeed, the three younger ones were beautiful; while Annie, the oldest, easily made up in capability and horse sense what she lacked in looks.
A young chap, very eligible, called on the girls frequently, but seemed unable to decide which to marry. So Annie put on her thinking cap, and, one evening when the young chap called, she appeared with her pretty arms bare to the elbow and her hands white with flour.
"Oh, you must excuse my appearance," she said. "I have been working in the kitchen all day. I baked bread and pies and cake this morning, and afterward, as the cook was ill, I prepared dinner."
"Miss Annie, is that so?" said the young man. He looked at her, deeply impressed. Then, after a moment's thought, he said:
"Miss Annie, there is a question I wish to ask you, and on your answer will depend much of my life's happiness."
"Yes?" she said, with a blush, and she drew a little nearer. "Yes? What is it?"
"Miss Annie," said the young man, in deep earnest tones, "I am thinking of proposing to your sister Kate—will you make your home with us?"
It was at Christmas, and he had been calling on her twice a week for six months, but had not proposed.
"Ethel," he said, "I—er—am going to ask you an important question."
"Oh, George," she exclaimed, "this is so sudden! Why, I—"
"No, excuse me," he interrupted; "what I want to ask is this: What date have you and your mother decided upon for our wedding?"
A Scotch beadle led the maiden of his choice to a churchyard and, pointing to the various headstones, said:
"My folks are all buried there, Jennie. Wad ye like to be buried there too?"
IMPECUNIOUS LOVER—"Be mine, Amanda, and you will be treated like an angel."
WEALTHY MAIDEN—"Yes, I suppose so. Nothing to eat, and less to wear. No, thank you."
The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.—Douglas Jerrold.
There was a young lady of Wilts,Who walked up to Scotland on stilts;When they said it was shockingTo show so much stocking,She answered: "Then what about kilts?"—Gilbert K. Chesterton.
There was a young lady of Wilts,Who walked up to Scotland on stilts;When they said it was shockingTo show so much stocking,She answered: "Then what about kilts?"
There was a young lady of Wilts,
Who walked up to Scotland on stilts;
When they said it was shocking
To show so much stocking,
She answered: "Then what about kilts?"
—Gilbert K. Chesterton.
—Gilbert K. Chesterton.
May bad fortune follow you all your daysAnd never catch up with you.
May bad fortune follow you all your daysAnd never catch up with you.
May bad fortune follow you all your days
And never catch up with you.
One of our popular New England lecturers tells this amusing story.
A street boy of diminutive stature was trying to sell some very young kittens to passers-by. One day he accosted the late Reverend Phillips Brooks, asking him to purchase, and recommending them as good Episcopal kittens. Dr. Brooks laughingly refused, thinking them too small to be taken from their mother. A few days later a Presbyterian minister who had witnessed this episode was asked by the same boy to buy the same kittens. This time the lad announced that they were faithful Presbyterians.
"Didn't you tell Dr. Brooks last week that they were Episcopal kittens?" the minister asked sternly.
"Yes sir," replied the boy quickly, "but they's had their eyes opened since then, sir."
An Episcopal clergyman who was passing his vacation in a remote country district met an old farmer who declared that he was a "'Piscopal."
"To what parish do you belong?" asked the clergyman.
"Don't know nawthin' 'bout enny parish," was the answer.
"Who confirmed you, then?" was the next question.
"Nobody," answered the farmer.
"Then how are you an Episcopalian?" asked the clergyman.
"Well," was the reply, "you see it's this way: Last winter I went to church, an' it was called 'Piscopal, an' I heerd them say that they left undone the things what they'd oughter done and they'd done some things what they oughtenter done, and I says to myself says I: 'That's my fix exac'ly,' and ever sence then I've been a 'Piscopalian."
A Protestant mission meeting had been held in an Irish town and this was the gardener's contribution to the controversy that ensued: "Pratestants!" he said with lofty scorn, "'Twas mighty little St. Paul thought of the Pratestants. You've all heard tell of the 'pistle he wrote to the Romans, but I'd ax ye this, did any of yez iver hear of his writing a 'pistle to the Pratestants?"
"Why did papa have appendicitis and have to pay the doctor a thousand dollars, Mama?"
"It was God's will, dear."
"And was it because God was mad at papa or pleased with the doctor?"—Life.
There's a certain minister whose duties sometimes call him out of the city. He has always arranged for some one of his parishioners to keep company with his wife and little daughter during these absences. Recently, however, he was called away so suddenly that he had no opportunity of providing a guardian.
The wife was very brave during the early evening, but after dark had fallen her courage began to fail. She stayed up with her little girl till there was no excuse for staying any longer and then took her upstairs to bed.
"Now go to sleep, Dearie," she said. "Don't be afraid. God will protect you."
"Yes, Mother," answered the little girl, "that'll be all right tonight, but next time let's make better arrangements."
Some time ago an English friend of Colonel W.J. Lampton's living in New York and having never visited the South, went to Virginia to spend a month with friends. After a fortnight of it, he wrote back:
"Oh, I say, old top, you never told me that the South was anything like I have found it, and so different to the North. Why, man, it's God's country."
The Colonel, who gets his title from Kentucky, answered promptly by postal.
"Of course it is," he wrote. "You didn't suppose God was a Yankee, did you?"
A southerner, with the intense love for his own district, attended a banquet. The next day a friend asked him who was present. With a reminiscent smile he replied: "An elegant gentleman from Virginia, a gentleman from Kentucky, a man from Ohio, a bounder from Chicago, a fellow from New York, and a galoot from Maine."
They had driven fourteen miles to the lake, and then rowed six miles across the lake to get to the railroad station, when the Chicago man asked:
"How in the world do you get your mail and newspapers here in the winter when the storms are on?"
"Wa-al, we don't sometimes. I've seen this lake thick up so that it was three weeks before we got a Chicago paper," answered the man from "nowhere."
"Well, you were cut off," said the Chicago man.
"Ya-as, we were so," was the reply. "Still, the Chicago folks were just as badly off."
"How so?"
"Wa-al," drawled the man, "we didn't know what was going on in Chicago, of course. But then, neither did Chicago folks know what was going on down here."
The attorney demanded to know how many secret societies the witness belonged to, whereupon the witness objected and appealed to the court.
"The court sees no harm in the question," answered the judge. "You may answer."
"Well, I belong to three."
"What are they?"
"The Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, and the gas company."
"Yes, he had some rare trouble with his eyes," said the celebrated oculist. "Every time he went to read he would read double."
"Poor fellow," remarked the sympathetic person. "I suppose that interfered with his holding a good position?"
"Not at all. The gas company gobbled him up and gave him a lucrative job reading gas-meters."
ORATOR—"I thought your paper was friendly to me?"
EDITOR—"So it is. What's the matter?"
ORATOR—"I made a speech at the dinner last night, and you didn't print a line of it."
EDITOR—"Well, what further proof do you want?"
TRAVELING LECTURER FOR SOCIETY (to the remaining listener)—"I should like to thank you, sir, for so attentively hearing me to the end of a rather too long speech."
LOCAL MEMBER OF SOCIETY—"Not at all, sir. I'm the second speaker."
Ex-senator Spooner of Wisconsin says the best speech of introduction he ever heard was delivered by the German mayor of a small town in Wisconsin, where Spooner had been engaged to speak.
The mayor said:
"Ladies und shentlemens, I haf been asked to indrotoose you to the Honorable Senator Spooner, who vill make to you a speech, yes. I haf now done so; he vill now do so."
"When I arose to speak," related a martyred statesman, "some one hurled a base, cowardly egg at me and it struck me in the chest."
"And what kind of an egg might that be?" asked a fresh young man.
"A base, cowardly egg," explained the statesman, "is one that hits you and then runs."
"Uncle Joe" Cannon has a way of speaking his mind that is sometimes embarrassing to others. On one occasion an inexperienced young fellow was called upon to make a speech at a banquet at which ex-speaker Cannon was also present.
"Gentlemen," began the young fellow, "my opinion is that the generality of mankind in general is disposed to take advantage of the generality of—"
"Sit down, son," interrupted "Uncle Joe." "You are coming out of the same hole you went in at."
A South African tribe has an effective method of dealing with bores, which might be adopted by Western peoples. This simple tribe considers long speeches injurious to the orator and his hearers; so to protect both there is an unwritten law that every public orator must stand on only one leg when he is addressing an audience. As soon as he has to place the other leg on the ground his oration is brought to a close, by main force, if necessary.
A rather turgid orator, noted for his verbosity and heaviness, was once assigned to do some campaigning in a mining camp in the mountains. There were about fifty miners present when he began; but when, at the end of a couple of hours, he gave no sign of finishing, his listeners dropped away.
Some went back to work, but the majority sought places to quench their thirst, which had been aggravated by the dryness of the discourse.
Finally there was only one auditor left, a dilapidated, weary-looking old fellow. Fixing his gaze on him, the orator pulled out a large six-shooter and laid it on the table. The old fellow rose slowly and drawled out:
"Be you going to shoot if I go?"
"You bet I am," replied the speaker. "I'm bound to finish my speech, even if I have to shoot to keep an audience."
The old fellow sighed in a tired manner, and edged slowly away, saying as he did so:
"Well, shoot if you want to. I may jest as well be shot as talked to death."
The self-made millionaire who had endowed the school had been invited to make the opening speech at the commencement exercises. He had not often had a chance of speaking before the public and he was resolved to make the most of it. He dragged his address out most tiresomely, repeating the same thought over and over. Unable to stand it any longer a couple of boys in the rear of the room slipped out. A coachman who was waiting outside asked them if the millionaire had finished his speech.
"Gee, yes!" replied the boys, "but he won't stop."
Mark Twain once told this story:
"Some years ago in Hartford, we all went to church one hot, sweltering night to hear the annual report of Mr. Hawley, a city missionary who went around finding people who needed help and didn't want to ask for it. He told of the life in cellars, where poverty resided; he gave instances of the heroism and devotion of the poor. When a man with millions gives, he said, we make a great deal of noise. It's a noise in the wrong place, for it's the widow's mite that counts. Well, Hawley worked me up to a great pitch. I could hardly wait for him to get through. I had $400 in my pocket. I wanted to give that and borrow more to give. You could see greenbacks in every eye. But instead of passing the plate then, he kept on talking and talking and talking, and as he talked it grew hotter and hotter and hotter, and we grew sleepier and sleepier and sleepier. My enthusiasm went down, down, down, down—$100 at a clip—until finally, when the plate did come around, I stole ten cents out of it. It all goes to show how a little thing like this can lead to crime."
See alsoAfter dinner speeches; Candidates; Politicians.
A parent who evidently disapproved of corporal punishment wrote the teacher:
"Dear Miss: Don't hit our Johnnie. We never do it at home except in self-defense."
"Dear Miss: Don't hit our Johnnie. We never do it at home except in self-defense."
"No, sirree!" ejaculated Bunkerton. "There wasn't any of that nonsense in my family. My father never thrashed me in all his life."
"Too bad, too bad," sighed Hickenlooper. "Another wreck due to a misplaced switch."
James the Second, when Duke of York, made a visit to Milton, the poet, and asked him among other things, if he did not think the loss of his sight a judgment upon him for what he had writen against his father, Charles the First. Milton answered: "If your Highness think my loss of sight ajudgmentupon me, what do you think of your father's losing his head."—Life.
A white man during reconstruction times was arraigned before a colored justice of the peace for killing a man and stealing his mule. It was in Arkansas, near the Texas border, and there was some rivalry between the states, but the colored justice tried to preserve an impartial frame of mind.
"We's got two kinds ob law in dis yer co't," he said: "Texas law an' Arkansas law. Which will you hab?"
The prisoner thought a minute and then guessed that he would take the Arkansas law.
"Den I discharge you fo' stealin' de mule, an' hang you fo' killin' de man."
"Hold on a minute, Judge," said the prisoner. "Better make that Texas law."
"All right. Den I fin' you fo' killin' de man, an' hang you fo' stealin' de mule."
A lawyer was defending a man accused of housebreaking, and said to the court:
"Your Honor, I submit that my client did not break into the house at all. He found the parlor window open and merely inserted his right arm and removed a few trifling articles. Now, my client's arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offense committed by only one of his limbs."
"That argument," said the judge, "is very well put. Following it logically, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he chooses."
The defendant smiled, and with his lawyer's assistance unscrewed his cork arm, and, leaving it in the dock, walked out.
Muriel, a five-year-old subject of King George, has been thought by her parents too young to feel the weight of the rod, and has been ruled by moral suasion alone. But when, the other day, she achieved disobedience three times in five minutes, more vigorous measures were called for, and her mother took an ivory paper-knife from the table and struck her smartly across her little bare legs. Muriel looked astounded. Her mother explained the reason for the blow. Muriel thought deeply for a moment. Then, turning toward the door with a grave and disapproving countenance, she announced in her clear little English voice:
"I'm going up-stairs to tell God about that paper-knife. And then I shall tell Jesus. And ifthatdoesn't do, I shall put flannel on my legs!"
During the reconstruction days of Virginia, a negro was convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to be hanged. On the morning of the execution he mounted the scaffold with reasonable calmness. Just before the noose was to be placed around his neck the sheriff asked him if he had anything to say. He studied a moment and said:
"No, suh, boss, thankee, suh, 'ceptin' dis is sho gwine to be a lesson to me."
"What punishment did that defaulting banker get?" "I understand his lawyer charged him $40,000."
An Indian in Washington County once sized up Maine's game laws thus: "Kill cow moose, pay $100; kill man, too bad!"
TEACHER—"Willie, did your father cane you for what you did in school yesterday?"
PUPIL—"No, ma'am; he said the licking would hurt him more than it would me."
TEACHER—"What rot! Your father is too sympathetic."
PUPIL—"No, ma'am; but he's got the rheumatism in both arms."
"Boohoo! Boohoo!" wailed little Johnny.
"Why, what's the matter, dear?" his mother asked comfortingly.
"Boohoo—er—p-picture fell on papa's toes."
"Well, dear, that's too bad, but you mustn't cry about it, you know."
"I d-d-didn't. I laughed. Boohoo! Boohoo!"
The fact that corporal punishment is discouraged in the public schools of Chicago is what led Bobby's teacher to address this note to the boy's mother:
DEAR MADAM:—I regret very much to have to tell you that your son, Robert, idles away his time, is disobedient, quarrelsome, and disturbs the pupils who are trying to study their lessons. He needs a good whipping and I strongly recommend that you give him one.Yours truly,Miss Blank.
DEAR MADAM:—I regret very much to have to tell you that your son, Robert, idles away his time, is disobedient, quarrelsome, and disturbs the pupils who are trying to study their lessons. He needs a good whipping and I strongly recommend that you give him one.
Yours truly,Miss Blank.
To this Bobby's mother responded as follows:
Dear Miss Blanks—Lick him yourself. I ain't mad at him.Yours truly,Mrs. Dash.
Dear Miss Blanks—Lick him yourself. I ain't mad at him.
Yours truly,Mrs. Dash.
A little fellow who was being subjected to a whipping pinched his father under the knee. "Willie, you bad boy! How dare you do that?" asked the parent wrathfully.
A pause. Then Willie answered between sobs: "Well, Father, who started this war, anyway?"
A little girl about three years old was sent upstairs and told to sit on a certain chair that was in the corner of her room, as a punishment for something she had done but a few minutes before.
Soon the silence was broken by the little one's question: "Mother, may I come down now?"
"No, you sit right where you are."
"All right, 'cause I'm sittin' on your best hat."
It is less to suffer punishment than to deserve it.—Ovid.
If Jupiter hurled his thunderbolt as often as men sinned, he would soon be out of thunderbolts.—Ovid.
See alsoChurch discipline; Future life; Marriage.