A laugh a day keeps the doctor away

Personally I do not know a great many persons of Swedish birth. But those Swedes I have met struck me nearly always as being keen-witted. Nevertheless, it is customary among after-dinner speakers, at least, when telling a yarn purporting to deal with slow thinking, to make the central character of it a Swede, and preferably a Swede farmer.

For instance, there is the classic of the Wisconsin politician who, in the presidential campaign of 1912, toured the back districts of his native state to electioneer for his party. In a remote neighborhood he came upon a tall Scandinavian sitting on a log in a clearing. The stranger hauled up his team and greeted the resident, who replied with a nod.

The politician explained that he was sounding out the sentiment in the district.

“What do you think about Wilson?” he asked.

“Aye don’t know,” drawled the other.

“Well, how about Roosevelt?”

“Aye don’t know.”

“Maybe you like Taft?”

The alien shook his tawny head dumbly.

“Well, now, look here then, you must have some opinion,” said the visitor. “You and your neighbors must have talked the thing over among yourselves. Who do you think has the best show?”

The simple Swede gave this question lengthy consideration. Then, with a faint change of expression, he said:

“Aye tank Ringling Brothers got the best show.”

Then there is the time-honored yarn of the Swede farm-hand in Minnesota who, on the witness stand, was called upon by the attorney for the railroad to furnish details touching on the tragic death of a companion.

“Aye tell you,” he answered. “Me and Ole we bane walkin’ on railroad track. Train come by and Aye yump off track. By and by, when train is gone, Aye don’t see Ole any more, so Aye walk on and pretty soon Aye see one of Ole’s arms on one side of track and one of Ole’s legs on other side of track, and then pretty soon Aye see Ole’s head, but Ole’s body is not there, so Aye stop and Aye say to myself, ‘By Yupiter, something must a’ happened to Ole!’ ”

A well-known public lecturer occasionally tells this story on the platform as illustrative of the enterprise and instinctive commercial sagacity of the young American. He vouches for it as an actual personal experience. His version of it runs somewhat as follows:

“Two summers ago I was motoring up in New England. Taking a short cut over a dirt road I ran into a miry place and the car bogged down and stuck fast. Providentially, as it would seem, a farmer boy immediately hove into sight, driving a team of big horses. I entered into negotiations with him and the upshot was that for two dollars he agreed to undertake the job of rescuing me from my predicament. The price seemed reasonable and we closed the bargain.

“He hooked his horses to the axle of the stalled automobile and soon had the car upon high ground. I was struck by the brightness of the lad and the skill he had shown in extricating the heavy car from the mire. After I had paid him I led him into conversation, taking occasion to compliment him upon his smartness.

“ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ve had considerable practice, Mister. This makes the third car that I’ve pulled out of this mudhole to-day.’

“ ‘Did each one of them pay you two dollars?’ I asked.

“ ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘That’s my regular price for this job.’

“ ‘Then you’ve earned six dollars to-day?’

“ ‘Yep, that’s right,’ he said.

“ ‘Pretty fair wages for a boy of your age, I should say,’ I commented.

“Before answering me, the youngster withdrew from my immediate vicinity and mounted one of his horses.

“ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this has been a ’specially good day. I don’t always earn this much, and anyhow, ’tain’t as easy as you might think for me to earn this money. All day I’ve got to be hangin’ ’round waitin’ for one of you city fellers to get bogged down and start callin’ for help and that ain’t the worst of it neither; except when it rains, I’ve got to be around here a good part of every night.’

“ ‘What do you do here at night?’ I asked.

“He drew his team off the road and started away through the woods. Then, over his shoulder, as he vanished, he replied:

“ ‘Oh, night-times I have to draw water and fill up this here mudhole so as it’ll be ready for business the next day.’ ”

This one was a favorite with the late Joseph H. Choate. I heard him use it more than once when he was making after-dinner speeches.

“I had a friend once, named Smith,” said Mr. Choate, “whose son, although of comparatively tender years, was addicted to the reprehensible habit of indulging in alcoholic beverages. The father packed him off to Harvard in the hope that the youth might become interested in educational matters and lose his craving for hard liquor.

“It appeared that the father’s hopes were to be gratified, because the young man, in writing home to ask that his allowance be increased, told his sire that he had mended his ways and now was devoting himself exclusively to the undertaking of acquiring learning. The senior was most highly gratified. He decided to run up to Cambridge and personally congratulate his offspring upon the reformation which had been effected. To make the meeting more pleasant he would take the youngster by surprise. So, without announcing his intention, he started.

“But the train was delayed and Mr. Smith did not reach Cambridge until after midnight. He got in a cab and rode to the boy’s boarding-house. The building was dark.

“He felt his way up the walk, rang the doorbell and pounded on the door. Eventually an upstairs window was opened and an elderly lady, the proprietor of the establishment, showed her head.

“ ‘Well,’ she called out, ‘what is wanted?’

“ ‘Does Henry Smith, Jr., live here?’ asked the father.

“ ‘Yes,’ said the old lady, wearily. ‘Carry him in.’ ”

I have always been interested in the character of Daniel Boone. It seemed to me that of all our early pioneers he, perhaps, was the most gallant and the most picturesque, and certainly the most typical.

A few months ago a collector of early Kentucky lore told me a story of the great pathfinder. I leaped upon it with loud cries of joy. I said to myself that if it were not true it deserved to be true. So far as my informant knew, it had never been printed but instead had been handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another. So I just was making ready to plunge into the arena with a brand new contribution to pioneer Americana when I sustained a severe shock.

This shock was the discovery that the same anecdote, in substantially the same form in which I heard it told by my Kentucky friend, already had appeared in print. It was published a trifling matter of one hundred and two years ago. Even so, I offer it here again for the reason I believe it has merit in it entitling it to perpetuation.

It appears that in 1819 Chester Harding, an artist, being prompted by a patriotic impulse made the long journey from his home on the eastern seaboard to Missouri, which then was in the far West, for the purpose of meeting the aged Boone and painting his portrait. At the time of Harding’s arrival Boone had left his log-cabin home and had gone on one of his periodical outings into the wilderness. The visitor followed along an obscure trail until he came to a tumbledown shanty. To quote Harding’s words, “I found him engaged in cooking his dinner. He was lying in his bunk, near the fire, and had a long strip of venison wound around his ramrod, and was busy turning it before a brisk blaze, and using pepper and salt to season his meat.

“I at once told him the object of my visit. I could tell that he did not exactly know what I meant. I explained the matter to him, and he agreed to sit. He was nearly ninety years old, and rather infirm; his memory of passing events was much impaired, yet he would amuse me every day by his anecdotes of his earlier life. I asked him one day, just after his description of one of his long hunts, if he never got lost, having no compass. ‘No’, said he, ‘I can’t say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.’ ”

In the wicked days when drinking still was going on, Riley Wilson, the official humorist of West Virginia, met on the streets of Huntington a friend of his from up in the mountains. Extending the customary hospitalities, Wilson invited the hillsman to have something. The visitor was agreeably inclined. They crossed the street and entered the swinging doors of a life-saving station.

At one end of the bar an electric fan was buzzing. The gaze of the mountaineer froze on this novel object. So absorbed and interested was he that he almost forgot to help himself from the bottle which the barkeeper set out for him. He put down his emptied glass and, walking close up to the fan, continued to watch it in a fascinated silence.

“Well, old man,” said Wilson, “are you ready to move along?”

“Riley,” answered the mountaineer without turning his head, “ef you don’t mind, I’m goin’ to stay here a spell longer. I don’t know how long I may be here, ’cause I aim to wait until this here critter stops spinnin’ this wheel around so I can git a good look at it. I’ve seen some peart squirrels caged up, in my time, but this shore must be the peartest one that ever was ketched.”

By way of a beginning, it is incumbent to me to explain that the negroes of the Coast country of South Carolina and Georgia have a distinctive patois which differs radically from the speech of members of their own race up country. “Gullah talk,” as it is called, has but one gender—the masculine. Everything—a man, a woman, a bull, a cow—is “he.”

With this bit of explanation we may proceed. An Englishman, desirous of killing some big game during his visit to America, accepted the invitation to visit a plantation-owner on one of the sea islands lying below Charleston. In honor of the visitor a deer drive was arranged.

The Britisher, chaperoned by an old negro man, was assigned to a “stand” on one of the best “runs.” Beforehand he had been told to shoot only at bucks, as the does enjoyed protection.

Presently, to the ears of the nervous Englishman where he crouched with his black companion in a thicket, came the sound of the hounds’ baying. The dogs had found a fresh trail. They were drawing nearer and nearer.

Suddenly, fifty yards away across an open glade, a darting patch of tawny brown showed in the undergrowth. The Englishman fired, and a convulsive thumping in the brush told him that he had not missed.

The old negro left his covert and ran forward to see what it was that had been shot.

“Did I kill him?” called the excited amateur.

“Yeah, boss. You kill ’im,” answered the darky, as he bent over the stricken creature. Then, as he straightened, seeing that the fallen animal had no horns, he added: “ ’E a doe do’.”

At this moment the host hurried up, having heard the shot from his place of ambush a short distance away.

“Any luck?” he called out as he approached.

“Oh, yes,” answered the Britisher exultantly. “I thought I saw a deer and dropped it, but your black fellow yonder has just told me that it is a dodo—a creature which I thought was entirely extinct. Luck, eh, what?”

To arrive at an estimate of the approximate age of this one, try to recall how many years ago it was that Robert Ingersol died and then take it into further consideration that the incident here to be narrated is supposed to have occurred quite a long time before that date.

The great infidel was sitting one day in his library. A genius out of a job came to him seeking advice.

“Mr. Ingersol,” said the caller, “I speak seven languages fluently but somehow or other I don’t seem to be able to make a living. I can’t get work anywhere. At this moment I owe a month’s rent. What can you suggest?”

“My friend,” said Ingersol, “I don’t think I could suggest anything for a person who can express himself in seven languages and can’t pay his rent in any one of them.”

This little incident dates back to the time when a certain well-known publisher of New York was somewhat younger than he is at present. His only daughter, now a charming young matron with a baby of her own, had just passed her fourth birthday. Let us call her Clara, which is not her real name. Since before his marriage the gentleman in question had worn a beard. The little girl had never seen her father excepting with mustache and whiskered chops.

One Saturday night, moved by a whim, he told the barber to give him a clean shave. Then he went home and went to bed. Next morning early little Clara came from the nursery to visit her parents. The mother was awake; her daddy still snoozed.

The child was in the act of kissing her mother, when her gaze fell upon the smooth face on the pillow in the adjacent bed. Her eyes widened in astonishment.

Leaving her mother’s side, the little thing tip-toed across the room and subjected the countenance of her father to a puzzled stare. Then she crept back again to where the wife was.

“Mother dear,” she said in an awed whisper, “who is the gentleman?”

The native was making a slow headway with a hoe against the weeds and sassafras sprouts which covered the slope with their scrubby growth. Behind him rose the knobby field with deep furrows in it where the rains had washed out gulleys in the thin soil. Further on a rotting rail fence ran in crazy zigzags across the brow of the eminence and on all sides the clearing was enveloped by a bleak and poverty-stricken landscape.

The Northern tourist, who was making a detour through the foothills, halted his car and hailed the industrious worker.

“My friend,” he said, “you look like a live chap and a hustler.”

“Well,” said the native, “I aim to keep busy.” He laid down his hoe and advanced to the edge of the road.

“That’s what I said to myself as soon as I saw you. I’m wondering why you’re content to slave your life out in this God-forsaken country. I never saw such poor-looking soil in my life. Why don’t you pull up stakes and move up into Ohio where I live?”

The resident hillsman shook his head.

“You see, stranger,” he answered, “I’ve always lived ’round here and I guess I’ll stay awhile longer.”

“Well,” said the tourist, “every man to his own fancy, and I guess a fellow might get attached even to such a spot as this. But what can you expect by staying on? You are bound to get poorer and poorer all the time.”

“Mister,” said the hillsman, “I’m a blamed sight better off than what you seem to think. Why, I don’t own nary acre of this here land.”

They tell this story on Charlie Russell, Montana’s famous cowboy painter, who by a very great many is regarded as Frederic Remington’s successor as the greatest delineator of Western life. Probably it isn’t true, because Russell, as an old cow hand, naturally would have the utmost contempt for all phases of the sheep-growing industry; but as the story goes, he once fell upon hard times and in this emergency accepted a position as herder for a sheep man.

Now, Russell knew about all there was to know about beef cattle and about horses but his education regarding the ways and habits of sheep had been neglected. All the same, he went out on the range with a flock of woolly baa-baas. Ten days passed, and he returned to headquarters to replenish his supply of provisions. The boss met him at the ranch-house.

“Well, Charlie,” he asked, “how goes it?”

“Oh, all right,” said Russell.

“Satisfied with your new job, eh?” pressed the employer.

“I guess so,” said Russell. “But if you want me to keep on working for you there’s one thing you’ll have to do.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll have to get another lot of sheep. That first bunch has done lit out on you.”

Down in the old malarial belt below Mason and Dixon’s Line, the indolence of the dwellers in the Low Grounds is proverbial. In illustration of this attribute a story used to be told by the late Polk Miller, of Virginia.

Miller said that in a remote district a prominent resident was being buried. The funeral procession, on its way from the church to the graveyard passed a cabin where an ancient couple resided.

The pair in question were engaged that afternoon in the pursuit of their favorite occupation of doing nothing whatsoever. The old man was stretched on the earth with his back against the wall of the house, and facing the road. His wife, in a rickety arm-chair, was facing in the other direction, massaging her front teeth with a snuff stick. Presently she spoke:

“Whut’s that I hear passin’?”

“It’s Jim Coombs’ fune’l jest goin’ by.”

“Much of a turn-out?”

“Biggest I ever seen in these parts,” he answered. “More’n twenty hacks and waggins, looks like, and a whole passel of mo’ners on foot.”

The old woman fetched a little resigned sigh:

“Well,” she said, “I certainly do wish I was settin’ turned ’round the other way—I’d like mightily to see that there fune’l.”

There was a member, now deceased, of a New York club much frequented by members of the theatrical profession, who suffered in the latter years of his life from a curious internal disorder. Always involuntarily and often at inopportune moments, he gave off weird rumbling and wheezing sounds.

One evening with three fellow members he was playing bridge. He was suffering at the moment from an especially violent attack. A certain comedian, who had been imbibing heavily, approached.

Immediately the newcomer’s attention was focussed upon the strange, ghostly noises which at intervals occurred. Just as he had traced these mysterious manifestations to their source the afflicted gentleman, after an especially violent outburst, spoke:

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for causing this disturbance. I assure you I cannot help it—the thing is entirely beyond my control. I really don’t know what is the matter with me.”

“I know what’s the matter with you,” cried out the inebriated one, “you’re haunted!”

“Well,” said the friendly grocer, “I hear you’ve got a little baby brother up at your house. What do you think of him?”

“I don’t like him,” said Mildred frankly. “He’s got a funny red face and he cries all the time.”

“Well,” asked the grocer, “why don’t you send him back where he came from?”

“Oh, I’m afraid we couldn’t do that,” she said. “We’ve used him two days already.”

Here of late as all readers of the daily press know, the Ku Klux Klan has been rather active in parts of the state of Arkansas. In a small town north of Little Rock, the colored population has been much exercised over the midnight marches and the occasional visitations of the masked brotherhood.

In this town two negroes met. One of them said:

“Look yere, Henery, whut would you do ef you wuz to git a notice from them ole Ku Kluxes?”

“Me?” said Henry. “I’d finish readin’ it on de train!”

Just before hostilities ended in 1918, a young lieutenant of my acquaintance was detailed to duty as a drill officer at a camp of colored draft troops in Mississippi.

He said that late one night he was returning from a near-by town to his quarters. As he neared the sentry lines, out of the darkness came a voice calling: “Halt!”

He halted, gave the countersign and started on. Immediately, in the gloom, there was a rattle as of a rifle being shifted in the sentry’s hands and again the same voice cried: “Halt!”

“You’ve halted me once already,” he said sharply, rightly figuring that the unseen one must be a green trooper, “and I’ve given you the password. What more do you want?”

“But, boss,” said the sentry, drawing nearer, “I don’t know you.”

“Very probable,” said the captain. “What has that got to do with it?”

“It’s got a whole heap to do wid it. W’en the sergeant put me yere to-night he p’intedly sez to me dat ef somebody comes by w’ich is a stranger to me I is to cry ‘Halt!’ th’ee times an’ den shoot ’im.”

Only too often does the average after-dinner speaker reach a point where he has nothing to say and yet feels that he must say it. Usually he does, too,—at great length. I know, because in my time, before I reformed, I was addicted to the vice of after-dinner speaking myself.

To those offenders who still persist in their wicked ways of trying to be humorous to order across the dinner table, without having the proper materials in stock, I respectfully would recommend the following highly illustrative little anecdote:

A New England husbandman was driving up a steep hill with a load of provender and gardening implements in his motor truck. In a rough place on the grade the tail-gate slipped from its catches and, item by item, the cargo spilled out. The farmer steered along oblivious of his losses. He reached the crest of the hill, coasted down into the valley, and there, in a miry place, he stuck fast. He climbed down from his seat, and then, for the first time realizing the full depth of his misfortune he exclaimed to himself:

“Stuck, gol darn it! Stuck in the mud—and nothin’ to unload!”

On the stage of a music hall in the East End of London a memory wizard with a pronounced Cockney accent was offering an exhibition of his skill. In response to questions from the audience he gave, off-hand, and promptly, the dates of historic events, the distance from the earth to the moon, and other facts and figures without limit.

It was quite evident from the language of some of his statements that the performer was a most patriotic Briton. Invariably, when mentioning a great Englishman or a great English achievement, his voice rose exultantly.

Sitting well down in front were two Americans. They figured that the wizard must have accomplices in the house to ask him questions prepared beforehand. To find out whether or not the performer did have the powers of memory he boasted and with a view also to arousing his patriotic fervor to a still higher pitch if possible, one of the Yankees called out:

“Professor, please tell me what memorable event occurred on July the Fourth, 1776?”

Without a moment’s hesitation the professor shot back his reply:

“A h’infernal h’outrage, sir!” he shouted.

A minor-league baseball manager received a letter from a young player who gave an unabridged and highly flattering account of the author’s ability to make good in any company. Also he declared he could hit ’em harder and higher and farther than Babe Ruth ever did. It so happened that the manager was very much in need of a utility player but the young man had neglected to say whether he was a pitcher, catcher, infielder or outfielder.

He answered the letter, inquiring what position the prospective phenomenon played.

A reply came back accompanied by a snapshot of a youth in uniform, crouched and apparently awaiting the arrival of a grounder.

“You can see by the inclosed photograph,” wrote the young man, “that I play in a stooping position, with one hand on each knee.”

It was the last night of the revival meeting. The evangelist was going strong. His subject was eternal damnation. With all the eloquence at his command, he urged the congregation to flee from the wrath to come.

“Ah, my friends,” he exclaimed, “on that last dread day there will be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth!”

In a rear pew stood up an elderly woman.

“Elder,” she said tremulously, “I ain’t got no teeth.”

“Madam!” he shouted back, “teeth will be provided!”

Up toward Chateau Thierry in the big shove of 1918, a brigade commander of the A. E. F., temporarily separated from his staff, was making a sort of private reconnaissance toward the front. It was night-time. Directly ahead of him, he knew, was a negro infantry regiment, now under fire for the first time.

All at once he encountered a straggler. Perhaps it would be unfair to refer to this person as a straggler, for he was giving a spirited imitation of a foot-racer.

“Halt, there!” shouted the outraged brigadier.

The fleeing private slowed up.

“What do you mean by running away in this disgraceful manner?”

“Boss,” quavered the black man, “I ain’t been aimin’ to run away, but these yere feets of mine jest natchelly carried me out of dat mess up yonder.”

“Well, you face about and rejoin your company immediately.”

Reluctantly the unhappy soldier reversed himself and started to obey. Then he hesitated and over his shoulder he put a question:

“Who is you, to be givin’ me dese yere awders? You ain’t no cap’n, is you?”

“I am the general commanding this brigade—that’s who.”

“Lawsy me!” quoth the darky, half to himself. “I sho’ must a’ run a long ways to git clear back to where the gene’ls stay!”

The gentleman from the city had rented a country-place in the White Mountains for the summer. Returning from a walk he noted, as he neared his front gate, signs that a mishap had occurred on the road. A load of hay had been overturned while in transit. It was piled in a great shock at the edge of the highway where its weight had caused it to slide from the wagon upon which it was being moved. The team were nibbling grass in the ditch. A fourteen year old boy, dripping with perspiration, and plainly very tired from his exertion, was forking the hay back on the wagon with tremendous energy.

“What happened?” asked the gentleman—a somewhat unnecessary question in view of the evidence.

“The wheels went down in a rut,” said the boy, “and this here jag of hay turned bottom-side up.”

“Well, you look all tired out,” said the sympathetic city man. “This seems to be a pretty big job for one of your years, too. Suppose you quit for awhile and go on up to my house yonder with me and have a bite to eat and a drink of cold lemonade or buttermilk.”

“I wouldn’t dast to do that,” said the boy. “Paw wouldn’t like it ef I didn’t get this here hay put back right away.”

“Oh, that’ll be all right. Nothing is going to happen to your hay while you’re gone or to your team, either. Come along with me; I’m sure your father won’t mind.”

Half reluctantly, as though swayed by conflicting emotions the youngster laid down his fork and accompanied the hospitable stranger. Twice, during the course of the meal which was provided for him, he paused from eating to voice his fears that “Paw” would be seriously annoyed for his failure to complete the job of replacing that hay. Each time his host reassured him, meanwhile pressing fresh helpings of this and that upon his young guest.

Finally, at the end of half an hour or so, the boy pushed his chair back from the table and rose up.

“I guess I’ll be goin’ now,” he said. “Paw’ll want I should get that hay forked up. I expect he’ll be mighty pestered with me.”

“Why need your father know anything at all about it?” said the gentleman.

“Why, Paw must know about it already,” explained the youngster.

“Where is your father?” asked the city-man. “I didn’t see him as I came along.”

“He’s under the hay,” stated the youngster simply.

In a California town is an old family physician with rather a caustic wit. He was in attendance at the confinement of a lady whom we will call Mrs. A—a wife of a year. There were no complications; the affair was progressing as well as might reasonably be expected.

But the husband was in a distressful state. While sympathetic friends endeavored vainly to calm him he walked the floor of the room adjoining the sick room. At frequent intervals he beat upon the connecting door and from those within pleaded for assurance that all was going well. Yet the answers, while consoling, did not avail to soothe his agitation. What the midwife told him only seemed to harass him the more. Messages of cheer from the trained nurse were received by him with choked groaning sounds.

Finally he called through the keyhole that he must have a word personally with the officiating practitioner. The old gentleman came forth.

“Doctor,” exclaimed the suffering young man, “I’ve been waiting for hours now. I can’t stand this terrible suspense any longer. Doctor, for my own sake, please tell me what the prospects are?”

“Well, son,” said the doctor. “I can only say this to you: I’ve been bringing babies into the world for forty-odd years now—and I never lost a father yet.”

Whenever actors get together it is almost inevitable that sooner or later the subject of dramatic criticism will come up and that someone present will quote a notice favorable or unfavorable—but generally favorable—touching on his own work.

No symposium of this sort is complete without reference to the instance of tact displayed in print by a local reporter on a certain historic occasion in a small middle-Western city when ambitious non-professionals gave an incredibly awful performance of a classic drama. The newspaper man who had been detailed to cover the performance was wishful to avoid giving offence to the members of the cast yet, in honesty, he could say nothing complimentary. So he merely wrote this:

“For the benefit of the new hospital fund, our leading amateurs presented ‘Lady Audley’s Secret’ at the theatre last night before a large audience of our best townspeople. The orchestra rendered several pleasing selections and the acoustics of the hall were never better.”

Then there is the famous criticism done by an editor in Rising Sun, Indiana, when a certain native-born prodigy essayed the rôle of the melancholy Dane. The criticism ran something like this:

“Among scholars there has long been a dispute as to whether the works attributed to Shakespeare were written by Shakespeare or by Bacon. The editor of this paper has hit upon a satisfactory way of settling for all time this ancient question. Let the tombs of both be opened. The one who turned over in his grave last night was the author of Hamlet!”

I am reminded also of what Kin Hubbard, better known as “Abe Martin,” had to say years ago of a certain theatrical entertainment. For brevity and yet for completeness I think it would be hard to beat this:

“Al Jeffreys’ ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin Company’ played at the opera-house last night. The Siberian blood hound was badly supported.”

Hap Ward, the comedian, furnishes one from his own experience:

“We were playing a one-night stand in Oregon,” said Hap. “On the morning following the performance I found a notice of our show on the front page of the town paper. The opening sentence was promising—I smiled to myself as I saw it. For it read as follows:

“ ‘Ward and Vokes’ show, as given here last night, was not half bad.’

“Then I read the second sentence and quit smiling.

“ ‘On the contrary, it was all bad!’ ”

Harry Dickson, the writer, probably knows as much about the Southern negro as any white man can ever expect to know. But even so, in his search for local color and quaint lines with which to illuminate his stories, he constantly is striking a new angle of thought or a new angle of observation on the part of some one or another of his dusky neighbors down in Mississippi.

Once upon a time Dickson was on a hunting trip in a remote county. While there, he met an old negro guide, a bear-hunter of superior attainments and a person of a quaint and an original philosophy. All his life the old man had been buried at the back edge of the canebrakes. Only once or twice had he been to a large town. The dream of his life, it developed, was to see a circus. He had heard of circuses, he had talked with persons who had seen circuses and he treasured a tattered program of a circus performance which a white man had given him. But the marvels of the red wagon and the white top never had revealed themselves to him.

Learning of the old man’s ambition, Dickson had an inspiration. It was an inspiration born partly of philanthropy and partly of selfish and mercenary motives; for he scented a chance to get some prime material for one of his stories. He promised Uncle Jim that when next the circus visited Vicksburg, he, Uncle Jim, should see it.

In the middle of the following summer Ringling Brothers came along with their show. Dickson sent Uncle Jim money for his railroad fare and bade him be in Vicksburg at daylight of a certain morning. He met Uncle Jim at the train.

That day was probably the most crowded day and the most eventful in Uncle Jim’s entire life. His patron took him up into the yards to see the circus unload from the cars, and took him thence to the show lot to watch the raising of the tents. Under escort of Dickson the old negro viewed the street parade, the afternoon performance and the side-show and heard the concert. He saw it all—menagerie, hippodrome, freaks and the rest of it. His widely popped eyes and the look on his face testified to his enthrallment at beholding these wonders, but not a word either of commendation or admiration fell from his lips. Harris was rather disappointed. He had expected a constant flow of “copy.”

Still maintaining his silence, Uncle Jim trailed Dickson to his home when the day was ended. He had dinner in the kitchen with the servants and a little later was to be taken to the train which would carry him back to his home in Sunflower County. Toward dark Dickson went to the back of the house to bid his guest farewell.

Uncle Jim, with his shoes off, sat on the lowermost step of the porch easing his tired feet.

“Uncle Jim,” said Dickson, “I’m afraid you haven’t enjoyed your trip very much.”

“W’y, Mist’ Dickson,” said Uncle Jim, “whut meks you think dat? I ain’t never gwine furgit whut I seen to-day ez long ez I lives, an’ I’s always gwine be grateful to you, suh.”

“But you haven’t said anything about the circus. What made you so dumb?”

“Well, suh, my eyes beheld so much dat it seem lak my tongue forgot to wag.”

“Oh, that was it? Well, of all the things you’ve seen to-day what impressed you most?”

“All of it ’pressed me—frum de start to de finish.”

“Yes, I know, but there must have been some one thing that stands out in your mind above all the others—something that seemed to you more amazing than anything else. Think the whole day over, now, and see if you can tell me what that thing is.”

“Well, suh, Mist’ Dickson,” said Uncle Jim, after a period of reflection, “ef it comes down to jes’ one thing, I’d say de thing w’ich hit me de hardest was dat air beast w’ich dey calls de camel. Uh,—dat camel!”

“Why the camel particularly?” asked Dickson.

“Mist’ Dickson,” said Jim, “he’s got such a noble smell!”

A distinguished member of the Little Rock bar was notable for two things: his capacity for chambering good, red liquor and his ability to speak eloquently at short notice upon any conceivable subject. Oratorically, he was even as the rock which Moses smote—one cue, one suggestion, one invitation and from him there would pour a glittering, noble stream of language. One night at a banquet in his home city the toastmaster conspired with certain of the guests to play a trick upon this talented gentleman; in fact, I believe a wager was laid. The plot was launched early in the evening when he was informed that, contrary to the local custom, he would not be called upon for any remarks. Then privily, a waiter was instructed to station himself behind the chair of Colonel Doolove—that being the orator’s name—with orders to see to it that the Colonel’s toddy glass was replenished as often as he might empty it. So well did the waiter obey his orders that by the time the hour for the speech-making rolled around the Colonel appeared to be almost in a state of coma. The toastmaster felt that the moment had come for springing his surprise. Perhaps I should have stated earlier that the bet was to the effect that there was at least one toast to which the Colonel, drunk or sober, could never respond with fitting words.

With a confident wink at some of his co-conspirators the toastmaster arose, and said:

“In view of the fact that one of the guests of honor has disappointed us to-night, and in order that this feast of reason and flow of soul may properly be rounded out I am going to take the liberty of calling upon one whose name does not appear on the post-prandial program. I shall ask our distinguished friend, Colonel Doolove, to favor us with a few remarks in his inimitable style. I ask him now to speak to the toast—water.”

Groggily the Colonel rose in his place. With difficulty he fixed his wavering vision upon the company and then without further hesitation delivered himself of the following:

“Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen, I speak to-night of water. What visions does that word conjure up! What delectable thoughts does it bring to the contemplative mind. Water, I maintain, is the most beneficent, the most benign and the most beautiful of all the elements with which a generous Creator has endowed this mundane sphere.

“Is water beneficent? I ask of the rolling tides which, in obedience to the command of the Almighty, ebb and flow at their ordained times, now retreating, now advancing, upon the wave-kissed beach. I ask of the oceans which bring to us the freighted argosies of other climes. I ask of the rivers which bear upon their currents the commerce of nations, making possible communication and intercourse between peoples. Yea, verily, water is beneficent.

“Is water benign? Consider the dews which freshen the flowers of the field and make glad and glorious the summer morn. Consider the rains which descend upon the parched and arid desert, causing fragrant blossom to burgeon where before there was but sand and waste. Consider the harnessed power of dashing streams which turns the wheels and gives impetus to applied industry. Consider these things and then dare to say water is not benign!

“Is water beautiful? The answer is found in impetuous Niagara. It is found in the roaring cataract, in the purling brook, in the racing mountain torrent, and upon the bosom of the sheltered lake illumined with the glorious colors of the sinking sun, and reflecting, as a mirror, every shifting play of radiance from the skies, every dancing frond of the lofty evergreens caressed by the breezes of the evening. It is found in the teardrop of the mother as she bids her son go forth to fight for his imperiled country.

“Never, while man has speech, is it to be gainsaid that water is beneficent, that it is benign, that it is beautiful. But, gentlemen, as a beverage it is a dadburned failure!”

“Rabin,” said Mr. Moscovitz to his friend, “I think I have lost a pocketbook with two hundred dollars in it.”

“Have you looked for it good?” asked Mr. Rabin.

“Sure I have looked,” said the desolated one. “I have looked in all my coat pockets, in all my vest pockets, in my front pants pockets and in one of my hip pockets—and nowheres it ain’t there.”

“Why don’t you look in the other hip pocket?” asked Mr. Rabin.

“Because,” said the stricken Mr. Moscovitz, “that’s the last pocket I got.”

“Vell, vot of it?”

“Because, Rabin, if I should look in that pocket and still it ain’t there, then I drop dead.”

It must be all of thirty-five years now since the thing happened. But the memory of it still abides in my mind, as the finest exhibition of spontaneous humor that ever came within my own experience.

I was a small boy in a Kentucky town. John Robinson’s circus paid us its annual visit. For the afternoon performance, my father took me and my younger brother and half a dozen little girls and boys, the children of neighbors, along with him. At the last moment two old ladies joined the party. One of them lived across the street from us and the other just around the corner. Mrs. Slawson, the senior of the pair, was exceedingly deaf. She used one of those old-fashioned, flexible rubber ear-trumpets with a tip at one end and a bell-like aperture at the other. Her crony, Mrs. Ream, had a high-pitched, far-carrying voice.

On a blue-painted bench, with the old ladies at one end, my father at the other and the row of youngsters in between, we watched the show. The time came for the crowning feature of a circus of those times. Perhaps the reader is of sufficient age to recall what this was. Elephants and camels and horses would be close-ranked at the foot of a springboard. Along a steep runway, which slanted down to this springboard, would flash in order, one behind another, the full strength of the troupe. The acrobats would tumble over the backs of the animals to alight gracefully upon a thick padded mattress. The clowns would sprawl on the backs of the living obstacles. Always there was one clown who, dashing down the runway, would suddenly halt and fling his peaked cap across. There was another, dressed as a country woman, who, as he somersaulted, lost a pair of bifurcated white garments, while the audience whooped its delight.

This season, though, a culminating treat had been provided by the management: The lesser gymnasts had done their stunts. Now, to the head of the runway mounted the premier tumbler. He stood there grandly erect in his rose-colored fleshings, his arms folded across his swelling breast and his head almost touching the sagging canvas of the tentroof. The band, for the moment, stopped playing. The ringmaster mounted the ring-back and proclaimed that Johnnie O’Brien, foremost athlete of the world, would now perform his death-defying and unparalleled feat of turning a triple somersault over two elephants, three camels and four horses! For many this announcement had a special interest; they knew Johnnie O’Brien was a native-born son of our town.

So an expectant hush fell upon the assemblage. Mrs. Slawson turned to Mrs. Ream, and in the silence her voice rose as she asked:

“What did he say?”

Mrs. Ream brought the blunderbus end of Mrs. Slawson’s ear-trumpet to her lips and, through its sinuous black length, in a voice so shrill that instantly every head there was turned toward the pair of them, she answered:

“He says that that pretty man up yonder with the pink clothes on is goin’ to jump over all those animals without hurtin’ himself!”

On the sawdust, in his baggy white clothes, squatted one of the clowns. On the instant he leaped to his feet, ran to the head of the larger elephant, and in both hands seized that creature’s long black dangling trunk which now, as everyone saw, looked so amazingly like Mrs. Slawson’s ear-trumpet, and raising its tip to his mouth he shrieked out in a magnificent imitation of Mrs. Ream’s falsetto notes:

“He says that that there pretty man up yonder with the pink clothes——”

If he finished the sentence, none there heard him. From every side of the arena there arose a tremendous gasp of joyous appreciation and, overtopping and engulfing this, a universal roar of laughter which billowed the tent. Strong men dropped through the seats like ripened plums from the bough and lay upon the earth choking with laughter. The performers rolled about in the ring.

And through it all Mrs. Slawson and Mrs. Ream sat there wondering why the band did not play and why the pretty man in the pink clothes up at the top of the runway seemed to be having a convulsion.

[THE END]

Transcriber’s Note:

A few obvious punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Four stories were missing from the Contents and have been added, 119, 306, 342 and 366.

[End of A Laugh a Day Keeps the Doctor Away by Irvin S. Cobb]