A prominent citizen of an Oregon town was an ardent believer in the cult of mental-healing. Wherever possible this gentleman, with the zeal of a devotee, preached his doctrine. One day on the main street he hailed an impressionable youth from the country.
“Billy,” he said, “how’s your daddy?”
“Oh,” said the youth, “paw’s mighty bad off. He’s been porely all spring. Now he’s down flat in bed and ailin’ stiddy. We’re feared paw’s powerful sick. He’s feared, too.”
“Nonsense,” snorted the older man. “Your father isn’t sick—he only thinks he’s sick. Tell him I said so.”
“Yessir, I will.”
A fortnight later the same pair met again in the same place.
“Billy,” said the citizen cheerily, “how’s your father now?”
The youngster heaved a deep sigh:
“He thinks he’s dead.”
The hero of this story was one of those persons who accept whatever happens as a manifestation of the divine power. It was not for him to question the workings of a mysterious Providence.
Misfortune dogged his footsteps, yet never once did he complain. His wife ran away with the hired man. His daughter married a ne’er-do-well who deserted her; his son landed in the penitentiary; a cyclone destroyed his residence, a hailstorm spoiled his crop and the holder of the mortgage foreclosed on his farm. Yet at each fresh stroke he knelt and returned thanks to the Almighty for mercies vouchsafed.
Eventually, pauperized but still submissive to the decrees from on high, he landed at the county poorhouse. The overseer sent him out one day to plow a potato field. A thunderstorm came up but was passing by when without warning a bolt of lightning descended from the sky. It melted the ploughshare, stripped most of his garments from him, singed off his beard and mustache, branded him on the back with the initials of an utter stranger, and hurled him through a brush-fence.
Slowly he got upon his knees, clasped his hands and raised his eyes toward heaven. Then, for the first time, the worm turned:
“Lord,” he said, “this is gittin’ to be plum’ rediculous!”
Somebody was reminded the other day—and, by the same token reminded me—of one that I hadn’t heard for at least ten years. The best authorities agree that a good story stands revival every five years.
As the tale runs, the parish priest called on a well-to-do parishioner named Kelly, for a substantial contribution to the fund for purchasing a bronze bell for the church. Mr. Kelly was in a generous mood. He gave a larger sum than any other member of the congregation gave.
The bell was purchased and installed. Meeting Mr. Kelly a few days later, the clergyman said:
“What do you think of the new bell?”
“I’m sorry I gave a cint,” said Mr. Kelly, shortly. “If I’d known what was goin’ to happen ye’d have had no money from me.”
“You astonish me,” said the Father. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I’ll tell ye what’s wrong with it,” said Mr. Kelly; “whin that bell rings do ye hear it speakin’ me name? Ye do not. All ye hear it sayin’ is: ‘Doolan, Donlan, Donovan, Dugan!’ ”
This was a favorite with Mark Twain. Whether he made it up or whether he had it from other sources and merely stood sponsor for it I have no way of knowing.
Twain said that a Nantucket sailor fell in love with a girl in his home town. She objected to his habits but promised if he took the pledge she would consider his suit favorably.
In his desire to win the young woman the suitor was willing to go farther even than that. He made application in the local Total Abstinence League, and on the same evening sailed on a whaling voyage. According to Clemons, he was gone nearly two years and during the entire time touched not a drop of strong drink. His mouth watered when the other members of the crew downed their grog allowances, but he, as befitting a good templar, stood fast.
The voyage ended. The reformed one hurried to his sweetheart’s house to claim her hand. A shock awaited him. For eight months she had been the wife of a stay-at-home citizen.
“But,” expostulated the poor sea-faring man, “you told me that if I would join that temperance lodge you’d be waiting for me when I got back.”
“Oh,” said the young matron, “you never heard the news, did you?”
“What news?”
“That very night, about two hours after you sailed, you were blackballed.”
This one is dedicated to pessimists and is included in this book especially for their consideration.
The setting is a country store. The proprietor is reading a newspaper which has just arrived from the city.
Uncle Henry, the official grouch of the neighborhood, bites off a chew of tobacco and masticates it with a morose intensity. This done, he is moved to ask a question:
“Ezra,” he says, addressing the storekeeper, “I persoom that durned paper is jest as dull to-night as ’tis every other night in the week. No news wuth tellin’, I reckin?”
“Well,” says the proprietor, “there’s one item on the front page that’s sort of interestin’. It says here that a lot of those scientists all over the world are gettin’ together in a scheme to change the calendar and have thirteen months to the year instead of twelve.” Uncle Henry gives a low despairing moan:
“It’ll be jest my luck for it to be a winter month an’ me plum’ out o’ fodder!”
A gentleman who evidently thought well of himself entered a restaurant and with commanding mien beckoned the head-waiter to him. He ordered a seven course dinner, winding up with this instruction to the obsequious servitor:
“Now, don’t forget to tell the cook that these things are for Colonel Brown—understand, Colonel Brown. Just mention my name to him and he’ll understand.”
A person of mild aspect had been a witness to this. As the head-waiter turned over Colonel Brown’s order to an underling the mild man caught his eye.
“Just a minute, please,” said the second patron. “I want to give an order, too. Got any fresh clams?”
“Yes, sir, some very fine clams to-day.”
“Good. Here’s my visiting card. Now go down to the cellar, open twenty-four clams, put ’em on some cracked ice, and while you’re doing it, mention my name to every damn’ one of ’em.”
To realize what the antiquity of this one is you first must look up the date of General Tom Thumb’s death and then hark still farther back to the yet more remote period when that little man was at the height of his fame.
Under the management of P. T. Barnum, the most famous of all our dwarfs was touring the country. Between engagements he stopped over Sunday at a country hotel in New England.
A lady of the neighborhood called and sent up her card with the request that she be permitted to meet the General. The message was received by a member of Barnum’s staff, who happened at the moment to be in the General’s room. This person, who was six feet tall and broad in proportion, and also something of a wit, asked that the lady be shown up.
Presently she knocked at the door and he answered it.
“I am looking,” she said, “for General Tom Thumb.”
“Madam,” he said, “proceed to look.”
“Surely you are not the celebrated midget?” she cried.
“Certainly I am,” he answered. “But just at the present moment, Madam, I happen to be resting.”
A person who had been so incautious as to sample a bootlegger’s wares was endeavoring to negotiate the opening into a hat store. Another man, who was perfectly sober and apparently had no sympathy with any persons who also were not perfectly sober, shoved the inebriated one aside and entered the establishment. The jostled person, straightening himself with difficulty, followed through the door.
Just inside a salesman bowed before the sober man.
“I want a hat,” said the latter. “A derby hat. Size 6-7/8.”
Having found a hat to his liking he departed. The clerk turned to the soused individual, who, while the sale was in progress, had been regarding the first purchaser with a baleful eye.
“And what can I do for you, sir?” inquired the clerk.
“I want a lid, too.”
“Yes sir. What size?”
“Whasch size ’at other feller take?”
“6-7/8.”
“Alri’—then gimme 9-10-11!”
In the old days there was an ex-miner who opened a hotel in Reno, Nevada. Alongside the clerk’s desk he installed a cigar-stand and stocked it.
One day a traveling man, who had sold him his original supply and who was in the habit of serving him, dropped in and inquired whether there was anything in his line that the proprietor desired to-day.
“Sure, pard,” said the ex-miner. “You kin ship me another thousand of them Madero cigars. You needn’t send me any more of them punks made by Colorado Madero. And say, who in thunder is this young Clara Madero who’s busted into the cigar business and is tryin’ to git away with it by tradin’ on the family name?
“Me for old man Madero—to hell with his relatives!”
I do not know why it is that nearly all the stories having to do with frugality should be aimed at the Scot. Your average Scotchman does not particularly wish to hoard his money; he merely desires that when he spends it, he shall obtain a proper return.
You know of course the ancient conundrum which was printed years ago in London Punch. As I recall it, this conundrum ran as follows:
“How, at the conclusion of a railroad journey, can you definitely fix the nationality of an English passenger, an Irish passenger, and a Scotch passenger?”
The answer was:
“The Englishman hurries to the lunch-stand; the Irishman hastens to the bar; the Scotchman goes back through the train to see if anybody left anything.”
Here recently, a friend fired this one at me:
“Why,” he asked, “have the Scotch a sense of humor?”
“All right,” I asked, “I’ll bite; tell me, Mr. Bones, why have the Scotch a sense of humor?”
“Because,” he said, “it’s a gift.”
A still later addition to the crop has just been received. It is stated that an Englishman, standing treat to a Scotchman at a pub recommended that his guest try some very fine brandy which the establishment had in stock at three shillings a drink. With glistening eyes the Scotchman agreed. He waited until the bar-maid had poured out the brandy and then with a sudden leap he pounced upon the glass, seizing it in both hands as in a vise.
“Why do you do that, old dear?” asked the astonished host.
“Because,” said the Scotchman, “when I was a verra young man, back in Edinburgh in the year 1862, I saw one of them spilled.”
An aged couple from the East Side were visiting their married daughter in Brooklyn. One afternoon on a sight-seeing stroll they drifted into a near-by cemetery.
Presently, a huge marble mausoleum caught their eye. They halted before it in admiration.
“Ain’t that peautiful!” said the old man. “I pet you, Esther, that cost fully dwenty thousand dollars. Who is buried there, I wonder?”
His wife, whose eyesight was better than his, spelled out the name carved over the entrance to the tomb.
“It says: ‘August Kohn.’ ”
“August Kohn, huh?—so! Then it must be the millionaire silk-goods importer vot’s puried there.” He wagged his beard in tribute. “Vell, them rich peoples certainly do live vell.”
This is one of my standbys. Every time I hear it—and I hear it on an average of at least four times a year—I like it better. I hope the reader may feel the same way about it.
The principal characters are an Irishman, with red whiskers, and a Hebrew with black whiskers. They fall into an argument over the relative glories of the two great races they severally represent. It is finally proposed by the Semitic debater that for every great Jew he names he shall be permitted to pluck one hair from his adversary’s face. For every famous Irishman listed the other man may claim the tribute of a hair from the Jew’s beard. The first to cry enough, or the first to be entirely denuded will be the loser.
A chosen referee gives the signal for the start. It is the Jew’s turn.
“Moses,” he cries, and yanks a hair from the Irishman’s chin.
“Brian Boru,” shouts his opponent.
“Abraham.”
“St. Patrick.”
“Baron Hirsch.”
“Daniel O’Connell.”
“Rothschild.”
“Jawn L. Sullivan.”
Inspiration seizes the Hebrew.
“The Twelve Apostles,” he whoops exultingly, and snatches an even dozen of auburn hairs from where they grew.
With a triumphant whooroo the Irishman fixes both his hands in the Hebrew’s beard:
“The A.O.H.!” he bellows, and brings away the entire crop.
An amateur investigator made a trip to a state lunatic asylum. While strolling about the grounds he happened upon an old man of a benign aspect sitting under a tree.
“Good evening,” said the venerable gentleman. “A stranger here I assume?”
“Yes,” said the caller. “I am. I take it that you, too, are a visitor.”
“Unfortunately,” said the old gentleman, “I am an inmate.”
“But—pardon me—but you don’t look like——” began the astonished stranger.
“I’m not, either,” said the old gentleman. “My son, I am the victim of circumstances. Members of my family coveted my property. On trumped up charges they had me declared of unsound mind, and I was railroaded off from my home and brought to this place where I have ever since been in confinement. And yet, if only the truth were known, I am engaged in a great scientific literary work—an undertaking which has busied me for many years and which, if justice is ever done, will some day make my name famous throughout the English-speaking world.”
“And what, may I ask, is this work?”
“I am engaged,” said the old gentleman, “in compiling a complete index to The Unabridged Dictionary.”
In an effort to link practice with preaching, the Sunday-school teacher asked her class of small boys to recite appropriate quotations from the Scriptures as they added their free will offerings to the regular collection. The youngsters had a week in which to find and memorize suitable texts.
On the following Sunday the scholars advanced, one by one, each with a coin ready and his brow furrowed by the effort of trying to remember the quotation he meant to deliver.
First, as was fitting, came the brag pupil and, as he deposited a dime in the plate, he said:
“The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.”
“Beautiful,” said the teacher approvingly. “Now, Harry, what are you going to say?”
“The liberal soul shall be made fat.”
“Willie?”
“Whoso giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord.”
“Bobby?”
“Freely thou hast received, freely give.”
“Very good, indeed. Tommy, it’s your turn next.”
Tommy’s hand came slowly forth from his pocket, bringing a penny.
“A fool and his money are soon parted,” said Tommy.
Late in life, Messrs. Abrams and Jacobs took up golf. Both were retired cloak and suit merchants of the type made famous in Montague Glass’s immortal stories.
On a glorious September afternoon they were going over the links of their country-club. They were playing for a stake of a dollar a hole, and the competition was spirited.
Mr. Abrams drove into a bunker. With his iron he made four ineffectual swipes, raising the sand in clouds. Then he stooped down, picked up the half buried ball and tossed it out on the fairway.
Mr. Jacobs stiffened with indignation.
“Look a’ here!” he whooped. “You couldn’t do that. It’s against the rules.”
“I already have done it,” said Mr. Abrams, calmly.
“But again I tell you it’s against the rules,” declared Mr. Jacobs. “I have been playing this game longer as you have and I tell you it says in the book where you should not touch the ball with your hands at all. What am I going to do if by such tricks as that you should win the match?”
“Sue me,” said Mr. Abrams.
A few months ago an English illustrated paper published a joke which struck me as having merit. When I repeated it in company a gentleman who is supposed to know nearly all the jokes in the world told me that in slightly different guise the same wheeze was current on the Pacific Coast twenty years ago. He may or may not have been wrong. In any event, I like the British version.
A couple from the country have come up to London for a week’s visit. They have seats in the first gallery for a performance of a society drama. To them the play proves exceedingly tiresome. In one of the intervals the husband, stifling a yawn, turns to his deeply bored wife:
“What comes next?” he asks.
She consults the program.
“It says ’ere, ‘Act four, sime as Act one.’ ”
“Ow!” he exclaims, “let’s ’op it. I couldn’t sit through all that hawful mess again.”
A brawny negro prize-fighter made application at an athletic club which was putting on a series of bouts, for an opportunity to meet some suitable opponent. He announced that he was a dark cloud, a whirlwind, a tempest, a tornado, a hurricane and a sirocco.
His language impressed the match-maker and for the preliminary go he was entered against a dependable colored scrapper. The stranger made a deplorable showing. For two rounds his opponent hammered him all over the ring. Early in the third round the beaten darky decided he had enough. He took an easy poke on the jaw and flattened out on the canvas to be counted out.
The referee was halfway through with his tally when disgust moved him to interpolate a speech:
“Say, nigger,” he growled out of the corner of his mouth, “you ain’t hurt. Get up from there! Ain’t you goin’ to fight any more?”
Without stirring from his comfortable recumbent position the whirlwind made answer:
“Oh, yassuh, I’m gwine fight some mo’—but not to-night!”
Two professional confidence-men made the acquaintance of a wealthy sportsman. He admired their sprightliness while privately deploring their vocation.
When the acquaintance had ripened into friendship he invited them to shoot in his private preserve. Before daylight they were paddled out in a skiff and put in a blind which, the night before, had been stocked with wooden decoys. There the guide left them, for the time being.
As the dawn began to break, one of the pair suddenly was aware of the wooden birds bobbing about in front of him. The light was poor and he was green at the duck-shooting game. He arose and fired both barrels of his gun into the flock.
His partner straightened up, took one look, and cried out in distress:
“My God! You’re shootin’ the boosters!”
A few months after the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect a Texan passed from this life.
While the funeral services were in progress at the late home of the deceased, two of the men mourners stood on the front porch of the house lamenting the passing of their friend and praising his virtues.
Said one of them:
“There wasn’t no finer feller anywhere than what Bill was, but the main trouble with him was he wasn’t forehanded. He had a wife and a whole passel of children and he should a-been more saving than what he was. He might a-knowed he couldn’t live on forever. But no, he lived up to everything he made. And here now, right in the very prime of life, with a family on his hands, he gets sick and dies without leaving no estate as I knows of.”
“The hell he didn’t leave no estate!” exclaimed the other. “He left mighty nigh a gallon!”
When the Union troops under Grant, early in the Civil War, took possession of West Kentucky, some difficulty was encountered in controlling the populace, for that end of the state was a hot-bed of Southern sentiment. General Grant issued proclamations stating that no citizen would be molested unless he undertook to give aid and comfort to the enemy.
In one town in the invaded district, though, there was an elderly gentleman whose sympathies with the Southern cause were especially outspoken. Whenever word came of a victory for the Southern armies his jubilation was undisguised.
The Union provost-marshal, hearing complaints from his men of this man’s actions and words, decided to make an example of him. He sent a squad to arrest the offender and presently, under guard, the old gentleman was brought before him.
“Look here,” said the officer, “I’m getting tired of your behavior. Every few days I hear that you’ve been going about again spreading reports that our forces have been defeated. Now then, I’ve decided to reform you. Either you take the oath of allegiance to the Union right now or off you go to a military prison. Which shall it be?”
The prisoner decided to take the oath. After it had been administered the officer felt that a further admonition might be in order. “Now then,” he said, “I hope you understand what this thing means? If ever again you utter a word of disparagement for the Union cause or a word of approval for the Confederates, and I hear of it, you’ll suffer severely; because now you’re a loyal Unionist. A single disloyal remark makes you guilty of treason.”
The reclaimed one thanked him for the warning. On his way out he stopped at the door.
“Major,” he said, “they ain’t no law against thinkin’, is they?”
“That depends,” said the Major. “What’s in your mind now?”
“Well,” said the Kentuckian, “I was just thinkin’ that them Rebels certainly did give us fellers hell day before yistiddy down below the state line.”
Some fifteen years ago there landed in New York a friendless and almost penniless Russian immigrant who found lodgings on the East Side and at once, with racial perseverance and energy, set out to earn a living.
He was of a likeable disposition, and speedily made acquaintances who sought to aid him in his ambition. One of them sponsored him for the vacant post of janitor, or shammos, to use the common Hebraic word, of a little synagogue on a side street. But when the officers of the congregation found out the applicant was entirely illiterate they reluctantly denied him employment, inasmuch as a shammos must keep certain records. The greenhorn quickly rallied from his disappointment. He got a job somewhere. He prospered. Presently he became a dabbler in real-estate.
Within ten years he was one of the largest independent operators in East Side tenement-house property and popularly rated as a millionaire. An occasion arose when he needed a large amount of money to swing what promised to be a profitable deal. Finding himself for the moment short of cash, he went to the East Side branch of one of the large banks.
It was the first time in his entire business career that he had found it necessary to borrow extensively. He explained his position to the manager, who knew of his success, and asked for a loan of fifty thousand dollars.
“I’ll be very glad to accommodate you, Mr. Rabin,” said the banker. “Just sit down there at that desk and make out a note for the amount.”
The caller smiled an embarrassed smile.
“If you please,” he said, “you should be so good as to make out the note and then I should sign it.”
“What’s the idea?” inquired the bank manager, puzzled.
“Vell, you see,” he confessed, “I haf to tell you somethings: Myself, I cannot read and write. My vife, she has taught me how to make my own name on paper, but otherwise, with me, reading and writing is nix.”
In amazement the banker stared at him.
“Well, well, well!” he murmured admiringly. “And yet, handicapped as you’ve been, inside of a few years you have become a rich man! I wonder what you’d have been by now if only you had been able to read and write?”
“A shammos,” said Mr. Rabin modestly.
A group of wealthy Southerners, Virginians and Carolinians mostly, were on a train returning from a meeting of the National Fox-Hunting Association. Naturally the talk dealt largely with the sport of which they were devotees. A lank Vermonter, who apparently had never done much traveling, was an interested auditor of the conversation.
Presently, when the company in the smoking-compartment had thinned out, he turned to one of the party who had stayed on. He wanted to know how many horses the Southerner kept for fox-hunting purposes and how large a pack of hounds he maintained and about how many foxes on an average he killed in the course of a season.
The Southerner told him. In silence for a minute or two the Vermonter mulled the disclosures over in his mind.
Then he said:
“Wall, with fodder fetchin’ such high prices, and with dog-meat for hounds a-costin’ what it must cost, and with fox pelts as cheap as they are in the open market, and takin’ one thing with another, I don’t see how you kin expect to clear much money out of this business in the course of a year.”
Two ball teams, made up of inmates of San Quentin in California, played a game for the prison championship. One team was composed of negroes, the other of white men.
In the seventh inning, with the score a tie, the pitcher for the colored team, a long-term man, grew nervous under the strain. He wound up too quickly. In his haste he made wild pitches. He gave two opposing batters their bases on balls.
Over on the side lines a negro rooter raised his voice in steadying words to the champion of his race:
“Tek yo’ time, black boy,” he clarioned. “Tek yo’ time! You ain’t needin’ to be in no hurry. You got a-plenty time to win dis game—you got nineteen yeahs!”
The late Tom Williams dropped into a gambling house in Reno, Nevada, one night, and, playing roulette, speedily dropped his roll, but not before he had made up his mind that the game was crooked.
On his way downstairs in deep disgust he met the proprietor, Long Brown.
“What kind of a dump is this you’re running?” demanded Williams. “I’ve just been skinned out of four hundred dollars.”
“Who brought you in here?” said Brown.
“I brought myself in,” said Williams.
“Oh, if that’s the case,” said Brown, “I owe you eighty dollars.”
“How come?”
“Well, you see, I pay twenty per cent. apiece for all suckers that are steered in. You appear to have steered yourself in. Here’s your eighty.”
Two scholars, a Frenchman and an Italian, were having an argument. Each insisted his own country had produced the most distinguished literary figure that had ever lived.
“Dante,” said the Italian, “was the greatest of all writers. Dante went to hell.”
“Bah!” cried the Frenchman, “Baudelaire was a thousand times greater than Dante. Baudelaire came from hell.”
A certain newspaper proprietor in New York who always was—and still is, even in these prohibition days—a total abstainer, dropped into the office just before press time, and found the assistant managing editor in charge.
“Where’s Blank?” he asked, naming the managing editor.
“Off on one of those periodical tears of his,” answered the assistant.
“Where’s the city editor?”
“Pie-eyed—down in Perry’s bar.”
“I didn’t see the make-up editor as I came through the composing-room. What’s become of him?”
“He’s in a Turkish bath over in Brooklyn, getting a bun boiled out of him.”
The proprietor dropped into a chair, shaking his head sadly.
“Well,” he said, “for a person who never touches a drop I seem to suffer more from the effects of drunkenness than any man in this town.”
A self-made Western millionaire built the finest house in his home town. He imported decorators to furnish it, and managed to get it finished by the time his eldest son arrived from the East, where the youth had been completing his education.
The proud father escorted the young man through the shining new mansion, followed by the other members of the household. When the grand tour had been completed the millionaire inquired whether the son had any suggestions to make.
“Well,” said the young man, “to me it seems complete in every possible detail except one.”
“What’s missin’?” demanded the parent.
“You ought to have a chandelier in the music-room,” said the boy.
“All right,” said the father. “I’ll order one by telegraph to-night, but I’ll bet a thousand dollars there ain’t a damn one in the family can play it.”
The pastor of a colored church in Louisiana was haled before the board of deacons on serious charges. It was alleged that, although married, he had been caught in the act of embracing a comely female member of the congregation, in the vestry room. The evidence against him appeared to be conclusive. Three presumably unbiased witnesses testified to the fact.
The accused was asked whether he had anything to say in his own defense. He answered at length and with eloquence. He led off by pointing out that the word “pastor” was a Latin word meaning “shepherd.” Therefore, he properly was a shepherd. He also called the attention of the court to the fact that in pictures and paintings and more frequently in stained-glass memorial windows the Master Himself was shown as a shepherd, carrying a lamb.
Now then, he contended, it naturally followed that when he, as the shepherd, took a member of his flock in his arms, he merely was carrying out the Scriptural example.
In the minds of the deacons there seemed to be no way of controverting these arguments. Accordingly they went into executive session and drew up resolutions exonerating the preacher. But they added a proviso.
The concluding clause of the document, as read by the senior deacon before the congregation on the following Sunday night, ran as follows:
“And, be it finally resolved, ef in future our beloved pastor should feel de desire stealin’ over him to tek one of de lambs of de flock in his arms, dat he shall tek a ram lamb!”
A London firm received from a merchant in Porto Rico a letter which, properly framed, now hangs on the walls of the home office—proof in denial of the ancient libel that the English don’t know a joke when they see it.
The letter read as follows:
“Why, for God’s sake, you send me pump without handle? My customer hollar like hell for water.
“P. S.—Since writing I find the dam handle in the box.”
Mr. Jones was one of those nervous persons, and inclined to hypochondria. His imagination, from time to time, afflicted him with maladies which never really materialized. Nevertheless, his devoted wife continued to share his apprehensions at each fresh alarm.
One afternoon, long before his usual hour for returning from business, he fell into the house. His face was white as chalk, and in his eyes was a stricken look. He was bent forward. He tottered to a chair, and, still curled into a half-moon shape, dropped into it.
“Maria,” he gasped, “it’s come at last! I’ll never be a well man again!”
“Merciful Heavens!” she cried. “Henry, what has happened?”
“There was no warning,” he said. “All of a sudden, a while ago, I found I couldn’t straighten up. I can’t lift my head. I feel all drawn.”
“Is there any pain?” she asked, fluttering about in her distress.
“No,” he said, “there’s no pain—that’s what makes me think it must be paralysis. Run for the doctor!”
She ran. Returning in a few minutes, she brought with her the family physician. She ushered him into the room where the sufferer was and waited at the door, wringing her hands and dreading the worst.
Almost immediately the physician emerged. He had his face in his hands and his shoulders heaved and shook as though under the stress of an uncontrollable emotion.
“Oh, doctor,” cried the agonized Mrs. Jones, “is there any hope for him?”
“Well, madam,” he said, “it’ll help a good deal if he’ll unhitch the third buttonhole of his vest from the top button of his trousers.”
Two typical wayfarers of the Bowery, penniless and tattered and with their feet half out of their wrecked shoes, were limping through the crooked streets of Chinatown. One of them found a small vial containing cocaine which, presumably, had been dropped by a dope fiend.
The tramps had heard many times of the stimulating and invigorating effects of this drug. Also, from association with habitués they knew the common method of taking it. They decided to experiment.
The finder uncorked the vial, poured a quantity of the white crystals into the palm of his hand and sniffed the stuff up his nostrils. His companion finished the bottle.
The effect was magical. They straightened their bent figures, drew their rags about them and stepped out briskly. Presently one of them spoke. There was a bloom in his cheeks and his eyes glistened:
“I’ve about decided,” he said, “to make a few investments. I’m going to buy all the diamond mines in South Africa and after I’ve done that I’m going to buy all the gold mines in Australia.”
His transformed partner made answer:
“Hold on,” he said, “I don’t know that I’m prepared to sell ’em!”
My father, for the greater part of his life, was in the steamboat business. He was an official of a company operating packets on the lower Ohio River. The headquarters of the line was the gathering place of pilots, captains, mates, clerks and engineers—a collection of quaint types and homely philosophers. I was a small boy but I still remember it as though it were yesterday, when on a summer afternoon the talk drifted to the subject of mules. Somebody ventured the opinion that the mule was a stupid animal.
Instantly our champion romancer spoke up:
“Don’t you believe it,” he said. “The average mule has got more sense than the average horse has got. What’s more, every mule has got something that no horse ever had—and that’s imagination. Why, I know of an instance when a mule was killed by the power of his own imagination.
“It happened forty years ago when I was a young shaver, on my uncle’s farm up the Tennessee River. My uncle owned an old gray mule. He had the mule on pasture in a ten-acre lot. In the middle of the lot was a log crib full of popcorn.
“Along about the middle of July came the most terrific hot spell that ever occurred in this country. The thermometer went to 118 in the shade and stayed right there day and night for three weeks. At the end of the third week, on the hottest day of all, the sun set fire to the roof of that corncrib and it burned to the ground. Naturally, the heat popped all the corn and it fell three inches deep, all over that ten-acre lot. The mule thought it was snow and laid down in its tracks and froze to death.”
Whether we expect to go there or not, stories about Heaven almost always have an appeal for us. Here is one which has done service for a good many years:
An exceedingly rich man who had been noted all his life for taking a good and a loving care of his money, passed away. In due time he knocked at the Golden Gate and craved admission to the Celestial City. St. Peter received his application. The Angel Gabriel was called in, also, to pass on the petition.
“Your name,” said the Saint, “is not entirely unfamiliar to us. We have heard of you while you were on the earth. I ask you now to search your mind and see whether you can recall any deed ever done by you in the flesh which, in your opinion, entitles you to enter Paradise and dwell among the blessed. Under a new ruling the record of a single noble act will secure admittance.”
The millionaire gave himself over to intensive thought.
“Well, there was one thing,” he finally said, “of which I was always very proud. One cold winter’s night on the street I met a little crippled newsboy. He was crying. I stopped and spoke to him. He said he cried because he couldn’t sell his papers; so I bought a paper from him. The price, of it was only a penny, but I gave him three pennies for it.”
“Excuse me for one moment,” said St. Peter. “I must ask my confrère to consult the files and see whether your statement is correct.”
The Angel Gabriel looked through the Doomsday book and, finding there a certain entry, nodded his head. St. Peter and Gabriel consulted together in low tones. It appeared that they could not go behind the returns. At length Gabriel slammed the covers of the great volume together and exclaimed:
“Oh, just give him back his three cents and tell him to go to hell!”
For years, a certain worthy and highly intelligent old colored woman did our family washing. One Saturday night after she had fetched the week’s laundry she sat in the kitchen of our home before she started on her return trip to her own house a mile and a half away. My mother came to the kitchen door to chat with her a little while.
From remarks which the old woman let fall, my mother gathered that Aunt Milly, although very devout, did not seem to care deeply for the present pastor of her church.
“Mis’ Manie,” said Aunt Milly, “I’m goin’ tell you how I put that there biggety preachin’ man in his place. Yere yistiddy evenin’ jest ’fo’ suppertime, I wuz settin’ on my front po’ch w’en the Rev’n Rogers come along by. He sees me settin’ there an’ he stops an’ fumbles wid the gate latch an’ he sez to me he sez, ‘Sist’ Carter, I would have speech with thee?’—jest lak that.
“Now, Mis’ Manie, I ain’t aimin’ to let no nigger whatsoever, even ef he is a min’ster of the gospel, use mo’ stylish language ’en whut I kin. So I sez right back to him, I sez, ‘Rev’n, draw nigh an’ ye shall be heard!’
“So he undo the gate an’ come on up the walk to my do’step. But no sooner do he start in to speak ’en I know whut ’tis he’s fixin’ to say. He fixin’ to ax my sympathy on ’count of that tore-down limb of a onmarried daughter of his’n havin’ got herse’f mixed up in a scandalizin’ an’ bein’ tawked about all over the neighborhood. So, jest soon ez I sees whut he’s drivin’ at, I th’ows up my right hand like this, an’ I sez to him, I sez,
“ ‘Rev’n,’ I sez, ‘hold! Yere last fall,’ I sez, ‘w’en my husband, Isaiah Carter, at the age of seventy-fo’ w’en he should a’knowed better, wuz mekin’ hisse’f kind of promisc’us by hangin’ ’round two of the lady members of the congregation, an’ I went to you,’ I sez, ‘an’ axed you, az the pastor, to ’monstrate wid him, whut did you do? Jest because he’d done give you five dollars fur the new organ fund, you tole me to shet up my black mouth an’ go on home an’ ’tend to my own bizness.’
“ ‘Rev’n,’ I sez, ‘ez ye sows, so shall ye reap! Rev’n, pass on!’ ”
Marjorie, aged four, marched into the grocer’s to tell the news.
“We’ve got a new baby brother up at our house,” she said.
“You don’t tell me!” said the grocer. “Is he going to stay with you?”
“I guess so,” said Marjorie; “he’s got his things off.”
An Eastern college professor, on his first visit to Yellowstone Park, attempted to study at close range the grizzly bears that came down to the garbage heaps back of the Fountain Hotel for their provender. An irritable she-bear, with a cub in tow, resented his scientific curiosity. She hauled off and slapped him about fifteen feet and was preparing to claw him when Mrs. Professor came running up, armed with an umbrella, and by opening and closing it repeatedly, so frightened the bear that she departed without doing any serious injury to the startled investigator.
On the following day, two cowboys who, in the season, served as park guides, were discussing the affair. Said the first one:
“I claim that was a powerful brave woman, takin’ her own life in her hands to save that fool husband of hers.”
“I don’t see nothin’ so brave about it,” said his friend. “Anybody would do that.”
“Like hell they would! Spose’n some bear had your wife down and was fixin’ to claw her to death—what would you do?”
“Me? I’d give three loud ringin’ cheers.”
It is set forth that during the Civil War a young officer in the Union Army was taking a stroll along a road in Virginia when he met an old negro man and engaged him in conversation. The ancient darky returned such quaint answers to the Northerner’s questions that the latter was moved to quiz him humorously.
“Uncle,” he said, “you know, don’t you, that this war between us and the Rebs is largely on your account?”
“Yas, sah, dat’s whut I done heared ’em say.”
“Well, you crave to have your freedom, don’t you?”
“I ’spects I does.”
“Then why aren’t you in the army yourself?”
The negro scratched his head reflectively.
“Boss,” he said, at length, “did you ever see two dawgs fightin’ over a bone?”
“Yes, many a time.”
“Well, wuz de bone fightin’?”
In a high state of excitement little Evelyn runs into the house.
“Oh, mother!” she cries out. “Our pussy-cat has got some kittens and I didn’t even know she was married!”
Two Irishmen, newly landed, got jobs as laborers in a small machine shop on the second story of a loft-building, so-called, on the lower West Side of New York. Under the fire regulations, smoking by the operatives was not permitted while they were on duty. During their first morning in the new place one of the green hands, whose name was Donlan, craved a few comforting whiffs from his pipe. He voiced his desire and a friendly fellow-employee confided to him that in such cases it was customary to ask leave of the foreman to go to the washroom and there to steal a clandestine smoke.
Thus advised, Donlan approached his boss and inquired the whereabouts of the washroom.
“Go down the hall,” said the foreman, “and take the first turn to the right, and the second door you come to after that is the door to the lavatory.”
Donlan undertook to follow instructions but he made a mistake. In the darkness he took the turn to the left instead of the right-hand turn, and, opening the second door, stepped into the elevator shaft and struck with a bump on the ground floor below.
Presently he came back upstairs. He was sweeping up rubbish when O’Day, his buddy, asked him where was the washroom.
Donlan gave him the direction as he remembered it, and, as O’Day turned to go, he called out to him:
“But say, Larry, look out for the top step—it’s a son-of-a-gun!”
There is a corner in a Southern state, down near the Mississippi River, where formerly lynchings occurred more frequently than they do these times. In the days before the rural-free-delivery system was adopted, Uncle Gip Thomas held the contract for delivering the mail in this neighborhood. So regular was he that the residents almost could set their clocks by him.
But one day he was nearly two hours late in reaching the end of the line, where there was a tiny cross-roads hamlet. Just as the citizens were forming a posse to set out in search of him, in fear that some mishap had befallen him, Uncle Gip ambled into view.
“What delayed you, Uncle Gip?” asked the postmaster. “Did you happen to an accident or did an accident happen to you?”
“Nary one, nor both,” stated Uncle Gip. “But about ten o’clock this mornin’, jest before I crossed the creek, I come to where some of the boys had done left a nigger hangin’ right thar in the public road. Well, suh, my mare she got skeered and shied back, and I jest natchelly couldn’t make her go past him noways; so finally I had to tear down a panel of rail fence and lead her through the gap and lay the fence back up again and go through the woods down into the hollow and ford the creek and then tear another gap in the fence before I could get back again on the turnpike—and that was what kept me so late.” Uncle Gip paused a moment and then went on again in an aggrieved tone:
“Honest, boys, it does look to me like there oughter be a law against leavin’ a nigger hangin’ in the public road.”
The men who earn their living on the waters and in the marshes of the Great South Bay of Long Island are a race unto themselves. They are a sturdy, independent lot, and, almost without exception, are endowed with a quaint native wit.
One winter’s day a party of baymen sat around a red-hot stove in a little oyster shanty on one of the farther bars. The talk veered this way and that until finally there arose the ancient question:
“What would you do if you had a million dollars?”
One of the company allowed he’d buy himself an ocean-going yacht and tour the world. Another rather thought he’d adopt orphans and educate them. And so forth and so on.
All this time, Old Man Banks, locally celebrated as the most shiftless man in the county, had sat in silence, rolling his quid and staring reflectively into the hot coals.
“Say, Banks,” quoth one of the group, “you been keepin’ pretty quiet; what would you do if somebody was to hand you a million in cash?”
The ancient deftly spat in through the open stove door before he answered:
“Well,” he said, “I don’t know exactly, but I reckon I’d pay it on my debts ez fur ez it went.”
An Irishman walked up Fifth Avenue one Wednesday night, dropped into a place of worship and immediately went to sleep. After the prayer-meeting services were over the sexton came and shook him by the arm.
“We are about to close up,” said that functionary, “and I’ll have to ask you to go now.”
“What talk have you?” said the Irishman. “The cathedral never closes.”
“This is not the cathedral,” said the sexton. “The cathedral is several blocks above here. This is a Presbyterian church.”
The Irishman sat up with a jerk and looked about him. On the walls between the windows were handsome paintings of the Apostles.
“Ain’t that Saint Luke over yonder?” he demanded.
“It is,” said the sexton.
“And ’tis Saint Mark just beyant him, if I’m not mistook?”
“Yes.”
“And still farther along Saint Timothy?”
“Yes.”
“Young man,” demanded the Irishman, “since whin did all thim turn Protestant?”
Fred Kelly, the writer, was standing on a street corner in Cleveland waiting for a car. A small man, densely grown up in whiskers and with a mild manner and a diffident way of speaking, sidled up to him.
“Excuse me,” he said, “are you acquainted with this town?”
“More or less,” said Kelly.
“Well,” said the stranger, “maybe you can tell me, then, where the street fair is going on.”
It so chanced that Kelly knew the location where a carnival company was holding forth for the week, and he gave the directions for reaching the spot. Then, as the little meek-looking man started off, Kelly was moved to put a question on his own account:
“Are you running one of the concessions over there?” he asked.
“No,” said the little fellow, “but I’m working in one of them.”
“What do you do?”
“I work in a side-show that they’ve got over there. I’m the wild man.”