Chapter 4

"Naw'm, I ain' goin' nowheres," Mollie declared. "But me an' Jim Harris we wuz married this mawnin'. Yas'm, Jim, he's a new nigger in town. You don' know nothin' 'bout him, Miss Sallie. I don' know nothin' 'bout him myself. He's er stranger to me."

Miss Sallie glanced severely at the little package of jewelry.

"But, Mollie," she demanded, "don't you trust him?"

"Yas'm," replied Mollie, unruffled. "Cose I trus' him, personally--but not wid ma valuables."

AN EASY MATTER

How to own your own home is a problem which confronts the great majority. That it is oftentimes easily solved, however, is revealed by the following simple experience as related by H.M. Perley in _Life_:

How did we do it? Simply by going without everything we needed. When I was first married my salary was thirty dollars a month.

My mother-in-law, who lived with us, decided to save enough out of my salary to build us a home.

When the cellar was finished, I became ill and lost my position, and had to mortgage the cellar to make my first payment.

Although we went without food for thirty days the first year, we never missed a monthly payment.

The taxes, interest on mortgage, and monthly payment on house were now three times the amount of my earnings.

However, by dispensing with the service of a doctor, we lost our father and mother-in-law, which so reduced our expenses that we were able to pay for the parlor floor and windows.

In ten years seven of our nine children died, possibly owing to our diet of excelsior and prunes.

I only mention these little things to show how we were helped in saving for a home.

I wore the same overcoat for fifteen years, and was then able to build the front porch, which you see at the right of the front door.

Now, at the age of eighty-seven, my wife and I feel sure we can own our comfortable little home in about ten years and live a few weeks to enjoy it.

JEEMS HENRY WAS CONJURED.

"Mars John," excitedly exclaimed Aunt Tildy, as she pantingly rushed into a fire-engine house, "please, suh, phonograph to de car-cleaners' semporium an' notify Dan'l to emergrate home diurgently, kaze Jeems Henry sho' done bin conjured! Doctor Cutter done already distracted two blood-vultures from his 'pendercitis, an' I lef him now prezaminatin' de chile's ante-bellum fur de germans ob de neuroplumonia, which ef he's disinfected wid, dey gotter 'noculate him wid the ice-coldlated quarantimes--but I b'lieves it's conjuration!"

KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY

A lady had the misfortune to lose her season ticket for the railway. On the same evening she had a call from two boys, the elder of whom at once handed her the lost ticket. The lady, delighted at the prompt return of her property, offered the boy a shilling for his trouble. The lad refused to accept it, telling the lady he was a Boy Scout, and that no member of the Boy Scouts is allowed to accept any return for a service rendered.

Just as the coin was about to be placed back in the purse of the lady, the boy, looking up into her face, suddenly blurted out:

"But my wee brither's no' a Scout."

NOT SO DIFFICULT

Sometimes a situation which to the kind of a mind which requires certainty seems hopeless can be adjusted in the most common-place manner:

Congressman Charles R. Davis of Minnesota relates that one afternoon a train on a Western railroad stopped at a small station, when one of the passengers, in looking over the place, found his gaze fixed upon an interesting sign. Hurrying to the side of the conductor, he eagerly inquired: "Do you think that I will have time to get a soda before the train starts?"

"Oh, yes," answered the conductor.

"But suppose," suggested the thirsty passenger, "that the train should go on without me?"

"We can easily fix that," promptly replied the conductor. "I will go along and have one with you."

DESERVED THE LEGACY

A Turkish story runs that, dying, a pious man bequeathed a fortune to his son, charging him to give £100 to the meanest man he could find.

A certain cadi filled the bill. Accordingly the dutiful son offered him £100.

"But I can't take your £100," said the cadi. "I never knew your father. There was no reason why he should leave me the money."

"It's yours, all right," persisted the mourning youth.

"I might take it in a fictitious transaction," said the cadi, relenting. "Suppose--I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll sell you all that snow in the courtyard for £100."

The young man agreed, willing to be quit of his trust on any terms. Next day he was arrested, taken before the cadi, and ordered to remove his snow at once. As this was a command the young man was utterly unable to execute, he was fined £20 by the cadi for contumacy.

"At least," the young man said ruefully as he left the court, "father's £100 went to the right man."

IMPROVEMENT

If you are going to be too fussy about your own particular brand of beauty then you must expect to reap the consequences.

An actor visited a beauty doctor to see if he could have something done for his nose. The beauty doctor studied the organ, and suggested a complicated straightening and remoulding process--cost, twenty guineas.

"I may go you," said the actor thoughtfully. He stroked his nose before the mirror, regarding it from all sides. "Yes, I think I'll go you. But, look here, do you promise to give my nose--er--ideal beauty?"

The surgeon grew meditative.

"As to ideal beauty, I can't say," he replied at last. "Why, my friend I couldn't help improving it a lot if I hit it with a hammer."

WHY SHOULD HE KNOW?

We cannot all of us be truly literary. Most of us lead busy lives and, after all, is it of any real importance to be familiar with the world's greatest writers? No doubt this may all depend upon our occupation, as the following conversation reveals.

The slight man with the bulging brow leaned forward and addressed the complacent looking individual with a look of almost human intelligence. It was a monotonous railway journey.

"Wonderful transportation facilities to-day, sir," he ventured. "As we have been bowling along, my mind has unconsciously been dwelling on Jane Austen. Think of it, sir, only one hundred years ago and no railroads. Have we really lost or gained? Marvelous girl, that, sir. Masterpiece of literature when she was twenty-one, and no background but an untidy English village. You've heard of Jane Austen, I presume?"

"Can't say I have."

The slight man smiled sympathetically.

"I get a great deal of pleasure from books," he went on. "Bachelor. Marvelous solace. May know Wordsworth's famous lines, eh? 'Books we know are a substantial world,' etc. Perhaps you have read something of Thomas Love Peacock?"

"Never heard of him."

"Ah! Missed a great deal. Wonderful satirist, that. But still, I must admit that neither he nor Miss Austen are common. Now there's Mark Twain--for general reading, rain or shine, can't be beaten. American to the core, sir. Smacks of the soil. Perhaps he missed any warm love interest--but a delightful humorist, sir. You read him regularly, I presume?"

"Can't say I do."

"Of course, sir, books are not all. I agree with our old friend, Montaigne, about that. By the way, which do you prefer, Dickens or Thackeray?"

"Can't say, sir. They're strangers to me."

"Perhaps you've heard of a man named Walter Scott. As his name implies, he was born in Scotland. He wrote books, you know--novels, stories. Rather good, eh? Human interest--wholesome reading--and all that sort of thing."

"Don't recall him."

The slight man rose up in his seat. He bore down hard upon the stranger.

"Possibly," he suggested, "in the course of your deep and intimate intercourse with men and affairs, you may recall the name of an individual named Shakespeare."

"Yes, I think I remember."

"How about Macaulay, the greatest essayist in England, and Homer, the prince of ancient poets, with seven birthplaces? Then there's Emerson and Longfellow and Goethe and--"

He paused and grabbed the other man by the collar.

"My friend," he said, "you don't seem interested in the world's greatest authors. May I inquire what your occupation in life is?"

The other man nodded gravely, even austerely.

"Certainly, sir," he replied. "I'm a holiday salesman in Buncum's Department Store Book Shop."

ONE ON HIM

The code of manners enjoyed by the Germans needs scarcely any further illumination, but the following incident may serve as further light upon this threadbare subject.

A physician boarded a crowded crosstown car. A woman was standing, and a big German seated, sprawling over twice the space necessary. Indignantly the doctor said to him:

"See here! Why don't you move a little so that this tired woman may have a seat?"

For a moment the German looked dazed. Then a broad smile spread over his countenance as he answered:

"Say, dot's a joke on you, all right! Dot's my vife!"

REVEALED

In view of the spirit of comradeship shown between officers and men, this story is at least open to question, but it may have happened in some former war.

The lieutenant was instructing the squad in visional training.

"Tell me, Number One," he said, "how many men are there in that trench-digging party over there?"

"Thirty men and one officer," was the prompt reply.

"Quite right," observed the lieutenant, after a pause. "But how do you know one is an officer at this distance?"

"'Cos he's the only one not working, sir."

DIAGNOSING HIMSELF

The officer of the day, during his tour of duty, paused to question a sentry who was a new recruit.

"If you should see an armed party approaching, what would you do?" asked the officer.

"Turn out the guard, sir."

"Very well. Suppose you saw a battleship coming across the parade-ground, what would you do?"

"Report to the hospital for examination, sir," was the prompt reply.

IN OUR MELTING POT

During a political campaign in New York a Tammany leader on the East Side, a self-made man and one not entirely completed yet in some respects, was addressing a mass meeting of Italian-born voters on behalf of the Democratic ticket.

"Gintlemen and fellow citizens," he began, "I deem it an honor to be permitted to address you upon the issues of the day. I have always had a deep admiration for your native land. I vinerate the mimory of that great, that noble Eyetalian who was the original and first discoverer of this here land of ours.

"Why, gintlemen, at me mother's knee I was taught to sing that inspirin' song: 'Columbus, the Jim of the Ocean'!"

Whereupon there was loud applause.

GIVE HIM TIME

Mr. Johnsing had an enthusiastic admirer in Little Eph Jones.

"Yes, suh," he concluded one of his eulogies, "Mistuh Johnsing is the biggest man what evuh was."

"Bigger than General Grant?" queried the white man to whom he was talking.

"Suttinly Mistuh Johnsing is a bigguh man than General Grant," affirmed Eph.

"Bigger than President Wilson?"

"Of co'se he's bigguh than President Wilson."

"Bigger than God?"

"Well--well--" stammered Eph. "You see, Mistuh Johnsing's young yet."

A BAY STATE SOLOMON

Unfortunately we've mislaid the judge's name, but his court room is in New Bedford, Mass. Before him appeared a defendant who, hoping for leniency, pleaded, "Judge, I'm down and out."

Whereupon said the wise judge: "You're down but you're not out. Six months."

IN MEMORIAM

Availing herself of her ecclesiastical privileges, the clergyman's wife asked questions which, coming from anybody else, would have been thought impertinent.

"I presume you carry a memento of some kind in that locket you wear?" she said.

"Yes, ma'am," said the parishioner. "It is a lock of my husband's hair."

"But your husband is still alive!" the lady exclaimed.

"Yes, ma'am, but his hair is gone."

A DISADVANTAGE

The Germans will be immensely hated after this war. They will be the pariahs of the future.

Already we see signs of German hatred everywhere. At a reception the other night in a neutral city, the guest of honor said to a man who had just been presented to her:

"You are a foreigner, are you not? Where do you come from?"

"From Berlin, ma'am," he answered.

The lady stared at him through her lorgnette.

"Dear me!" she said. "Couldn't you go back and come from somewhere else?"

THE LIFE

They were two sweet young American girls, able, beautiful, versatile, patriotic to the core, rushed to death. And one of them said breathlessly:

"What have you been doing?"

And the other one as breathlessly replied:

"Doing! My dear, I hate to tell you. I got up at six. I drove a car forty miles to camp. I knitted a sweater and a pair of socks in between. I went to a Red Cross meeting. I acted as bridesmaid. I read a book on the war. I took a last lesson in first aid. I canned eighty cans of vegetables and, oh--!"

"Do tell me!"

"Why, will you believe me, I have been so busy all day that I almost forgot to get married!"

WELCOMING THE ACTOR

A well-known society performer volunteered to entertain a roomful of patients of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, and made up a very successful little monologue show, entirely humorous. The audience in the main gave symptoms of being slightly bored, but one highly intelligent maniac saw the whole thing in the proper light, and, clapping the talented actor on the shoulder, said: "Glad you've come, old fellow. You and I will get along fine. The other dippies here are so dashed dignified. What I say is if a man is mad, he needn't put on airs about it."

COULDN'T BE BOTHERED

Mose approached the registration booth hesitatingly, and being accosted by the official in charge, assured that dignitary that he had just walked ten miles to register.

"Well, Mose, what branch of the service would you like to be placed in?" inquired the official.

"How about the cavalry?"

"What will Ah have ter do in de calvary?"

"Oh, you won't have to do anything but ride a horse all the time."

Mose scratched his woolly noggin in perplexity for a few moments, and finally said: "Nawssur, Ah don't believe Ah wants ter jine the calvary."

"What's the matter with the cavalry, Mose?"

"Well, yer see, boss, hit's jest like dis: When y'awl blow dem bugles ter retreet, Ah don't want ter be troubled wid no hoss."

THEIR "BIT"

Jimmie, very proud of his first job and weekly salary of $6.83, purchased a Liberty Bond on the installment plan. That evening he saw in the newspaper that John D. Rockefeller had invested in Liberty Bonds to the extent of $10,000,000.

Turning to his mother, Jimmie said proudly, "Well, ma, two of us Americans have done our duty, anyhow."

MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN

A woman doctor of Philadelphia was calling on a young sister, recently married, who was in distress. In response to the doctor's inquiry the newly-wed said:

"I cooked a meal for the first time yesterday, and I made an awful mess of it."

"Never mind, dearie," said the doctor, cheerfully; "it's nothing to worry about. I lost my first patient."

DANGER SIGNALS

An ingenious American has invented a device to prevent such motoring accidents as arise from over-speeding. He describes his contrivance as follows:

"While the car is running fifteen miles an hour a white bulb shows on the radiator, at twenty-five miles a green bulb appears, at forty a red bulb, and, when the driver begins to bat 'em out around sixty per, a music-box under the seat begins to play 'Nearer, My God, to Thee.'"

VULNERABLE

A visiting minister, preaching in a town famous for its horse races, vigorously denounced the sport. The principal patron of the church always attended the races, and of this the clergyman was later informed.

"I am afraid I touched one of your weaknesses," said the pastor, not wishing to offend the wealthy one, "but it was quite unintentional, I assure you."

"Oh, don't mind that," said the sportsman genially. "It's a mighty poor sermon that don't hit me somewhere."

MISLEADING

Johnson, a bachelor, had been to call on his sister, and was shown the new baby. The next day some friends asked him to describe the new arrival. The bachelor replied: "Um--very small features, clean shaven, red faced, and a very hard drinker!"

A SOFT ANSWER

The ocean liner was rolling like a chip, but as usual in such instances one passenger was aggressively, disgustingly healthy.

"Sick, eh?" he remarked to a pale-green person who was leaning on the rail.

The pale-green person regarded the healthy one with all the scorn he could muster. "Sick nothing!" he snorted weakly. "I'm just hanging over the front of the boat to see how the captain cranks it!"

BALLS

A young married couple who lived near a famous golf-course were entertaining an elderly aunt from the depths of the country.

"Well, Aunt Mary, how did you spend this afternoon?" asked the hostess on the first day.

"Oh, I enjoyed myself very much," replied Auntie with a beaming smile, "I went for a walk across the fields. There seemed to be a great many people about, and some of them shouted to me in a most eccentric manner, but I just took no notice. And, by the way," she went on, "I found such a number of curious little round white things. I brought them home to ask you what they are."

JOE'S DIAGNOSIS

A colored man entered the general store of a small Ohio town and complained to the storekeeper that a ham that he had purchased there a few days before had proved not to be good.

"The ham is all right, Joe," insisted the storekeeper.

"No, it ain't, boss," insisted the other. "Dat ham's sure bad."

"How can that be," continued the storekeeper, "when it was cured only last week?"

Joe reflected solemnly a moment, and then suggested:

"Maybe it's done had a relapse."

PURELY LITERARY

A celebrated author thus sketched out his daily programme to an interviewer: Rise at 11; breakfast at 12; attention to mail; a few afternoon calls; a ride in the park; dinner; the theatre, and then to bed.

"But when do you do your literary work?" he was asked.

"Why, the next day, of course," was the reply.

TOO FORWARD

At a parade of a company of newly-called-up men the drill instructor's face turned scarlet with rage as he slated a new recruit for his awkwardness.

"Now, Rafferty," he roared, "you'll spoil the line with those feet. Draw them back at once, man, and get them in line."

Rafferty's dignity was hurt.

"Plaze, sargint," he said, "they're not mine; they're Micky Doolan's in the rear rank!"

OBEYING ORDERS

The manager of a big Australian sheep-ranch engaged a discharged sailor to do farm work. He was put in charge of a large flock of sheep.

"Now, all you've got to do," explained the manager, "is to keep them on the run."

A run is a large stretch of bushland enclosed by a fence, and sheep have many ingenious methods of escaping from their own to neighboring runs and so getting mixed up with other flocks.

At the end of a couple of hours the manager rode up again--the air was thick with dust as though a thousand head of cattle had passed by.

At last he distinguished the form of his new shepherd--a collapsed heap prone upon the ground. Surrounding him were the sheep, a pitiful, huddled mass, bleating plaintively, with considerably more than a week's condition lost.

"What the dickens have you been doing to those sheep?" shrieked the almost frantic manager.

The ex-sailor managed to gasp out: "Well, sir, I've done my best. You told me to keep them on the run, and so I hunted them up and down and round--and now--I'm just dead beat myself."

TABLE OF COMPARISON

To instill into the mind of his son sound wisdom and business precepts was Cohen senior's earnest endeavor. He taught his offspring much, including the advantages of bankruptcy, failures, and fires. "Two bankruptcies equal one failure, two failures equal one fire," etc. Then Cohen junior looked up brightly.

"Fadder," he asked, "is marriage a failure?"

"Vell, my poy," was the parent's reply, "if you marry a really wealthy woman, marriage is almost as good as a failure."

KNEW HIS JOB

It was Easter eve on leap year, and the dear young thing, who had been receiving long but somewhat unsatisfactory visits from the very shy young man, decided she might take a chance. Robert had brought her a splendid Easter lily.

"I'll give you a kiss for that lily," she promised blushingly.

The exchange was duly, not to say happily, made. Robert started hurriedly toward the door.

"Why, where are you going?" asked his girl in surprise.

"To the florist's for more Easter lilies!" he replied.

AN ANGLOMANIAC

"What are you studying now?" asked Mrs. Johnson.

"We have taken up the subject of molecules," answered her son.

"I hope you will be very attentive and practise constantly," said the mother. "I tried to get your father to wear one, but he could not keep it in his eye."

YANKEE FODDER

Senator Hoar used to tell with glee of a Southerner just home from New England who said to his friend, "You know those little white round beans?"

"Yes," replied the friend; "the kind we feed to our horses?"

"The very same. Well, do you know, sir, that in Boston the enlightened citizens take those little white round beans, boil them for three or four hours, mix them with molasses and I know not what other ingredients, bake them, and then--what do you suppose they do with the beans?"

"They--"

"They eat 'em, sir," interrupted the first Southerner impressively; "bless me, sir, they eat 'em!"

ONE EXPLANATION

At the meeting of the Afro-American Debating Club the question of capital punishment for murder occupied the attention of the orators for the evening. One speaker had a great deal to say about the sanity of persons who thus took the law into their own hands. The last speaker, however, after a stirring harangue, concluded with great feeling: "Ah disagrees wif capital punishment an' all dis heah talk 'bout sanity. Any pusson 'at c'mits murdeh ain't in a sanitary condition."

REMORSE

"I got son in army," said a wrinkled old chief to United States Senator Clapp during his recent visit to an Indian reservation in Minnesota.

"Fine," exclaimed the Senator. "You should be proud that he is fighting for all of us."

"Who we fight?" the redskin continued.

"Why," the Senator replied, surprised. "We are fighting the Kaiser--you know, the Germans."

"Hah," mourned the chief. "Too dam bad."

"Why bad?" protested Senator Clapp, getting primed for a lecture on Teutonic kultur and its horrors.

"Too dam bad," repeated the old Indian. "Couple come through reservation last week. I could killed um, easy as not. Too dam bad."

He wrapped his face in his blanket and refused to be comforted.

THE REAL CULPRIT

The Crown Prince had been so busy that he hadn't had time to get together with his father and have a confidential chat. But one evening when there was a lull in the 808-centimeter guns, they managed to get a few moments off. The Crown Prince turned to his father and said:

"Dad, there is something I have been wanting to ask you for a long time. Is Uncle George really responsible for this scrap?"

"No, my son."

"Well, did Cousin Nick have anything to do with it?"

"Not at all"

"Possibly you did?"

"No, sir."

"Then would you mind telling me who it was?"

The anointed one was silent for a moment. Then he turned to his son and said:

"I'll tell you how it happened. About two or three years ago there was a wild man came over here from the United States, one of those rip-roaring rough riders that you read about in dime novels, but he certainly did have about him a plausible air. I took him out and showed him our fleet. Then I showed him the army, and after he had looked them over he said to me, 'Bill, you could lick the world,' And I was damn fool enough to believe him."

A MATTER OF NOMENCLATURE

A Negro was recently brought into police court in a little town in Georgia, charged with assault and battery. The Negro, who was well known to the judge, was charged with having struck another "unbleached American" with a brick. After the usual preliminaries the judge inquired:

"Why did you hit this man?"