Part 6

"Then the patient Adam, trying to saw enough kitchen wood to last over Sunday, with a piece of flint for a saw, would have to pause and gather up enough words to say:

"That, my son? That is only a mastodon giganteus; he has a bad look but a Christian temper."

And then presently:

"Oh, pa! pa! What's that over yon?"

"Oh, bother," Adam would reply; "it's only a paleotherium, mammalia pachydermata."

"Oh, yes; theliocomeafterus. Oh, lookee, lookee at this 'un!"

"Where, Cainny? Oh, that in the mud? That's only an acephala lamelli branchiata. It won't bite you, but you mustn't eat it. It's poison as politics."

"Whee! See there! See, see, see! What's him?"

"Oh, that? Looks like a pleiosaurus; keep out of his way; he has a jaw like your mother."

"Oh, yes; a plenosserus. And what's that fellow, poppy?"

"That's a silurus malapterous. Don't you go near him, for he has the disposition of a Georgia mule."

"Oh, yes; a slapterus. And what's this little one?"

"Oh, it's nothing but an aristolochioid. Where did you get it? There, now, quit throwing stones at the acanthopterygian; do you want to be kicked? And you keep away from the nothodenatrichomanoides. My stars, Eve! where did he get that anonaceo-hydro-charideo-nymphaeoid? Do you never look after him at all? Here, you Cain, get right away from down there, and chase that megalosaurius out of the melon-patch, or I'll set the mono-pleuro brachian on you!"

A MEAN COMPANY

Mark Twain is credited with telling a good story about the meanest corporation on earth. A man was working for this company, drilling holes for blasting rock. He got to work on a place where there was a charge that had not gone off. So, as he sat there quietly drilling away, there was an explosion. He went up and up till he didn't look any bigger than a hat; and then up and up till he didn't look any bigger than a walnut; and then up and up till he went out of sight. Then he began to come down and down till he looked as big as a walnut; and then down and down till he looked as big as a hat; and then down and down till he sat right in the place he had left, and went on drilling away as if nothing had happened. He was absent just sixteen minutes and forty-two seconds--and the company was so mean that they docked him for loss of time!

* * * * *

"Say, boy, say!" exclaimed a hot looking man with a big valise, "what's the quickest way to the cars?" "Run!" yelled the boy as he dodged into an alley. The man was very sorry the boy had so suddenly disappeared, for he was so pleased with the kind information that if he could only have come near enough to the boy, he would certainly have given him something to remember him by.

* * * * *

When the preacher went into politics and suffered in his professional character in consequence, he thought well to make an humble confession to his conference to the effect that "the muddy pool of politics was the rock on which I split."

He mixed his figures about as badly as a famous Irishman, Sir Boyle Roche, who, suspecting the opposition of some sort of underhand intentions, revealed his acuteness and his purpose to head off the enemy in the following terms: "I smell a rat; I feel it in the air; and I will nip it in the bud!"

A SURE THING

The colonel and a friend were sitting on the back porch of the house smoking and talking. They fell to discussing the intoxicating properties of beer. The colonel maintained that a man couldn't possibly drink enough beer to make him drunk, but his friend was of a contrary mind. The colonel went into his kitchen and brought out a two-gallon tin bucket, and said, "See this bucket? Well, I have a German sawing wood down in my barn at the end of the lot. I'll bet you ten dollars that he can drink all the beer that bucket will hold at one sitting, and not be the worse for it." The bet was taken, and the colonel called the man from his work, and said, "Diedrich, you see that bucket? If I were to fill that bucket with beer, do you think you could drink it all at one sitting?"

The German smiled broadly, and said he guessed he could--he could try. "But I want you to be certain," said the colonel. "Vell," said Diedrich, "I guess I could, but maybe I couldn't." With this he was dismissed and the subject was dropped.

At the end of a half hour, Diedrich appeared on the scene and said that if that bucket was filled with beer he could drink it all without stopping. He was certain he could. Accordingly he was sent with the bucket to a neighboring brewery and promptly returned with the vessel full to the brim. He placed it on a table, drew up a chair, tilted the bucket and set to work. In a very short time he had finished, arose, thanked the colonel and was making for the wood-pile.

"Hold on," called the colonel, "I want to ask you a question. When I called you up the first time you were uncertain whether you could drink that bucket of beer or not, and then after a while you came back and said you were certain you could. How do you explain that?"

Diedrich drew the back of his hand across his mouth, and said, "Vy, colonel, dot is easy to explain. Der first time ven you ask me, I did not know for sure. So ven I vent away, I vent over to der brewery undt got me a bucket about so big as yours undt tried if I could--undt I found I could, I could; undt so I coom back here sure, sure dat I could drink your bucket full mit beer. See?"

THE LOGIC OF GRAMMAR

While instructing his pupils in grammar, a country school-teacher gave out this sentence to be parsed: "Mary milks the cow." Each word had been parsed except the last, which fell to Bob, a sixteen-year-old boy, near the foot of the class, who began thus:

"Cow is a noun, feminine gender, singular number, third person, and stands for Mary."

"Stands for Mary!" said the astonished teacher. "And, pray, Robert, how do you make that out?"

"Because," answered the hopeful pupil, "if the cow didn't stand for Mary, how could Mary milk the cow?"

DELIRIOUS

"Say--how much do you think I had to pay the milliner for my wife's last spring bonnet? Thirty-six dollars and seventeen cents."

"Rather steep, isn't it? What are you going to do about it?"

"Do about it? Nothing. Because, don't you see, old man, I daren't say beans to it. My wife has the delirium trimmins."

Mr. W. J. Lampton in the New York Times thus discourses on the tender topic:

Millinerymania

Did you ever see such sights? Such frizzly, frazzly frights As now the lovely fair Insist that they must wear? And, say, Did you ever, in your feeble way, Attempt to calculate What it must be to keep one on straight? Heavens to Betsy, no slob Could get away with such a job! That's why no man Could wear the hat a woman can And does, and thinks She's not at all gezinx. Wow, Ain't they the dowdydow? The hats, not the women. The Autumn Lid, Deliriously displayed, Has got the Merry Wid Screaming screams for aid. Police! Police! Call out the cops To save the ladies From their tops. Oh, woman, in your hours of ease, Uncertain, coy and hard to please, Who ever gave you lids like these? Who is it has designed Such cover for your mind? This framework in a rag? This millinery jag? Who done it? Who Should get the fearful due? However, it's no matter Who is the women's hatter, They wear the goods! And say, On the level, Don't they Look like the dickens? Gee whiz, Why look pazziz, When a woman's as pretty as a woman is?

AN ECCENTRIC GREAT MAN

The handwriting of Horace Greely, the great editor, was remarkable for its illegibility. Very few people could read what he wrote, and sometimes it puzzled Mr. Greely himself. He wrote a hurried note one day, addressed it to the editor of one of the other great New York papers, and sent it by a messenger boy. The boy duly delivered it, but the man couldn't make it out, and sent it back. When the boy handed his own note to Mr. Greely, he, supposing it to be a reply to his own communication, and being unable to read it, looked it over carefully and said: "Why, what does the old fool mean?" "Yes," said the boy, "that's just what the other man said!"

In addition to writing a poor hand Mr. Greely was very absent-minded. Leaving his office in a great hurry one day to go an errand downtown, he wrote on a card, "Back in 20 minutes," pinned it on the outside of his office door and rushed out. Having changed his mind, he came back in five minutes and, seeing the notice on the door, took a seat nearby, and actually waited twenty minutes for himself to come back!

LEFT-HANDED COMPLIMENTS

A good-looking young minister was driving to the county town of B---- in a buggy. On the way he overtook a very comely young woman going the same direction afoot. He courteously stopped and suggested that he give her a lift, an offer which she gladly accepted, riding beside him several miles to her destination at a country farm-house. On descending from the vehicle she thanked him for his kindness, and he very politely said, "Don't mention it--don't mention it." And she said, "No, I won't. I won't tell. I'm as much ashamed of it as you are!"

When he was within two miles of the town he overtook a young lawyer who was returning afoot from a visit to a country client, and took him aboard, and the two had some sharp passages as they rode along. Now, it chanced that a man was to be hanged for murder the next day in the town, and the carpenters were busy erecting the gallows in the yard of the jail. When the two came to the hill which overlooks the town of B----, they could plainly see the top of the gallows above the wall of the jail. Pointing then to the jail the minister said:

"If the gallows had its due, where would you be?"

"I'd be riding into town alone, I reckon," was the answer.

A REST AND A CHANGE

"My friend Dickinson," said the colonel, "is a very witty fellow. He made a very witty reply lately. He had been sent down to a certain celebrated seaside resort by his physician for a rest and a change, and it was understood that he was to spend at least a month there, but at the end of a week he turned up again in his home town, and when people asked him why he had come back so soon, his reply was:

"Well, you see, the doctor sent me down there for a rest and a change, and I went down and tried it; but by the end of a week I found that the waiters at the hotel were getting all the change, and the man that kept the hotel got all the rest, and so I just had to come home to recopperate, you know."

THE SAME OLD KIND

"When I was down there in Atlantic City," said Dickinson with that delightful drawl of his, "I went one day into a shoe store on 'The Avenue,' as they call the business street of the town, and looked around. The clerk came up smiling and asked could he wait on me, and I said he could if he had any 'crochetted overshoes.' That made him scratch his head. 'Must be a new kind,' said he. 'Oh, no,' said I. 'They've been in use some years.' 'But,' said he, 'I can't see what use crochet work would be on overshoes. Why, the rain and mud would spoil it all in a short time.' 'Oh, no,' said I. 'You don't catch on. I am not looking for overshoes with crochet work on them, but for crochetted overshoes--overshoes that are crow-shade; black ones, you understand?'"

A TOUGH GOOSE-YARN

It is hard to tell whether the biggest liars live by the sea or on the mountain, but certainly the sailor folk will have a time of it to match one Bob Sempers, one of the most elastic of all the prevaricators on the Pocono Mountain. Here is a story Bob told a party of gentlemen hunters not long ago:

"You know where I live. About three mile from the Big Lake. Well--one evenin' last spring when I was goin' home, I see a flock o' geese a-settlin' on the lake. I got up bright an' early next mornin', took down my shootin' iron an' started for the lake to try my luck. When I got there I found they were out o' gun shot, an' I knowed 'twan't no use to shoot at that distance. I'd jist skeer 'em away if I did. So, I stood there thinkin' what best to do. I see a fox come down to the water edge and stand there a minnit or so a-snuffin' the air. I'd a mind to shoot him, but I thought I'd wait an' see what he'd do. Well, sir, he just plumped into the water an' made for them geese. They were all huddled together about a half a mile from the shore. After swimmin' up to within a few yards of 'em, he suddenly disappeared, and in a few minnits a goose was drawn under water. Then the fox swum ashore an' laid the dead goose on the bank, and went back fer another snap, an' so he kep on till he got the whole flock, an' I waited till he brought in the last one, an' then I shot him.

"Well, sir, I found when I come to count 'em, that I had just fifty nice fat geese, which I lugged home together with my gun an' the dead fox. An' when I got home I found my old woman hadn't the breakfast quite ready yet."

"'But, Bob,' said some one, 'the fox had to swim a mile for each goose--half a mile each way--consequently he had to swim just fifty miles. And the geese averaged, say, six pounds; so that you had three hundred pounds of goose-flesh to carry three miles, to say nothing of the dead fox and your gun--impossible!'

"'Impossible or not,' maintained Bob, 'every word is truth, and I can prove it, too, by more than a dozen of my neighbors, to each of whom I sold enough feathers to fill a feather-bed.'"

FIRST CLASS

A company of tourists were traveling in Switzerland, and they went to buy tickets for the coach-ride up the mountain. The American man of course bought a first-class ticket, but he noticed that all the rest got second and third class, and they all got into the wagon with him. He said to the driver, "What advantage is there in paying for a first class ticket when holders of second and third class tickets have precisely the same accommodations?" The driver said, "You just wait a while and you will see." So by and by they came to a steep hill, and the driver called out, "First class passengers will keep their seats; second class passengers will get out and walk; third class passengers will get out and push."

* * * * *

They have a new brand of whiskey down in Kentucky known as "The Horn of Plenty," because it will corn-you-copiously.

* * * * *

"In the Blue Grass section of Kentucky was I born, where all the corn is full of kernels--and all the colonels full of corn."

AN AWFUL LOT OF PRACTICE

Chauncey Depew spoke one evening during a political campaign at a town in the interior of New York State, which it is not necessary to name. The next morning the chairman of the local committee took him in his carriage for a ride about the place. They had reached the suburbs and were admiring a bit of scenery when a man wearing a blue shirt and carrying a long whip on his shoulder approached from where he had been piloting an ox-team along the middle of the street and said:

"You're the man that made the rattlin' speech up at the hall last night, I guess?"

Mr. Depew modestly admitted that he had indulged in some talk at the time and place specified.

"Didn't you have what you said writ out?" went on the man.

"No," replied the orator.

"You don't mean to say you made that all up as you went along?"

"Yes."

"Jess hopped right up there, took a drink o' water out of the pitcher, hit the table a whack and waded in without no thinkin' nor nothing?"

"Well, I suppose you might put it that way."

"Well, that beats me. You'll excuse me for stoppin' you, but what I wanted to say was that your speech convinced me, though I knowed all the time it was the peskiest lie that was ever told. I made up my mind to vote your ticket, but I'd 'a' been willin' to bet a peck o' red apples that no man could stand up and tell such blamed convincin' lies without havin' 'em writ out. You must 'a' had an awful lot o' practice."

"WHO'D 'A' BIN 'ER?"

A lady living in Ohio is the mother of six boys. One day a friend called on her, and during the conversation said: "What a pity that one of your boys had not been a girl." One of the boys, about eight years old, overheard the remark, and promptly interposed, "I'd like to know who'd 'a' bin 'er. Ed wouldn't 'a' bin 'er, Joe wouldn't 'a' bin 'er, Pete wouldn't 'a' bin 'er, I wouldn't 'a' bin 'er, blame ef I would, an' I'd like to know who'd 'a' bin 'er?"

"IN THE WAY THEY SHOULD GO"

Mrs. Hobbs was the parent of an infant terror and several half-grown terrors besides. One day at table she said, "Well, Mr. Hobbs, since you are so dissatisfied with the way I am bringing up our darling Willie, maybe you will condescend to inform me how you would bring up boys?"

"Certainly," said Hobbs. "Every boy ought to be kept in a hogshead, and fed through the bung-hole until he is twelve years of age."

"And when he reaches the age of twelve?"

"Stop up the bung-hole."

"NO THOROUGHFARE"

A toll-gate was recently established on a road leading to Little Rock, Ark.; and an old negro who came along with an ox-team was much astonished. "Wall, ef dis doan cap de climax," said he. "Ain satisfied wid chargin' folks fur ridin' on de train and steamboat, but wanster to charge him fur ridin' in his own waggin!" "That's the law of the corporation, old man." "Wat's de corporation got to do wid my waggin?" "Got nothing to do with your wagon, but they have a right to make you pay for riding over their road." "Ain dis er a free country?" "Yes. But this is not a free road." "But de road's in the country. What does yer law say yer may charge?" "One horse, five cents; a horse and buggy, ten cents; two horses and a wagon, twenty cents." "Well, dese here ain't horses, 'case da's steers. De law doan say nuthin' about dem. Whoa, dar! Come 'ere!" And to the astonishment of the gate-keeper, the old fellow drove away.

THE OTHER EYE

Standing outside his club one afternoon Mr. Gilbert was approached by a stranger who asked, "I beg pardon, sir, but do you happen to know a gentleman, a member of this club, a man with one eye called 'Matthews'?" "No, I don't think I do," replied Mr. Gilbert. Then after a pause he quickly added, "What's the name of his other eye?"

KEEPING A SECRET

The Confederate general, Stonewall Jackson, had been on one occasion most hospitably entertained in the house and by the family of an old Virginia friend. It was known at the time that some very important movement of the Confederate army was afoot, and just as the great general was about to take his departure from the house in which he had been so royally received, the host, eager with curiosity and presuming on old friendship, took the general aside, and begged him for some information as to the coming demonstrations. Passing his arm affectionately around his old friend General Jackson said in a whisper, "My dear friend, can you keep a secret?" "Yes--Yes!" was the eager reply. "And so can I," was the response, as the general mounted his horse.

A SHARP REPROOF

A preacher was much annoyed by the whispering and laughing of some young folks in the rear of the church. Stopping in the midst of his discourse and looking intently at them until all had become still, he said:

"I hesitate to reprove those who are inattentive and noisy. I will tell you why. Some years since, as I was preaching, a young man sat before me who was constantly laughing and making queer faces. It annoyed me very much, and I gave him a very severe rebuke. After the close of the services a gentleman said to one, 'Sir, you made a great mistake; that young man is an idiot.' Since that time I always hesitate to reprove those who misbehave in church, lest I should again find myself in the error of rebuking an idiot." There was order during the rest of the service.

IT WOULDN'T WORK

Lazily sauntering along on the gay boardwalk, enjoying the stiff salt breeze and paying due attention to the merry throng always passing up and down, my attention was called to a certain rolling chair whose occupant I thought I knew. Wasn't that Barney Schmitt? Barney, you must know, keeps one of the very best cafés in existence, up in one of the most flourishing towns in Eastern Pennsylvania. I knew he had been suffering greatly from rheumatism for a year past, but had lost track of him recently and supposed him to be in the doctor's hands at some Water Cure up in New York State--and here he was, fat and puffy, all covered up with a big steamer rug in a rolling chair. I stopped the chair and said, "Hello, Barney, that you?"

"Yes," said he, "diss iss me. I vish to Himmel it wass somepody else."

"Well, how are you? Better I hope?"

Barney shook his head with a rueful countenance. "No, I'm no petter. I've tried everything in all greation from a lemon to Gristian Ziance, undt it all does no good."

"Christian Science? So you tried that, did you? How did it work?"

"Let me tell you," said the suffering Barney with a smile that might have been mistaken for a wince. "You know I went up to der Wasser-Cure, up dere in New York. I had plasters undt pads all ofer my pody, undt walked mit a pair of grutches. De first evening I got dere, I wass settin' in der parlor tryin' hard to keep from hollerin' mit der pain, undt a woman come up to me--one of dese here Gristian Ziance women, you know, a mighty purty, sweet-faced woman she wass, too--undt she says to me, says she:

"'Vat iss der matter mit you, Mr. Schmitt?' Undt I toldt her apoudt my rheumatism, undt den she says:

"'Mr. Schmitt, dere iss nodings der matter mit you. You only think dere iss. It iss all in your mindt. It issn't in your pody. Your pody can't feel noding. It iss your mindt vat feels. Your rheumatism iss all in your mindt. All you have got to do iss to get your mindt changed, you see, undt you vill be all right.

"'Now, Mr. Schmitt, I tell you vat to do undt you vill soon be vell. Ven you go to bed to-night, you make your mindt nice undt quiet like, fill your heart full mit good thoughts of peace undt joy; say a nice little prayer, undt go to sleep. Den, in de morning, ven you get avake, you compose your mindt mit peaceful thoughts, you say a nice little prayer to yourself, and you yusht say: "Mr. Schmitt! Dere iss nodings der matter mit you--you are vell undt shtrong!" Undt you jump out of de bed, undt dere you are!'"

"All right. I did all vat she said. I vent to bed. I said a nice leetle prayer, vat my mudder taught me, in der German language, undt I vent to sleep.

"In der morning I get awake. I haf very peaceful undt peautiful thoughts, undt I say to myself:

"'Barney Schmitt, you are a tam fool. Dere iss nodings der matter mit you. You are all right.'

"Undt mit dot, I just jump out in der mittle of der floor, undt lit on my pack mit a mighty doonder-knock vat shook der vinders. I fell all in a heap, undt mine Himmel! didn't I holler! Der bell poy, der hotel clerk, der doctor undt two nurses coom on der double quick, pick me up undt put me in der bed. Undt dere I vas for two weeks, all right. Dat's vat I know about Gristian Ziance. Undt now here I am in Atlantic City in a rollin' chair. Pray for me, colonel, for my prayers doesn't seem to do me much goot!"

ON THE POINT OF A NEEDLE

The late Dr. Talmage was once in the company of some theological students. They were fresh from the study of church history, and were laughing over the old question so much discussed by the schoolmen in the Middle Ages, "How many angels can stand on, or be supported by, the point of a needle?"

They put the question to Dr. Talmage, "How many angels can be supported by the point of a needle?" and Dr. Talmage promptly answered, "Five." When they wanted to know how he knew, he told them the following story: