Chapter 17

Who hath not met with home-made bread, A heavy compound of putty and lead-- And home-made wines that rack the head, And home-made liquors and waters? Home-made pop that will not foam, And home-made dishes that drive one from home-- * * * * * * Home-made by the homely daughters.

--_Hood_.

HOMELINESS

_See_ Beauty, Personal.

HOMESTEADS

"Malachi," said a prospective homesteader to a lawyer, "you know all about this law. Tell me what I am to do."

"Well," said the other, "I don't remember the exact wording of the law, but I can give you the meaning of it. It's this: The government is willin' to bet you one hundred and sixty acres of land against fourteen dollars that you can't live on it five years without starving to death."--_Fenimore Martin_.

HONESTY

"He's an honest young man" said the saloon keeper, with an approving smile. "He sold his vote to pay his whiskey bill."

VISITOR--"And you always did your daring robberies single-handed? Why didn't you have a pal?"

PRISONER--"Well, sir, I wuz afraid he might turn out to be dishonest."

Ex-District Attorney Jerome, at a dinner in New York, told a story about honesty. "There was a man," he said, "who applied for a position in a dry-goods house. His appearance wasn't prepossessing, and references were demanded. After some hesitation, he gave the name of a driver in the firm's employ. This driver, he thought, would vouch for him. A clerk sought out the driver, and asked him if the applicant was honest. 'Honest?' the driver said. 'Why, his honesty's been proved again and again. To my certain knowledge he's been arrested nine times for stealing and every time he was acquitted.'"

"How is it, Mr. Brown," said a miller to a farmer, "that when I came to measure those ten barrels of apples I bought from you, I found them nearly two barrels short?"

"Singular, very singular; for I sent them to you in ten of your own flour-barrels."

"Ahem! Did, eh?" said the miller. "Well, perhaps I made a mistake. Let's imbibe."

The stranger laid down four aces and scooped in the pot.

"This game ain't on the level," protested Sagebush Sam, at the same time producing a gun to lend force to his accusation. "That ain't the hand I dealt ye!"

A dumpy little woman with solemn eyes, holding by the hand two dumpy little boys, came to the box-office of a theater. Handing in a quarter, she asked meekly for the best seat she could get for that money.

"Those boys must have tickets if you take them in," said the clerk.

"Oh, no, mister," she said. "I never pay for them. I never can spare more than a quarter, and I just love a show. We won't cheat you any, mister, for they both go sound asleep just as soon as they get into a seat, and don't see a single bit of it."

The argument convinced the ticket man, and he allowed the two children to pass in.

Toward the end of the second act an usher came out of the auditorium and handed a twenty-five-cent piece to the ticket-seller.

"What's this?" demanded the latter.

"I don't know," said the usher. "A little chunk of a woman beckoned me clear across the house, and said one of her kids had waked up and was looking at the show, and that I should bring you that quarter."

HONOR

In the smoking compartment of a Pullman, there were six men smoking and reading. All of a sudden a door banged and the conductor's voice cried:

"All tickets, please!"

Then one of the men in the compartment leaped to his feet, scanned the faces of the others and said, slowly and impressively:

"Gentlemen, I trust to your honor."

And he dived under the seat and remained there in a small, silent knot till the conductor was safely gone.

Titles of honour add not to his worth, Who is himself an honour to his titles.

--_John Ford_.

HOPE

FRED--"My dear Dora, let this thought console you for your lover's death. Remember that other and better men than he have gone the same way."

BEREAVED ONE--"They haven't all gone, have they?"--_Puck_.

HORSES

A city man, visiting a small country town, boarded a stage with two dilapidated horses, and found that he had no other currency than a five-dollar bill. This he proffered to the driver. The latter took it, looked it over for a moment or so, and then asked:

"Which horse do you want?"

A traveler in Indiana noticed that a farmer was having trouble with his horse. It would start, go slowly for a short distance, and then stop again. Thereupon the farmer would have great difficulty in getting it started. Finally the traveler approached and asked, solicitously:

"Is your horse sick?"

"Not as I knows of."

"Is he balky?"

"No. But he is so danged 'fraid I'll say whoa and he won't hear me, that he stops every once in a while to listen."

A German farmer was in search of a horse.

"I've got just the horse for you," said the liveryman. "He's five years old, sound as a dollar and goes ten miles without stopping."

The German threw his hands skyward.

"Not for me," he said, "not for me. I live eight miles from town, und mit dot horse I haf to valk back two miles."

There's a grocer who is notorious for his wretched horse flesh.

The grocer's boy is rather a reckless driver. He drove one of his master's worst nags a little too hard one day, and the animal fell ill and died.

"You've killed my horse, curse you!" the grocer said to the boy the next morning.

"I'm sorry, boss," the lad faltered.

"Sorry be durned!" shouted the grocer. "Who's going to pay me for my horse?"

"I'll make it all right, boss," said the boy soothingly. "You can take it out of my next Saturday's wages."

Before Abraham Lincoln became President he was called out of town on important law business. As he had a long distance to travel he hired a horse from a livery stable. When a few days later he returned he took the horse back to the stable and asked the man who had given it to him: "Keep this horse for funerals?"

"No, indeed," answered the man indignantly.

"Glad to hear it," said Lincoln; "because if you did the corpse wouldn't get there in time for the resurrection."

HOSPITALITY

Night was approaching and it was raining hard. The traveler dismounted from his horse and rapped at the door of the one farmhouse he had struck in a five-mile stretch of traveling. No one came to the door.

As he stood on the doorstep the water from the eaves trickled down his collar. He rapped again. Still no answer. He could feel the stream of water coursing down his back. Another spell of pounding, and finally the red head of a lad of twelve was stuck out of the second story window.

"Watcher want?" it asked.

"I want to know if I can stay here over night," the traveler answered testily.

The red-headed lad watched the man for a minute or two before answering.

"Ye kin fer all of me," he finally answered, and then closed the window.

The old friends had had three days together.

"You have a pretty place here, John," remarked the guest on the morning of his departure. "But it looks a bit bare yet."

"Oh, that's because the trees are so young," answered the host comfortably. "I hope they'll have grown to a good size before you come again."

A youngster of three was enjoying a story his mother was reading aloud to him when a caller came. In a few minutes his mother was called to the telephone. The boy turned to the caller and said "Now you beat it home." Ollie James, the famous Kentucky Congressman and raconteur, hails from a little town in the western part of the state, but his patriotism is state-wide, and when Louisville made a bid for the last Democratic national convention she had no more enthusiastic supporter than James. A Denver supporter was protesting.

"Why, you know, Colonel," said he, "Louisville couldn't take care of the crowds. Even by putting cots in the halls, parlors, and the dining-rooms of the hotels there wouldn't be beds enough."

"Beds!" echoed the genial Congressman, "why, sir, Louisville would make her visitors have such a thundering good time that no gentleman would think of going to bed!"

HOSTS

I thank you for your welcome which was cordial, And your cordial which was welcome.

Here's to the host and the hostess, We're honored to be here tonight; May they both live long and prosper, May their star of hope ever be bright.

HOTELS

In a Montana hotel there is a notice which reads: "Boarders taken by the day, week or month. Those who do not pay promptly will be taken by the neck."--_Country Life_.

HUNGER

A man was telling about an exciting experience in Russia. His sleigh was pursued over the frozen wastes by a pack of at least a dozen famished wolves. He arose and shot the foremost one, and the others stopped to devour it. But they soon caught up with him, and he shot another, which was in turn devoured. This was repeated until the last famished wolf was almost upon him with yearning jaws, when--

"Say, partner," broke in one of the listeners, "according to your reckoning that last famished wolf must have had the other 'leven inside of him."

"Well, come to think it over," said the story teller, "maybe he wasn't so darned famished after all."

HUNTING

A gentleman from London was invited to go for "a day's snipe-shooting" in the country. The invitation was accepted, and host and guest shouldered guns and sallied forth in quest of game.

After a time a solitary snipe rose, and promptly fell to the visitor's first barrell.

The host's face fell also.

"We may as well return," he remarked, gloomily, "for that was the only snipe in the neighborhood."

The bird had afforded excellent sport to all his friends for six weeks.

HURRY

See Haste.

HUSBANDS

"Is she making him a good wife?"

"Well, not exactly; but she's making him a good husband."

A husband and wife ran a freak show in a certain provincial town, but unfortunately they quarreled, and the exhibits were equally divided between them. The wife decided to continue business as an exhibitor at the old address, but the husband went on a tour.

After some years' wandering the prodigal returned, and a reconciliation took place, as the result of which they became business partners once more. A few mornings afterward the people of the neighborhood were sent into fits of laughter on reading the following notice in the papers:

"By the return of my husband my stock of freaks has been permanently increased."

An eminent German scientist who recently visited this country with a number of his colleagues was dining at an American house and telling how much he had enjoyed various phases of his visit.

"How did you like our railroad trains?" his host asked him.

"Ach, dhey are woonderful," the German gentleman replied; "so swift, so safe chenerally--und such luxury in all dhe furnishings und opp'indmends. All is excellent excebt one thing--our wives do not like dhe upper berths."

A couple of old grouches at the Metropolitan Club in Washington were one night speaking of an old friend who, upon his marriage, took up his residence in another city. One of the grouches had recently visited the old friend, and, naturally, the other grouch wanted news of the Benedict.

"Is it true that he is henpecked?" asked the second grouch.

"I wouldn't say just that," grimly responded the first grouch, "but I'll tell you of a little incident in their household that came within my observation. The very first morning I spent with them, our old friend answered the letter carrier's whistle. As he returned to us, in the breakfast room, he carried a letter in his hand. Turning to his wife, he said:

"'A letter for me, dear. May I open it?'"--_Edwin Tarrisse_.

"Your husband says he leads a dog's life," said one woman.

"Yes, it's very similar," answered the other. "He comes in with muddy feet, makes himself comfortable by the fire, and waits to be fed."

NEIGHBOR--"I s'pose your Bill's 'ittin' the 'arp with the hangels now?"

LONG-SUFFERING WIDOW--"Not 'im. 'Ittin' the hangels wiv the 'arp's nearer 'is mark!"

"You say you are your wife's third husband?" said one man to another during a talk.

"No, I am her fourth husband," was the reply.

"Heavens, man!" said the first man; "you are not a husband--you're a habit."

MR. HENPECK--"Is my wife going out, Jane?"

JANE--"Yessir."

MR. HENPECK--"Do you know if I am going with her?"

A happily married woman, who had enjoyed thirty-three years of wedlock, and who was the grandmother of four beautiful little children, had an amusing old colored woman for a cook.

One day when a box of especially beautiful flowers was left for the mistress, the cook happened to be present, and she said: "Yo' husband send you all the pretty flowers you gits, Missy?"

"Certainly, my husband, Mammy," proudly answered the lady.

"Glory!" exclaimed the cook, "he suttenly am holdin' out well."

An absent-minded man was interrupted as he was finishing a letter to his wife, in the office. As a result, the signature read:

Your loving husband,

HOPKINS BROS.

_Winifred C. Bristol_.

Mrs. McKinley used to tell of a colored widow whose children she had helped educate. The widow, rather late in life, married again.

"How are you getting on?" Mrs. McKinley asked her a few months after her marriage.

"Fine, thank yo', ma'am," the bride answered.

"And is your husband a good provider?"

"'Deed he am a good providah, ma'am," was the enthusiastic reply. "Why, jes' dis las' week he got me five new places to wash at."

"I suffer so from insomnia I don't know what to do."

"Oh, my dear, if you could only talk to my husband awhile."

"Did Hardlucke bear his misfortune like a man?"

"Exactly like one. He blamed it all on his wife."--_Judge_.

A popular society woman announced a "White Elephant Party." Every guest was to bring something that she could not find any use for, and yet too good to throw away. The party would have been a great success but for the unlooked-for development which broke it up. Eleven of the nineteen women brought their husbands.

A very man--not one of nature's clods-- With human failings, whether saint or sinner: Endowed perhaps with genius from the gods But apt to take his temper from his dinner.

--_J. G. Saxe_.

A woman mounted the steps of the elevated station carrying an umbrella like a reversed saber. An attendant warned her that she might put out the eye of the man behind her.

"Well, he's my husband!" she snapped.

OLD MONEY (dying)--"I'm afraid I've been a brute to you sometimes, dear."

YOUNG WIFE--"Oh, never mind that darling; I'll always remember how very kind you were when you left me."

An inveterate poker player, whose wife always complained of his late hours, stayed out even later than usual one night and tells in the following way of his attempt to get in unnoticed:

"I slipped off my shoes at the front steps, pulled off my clothes in the hall, slipped into the bedroom, and began to slip into bed with the ease of experience.

"My wife has a blamed fine dog that on cold nights insists on jumping in the bed with us. So when I began to slide under the covers she stirred in her sleep and pushed me on the head.

"'Get down, Fido, get down!' she said.

"And, gentlemen, I just did have presence of mind enough to lick her hand, and she dozed off again!"

MR. HOMEBODY--"I see you keep copies of all the letters you write to your wife. Do you do it to avoid repeating yourself?"

MR. FARAWAY--"No. To avoid contradicting myself."

There is gladness in his gladness, when he's glad, There is sadness in his sadness, when he's sad; But the gladness in his gladness, Nor the sadness in his sadness, Isn't a marker to his madness when he's mad.

_See also_ Cowards; Domestic finance.

HYBRIDIZATION

We used to think that the smartest man ever born was the Connecticut Yankee who grafted white birch on red maples and grew barber poles. Now we rank that gentleman second. First place goes to an experimenter attached to the Berlin War Office, who has crossed carrier pigeons with parrots, so that Wilhelmstrasse can now get verbal messages through the enemy's lines.--_Warwick James Price_.

HYPERBOLE

"Speakin' of fertile soil," said the Kansan, when the others had had their say, "I never saw a place where melons growed like they used to out in my part of the country. The first season I planted 'em I thought my fortune was sure made. However, I didn't harvest one."

He waited for queries, but his friends knew him, and he was forced to continue unurged:

"The vines growed so fast that they wore out the melons draggin' 'em 'round. However, the second year my two little boys made up their minds to get a taste of one anyhow, so they took turns, carryin' one along with the vine and--"

But his companions had already started toward the barroom door.

News comes from Southern Kansas that a boy climbed a cornstalk to see how the sky and clouds looked and now the stalk is growing faster than the boy can climb down. The boy is clear out of sight. Three men have taken the contract for cutting down the stalk with axes to save the boy a horrible death by starving, but the stalk grows so rapidly that they can't hit twice in the same place. The boy is living on green corn alone and has already thrown down over four bushels of cobs. Even if the corn holds out there is still danger that the boy will reach a height where he will be frozen to death. There is some talk of attempting his rescue with a balloon.--_Topeka Capital_.

HYPOCRISY

Hypocrisy is all right if we can pass it off as politeness.

TEACHER-"Now, Tommy, what is a hypocrite?"

TOMMY-"A boy that comes to school with a smile on his face."--_Graham Charteris_.

IDEALS

The fact that his two pet bantam hens laid very small eggs troubled little Johnny. At last he was seized with an inspiration. Johnny's father, upon going to the fowl-run one morning, was surprised at seeing an ostrich egg tied to one of the beams, with this injunction chalked above it:

"Keep your eye on this and do your best."

ILLUSIONS AND HALLUCINATIONS

A doctor came up to a patient in an insane asylum, slapped him on the back, and said: "Well, old man, you're all right. You can run along and write your folks that you'll be back home in two weeks as good as new."

The patient went off gayly to write his letter. He had it finished and sealed, but when he was licking the stamp it slipped through his fingers to the floor, lighted on the back of a cockroach that was passing, and stuck. The patient hadn't seen the cockroach--what he did see was his escaped postage stamp zig-zagging aimlessly across the floor to the baseboard, wavering up over the baseboard, and following a crooked track up the wall and across the ceiling. In depressed silence he tore up the letter he had just written and dropped the pieces on the floor.

"Two weeks! Hell!" he said. "I won't be out of here in three years."

IMAGINATION

One day a mother overheard her daughter arguing with a little boy about their respective ages.

"I am older than you," he said, "'cause my birthday comes first, in May, and your's don't come till September."

"Of course your birthday comes first," she sneeringly retorted, "but that is 'cause you came down first. I remember looking at the angels when they were making you."

The mother instantly summoned her daughter. "It's breaking mother's heart to hear you tell such awful stories," she said. "Don't you remember what happened to Ananias and Sapphira?"

"Oh, yes, mamma, I know; they were struck dead for lying. I saw them carried into the corner drug store!"

IMITATION

Not long ago a company was rehearsing for an open-air performance of _As You Like It_ near Boston. The garden wherein they were to play was overlooked by a rising brick edifice.

One afternoon, during a pause in the rehearsal, a voice from the building exclaimed with the utmost gravity:

"I prithee, malapert, pass me yon brick."

INFANTS

A wife after the divorce, said to her husband: "I am willing to let you have the baby half the time."

"Good!" said he, rubbing his hands. "Splendid!"

"Yes," she resumed, "you may have him nights."

"Is the baby strong?"

"Well, rather! You know what a tremendous voice he has?"

"Yes."

"Well, he lifts that five or six times an hour!"--_Comic Cuts_.

Recipe for a baby:

Clean and dress a wriggle, add a pint of nearly milk, Smother with a pillow any sneeze; Baste with talcum powder and mark upon its back-- "Don't forget that you were one of these."

--_Life_.

INQUISITIVENESS

_See_ Wives.

INSANITY

_See_ Editors; Love.

INSPIRATIONS

She was from Boston, and he was not.

He had spent a harrowing evening discussing authors of whom he knew nothing, and their books, of which he knew less.

Presently the maiden asked archly: "Of course, you've read 'Romeo and Juliet?'"

He floundered helplessly for a moment and then, having a brilliant thought, blurted out, happily:

"I've--I've read Romeo!"

INSTALMENT PLAN

Half the world doesn't know how many things the other half is paying instalments on.

INSTRUCTIONS

A lively looking porter stood on the rear platform of a sleeping-car in the Pennsylvania station when a fussy and choleric old man clambered up the steps. He stopped at the door, puffed for a moment, and then turned to the young man in uniform.

"Porter," he said. "I'm going to St. Louis, to the Fair. I want to be well taken care of. I pay for it. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir, but--"

"Never mind any 'buts.' You listen to what I say. Keep the train boys away from me. Dust me off whenever I want you to. Give me an extra blanket, and if there is any one in the berth over me slide him into another. I want you to--"

"But, say, boss, I--"

"Young man, when I'm giving instructions I prefer to do the talking myself. You do as I say. Here is a two-dollar bill. I want to get the good of it. Not a word, sir."

The train was starting. The porter pocketed the bill with a grin and swung himself to the ground. "All right, boss!" he shouted. "You can do the talking if you want to. I'm powerful sorry you wouldn't let me tell you--but I ain't going out on that train."

INSURANCE, LIFE

A man went to an insurance office to have his life insured the other day.

"Do you cycle?" the insurance agent asked.

"No," said the man.

"Do you motor?"

"No."

"Do you, then, perhaps, fly?"

"No, no," said the applicant, laughing; "I have no dangerous--"

But the agent interrupted him curtly.

"Sorry, sir," he said, "but we no longer insure pedestrians."

INSURANCE BLANKS

_See_ Irish bulls.

INSURGENTS

"And what," asked a visitor to the North Dakota State Fair, "do you call that kind of cucumber?"

"That," replied a Fargo politician, "is the Insurgent cucumber. It doesn't always agree with a party."

INTERVIEWS

"Haven't your opinions on this subject undergone a change?"

"No," replied Senator Soghum.

"But your views, as you expressed them some time ago?"

"Those were not my views. Those were my interviews."

INVITATIONS

"Recently," says a Richmond man, "I received an invitation to the marriage of a young colored couple formerly in my employ. I am quite sure that all persons similarly favored were left in little doubt as to the attitude of the couple. The invitation ran as follows:

"You are invited to the marriage of Mr. Henry Clay Barker and Miss Josephine Mortimer Dixon at the house of the bride's mother. All who cannot come may send."--_Howard Morse_.

One day a Chinese poor man met the head of his family in the street.

"Come and dine with us tonight," the mandarin said graciously.

"Thank you," said the poor relation. "But wouldn't tomorrow night do just as well?"

"Yes, certainly. But where are you dining tonight?" asked the mandarin curiously.

"At your house. You see, your estimable wife was good enough to give me tonight's invitation."

MARION (just from the telephone)--"He wanted to know if we would go to the theater with him, and I said we would."

MADELINE--"Who was speaking?"

MARION--"Oh, gracious! I forgot to ask."