Chapter 22

A colored girl asked the drug clerk for "ten cents' wuth o' cou't-plaster."

"What color," he asked.

"Flesh cullah, suh."

Whereupon the clerk proffered a box of black court plaster.

The girl opened the box with a deliberation that was ominous, but her face was unruffled as she noted the color of the contents and said:

"I ast for flesh cullah, an' you done give me skin cullah." A cart containing a number of negro field hands was being drawn by a mule. The driver, a darky of about twenty, was endeavoring to induce the mule to increase its speed, when suddenly the animal let fly with its heels and dealt him such a kick on the head that he was stretched on the ground in a twinkling. He lay rubbing his woolly pate where the mule had kicked him.

"Is he hurt?" asked a stranger anxiously of an older negro who had jumped from the conveyance and was standing over the prostrate driver.

"No, Boss," was the older man's reply; "dat mule will probably walk kind o' tendah for a day or two, but he ain't hurt."

In certain parts of the West Indies the negroes speak English with a broad brogue. They are probably descended from the slaves of the Irish adventurers who accompanied the Spanish settlers.

A gentleman from Dublin upon arriving at a West Indian port was accosted by a burly negro fruit vender with, "Th, top uv th' mornin' to ye, an' would ye be after wantin' to buy a bit o' fruit, sor?"

The Irishman stared at him in amazement.

"An' how long have ye been here?" he finally asked.

"Goin' on three months, yer Honor," said the vender, thinking of the time he had left his inland home.

"Three months, is it? Only three months an' as black as thot? Faith, I'll not land!"

Dinah, crying bitterly, was coming down the street with her feet bandaged.

"Why, what on earth's the matter?" she was asked. "How did you hurt your feet, Dinah?"

"Dat good fo' nothin' nigger [sniffle] done hit me on de haid wif a club while I was standin' on de hard stone pavement."

"'Liza, what fo' yo' buy dat udder box of shoe-blacknin'?"

"Go on, Nigga', dat ain't shoe-blacknin', dat's ma massage cream!"

"Johnny," said the mother as she vigorously scrubbed the small boy's face with soap and water, "didn't I tell you never to blacken your face again? Here I've been scrubbing for half an hour and it won't come off."

"I--I--ouch!" sputtered the small boy; "I ain't your little boy. I--ouch! I'se Mose, de colored lady's little boy."

The day before she was to be married an old negro servant came to her mistress and intrusted her savings to her keeping.

"Why should I keep your money for you? I thought you were going to be married?" said the mistress.

"So I is, Missus, but do you 'spose I'd keep all dis yer money in de house wid dat strange nigger?"

A southern colonel had a colored valet by the name of George. George received nearly all the colonel's cast-off clothing. He had his eyes on a certain pair of light trousers which were not wearing out fast enough to suit him, so he thought he would hasten matters somewhat by rubbing grease on one knee. When the colonel saw the spot, he called George and asked if he had noticed it. George said, "Yes, sah, Colonel, I noticed dat spot and tried mighty hard to get it out, but I couldn't."

"Have you tried gasoline?" the colonel asked.

"Yes, sah, Colonel, but it didn't do no good."

"Have you tried brown paper and a hot iron?"

"Yes, sah, Colonel, I'se done tried 'mos' everything I knows of, but dat spot wouldn't come out."

"Well, George, have you tried ammonia?" the colonel asked as a last resort.

"No, sah, Colonel, I ain't tried 'em on yet, but I knows dey'll fit."

A negro went into a hardware shop and asked to be shown some razors, and after critically examining those submitted to him the would-be purchaser was asked why he did not try a "safety," to which he replied: "I ain' lookin' for that kind. I wants this for social purposes."

Before a house where a colored man had died, a small darkey was standing erect at one side of the door. It was about time for the services to begin, and the parson appeared from within and said to the darkey: "De services are about to begin. Aren't you a-gwine in?"

"I'se would if I'se could, parson," answered the little negro, "but yo' see I'se de crape."

_See also_ Chicken stealing.

NEIGHBORS

THE MAN AT THE DOOR--"Madame, I'm the piano-tuner."

THE WOMAN--"I didn't send for a piano-tuner."

THE MAN--"I know it, lady; the neighbors did."

NEW JERSEY

"You must have had a terrible experience with no food, and mosquitoes swarming around you," I said to the shipwrecked mariner who had been cast upon the Jersey sands.

"You just bet I had a terrible experience," he acknowledged. "My experience was worse than that of the man who wrote 'Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.' With me it was bites, bites everywhere, but not a bite to eat."

NEW YORK CITY

At a convention of Methodist Bishops held in Washington, the Bishop of New York made a stirring address extolling the powers and possibilities of his state. Bishop Hamilton, of California, like all good Californians, is imbued with the conviction that it would be hard to equal a place he knows of on the Pacific, and following the Bishop of New York he gave a glowing picture of California, concluding:

"Not only is it the best place on earth to live in, but it has superior advantages, too, as a place to die in; for there we have at our threshold the beautiful Golden Gate, while in New York they only have--well, you know which gate it is over at New York!" One night Dave Warfield was playing at David Belasco's new theatre, supported by one of Mr. Belasco's new companies. The performance ran with a smoothness of a Standard Oil lawyer explaining rebates to a Federal court. A worthy person of the farming classes, sitting in G 14, was plainly impressed. In an interval between the acts he turned to the metropolitan who had the seat next him.

"Where do all them troopers come from?" he inquired.

"I don't think I understand," said the city-dweller.

"I mean them actors up yonder on the stage," explained the man from afar. "Was they brought on specially for this show, or do they live here?"

"I believe most of them live here in town," said the New Yorker.

"Well, they do purty blamed well for home talent," said the stranger.

A traveler in Tennessee came across an aged negro seated in front of his cabin door basking in the sunshine.

"He could have walked right on the stage for an Uncle Tom part without a line of makeup," says the traveler. "He must have been eighty years of age."

"Good morning, uncle," says the stranger.

"Mornin', sah! Mornin'," said the aged one. Then he added, "Be you the gentleman over yonder from New York?"

Being told that such was the case the old darky said; "Do you mind telling me something that has been botherin' my old haid? I have got a grandson--he runs on the Pullman cyars--and he done tell me that up thar in New York you-all burn up youah folks when they die. He is a poherful liar, and I don't believe him."

"Yes," replied the other, "that is the truth in some cases. We call it cremation."

"Well, you suttenly surprise me," said the negro and then he paused as if in deep reflection. Finally he said: "You-all know I am a Baptist. I believe in the resurrection and the life everlastin' and the coming of the Angel Gabriel and the blowin' of that great horn, and Lawdy me, how am they evah goin' to find them folks on that great mawnin'?"

It was too great a task for an offhand answer, and the suggestion was made that the aged one consult his minister. Again the negro fell into a brown study, and then he raised his head and his eyes twinkled merrily, and he said in a soft voice:

"Meanin' no offense, sah, but from what Ah have heard about New York I kinder calcerlate they is a lot of them New York people that doan' wanter be found on that mornin'."

NEWS

Soon after the installation of the telegraph in Fredericksburg, Virginia, a little darky, the son of my father's mammy, saw a piece of newspaper that had blown up on the telegraph wires and caught there. Running to my grandmother in a great state of excitement, he cried, "Miss Liza, come quick! Dem wires done buss and done let all the news out!"--_Sue M.M. Halsey_.

"Our whole neighborhood has been stirred up," said the regular reader.

The editor of the country weekly seized his pen. "Tell me about it," he said. "What we want is news. What stirred it up?"

"Plowing," said the farmer.

There is nothing new except what is forgotten.--_Mademoiselle Berlin_.

NEWSPAPERS

A kind old gentleman seeing a small boy who was carrying a lot of newspapers under his arm said: "Don't all those papers make you tired, my boy?"

"Naw, I don't read 'em," replied the lad.

VOX POPULI--"Do you think you've boosted your circulation by giving a year's subscription for the biggest potato raised in the county?"

THE EDITOR--"Mebbe not; but I got four barrels of samples."

COLONEL HIGHFLYER--"What are your rates per column?"

EDITOR OF "SWELL SOCIETY"--"For insertion or suppression?"--_Life_.

EDITOR--"You wish a position as a proofreader?"

APPLICANT--"Yes, sir."

"Do you understand the requirements of that responsible position?"

"Perfectly, sir. Whenever you make any mistakes in the paper, just blame 'em on me, and I'll never say a word."

A prominent Montana newspaper man was making the round of the insane asylum of that state in an official capacity as an inspector. One of the inmates mistook him for a recent arrival.

"What made you go crazy?"

"I was trying to make money out of the newspaper business," replied the editor, to humor the demented one.

"Rats, you're not crazy; you're just a plain darn fool," was the lunatic's comment.

"Did you write this report on my lecture, 'The Curse of Whiskey'?"

"Yes, madam."

"Then kindly explain what you mean by saying, 'The lecturer was evidently full of her subject!'"

We clip the following for the benefit of those who doubt the power of the press:

"Owing to the overcrowded condition of our columns, a number of births and deaths are unavoidably postponed this week."

"Binks has sued us for libel," announced the assistant editor of the sensational paper.

The managing editor's face brightened.

"Tell him," he said, "that if he will put up a strong fight we'll cheerfully pay the damages and charge them up to the advertising account."

Booth Tarkington says that in no state have the newspapers more "journalistic enterprise" than in his native Indiana. While stopping at a little Hoosier hotel in the course of a hunting trip Mr. Tarkington lost one of his dogs.

"Have you a newspaper in town?" he asked of the landlord.

"Right across the way, there, back of the shoemaker's," the landlord told him. "The _Daily News_--best little paper of its size in the state."

The editor, the printer, and the printer's devil were all busy doing justice to Mr. Tarkington with an "in-our-midst" paragraph when the novelist arrived.

"I've just lost a dog," Tarkington explained after he had introduced himself, "and I'd like to have you insert this ad for me: 'Fifty dollars reward for the return of a pointer dog answering to the name of Rex. Disappeared from the yard of the Mansion House Monday night.'"

"Why, we are just going to press, sir," the editor said, "but we'll be only too glad to hold the edition for your ad."

Mr. Tarkington returned to the hotel. After a few minutes he decided, however, that it might be well to add, "No questions asked" to his advertisement, and returned to the _Daily News_ office.

The place was deserted, save for the skinny little freckle-faced devil, who sat perched on a high stool, gazing wistfully out of the window.

"Where is everybody?" Tarkington asked.

"Gawn to hunt for th' dawg," replied the boy.

"You are the greatest inventor in the world," exclaimed a newspaper man to Alexander Graham Bell.

"Oh, no, my friend, I'm not," said Professor Bell. "I've never been a reporter."

Not long ago a city editor in Ottumwa, Iowa, was told over the telephone that a prominent citizen had just died suddenly. He called a reporter and told him to rush out and get the "story." Twenty minutes later the reporter returned, sat down at his desk, and began to rattle off copy on his typewriter.

"Well, what about it?" asked the city editor.

"Oh, nothing much," replied the reporter, without looking up. "He was walking along the street when he suddenly clasped his hands to his heart and said, 'I'm going to die!' Then he leaned up against a fence and made good."

Enraged over something the local newspaper had printed about him, a subscriber burst into the editor's office in search of the responsible reporter. "Who are you?" he demanded, glaring at the editor, who was also the main stockholder.

"I'm the newspaper," was the calm reply.

"And who are you?" he next inquired, turning his resentful gaze on the chocolate-colored office-devil clearing out the waste basket.

"Me?" rejoined the darky, grinning from ear to ear. "Ah guess ah's de cul'ud supplement."

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.--_Napoleon I_.

Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one down without a feeling of disappointment.--_Charles Lamb_.

OBESITY

_See_ Corpulence.

OBITUARIES

If you have frequent fainting spells, accompanied by chills, cramps, corns, bunions, chilblains, epilepsy and jaundice, it is a sign that you are not well, but liable to die any minute. Pay your subscription in advance and thus make yourself solid for a good obituary notice.--_Mountain Echo_.

_See_ also Epitaphs.

OBSERVATION

In his daily half hour confidential talk with his boy an ambitious father tried to give some good advice.

"Be observing, my son," said the father on one occasion. "Cultivate the habit of seeing, and you will be a successful man. Study things and remember them. Don't go through the world blindly. Learn to use your eyes. Boys who are observing know a great deal more than those who are not."

Willie listened in silence.

Several days later when the entire family, consisting of his mother, aunt and uncle, were present, his father said:

"Well, Willie, have you kept using your eyes as I advised you to do?"

Willie nodded, and after a moment's hesitation said:

"I've seen a few things right around the house. Uncle Jim's got a bottle of hair dye hid under his trunk, Aunt Jennie's got an extra set of teeth in her dresser, Ma's got some curls in her hat, and Pa's got a deck of cards and a box of chips behind the books in the secretary."

OCCUPATIONS

Mrs. Hennessey, who was a late arrival in the neighborhood, was entertaining a neighbor one afternoon, when the latter inquired:

"An' what does your old man do, Mrs. Hennessey?"

"Sure, he's a di'mond-cuttter."

"Ye don't mane it!"

"Yis; he cuts th' grass off th' baseball grounds."--_L.F. Clarke_.

All business men are apt to use the technical terms of their daily labors in situations outside of working hours. One time a railroad man was entertaining his pastor at dinner and his sons, who had to wait until their elders had finished got into mischief. At the end of the meal, their father excused himself for a moment saying he had to "switch some empties."

"Professor," said Miss Skylight, "I want you to suggest a course in life for me. I have thought of journalism--"

"What are your own inclinations?"

"Oh, my soul yearns and throbs and pulsates with an ambition to give the world a life-work that shall be marvelous in its scope, and weirdly entrancing in the vastness of its structural beauty!"

"Woman, you're born to be a milliner."

A woman, when asked her husband's occupation, said he was a mixologist. The city directory called him a bartender.

"A good turkey dinner and mince pie," said a well-known after-dinner orator, "always puts us in a lethargic mood--makes us feel, in fact, like the natives of Nola Chucky. In Nola Chucky one day I said to a man:

"'What is the principal occupation of this town?'

"'Wall, boss,' the man answered, yawning, 'in winter they mostly sets on the east side of the house and follers the sun around to the west, and in summer they sets on the west side and follers the shade around to the east.'"

JONES--"How'd this happen? The last time I was here you were running a fish-market, and now you've got a cheese-shop."

SMITH--"Yes. Well, you see the doctor said I needed a change of air."

The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment--_Douglas Jerrold_.

OCEAN

A resident of Nahant tells this one on a new servant his wife took down from Boston.

"Did you sleep well, Mary?" the girl was asked the following morning.

"Sure, I did not, ma'am," was the reply; "the snorin' of the ocean kept me awake all night."

Love the sea? I dote upon it--from the beach.--_Douglas Jerrold_.

I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more.

--_Barry Cornwall_.

OFFICE BOYS

"Have you had any experience as an office-boy?"

"I should say I had, mister; why, I'm a dummy director in three mining-companies now."

OFFICE-SEEKERS

A gentleman, not at all wealthy, who had at one time represented in Congress, through a couple of terms a district not far from the national capitol, moved to California where in a year or so he rose to be sufficiently prominent to become a congressional subject, and he was visited by the central committee of his district to be talked to.

"We want you," said the spokesman, "to accept the nomination for Congress."

"I can't do it, gentlemen," he responded promptly.

"You must," the spokesman demanded.

"But I can't," he insisted. "I'm too poor."

"Oh, that will be all right; we've got plenty of money for the campaign."

"But that is nothing," contended the gentleman; "it's the expense in Washington. I've been there, and know all about it."

"Well you didn't lose by it, and it doesn't cost any more because you come from California."

The gentleman became very earnest.

"Doesn't it?" he exclaimed in a business-like tone. "Why my dear sirs, I used to have to send home every month about half a dozen busted office-seeker constituents, and the fare was only $3 apiece, and I could stand it, but it would cost me over $100 a head to send them out here, and I'm no millionaire; therefore, as much as I regret it, I must insist on declining."

"On a trip to Washington," said Col. W.F. Cody. "I had for a companion Sousa, the band leader. We had berths opposite each other. Early one morning as we approached the capital I thought I would have a little fun. I got a morning paper, and, after rustling it a few minutes, I said to Sousa:

"'That's the greatest order Cleveland has just issued!'

"'What's that?' came from the opposite berth.

"'Why he's ordered all the office-seekers rounded up at the depot and sent home.'

"You should have seen the general consternation that ensued. From almost every berth on the car a head came out from between the curtains, and with one accord nearly every man shouted:

'What's that?'"

OLD AGE

_See_ Age.

OLD MASTERS

_See_ Paintings.

ONIONS

Can the Burbanks of the glorious West Either make or buy or sell An onion with an onion's taste But with a violet's smell?

SHE--"They say that an apple a day will keep the doctor away."

HE--"Why stop there? An onion a day will keep everybody away."

OPERA

"Which do you consider the most melodious Wagnerian opera?" asked Mrs. Cumrox.

"There are several I haven't heard, aren't there?" rejoined her husband.

"Yes."

"Then I guess it's one of them."

OPPORTUNITY

Many a man creates his own lack of opportunities.--_Life_.

Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd, Shall never find it more.

--_Shakespeare_.

In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscles trained; know'st thou when fate Thy measure takes? or when she'll say to thee, "I find thee worthy, do this thing for me!"

--_Emerson_.

OPTIMISM

Optimism is Worry on a spree.--_Judge_.

An optimist is a man who doesn't care what happens just so is doesn't happen to him.

An optimist is the fellow who doesn't know what's coming to him.--_J.J. O'Connell_.

An optimist is a woman who thinks that everything is for the best, and that she is the best.-_Judge_.

A political optimist is a fellow who can make sweet, pink lemonade out of the bitter yellow fruit which his opponents hand him.

Mayor William S. Jordan, at a Democratic banquet in Jacksonville, said of optimism:

"Let us cultivate optimism and hopefulness. There is nothing like it. The optimistic man can see a bright side to everything--everything.

"A missionary in a slum once laid his hand on a man's shoulder and said:

"'Friend, do you hear the solemn ticking of that clock? Tick-tack; tick-tack. And oh, friend, do you know what day it inexorably and relentlessly brings nearer?"

"'Yes-pay day,' the other, an honest, optimistic workingman, replied."

A Scotsman who has a keen appreciation of the strong characteristics of his countrymen delights in the story of a druggist known both for his thrift and his philosophy.

Once he was aroused from a deep sleep by the ringing of his night bell. He went down to his little shop and sold a dose of rather nauseous medicine to a distressed customer.

"What profit do you make out of that?" grumbled his wife.

"A ha'penny," was the cheerful answer.

"And for that bit of money you'll lie awake maybe an hour," she said impatiently.

"Never grumble o'er that, woman," was his placid answer. "The dose will keep him awake all night. We must thank heaven we ha' the profit and none o' the pain o' this transaction."

A German shoemaker left the gas turned on in his shop one night and upon arriving in the morning struck a match to light it.

There was a terrific explosion, and the shoemaker was blown out through the door almost to the middle of the street.

A passer-by rushed to his assistance, and, after helping him to rise, inquired if he was injured.

The little German gazed at his place of business, which was now burning quite briskly, and said:

"No, I ain't hurt. But I got out shust in time, eh?"

My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That, after Last, returns the First, Tho' a wide compass round be fetched; That what began best, can't prove worst, Nor what God blessed once, prove accursed.

--_Browning_.

ORATORS

It is narrated that Colonel Breckenridge, meeting Majah Buffo'd on the streets of Lexington one day asked: "What's the meaning, suh, of the conco's befor' the co't house?"

To which the majah replied:

"General Buckneh is making a speech. General Buckneh suh, is a bo'n oratah."

"What do you mean by bo'n oratah?"

"If you or I, suh, were asked how much two and two make, we would reply 'foh.' When this is asked of a bo'n oratah, he replies: 'When in the co'se of human events it becomes necessary to take an integah of the second denomination and add it, suh, to an integah of the same denomination, the result, suh--and I have the science of mathematics to back me up in my judgment--the result, suh, and I say it without feah of successful contradiction, suh-the result is fo'' That's a bo'n oratah."

When Demosthenes was asked what was the first part of Oratory, he answered, "Action," and which was the second, he replied, "Action," and which was the third, he still answered "Action."--_Plutarch_.

OUTDOOR LIFE