Chapter XII: Part 12

Once upon a time there was an Indian named Big Smoke, employed as a missionary to his fellow Smokes.

A white man encountering Big Smoke, asked him what he did for a living.

"Umph!" said Big Smoke, "me preach."

"That so? What do you get for preaching?"

"Me get ten dollars a year."

"Well," said the white man, "that's damn poor pay."

"Umph!" said Big Smoke, "me damn poor preacher."

_See also_ Clergy.

PRESCRIPTIONS

After a month's work in intensely warm weather a gardener in the suburbs became ill, and the anxious little wife sent for a doctor, who wrote a prescription after examining the patient. The doctor, upon departing, said: "Just let your husband take that and you'll find he will be all right in a short time."

Next day the doctor called again, and the wife opened the door, her face beaming with smiles. "Sure, that was a wonderful wee bit of paper you left yesterday," she exclaimed. "William is better to-day."

"I'm glad to hear that," said the much-pleased medical man.

"Not but what I hadn't a big job to get him to swallow it." she continued, "but, sure, I just wrapped up the wee bit of paper quite small and put it in a spoonful of jam and William swallowed it unbeknownst. By night he was entirely better."

PRESENCE OF MIND

"What did you do when you met the train-robber face to face?"

"I explained that I had been interviewed by the ticket-seller, the luggage-carriers, the dining-car waiters, and the sleeping-car porters and borrowed a dollar from him."

PRINTERS

The master of all trades: He beats the farmer with his fast "hoe," the carpenter with his "rule," and the mason in "setting up tall columns"; and he surpasses the lawyer and the doctor in attending to the "cases," and beats the parson in the management of the devil.

PRISONS

A man arrested for stealing chickens was brought to trial. The case was given to the jury, who brought him in guilty, and the judge sentenced him to three months' imprisonment. The jailer was a jovial man, fond of a smile, and feeling particularly good on that particular day, considered himself insulted when the prisoner looking around the cell told him it was dirty, and not fit for a hog to be put in. One word brought on another, till finally the jailer told the prisoner if he did not behave himself he would put him out. To which the prisoner replied: "I will give you to understand, sir, I have as good a right here as you have!"

SHERIFF--"That fellow who just left jail is going to be arrested again soon."

"How do you know?"

SHERIFF--"He chopped my wood, carried the water, and mended my socks. I can't get along without him."

PRODIGALS

"Why did the father of the prodigal son fall on his neck and weep?"

"Cos he had ter kill the fatted calf, an' de son wasn't wort' it."

PROFANITY

THE RECTOR--"It's terrible for a man like you to make every other word an oath."

THE MAN--"Oh, well, I swear a good deal and you pray a good deal, but we don't neither of us mean nuthin' by it."

FIRST DEAF MUTE--"He wasn't so very angry, was he?"

SECOND DEAF MUTE--"He was so wild that the words he used almost blistered his fingers."

The little daughter of a clergyman stubbed her toe and said, "Darn!"

"I'll give you ten cents," said father, "if you'll never say that word again."

A few days afterward she came to him and said: "Papa, I've got a word worth half a dollar."

Very frequently the winter highways of the Yukon valley are mere trails, traversed only by dog-sledges. One of the bishops in Alaska, who was very fond of that mode of travel, encountered a miner coming out with his dog-team, and stopped to ask him what kind of a road he had come over.

The miner responded with a stream of forcible and picturesque profanity, winding up with:

"And what kind o' trail did you have?"

"Same as yours," replied the bishop feelingly.--_Elgin Burroughs_.

A scrupulous priest of Kildare,
Used to pay a rude peasant to swear,
Who would paint the air blue,
For an hour or two,
While his reverence wrestled in prayer.

Donald and Jeanie were putting down a carpet. Donald slammed the end of his thumb with the hammer and began to pour forth his soul in language befitting the occasion.

"Donald, Donald!" shrieked Jeanie, horrified. "Dinna swear that way!"

"Wummun!" vociferated Donald; "gin ye know ony better way, now is the time to let me know it!"

"It is not always necessary to make a direct accusation," said the lawyer who was asking damages because insinuations had been made against his client's good name. "You may have heard of the woman who called to the hired girl, 'Mary, Mary. come here and take the parrot downstairs--the master has dropped his collar button!'"

Little Bartholomew's mother overheard him swearing like a mule-driver. He displayed a fluency that overwhelmed her. She took him to task, explaining the wickedness of profanity as well as its vulgarity. She asked where he had learned all those dreadful words. Bartholomew announced that Cavert, one of his playmates, had taught him.

Cavert's mother was straightway informed and Cavert was brought to book. He vigorously denied having instructed Bartholomew, and neither threats nor tears could make him confess. At last he burst out:

"I didn't tell Bartholomew any cuss words. Why should I know how to cuss any better than he does? Hasn't his father got an automobile, too?"

They were in Italy together.

"If you would let me curse them black and blue," said the groom, "we shouldn't have to wait so long for the trunks."

"But, darling, please don't. It would distress me so," murmured the bride.

The groom went off, but quickly returned with the porters before him trundling the trunks at a double quick.

"Oh, dearest, how did you do it? You didn't--?"

"Not at all. I thought of something that did quite as well. I said, '_S-s-s-susquehanna, R-r-r-rappahannock!'"--Cornelia C. Ward_.

A school girl was required to write an essay of two hundred and fifty words about a motorcar. She submitted the following:

"My uncle bought a motorcar. He was riding in the country when it busted up a hill. I guess this is about fifty words. The other two hundred are what my uncle said when he was walking back to town, but they are not fit for publication."

The ashman was raising a can of ashes above his head to dump the contents into his cart, when the bottom of the can came out. Ethel saw it and ran in and told her mother.

"I hope you didn't listen to what he said," the mother remarked.

"He didn't say a word to me," replied the little girl; "he just walked right off by the side of his cart, talking to God."

A young man entered the jeweler's store and bought a ring, which he ordered engraved. The jeweler asked what name.

"George Osborne to Harriet Lewis, but I prefer only the initials, G.O. to H.L."

For it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.--_Shakespeare_.

PROHIBITION

"Talking about dry towns, have you ever been in Leavenworth, Kansas?" asked the commercial traveler in the smoking-car. "No? Well, that's a dry town for you, all right."

"They can't sell liquor at all there?" asked one of the men.

"Only if you had been bitten by a snake," said the drummer. "They have only one snake in town, and when I got to it the other day after standing in line for nearly half a day it was too tired to bite."

It was prohibition country. As soon as the train pulled up, a seedy little man with a covered basket on his arm hurried to the open windows of the smoker and exhibited a quart bottle filled with rich, dark fluid.

"Want to buy some nice cold tea?" he asked, with just the suspicion of a wink.

Two thirsty-looking cattlemen brightened visibly, and each paid a dollar for a bottle.

"Wait until you get outer the station before you take a drink," the little man cautioned them. "I don't wanter get in trouble."

He found three other customers before the train pulled out, in each case repeating his warning.

"You seem to be doing a pretty good business," remarked a man who had watched it all. "But I don't see why you'd run any more risk of getting in trouble if they took a drink before the train started."

"Ye don't, hey? Well, what them bottles had in 'em, pardner, was real cold tea."

PROMOTING

Mr. Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, at the British North Borneo dinner, said that a City friend of his was approached with a view to floating a rubber company. His friend was quite ready. "How many trees have you?" he asked. "We have not got any trees," was the answer. "How much land have you?" "We have no land." "What then have you got?" "I have a bag of seeds!"

There are many tales about the caution of Russell Sage and the cleverness with which he outwitted those who sought to get some of his money from him. Two brilliant promoters went to him one time and presented a scheme. The financier listened for an hour, and when they departed they were told that Mr. Sage's decision would be mailed to them in a few days.

"I think we have got Uncle Russell," said one of the promoters. "I really believe we have won his confidence."

"I fear not," observed the other doubtfully. "He is too suspicious."

"Suspicious? I didn't observe any sign of it."

"Didn't you notice that he counted his fingers after I had shaken hands with him and we were coming away?"

PROMOTION

Promotion cometh neither from the east nor the west, but from the cemetery.--_Edward Sanford Martin_.

PROMPTNESS

"Are you first in anything at school, Earlie?"

"First out of the building when the bell rings."

The head of a large business house bought a number of those "Do it now" signs and hung them up around his offices. When, after the first few days of those signs, the business man counted up the results, he found that the cashier had skipped out with $20,000, the head bookkeeper had eloped with the stenographer, three clerks had asked for a raise in salary, and the office boy had lit out for the west to become a highwayman.

"Are you waiting for me, dear?" she said, coming downstairs at last, after spending half an hour fixing her hat.

"Waiting," exclaimed the impatient man. "Oh no, not waiting--sojourning."

PRONUNCIATION

A tale is told of a Kansas minister, a great precisionist in the use of words, whose exactness sometimes destroyed the force of what he was saying. On one occasion, in the course of an eloquent prayer, he pleaded:

"O Lord! waken thy cause in the hearts of this congregation and give them new eyes to see and new impulse to do. Send down Thy lev-er or lee-ver, according to Webster's or Worcester's dictionary, whichever Thou usest, and pry them into activity."

"I'm at the head of my class, pa," said Willie.

"Dear me, son, how did that happen?" cried his father.

"Why, the teacher asked us this morning how to pronounce C-h-i-h-u-a-h-u-a, and nobody knew," said Willie, "but when she got down to me I sneezed and she said that was right."

_See also_ Liars.

PROPORTION

A middle-aged colored woman in a Georgia village, hearing a commotion in a neighbor's cabin, looked in at the door. On the floor lay a small boy writhing in great distress while his mother bent solicitously over him.

"What-all's de matter wif de chile?" asked the visitor sympathetically.

"I spec's hit's too much watermillion," responded the mother.

"Ho! go 'long wif you," protested the visitor scornfully. "Dey cyan't never be too much watermillion. Hit mus' be dat dere ain't enough boy."

PROPOSALS

A love-smitten youth who was studying the approved method of proposal asked one of his bachelor friends if he thought that a young man should propose to a girl on his knees.

"If he doesn't," replied his friend, "the girl should get off."

A gentleman who had been in Chicago only three days, but who had been paying attention to a prominent Chicago belle, wanted to propose, but was afraid he would be thought too hasty. He delicately broached the subject as follows: "If I were to speak to you of marriage, after having only made your acquaintance three days ago, what would you say of it?"

"Well, I should say, never put off till tomorrow that which should have been done the day before yesterday."

There was a young man from the West,
Who proposed to the girl he loved best,
But so closely he pressed her
To make her say, yes, sir,
That he broke two cigars in his vest.

--_The Tobacconist_.

They were dining on fowl in a restaurant. "You see," he explained, as he showed her the wishbone, "you take hold here. Then we must both make a wish and pull, and when it breaks the one who has the bigger part of it will have his or her wish granted." "But I don't know what to wish for," she protested. "Oh! you can think of something," he said. "No, I can't," she replied; "I can't think of anything I want very much." "Well, I'll wish for you," he explained. "Will you, really?" she asked. "Yes." "Well, then there's no use fooling with the old wishbone," she interrupted with a glad smile, "you can have me."

"Dear May," wrote the young man, "pardon me, but I'm getting so forgetful. I proposed to you last night, but really forget whether you said yes or no."

"Dear Will," she replied by note, "so glad to hear from you. I know I said 'no' to some one last night, but I had forgotten just who it was."

The four Gerton girls were all good-looking; indeed, the three younger ones were beautiful; while Annie, the oldest, easily made up in capability and horse sense what she lacked in looks.

A young chap, very eligible, called on the girls frequently, but seemed unable to decide which to marry. So Annie put on her thinking cap, and, one evening when the young chap called, she appeared with her pretty arms bare to the elbow and her hands white with flour.

"Oh, you must excuse my appearance," she said. "I have been working in the kitchen all day. I baked bread and pies and cake this morning, and afterward, as the cook was ill, I prepared dinner."

"Miss Annie, is that so?" said the young man. He looked at her, deeply impressed. Then, after a moment's thought, he said:

"Miss Annie, there is a question I wish to ask you, and on your answer will depend much of my life's happiness."

"Yes?" she said, with a blush, and she drew a little nearer. "Yes? What is it?"

"Miss Annie," said the young man, in deep earnest tones, "I am thinking of proposing to your sister Kate--will you make your home with us?"

It was at Christmas, and he had been calling on her twice a week for six months, but had not proposed.

"Ethel," he said, "I--er--am going to ask you an important question."

"Oh, George," she exclaimed, "this is so sudden! Why, I--"

"No, excuse me," he interrupted; "what I want to ask is this: What date have you and your mother decided upon for our wedding?"

A Scotch beadle led the maiden of his choice to a churchyard and, pointing to the various headstones, said:

"My folks are all buried there, Jennie. Wad ye like to be buried there too?"

IMPECUNIOUS LOVER--"Be mine, Amanda, and you will be treated like an angel."

WEALTHY MAIDEN--"Yes, I suppose so. Nothing to eat, and less to wear. No, thank you."

The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.--_Douglas Jerrold_.

PROPRIETY

There was a young lady of Wilts,
Who walked up to Scotland on stilts;
When they said it was shocking
To show so much stocking,
She answered: "Then what about kilts?"

--_Gilbert K. Chesterton_.

PROSPERITY

May bad fortune follow you all your days
And never catch up with you.

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH

One of our popular New England lecturers tells this amusing story.

A street boy of diminutive stature was trying to sell some very young kittens to passers-by. One day he accosted the late Reverend Phillips Brooks, asking him to purchase, and recommending them as good Episcopal kittens. Dr. Brooks laughingly refused, thinking them too small to be taken from their mother. A few days later a Presbyterian minister who had witnessed this episode was asked by the same boy to buy the same kittens. This time the lad announced that they were faithful Presbyterians.

"Didn't you tell Dr. Brooks last week that they were Episcopal kittens?" the minister asked sternly.

"Yes sir," replied the boy quickly, "but they's had their eyes opened since then, sir."

An Episcopal clergyman who was passing his vacation in a remote country district met an old farmer who declared that he was a "'Piscopal."

"To what parish do you belong?" asked the clergyman.

"Don't know nawthin' 'bout enny parish," was the answer.

"Who confirmed you, then?" was the next question.

"Nobody," answered the farmer.

"Then how are you an Episcopalian?" asked the clergyman.

"Well," was the reply, "you see it's this way: Last winter I went to church, an' it was called 'Piscopal, an' I heerd them say that they left undone the things what they'd oughter done and they'd done some things what they oughtenter done, and I says to myself says I: 'That's my fix exac'ly,' and ever sence then I've been a 'Piscopalian."

PROTESTANTS

A Protestant mission meeting had been held in an Irish town and this was the gardener's contribution to the controversy that ensued: "Pratestants!" he said with lofty scorn, "'Twas mighty little St. Paul thought of the Pratestants. You've all heard tell of the 'pistle he wrote to the Romans, but I'd ax ye this, did any of yez iver hear of his writing a 'pistle to the Pratestants?"

PROVIDENCE

"Why did papa have appendicitis and have to pay the doctor a thousand dollars, Mama?"

"It was God's will, dear."

"And was it because God was mad at papa or pleased with the doctor?"--_Life_.

There's a certain minister whose duties sometimes call him out of the city. He has always arranged for some one of his parishioners to keep company with his wife and little daughter during these absences. Recently, however, he was called away so suddenly that he had no opportunity of providing a guardian.

The wife was very brave during the early evening, but after dark had fallen her courage began to fail. She stayed up with her little girl till there was no excuse for staying any longer and then took her upstairs to bed.

"Now go to sleep, Dearie," she said. "Don't be afraid. God will protect you."

"Yes, Mother," answered the little girl, "that'll be all right tonight, but next time let's make better arrangements."

PROVINCIALISM

Some time ago an English friend of Colonel W.J. Lampton's living in New York and having never visited the South, went to Virginia to spend a month with friends. After a fortnight of it, he wrote back:

"Oh, I say, old top, you never told me that the South was anything like I have found it, and so different to the North. Why, man, it's God's country."

The Colonel, who gets his title from Kentucky, answered promptly by postal.

"Of course it is," he wrote. "You didn't suppose God was a Yankee, did you?"

A southerner, with the intense love for his own district, attended a banquet. The next day a friend asked him who was present. With a reminiscent smile he replied: "An elegant gentleman from Virginia, a gentleman from Kentucky, a man from Ohio, a bounder from Chicago, a fellow from New York, and a galoot from Maine."

They had driven fourteen miles to the lake, and then rowed six miles across the lake to get to the railroad station, when the Chicago man asked:

"How in the world do you get your mail and newspapers here in the winter when the storms are on?"

"Wa-al, we don't sometimes. I've seen this lake thick up so that it was three weeks before we got a Chicago paper," answered the man from "nowhere."

"Well, you were cut off," said the Chicago man.

"Ya-as, we were so," was the reply. "Still, the Chicago folks were just as badly off."

"How so?"

"Wa-al," drawled the man, "we didn't know what was going on in Chicago, of course. But then, neither did Chicago folks know what was going on down here."

PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATIONS

The attorney demanded to know how many secret societies the witness belonged to, whereupon the witness objected and appealed to the court.

"The court sees no harm in the question," answered the judge. "You may answer."

"Well, I belong to three."

"What are they?"

"The Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, and the gas company."

"Yes, he had some rare trouble with his eyes," said the celebrated oculist. "Every time he went to read he would read double."

"Poor fellow," remarked the sympathetic person. "I suppose that interfered with his holding a good position?"

"Not at all. The gas company gobbled him up and gave him a lucrative job reading gas-meters."

PUBLIC SPEAKERS

ORATOR--"I thought your paper was friendly to me?"

EDITOR--"So it is. What's the matter?"

ORATOR--"I made a speech at the dinner last night, and you didn't print a line of it."

EDITOR--"Well, what further proof do you want?"

TRAVELING LECTURER FOR SOCIETY (to the remaining listener)--"I should like to thank you, sir, for so attentively hearing me to the end of a rather too long speech."

LOCAL MEMBER OF SOCIETY--"Not at all, sir. I'm the second speaker."

Ex-senator Spooner of Wisconsin says the best speech of introduction he ever heard was delivered by the German mayor of a small town in Wisconsin, where Spooner had been engaged to speak.

The mayor said:

"Ladies und shentlemens, I haf been asked to indrotoose you to the Honorable Senator Spooner, who vill make to you a speech, yes. I haf now done so; he vill now do so."

"When I arose to speak," related a martyred statesman, "some one hurled a base, cowardly egg at me and it struck me in the chest."

"And what kind of an egg might that be?" asked a fresh young man.

"A base, cowardly egg," explained the statesman, "is one that hits you and then runs."

"Uncle Joe" Cannon has a way of speaking his mind that is sometimes embarrassing to others. On one occasion an inexperienced young fellow was called upon to make a speech at a banquet at which ex-speaker Cannon was also present.

"Gentlemen," began the young fellow, "my opinion is that the generality of mankind in general is disposed to take advantage of the generality of--"

"Sit down, son," interrupted "Uncle Joe." "You are coming out of the same hole you went in at."

A South African tribe has an effective method of dealing with bores, which might be adopted by Western peoples. This simple tribe considers long speeches injurious to the orator and his hearers; so to protect both there is an unwritten law that every public orator must stand on only one leg when he is addressing an audience. As soon as he has to place the other leg on the ground his oration is brought to a close, by main force, if necessary.

A rather turgid orator, noted for his verbosity and heaviness, was once assigned to do some campaigning in a mining camp in the mountains. There were about fifty miners present when he began; but when, at the end of a couple of hours, he gave no sign of finishing, his listeners dropped away.

Some went back to work, but the majority sought places to quench their thirst, which had been aggravated by the dryness of the discourse.

Finally there was only one auditor left, a dilapidated, weary-looking old fellow. Fixing his gaze on him, the orator pulled out a large six-shooter and laid it on the table. The old fellow rose slowly and drawled out:

"Be you going to shoot if I go?"

"You bet I am," replied the speaker. "I'm bound to finish my speech, even if I have to shoot to keep an audience."

The old fellow sighed in a tired manner, and edged slowly away, saying as he did so:

"Well, shoot if you want to. I may jest as well be shot as talked to death."

The self-made millionaire who had endowed the school had been invited to make the opening speech at the commencement exercises. He had not often had a chance of speaking before the public and he was resolved to make the most of it. He dragged his address out most tiresomely, repeating the same thought over and over. Unable to stand it any longer a couple of boys in the rear of the room slipped out. A coachman who was waiting outside asked them if the millionaire had finished his speech.

"Gee, yes!" replied the boys, "but he won't stop."

Mark Twain once told this story:

"Some years ago in Hartford, we all went to church one hot, sweltering night to hear the annual report of Mr. Hawley, a city missionary who went around finding people who needed help and didn't want to ask for it. He told of the life in cellars, where poverty resided; he gave instances of the heroism and devotion of the poor. When a man with millions gives, he said, we make a great deal of noise. It's a noise in the wrong place, for it's the widow's mite that counts. Well, Hawley worked me up to a great pitch. I could hardly wait for him to get through. I had $400 in my pocket. I wanted to give that and borrow more to give. You could see greenbacks in every eye. But instead of passing the plate then, he kept on talking and talking and talking, and as he talked it grew hotter and hotter and hotter, and we grew sleepier and sleepier and sleepier. My enthusiasm went down, down, down, down--$100 at a clip--until finally, when the plate did come around, I stole ten cents out of it. It all goes to show how a little thing like this can lead to crime."

_See also_ After dinner speeches; Candidates; Politicians.

PUNISHMENT

A parent who evidently disapproved of corporal punishment wrote the teacher:

"Dear Miss: Don't hit our Johnnie. We never do it at home
except in self-defense."

"No, sirree!" ejaculated Bunkerton. "There wasn't any of that nonsense in my family. My father never thrashed me in all his life."

"Too bad, too bad," sighed Hickenlooper. "Another wreck due to a misplaced switch."

James the Second, when Duke of York, made a visit to Milton, the poet, and asked him among other things, if he did not think the loss of his sight a judgment upon him for what he had writen against his father, Charles the First. Milton answered: "If your Highness think my loss of sight a _judgment_ upon me, what do you think of your father's losing his head."--_Life_.

A white man during reconstruction times was arraigned before a colored justice of the peace for killing a man and stealing his mule. It was in Arkansas, near the Texas border, and there was some rivalry between the states, but the colored justice tried to preserve an impartial frame of mind.

"We's got two kinds ob law in dis yer co't," he said: "Texas law an' Arkansas law. Which will you hab?"

The prisoner thought a minute and then guessed that he would take the Arkansas law.

"Den I discharge you fo' stealin' de mule, an' hang you fo' killin' de man."

"Hold on a minute, Judge," said the prisoner. "Better make that Texas law."

"All right. Den I fin' you fo' killin' de man, an' hang you fo' stealin' de mule."

A lawyer was defending a man accused of housebreaking, and said to the court:

"Your Honor, I submit that my client did not break into the house at all. He found the parlor window open and merely inserted his right arm and removed a few trifling articles. Now, my client's arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offense committed by only one of his limbs."

"That argument," said the judge, "is very well put. Following it logically, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he chooses."

The defendant smiled, and with his lawyer's assistance unscrewed his cork arm, and, leaving it in the dock, walked out.

Muriel, a five-year-old subject of King George, has been thought by her parents too young to feel the weight of the rod, and has been ruled by moral suasion alone. But when, the other day, she achieved disobedience three times in five minutes, more vigorous measures were called for, and her mother took an ivory paper-knife from the table and struck her smartly across her little bare legs. Muriel looked astounded. Her mother explained the reason for the blow. Muriel thought deeply for a moment. Then, turning toward the door with a grave and disapproving countenance, she announced in her clear little English voice:

"I'm going up-stairs to tell God about that paper-knife. And then I shall tell Jesus. And if _that_ doesn't do, I shall put flannel on my legs!"

During the reconstruction days of Virginia, a negro was convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to be hanged. On the morning of the execution he mounted the scaffold with reasonable calmness. Just before the noose was to be placed around his neck the sheriff asked him if he had anything to say. He studied a moment and said:

"No, suh, boss, thankee, suh, 'ceptin' dis is sho gwine to be a lesson to me."

"What punishment did that defaulting banker get?" "I understand his lawyer charged him $40,000."

An Indian in Washington County once sized up Maine's game laws thus: "Kill cow moose, pay $100; kill man, too bad!"

TEACHER--"Willie, did your father cane you for what you did in school yesterday?"

PUPIL--"No, ma'am; he said the licking would hurt him more than it would me."

TEACHER--"What rot! Your father is too sympathetic."

PUPIL--"No, ma'am; but he's got the rheumatism in both arms."

"Boohoo! Boohoo!" wailed little Johnny.

"Why, what's the matter, dear?" his mother asked comfortingly.

"Boohoo--er--p-picture fell on papa's toes."

"Well, dear, that's too bad, but you mustn't cry about it, you know."

"I d-d-didn't. I laughed. Boohoo! Boohoo!"

The fact that corporal punishment is discouraged in the public schools of Chicago is what led Bobby's teacher to address this note to the boy's mother:

DEAR MADAM:--I regret very much to have to tell you that your
son, Robert, idles away his time, is disobedient, quarrelsome,
and disturbs the pupils who are trying to study their lessons.
He needs a good whipping and I strongly recommend that you
give him one.

Yours truly,

Miss Blank.

To this Bobby's mother responded as follows:

Dear Miss Blanks--Lick him yourself. I ain't mad at him.

Yours truly,

Mrs. Dash.

A little fellow who was being subjected to a whipping pinched his father under the knee. "Willie, you bad boy! How dare you do that?" asked the parent wrathfully.

A pause. Then Willie answered between sobs: "Well, Father, who started this war, anyway?"

A little girl about three years old was sent upstairs and told to sit on a certain chair that was in the corner of her room, as a punishment for something she had done but a few minutes before.

Soon the silence was broken by the little one's question: "Mother, may I come down now?"

"No, you sit right where you are."

"All right, 'cause I'm sittin' on your best hat."

It is less to suffer punishment than to deserve it.--_Ovid_.

If Jupiter hurled his thunderbolt as often as men sinned, he would soon be out of thunderbolts.--_Ovid_.

_See also_ Church discipline; Future life; Marriage.

PUNS

A father once said to his son,
"The next time you make up a pun,
Go out in the yard
And kick yourself hard,
And I will begin when you've done."

PURE FOOD

Into a general store of a town in Arkansas there recently came a darky complaining that a ham which he had purchased there was not good.

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

"No, it ain't, boss," insisted the negro. "Dat ham's shore bad."

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

The darky scratched his head reflectively, and finally suggested: "Den, mebbe it's had a relapse."

On a recent trip to Germany, Doctor Harvey Wiley, the pure-food expert, heard an allegory with reference to the subject of food adulteration which, he contends, should cause Americans to congratulate themselves that things are so well ordered in this respect in the United States.

The German allegory was substantially as follows:

Four flies, which had made their way into a certain pantry, determined to have a feast.

One flew to the sugar and ate heartily; but soon died, for the sugar was full of white lead.

The second chose the flour as his diet, but he fared no better, for the flour was loaded with plaster of Paris.

The third sampled the syrup, but his six legs were presently raised in the air, for the syrup was colored with aniline dyes.

The fourth fly, seeing all his friends dead, determined to end his life also, and drank deeply of the fly-poison which he found in a convenient saucer.

He is still alive and in good health. That, too, was adulterated.

QUARRELS

"But why did you leave your last place?" the lady asked of the would-be cook.

"To tell the truth, mum, I just couldn't stand the way the master an' the missus used to quarrel, mum."

"Dear me! Do you mean to say that they actually used to quarrel?"

"Yis, mum, all the time. When it wasn't me an' him, it was me an' her."

"I hear ye had words with Casey."

"We had no words."

"Then nothing passed between ye?"

"Nothing but one brick."

There had been a wordy falling-out between Mrs. Halloran and Mrs. Donohue; there had been words; nay, more, there had been language. Mrs. Halloran had gone to church early in the morning, had fulfilled the duties of her religion, and was returning primly home, when Mrs. Donohue spied her, and, still smouldering with volcanic fire, sent a broadside of lava at Mrs. Halloran. The latter heard, flushed, opened her lips--and then suddenly checked herself. After a moment she spoke: "Mrs. Donohue, I've just been to church, and I'm in a state of grace. But, plaze Hivin, the next time I meet yez, I won't be, and thin I'll till yez what I think of yez!"

A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party: there is no battle unless there be two.--_Seneca_.

_See also_ Marriage; Servants

QUESTIONS

The more questions a woman asks the fewer answers she remembers.--_Wasp_.

It was a very hot day and the fat drummer who wanted the twelve-twenty train got through the gate at just twelve-twenty-one. The ensuing handicap was watched with absorbed interest both from the train and the station platform. At its conclusion the breathless and perspiring knight of the road wearily took the back trail, and a vacant-faced "red-cap" came out to relieve him of his grip.

"Mister," he inquired, "was you tryin' to ketch that Pennsylvania train?"

"No, my son," replied the patient man. "No; I was merely chasing it out of the yard."

A party of young men were camping, and to avert annoying questions they made it a rule that the one who asked a question that he could not answer himself had to do the cooking.

One evening, while sitting around the fire, one of the boys asked: "Why is it that a ground-squirrel never leaves any dirt at the mouth of its burrow?"

They all guessed and missed. So he was asked to answer it himself.

"Why," he said, "because it always begins to dig at the other end of the hole."

"But," one asked, "how does it get to the other end of the hole?"

"Well," was the reply, "that's your question."

A browbeating lawyer was demanding that a witness answer a certain question either in the negative or affirmative.

"I cannot do it," said the witness. "There are some questions that cannot be answered by a 'yes' or a 'no,' as any one knows."

"I defy you to give an example to the court," thundered the lawyer.

The retort came like a flash: "Are you still beating your wife?"

Officers have a right to ask questions in the performance of their duty, but there are occasions when it seems as if they might curtail or forego the privilege. Not long ago an Irishman whose hand had been badly mangled in an accident entered the Boston City Hospital relief station in a great hurry. He stepped up to the man in charge and inquired:

"Is this the relief station, sor?"

"Yes. What is your name?"

"Patrick O'Connor, sor."

"Are you married?" questioned the officer.

"Yis, sor, but is this the relief station?" He was nursing his hand in agony.

"Of course it is. How many children have you?"

"Eight, sor. But sure, this is the relief station?"

"Yes, it is," replied the officer, a little angry at the man's persistence.

"Well," said Patrick, "sure, an' I was beginning to think that it might be the pumping station."

The sages say, Dame Truth delights to dwell
(Strange Mansion!) in the bottom of a well:
Questions are then the Windlass and the rope
That pull the grave old Gentlewoman up.

--_John Wolcott_.

_See also_ Curiosity.

QUOTATIONS

Stanley Jordan, the well-known Episcopal minister, having cause to be anxious about his son's college examinations, told him to telegraph the result. The boy sent the following message to his parent: "Hymn 342, fifth verse, last two lines."

Looking it up the father found the words: "Sorrow vanquished, labor ended, Jordan passed."

RACE PREJUDICES

A negro preacher in a southern town was edified on one occasion by the recital of a dream had by a member of the church.

"I was a-dreamin' all dis time," said the narrator, "dat I was in ole Satan's dominions. I tell you, pahson, dat was shore a bad dream!"

"Was dere any white men dere?" asked the dusky divine.

"Shore dere was--plenty of 'em," the other hastened to assure his minister "What was dey a-doin'?"

"Ebery one of 'em," was the answer, "was a-holdin' a cullud pusson between him an' de fire!"

RACE PRIDE

Sam Jones, the evangelist, was leading a revival meeting in Huntsville, Texas, a number of years ago, and at the close of one of the services an old negro woman pushed her way up through the crowd to the edge of the pulpit platform. Sam took the perspiring black hand that was held out to him, and heard the old woman say: "Brudder Jones, you sho' is a fine preacher! Yes, suh; de Lord bless you. You's des everybody's preacher. You's de white folks' preacher, and de niggers' preacher, and everybody's preacher. Brudder Jones, yo' skin's white, but, thank de Lord, yo' heart's des as black as any nigger's!"

An Irishman and a Jew were discussing the great men who had belonged to each race and, as may be expected, got into a heated argument. Finally the Irishman said:

"Ikey, listen. For ivery great Jew ye can name ye may pull out one of me whiskers, an' for ivery great Irishman I can name I'll pull one of yours. Is it a go?"

They consented, and Pat reached over, got hold of a whisker, said, "Robert Emmet,' and pulled.

"Moses!" said the Jew, and pulled one of Pat's tenderest.

"Dan O'Connell," said Pat and took another.

"Abraham," said Ikey, helping himself again.

"Patrick Henry," returned Pat with a vicious yank.

"The Twelve Apostles," said the Jew, taking a handful of whiskers.

Pat emitted a roar of pain, grasped the Jew's beard with both hands, and yelled, "The ancient Order of Hibernians!"

RACE SUICIDE

"Prisoner, why did you assault this landlord?"

"Your Honor, because I have several children he refused to rent me a flat."

"Well, that is his privilege."

"But, your Honor, he calls his apartment house 'The Roosevelt.'"

RACES

In answer to the question, "What are the five great races of mankind?" a Chinese student replied, "The 100 yards, the hurdles, the quartermile, the mile, and the three miles."

"Now, Thomas," said the foreman of the construction gang to a green hand who had just been put on the job, "keep your eyes open. When you see a train coming throw down your tools and jump off the track. Run like blazes."

"Sure!" said Thomas, and began to swing his pick. In a few moments the Empire State Express came whirling along. Thomas threw down his pick and started up the track ahead of the train as fast as he could run. The train overtook him and tossed him into a ditch. Badly shaken up he was taken to the hospital, where the foreman visited him.

"You blithering idiot," said the foreman, "didn't I tell you to get out of the road? Didn't I tell you to take care and get out of the way? Why didn't you run up the side of the hill?"

"Up the soide of the hill is it, sor?" said Thomas through the bandages on his face. "Up the soide of the hill? Be the powers, I couldn't bate it on the level, let alone runnin' uphill!"

RAILROADS

"Talk 'bout railroads bein' a blessin'," said Brother Dickey, "des look at de loads an' loads er watermelons deys haulin' out de state, ter dem folks 'way up North what never done nuthin' ter deserve sich a dispensation!"

On one of the southern railroads there is a station-building that is commonly known by travelers as the smallest railroad station in America. It is of this station that the story is told that an old farmer was expecting a chicken-house to arrive there, and he sent one of his hands, a new-comer, to fetch it. Arriving there the man saw the house, loaded it on to his wagon and started for home. On the way he met a man in uniform with the words "Station Agent" on his cap.

"Say, hold on. What have you got on that wagon?" he asked.

"My chicken-house, of course," was the reply.

"Chicken-house be jiggered!" exploded the official. "That's the station!"

"I read of the terrible vengeance inflicted upon one of their members by a band of robbers in Mississippi last week."

"What did they do? Shoot him?"

"No; they tied him upon the railroad tracks."

"Awful! And he was ground to pieces, I suppose?"

"Nothing like it. The poor fellow starved to death waiting for the next train."--_W. Dayton Wegefarth_.

The reporter who had accompanied the special train to the scene of the wreck, hurried down the embankment and found a man who had one arm in a sling, a bandage over one eye, his front teeth gone, and his nose knocked four points to starboard, sitting on a piece of the locomotive and surveying the horrible ruin all about him.

"Can you give me some particulars of this accident?" asked the reporter, taking out his notebook.

"I haven't heard of any accident, young man," replied the disfigured party stiffly.

He was one of the directors of the railroad.

The Hon. John Sharp Williams had an engagement to speak in a small southern town. The train he was traveling on was not of the swiftest, and he lost no opportunity of keeping the conductor informed as to his opinions of that particular road.

"Well, if yer don't like it," the conductor finally blurted out, "why in thunder don't yer git out an' walk?"

"I would," Mr. Williams blandly replied, "but you see the committee doesn't expect me until this train gets in."

"We were bounding along," said a recent traveler on a local South African single-line railway, "at the rate of about seven miles an hour, and the whole train was shaking terribly. I expected every moment to see my bones protruding through my skin. Passengers were rolling from one end of the car to the other. I held on firmly to the arms of the seat. Presently we settled down a bit quieter; at least, I could keep my hat on, and my teeth didn't chatter.

"There was a quiet looking man opposite me. I looked up with a ghastly smile, wishing to appear cheerful, and said:

"'We are going a bit smoother, I see.'

"'Yes,' he said, 'we're off the track now.'"

Three men were talking in rather a large way as to the excellent train service each had in his special locality: one was from the west, one from New England, and the other from New York. The former two had told of marvelous doings of trains, and it is distinctly "up" to the man from New York.

"Now in New York," he said, "we not only run our trains fast, but we also start them fast. I remember the case of a friend of mine whose wife went to see him off for the west on the Pennsylvania at Jersey City. As the train was about to start my friend said his final good-by to his wife, and leaned down from the car platform to kiss her. The train started, and, would you believe it, my friend found himself kissing a strange woman on the platform at Trenton!"

And the other men gave it up.

"Say, young man," asked an old lady at the ticket-office, "what time does the next train pull in here and how long does it stay?"

"From two to two to two-two," was the curt reply.

"Well, I declare! Be you the whistle?"

An express on the Long Island Railroad was tearing away at a wild and awe-inspiring rate of six miles an hour, when all of a sudden it stopped altogether. Most of the passengers did not notice the difference; but one of them happened to be somewhat anxious to reach his destination before old age claimed him for its own. He put his head through the window to find that the cause of the stop was a cow on the track. After a while they continued the journey for half an hour or so, and then--another stop.

"What's wrong now?" asked the impatient passenger of the conductor.

"A cow on the track."

"But I thought you drove it off."

"So we did," said the conductor, "but we caught up with it again."

The president of one great southern railway pulled into a southern city in his private car. It was also the terminal of a competing road, and the private car of the president of the other line was on a side track. There was great rivalry between these two lines, which extended from the president of each down to the most humble employe. In the evening the colored cook from one of the cars wandered over to pass the time of day with the cook on the other car.

One of these roads had recently had an appalling list of accidents, and the death-toll was exceptionally high. The cook from this road sauntered up to the back platform of the private car, and after an interchange of courtesies said:

"Well, how am youh ole jerkwatah railroad these days? Am you habbing prosper's times?"

"Man," said the other, "we-all am so prosperous that if we was any moah prosperous we just naturally couldn't stand hit."

"Hough!" said the other, "we-all am moah prosperous than you-all."

"Man," said the other, "we dun carry moah'n a million passengers last month."

"Foah de Lord's sake!" ejaculated the first negro. "You-all carried moah'n a million passengers? Go on with you, nigger; we dun kill moah passengers than you carry."

It was on a little branch railway in a southern state that the New England woman ventured to refer to the high rates.

"It seems to me five cents a mile is extortion," she said, with frankness, to her southern cousin.

"It's a big lot of money to pay if you think of it by the mile," said the southerner, in her soft drawl; "but you just think how cheap it is by the hour, Cousin Annie--only about thirty-five cents."--_Youth's Companion_.

RAPID TRANSIT

One cold, wintry morning a man of tall and angular build was walking down a steep hill at a quick pace. A treacherous piece of ice under the snow caused him to lose control of his feet; he began to slide and was unable to stop.

At a cross-street half-way down the decline he encountered a large, heavy woman, with her arms full of bundles. The meeting was sudden, and before either realized it a collision ensued and both were sliding down hill, a grand ensemble--the thin man underneath, the fat woman and bundles on top. When the bottom was reached and the woman was trying in vain to recover her breath and her feet, these faint words were borne to her ear:

"Pardon me, madam, but you will have to get off here. This is as far as I go."

READING

_See_ Books and Reading.

REAL ESTATE AGENTS

Little Nelly told little Anita what she termed a "little fib."

ANITA--"A fib is the same as a story, and a story is the same as a lie."

NELLY--"No, it is not."

ANITA--"Yes, it is, because my father said so, and my father is a professor at the university."

NELLY--"I don't care if he is. My father is a real estate man, and he knows more about lying than your father does."

REALISM

The storekeeper at Yount, Idaho, tells the following tale of Ole Olson, who later became the little town's mayor.

"One night, just before closin' up time, Ole, hatless, coatless, and breathless, come rushin' into the store, an' droppin' on his knees yelled, 'Yon, Yon, hide me, hide me! Ye sheriff's after me!'

"'I've no place to hide you here, Ole,' said I.

"'You moost, you moost!' screamed Ole.

"'Crawl into that gunny-sack then,' said I.

"He'd no more'n gotten hid when in runs the sheriff.

"'Seen Ole?' said he.

"'Don't see him here,' said I, without lyin'.

"Then the sheriff went a-nosin' round an' pretty soon he spotted the gunny-sack over in the corner.

"'What's in here?' said he.

"'Oh, just some old harness and sleigh-bells,' said I.

"With that he gives it an awful boot.

"'Yingle, yingle, yingle!' moaned Ole."

MOTHER--"Tommy, if you're pretending to be an automobile, I wish you'd run over to the store and get me some butter."

TOMMY--"I'm awful sorry, Mother, but I'm all out of gasoline."--_Judge_.

"Children," said the teacher, instructing the class in composition, "you should not attempt any flights of fancy; simply be yourselves and write what is in you. Do not imitate any other person's writings or draw inspiration from outside sources."

As a result of this advice Tommy Wise turned out the following composition: "We should not attempt any flights of fancy, but write what is in us. In me there is my stummick, lungs, hart, liver, two apples, one piece of pie, one stick of lemon candy and my dinner."

"A great deal of fun has been poked at the realistic school of art," says a New York artist, "and it must be confessed that some ground has been given to the enemy. Why, there recently came to my notice a picture of an Assyrian bath, done by a Chicago man, and so careful was he of all the details that the towels hanging up were all marked 'Nebuchadnezzar' in the corner, in cuneiform characters."

RECALL

SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER--"Johnny, what is the text from Judges?"

JOHNNY-"I don't believe in recalling the judiciary, mum."

"Senator, why don't you unpack your trunk? You'll be in Washington for six years."

"I don't know about that. My state has the recall."

RECOMMENDATIONS

A firm of shady outside London brokers was prosecuted for swindling. In acquitting them the court, with great severity, said:

"There is not sufficient evidence to convict you, but if anyone wishes to know my opinion of you I hope that they will refer to me."

Next day the firm's advertisement appeared in every available medium with the following, well displayed: "Reference as to probity, by special permission, the Lord Chief Justice of England."

MISTRESS--"Have you a reference?"

BRIDGET--"Foine; Oi held the poker over her till Oi got it."

There is a story of a Scotch gentleman who had to dismiss his gardener for dishonesty. For the sake of the man's wife and family, however, he gave him a "character," and framed it in this way: "I hereby certify that A. B. has been my gardener for over two years, and that during that time he got more out of the garden than any man I ever employed."