The Wit and Humor of America, Volume 5

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Marshall Pinckney Wilder
Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1907 - American literature - 2042 pages

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Page 803 - By the struggling moonbeam's misty light And the lantern dimly burning. No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest With his martial cloak around him.
Page 804 - But half of our heavy task was done When the clock struck the hour for retiring : And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing. Slowly and sadly we laid him down, From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory.
Page 829 - Followed by that touching recitative: " Shet up, or I will spank you! " To which succeeds a grand crescendo movement, representing the flight of the child with the pancake, the pursuit of the mother, and the final arrest and summary punishment of the former, represented by the rapid and successive strokes of the castanet. The turning in for the night follows; and the deep and stertorous breathing of the encampment is well given by the bassoon, while the sufferings and trials of an unhappy father...
Page 830 - ... yoked up — with a small drum and triangle; the watches, purses, and other valuables of the conquered Pi Utahs, are stored away in a camp-kettle, to a small movement on the piccolo, and the train moves on, with the grand chorus: — "We'll soon be thar, Gee up Bolly! Whoo hup! whoo haw!
Page 846 - Lord, whin th' case is all over, the jury'll pitch th' tistimony out iv th' window, an' consider three questions : ' Did Lootgert look as though he'd kill his wife ? Did his wife look as though she ought to be kilt ? Isn't it time we wint to supper?
Page 892 - Rise Jack!" said Simon, cutting half a dozen cards from the top of the pack, and presenting the face of the bottom one for the inspection of his father. It was the Jack of hearts ! Old Mr. Suggs staggered back several steps with uplifted eyes and hands ! "Marciful master!
Page 886 - He watched it closely, as if endeavoring to learn the precise fashion of his father's knot ; and when at last Bill was swung up a-tiptoe to a limb, and the whipping commenced, Simon's eye followed every movement of his father's arm ; and as each blow descended upon the bare shoulders of his sable friend, his own body writhed and "wriggled
Page 887 - Your daddy's a-tryin' to give you some good advice, and you a-pickin' up his words that way. I knowed a young man once, when I lived in Ogletharp, as went down to Augusty and sold a hundred dollars worth of cotton for his daddy, and some o...
Page 883 - Simon, just at that moment, very wickedly pushed a half inch further down. Just as the breeches and hide of the boy were stretched to the uttermost, old Mr. Suggs brought down his longest hickory, with both hands, upon the precise spot where the tension was greatest. With a loud yell, Bill plunged forward, upsetting Simon, and rolled in the grass ; rubbing the castigated part with fearful energy. Simon, though overthrown, was unhurt ; and he was menTally complimenting himself upon the sagacity which...
Page 891 - Occasionally a sprightly knave would insist on facing his neighbor; or, pressing his edge against another's, half double himself up, and then skip away. But Elder Jed'diah perseveringly continued his attempts to subdue the refractory, while heavy drops burst from his forehead, and ran down his cheeks. All of a sudden an idea, quick and penetrating as a rifle-ball, seemed to have entered the cranium of the old man. He chuckled audibly. The devil had suggested to Mr. Suggs an impromptu "stock...

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