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startled. When he came to "take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them," he seized the pistol, cocked it, and placed the muzzle against his head. "Shall I end them?" he yelled, flourishing the pistol. "Shall I end them with you?"

Ninaman suggested that his troubles were not greater than he could bear, and asked the man to lay aside his pistol.

or

"Whoop it up," yelled the man, I'll end them ! Pull off your trousers ! " The trousers came off and the dancing continued.

"Pull off your drawers."

The drawers dropped to the ground. "Off with your shirt."

The shirt flew into the air. A noise was heard outside, and the landlord, his wife and daughter were on the porch.

"Let me go, for God's sake!" pleaded Ninaman.

George Ninaman, a St. Louis drummer, "Ah, I see you do not like tragedy. You who arrived at Little Rock, stopped one no doubt like comedy. Pull off your night at a small cross-roads hotel in Grant coat and dance, or I'll end your life!" County, Southern Arkansas. The house The pistol was levelled, and Ninaman contained four rooms and a kitchen. Af-pulled off his coat and began to dance. ter supper Ninaman was told he must spend part of the night alone, as the family would attend a protracted meeting in the neighborhood. The host, with his wife and daughter, left the house, and Ninaman sat in one of the rooms alone. His loneliness was added to by an owl in the yard which hooted dismally, and an old red clock on the shelf which ticked solemnly. The drummer, not having been assigned to a room, could not go to bed, and he tried to keep awake by reading the "Life of St. Paul," the only book he could find. The hog-grease lamp was sputtering in unison with the ticking of the clock, when the door of an inner room opened, and a tall, wild-eyed, bushyhaired man entered. Without speaking, he seated himself and stared at Ninaman, who naturally showed surprise. Presently a conversation was begun, and the man exhibited such intelligence that Ninaman's fears were allayed, especially as the man claimed to be the landlord's brother. The conversation turned on literary subjects, and the man remarked: "Did you ever hear Hamlet's soliloquy recited properly?"

"I think so," said Ninaman. "I have heard Booth."

"Booth does not catch the spirit," said the strange-looking man. "He fails to engraft the twig of despair into the tree of Hamlet's nature. Would you like to hear it recited properly?"

"Yes."

"You shall hear it. I hope nothing tragic will occur, but, by Moses, you shall have it."

Arising, the wild-eyed man darted into an adjoining room and returned with a navy pistol. Placing the pistol on a table, he began to recite in a voice so deep and with an air so wild that Ninaman was

"No, sir. I'll kill you if you attempt to leave. You are a comedian."

The door-knob turned. Ninaman sprang toward a door and rushed upstairs as the pistol snapped.

In a few minutes the landlord came up and handed Ninaman his clothes. "I forgot to tell you," he said, "that my brother is deranged. He has an old pistol, but you couldn't hurt anything with it. He is harmless, but likes his little joke."

The next morning the wild man was in such good humor that he offered to beat Ninaman throwing rocks at an oys

ter-can.

HOW JIM TOOK IN HIS FATHER.

"I've come all the way in from Canaan to git a leetle law," said a man with a horsewhip under his arm, blue overalls in his boots, and a gray, stubby beard on his face, as he entered the Allen House reading-room, yesterday, where a number of the boys were talking politics. "Mebbe some o' you fellers kin give me the correct thing without me dickerin' with a lawyer."

The speaker was a well-known farmer of the southern part of the county. He

is.'

"A bargain!' sez I. 'The pigs is yours, an' I'll be down after the mare tomorrow,' sez I.

and his son Jim are noted for their sharp- afore he said anything to me, an' I didn't ness at a bargain and a readiness to trade interrupt his singin'. Then he sez: horses, cows, wagons, farms or anything "Pap,' sez he, 'I'll tell you what I'll that belongs to them, at any and all times do. Give me a hundred dollars,' sez he, a customer may present himself. Jiman' throw in them two Berkshire pigs, lives on a farm a mile from the old man's. an' the mare is yours,' sez he, 'jest as she "Ye see, boys," continued the speaker, "my boy Jim had a bay mare that he traded a yearlin' bull and a cross-tooth harrow fur. She was a good critter an' no mistake. I wanted that mare the wust kind, an' made Jim a heap o' good offers fur her, but he wouldn't bite. Last Wednesday he come to my house kind o' careless like, and sot down on the front stoop. I was a choppin' kindlin' wood for mornin'. Jim sot there a lookin' up an' down the road whistlin' the 'Sweet By an' By' kind o' to hisself. When I carried in my kindlin' I sot down on the stoop by him.

667 Jim,' I sez, 'you better let your old father have that bay mare o' yourn,' sez I. "Jim had jest started the second verse of the 'Sweet By an' By,' but he whistled her all the way through afore he answered

me.

"I ben a thinkin' o' lettin' you have the mare, pap,' sez he, 'seein's you got yer heart sot on her so,' sez he, 'pervidin' we kin git up a dicker,' sez he.

"Jim had been goin' to camp-meetin' pooty steady for a week back, an' I heerd he was gittin' serious. He hadn't been whistlin' nothin' but hymn tunes for two or three days, an' when he come around so nice on the mare question, I made up my mind that me an' the old woman would see him jinin' the mourners 'fore long.

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Jim,' I sez, 'I kin_stand eighty dollars for the mare,' sez I.

"Jim looked up the road, and hummed a verse of 'Come ye sinners, poor an'

needy.' Then he sez:

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"I counted out the hundred, an' give it to him. He druv the pigs home with him. They was worth fifteen dollars apiece, easy. I could hear Jim whistlin' Hold the Fort' till he got half a mile away.

"Jemima,' I sez to the old woman, Jemima,' sez I, 'I never thought Jim 'd git pious, did you? But I've got the bay mare,' sez I; an' what the old boy Jim was thinkin' of I can't see. She's worth two hundred and fifty any day in the week,' I sez. 'Religion is makin' a fool o' Jim,' sez I.

"Well, next morning early I went down to Jim's to git the mare. Jim had gone to town. I saw his wife. "I've bought the bay mare, Nancy,'

sez I.

"Yes, I know ye have,' sez Nancy, grinnin' all over her face.

"Where is she?' I sez. "She's down in the stone lot,' sez Nancy, grinnin' more'n ever.

"I thought it was funny that the mare should be down in the stone lot, but I went down to find her. Boys, I found her. She was layin' behind a big stone heap, deader'n a door-nail. I went back to the house.

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'Why, Nancy,' sez I, 'the bay mare's

dead!'

"O yes,' sez Nancy, laughing as if she'd split; 'she died yesterday mornin' with the colic,' sez she.

'Boys, for a minute I was mad. Then I come to, and sez to myself, I'll be glued if I don't git the mare's shoes, anyhow,' sez I. So I went back to the stone lot to draw her shoes off. Boys, I'll divide my farm up between ye if Jim hadn't drawed them shoes hisself, and the mare's feet was as bare as when she was born.

"Now, I ain't no ways mad at Jim, boys, for it was a fair and square dicker, and it shows there's stuff in him; only he mought a left the shoes on the mare. What I want to know is, can't I get back at the camp meetin' folks some way for

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"Did you roas' dem?"

side was an intimate acquaintance, and noticing that her distinguished neighbor was silent and preoccupied, said to him, sotto voce, "I am afraid you are not very well this evening; you do not seem in your usual spirits." "Well," said the dignitary, "I am in rather a nervous state of mind about my health, and have a sort of presentiment that a serious illness is hanging over me. I am conscious of a peculiar numbness all down my right side, which seems to forebode an attack of paralysis." His fair companion expressed her hope that such fears were illfounded. Ah, no," he replied, “I'm afraid there's no doubt of it, for I have been pinching my right leg all dinnertime, and can elicit no responsive feeling whatever. The limb seems quite dead to all feeling." Oh," exclaimed the lady briskly, and with an expression of intense relief on her face, "if that is all which troubles you, I think I can at once relieve your mind from anxiety, for the leg which you have been pinching all the evening is mine."

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Court Circular.

THE CAR-CONDUCTOR'S MISTAKE. It happened the other day on the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The train had just left Easton, and the conductor was making his first round, when he observed a small white dog with a bushy tail and

"Why, you old idiot, they were alive-bright black eyes, sitting cosily on the seat prairie chickens."

"Dat 'splains it," said Eph. "I tought dar was suffin' wrong. You jest cook de chickens and gib de dawg half a chance, an' see how he'll hunt for dem. Folks 'spect too much," he added, as the gentleman kicked the dog into a corner and rushed out; "dey 'spects 'tirely too much from de cullud people. Ef dat man was fool 'nuff to 'spect dat he war gwine to git a dawg for free dollars dat would hunt live chickens, he was fool 'nuff to bleeb dat we's squar in de middle of de milleenyum, and ebberybody knows how big a fool dat am."

A WARNING TO PINCHERS.

A dignitary of the Church was dining out. Of the two ladies between whom he was seated, the one on his right-hand

beside a young lady so handsome that it made his heart roll over like a lop-sided pumpkin. But duty was duty, and he remarked, in his most deprecatory manner,

"I'm very sorry, madam, but it's against the rules to have dogs in the passenger cars."

"Oh, my! is that so?" and she turned up two lovely brown eyes at him beseechingly. "What in the world will I do? I can't throw him away. He is a Christmas present for my aunt."

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By no means, miss. We'll put him in a baggage-car, and he'll be just as happy as a robin in spring."

"What! put my nice white dog in a nasty, stuffy, dusty baggage-car?'

I'm awfully sorry, miss, I do assure you, but the rules of this company are as inflexible as the laws of the Medes and them other fellows, you know. He shall

have my overcoat to lie on, and the brakeman shall give him grub and water every time he opens his mouth."

"I just think it's awful mean, so I do, and I know somebody will steal it, so they will!" and she showed a half notion to cry that nearly broke the conductor's heart; but he was firm, and sang out to the brakeman, who was playing a solo on the stove.

'Here, Andy, take this dog over into the baggage-car, and tell'em to take just the best kind of care of him."

The young lady pouted, but the brakeman reached over and picked the canine up as tenderly as though it was a two weeks' old baby; but as he did so a strange expression came over his face, like a wave of cramp-colic, and he said hastily to the conductor:

"Here, you just hold him a minute till I put this poker away," and he trotted out at the car door and held on to the brake-wheel, shaking like a man in the ague.

The conductor no sooner had his hands on the dog than he looked around for a hole to fall through.

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Why, wh-why, this is a worsted dog.

Yes, sir," said the little miss, demurely. "Didn't you know that?"

"No, I'm most awful sorry to say I didn't know that." And he laid the Christmas dog down in the owner's lap and walked out on the platform, where he stood half an hour in the cold, trying to think a hymn tune to suit the worst sold man on the Lehigh Valley.

AWKWARD.

Anon.

A Yale professor was going to experiment with laughing gas, when he overheard a student say that under its influence no one was responsible for what he said, and he would take advantage of this and tell the professor what he thought of him. When the class met, the professor quietly said he would like, for purposes of illustration, to administer the gas to some member, aud this student volunteered. The leather bag was connected with his mouth. He pretended to be very much excited, and began to abuse and swear at the professor, who let him go on for awhile, but the class roared

when the professor said he needn't be so irresponsible, the gas hadn't been turned on yet.

AUDACITY.

The following incident is said to have occurred in a restaurant: A man entered the place and ordered a very elaborate dinner. He lingered long at the table, and finally wound up with a bottle of wine. Then lighting a cigar he had ordered, he leisurely sauntered up to the counter and said to the proprietor,—

"Very fine dinner, landlord. Just charge it to me; I haven't got a sou." "But I don't know you," said the proprietor indignantly.

"Of course you don't. If you had you wouldn't have let me had the dinner." Pay me for the dinner, I say." "And I say I can't."

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"I'll see about that," said the proprietor, who snatched a pistol out of a drawer, leaped over the counter and collared the man, exclaiming as he took aim at his head, "Now see if you'll get away with that dinner without paying for it, you scoundrel."

"What is that you hold in your hand?" said the impecunious customer, drawing back.

"That, sir, is a pistol, sir."

"Oh, that's a pistol, is it? I don't care a fig for a pistol. I thought it was a stomach-pump.

CAUGHT.

A country merchant visited the city a few days ago and purchased from a dollar store a table castor, which he took home with him, and after putting a tag on it marked $14, made a present of it to a Methodist preacher, whose church his family attended. The reverend gentleman took the package home, opened it and examined the contents. The next day he took the castor with the tag attached back to the groceryman and said to him: "I am too poor in this world's goods to afford to display so valuable a castor on my table, and if you have no objection I should like to return it and take $14 worth of groceries in its stead." The merchant could do nothing but acquiesce.

THE MAGIC LAY OF THE ONE-
HORSE SHAY.

I.

Mr. Bubb was a Whig orator, also a soap laborator;

'Tis three weeks at least to next boilingday;

The dog days are set in, and London's growing thin,

So I'll order out old Nobbs and the onehorse shay."

VII.

(For everything's new-christened in the Now Nobbs, it must be told, was rather fat and present day);

He was followed and adored by the common council board,

old,

His color it was white, and it had been gray;

And lived quite genteel with a one-horse He was round as a pot, and when soundly shay.

II.

Mrs. Bubb was gay and free, fair, fat and

forty-three,

And blooming as a peony in buxom May; The toast she long had been of Farringdonwithin,

And filled the better half of the one-horse shay.

III.

Mrs. Bubb said to her lord: "You can well,
Bubb, afford

Whate'er a common council man in pru-
dence may;

We've no brats to plague our lives, and the soap concern it thrives,

So let's have a trip to Brighton in the onehorse shay.

IV.

"We'll view the pier and shipping, and enjoy many a dipping,

And walk for a stomach in our best array;

whipped would trot

Full five miles an hour in the one-horse shay.

VIII.

When at Brighton they were housed, and had stuffed and caroused

O'er a bowl of rack punch, Mr. Bubb did say,

"I've ascertained, my dear, the mode of dipping here,

From the 'ostler who is cleaning up my one. horse shay.

IX.

"You're shut up in a box, ill convenient as the stocks,

And eighteen pence a time are obliged for to pay;

Court corruption here, say I, makes everything so high,

And I wish I had come without my onehorse shay."

X.

I longs more nor I can utter for shrimps and "As I hope," says she, "to thrive, 'tis flaying

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