The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (english novels for beginners .TXT) 📗
- Author: Marshall P. Wilder
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Down stairs his father paced the floor, watch in hand. From time to time he would call out the hour, like a watchman on a minaret. At last:
"Look a-yere, Seffy, it's about two inches apast seven—and by the time you git there—say, nefer gif another feller a chance to git there afore you or to leave after you!"
Seffy descended at that moment with his hat poised in his left hand.
His father dropped his watch and picked it up.
Both stood at gaze for a moment.
"Sunder, Sef! You as beautiful as the sun, moon and stars—and as stinky as seferal apothecary shops. Yere, take the watch and git along—so's you haf some time wiss you—now git along! You late a'ready. Goshens! You wass behind time when you wass born! Yas, your mammy wass disapp'inted in you right at first. You wass seventy-six hours late! But now you reformed—sank God! I always knowed it wass a cure for it, but I didn't know it wass anysing as nice as Sally."
Seffy issued forth to his first conquest—lighted as far as the front gate by the fat lamp held in his father's hand.
"A—Sef—Seffy, shall I set up for you tell you git home?" he called into the dark.
"No!" shouted Seffy.
"Aha—aha—aha! That sounds right! Don't you forgit when you bose—well—comfortable—aha—aha! Mebby on one cheer aha—ha-ha. And we'll bose take the fence down to-morrow. Mebby all three!"[Pg 390]
AN ARCHÆOLOGICAL CONGRESS BY ROBERT J. BURDETTEFor I'm as old as the big round earth;
Ye young Immortals clear the track,
I'm the bearded Joke on the Carpet tack."
A Joke
With boastful croak;
And as he said,
Upon his head
He stood, and waited for the tread
Of thoughtless wight,
Who, in the night,
Gets up, arrayed in garments white,
And indiscreet,
With unshod feet,
Prowls round for something good to eat.
His speech provokes;
And old, and bald, and lame, and gray,
With loftiest scorn they say him Nay;
And bid him hold his unweaned tongue,
For they were blind ere he was young.
So hot
They grew,
This complot
Crew,[Pg 391]
They laid a plan
To catch a Man;
That all the clan
Might then trepan
His skull with Jokes; they thus began:
Amid his ribs like lightning laid—
And back recoiled—he well knew why;
"Insurance Man," he faintly sayed.
"Put up!" he cried, in accents bold;
With Elbow joint he struck the lyre,
And knocked the Weather Prophet cold.
Three thousand years before the Flood,
Cold, bitter cold, will be the day
Thou dost not warm the Jester's blood.
"Spoons for the spooney," was her ancient song,
That with slow measure dragged its deathless length along.
Old Pie, impatient, rose
And roared, "Behold, I am the Funny Clown!
And without me there is no Joke that goes.
I lend my omnipresent hand;
I've filled in Jokes of every grade
Since ever Jokes and Pies were made;
Sewed, pegged and pasted, glued or cast,
If not the first of Jokes, I'll be the last."[Pg 392]
Pale summer watermeloncholly sighed,
And—but the Muse would find it vain
To give a list of all the train;
The hairless, purblind, toothless crew,
That burst on Man's astonished view—
The Bull dog and the Garden gate;
The Girl's Papa in wrathful state;
Ma'ma in law; the Leathern Clam;
The Woodshed Cat; the Rampant Ram;
The Fly, the Goat, the Skating Rink,
The Paste-brush plunging in the Ink;
The Baby wailing in the Dark;
The Songs they sang upon the Ark;
Things that were old when Earth was new,
And as they lived still old and older grew,
And as these Jokes about him cried,
And all their Ancient Arts upon him tried,
Their hapless victim, Man, lay down and died.
[Pg 393] A BOY'S VIEW OF IT BY FRANK L. STANTON
Boys must be looked after—got to be strict;
When I tear my breeches like Billy tears his,
It helps 'em considerable when I am licked!
But it ain't leapin' over the fence or the post—
It's jest that same lickin' 'at tears 'em the most!
Boys must have people to foller 'em roun';
Never kin tell where they're goin' to be;
Sure to git lost, an' then have to be foun'.
An' then—when they find 'em, they're so full of joy
They can't keep from lovin' an' lickin' the boy!
Daddy wuz drivin' to market one day,
Fell out the wagon, an' nobody knowed
Till they come to a halt, an' his daddy said: "Hey!
Wonder where Jimmy is gone to?" But Jim—
Warn't no two hosses could keep up with him!
Where wuz a circus; took up with the clown,
Cut off his ringlets and painted his face,
An' then come right back to his daddy's own town!
An' what do you reckon? His folks didn't know,
An' paid to see Jimmy that night in the show![Pg 394]
(Folks at his house wuzn't treatin' him right);
Went to the place where the red Injuns stay;
An' once, when his daddy wuz travelin' at night
An' the Injuns took after him, hollerin' loud,
Bill run to his rescue, an' scalped the whole crowd!
Wuzn't fer people a-follerin' 'em roun',
Jest ain't no tellin' how fast they would grow;
Bet you they'd fool everybody in town!
But mother—she says they need lickin', an' so
They're too busy hollerin' to git up an' grow!
[Pg 395] "RINGWORM FRANK" BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Boys all calls him "Ringworm Frank,"
'Cause he allus runs round so.—
No man can't tell where to bank
Frank'll be,
Next you see
Er hear of him!—Drat his melts!—
That man's allus somers else!
Can't stay still!—Wuz prosper'n here,
But lit out on furder West
Somers on a ranch, last year:
Never heard
Nary a word
How he liked it, tel to-day,
Got this card, reads thisaway:—
Me homesick all Winter long,
And when Springtime comes, it takes
Two pee-wees to sing one song,—
One sings 'pee'
And the other one 'wee!'
Stay right where you air, old pard.—
Wisht I wuz this postal-card!"
[Pg 396] THE COLONEL'S CLOTHES BY CAROLINE HOWARD GILMAN
Every man has some peculiar taste or preference, and, I think, though papa dressed with great elegance, his was a decided love of his old clothes; his garments, like his friends, became dearer to him from their wear and tear in his service, and they were deposited successively in his dressing-room, though mamma thought them quite unfit for him. He averred that he required his old hunting-suits for accidents; his summer jackets and vests, though faded, were the coolest in the world; his worm-eaten but warm roquelaure was admirable for riding about the fields, etc. In vain mamma represented the economy of cutting up some for the boys, and giving others to the servants; he would not consent, nor part with articles in which he said he felt at home. Often did mamma remonstrate against the dressing-room's looking like a haberdasher's shop; often did she take down a coat, hold it up to the light, and show him perforations that would have honored New Orleans or Waterloo; often, while Chloe was flogging the pantaloons, which ungallantly kicked in return, did she declare that it was a sin and a shame for her master to have such things in the house; still the anti-cherubic shapes accumulated on the nails and hooks, and were even considered as of sufficient importance to be preserved from the fire at the burning of Roseland.
Our little circle about this time was animated by a visit[Pg 397] from a peddler. As soon as he was perceived crossing the lawn with a large basket on his arm, and a bundle slung across a stick on his shoulder, a stir commenced in the house. Mamma assumed an air of importance and responsibility; I felt a pleasurable excitement; Chloe's and Flora's eyes twinkled with expectation; while, from different quarters, the house servants entered, standing with eyes and mouth silently open, as the peddler, after depositing his basket and deliberately untying his bundle, offered his goods to our inspection. He was a stout man, with a dark complexion, pitted with the small-pox, and spoke in a foreign accent. I confess that I yielded myself to the pleasure of purchasing some gewgaws, which I afterward gave to Flora, while mamma looked at the glass and plated ware.
"Ver sheap," said the peddler, following her eye, and taking up a pair of glass pitchers; "only two dollar—sheap as dirt. If te lady hash any old closhes, it is petter as money."
Mamma took the pitchers in her hand with an inquisitorial air, balanced them, knocked them with her small knuckles—they rang as clear as a bell—examined the glass—there was not a flaw in it. Chloe went through the same process; they looked significantly at each other, nodded, set the pitchers on the slab, and gave a little approbatory cough.
"They are certainly very cheap," said mamma, tentatively.
"They is, for true, my mistress," said Chloe, with solemnity, "and more handsomer than Mrs. Whitney's that she gin six dollars for at Charleston."
"Chloe," said mamma, "were not those pantaloons you were shaking to-day quite shrunk and worn out?"
"Yes, ma'am," said she; "and they don't fit nohow.[Pg 398] The last time the colonel wore them he seemed quite on-restless."
"Just step up," said her mistress, "and bring them down; but stay—what did you say was the price of these candlesticks, sir?"
"Tish only von dollars; but tish more cheaper for te old closhes. If te lady will get te old closhes, I will put in te pellows and te prush, and it ish more sheaper, too."
Chloe and mamma looked at each other, and raised their eyebrows.
"I will just step up and see those pantaloons," said mamma, in a consulting tone. "It will be a mercy to the colonel to clear out some of that rubbish. I am confident he can never wear the pantaloons again; they are rubbed in the knees, and require seating, and he never will wear seated pantaloons. These things are unusually cheap, and the colonel told me lately we were in want of a few little matters of this sort." Thus saying, with a significant whisper to me to watch the peddler, she disappeared with Chloe.
They soon returned, Chloe bearing a variety of garments, for mamma had taken the important premier pas. The pantaloons were first produced. The peddler took them in his hand, which flew up like an empty scale, to show how light they were; he
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