Chapter IV: Foreword (4)

The little one promised. At the table she sat, saying not a word, but from time to time sniffing audibly, and at frequent intervals raising her left wrist to her ear to catch the sound of the ticking. These tactics failed to attract attention. Toward the end of the meal, in a lull in the conversation, little Miss Helen spoke:

“Listen, everybody,” she said. “If anybody hears anything or smells anything, it’s me.”

§ 96 The Truth from the Inside

The dining car waiter was one of those persons who feel a sense of personal proprietorship in the institutions they serve—a type not at all uncommon among members of his race. His manner, his voice, all about him, subtly conveyed the idea that here was one who took a deep pride in the undertaking of feeding people on a transcontinental train, and was determined that no blot ever should besmirch the fair name of the system.

So when the gentleman who was going to California gave a breakfast order of grapefruit, toast, coffee and soft-boiled eggs, he bent over the patron and in confidential tones whispered:

“Boss, I would not keer to reccermend the aigs this mawnin’! Naw, suh, I would suggest you tuck somethin’ else on the bill.”

“What’s the matter with the eggs—aren’t they fresh?” asked the customer.

The waiter’s voice sank still lower.

“I don’t know ef they’s fresh or ef they ain’t,” he said; “but to tell you the truth, we ain’t got none.”

§ 97 The Fate of the Saloon

In the last months of the fighting in 1918, a draft regiment of colored troops from the Gulf States went in near the Flanders line, where the British held, to help mop up the retreating Germans. One morning three of my fellow-correspondents borrowed a staff car and rode up to an abandoned village where there had been sharp fighting, seeking for a forward dressing-station with intent to get stories from wounded men.

At an entrance to an improvised hospital in a dugout one of the group came upon a coal-black infantryman who, while not seriously injured, bore unmistakable signs of having come into abrupt contact with some form of high and violent explosive. He was wearing, for the moment, his belt and his boots and a part of his collar. The correspondent said to him:

“Soldier, how did you get hurt?”

“Well, mister,” stated the victim, “it ain’t altogether clear in my own mind yit, but I could mebbe tell you some of de things w’ich hez occurred.”

“I should be very pleased to hear them.”

“Well, suh, at daylight this mawnin’ we fell into one of these yere lil’ towns up yere jest ’bout the time dem Bush Germans wuz fallin’ out of it. But even ef we did have de scoundrels on de run, dey didn’t fergit to shoot at us ez dey went away. Dem big shells wuz whistlin’ past over my haid, talkin’ to demselves, an’ ever’ now an’ then one of ’em would come by w’ich, it seemed lak, t’wuz speakin’ to me pussonally. I could hear it say jest ez plain: ‘You ain’t never gwine _see-e-e-e-e-e_ yore home in Ala-BAM!’

“So I sez to myse’f, I sez: ‘Seein’ ez dese Germans is all daid an’ scattered an’ ever’thing, ’twon’t be any real harm ef I gets under cover myse’f!’

“So I looks ’round fur a place to git at. ’Co’se, most of de houses in dat town hez done been shot down flat. But I sees one still standin’, wid de roof on it, too—a lil’ place called a _Taverne_. Dat’s whut a Frenchman say, boss, w’en he means saloon.

“Natchelly, dey ain’t nobody livin’ thar no mo’. So I walks up an’ I teks hold of de doorknob an’ I’se jest fixin’ to turn de knob an’ shove open de do’ an’ step in w’en _BAM!_ right ’long side of me one of dem German shells went off an’ tuk dat saloon right out of my hand!”

§ 98 What the Case Called For

Gabe Thompson was a person of unrelieved color, the color being black. Always, until he reached middle age he had enjoyed perfect health. Suddenly he was stricken down with what seemingly was a grievous affliction. His complexion turned the color of wet wood-ashes and he moaned with pain. His wife, in alarm, summoned a friend from a near-by cabin.

“Gabe,” said the neighbor, “You ’pears lak to me that you is powerful porely. S’posin’ I hitches up an’ goes to town fur the doctor?”

“All right,” said Gabe, “but let de doctor w’ich you gits be a hoss doctor.”

“Whu’ fur you wants a hoss doctor?” asked the other in astonishment. “You ain’t no hoss. Chances is you ain’t got no hoss disease.”

“Nummine,” replied Gabe between gasps of agony, “you jest do lak I tells you. Ef I knowed whut ailed me ’twould be diffe’nt, but I ain’t knowin’.”

“Whut diffe’nce does dat make?”

“I’ll tell you,” said Gabe. “Ef a regulation doctor comes to see you he kin talk wid you. He kin ax you whar de pain is an’ whut you been eatin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ you kin tell him. But a hoss doctor he can’t talk wid his patients kaze de patients can’t talk back. He’s jest natchelly ’bleedged to know whut ails ’em.

“Nigger, you go git me de bes’ hoss doctor you kin find!”

§ 99 The Light that Failed

An ambitious Chinaman secured a long time lease on a tiny island on the California coast. Here he built himself a simple shack and here he raised garden-truck. Because of the climate, which was generally damp, and because of the soil and most of all because of the tenant’s industry, the venture prospered. Naturally, when a gentleman in uniform came along one day and suggested him that he should vacate the property and turn it over to the government, the Oriental protested. He wanted to know why Uncle Sam should covet his tiny possession.

The visitor said to him:

“Well, you see, John, it’s like this: There’s a lot of fog along this coast and Uncle Sam wants to put up a lighthouse here for the benefit of ships. Savee?”

The Chinaman shook his head.

“No glood,” he said. “Lighthouse no glood for flog.”

“What makes you think so?” asked the government agent.

“Listlen,” said the Chinaman, “’fore I clumb here I live long-time in Oakland, acloss Bay from San F’lisco. Muchee flog there. Uncle Slam plut up lighthouse and flog-whistle and flog-bell. Lighthouse he shine, flog-whistle he blow, flog-bell he ling—an’ damn flog he come just same!”

§ 100 He’d Have Preferred Union Hours

Being seized with the fever for modern improvement, the legislature of a certain state in the South some years ago voted for the installation of the electric chair. At the same time the lawgivers tacked on a provision to the effect that no newspaper might publish the details of an electrocution but, on the contrary, should go no farther than to state that on such a date, at such and such an hour, the execution of the law was carried out upon the body of John Doe or Richard Roe, as the case might be, the purpose of this being to invest the entire proceeding with a mystery in the minds of those individuals most likely to come within the scope of its operations.

The first candidate for these lethal attentions in a remote county chanced to be a large, brawny negro. In passing sentence upon him the judge followed, in the main, the old and time-honored formula, merely altering it somewhat to conform to the new conditions. After reviewing the crime and the trial, His Honor spoke substantially as follows:

“It is the duty, therefore, of this court to charge that the warden of the state penitentiary shall closely hold you in confinement until the twenty-first day of August, next, when between the hours of sunrise and sunset he shall put you to death by the electric chair—and may God have mercy on your soul! Mr. Sheriff, remove the prisoner.”

The sheriff took the condemned man away. Overnight, pending his removal to the place of execution, he was lodged in his old cell in the county jail. He sent a message to the commonwealth’s attorney who had prosecuted him, asking that he might see that official immediately. The commonwealth’s attorney went to the jail. The doomed darky was sitting on his cot with his face in his hands rocking himself back and forth while the tears trickled through his fingers.

“Mr. Corbett,” he said, “I craves to ax a dyin’ favor of you, please suh?”

“Well, Jake,” said the attorney, “I’d do anything in my power, almost, to ease your mind. But if you are after a pardon or a reprieve I can’t see my way clear to helping you. You killed that man in cold blood and you had a fair trial and you’ve got to die and, what’s more, you’ve got to die on the date this judge has named.”

“’Tain’t dat, suh,” bewailed Jake, “I ain’t got no quarrel wid de date. I kin git all my worldly affairs settled up ’twixt now an’ den an’ mek my peace wid de Lawd, lakwise. But, Mr. Corbett,”—and here his voice broke sharply—“I p’intedly does hate to be settin’ in dat dere cheer f’um sunrise plum’ till sunset.”

§ 101 The Perils of Pranking

There was a homicide trial going on in the mountains of West Virginia. A lanky native took the stand to testify to the good character and peaceful disposition of the prisoner at the bar. When he had given the accused a glowing testimonial the prosecuting attorney took him in hand for cross-examination.

“Look here,” he demanded: “isn’t that the mark of an old knife cut you’ve got across the lobe of your left ear?”

“Yas, suh; it is.”

“Well, who inflicted that wound?”

“Bill, thar, he done it, one time.”

“By ‘Bill’ you mean the defendant here?”

“Yep.”

“I see you also have the scar of a bullet wound in your right cheek. Who made that?”

“Bill.”

“On still another occasion didn’t Bill, as you call him, gouge one of your eyes almost out?”

“That’s a fact, too.”

“Now, then, in view of the injuries you yourself admit having sustained at his hands, how do you reconcile your sworn statements of a minute ago that the defendant is an individual of peaceable and law-abiding nature, and a good neighbor?”

“Well, suh,” said the witness, “Bill is one of the nicest fellers ever you seen in your life; but I must say this—he’s a powerful onlikely pusson to prank with!”

§ 102 The Really Important Point

Among the writer’s acquaintances is a well-to-do person who spends his summers cruising about in a private yacht. One afternoon near Cape Cod he dropped anchor just off a village for the night. While he was sitting on deck puffing a cigar before retiring, he saw one native approach another who was perched upon the dock and heard the newcomer say, in excited tones:

“I walked in my house awhile ago and the first thing I noticed was some blood spots on the kitchen floor. And then I seen how everything was mussed up, so that give me a kind of a start, and I dropped everything and went on into the settin’-room, and there was my wife stretched out on the floor, plum’ unconscious, with a club layin’ alongside her where somebody had knocked her cold. It certainly was a terrible surprise. Here I come home, tired out after fishin’ all day long——”

“How was the fishin’?” inquired the friend.

§ 103 The Proper Remedy at Last

Possibly inspired by the missionary work of Pussyfoot Johnson, a Scotch Minister undertook a temperance crusade among the members of his flock. He announced that on a certain Sabbath he would deliver a sermon upon the evils of strong drink, with physical illustrations to prove his argument. Upon the appointed morning a congregation which crowded the kirk greeted him. The dominie lost no time in making his demonstration. Upon the pulpit he placed two glasses; one containing whiskey and the other spring water. Then in an impressive silence he brought a small box from his coat pocket, opened the box and produced a long wriggling worm.

First he dipped the worm in the tumbler of water, where it coiled and twisted happily. Then he dropped it into the whiskey. Instantly the hapless creature shriveled, and after a few feeble contortions became limp and lifeless. Hauling forth the dead thing and holding it in plain view of all present the minister said:

“Now then, my brethren, behold the effects of strong spirits upon this wee creature. In the water it took no harm; but the first contact with this foul stuff here instantly destroyed it. Need I say or do more to convince you of the effects of whiskey?”

From the body of the church there rose up a lantern-jawed person.

“Meenister,” he said, “might I ask where ye got the whusky in that tumbler?”

“I’m glad you put that question,” said the clergyman. “I purchased it at that den of iniquity, the public-house, which stands at the top of the street not a hundred yards from this place of worship.”

“Thank ye,” said the parishioner. “I’ll be goin’ there on the morrow. I’ve been troubled with worms myself.”

§ 104 An Anniversary to Be Remembered

Differences of an acute nature arose in a crap game on the Nashville wharf. The dispute had to do with the ownership of a five dollar bill. For possession of it there were two claimants,—a resident roustabout and a truculent-looking stranger from up St. Louis way.

The argument reached a crucial and critical stage. The right hand of the visiting nobleman stole slowly back toward his hip pocket.

“Nigger,” he inquired softly of his enemy, “whut date is dis?”

“I ain’t payin’ no heed to de dates,” said the Nashville darky.

“Well, you better do so,” said the stranger, “’cause jest twelve months frum to-day you’ll a’been daid perzackly one yeah.”

§ 105 The Handiwork of the Amateur

Back about 1905, in the Dark Ages of automobiling a veterinary surgeon in my town, whom I shall call Dr. Jones, bought a second-hand car. It already was beginning to shake itself to pieces before it came into his possession. In fact, so loudly did it rattle, when in motion, that it was known affectionately throughout the county as Jones’ Patent Pea-Huller. When the tires wore out the owner, who was by way of being a mechanical genius, equipped it with ordinary buggy-wheels.

One day an automobile run to a near-by town was organized. Every proud proprietor of a car joined in. As the procession headed out past the corporate limits it was met by a farmer, from the Massac Creek section on his way to the warehouse with a wagon-load of tobacco. His half-grown son rode with him.

As the head of the column loomed through the dust the farmer’s two mules, unused to the sight of automobiles, showed signs of skittishness. The boy leaped down from his seat and held the heads of the team, the mules flinching and trembling as the cavalcade roared past.

Seemingly, the last car had gone by. The youth was in the act of climbing back to his place alongside his father when in the distance there arose a terrific clattering sound and over the crest of the hill appeared Dr. Jones, seated at the wheel of his machine and striving valiantly to overtake the tail of the vanished parade. On he came, with his gears grinding, the tormented vitals of his car shrieking, the wooden wheels clattering on the hard gravel of the turnpike and gusts of smoke issuing from beneath the body.

The astounded agriculturist caught one good look at the approaching apparition. Then as he set the brakes harder than ever and tightened his grasp on the lines he called out to the boy:

“Hold ’em, Wesley, for God’s sake, hold ’em! Here comes a home-made one!”

§ 106 The Forethoughted Widow

In an unthoughted moment a colored woman in a North Carolina town contracted a matrimonial alliance. But the honeymoon ended tragically. Just two weeks after the wedding ceremony the happy bridegroom was fooling about the railroad yards and a switch engine ran over him—on the bias—and he, being of a fleshy build, was distributed for a considerable distance along the right of way becoming, to all intents and purposes, a total loss.

Yet it was immediately to develop that in a deceased state, he had a financial standing which had been denied him in the flesh. For, with that desire to do justice speedily which ever marks the legal profession, a claim agent of the railroad got hold of the widow before any other lawyer could reach her and hurried her to his office and there showed her five hundred dollars in shiny new bills, which was more money that she thought there was in the world. With one eager hand she reached for this incredible fortune and with the other, using haste lest the beneficent white gentleman should recover from his impulses of generosity, she signed on the dotted line _A_ of the quit claim.

Another colored woman who had come with her to witness this triumph and who was standing behind her, perfectly pop-eyed with envy and admiration, said:

“Clarissa, whut you reckin you goin’ do now, sence you had all dis luck?”

Before the widow answered she lifted a rustling twenty from off the top of the delectable heap and fanned herself with it and inhaled its fragrance; and then she said:

“I don’t know ez I shall do anything—fur a spell. I got to wait till time is healed my wounds an’ I’s spent dis yere money. Of co’se in the yeahs to come I may marry ag’in an’ then ag’in I may not—who kin tell? But, gal, I tells you right now, ef ever I does marry ag’in my second husband is suttinly goin’ be a railroad man.”

§ 107 Bumpy Times for the Late Lamented

The late Mr. Donovan had had a very close call from being a dwarf. Indeed, there are dwarfs in circuses not many inches shorter than he was. Despite his diminutive bulk and the handicap of lack of height he nevertheless had succeeded in the contracting business and when he died he left a tidy estate and his widow mourned him properly.

On the day before the funeral, having finished the preparations for the wake, she sat in the parlor of her home when Mr. McKenna, an old friend of the family, was announced. Dressed in his Sunday best Mr. McKenna entered and having shaken Mrs. Donovan’s hand stated that he would be unable to attend the ceremonies that evening owing to other engagements. He asked, therefore, if he might be permitted to take a last look at the deceased.

“Help yourself,” said the widow. “He’s laid out upstairs in the front room. Just you walk up, Mr. McKenna.”

So Mr. McKenna walked up. After the lapse of a few minutes he tip-toed down again, wiping away his tears.

The widow removed the handkerchief from her eyes.

“Did you think to close the hall door as you came down, Mr. McKenna?” she asked.

“I think so, madam,” he said. “I was so overcome wit’ me grief I didn’t take much note. I think so, but I won’t be sure.”

“Would you make sure, thin,” she said. “It’s twice to-day already the cat’s had him downstairs.”

§ 108 The Genesis of an Old Favorite

There are several variations of this yarn but a Scotch friend of mine insists that the one which follows is the correct one and, by that same token, the proper ancestor of all the crop of differing versions. As he sets forth the original narrative it runs something like this:

An Aberdonian on his first visit to London got off the train at Euston station. While proceeding afoot along Euston Road on his way to his hotel he suffered a terrific misfortune. He dropped a sixpence and it rolled out of sight. The desolated victim put down his luggage and began a vigorous search for the missing coin. Presently a friendly policeman came along and having learned from the grieved Scot what the trouble was, proceeded to aid him in the hunt, but with no results, excepting the loss of fifteen minutes. Finally the Bobby said:

“You go along on your way and I’ll keep my eye open for your money. If it turns up I’ll have it for you, if you’ll come back this way this afternoon.”

All day the Scot was afflicted with distress. Promptly at four o’clock he was back on the spot where his sixpence had vanished. During the day the gas company had had a squad of men excavating in the street for new mains so that when the Aberdonian reappeared he found the paving torn up and a wide, deep trench extending from the house line to the middle of the road. He gazed at the scene for a moment and then remarked to himself:

“Weel, I must admit one thing—they are verra thorough here.”

§ 109 “A Rose by Any Other Name . . .”

At a closely contested municipal election in New York the Tammany ticket seemed in grave danger. Accordingly steps were taken. Scarcely had the polls opened when a group of trained and experienced repeaters marched into a down-town voting place.

“What name?” inquired the election clerk of the leader of the squad, who was red-haired and freckled and had a black eye. The young gangster glanced down at a slip of paper in his hand to refresh his memory.

“Isadore Mendelheim,” he said then.

“That’s not your real name, and you know it!” said a suspicious challenger for the reform ticket.

“It is me name,” said the repeater, “and I’m goin’ to vote under it—see?”

From down the line came a voice:

“Don’t let that guy bluff you, Casey. Soitin’ly your name is Mendelheim!”

§ 110 A Detail of Figures

Grand Central Pete was a noted bunco-steerer of the old days, but could neither read nor write. Once he fell upon hard times, and he and a younger but equally luckless confidence man undertook to beat their way on a freight train to Washington. A brake-man kicked them off at Trenton.

It was getting late and neither of them had a cent. Across the tracks from where they had landed was a hotel and right next door was an express office. Pete had an idea. He went into the express office, begged one of those large manila envelopes such as are used for transporting currency, filled the envelope with pieces of newspaper cut to the size of banknotes, and sealed it carefully.

“Now then,” he said to his partner, “you take your fountain pen and write on the back of that there envelope ‘$9,000.’ Then we’ll go over to that hotel and explain that we’ve lost our baggage, and I’ll hand this envelope to the clerk and ask him to lock it in the safe. He’ll look at the figures on the back—and he’ll take us for moneyed guys and give us rooms and grub until we can raise a stake.”

The scheme sounded good to the younger man. He got out his pen and obeyed orders. Grand Central Pete took the envelope back in his hands and examined it carefully.

“Does that say nine thousand dollars?” he demanded.

“Yep,” said his partner.

“Well, it don’t look big enough to me,” said Pete. “You’d better add on some more of them naughts.”

The younger man protested, but Pete would have his way and kept after him until the educated one had tacked on three more naughts, making the grand total $9,000,000.

Then Pete marched grandly over to the hotel, registered for himself and his friend, passed the stuffed envelope across the desk to the clerk and called for the bridal suite.

The clerk took one look at the envelope, another look at the soiled faces and shabby apparel of the newcomers—and rang the bell for the bouncer. A minute later the discomfited pair were sitting on the sidewalk.

Grand Central Pete raised himself painfully and eyed his companion with a scornful, angry glance.

“There now,—dad-gum you!” he shouted; “I told you you hadn’t wrote in enough of them naughts!”

§ 111 Provision for the Future

Nobody could tell a yarn of his own race better than the late Bert Williams could. I remember one story he used to tell. Hearing him tell it you felt, despite its gorgeous impossibility, that somehow it might have happened and that anyhow it should have happened. To the best of my recollection his version, delivered in his wonderful Afric drawl ran something like this:

“W’en I was a little boy I lived on the banks of a creek and I supported my whole family ketchin’ feesh and peddlin’ ’em off amongst the w’ite folks. Ever’ mawnin’ I’d ketch me a string of feesh and off I’d go wid ’em. I forgot to say that this yere creek run at the foot of a mountain seven thousand feet high and most of the w’ite folks lived up on the mountain-side.

“One hot mawnin’ I ketches me a string of feesh and I teks ’em in my hand and I starts up the mountain. I comes to the fust house but they didn’t want no feesh there; and I comes to the second house and it seems lak they don’t crave no feesh neither, and so I continues till I reaches the plum top of that mountain seven thousand feet high.

“Now, right on the plum top, in a little house, live a little white man and he’s standin’ at his do’ like he’s waitin’ fur me. I walks up to him and I bows low to him, ver’ polite, and I sez to him I sez: ‘Mister, does you want some fresh feesh?’ And he sez to me, he sez: ‘No, we don’t want no feesh to-day.’

“So I starts back down that mountain, seven thousand feet high. And w’en I’m about a third of the way down I’m overtook by one of those yere landslides and under tons of rocks and dirt and soil and _daybris_ and stuff and truck and things I’m carried plum to the foot of that mountain. So I digs my way out frum under all that there mess, still holdin’ to my little string of feesh, and I wipes the dust out of my eyes and I looks back up the mountain to see what the landslide has done. And, lo and behole! The little man that lives in the little house on the plum top is standin’ at his do’ beck’nin’ to me. So I sez to myself: ‘Praise God, that w’ite man is done changed his mind.’

“So I climbs back ag’in up the mountain, seven thousand feet high, till I comes to the plum top and w’en I gits there the little w’ite man is still standin’ there waitin’ fur me. He waits till I’m right close to him befo’ he speaks. Then he clears his throat and he sez to me, he sez:

“‘And we don’t want none to-morrow, neither!’”

§ 112 The Life of the Party, as It Were

Three aged Scots were in the habit of meeting on Saturday evening at the home of first one and then another of the group for social purposes. Their social demands were simple, just as their tastes were similar. All they craved was an opportunity to sit by a fire with their pipes lit and their whiskey glasses handy, in silence.

One evening there had been an especially enjoyable session. Two quarts of liquor had been consumed and hardly a word had been spoken. At the approach of midnight the two guests stood up to go. One of them, with difficulty focusing his vision upon his host, who sat in the inglenook, remarked to the third member of the party in an undertone:

“What an awfu’ look Sandy has on his face.”

“Aye,” said his crony, “he’s dead.”

“How long has he been dead?” inquired the first speaker in shocked tones.

“The better part of twa hours.”

“Why did ye nae tell me before?”

“Hoots, mon,” said his crony, “I’m nae the one to brek up a pleasant evenin’.”

§ 113 Something to Look Forward To

A hustling free-lance in the white goods business thought he saw a magnificent opening to buy up a stock of underwear and by a quick turnover among the jobbers to realize a handsome profit. He succeeded in inducing a Bowery bank to let him have a hundred thousand dollars in order to swing the deal. The deal was swung but for some reason or other the enterprising speculator was not able to move his newly acquired stocks as rapidly as he figured on.

One morning the president of the bank sent word to the borrower that he desired to see him immediately and the latter promptly answered the summons.

“Look here, Mr. Jacobson,” said the banker, “I’ll have to call your loan and I’ll have to call it immediately.”

“But Mr. Slocum,” protested Jacobson, “you couldn’t do that. Still I am all tied up with them goods und I must have more time.”

“I’m sorry for you if you’re going to be embarrassed,” said Mr. Slocum, “but I can’t help myself. The state bank examiner was in here yesterday going over our books and he tells me we must clean up a lot of our accounts. Now, your note for a hundred thousand dollars is a demand note, as you will recall, and not a time note, so I must ask you to be able to take up that note not later than Wednesday, the fifteenth of next month.”

“Vell,” said Mr. Jacobson resignedly, “that’s the vay things go. Vot has to be has to be, I guess.” He thought for a moment.

“Mr. Slocum,” he said, “maybe you have yourself looked into the ins and out of underwear, eh?”

“Mr. Jacobson,” said the banker, “I’m not interested in the underwear business.”

“Vell,” said Mr. Jacobson softly, “you should be. Because Venesday, the fifteenth, you’re going to be in it.”

§ 114 Me Lady’s One Weak Point

Martin Green, one of the best-known newspaper men in New York, has remarkable memory for faces. Twenty odd years ago he was a reporter in St. Louis. At a summer park he became acquainted with a vaudeville team consisting of a brawny Irishman and the Irishman’s equally brawny Swedish wife. The team had an act which was simple, and yet thrilling. Their stage props consisted of a sledge-hammer and a collection of paving-stones. The pair would come forth from the wings, and the lady would station herself in the centre of the stage and upon her head the gentleman would balance a large, jagged lump of limestone. Then, stepping back, he would swing his sledge-hammer aloft and bring it down with all the force of his mighty arms upon the stone, dashing it into scores of fragments. The lady would blink slightly, take her bow and the couple would back from sight to reappear an hour or so later and repeat the performance.

Two decades passed. In 1920 Green was reporting the National Republican Convention at Chicago. One evening he boarded a trolley car. The car was crowded and Green found standing room on the rear platform. Something about the face of the conductor stirred a memory long buried in his brain. He studied the countenance of the other for a minute and then the answer came to him.

“Say, look here,” he asked. “Aren’t you Brennan of the old team of Brennan and Swenson that used to do a turn at the summer park in St. Louis way back about 1900?”

“That’s right,” said the conductor. Then with a sigh he added, “Sure, but thim was the happy days.”

“What made you quit the stage?” asked Green.

“It was on me wife’s account,” said the ex-Thespian. “She got so she couldn’t stand it no longer, me bustin’ thim cobblestones on her head.”

“Gave her headaches, I suppose,” said Green.

“No, not that,” said Brennan. “It bruk her arches down.”

§ 115 At the Crossing of the Ways

Beyond question his Honor on the bench was cross-eyed. Some persons went so far as to say that he was the crossest-eyed person or the cross-eyedest person, as the grammar may be, in the known world.

On a morning when for some reason or other his angles of vision seemed particularly out of alignment there were arraigned before him for preliminary examination three youths charged with hypothecating a stranger’s automobile to their own use. The oldest of the trio, and the supposed ringleader, stood between his two alleged confederates. Addressing the middle one the judge said:

“Young man, you are accused here of grand larceny. How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?”

Instantly the one on the left said:

“Not guilty, Your Honor.”

“I wasn’t addressing you,” sniped His Honor. “I was addressing this other accused. Wait until you’re spoken to.”

“Why, judge,” protested the one on the right. “I ain’t said a word.”

§ 116 The Mysterious Stranger

The Scotch minister and his beadle, or sexton as we would call him, had attended a Masonic banquet and had done themselves, as the saying goes, exceedingly well. The dominie was a bachelor. His housekeeper was a very strict lady and he was a bit doubtful as to what his reception would be on his return to the manse. He considered the situation for a bit and then to his beadle he said:

“John, I think I’ll slip in at the back door the nicht.”

The beadle, who believed in upholding the dignity of the kirk, replied emphatically:

“You’ll do naething o’ the kind. Y’re meenister o’ this parish an’ ye’ll go in by your own front door.”

“Weel, then,” said the clergyman, “I’ll walk in front o’ you for a bit an’ you watch how I get alang.”

The minister proceeded ahead, striving to walk straight in the moonlight, and the beadle propping himself on his own unsteady pins, squinted his eyes in earnest observation.

Presently the dominie called back over his shoulder:

“How am I getting alang, John?”

“Ye’re doing brawly,” answered John, “but meenister, who is that ye have with ye?”

§ 117 A Chronic Loser

At Lynchburg, Va., a traveling-man climbed off the train in a hurry. He had but a few minutes in which to travel across town and make connections with a train for Roanoke. But the only rig in sight was an ancient carriage drawn by a scrawny, old crow-bait with an old negro man for a driver.

“Right this way, boss,” shouted the old man as he ran forward to relieve the traveler of his hand-baggage. “Tek you anywhars in the city fur fifty cents. Hop right abode, suh!”

“I’ve got to rush over to the other depot,” said the white man, “That mare of yours doesn’t look very fast. Do you think she can make it?”

“Huh, dat mare?” proclaimed the old man. “She sholy kin. She’s mouty deceivin’ in her looks. They calls dis hoss Lightnin’.”

Thus reassured, the stranger climbed in. The black Jehu mounted to his seat, snapped the lines and gave the word of command. Tottering on her shaky pins the venerable pack of bones ambled off.

“Say, look here, uncle,” said the fare, “that nag of yours may be speedy when she’s feeling right but it strikes me that she’s lost her health or something. Why, she’s almost weak enough to fall down in her tracks.”

“Boss,” said the old man, sinking his voice to a confidential undertone, “I’m gwine tell you a secret. Dat mare ain’t sick, but yere lately, as you mout say, she’s been kind of out o’ luck.”

“What do you mean—out of luck?” asked the passenger.

“Well, suh, ever’ mawnin’ I shakes the dice to see whether dat mare has a bait of oats or I has me a slug of gin. An’ she ain’t won fur goin’ on mouty nigh a week.”

§ 118 The Call of the Far East

Walter Kelly, famous in vaudeville, has an old friend at Buffalo who formerly was a Feinian and now is the most confirmed of Sinn Feiners. If there is anything on earth Kelly’s friend doesn’t like it’s something English. His version of the British national anthem probably would run: “God Save the King Till We Can Get At Um!”

In 1921 Kelly was playing in vaudeville at Buffalo. As he sat in his dressing-room, awaiting his turn, his ancient acquaintance came to see him. When greetings had been exchanged Kelly said:

“Well, Dennis, it’s a great day for all of us who are of Irish blood. Now that England has granted Ireland self-government, there’s no reason, as I see it, why the Irish and the English should not try to forget their old feud and live hereafter at peace. The Irish have no further cause for a quarrel with the British!”

“Well, I don’t know about that, Walter,” said the unreconciled Dennis. “Don’t ye think now we ought to be doin’ somethin’ fur thim poor Hindus?”

§ 119 He Wouldn’t Commit Himself Yet

The conservation of the Down-East farmer is proverbial. Possibly this trait is a heritage of his Puritan ancestry.

Be that as it may, the fact remains that he is extremely careful to refrain from overstatement or exaggeration. A point in illustration is found in the story of the elderly Vermonter who was bringing in hay from his ancestral meadow. Seated upon a fragrant two-ton load he had guided his double team almost to the doors of his barn when one of the front wheels twisted on an outcrop of granite and the cargo capsized, precipitating the husbandman to the stony earth with great violence and entirely burying him under the mound of timothy.

The two hired hands leaped to the rescue. They forked away the hay and after several minutes of strenuous endeavor dug out their employer. He was speechless for the time being and half-suffocated. There was a bump on his forehead and one arm dangled to prove that his shoulder-blade had been snapped. As they propped the victim against the softer side of a handy boulder his son, who had been at work in the hayfield and who had been summoned by the cries of the rescuers, came running up. Filled with alarm and solicitude the younger man put a question which seemed somewhat superfluous but which, in view of his fright, was perfectly natural.

“Paw,” he cried as he bent over his parent, “did it hurt you?”

“Wall, son,” said the old man slowly, and measuring his words, “I wouldn’t go so fur as to say it’s done me any real good.”

§ 120 A Seasonable and Timely Suggestion

It was in the old days up in the Klondyke. On a winter’s night—a night destined to be remembered even in that land for its severity—the inhabitants of a mining-camp were gathered in the local dance hall for companionship and for warmth. It was too cold to play cards. Those present had huddled themselves about a huge, red-hot stove which stood in the center of the big room, when from without there came the sound of feeble cries.

The proprietor threw open the door and peered forth into the blizzard. The light from the coal-oil lamps behind him revealed a string of exhausted husky dogs and a sled upon which was huddled a human shape. Hardy spirits dashed forth into the storm and separated the form of the traveler from his sled to which he was frozen fast. They bore him inside, chafed his hands and thawed him before the fire, and by these means succeeded in restoring him his powers of motion and coherent speech. It developed that the rescued one was a green prospector who in his ignorance had undertaken to make the trip from a settlement ten miles below to a point considerably up country from the place where he now was. When he was almost spent from cold and exhaustion he had seen the lighted windows of the dance hall and had guided his staggering dog-team there in the nick of time.

Now that he was able to walk, two sympathetic Samaritans guided his footsteps to the bar where the barkeeper awaited them.

“Stranger,” said the hospitable barkeep, “you’ve had a blamed close call and we’re goin’ to celebrate. This round is on the house. What are you goin’ to have? I’d suggest a hot whiskey punch—or maybe you’d rather have a hot Tom-and-Jerry?”

The stranger considered for a moment.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I think I’ll take a seltzer lemonade.”

“What’s that?” cried the stupefied barkeeper.

“I think I’d like to have a seltzer lemonade.”

“Pardner,” stated the barkeeper, “we’re out of lemons and likewise we’re shy on seltzer. But I want you to feel at home; I tell you what I’ll do; I’ll just run upstairs to my trunk and get you a nice pair of white duck pants to wear.”

§ 121 Not Vouched For as Absolutely Authentic

This story probably isn’t true. The more I think it over, the more am I convinced that somewhere it lacks plausibility. But in spite of this defect I deem it worthy to be included in this collection, because, if it serves no other good purpose, it may give the visiting foreigner and notably the visiting Briton an idea of the size of this country and the variations of weather to be found within our boundaries at one time.

As the story runs, a Galveston negro, born and reared on the Gulf coast, was offered a job one winter in St. Paul. Knowing nothing of the climatic changes he might, and undoubtedly would, encounter as he moved north, the colored man, attired in a cotton shirt and a pair of threadbare jeans overalls, boarded a through train for his future theatre of activities. By snuggling close up to the steam pipes he managed to remain fairly comfortable during the journey; but when he stepped off the cars at St. Paul things were different. For he stepped off into the swirling midst of the worst blizzard that had descended upon Minnesota in twenty years.

Bewildered by the screeching wind, blinded by stinging particles of snow, the stranger staggered a few yards from the station, growing more congealed every second. Within half a block, becoming absolutely rigid, he fell stiffly over in a snow bank. He was found by a policeman who called the patrol wagon and removed the unfortunate to the nearest police station. There a surgeon, after making a cursory examination of the stiffened frame, diagnosed the case as one of death by freezing. Since there was nothing by which the victim might be identified the desk sergeant entered him on the docket as an unknown person and the physician gave his sanction for the immediate disposal of the ill-fated one’s mortal remains. As interment underground was out of question the police conveyed their burden to an improvised crematory, arriving about midnight.

Here an attendant lost no time in consigning the body to the flames and having closed the iron door of the furnace he called it a night and retired.

Next morning the authorities sent two more bodies to be consumed. As the functionary, wearing heavily padded gloves, unscrewed the caplike door of his little private inferno and involuntarily shrunk back from the blast of incredible heat which gushed out into his face, he was astounded to hear a querulous, plaintive, Afro-American voice uplifted from the very heart of the furnace, saying:

“Who is dat openin’ dat do’ an’ lettin’ all dat cold draft of air in yere on me?”

§ 122 One Time When the Colonel Balked

In his old age, after he quit the war-path, Quanah Parker, the famous chief of the Comanches, adopted many of the white man’s ways; but in one important respect he clung to the custom of his fathers. He continued to be a polygamist.

He was a friend and admirer of ex-President Roosevelt. On one occasion, when Colonel Roosevelt was touring Oklahoma he drove out to Parker’s home camp twelve miles from Fort Sill to see the old warrior. With pride Parker pointed out that he lived in a house like a white man, that he was sending his children to the white man’s schools and that he, himself, wore the garb of the white man. Whereupon, Colonel Roosevelt was moved to preach him a sermon on the subject of the moralities.

“See here, Chief,” he said, “why don’t you set your people a still better example of obedience to the laws of the land and the customs of the whites? A white man has only one wife; he’s allowed only one at a time. Here you are living with five squaws. Why don’t you give up four of them and remain faithful to the fifth? You could continue to support the four you put aside but they need no longer be members of your household. Then, in all respects, you would be living as the white man lives.”

Parker, who spoke excellent English when he chose to do so, considered the proposition for a space in silence. Then, with a twinkle in his beady old eyes he made answer:

“You are my great white father,” he said, “and I will do as you wish—on one condition.”

“What’s the condition?” asked the Colonel.

“You pick out the one I am to live with and then you go tell the other four.”

§ 123 And No Steam Calliope, Either

There is a theatrical manager in New York who began his professional career as press-agent for a circus. A year or two ago he had occasion to believe that a bill-posting crew sent out by him to paper the territory for a big production in which he was interested had failed to live up to its contract. He decided to make a quiet trip over the itinerary and check up on the suspected shirkers. In a city just across the Canadian line in Quebec he hired a livery-stable rig with a driver for the purpose of riding through the adjacent country.

The driver of the rig he immediately recognized as a former boss-canvasman answering to the name of Saginaw Red. In the old days this Saginaw had been employed by one of the circuses for which the New Yorker also had worked. The recognition was mutual. Naturally the two of them renewed their ancient acquaintance and a flow of reminiscence started. As their buggy reached the edge of the town the driver halted it while a funeral procession bound for the cemetery passed through an intersecting street.

It wasn’t much of a funeral procession. Behind the rusty, closed carriage containing the pall-bearers followed a dingy, glass-walled hearse and behind that, in turn, came four more closed carriages presumably containing mourners and friends of the deceased, and that was all.

Pointing to the cavalcade and employing the vernacular of their former calling, the manager addressed his companion:

“Well, Saginaw,” he said, “what do you think of the grand free street parade?”

“It’s a frost,” said Saginaw; “only one open den.”

§ 124 Absolutely Nothing to Debate

The official peacemaker, there is one in every community, and sometimes unthinking people call him a butter-in, was progressing on his homeward way. Of a sudden the loose prehensile ears of the pedestrian were assailed by sounds which to his eager perception betokened a bitter quarrel between a man and woman who stood on the porch of a vine-clad cottage. Without a moment’s hesitation he opened the yard gate and hurried toward the seemingly belligerent pair.

“Tut, tut!” he cried. “Tut, tut, my friends, this will never do. Pray cease this unseemly argument.”

The couple turned toward him. It was the man who spoke:

“What business of yours is it, comin’ bustin’ in here a-tut-tutting like a gas engine? Besides this here ain’t no argument.”

“Yes, but I heard——” began the peacemaker.

“Never mind what you heard,” broke in the husband. “To be an argument there’s got to be a difference of opinion, ain’t they?”

“Yes, there has,” conceded the peacemaker.

“Well, they ain’t no difference of opinion here,” said the man. “My wife thinks I ain’t going to give her none of my week’s wages and I know durned well I ain’t!”

§ 125 Keeping It in the Family

The proprietor of a small general store in a remote New England district sat at the doorway of his establishment industriously whittling. A middle-aged native drove up in an antiquated car and halted.

“Hello, Eth,” he said.

“Hello, Wes,” answered back the storekeeper.

“Wall, Eth,” said the newcomer, “you said I couldn’t dew it, but, by Judas Priest, I done it!”

“You done whut?” asked the storekeeper.

“Sold that there old crow-bait mare of mine—that’s whut I done,” said Wes exultingly.

“Wall, you air the smart one!” cried the astonished Eth admiringly. “She wuzn’t wuth nothin’. Whut did ye sell her fur?”

“She wuzn’t wuth nothin’, jest ez you say. But all the same I sold her fur a hunderd dollars—and I got the money right here in my pocket, too.”

“I got to say it again,” declared Eth. “You certainly air the smart one! A hundred dollars! Why that there old mare wuzn’t wuth ten dollars. She wuz eighteen year old if she wuz a day and blind of one eye and spavined and wind-broke and all stove up. Who, in the name of Goshen, did you sell her to?”

“I sold her,” said Wes, “to mother.”

§ 126 Speaking, as It Were, with Frankness

Since an actor of distinction told me this story I take it that it may be repeated here without serious offence to the profession which he adorns and dignifies.

The proprietor of a small hotel of a small New England town was hunched behind the clerk’s desk of his establishment when the door opened and there strode in a typical heavy man of a traveling repertoire company. The newcomer wore a mangy fur overcoat and a soiled white waistcoat and, as if to make up for his lack of baggage, bore himself with an air of jaunty assurance. He advanced to the clerk’s desk and waited there as though expecting the innkeeper to rise and in accordance with the ritual, swing the register about for him and hand him a pen newly dipped in ink. If that was what the Thespian expected he was disappointed.

The prospective guest was not to be daunted by the lack of the customary evidences of hospitality and welcome. In his deepest and most impressive stage voice he said:

“I take it, my good man, that you are the Boniface of this hostelry.”

“Wall, I’m runnin’ this here tavern, ef so be that’s whut you mean.”

“Exactly so. It is even as I suspected. And what are your lowest terms for members of my profession?”

“Which?”

“I say, what are your lowest terms for actors?”

“Liars, loafers and dead-beats!”

§ 127 Glass of Fashion and Mould of Form!

In the last year of the Civil War a company of Federal soldiers were encamped in the Tennessee foothills. They had pitched their tents in a meadow belonging to a farmer whose log house stood in a grove at the edge of the field. Through the meadow ran a good-sized creek. The soldiers lost no time in pulling off their dusty garments and bathing in the stream.

That same evening the owner of the farm, a whiskered gentleman, called upon the young lieutenant in command of the detachment. He began by saying that his sympathies were with the Union and he felt upon this account if upon no other he was entitled to consideration. He had a complaint to make. He had no objection to the use of his meadow as a camp ground but he did wish to protest again the action of the men in swimming within sight of his domicile because, as he explained, he had two half-grown daughters.

The officer saw the point of the farmer’s position and promised him that he would take steps. Immediately he issued an order that thereafter men wishing to bathe or swim should repair to a point at the far side of the meadow.

The next afternoon the farmer reappeared with a fresh protest. The lieutenant listened to him and then said rather impatiently:

“Say, look here, my friend, it strikes me you’re somewhat fussy. The place where these men are now going into the creek is fully a quarter of a mile from your house if not farther.”

“Yes, I know,” said the farmer, “but you see, Mister, both of my gals has got spyglasses.”

§ 128 Down to the Solid Portions

It seems the mother was determined her six year old daughter should learn table manners and especially that she should eat what was put before her without question or complaint. On a morning at breakfast the lady sat behind the coffee urn reading her mail. Little Mildred was perched upon a high-chair at the other end of the table. In front of the latter the maid put down a cup holding a soft-boiled egg.