Part 18

There was many affectin' ties which made one hanker arter Betsy Jane. Her father's farm joined our'n; their cows and our'n squencht their thurst at the same spring; our old mares both had stars in their forreds; the measles broke out in both famerlies at nearly the same period; our parients (Betsy's and mine) slept regularly every Sunday in the same meeting-house; and the nabers used to observe: "How thick the Wards and Peasleys air!" It was a surblime site, in the spring of the year, to see our sevral mothers (Betsy's and mine) with their gowns pin'd up so they couldn't sile 'em, affecshuntly Bilin sope together & aboozin the nabers. Altho' I hanker'd intensly arter the objeck of my affecshuns, I darsent tell her of the fires which was rajin in my manly Buzzum. I'd try to do it, but my tung would kerwollop up agin the roof of my mouth & stick thar, like deth to a deseast Afrikan, or a country postmaster to his offiss, while my hart whanged agin my ribs like a old-fashioned wheat Flale agin a barn floor. 'Twas a carm still nite in Joon. All nater was husht, and nary zeffer disturbed the sereen silens. I sot with Betsy Jane on the fense of her father's pastur. We'd bin rompin threw the woods, kullin flowrs, & drivin the woodchuck from his Native Lair (so to speak) with long sticks. Wall, we sot thar on the fense, a swingin our feet two and fro, blushin as red as the Baldinsville skool-house when it was fust painted, and looking very simple, I make no doubt. My left arm was ockepied in ballunsin myself on the fense, while my rite was wounded lovingly round her waste. I cleared my throat, and tremblinly sed: "Betsy, your'e a Gazelle." I thought that air was putty fine. I waited to see what effect it would have upon her. It evidently didn't fetch her, for she up and sed: "Your'e a sheep!" Sez I: "Betsy, I think very muckly of you." "I don't believe a word you say, so there now, cum!" with which obsarvashun she hitched away from me. "I wish thar was winders to my Sole," sed I, "so that you could see sum of my feelins. Thare's fire enough within," sed I, striking my buzzum with my fist, "to bile all the corn beef and turnips in the naberhood. Veersoovius and Critter ain't a circumstance!" She bow'd her hed down, and commenced chewin the strings to her bonnet. "Ar, could you know the sleepless nites I worry threw with on your account; how vittles has seized to be attractive to me, & how my lims has shrunk up, you wouldn't dowt me. Gaze on this wastin form, and these 'ere sunken cheeks." I should have continured on in this strane probly for sum time, but unfortnitly I lost one ballanse and fell over into the pasture. Ker smash tearin my close, and seveerly damagin myself ginerally. Betsy Jane sprang to my assistance in dubble quick time, and dragged me 4th. Then, drawin herself up to her full hite, sed: "I won't listen to your noncents no longer. Jes say rite strate out what your'e drivin at. If you mean gettin hitched, I'M IN!" I considered that air enuff for all practical purposes, and we proceeded immejitly to the parson's, and was made 1 that very nite. I've parst through many tryin ordeels sins then, but Betsy Jane has bin troo as steel. By attending strickly to bizness I've amarsed a handsome Pittance. No man on this footstool can rise and git up & say I ever knowingly injered no man or wimmin folks, while all agree that my Show is ekalled by few and excelled by none, embracin, as it does, a wonderful colleckshun of livin wild Beests of Pray, snaix in great profushun, a endless variety of life-size wax figgers, & the only traned Kangaroo in Ameriky--the mos amoozin little cuss ever introjuced to a discriminatin public, at the small charge of 15 sents.

COLONEL CROCKETT AND THE 'COON.--633.

I discovered a long time ago that a 'coon couldn't stand my grin. I could bring one tumbling down from the highest tree. I never wasted powder and lead when I wanted one of the creatures. Well, as I was walking out one night, a few hundred yards from my house, looking carelessly about me, I saw a 'coon planted upon one of the highest limbs of an old tree. The night was very moony and clear, and old Ratler was with me; but Ratler won't bark at a 'coon--he's a queer dog in that way. So I thought I'd bring the lark down in the usual way, _by a grin_. I set myself--and, after grinning at the 'coon a reasonable time, found that he didn't come down. I wondered what was the reason, and I took another steady grin at him. Still he was there. It made me a little mad. So I felt round, and got an old limb about five feet long, and planting one end upon the ground, I placed my chin upon the other, and took a rest. I then grinned my best for about five minutes, but the cursed 'coon hung on. So, finding I could not bring him down by grinning, I determined to have him, for I thought he must be a droll chap. I went over to the house, got my axe, returned to the tree, saw the 'coon still there, and began to cut away. Down it come, and I run forward; but d----n the 'coon was there to be seen. I found that what I had taken for one was a large knot upon a branch of the tree, and, upon looking at it closely, I saw that _I had grinned all the bark off, and left the knot perfectly smooth_.

MODESTY.--634.

"Modesty," says a Yankee editor, "is a quality that highly adorns a woman, but ruins a man."

SELF-EVIDENT KNOWLEDGE.--635.

A Yankee soldier who read his name in the list of deaths at an hospital, wrote home that he didn't believe it. In fact, he knew the statement was a falsehood as soon as he read it.

OBSTINACY CURED.--636.

A juror held out against his eleven companions in Santa Cruz, California. The others, after trying all other means, finally agreed to send in a verdict of "Guilty," with the addition, that the obstinate member was a great rascal, and confederate of the prisoner. He thereupon gave in.

NERVE OF FEELING.--637.

A Southern paper says that "a Yankee's chief nerve of feeling is in his pocket."--"A rebel is more apt to feel in his neighbour's pocket," replies a Northern journal.

TWO MUCH ICE.--638.

A correspondent tells of a chap who was drinking at a bar, and withal being tolerably tight, after several ineffectual attempts to raise the glass to his lips, succeeded in getting it high enough to pour the contents inside his shirt-collar, and set the glass down with the exclamation, "That's good, but a little too much ice, landlord!"

ALL-HEALING.--639.

A Mormon, named Nichols, made a nerve and bone all-healing salve, and thought he would experiment a little with it. He first cut off his dog's tail, and applied some to the stump. A new tail grew out immediately. He then applied some to the piece of the tail which he cut off, and a new dog grew out. He did not know which dog was which.

PUTTING A GOOD FACE ON IT.--640.

A writer in the _Chicago Post_ describes how he got out of a bad scrape in a police-court:--"The next morning the judge of the police-court sent for me. I went down, and he received me cordially. Said he heard of the wonderful things I had accomplished by knocking down five persons, and assaulting six others, and was proud of me. I was a promising young man, and all that. Then he offered a toast, 'Guilty or Not Guilty?' I responded in a brief but elegant speech, setting forth the importance of the occasion that had brought us together. After the usual ceremonies, I was requested to lend the city ten dollars."

OBEYING ORDERS.--641.

An officer down in Georgia tells the following story:--"One night General ---- was out on the line, and observed a light by the side of the mountain opposite. Thinking it was a signal light of the enemy, he remarked to his artillery officer that a hole could easily be put through it. Whereupon the officer, turning to the corporal in charge of the gun, said, 'Corporal, do you see that light?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Put a hole through it,' ordered the captain. The corporal sighted the gun, and when all was ready he looked up and said, 'Captain, that's the moon!' 'Don't care for that,' was the captain's ready response, 'put a hole through it any how.'"

NOT EXACTLY.--642.

An Indiana man was travelling down the Ohio in a steamer, with a mare and a two-year-old colt, when by a sudden career of the boat, all three were tilted into the river. The Indiana man, as he rose puffing and blowing above water, caught hold of the tail of the colt, not having a doubt that the natural instinct of the animal would take him ashore. The old mare took a direct line for the shore; but the frightened colt swam lustily down the current with the owner. "Let go the colt and hang on the old mare," shouted some of his friends. "Pooh, pooh!" exclaimed the Indiana man, spouting the water from his mouth, and shaking his head like a Newfoundland dog; "it's mighty fine, you telling me to leave go the colt; but to a man that can't swim, this ain't exactly the time for changing horses!"

THE ANGLER CAUGHT.--643.

"In the summer of 1823," says an American writer, "when a mere lad, I was at Swift's, in Sandwich. My then schoolmaster was there also, and from him I had the tale. John Brown was the well-known _sobriquet_ of the fisherman who attended amateur anglers on their excursions. John was not remarkable for his veracity, but quite otherwise, when his success with the hook and line was the 'subject of his story.' One day he was out with Daniel Webster. Both were standing in the brook, patient waiters for a bite, when Mr. Webster told John how he caught a large, a very large, trout on a former time. 'Your honour,' said John, 'that was very well for a gentleman. But once, when I was standing down by yonder bush, I took a fish, weighing'--I forget how much, but of course many ounces more than the great lawyer's big fish. 'Ah! John, John,' exclaimed Mr. Webster, 'you are an am_phib_ious animal--_you lie in the water, and you lie out of it_!'"

SPLENDID FIRING.--644.

They have pretty good marksmen in Vermont. Brown was telling Smith, of New Hampshire, the skill of a Green Mountain hunter. "Why," said he, "I have seen him take two partridges and let them both go--one in front and the other behind him; and he would fire and kill the one in front, and then whirl round and kill the other." "Did he have a double-barrelled gun?" enquired Smith. "Of course he did." "Well," replied Smith, "I saw a man do the same thing with a _single-barrel_." Brown didn't believe the thing possible, and said so.

CHARGED AND DISCHARGED.--645.

A fellow charged with stealing a hoe was discharged upon trial, it being proved that the article taken was an axe. The affair turned out a regular _ho-ax_.

COLONEL CROCKETT.--646.

Said he, "And who are you?" "I'm that same David Crockett, fresh from the backwoods, half horse, half alligator, a little touched with the snapping turtle; can wade the Mississipi, leap the Ohio, ride upon a streak of lightning, and slip without a scratch down a honey locust; can whip my weight in wild cats--and if any gentleman pleases, for a ten dollar bill, he may throw in a panther--hug a bear too close for comfort, and eat any man opposed to General Jackson."

AGRICULTURAL RETURNS.--647.

A farmer in the West once planted his onions close to his poppies, and the consequence was they grew so sleepy that he never could get them out of their beds.

FRANKLIN AND HANCOCK.--648.

"We must be unanimous," observed Hancock, on the occasion of signing the declaration of American Independence; "there must be no pulling different ways." "Yes," observed Franklin, "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

HENRY CLAY.--649.

The following description of Henry Clay appeared in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_; it is needless to say it is by a Western man:--"He is a man, and no mistake! Nature made him with her _sleeves rolled up_."

NATURAL MISTAKE.--650.

A gentleman at the Astor House table, New York, asked the person sitting next to him if he would please to pass the mustard. "Sir," said the man, "do you mistake me for a waiter?" "Oh no, Sir," was the reply, "I mistook you for a gentleman."

_LITERATURE._--651.

An American writer says, "Poetry is the flour of literature; prose is the corn, potatoes, and meat; satire is the aqua-fortis; wit is the spice and pepper; love letters are the honey and sugar; and letters containing remittances are the apple-dumplings."

THOMAS JEFFERSON.--652.

Thomas Jefferson, when Minister to France, being presented at Court, some eminent functionary remarked, "You replace Dr. Franklin, Sir." "I _succeed_ Dr. Franklin," was Mr. Jefferson's prompt reply, "no man can _replace_ him."

BORROWING THE BABY.--653.

All owners of interesting children will be amused by the following, from the _Boston Daily American_:--A gentleman and lady of that city were blessed with a beautiful child about a year old, which attracted so much attention from their neighbours, that the young ladies opposite frequently sent over to "borrow the baby." After being obliged to send for the child several times, Mr. ----, on coming home to dinner one day, got out of temper on finding it gone as usual. "There, Jane," said he, "go over to the Misses ---- and get the baby; give them my compliments, and tell them I wish they had a baby of their own, and were not obliged to borrow."

FORCIBLE EVICTION.--654.

Meeting an American friend travelling in the United States, I enquired whither he was going? "Why," said he, "I guess I'm going to take possession of an estate of mine, and I calculate I will have to shoot down my predecessors."

BOXES AND PIT.--655.

Wemyss, a famous theatrical manager in Philadelphia, quitted the business, and opened instead a large store for the sale of patent medicines. A friend dryly remarked that he would no doubt be successful in filling both _boxes_ and _pit_.

A SWIFT HORSE.--656.

The _Maine Farmer_ tells a number of tough stories about a man whom it calls "Neverbeat." Here is one:--A gentleman was boasting in the presence of Neverbeat about the speed of his horse, which, he said, would trot a mile inside of three minutes, and follow it for three miles. "A mile inside of three minutes aint much to brag about," said Neverbeat. "Why, the other day I was up to S----, sixteen miles distant; just as I started for home, a shower came sweeping on. The rain struck in the back part of the waggon; and the moment it struck, I hit old Kate a cut with the whip, away she trotted, scarcely touching her fore feet to the ground. She kept just nip and nip with the shower. _The waggon was filled with water, but not a drop fell on me._"

PASSING THE COW TO THE CALF.--657.

An American dandy who wanted the milk passed to him at an hotel, thus asked for it: "Landlady, please to pass your cow down this way." The landlady thus retorted: "Waiter, take this _cow_ down to where the _calf_ is bleating."

NATURE AND ART.--658.

An American, fresh from the magnificent woods and rough clearings, was one day visiting the owner of a beautiful seat in Brooklyn; and, walking with him through a little grove, out of which all the underbrush had been cleared, paths had been nicely cut and gravelled, and the rocks covered with woodbine, suddenly stopped, and, admiring the beauty of the scene, lifted up his hands and exclaimed: "This I like! This is Nature--_with her hair combed_."

NEARING IT BY DEGREES.--659.

"Mrs. Green," said a tolerably dressed female, entering a grocery store, in which were several customers, "have you any fresh-corned pork?" "Yes, ma'am." "How much is this sugar a pound?" "One shilling, ma'am." "Let me have," she continued, lowering her voice, "half a pint of gin, and charge it as sugar on the book."

AN APT PUPIL.--660.

A farmer once hired a Vermonter to assist him in drawing logs. The Yankee, when there was a log to lift, generally contrived to secure the smallest end, for which the farmer chastised him, and told him always to take the butt end. Dinner came and with it a sugar-loaf Indian pudding. Jonathan sliced off a generous portion of the largest part, giving the farmer the wink, and exclaimed: "_Always take the butt end._"

POETS.--661.

I never seen a poet that warn't as poor as Job's turkey, or a church mouse; nor a she-poet that her shoes didn't go down to heel, and her stockings looked as if they wanted darnin'; for its all cry and little wool with poets.--_Sam Slick._

GIN AND WATER.--662.

"Mister, your sign has fallen down!" cried a temperance man to a grog-shop keeper, before whose door a drunken man was prostrate. We don't know, says a paper, whether this temperance man was the same into whose store a customer reeled, exclaiming, "Mr. ----, do you--keep--a-ny--thing--good to take here?" "Yes, we have excellent cold water; the best thing in the world to take." "Well, I know it," was the reply, "there is no one--thing--that's done so much for--navigation--as that."

THE "STEAL PEN."--663.

A Western editor complains that all the good things in his paper are cut and inserted in other papers, without acknowledgment of the source whence they are obtained. He says, "they do not render unto scissors the things that are scissors'."

A PILE OF JOKES.--664.

Speaking of wags--what is more waggish than a dog's tail when he is pleased? Speaking of tails--we always like those that end well: Hogg's for instance. Speaking of hogs--we saw one of those animals the other day lying in the gutter, and in the one opposite a well-dressed man; the first one had a ring in his nose, and the latter a ring on his finger. The man was drunk; the hog was sober. "A hog is known by the company he keeps," thought we; so thought Mr. Porker, and off he went. Speaking of "going off" puts us in mind of a gun we once owned--it "went off" one night, and we have not seen it since. Speaking of guns reminds us of powder--we saw a lady yesterday with so much of it on her face that she was refused admission into an omnibus for fear of an explosion.

OBITUARY NOTICE.--665.

The _Christian Index_ (U. S.) thus prefaces an obituary:--"But a week since we recorded the death of one who was an old father in the church, a careful reader of the _Index_, and who paid for three papers in advance."

AN INFANT TEACHER.--666.

Under the title of "An Odd Advertisement," a New York paper publishes the following:--"A young lady, perfectly competent, wishes to form a class of young mothers and nurses, to instruct them in the art of talking to infants in such a manner as will interest and please them."

QUADRUPLICATED PUN.--667.

A comedian at Boston, by way of puff for his approaching benefit, published the following lines:--

"Dear Public, you and I of late Have dealt so much in fun; I'll crack you now a monstrous great Quadruplicated pun!

"Like a _grate full_ of coals I'll glow, A _great full_ house to see; And if I am not _grateful_, too, A _great fool_ I must be!"

BUCOLIC STUPIDITY.--668.

We saw a venerable looking cow yesterday, says the _Cincinnati Herald_, eating pine sawdust, under the impression that it was bran. She didn't find out her mistake until night, when it was found that she gave turpentine instead of milk.

LIFE IN KENTUCKY.--669.

The following story of "Life in Kentucky" being in print ought, of course to be believed:--"Early one morning the shouts and cries of a female were heard. All ran to the spot. When they arrived they saw a man and a bear engaged in combat. They had it hip and thigh, up and down, over and under, the man's wife standing by and hallooing 'fair play.' The company ran up and insisted on parting them. 'No, no,' said the woman, 'let them fight it out; for it's the first fight I ever saw that I didn't care which whipped!'"

AMERICAN PROVERBS AND SIMILES.--670.

AMBITION is as hollow as the soul of an echo.

TIDE, steamboats, and soda-water will wait for no one.

BIG feet, like a leather shirt, are more for use than ornament.

MONEY slips from the fingers like a water-melon seed, travels without legs, and flies without wings.

IT is the lot of humanity to err at times, as the drunken man said when he mistook the pig-pen for his bedroom.

A GOOD deed will stick out, with an inclination to spread, like the tail of a peacock.

YOU might as well undertake to whistle a grape-vine from a white oak, as to induce a girl to relinquish her lover.

SIMILES.--671.

AS big as all out of doors. AS dry as the clerk of a lime-kiln. AS long as a thanksgiving sermon. AS crooked as a Virginian fence. AS straight as a loon's leg. AS straight as a shingle. AS sharp as the little end of nothing. AS slick as greased lightning. AS swelling as a basket of chips. AS happy as a clam at high water. AS tight as the bark of a tree. AS crazy as a bed-bug. AS mad as all wrath. AS wrathy as a militia officer on a training-day. AS proud as a tame turkey. AS melancholy as a Quaker meeting-house by moonlight. AS useless as whistling psalms to a dead horse. LIKE all nature. LIKE all fury. LIKE all possessed. THRASHING round, like a short-tailed bull in fly-time. HEAD and tail up, like chicken cocks in laying-time.

INDEX.

PAGE

Absence of Mind, 50, 52, 85

Abstraction, 187

Adopting the Other Course, 158

Advantage of Burning Two Candles, 2

Advice to Doctors, 179

Advice to Parents, 49

After Joining Church, 43

Agreeable Customer, An, 19

Agreeing with all the Girls, 134

Agricultural Returns, 202

Aids to Memory, 184

All-Healing, 200

All Human, 87

All Well, 41

Amende Honourable, 177

American Competition, 152

American Curiosity, 176

American Definitions, 152

American Estimate of their Clergy, 9

American Help, An, 174

American Notion of Villany, 94

American Platform, 86

American Proverbs, 207

American Similes, 207

American Soil, 149

"And That's a Fact", 104

Angler Caught, The, 201

Another Burst of Eloquence, 109

Another Discovery, 96

Answered at Once, 189

Answering an Advertisement, 168

Antediluvian Diet, 61

Any Better than None, 154

Any Relations, 140

Appropriate Gift, An, 115

Apt Pupil, An, 205

Artistic Execution, 146

Awkward Coincidence, 95

Baby Story, A, 16

Bachelorism a Luxury, 22

Backwoods Conversation, 173

Big Puff, A, 67

Billings, Josh., Insures his Life, 83

Billings, Josh., Sayings of, 99, 196

Billings, Josh., on Horses, 175

Billy Bray, 28

Black Bull, A, 160

Blind Phrenologist of St, Louis, 135

Bonnets, 194

Borrowing the Baby, 203

Boxes and Pit, 204

"Braggin' saves Advertisin'", 113

Breakfast in Bed, 129

Brigham Young's Wives, 91

Bright and Blue, 186

Brother of Four Million Children, 63

Bucolic Stupidity, 207