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THAT REMINDS ME

If nonsense is to wisdom near allied and truth is often spoken in a jest, which are facts known to very casual observers, there is much more than the passing laugh to be derived from such a collection of anecdote, repartee, and pleasantry as that gathered together in this volume.

There is much Americanism in these "Tales." They have the flavor of our soil; the relish of our nationality. While some are plants of foreign growth removed to our atmosphere in which they have taken on a new appearance, there are touches of human nature and character in all of them.

If all these anecdotes seem not to be equally laugh-provoking, it is the fate of anecdotes. They are meant for different minds; they have different objects. If any shall teach a lesson, or point a moral while it at the same time fetches a smile, its purpose will not be lost.

Such humor, springing, as it does, from the people, much of it being caught at first hands from those who invented it to be transcribed for the newspaper in which it first appeared and now to be preserved in this volume, illustrates many important truths in our American character. Let that not be forgotten! "Show me a nation's humor and I will show you its civilization," is a sentiment worthy to become a proverb. There is hope for the man or the race of men which is gifted with the sense of humor if the mind and lips remain clean and reverent.

The Chinese can read this book as well as our occidentals. It can be perused backward or forward and will need no index or table of contents. It can be taken all at once if time and taste call for it, or it may be confidently opened by the skipper and skimmer of books who travels hither and thither and assails his literature only at vulnerable points. It may perhaps be taken up a second time, when, reader, if some of these stories seem to be old friends, you must be certain not to chide and revile this little volume, but compliment yourself upon owning a very retentive mind.

The champion liar of the town was outdoing himself on his pet topic, the Civil War. "Talk of mud," he was saying, "our campaign in the Wilderness was the worst. It rained for days without letting up. When it did stop we started off with our artillery. Soon we came to a regular water hole, but we drove straight along, and do you know that first team went right out of sight."

A newcomer then took the floor. "I've seen some mud, too," he said. "When I was a boy, one day after a terribly wet spring, I saw a hat out in the road, right in a big puddle, so I waded out to get it. Maybe now you won't believe me, but there was a man under that hat. Says I, 'Why, hello! can't I help you out?' 'Oh, no,' says he, 'guess I can get along. I'm a-horse back.'"

A certain Sunday-school teacher had a regular set of questions that she asked every Sunday. Beginning with the first boy she would ask, "Who made you?" to which he would reply, "The Lord." Then she would regularly ask the second boy, "Who was the first man?" and he would reply, "Adam."

One Sunday the first boy was away, and of course the second boy moved into his place. As usual, the teacher began by asking, "Who made you?"

The boy replied, "Adam."

"No, that is not right," said the teacher. "The Lord made you."

"I guess not," the child replied. "The boy that the Lord made is away to-day."

It was a train of only two cars on a miserable branch railroad, and was jogging along at a distressingly low rate of speed when all of a sudden it came to a dead stop. One of the passengers, whose patience had become exhausted, asked a brakeman the cause of delay.

"There's a herd of cows on the track," he answered.

In about ten minutes the train got under way again, jerking along convulsively for about a mile or two, when it came to a halt. An old man sitting near the door turned to the brakeman, who was plainly annoyed by the many questions, and said irritably:

"What in thunder is the matter, anyhow?"

"Why, we've caught up to the cows again!" the brakeman answered.

The editor of a rural paper visited a large city just after the shooting of Mr. McKinley and took great interest in the newspaper bulletins informing the public of the president's condition. Shortly after the editor's return home, Deacon Jones was taken seriously ill, and the following bulletins were promptly posted:

Later in the afternoon a traveling salesman happened by, stopped to read the bulletins, and, going to the board, added:

Jim Murphy had been accused of selling liquor illicitly and the prosecuting attorney was endeavoring to make Pat, a job teamster, admit that he had delivered liquor to the defendant. He stated that he had once delivered freight to Murphy and that part of that freight was a barrel, but when asked what the barrel contained he replied that he did not know.

"Don't know! Wasn't the barrel marked?" asked the attorney.

"Yis, sor."

"Then how dare you tell the court that you don't know what was in it?"

"Because, sor, the barrel was marked 'Jim Murphy' on one end and 'Bourbon Whiskey' on the other. How the divil did I know which was in it?"

A man who had purchased a fine-looking horse soon discovered that the animal was blind, and after several weeks he succeeded in disposing of her, as the defect did not seem to lessen her speed nor detract from her general appearance. The next day the new owner of the horse appeared.

"Say, you know that mare you sold me?" he began. "She's stone blind."

"I know it," replied her past owner with an easy air.

"You didn't say anything to me about it," said the purchaser, his face red with anger.

"Well, you see," replied the other, "that fellow who sold her to me didn't tell me about it and I just concluded that he didn't want it known."

The following story is told of an American gentleman who was recently stopping with his wife at the Hotel Cecil in London.

The first evening there she happened to return somewhat earlier than her spouse. Arriving at the door of what he supposed was his own room and finding it locked, he tapped and called, "Honey." No answer came and he again called more loudly, "Honey." Still there was no reply, and becoming somewhat uneasy, he shouted the endearing term with his full strength. This time an answer came and in a male voice.

"Go away, you blithering idiot! This is a bathroom, not a blooming beehive."

Hon. James M. Beck tells the following story of an argument made by a rural barrister before a justice in a court in Pennsylvania.

The case was one in which the plaintiff sought to recover damages from a railroad company for the killing of a cow. During the course of his argument, the country lawyer used this expressive sentence:

"If the train had been run as it should have been ran, or if the bell had been rung as it should have been rang, or if the whistle had been blown as it should have been blew, both of which they did neither, the cow would not have been injured when she was killed."

Two men in the West were to be hanged for horse stealing. The place selected was the middle of a trestle bridge spanning a river. The rope was not securely tied about the neck of the first man to be dropped, and the knot slipped; he fell in the river and immediately swam for the shore. As they were adjusting the rope for the second culprit, an Irishman, he remarked:

"Will yez be sure and tie that good and tight, 'cause I can't swim."

General Sheridan was once asked at what little incident he had laughed the most.

"Well," he said, "I do not know, but always laugh when I think of the Irishman and the army mule. I was riding down the line one day, when I saw an Irishman mounted on a mule, which was kicking its legs rather freely. The mule finally caught its hoof in the stirrup, when, in the excitement, the Irishman exclaimed, 'Well, if you're going to get on, I'll get off.'"

Some time ago a tramp was walking along, asking the pedestrians whom he met for alms. He stopped in front of the shop of a Jewish second-hand merchant; suddenly he entered it and appreached the dealer, saying,

"Excuse me, sir, but would you kindly give me a few pennies for a bed?"

The man looked at him and said with a characteristic business-like air,

"Vare is dot ped? Let me see it."

A Philadelphia school-teacher tells this story:

"Last week I was teaching a spelling lesson to a class of little second-graders. The word 'each' occurred, was written, on the board, and from it I expected to derive 'peach,' 'reach,' 'teach,' etc. Pointing to the word, I said, 'Can any child give a sentence using "each"?'

"A hand was unhesitatingly thrust up and a little German girl replied, 'Does your back each?'"

A number of little girls were boasting of the rank of their respective families. They had passed from clothes to personal appearance, then to interior furnishings, and finally came to parental dignity. The minister's little girl boasted:

"Every package that comes for my papa is marked D.D."

"And every package that comes for my papa is marked M.D.," retorted the daughter of the physician.

Then followed a look of contempt from the youngest of the party. "Hugh," she exclaimed, "every package that comes to our house is marked C.O.D."

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