Did you see that old maid? Holly Gee, isn’t she ancient? She belongs to a very old family. Just think she is a cousin to Lydia Pinkham, of Lynn, Mass., and a sister to Josiah Allen’s wife. She’s looking for a man, and I reckon she will have to look till she gets on two pairs of glasses, and we have sunsets in the east. Really she must feel like shooting the shoots, when she sees all the summer beaux, in Central Park.
Did you ever go fishing with dried apples for bait? It beats the flies all to smithereens. A boat and a bag of dried apples is all you need. When you find plenty of fish, just throw in a few handfuls of dried apples, and the fish will gobble it up and then the dried apples will swell and they will come up to the surface to see the sun set in the north, and wink at the stars, and you can pick them as fast as strawberries in a cabbage patch.
I went to church last Sunday, and, as they were short of teachers, they asked me to take a class of boys. I tried to tell them about Daniel in the lion’s den, and Alexander, the coppersmith, etc., and then a boy began to tell me the biggest lie I ever heard, and I asked him if he didn’t know it was awfully wicked to tell lies, and he said, “Didn’t you ever tell a lie?” and I said, “No,” and he said, “Great Caesar’s ghost! Won’t you be lonesome, though, when you get up to heaven, with no one but George Washington for company?”
I went to a reception the other night, and was introduced to the great Prof. Bobs. “So glad to meet you, old chap. They tell me, Prof., you have mastered all tongues.” “Well, all but my wife’s and her mother’s.”
I met Mr. Dooley on the street the other day and he began to tell me a tale of woe, and I said, “Now see here, cheer up, don’t make mountains out of mole-hills.” “Well,” said he, “that’s all right, but I knew a man that made a whole barrel out of a bucket shop.”
I went to a school exhibition the other day, and the teacher said, “The class in ‘spasms’ will recite,” so John Jones was asked to tell what a straight was, and he said, “Just the plain stuff with nothing in it.” Then the teacher said, “If 32° is freezing-point, what is squeezing-point?” and Johnny said, “2° in the shade.” Then the teacher says, “Johnny, how old are you?” and Johnny says, “I ain’t but 12, but my pants are marked 16.” Then Danny Jones was asked to give the positive, comparative, and superlative of “sick.” Danny—Sick, worse, dead.
