AMERICAN WONDERS.
"She be a pretty craft, that little thing of yours," observed old Tom.
"How long may she take to make the run?" "How long? I expect in just no
time; and she'd go as fast again, only she won't wait for the breeze to
come up with her." "Why don't you heave to for it?" said young Tom.
"Lose too much time, I guess. I have been chased by an easterly wind all
the way from your Land's-end to our Narrows, and it never could overhaul
me." "And I presume the porpusses give it up in despair, don't they?"
replied old Tom with a leer; "and yet I've seen the creatures playing
before the bows of an English frigate at her speed, and laughing at
her." "They never play their tricks with me, old snapper; if they do, I
cut them in halves, and a-starn they go, head part floating one side,
and tail part on the other." "But don't they join together again when
they meet in your wake?" inquired Tom. "Shouldn't wonder," replied the
American Captain. "My little craft upset with me one night, in a pretty
considerable heavy gale; but she's smart, and came up again on the other
side in a moment, all right as before. Never should have known anything
about it, if the man at the wheel had not found his jacket wet, and the
men below had a round turn in all the clues of their hammocks." "After
that round turn, you may belay," cried Tom laughing. "Yes, but don't
let's have a stopper over all, Tom," replied his father. "I consider all
this excessively diverting. Pray, Captain, does everything else go fast
in the new country?" "Everything with us clear, slick, I guess." "What
sort of horses have you in America?" inquired I. "Our Kentuck horses,
I've a notion, would surprise you. They're almighty goers at a trot,
beat a N. W. gale of wind. I once took an Englishman with me in a gig up
Alabama country, and he says, 'What's this great church yard we are
passing through?' 'Stranger,' says I, 'I calculate it's nothing but the
mile-stones we are passing so slick.' But I once had a horse, who, I
expect, was a deal quicker than that; I once seed a flash of lightning
chase him for half an hour round the clearance, and I guess it couldn't
catch him."
NO HARM.
"Mother," said a little fellow the other day, "is there any harm in
breaking egg shells?" "Certainly not, my dear, but why do you ask?"
"Cause I dropt the basket jist now, and see what a mess I'm in with the
yolk."
TAKEN DOWN A PEG.
An Irishman, observing a dandy taking his usual strut in Broadway,
stepped up to him and inquired:
"How much do you ax for thim houses?"
"What do you ask me that for?"
"Faith, an' I thought the whole strate belonged to ye," replied the
Irishman.
AN OPINION.
A tipsy Irishman, leaning against a lamp post as a funeral was passing
by, was asked who was dead. "I can't exactly say, sir," said he, "but I
presume it's the gentleman in the coffin."
GARRICK.
A certain lord wished Garrick to be a candidate for the representation
of a borough in parliament. "No, my lord," said the actor, "I would
rather play the part of a great man on the stage than the part of a fool
in parliament."
JONATHAN'S LAST.
The people live uncommon long at Vermont. There are two men there so old
that they have quite forgotten who they are, and there is nobody alive
who can remember it for them.
GREAT CALF.
At a cattle show, recently, a fellow who was making himself ridiculously
conspicuous, at last broke forth—"Call these ere prize cattle? Why,
they ain't nothin' to what our folks raised. My father raised the
biggest calf of any man round our parts."
"I don't doubt it," remarked a bystander, "and the noisiest."
GO IN AND WIN.
"Ma, I am going to make some soft soap, for the Fair this fall!" said a
beautiful Miss of seventeen, to her mother, the other day.
"What put that notion into your head, Sally?"
"Why, ma, the premium is just what I have been wanting."
"Pray, what is it?"
"A 'Westchester Farmer,' I hope he will be a good looking one!"
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