A lady received a visit from a former maid three months after the girl had left to be married.
"And how do you like being married?" the lady inquired.
The bride replied with happy enthusiasm:
"Oh, it"s fine, ma"am--getting married is! Yes"m, it"s fine! but, land"s sake, ma"am," she added suddenly, "ain"t it tedious!"
The negro, after obtaining a marriage license, returned a week later to the bureau, and asked to have another name subst.i.tuted for that of the lady.
"I done changed mah mind," he announced. The clerk remarked that the change would cost him another dollar and a half for a new license.
"Is that the law?" the colored man demanded in distress. The clerk nodded, and the applicant thought hard for a full minute:
"Gee!" he said at last. "Never mind, boss, this ole one will do. There ain"t a dollar and a half difference in them n.i.g.g.e.rs no how."
The New England widower was speaking to a friend confidentially a week after the burial of his deceased helpmate.
"I"m feelin" right pert," he admitted; "pearter"n I"ve felt afore in years. You see, she was a good wife. She was a good-lookin" woman, an"
smart as they make "em, an" a fine housekeeper, an" she always done her duty by me an" the children, an" she warn"t sickly, an" I never hearn a cross word out o" her in all the thutty year we lived together. But dang it all! Somehow, I never did like Maria.... Yes, I"m feelin" pretty peart."
There were elaborate preparations in colored society for a certain wedding. The prospective bride had been maid to a lady who met the girl on the street a week after the time set for the ceremony and inquired concerning it:
"Did you have a big wedding, Martha?"
""Deed ah did, missus, "deed ah did, de most splendiferous occasion ob de season."
"Did you receive handsome presents?"
"Yes"m, yes"m, de hull house was jes" crowded wiv de gifts."
"And was your house nicely decorated?"
"Yes"m, yes"m. An" everybody done wear der very best, look jes" lak a white-folks" weddin", yes"m."
"And yourself, Martha, how did you look?"
"Ah was sutinly some scrumptious, yes"m. Ah done wore mah white bridal dress an" orange blossoms, yes"m. Ah was some kid."
"And the bridegroom, how did he appear?"
"De bridegroom? Aw, dat triflin", low-down houn" dawg, he didn"t show up at all, but we had a magnificious occasion wivout him, jes" de same!"
MERIT
Mrs. Rafferty stopped to address Mrs. Flannagan, who was standing at ease in the door of the tenement. She spoke with an air of fine pride:
"I"m afther havin" a letter from me boy. He tells me that fer meritorious condooct, his sintince will be reduced six months."
Mrs. Flannagan beamed appreciatively on hearing the glad tidings.
"Sure, now, an" what a comfort it must be t" yez, havin" a son what does ye such credit."
MILITARY DISCIPLINE
The raw recruit was on sentry duty. He had a piece of pie, which he had brought from the canteen, and proceeded to enjoy it. Just then, the colonel happened along, and scowled at the sentry, who paid no attention to him whatever.
"Do you know who I am?" the officer demanded.
The sentry shook his head. "Mebby, the veterinarian, or the barber, or mebby the colonel himself." The sentry laughed loudly at his own wit.
But he wiltered as the officer sternly declared his ident.i.ty.
"Oh good land!" the recruit cried out in consternation. "Please, hold this pie while I present arms."
MISCELLANY
It is related concerning a sofa, belonging to a man blessed (?) with seven daughters, all unmarried, which was sent to the upholsterer to be repaired, that, when taken apart, the following articles were discovered:
Forty-seven hairpins, three mustache combs, nineteen suspender b.u.t.tons, thirteen needles, eight cigarettes, four photographs, two hundred and seventeen pins, some grains of coffee, a number of cloves, twenty-seven cuff-b.u.t.tons, six pocket-knives, fifteen poker-chips, a vial of homeopathic medicine for the nerves, thirty-four lumps of chewing-gum, fifty-nine toothpicks, twenty-eight matches, fourteen b.u.t.ton-hooks, two switches, a transformation and two plates of false teeth, which apparently had bitten each other.
MISTAKEN IDENt.i.tY
The raw Irishman was told by the farmer for whom he worked that the pumpkins in the corn patch were mule"s eggs, which only needed someone to sit on them to hatch. Pat was ambitious to own a mule, and, selecting a large pumpkin, he sat on it industriously every moment he could steal from his work. Came a day when he grew impatient, and determined to hasten the hatching. He stamped on the pumpkin. As it broke open, a startled rabbit broke from its cover in an adjacent corn shock and scurried across the field. Pat chased it, shouting:
"Hi, thar! Stop! don"t yez know your own father?"
The meek-looking gentleman arose hastily and offered his seat in the car to the self-a.s.sertive woman who had entered and glared at him. She gave him no thanks as she seated herself, but she spoke in a heavy voice that filled the whole car:
"What are you standing up there for? Come here, and sit on my lap."
The modest man turned scarlet as he huskily faltered:
"I fear, madam, that I am not worthy of such an honor."
"How dare you!" the woman boomed. "You know perfectly well I was speaking to my niece behind you."