"Thereby hangs a tale."
I wuz goin' along one night, John,
At a purty lively rate,
The old machine a-doin' her best,
And me forty minutes late,
When all at once there came a crash,
I felt the old track yield,
And fireman, machine and I
Went into a farmer's field.
There's little more to say, John,
They laid me up for repairs,
But my fireman, poor fellow,
Hadn't time to say his prayers.

So now you have my story, John;
Still, you don't know how it feels
To know you've got to plug around
On a couple of flat wheels.
But it doesn't bother me, John,
Gosh, not fer a minnit;
I'm as happy as the day is long,
And feel jist strictly in it.
But sometimes I like to meet the boys,
And talk them days all over,
And I feel as gay and chipper
As a calf in a field of clover
But the happiest days I've known, John,
The ones that to me see best,
Wuz when I run an old machine
Way out in the woolly west.

Glory--Gittin' killed and not gittin' paid fer it.
--Punkin Centre Philosophy.

Uncle Josh at a Circus

WALL, 'long last year, 'bout harvest time, thar wuz a cirkus cum to
Punkin Centre, and I think the whole population turned out to see it.
They cum paradin' into town, the bands a-playin' and banners flying,
and animals pokin' their heads out of the cages, and all sorts of jim
cracks. Deacon Witherspoon sed they wuz a sinful lot of men and wimmin,
and no one aughter go and see them, but seein' as how they wuz thar, he
alowed he'd take the children and let them see the lions and tigers and
things. Si Pettingill remarked, "Guess the Deacon won't put blinders on
himself when he gits thar." We noticed afterwards that the Deacon had a
front seat whar he could see and hear purty well.

Wall, I sed to Ezra Hoskins, "Let's you and me go down to the cirkus,"
and Ezra sed, "All right, Joshua." So we got on our store clothes,
our new boots, and put some money in our pockits, and went down to the
cirkus. Wall, I never seen any one in my life cut up more fool capers
than Ezra did. We got in whar the animals wuz, and Ezra he walked around
the elefant three or four times, and then he sed, "By gum, Josh, that's
a durned handy critter--he's got two tails, and he's eatin' with one and
keepin' the f