n the road, and the
durned fool never stopped a-runnin' 'til she went slap dab into Ezra
Hoskins' grocery store, upsot four gallons of apple butter into a keg of
soft soap, and sot one foot into a tub of mackral, and t'other foot into
a box of winder glass, and knocked over Jim Lawson who wuz sottin' on a
cracker barrel, and broke his durned old wooden leg, and then she went
right out through the winder and skeered Si Pettingill's hosses that wuz
a standin' thar, and they run away and smashed his wagon into kindlin'
wood' and Silas has sued me fer damages, and mother won't speak to me,
and Jim he wants me to buy him a new wooden leg, and the neighbors all
say as how I ought to be put away some place fer safe keepin', and Aunt
Nancy Smith got so excited she lost her glass eye and didn't find it
for three or four days, and when she did git it the boys wuz a-playin'
marbles with it and it wuz all full of gaps, and Jim Lawson he trimmed
it up on the grindstane and it don't fit Nancy any more, and she has to
sort of put it in with cotton round it to bold it, and the cotton works
out at the corners and skeers the children and every time I see Nancy
that durned eye seems to look at me sort of reproachful like, and all
I know about playin' golf is, the feller what knocks the ball so durned
far you can't find it or whar it does the most damage, wins the game.

Jim Lawson's Hogs

WHEN it cum to raisin' hogs, I don't s'pose thar wuz ever enybody in
Punkin Centre that had quite so much trouble as Jim Lawson. One fall Jim
had a right likely bunch of shoats, but somehow or other he couldn't git
'em fat, it jist seemed like the more he fed 'em the poorer they got,
and Jim he wuz jist about worried clar down to a shadder. He kept givin'
them hogs medecin' and feedin' of 'em everything he could think on, but
it wan't no use; every day or so one of 'em would lay down and die. All
the neighbors would cum and lean over the fence, and talk to Jim, and
give him advice, but somehow them hogs jist kept on a-dyin', and nobody
could see what wuz alin' of 'em, 'til one day Jim cum over to Ezra
Hoskins's store, and he looked as tickled as though he'd found a dollar,
and he sed: "I want you all to cum over to my place; I've found out
what's alin' them hogs." Deacon Witherspoon sed: "Wall, what is it,
Jim?" and Jim sed: "Wall, you see the ground over in my hog lot is purty
soft, and when it rains it gits right smart muddy, and the mud gits on