the sides and he
squatted right down in the crick. Deacon sed, "Now look a-here, Jim,
what's the matter with this ungodly brute, he ain't a-settin' now be
he?" Jim sed, "Yes he is, Deacon, he sees fish in the water; tell you
he's trained to set fer suckers same as fer rabbits, Deacon; oh, he's
had a thorough eddication."

Paradox--I can't exactly describe it, but it looks to me
like a tramp who once told me how to be successful in life.
--Punkin Centre Philosophy.

A Meeting of the School Directors

WE had bin havin' a good deal of argufyin' about the school house. You
see it had got to be a sort of a tumble-down ram-shackle sort of an
affair, and when it wuz bad weather we couldn't have school in it,
'cause you might jist as well be a sittin' under a siv when it rained as
to be a settin' in that school house. Wall, it wuz a-cummin' along the
fall term, and we wanted our boys and girls to git all the schoolin'
an' eddication what they could; so we called a meetin' of the school
directors to devise ways and means of buildin' a new school-house
without stoppin' school. Wall, we all met down at the school-house; thar
wuz Deacon Witherspoon, Ezra Hoskins, Ruben Hendricks, Si Pettingill,
old Jim Lawson and me. Before we commenced debatin' and argufyin' on the
matter, Si Pettingill alowed he'd sing a song. Wall, he got up and sang
the durndest old-fashioned song I calculate I ever heered in my life;
went somethin' like this:

Oh a frog went a courtin' and he did ride,
oohoo--oohoo.
Oh a frog went a courtin' and he did ride,
With a sword and a pistol by his side,
oohoo--oohoo.
He rode till he came to the mouse's door,
oohoo--oohoo,
He rode till he came to the mouse's door,
And there he knelt upon the floor,
oohoo--oohoo.
He took Miss Mousey on his knee,
oohoo--oohoo.
He took Miss Mousey on his knee,
Said he, Missy Mouse will you marry me?
oohoo--oohoo.

Wall, we headed Si off right thar; I guess if we hadn't he'd bin singin'
about that frog and the mouse yet. Wall, jist then old Jim Lawson he
sed, "I make a moshen;" and Deacon Witherspoon, he wuz chairman, and he
sed, "Now look here, young feller, don't you make any mo