Best Short Stories Part 28

Appealing to a lady for aid, an old darky told her that through the Dayton flood he had lost everything he had in the world, including his wife and six children.

"Why," said the lady, "I have seen you before and I have helped you.

Were you not the colored man who told me you had lost your wife and six children by the sinking of the _t.i.tanic_?"

"Yeth, ma'am, dat wuz me. Mos' unfort'nit man dat eber wuz. Kain't keep a fam'ly nohow."

SAFE DEPOSIT

An old lady, who was sitting on the porch of a hotel at Asheville, North Carolina, where also there were a number of youngsters, was approached by one of them with this query:

"Can you crack nuts?"

The old lady smiled and said: "No, my dear, I can't. I lost all my teeth years ago."

"Then," said the boy, extending two hands full of walnuts, "please hold these while I go and get some more."

THE MATTER WITH KANSAS

Governor Capper, of Kansas, recently pointed out what he deemed to be the "matter with Kansas." The average Kansan, he said, gets up in the morning in a house made in Michigan, at the sound of an alarm clock made in Illinois; puts on his Missouri overalls; washes his hands with Cincinnati soap in a Pennsylvania basin; sits down to a Grand Rapids table; eats Battle Creek breakfast food and Chicago bacon cooked on a Michigan range; puts New York harness on a span of Missouri mules and hitches them to a South Bend wagon, or starts up his Illinois tractor with a Moline plow attached. After the day's work he rides down town in a Detroit automobile, buys a box of St. Louis candy for his wife, and spins back home, where he listens to music "canned" in New Jersey.

THE BETTER WAY

Charles M. Schwab, congratulated in Pittsburgh on a large war order contract which he had just received from one of the warring nations, said:

"Some people call it luck, but they are mistaken. Whatever success I have is due to hard work and not to luck.

"I remember a New York business man who crossed the ocean with me one winter when the whole country was suffering from hard times.

"'And you. Mr. Schwab,' the New Yorker said, 'are, like the rest of us, I suppose, hoping for better things?'

"'No, my friend,' I replied. 'No, I am not hoping for better things.

I've got my sleeves rolled up and I'm working for them.'"

A HORSE PSYCHOLOGIST

Twice as the horse-bus slowly wended its way up the steep hill the door at the rear opened and slammed. At first those inside paid little heed, but the third time they demanded to know why they should be disturbed in this fas.h.i.+on.

"Whist!" cautioned the driver. "Don't spake so loud. He'll overhear us."

"Who?"

"The hoss. Spake low. Shure Oo'm desavin' the crayture. Every toime he 'ears th' door close he thinks wan o' yez is gettin' down ter walk up th' hill, an' that sort o' raises 'is sperrits."

STILL NOT SATISFIED

Mrs. Higgins was an incurable grumbler. She grumbled at everything and everyone. But at last the vicar thought he had found something about which she could make no complaint; the old lady's crop of potatoes was certainly the finest for miles round.

"Ah, for once you must be well pleased," he said, with a beaming smile, as he met her in the village street. "Everyone's saying how splendid your potatoes are this year."

The old lady glowered at him as she answered:

"They're not so poor. But where's the bad ones for the pigs?"

A COAXER

The latest American church device for "raising the wind" is what a religious paper describes as "some collection-box." The inventor hails from Oklahoma. If a member of the congregation drops in a twenty-five cent piece or a coin of larger value, there is silence. If it is a ten-cent piece a bell rings, a five-cent piece sounds a whistle, and a cent fires a blank cartridge. If any one pretends to be asleep when the box pa.s.ses, it awakens him with a watchman's rattle, and a kodak takes his portrait.

AUTOMATIC "EFFICIENCY"

A young lady telephone operator recently attended a watch-night service and fell asleep during the sermon. At the close the preacher said, "We will now sing hymn number three forty-one--three forty-one."

The young lady, just waking in time to hear the number, yawned and said, "The line is busy."

THE WINNER

While Chopin probably did not time his "Minute Waltz" to exactly sixty seconds, some auditors insist that it lives up to its name. Mme.

Theodora Surkow-Ryder on one of her tours played the "Minute Waltz" as an encore, first telling her audience what it was. Thereupon a huge man in a large riding suit took out an immense silver watch, held it open almost under her nose, and gravely proceeded to time her. The pianist's fingers flew along the keys, and her anxiety was rewarded when the man closed the watch with a loud slap and said in a booming voice: "Gos.h.!.+

She's done it."

TAXED TO CAPACITY

A friendly American who has just arrived in London brings a story of Edison. The great inventor was present at a dinner in New York to which Count Bernstorff had also found his way. The Count spoke of the number of new s.h.i.+ps which Germany had built since the war began. He was listened to respectfully enough, although a little coldly, because the sympathies of the party were not with him or Germany.

When he had stopped, Edison looked up and said in a still, small voice, and with a serious face:

"Must not the Kiel Ca.n.a.l be very crowded, your Excellency?"

GASTRONOMICAL

A man and a woman entered a cafe.

"Do you want oysters, Louise?" asked the man, as he glanced over the bill of fare.

"Yes, George," answered the woman, "and I want a ha.s.sock, too."

George nodded, and as he handed the waiter his written order, he said:

"Bring a ha.s.sock for the lady."