Toaster's Handbook Part 127

A sn.o.bbish young Englishman visiting Was.h.i.+ngton's home at Mount Vernon was so patronizing as to arouse the wrath of guards and caretakers; but it remained for "Shep" Wright, an aged gardener and one of the first scouts of the Confederate army, to settle the gentleman. Approaching "Shep," the Englishman said:

"Ah--er--my man, the hedge! Yes, I see, George got this hedge from dear old England."

"Reckon he did," replied "Shep". "He got this whole blooming country from England."

Speaking of the policy of the Government of the United States with respect to its troublesome neighbors in Central and South America, "Uncle Joe" Cannon told of a Missouri congressman who is decidedly opposed to any interference in this regard by our country. It seems that this spring the Missourian met an Englishman at Was.h.i.+ngton with whom he conversed touching affairs in the localities mentioned. The westerner a.s.serted his usual views with considerable forcefulness, winding up with this observation:

"The whole trouble is that we Americans need a ---- good licking!"

"You do, indeed!" promptly a.s.serted the Britisher, as if pleased by the admission. But his exultation was of brief duration, for the Missouri man immediately concluded with:

"But there ain't n.o.body can do it!"

A number of Confederate prisoners, during the Civil War, were detained at one of the western military posts under conditions much less unpleasant than those to be found in the ordinary military prison. Most of them appreciated their comparatively good fortune. One young fellow, though, could not be reconciled to a.s.sociation with Yankees under any circ.u.mstances, and took advantage of every opportunity to express his feelings. He was continually rubbing it in about the battle of Chickamauga, which had just been fought with such disastrous results for the Union forces.

"Maybe we didn't eat you up at Chickamauga!" was the way he generally greeted a bluecoat.

The Union men, when they could stand it no longer, reported the matter to General Grant. Grant summoned the prisoner.

"See here," said Grant, "I understand that you are continually insulting the men here with reference to the battle of Chickamauga. They have borne with you long enough, and I'm going to give you your choice of two things. You will either take the oath of allegiance to the United States, or be sent to a Northern prison. Choose."

The prisoner was silent for some time. "Well," he said at last, in a resigned tone, "I reckon, General, I'll take the oath."

The oath was duly administered. Turning to Grant, the fellow then asked, very penitently, if he might speak.

"Yes," said the general indifferently. "What is it?"

"Why, I was just thinkin', General," he drawled, "they certainly did give us h.e.l.l at Chickamauga."

Historical controversies are creeping into the schools. In a New York public inst.i.tution attended by many races, during an examination in history the teacher asked a little chap who discovered America.

He was evidently thrown into a panic and hesitated, much to the teacher's surprise, to make any reply.

"Oh, please, ma'am," he finally stammered, "ask me somethin' else."

"Something else, Jimmy? Why should I do that?"

"The fellers was talkin' 'bout it yesterday," replied Jimmy, "Pat McGee said it was discovered by an Irish saint. Olaf, he said it was a sailor from Norway, and Giovanni said it was Columbus, an' if you'd a-seen what happened you wouldn't ask a little feller like me."

Our country! When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right!--_Carl Schurz_.

Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.--_Stephen Decatur_.

There are no points of the compa.s.s on the chart of true patriotism.--_Robert C. Winthrop_.

Patriotic exercises and flag wors.h.i.+p will avail nothing unless the states give to their people of the kind of government that arouses patriotism.--_Franklin Pierce II_.

PENSIONS

WILLIS--"I wonder if there will ever be universal peace."

GILLIS--"Sure. All they've got to do is to get the nations to agree that in case of war the winner pays the pensions."--_Puck_.

"Why was it you never married again, Aunt Sallie?" inquired Mrs. McClane of an old colored woman in West Virginia.

"'Deed, Miss Ellie," replied the old woman earnestly, "dat daid n.i.g.g.e.r's wuth moah to me dan a live one. I gits a pension."--_Edith Howell Armor_.

If England had a system of pensions like ours, we should see that "all that was left of the n.o.ble Six Hundred" was six thousand pensioners.

PESSIMISM

A pessimist is a man who lives with an optimist.--_Francis Wilson_.

How happy are the Pessimists!

A bliss without alloy Is theirs when they have proved to us There's no such thing as joy!

--_Harold Susman_.

A pessimist is one who, of two evils, chooses them both.

"I had a mighty queer surprise this morning," remarked a local stock broker. "I put on my last summer's thin suit on account of this extraordinary hot weather, and in one of the trousers pockets I found a big roll of bills which I had entirely forgotten."

"Were any of them receipted?" asked a pessimist.

To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into recklessness and despair.--_Fronde_.

With earth's first clay they did the last man knead, And there of the last harvest sowed the seed: And the first morning of creation wrote What the last dawn of reckoning shall read.