The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.), Marshall P. Wilder [the reading list book TXT] 📗
- Author: Marshall P. Wilder
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Dat shine on Canal, ev'ry night too, I'm sorry I don't know de tune.
Too bad I was los all dat monee, an' too late for de raffle tiquette!
W'en jus' as I feel very sorry, for come all de way from Chambly,
Jeremie he was w'isper, "Tiens, tiens, prenez garde, she's comin' Ma-dam All-ba-nee!"[Pg 95]
An' way dey mak' noise on de han' den, w'y! it's jus' lak de beeg tonder storm!
I'll never see not'ing lak dat, me, no matter I travel de worl',
An' Ma-dam, you t'ink it was scare her? Non, she laugh lak de Chambly girl!
An' before All-ba-nee she is ready an' piano get startin' for play,
De feller commence wit' hees singin', more stronger dan all de res',
I t'ink he's got very bad manner, know not'ing at all politesse.
She settle right down for mak' sing too, an' purty soon ketch heem up quick,
Den she's kip it on gainin' an' gainin', till de song it is tout finis,
An' w'en she is beatin' dat feller, Bagosh! I am proud Chambly!
An' man he's come out wit' de piccolo, an' start heem right off for play,
For it's kin' de musique I be fancy, Jeremie he is lak it also,
An' wan de bes' t'ing on dat ev'ning is man wit' de piccolo![Pg 96]
Dis tam all alone on de platform, dat feller don't show up no more,
An' w'en she start off on de singin' Jeremie say, "Antoine, dat's Français,"
Dis give us more pleasure, I tole you, 'cos w'y? We're de pure Canayen!
W'en he's fly from it's nes' on de tree top, 'fore res' of de worl' get stirred,
Ma-dam she was tole us about it, den start off so quiet an' low,
An' sing lak de bird on de morning, de poor leetle small oiseau.
An song of de robin wak' me, but robin he don't see me,
Dere's not'ing for scarin' dat bird dere, he's feel all alone on de worl',
Wall! Ma-dam she mus' lissen lak dat too, w'en she was de Chambly girl!
Till I see it de maple an' pine tree an' Richelieu ronnin' near,
Again I'm de leetle feller, lak young colt upon de spring
Dat's jus' on de way I was feel, me, w'en Ma-dam All-ba-nee is sing![Pg 97]
I s'pose dey be t'inkin' I'm crazy, dat mebbe I don't onderstan',
Cos I'm set on de chair very quiet, mese'f an' poor Jeremie,
An' I see dat hees eye it was cry too, jus' sam' way it go wit' me.
But only wan bluebird is buil' dere, I know her from all de res',
An' no matter de far she be flyin' away on de winter tam,
Back to her own leetle rosebush she's comin' dere jus' de sam'.
But de heart's "Canayen" on our body an' dat's warm enough for true!
An' w'en All-ba-nee was got lonesome for travel all roun' de worl'
I hope she'll come home, lak de bluebird, an' again be de Chambly girl!
[Pg 98] COLONEL STERETT'S PANTHER HUNT BY ALFRED HENRY LEWIS
"Panthers, what we-all calls 'mountain lions,'" observed the Old Cattleman, wearing meanwhile the sapient air of him who feels equipped of his subject, "is plenty furtive, not to say mighty sedyoolous to skulk. That's why a gent don't meet up with more of 'em while pirootin' about in the hills. Them cats hears him, or they sees him, an' him still ignorant tharof; an' with that they bashfully withdraws. Which it's to be urged in favor of mountain lions that they never forces themse'fs on no gent; they're shore considerate, that a-way, an' speshul of themse'fs. If one's ever hurt, you can bet it won't be a accident. However, it ain't for me to go 'round impugnin' the motives of no mountain lion; partic'lar when the entire tribe is strangers to me complete. But still a love of trooth compels me to concede that if mountain lions ain't cowardly, they're shore cautious a lot. Cattle an' calves they passes up as too bellicose, an' none of 'em ever faces any anamile more warlike than a baby colt or mebby a half-grown deer. I'm ridin' along the Caliente once when I hears a crashin' in the bushes on the bluff above—two hundred foot high, she is, an' as sheer as the walls of this yere tavern. As I lifts my eyes, a fear-frenzied mare an' colt comes chargin' up an' projects themse'fs over the precipice an' lands in the valley below. They're dead as Joolius Cæsar when I rides onto 'em,[Pg 99] while a brace of mountain lions is skirtin' up an' down the aige of the bluff they leaps from, mewin' an' lashin' their long tails in hot enthoosiasm. Shore, the cats has been chasin' the mare an' foal, an' they locoes 'em to that extent they don't know where they're headin' an' makes the death jump I relates. I bangs away with my six-shooter, but beyond givin' the mountain lions a convulsive start I can't say I does any execootion. They turns an' goes streakin' it through the pine woods like a drunkard to a barn raisin'.
"Timid? Shore! They're that timid, seminary girls compared to 'em is as sternly courageous as a passel of buccaneers. Out in Mitchell's canyon a couple of the Lee-Scott riders cuts the trail of a mountain lion and her two kittens. Now whatever do you-all reckon this old tabby does? Basely deserts her offsprings without even barin' a tooth, an' the cow-punchers takes 'em gently by their tails an' beats out their joovenile brains. That's straight; that mother lion goes swarmin' up the canyon like she ain't got a minute to live. An' you can gamble the limit that where a anamile sees its children perish without frontin' up for war, it don't possess the commonest roodiments of sand. Sech, son, is mountain lions.
"It's one evenin' in the Red Light when Colonel Sterett, who's got through his day's toil on that Coyote paper he's editor of, onfolds concernin' a panther round-up which he pulls off in his yooth.
"'This panther hunt,' says Colonel Sterett, as he fills his third tumbler, 'occurs when mighty likely I'm goin' on seventeen winters. I'm a leader among my young companions at the time; in fact, I allers is. An' I'm proud to say that my soopremacy that a-way is doo to the dom'nant character of my intellects. I'm ever bright an' sparklin' as a child, an' I recalls how my aptitoode for[Pg 100] learnin' promotes me to be regyarded as the smartest lad in my set. If thar's visitors to the school, or if the selectman invades that academy to sort o' size us up, the teacher allers plays me on 'em. I'd go to the front for the outfit. Which I'm wont on sech harrowin' o'casions to recite a ode—the teacher's done wrote it himse'f—an' which is entitled Napoleon's Mad Career. Thar's twenty-four stanzas to it; an' while these interlopin' selectmen sets thar lookin' owley an' sagacious, I'd wallop loose with the twenty-four verses, stampin' up and down, an' accompanyin' said recitations with sech a multitood of reckless gestures, it comes plenty clost to backin' everybody plumb outen the room. Yere's the first verse:
An' fall down in the mud,
While the y'earth for forty miles about
Is kivered with my blood.
"'You-all can see from that speciment that our school-master ain't simply flirtin' with the muses when he originates that epic; no, sir, he means business; an' whenever I throws it into the selectmen, I does it jestice. The trustees used to silently line out for home when I finishes, an' never a yeep. It stuns 'em; it shore fills 'em to the brim!
"'As I gazes r'arward,' goes on the Colonel, as by one rapt impulse he uplifts both his eyes an' his nosepaint, 'as I gazes r'arward, I says, on them sun-filled days, an' speshul if ever I gets betrayed into talkin' about 'em, I can hardly t'ar myse'f from the subject. I explains yeretofore, that not only by inclination but by birth, I'm a shore-enough 'ristocrat. This captaincy of local fashion I assoomes at a tender age. I wears the record as the first child to don shoes throughout the entire summer in that neighborhood; an' many a time an' oft does my yoothful[Pg 101] but envy-eaten compeers lambaste me for the insultin' innovation. But I sticks to my moccasins; an' to-day shoes in the Bloo Grass is almost as yooniversal as the licker habit.
"'Thar dawns a hour, however, when my p'sition in the van of Kaintucky ton comes within a ace of bein' ser'ously shook. It's on my way to school one dewy mornin' when I gets involved all inadvertent in a onhappy rupture with a polecat. I never does know how the misonderstandin' starts. After all, the seeds of said dispoote is by no means important; it's enough to say that polecat finally has me thoroughly convinced.
"'Followin' the difference an' my defeat, I'm witless enough to keep goin' on to school, whereas I should have returned homeward an' cast myse'f upon my parents as a sacred trust. Of course, when I'm in school I don't go impartin' my troubles to the other chil'en; I emyoolates the heroism of the Spartan boy who stands to be eat by a fox, an' keeps 'em to myself. But the views of my late enemy is not to be smothered; they appeals to my young companions; who tharupon puts up a most onneedful riot of coughin's an' sneezin's. But nobody knows me as the party who's so pungent.
"'It's a tryin' moment. I can see that, once I'm located, I'm goin' to be as onpop'lar as a b'ar in a hawg pen; I'll come tumblin' from my pinnacle in that proud commoonity as the glass of fashion an' the mold of form. You can go your bottom peso, the thought causes me to feel plenty perturbed.
"'At this peril I has a inspiration; as good, too, as I ever entertains without the aid of rum. I determines to cast the opprobrium on some other boy an' send the hunt of gen'ral indignation sweepin' along his trail.
"'Thar's a innocent infant who's a stoodent at this[Pg 102] temple of childish learnin' an' his name is Riley Bark. This Riley is one of them giant children who's only twelve an' weighs three hundred pounds. An' in proportions as Riley is a son of Anak, physical, he's dwarfed mental; he ain't half as well upholstered with brains as a shepherd dog. That's right; Riley's intellects, is like a fly in a saucer of syrup, they struggles 'round plumb slow. I decides to uplift Riley to the public eye as the felon who's disturbin' that seminary's sereenity. Comin' to this decision, I p'ints at him where he's planted four seats ahead, all tangled up in a spellin' book, an' says in a
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