Good Stories Reprinted from the Ladies' Home Journal of Philadelphia Part 17

_When Fighting Really Began_

An aged, gray-haired and very wrinkled old woman, arrayed in the outlandish calico costume of the mountains, was summoned as a witness in court to tell what she knew about a fight in her house. She took the witness-stand with evidences of backwardness and proverbial Bourbon verdancy. The Judge asked her in a kindly voice what took place. She insisted it did not amount to much, but the Judge by his persistency finally got her to tell the story of the b.l.o.o.d.y fracas.

"Now, I tell ye, Jedge, it didn't amount to nuthn'. The fust I knowed about it was when Bill Saunder called Tom Smith a liar, en Tom knocked him down with a stick o' wood. One o' Bill's friends then cut Tom with a knife, slicin' a big chunk out o' him. Then Sam Jones, who was a friend of Tom's, shot the other feller and two more shot him, en three or four others got cut right smart by somebody.

That nachly caused some excitement, Jedge, en then they commenced fightin'."

_The Wrong Kind of a Baby_

In a certain home where the stork recently visited there is a six-year-old son of inquiring mind. When he was first taken in to see the new arrival he exclaimed:

"Oh, mamma, it hasn't any teeth! And no hair!" Then, clasping his hands in despair, he cried: "Somebody has done us! It's an old baby."

_A Poser for the Salesman_

"It's not so much a durable article that I require, sir," said Miss Simpkins. "I want something dainty, you know; something coy, and at the same time just a wee bit saucy--that might look well for evening wear."

_Not in the Army, After All_

A Methodist negro exhorter shouted: "Come up en jine de army ob de Lohd."

"Ise done jined," replied one of the congregation.

"Whar'd yoh jine?" asked the exhorter.

"In de Baptis' Chu'ch."

"Why, chile," said the exhorter, "yoh ain't in the army; yoh's in de navy."

[Transcriber's Note: The copy of this book I was working from was missing pages 71-74 inclusive.]

_Her Literary Loves_

A talented young professor who was dining one evening at the home of a college president became very much interested in the very pretty girl seated at his left. Conversation was somewhat fitful. Finally he decided to guide it into literary channels, where he was more at home, and, turning to his companion, asked;

"Are you fond of literature?"

"Pa.s.sionately," she replied. "I love books dearly."

"Then you must admire Sir Walter Scott," he exclaimed with sudden animation. "Is not his 'Lady of the Lake' exquisite in its flowing grace and poetic imagery? Is it not----"

"It is perfectly lovely," she a.s.sented, clasping her hands in ecstasy. "I suppose I have read it a dozen times."

"And Scott's 'Marmion/" he continued, "with its rugged simplicity and marvelous description--one can almost smell the heather on the heath while perusing its splendid pages."

"It is perfectly grand," she murmured.

"And Scott's 'Peveril of the Peak' and his n.o.ble 'Bride of Lammermoor'--where in the English language will you find anything more heroic than his grand auld Scottish characters and his graphic, forceful pictures of feudal times and customs? You like them, I am sure."

"I just dote upon them," she replied.

"And Scott's Emulsion," he continued hastily, for a faint suspicion was beginning to dawn upon him.

"I think," she interrupted rashly, "that it's the best thing he ever wrote."

_How Grandma Viewed Them_

"I'm glad Billy had the sense to marry a settled old maid," said Grandma Wink.u.m at the wedding.

"Why, Grandma?" asked the son.

"Well, gals is. .h.i.ty-t.i.ty, and widders is kinder overrulin' and upsettin'. But old maids is thankful and willin' to please."

_So Easy When it is Explained_

A woman riding in a Philadelphia trolley-car said to the conductor:

"Can you tell me, please, on what trolley-cars I can use these exchange slips? They mix me up somewhat."

"They really shouldn't, madam," said the polite conductor. "It is very simple: East of the junction by a westbound car an exchange from an eastbound car is good only if the westbound car is west of the junction formed by said eastbound car. South of the junction formed by a northbound car an exchange from a southbound car is good south of the junction if the northbound car was north of the junction at the time of issue, but only south of the junction going south if the southbound car was going north at the time it was south of the junction. That is all there is to it."

_Sixty Girls Not One Too Many_

A New York firm recently hung the following sign at the entrance of a large building: "Wanted: Sixty girls to sew b.u.t.tons on the sixth floor."

_One on the President_

When the President alighted at Red Hill, Virginia, a few months ago, to see his wife's new cottage, he noticed that an elderly woman was about to board the train, and, with his usual courtesy, he rushed forward to a.s.sist her. That done, he grasped her hand and gyve it an "executive shake." This was going too far, and the woman, s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand away and eying him wrathfully, exclaimed: "Young man, I don't know who you are, and I don't care a cent; but I must say you are the freshest somebody I've ever seen in these parts."