Alpo

League of their own

Foreplay

And I thought Fran Dressler talked through her nose.

That's how I learned it, except that it was red TOUCH yellow, and red TOUCH black. Because both snakes have red and black on them and red and yellow on them, but only the poisonous snake has the red touching the yellow.

Studebaker Hawk

One to grow on

Sprite

Good Queen Bess

An Aberdonian on his first visit to London got off the train at Euston station. While proceeding afoot along Euston Road on his way to his hotel he suffered a terrific misfortune. He dropped a sixpence and it rolled out of sight. The desolated victim put down his luggage and began a vigorous search for the missing coin. Presently a friendly policeman came along and having learned from the grieved Scot what the trouble was, proceeded to aid him in the hunt, but with no results, excepting the loss of fifteen minutes. Finally the Bobby said: “You go along on your way and I’ll keep my eye open for your money. If it turns up I’ll have it for you, if you’ll come back this way this afternoon.” All day the Scot was afflicted with distress. Promptly at four o’clock he was back on the spot where his sixpence had vanished. During the day the gas company had had a squad of men excavating in the street for new mains so that when the Aberdonian reappeared he found the paving torn up and a wide, deep trench extending from the house line to the middle of the road. He gazed at the scene for a moment and then remarked to himself: “Weel, I must admit one thing—they are verra thorough here.”

The late Mr. Donovan had had a very close call from being a dwarf. Indeed, there are dwarfs in circuses not many inches shorter than he was. Despite his diminutive bulk and the handicap of lack of height he nevertheless had succeeded in the contracting business and when he died he left a tidy estate and his widow mourned him properly. On the day before the funeral, having finished the preparations for the wake, she sat in the parlor of her home when Mr. McKenna, an old friend of the family, was announced. Dressed in his Sunday best Mr. McKenna entered and having shaken Mrs. Donovan’s hand stated that he would be unable to attend the ceremonies that evening owing to other engagements. He asked, therefore, if he might be permitted to take a last look at the deceased. “Help yourself,” said the widow. “He’s laid out upstairs in the front room. Just you walk up, Mr. McKenna.” So Mr. McKenna walked up. After the lapse of a few minutes he tip-toed down again, wiping away his tears. The widow removed the handkerchief from her eyes. “Did you think to close the hall door as you came down, Mr. McKenna?” she asked. “I think so, madam,” he said. “I was so overcome wit’ me grief I didn’t take much note. I think so, but I won’t be sure.” “Would you make sure, thin,” she said. “It’s twice to-day already the cat’s had him downstairs.”

In an unthoughted moment a colored woman in a North Carolina town contracted a matrimonial alliance. But the honeymoon ended tragically. Just two weeks after the wedding ceremony the happy bridegroom was fooling about the railroad yards and a switch engine ran over him—on the bias—and he, being of a fleshy build, was distributed for a considerable distance along the right of way becoming, to all intents and purposes, a total loss. Yet it was immediately to develop that in a deceased state, he had a financial standing which had been denied him in the flesh. For, with that desire to do justice speedily which ever marks the legal profession, a claim agent of the railroad got hold of the widow before any other lawyer could reach her and hurried her to his office and there showed her five hundred dollars in shiny new bills, which was more money that she thought there was in the world. With one eager hand she reached for this incredible fortune and with the other, using haste lest the beneficent white gentleman should recover from his impulses of generosity, she signed on the dotted line A of the quit claim. Another colored woman who had come with her to witness this triumph and who was standing behind her, perfectly pop-eyed with envy and admiration, said: “Clarissa, whut you reckin you goin’ do now, sence you had all dis luck?” Before the widow answered she lifted a rustling twenty from off the top of the delectable heap and fanned herself with it and inhaled its fragrance; and then she said: “I don’t know as I shall do anything—fur a spell. I got to wait till time is healed my wounds an’ I’s spent dis yere money. Of co’se in the yeahs to come I may marry ag’in an’ then ag’in I may not—who kin tell? But, gal, I tells you right now, if ever I does marry ag’in my second husband is suttinly goin’ be a railroad man.”

Back about 1905, in the Dark Ages of automobiling a veterinary surgeon in my town, whom I shall call Dr. Jones, bought a second-hand car. It already was beginning to shake itself to pieces before it came into his possession. In fact, so loudly did it rattle, when in motion, that it was known affectionately throughout the county as Jones’ Patent Pea-Huller. When the tires wore out the owner, who was by way of being a mechanical genius, equipped it with ordinary buggy-wheels. One day an automobile run to a near-by town was organized. Every proud proprietor of a car joined in. As the procession headed out past the corporate limits it was met by a farmer, from the Massac Creek section on his way to the warehouse with a wagon-load of tobacco. His half-grown son rode with him. As the head of the column loomed through the dust the farmer’s two mules, unused to the sight of automobiles, showed signs of skittishness. The boy leaped down from his seat and held the heads of the team, the mules flinching and trembling as the cavalcade roared past. Seemingly, the last car had gone by. The youth was in the act of climbing back to his place alongside his father when in the distance there arose a terrific clattering sound and over the crest of the hill appeared Dr. Jones, seated at the wheel of his machine and striving valiantly to overtake the tail of the vanished parade. On he came, with his gears grinding, the tormented vitals of his car shrieking, the wooden wheels clattering on the hard gravel of the turnpike and gusts of smoke issuing from beneath the body. The astounded agriculturist caught one good look at the approaching apparition. Then as he set the brakes harder than ever and tightened his grasp on the lines he called out to the boy: “Hold ’em, Wesley, for God’s sake, hold ’em! Here comes a home-made one!”

Mary Ann!

Minnow

Pollywog

To grow an inch

Possibly inspired by the missionary work of Pussyfoot Johnson, a Scotch Minister undertook a temperance crusade among the members of his flock. He announced that on a certain Sabbath he would deliver a sermon upon the evils of strong drink, with physical illustrations to prove his argument. Upon the appointed morning a congregation which crowded the kirk greeted him. The dominie lost no time in making his demonstration. Upon the pulpit he placed two glasses; one containing whiskey and the other spring water. Then in an impressive silence he brought a small box from his coat pocket, opened the box and produced a long wriggling worm. First he dipped the worm in the tumbler of water, where it coiled and twisted happily. Then he dropped it into the whiskey. Instantly the hapless creature shriveled, and after a few feeble contortions became limp and lifeless. Hauling forth the dead thing and holding it in plain view of all present the minister said: “Now then, my brethren, behold the effects of strong spirits upon this wee creature. In the water it took no harm; but the first contact with this foul stuff here instantly destroyed it. Need I say or do more to convince you of the effects of whiskey?” From the body of the church there rose up a lantern-jawed person. “Meenister,” he said, “might I ask where ye got the whusky in that tumbler?” “I’m glad you put that question,” said the clergyman. “I purchased it at that den of iniquity, the public-house, which stands at the top of the street not a hundred yards from this place of worship.” “Thank ye,” said the parishioner. “I’ll be goin’ there on the morrow. I’ve been troubled with worms myself.”

Speaking of carrier pigeons—although no one has done so—reminds me of a yarn that was related at the front in 1918. A half company of a regiment in the Rainbow Division, on going forward early one morning in a heavy fog for a raid across No Man’s Land, carried along with the rest of the customary equipment a homing pigeon. The pigeon in its wicker cage swung on the arm of a private, who likewise was burdened with his rifle, his extra rounds of ammunition, his trenching tool, his pair of wire cutters, his steel helmet, his gas mask, his emergency ration and quite a number of other more or less cumbersome items. It was to be a surprise attack behind a cloak of the fog, so there was no artillery preparation as the squads climbed over the top and advanced into the mist-hidden beyond. Behind, in the posts of observation and in the post of command, the Colonel and his aides and his intelligence officers waited for the sound of firing. When after some minutes the distant rattle of the rifle fire came to their ears they began calculating how long reasonably it might be before word reached them by one or another medium of communication touching on the results of the foray. But the ground telephone remained mute, and no runner returned through the fog with tidings. The suspense increased as time passed. Suddenly a pigeon sped into view, flying close to the earth. While eager eyes followed it in its course the winged messenger circled until it located its portable cote just behind the Colonel’s position and fluttering down it entered its familiar shelter. An athletic member of the staff hustled up the ladder. In half a minute he was tumbling down again, clutching in one hand the little scroll of paper that he had found fastened about the pigeon’s leg. With fingers that trembled in anxiety the Colonel unrolled the paper and read aloud what was written upon it. What he read, in the hurried chirography of a kid private, was the following succinct statement: “I’m tired of carrying this damn bird.”

Marital