The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) by Marshall P. Wilder (important books to read txt) 📖

He does not deny the thorns, but calls attention to the sweetness of the roses—a gospel of compensation that speaks to the heart of all; kind words of cheer to the weary traveler.

Such a philosopher was the kind-hearted and sympathetic Irish boy who, walking along with the parish priest, met a weary organ-grinder, who asked how far it was to the next town. The boy answered, "Four miles." The priest remonstrated:

"Why, Mike, how can you deceive him so? You know it is eight."

"Well, your riverence," said the good-natured fellow, "I saw how tired he was, and I wanted to kape his courage up. If I'd told him the truth, he'd have been down-hearted intirely!"[Pg vii]

This is really a jolly old world, and people are very apt to find just what they are looking for. If they are looking for happiness, the best way to find it is to try to give it to others. If a man goes around with a face as long as a wet day, perfectly certain that he is going to be kicked, he is seldom disappointed.

A typical exponent of the tenderly human, the tearfully humorous, is James Whitcomb Riley—a name to conjure with. Only mention it to anyone, and note the spark of interest, the smiling sigh, the air of gentle retrospection into which he will fall. There is a poem for each and every one, that commends itself for some special reason, and holds such power of memory or sentiment as sends it straight into the heart, to remain there treasured and unforgotten.

In these volumes are selections from the pen of all whom I have mentioned, as well as many more, including a number by the clever women humorists, of whom America is justly proud.

It is with pride and pleasure that I acknowledge the honor done me in being asked to introduce this company of fun-makers—such a goodly number that space permits the mention of but a few. But we cannot have too much or even enough of anything so good or so necessary as the literature that makes us laugh. In that regard we are like a little friend of Mr. Riley's.

The Hoosier poet, as everyone knows, is the devoted friend, companion, and singer of children. He has a habit of taking them on wild orgies where they are turned loose in a candy store and told to do their worst. This particular young lady had been allowed to choose all the sorts of candy she liked until her mouth, both arms, and her pockets were full. Just as they got to the door to go out, she hung back, and when Mr. Riley stooped[Pg viii] over asking her what was the matter, she whispered:

"Don't you think it smells like ice cream?"

Poems, stories, humorous articles, fables, and fairy tales are offered for your choice, with subjects as diverse as the styles; but however the laugh is gained, in whatever fashion the jest is delivered, the laugh-maker is a public benefactor, for laughter is the salt of life, and keeps the whole dish sweet.

Merrily yours,
Marshall P. Wilder.

Atlantic City, 1908.[Pg ix]

Acknowledgment is due to the following publishers, whose permission was cordially granted to reprint selections which appear in this collection of American humor.

Ainslee's Magazine for "Not According to Schedule," by Mary Stewart Cutting.

The Henry Altemus Company for "The New Version," by William J. Lampton.

The American Publishing Company for "How We Bought a Sewin' Machine and Organ," from Josiah Allen's Wife as a P.A. and P.I., by Marietta Holley.

D. Appleton & Company for "The Recruit," from With the Band, by Robert W. Chambers.

E.H. Bacon & Company for "The V-a-s-e" and "A Concord Love-Song," from The V-a-s-e and Other Bric-a-Brac, by James Jeffrey Roche.

The H.M. Caldwell Company for "Yes" and "Disappointment," from In Bohemia, by John Boyle O'Reilly.

The Colver Publishing House for "The Crimson Cord," by Ellis Parker Butler, and "A Ballade of the 'How to' Books," by John James Davies, from The American Illustrated Magazine.

The Crowell Publishing Company for "Familiar Authors at Work," by Hayden Carruth, from The Woman's Home Companion.

The Curtis Publishing Company for "The Love Sonnets of a Husband," by Maurice Smiley, and "Cheer for the Consumer," by Nixon Waterman, from The Saturday Evening Post.[Pg x]

DeWolfe, Fiske & Company for "Grandma Keeler Gets Grandpa Ready for Sunday-School," from Cape Cod Folks, by Sarah P. McLean Greene.

Dick & Fitzgerald for "The Thompson Street Poker Club," from The Thompson Street Poker Club, by Henry Guy Carleton.

G.W. Dillingham Company for "The Tower of London" and "Science and Natural History," by Charles Farrar Browne ("Artemus Ward"); "The Musketeer," from Farmer's Alminax, and "Laffing," from Josh Billings: His Works, by Henry W. Shaw ("Josh Billings"); and for "John Henry in a Street Car," from John Henry, by George V. Hobart ("Hugh McHugh").

Dodd, Mead & Company for "The Rhyme of the Chivalrous Shark," "The Forbearance of the Admiral," "The Dutiful Mariner," "The Meditations of a Mariner" and "The Boat that Ain't," from Nautical Lays of a Landsman, by Wallace Irwin.

The Duquesne Distributing Company for "The Grand Opera," from Billy Baxter's Letters, by William J. Kountz, Jr.

Paul Elder & Company for Sonnets I, VIII, IX, XII, XIV, XXI, from The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum, by Wallace Irwin.

Everybody's Magazine for "The Strike of One," by Elliott Flower; "The Wolf's Holiday," by Caroline Duer; "A Mother of Four," by Juliet Wilbor Tompkins; "The Weddin'," by Jennie Betts Hartswick, and "A Double-Dyed Deceiver," by Sydney Porter ("O. Henry").

The Federal Book Company for "Budge and Toddie," from Helen's Babies, by John Habberton.

Fords, Howard & Hurlburt, for "The Deacon's Trout," from Norwood, by Henry Ward Beecher.[Pg xi]

Fox, Duffield & Company for "The Paintermine," "The Octopussycat," "The Welsh Rabbittern," "The Bumblebeaver," "The Wild Boarder," from Mixed Beasts, by Kenyon Cox; "The Lost Inventor," "Niagara Be Dammed," "The Ballad of Grizzly Gulch," "A Letter from Home," "Crankidoxology" and "Fall Styles in Faces," from At the Sign of the Dollar, by Wallace Irwin, and a selection from The Golfer's Rubaiyat, by Henry W. Boynton.

The Harvard Lampoon for "A Lay of Ancient Rome," by Thomas Ybarra.

Henry Holt & Company for "Araminta and the Automobile," from Cheerful Americans, by Charles Battell Loomis.

Houghton, Mifflin & Company for "A Letter from Mr. Biggs," from The Story of a Country Town, by E.W. Howe; "The Notary of Perigueux," from Outre-Mer, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; "A Nautical Ballad," from Davy and the Goblin, by Charles E. Carryl; "The Spring Beauties," from The Ride to the Lady, by Helen Avery Cone; "Praise-God Barebones," from Songs and Lyrics, by Ellen M. Hutchinson-Cortissoz; "Fable," from Poems, by Ralph Waldo Emerson; "The Owl Critic" and "Cæsar's Quiet Lunch with Cicero," from Ballads and Other Poems, by James T. Fields; "The Menagerie," from Poems, by William Vaughn Moody; "The Briefless Barrister," "Comic Miseries," "A Reflective Retrospect," "How the Money Goes," "The Coquette," "Icarus," "Teaching by Example," from Poems, by John Godfrey Saxe; "My Honey, My Love," by Joel Chandler Harris; "Banty Tim," "The Mystery of Gilgal" and "Distichs," from Poems, by John Hay; "The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The Wonderful One Hoss Shay," "The Height of the Ridiculous," "Evening, By a Tailor," "Lat[Pg xii]ter Day Warnings," and "Contentment," from Poems, by Oliver Wendell Holmes; two selections from The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, and "Dislikes," from The Poet at the Breakfast Table, by Oliver Wendell Holmes; "Plain Language from Truthful James," and "The Society Upon the Stanislaus," from Poems, by Bret Harte; "Melons," from Mrs. Skaggs' Husbands and Other Sketches, by Bret Harte; "The Courtin'," "A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow" and "What Mr. Robinson Thinks," from Poems, by James Russell Lowell; "The Chief Mate," from Fireside Travels, by James Russell Lowell; "A Night in a Rocking Chair" and "A Rival Entertainment," from Haphazard, by Kate Field; "Mrs. Johnson," from Suburban Sketches, by William Dean Howells; "Garden Ethics," from My Summer in a Garden, by Charles Dudley Warner; "Our Nearest Neighbor," from Marjorie Daw and Other Stories, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich; "Simon Starts in the World" (J.J. Hooper), "The Duluth Speech" (J. Proctor Knott), "Bill Arp on Litigation" (C.H. Smith), "Assault and Battery" (J.G. Baldwin), "How Ruby Played" (G.W. Bagby), from Oddities of Southern Life, edited by Henry Watterson; "The Demon of the Study," from Poems, by John Greenleaf Whittier; "The Old Maid's House: in Plan," from An Old Maid's Paradise, by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps; "Dum Vivimus Vigilamus," "What She Said About It," "Dictum Sapienti," "The Lost Word" and "Abou Ben Butler," from Poems, by Charles Henry Webb ("John Paul"); "Chad's Story of the Goose" and "Colonel Carter's Story of the Postmaster," from Colonel Carter of Cartersville, by F. Hopkinson Smith; "The British Matron," from Our Old Home, by Nathaniel Hawthorne; "As Good as a Play," from Stories from My Attic, by Horace E. Scudder; "The Pettibone Lineage,"[Pg xiii] by James T. Fields; "The Experiences of the A.C.," by Bayard Taylor; "Eve's Daughter," by Edward Rowland Sill, and "The Diamond Wedding," by Edmund Clarence Stedman.

William R. Jenkins for "It Is Time to Begin to Conclude," from Soldier Songs and Love Songs, by Alexander H. Laidlaw.

John Lane Company for "The Invisible Prince," from Comedies and Errors, by Henry Harland.

Life Publishing Company for "Hard," "Enough" and "Desolation," from In Merry Measure, by Tom Masson; "A Branch Library" and "Table Manners," from Tomfoolery, by James Montgomery Flagg; "The Sonnet of the Lovable Lass and the Plethoric Dad," by J.W. Foley; "Thoughts for an Easter Morning," by Wallace Irwin; "Suppressed Chapters," by Carolyn Wells; "The Conscientious Curate and the Beauteous Ballad Girl," by William Russell Rose, and "A Poe-'em of Passion," by Charles F. Lummis.

Lippincott's Magazine for "The Modern Farmer," by Jack Appleton; "The Wicked Zebra" and "The Happy Land," by Frank Roe Batchelder; "A Mothers' Meeting," by Madeline Bridges; "The Final Choice" and "A Daniel Come to Judgment," by Edmund Vance Cooke; "The Co-operative Housekeepers" and "Her 'Angel' Father," by Elliott Flower; "Wasted Opportunities," by Roy Farrell Greene; "The Auto Rubaiyat," by Reginald W. Kauffman; "It Pays to be Happy" and "Victory," by Tom Masson; "Is It I?" by Warwick S. Price; "Johnny's Lessons," by Carroll Watson Rankin; "Her Brother: Enfant Terrible" and "Trouble-Proof," by E.L. Sabin; "A Bookworm's Plaint," by Clinton Scollard; "Nothin' Done," by S.S. Stinson, and "Uncle Bentley and the Roosters," by Hayden Carruth.[Pg xiv]

Little, Brown & Company for "Elizabeth Eliza Writes a Paper," from The Peterkin Papers, by Lucretia P. Hale; "The Skeleton in the Closet," by Edward Everett Hale, and "The Wolf at Susan's Door," from The Wolf at Susan's Door and Mrs. Lathrop's Love Affair, by Anne Warner.

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard for "A Letter," from Swingin' Round the Circle, by David Ross Locke ("P. V. Nasby"); "A Cable Car Preacher" and "The Prayer of Cyrus Brown," from Dreams in Homespun, by Sam Walter Foss; "He Wanted to Know," "Hullo!" and "She Talked," from Back Country Poems, by Sam Walter Foss; "Mr. Stiver's Horse" and "After the Funeral," from the works of James M. Bailey (The Danbury News Man); "Yawcob Strauss," "Der Oak und der Vine," "To Bary Jade" and "Shonny Schwartz," from Leetle Yawcob Strauss, by Charles Follen Adams; "The Coupon Bonds" and "Darius Greene," from the works of J.T. Trowbridge, and Chapters VII, IX, XVI, XX, XXI, from "Partingtonian Patchwork," by B.P. Shillaber.

The S.S. McClure Company and McClure, Phillips & Company for "Morris and the Honorable Tim," from Little Citizens, by Myra Kelly.

A.C. McClurg & Company for "Simple English," from At the Sign of the Ginger Jar, by Ray Clarke Rose, and "Ye Legende of Sir Yroncladde," by Wilbur D. Nesbit, from The Athlete's Garland.

David McKay for "Hans Breitmann's Party," "Breitmann and the Turners," "Ballad," "Breitmann in Politics" and "Love Song," from Hans Breitmann's Ballads, by Charles Godfrey Leland, and "A Boston Ballad," from Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman.

The Macmillan Company for "In a State of Sin," from The Virginian, by Owen Wister.[Pg xv]

The Monarch Book Company for "The Apostasy of William Dodge," from The Seekers, by Stanley Waterloo.

The Frank A. Munsey Company for "An Educational Project" and "The Woman-Hater Reformed," by Roy Farrell Greene; "The Trial That Job Missed," by Kennett Harris; "The Education of Grandpa," by Wallace Irwin; "An Improved Calendar," by Tudor Jenks.

Small, Maynard & Company for "Mr. Dooley on Gold Seeking," "Mr. Dooley on Expert Testimony," "Mr. Dooley on Golf," "Mr. Dooley on Football," "Mr. Dooley on Reform Candidates," from Mr. Dooley in Peace and War, by Finley Peter Dunne; "E.O.R.S.W." from Alphabet of Celebrities, by Oliver Herford; "A