New England Joke Lore: The Tonic of Yankee Humor
A ROCKY SPRING IN YANKEE LAND
COPYRIGHT, 1922 BY F. A. DAVIS COMPANY Copyright, Great Britain. All Rights Reserved.
PRINTED IN U. S. A. PRESS OF F. A. DAVIS COMPANY PHILADELPHIA, PA.
DEDICATED TO THOSE
STALWART SONS OF NEW ENGLAND
WHOSE ABILITY TO THINK STRAIGHT, COMBINED WITH AN UNRUFFLED POISE AND NEVER FAILING SENSE OF HUMOR, HAS ENABLED THEM AND THEIR DESCENDANTS TO TAKE A LEADING PART IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR GLORIOUS COUNTRY
The dry wit of the New England Yankee has done much to cheer the Lonely Traveler on his way. It has oiled the thinking machinery when it creaked and provided inspiration for that spontaneous good fellowship which helps so much to make life worth living.
The following pages are not the product of an overworked imagination, but a record of actual happenings. The characters who pass in review before the reader are real personages whose various experiences have gladdened many adjacent firesides.
However, the author realizes that certain serious and literal souls are so constructed that what to others is a source of glee and merriment, is to them but “the crackling of thorns under a pot.” Hence the origin of his conscientious plan to display in the book’s “show window,” so to speak, a sample of the brand of Yankee humor the reader may expect to find should he resolve to read further.
Therefore, let us turn aside from these gracious words of the author as above and consider for a moment the soliloquy of Uncle Andrew Cheney, who did not like his son-in-law.
Uncle Andrew did not like work very well either, which is often unfortunate for a husband and father of a family. In view of his own impecunious state, it was peculiarly annoying to him to continually be witnessing the lavish display of an elderly neighbor who had considerable inherited property, but, who though a long time married, was childless.
One summer evening Uncle Andrew was sitting disconsolately on the steps of the little country grocery store, when he heard the clatter of horses’ feet and saw the well-to-do neighbor driving by with his pair of high stepping colts. Uncle Andrew scowled but said nothing. Again came the thud of feet and the horses and proud driver, coming back up the country road, once more passed the store. Uncle Andrew glowered at the spectacle with increasing disgust, but still managed to restrain himself.
Arthur George Crandall
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FOREWORD
CONTENTS
Overlooked by Tourists
“Year Before Last Winter’s Snow”
The School Master and His Snow Grave
Drifted Roads and the Right of Way
The Post Holes in the Ice
The Man Who Took Comfort at Funerals
The Story of the Field of Oats
The Kitchen Dance “Up the Branch”
The New Maple Sugar Tub
A Yankee Philanthropist
The Butcher Who Was Too Generous
Why Dave Left Home
The Discouraging Matrimonial Experiences of Bill Jordan
Another Tale of a Confiding Husband
“Purty Bur-r-ds”
“Seven Wives and Seven Prisons”
The French-Canadian Who Wanted a “War for the Womens”
“You Don’t Have to Yell at Me”
The Story of the Stolen Bundle of Hay
The Raid on Jim Green’s Pork Barrel
How Lote Platt Beat the Thunder Shower
The Tale of the Old-Fashioned “Settle”
The Lost Harrow Teeth
The Story of the Salt Shake
“Better Give Them to Some Poor Boy”
The Young Man Who Had “Speerit”
The Lady Who Secured a Wardrobe
The Story of “Lafe” and the Livery Stable Man
The Man Who Wanted to Fight a Year Afterward
A Rural “Trademark”
An Early Example of Camouflage
“Noah Built the Ark”
The Story of the Eccentric Cow
The Remarkable Incident of the Cart Wheels
The Thrilling Experiences of a Mountain “Doctress”
The Expedient of the Cow Buyer
The History of a Milk Sled
The Story of a Wandering Sheep
The Young and “Self-Centered” Ram
The Sudden Enlightenment of the Young Pup
A Hen Heroine
The Story of the “Lolling” Horse
The Farmer Who Borrowed the Blind Horse
The Lame Horse That Was Suddenly Cured
The Bird Policeman
The Evicted Swallows
The Proprietary Attitude of the Robins
The Haunted Cat
The Ghost in the Milk Dairy
The Spook Story of the Runaway Horse
Table Tipping and a Victim
The Story of the Ouija Board
The Unreal Arrival of Uncle Mark
The Locked Door Which Swung Open
The Joke Played on the Hotel Porter
The Pedlar Who Disappeared
The Sudden Discontinuance of the “Spirit Raps”
The Supernatural Illumination
The Litigating Horse Dealer
The Attorney Who Scorned Divorce Business
The Murderer Who Was Not There That Day
A Celebrated Arson Case
The Attorney Who Justified “Assault and Battery”
The Lawyer Who Was Going to “Get Over It”
The Story of the Wily Bank Robber
The Legend of the Pine Tree
The Man Who Wanted to be “Sociable”
The Hopeful Young Beginner
The Sick Engineer in the Next Room
What Happened in the Hotel Barber Shop
The Salesman Who Was Given a “Warm Room”
Story of the Itemized Expense Account
“Two Barrels”
The Old Man Who Was Inveigled Into a Poker Game
The Story of the “Raised” Biscuits
The Small Boy Who Scandalized the Congregation
The “Driveling Idiot”
The Love-Cracked Suicide
“There is a Lion in the Way”
The Man Who Borrowed “Arabian Nights” from a Christian Woman
The Woman Who Was Not Going to be a Pack Horse
The Enterprising Deacon Who Proposed at the Grave
The Old Friend and the Load of Hay
The Man Who Worked a Confidence Game on His Cows
“Stew ’Er Down”
“Never Mind, I Can Cut It”
The Empty Flour Barrel
The Town Pauper Who Made an Epigram
The Conscientious Neighbor Who Ran An Account
The Thrifty Man Who “Swore Off” Using Tobacco
“Am I Ben Jackson, or Am I Not?”
“The Farther You Go the Better They Are”
“Say, Put the Doctor Ahead”
The Scrambled Eggs in the Highway
The Story of the Rebellious Horse
What Happened to the Junk Man
What Happened to Another Junk Dealer
The Inquisitive Man by the Roadside
The Misfortunes of Mr. Foley
The Return of a War Hero
The Motorist Who Was Good to Antoine
The Tale of a Rescued Keg of Whiskey
The Prohibition Whale Oil
The Righteous Wrath of “Marm” Hooker
“Poor Kelly Took the Rest”
The Hand Mowers at Murray’s
The Sporting Venture of the Country Editor
“I’ve Found the Spring”
The Expert Who Repaired the Fences
The Man Who “Arrived In a Great Hurry”
“Where’s Hadlock?”
A French-Canadian Version of Employers’ Liability Insurance
