THE RHI NOSEY ROSE
MY father he told me why didnt I write about the unicorn. I said I would, so I set down and wrote about its 1 horn, and how it had a mane like horses, and how it stood on its hind feets for to fight lions, and every thing I could think of, but when I come to its tail I said did it have a tassel. Then my father he said: “If you have got to the end of your subject why dont you stop?”
But my sisters young man says the unicorn is nothing only but just a rhi nosey rose. Pretty soon after that Uncle Ned he said: “Johnny, I know you are just dyin for to know something about the rhi nosey rose.”
Then I spoke up and said: “The rhi nosey rose is the most powful beast which is known to man. He is found in the jingles of the Nile, but the feller which finds him is lost his own self, for ever and ever, amen. The rhi is a 4 legger and gamles oer the green with whirl wind speed to catch the natif nigger as he flies afar. But the travler meets him eye to eye and fels him to the plain and writes a book about it. The lion roars like distant thunder, the gorillys song is as the wind among the pines, the long lament of the hi potamus is mournful for to hear, and the harpsicord cracky dile sobs out his heart on the evenin blast, but the rhi nosey rose hasn’t a word to say. He is all buisness.”
Uncle Ned said: “My boy, you are eloquenter than preachin, and I have listened to your perioration with delight and profit cause I know that them gloing periods come straight from the heart of your sisters young man, which wrote them for you. Cherish him, Johnny, cherish him as the apple of your eye, for he is a realy genuine bombastic, but when it comes to rhi nosey roses he isnt in it with your uncle Edard, not by a heap! Frexample, can he tell you how the rhi came to have a horn on his nose? I trow not.”
I asked how it was, and he said: “When the distinguished naturaler which you have just quoted wrote about the lions roar, and the gorillys song, and the quiring of the flopdoodle, and so 4th, he was mighty close to a great discuvery, but he missed it pretty slick. One day in the Garden of Eden them fellers was a showin off their voices, and it made the rhi feel mighty lonely.” So he said to Adam: “If you please, sir, Ide like for to be frightful my self.”
Adam said: “Well, you aint particlarly reassurin to them which has good eye sight, as you are, but come to me to-morrow and we will see what can be done.”
That night, while the rhi was a sleep, Adam made a big horn grow on the rhi, and when the rhi came next day he said, Adam did: “Now you can be just as alarmin to the blind as them other chaps. All you got to do is to blow your horn.”
“Johnny, when you go to the zoo and see the rhi a liftin up his lip and twistin it round in such a awfle way dont you be afraid, cos he is only just a tryin for to blow his horn to beat the resoudin lion, put to shame the deafening hyena and parolyze with envy the hoo-hooing rhododandrum. He dont always succeed, but if you go frequent you will some day be rewarded with a blast which will make the heavens be mute.”