"My Mary Ann."
Many months ago the post commander at Cairo was a certain West Point colonel of a Northwestern regiment, noted for his soldierly qualities and rigid discipline. One day he passed by the barracks and heard a group of soldiers singing the well-known street piece, "My Mary Ann." An angry shade crossed his brow, and he forthwith ordered the men to be placed in the guard-house, where they remained all night The next morning he visited them, when one ventured to ask the cause of their confinement.
"Cause enough," said the rigid colonel; "you were singing a song in derision of Mrs. Colonel B———."
The men replied by roars of laughter, and it was some time before the choler of the Colonel could be sufficiently subdued to understand that the song was an old one, and sung by half the school-boys in the land, or the risibles of the men be calmed down to learn that the colonel's wife rejoiced in the name of "Mary Ann."
Uncle Abe made the Colonel a Brigadier the moment he heard this story.
Uncle Abe's Honor.
At one time Uncle Abe aspired to a position on the bench, and Mrs. Lincoln, so as to be prepared for the event, practiced the habit of calling her husband "his Honor," or "your Honor," as the case might be. Uncle Abe never, however, succeeded to the dignity of the ermine; but attending Circuit at Chicago, and stopping at the ———— Hotel, Mrs. L. accompanied her husband, as was her custom. Uncle Abe had donned a bran new pair of boots, which were anything but comfortable, and almost as uncertain as a pair of skates to a learner on the keenest of ice. Mrs. Lincoln was enjoying herself in the parlor in a chit-chat with a number of other ladies, and putting on as many airs as her provincial position in Springfield would admit, when a strange, rumbling sound disturbed the pleasant company, who rushed out to learn what was the matter. Lo and behold! there was Uncle Abe in the undignified predicament of tumbling down stairs and bumping the end of his spine upon every step. The new boots, or the swig of forty-rod which he had taken in his bed-room, had proved traitor to him. Mrs. Lincoln was nearly non-plussed, but exclaimed in a consoling voice, "Is your Honor hurt?"
"No," said Uncle Abe, sitting gracefully on the carpet, with legs spread out amidst the bevy of tittering damsels, and rubbing the seat of his trowsers, "No, my honor is not hurt but my—my—my head is!"