“My sister's got a new bonnet.”
“We've got lightning-rods on our house.”
“We've got a mortgage on ours!”
For instance:—
“You have in America no really old stories and traditions?” said a German lady to an American.
“We are too young for such things. But what does it matter? We enjoy yours,” was the civil response.
“But,” the German continued, in a tone of commiseration, “no fairy-stories like ours of the Black Forest, no legends like ours of the Blockberg! Isn't everything very new and prosaic?”
This superiority is not to be endured. The American feels that her country's honor is impeached.
“We have no such legends,” she begins slowly, when a blessed inspiration comes to her relief, and she goes on with dignity,—“we have no such legends, to be sure; but then, you know, we have—the Indians.”
“Ah, yes; that is true,” said the German, respectfully, knowing as much of the Indians as of the inhabitants of some remote planet, while the American, trusting the vague, mysterious term will induce a change of subject, yet not knowing what may come, rapidly revolves in her mind every item of Indian lore she has ever known, from Pocahontas to Young-Man-Afraid-of-his-Horses, determined, should she be called upon to tell a wild Indian tale, to do it in a manner that will not disgrace the stars and stripes.