When the pious deacon, riding a very poor horse, pulled up at the cross-roads and asked a farmer’s boy to tell him which road to take, the boy asked him who he was and where it was he was going?
“My boy,” replied the deacon with a pious gaze heavenward, “I am a follower of the Lord.”
“A follower of the Lord!” exclaimed the lad. “I reckon, mister, you’d better buy another nag, for you’ll never catch up to him on that old horse of yourn!”
A SUDDEN RISE
Stooping down to wash his hands in a creek, the darkey couldn’t, of course, observe the peculiar motions of a goat right behind him. When he scrambled out of the water and was asked how it happened, he answered: “I dunno zacktly. ’Peared as if de shore kinder histed an’ frowed me.”
“OLD HOSS”
During the trying days of drafting in Civil War times, a farmer from away out West called on President Lincoln. As soon as he got near enough to the President he slapped him familiarly on the back and said, “Hello, old hoss, how are ye?”
“You call me an old hoss,” said Mr. Lincoln; “may I inquire what kind of a hoss I am?” “Why—an old Draft hoss, to be sure. Ha, ha!”
DISTURBING THE SOLEMNITY
Somehow or other there were many more queer things happening in church in the olden time than occur in these sober and decorous days. In old St. Paul’s, Newburyport, for example, some very amusing things are recorded to have happened during the hours of service. Uncle Nat Bailey was the sexton, and it was his duty to attend to the new stove which had just been put in. But one Sunday morning Uncle Nat was engaged in ringing the bell, and the last comers were hurrying in, and the clerk, Harvey, perceived that the stove needed attention. Taking the sexton’s duty, he poked the fire, chucked in more wood, shut the door and returned to his place at his desk. Unfortunately he had got his hand all black with soot, and unwittingly he had smeared the soot all over his face. The congregation broadly smiled a few minutes later when he solemnly rose at his desk and gave out the first hymn, “Behold the beauties of my face.”