They did—and luck did not fail them. For when it came to the dessert, the Rev. Mr. Brown evidently enjoyed the peaches very much, very much. Dear innocent soul! he thought he had never tasted anything half so good. And when the hostess sweetly asked him, “Could she not have the pleasure of serving him with another peach?” he hesitatingly replied, “No—thank you—thank you—but I believe I will take a little more of the juice!”
“MOUNTED?”
Another darkey relates a dream he had during an exciting political campaign down in Kentucky, only in this case his dream took an opposite direction. “I dreamed,” said he, “dat I died an’ went up to de big gate o’ hebbin an’ wanted to git in, an’ Sent Petah he says to me, says he, ‘Is you mounted?’ an’ I says, ‘No.’ An’ he says, ‘Den you can’t come in.’ So I kum away, an’ on de way down I met Kunnel White, de man wat’s runnin’ fo’ Congress, an’ I told him ’twant no use: he couldn’t git in if he wasn’t mounted. ‘Better go back,’ says I, ‘an’ mount de bay mare.’ But he says, ‘No, I tell you, Sam, what we’ll do. You’ll be my hoss. I’ll git on your back, an’ we’ll ride up to de gate an’ when Petah says, “Is you mounted?” I’ll say, “Yaas,” an’ I’ll ride you right in.’
“So I got down on my han’s an’ feet an’ he got up on my back, an’ we trotted up to de big gate, and de kunnel he knocked on de doo’, an’ Sent Petah he open de gate a crack an’ says, ‘Who’s dar?’ an’ de kunnel says, ‘Kunnel White o’ Kentucky, sah.’ An’ Petah says, ‘Is you mounted?’ an’ de kunnel says, ‘Yaas, I is, sah.’ An’ Sent Petah he says, ‘Mighty glad to see you, kunnel. Jist tie your hoss on de outside de gate an’ come right in!’”
“DOLLARS TO DOUGHNUTS”
They say that the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is this: The optimist looks on the doughnut, the pessimist looks on the hole. Well, there once was a man up in a certain town in Eastern Pennsylvania who did a very good business at the baker-trade. Everybody knew and patronized the good German baker, Hans Kitzeldorfer. Hans was industrious, frugal and thrifty, and was making money, until one unfortunate day he turned pessimist and began to look on the hole in the doughnut. The longer he looked at that hole the more he became persuaded that he could make money much more rapidly by making the holes in his celebrated brand of doughnuts larger than they had been. This happy suggestion he at once proceeded to act on, and for two years he was immensely tickled over his discovery. But by and by it seemed to him that his receipts were not as large as formerly, especially in the Doughnut Department, and he ordered an investigation, the result of which Was that he discovered that by making the holes larger he had unwittingly used more dough to go around the holes than when the holes were less in diameter, whereupon he at once restored his earlier and more profitable system—and Prosperity returned.
TWO POLITE AND SPUNKY BOYS
A German, meeting a friend on the street, asked him to come up to his house some day, he wanted to show him his two boys. “I haf,” said he, “two of de finest poys vot ever vas; two very fine, polite undt spunky poys.”
His friend went up to the house one day, and the two friends were sitting on the porch talking and smoking their pipes, while the two boys were playing in front of the house in the street.
“Now I vill show you,” said the proud father, “vat two very fine poys I haf.” And with that he called, “Poys!”