PUNISHMENT MADE SURE
It is an old story, but a good one—that of the two Germans who went into Delmonico’s to get something to eat. They ordered a very simple supper. They had a good beefsteak, fried potatoes, bread and butter, and coffee, and were astounded when the waiter handed them a bill for four dollars and a half. They paid the bill, and when they reached the street one of them began to swear at “Dot man Delmonico. He is a robber and a thief.” His companion, however, gently laying a hand on his shoulder, said, “Hermann, do not schwear. It iss wicked to schwear. Pesides, Gott has ponished dat man Delmonico alretty.” “Wie?” was the response. “How has Gott ponished him?” “Hermann,” said the other with quiet assurance, “Gott has ponished him. I have my pockets full mit his spoons!”
A BASHFUL BRIDEGROOM
He was a clerk in a hardware store, and she was a chambermaid in a hotel. When they came to the parsonage one afternoon to be married, they were very kindly received. The minister’s wife took the bride upstairs to take off her things, and the minister took the groom into the parlor.
The groom was very nervous—and suddenly asked the minister whether he couldn’t “marry him while the bride was upstairs, and then marry her when she came down?” But the minister assured him that it was necessary that the bride should be present, and that they should both be married at the same time. And so they were married.
Two hours later, while making a call at the hotel, he found the bride at her work, and when he asked her how that was, and whether her husband had also gone back to his work at the store, she replied:
“Oh, bless you, no, sir; he’s gone off on his honeymoon!”
A KICKIN’
A newspaper correspondent, writing to his paper from the mountain region of Eastern Tennessee about twenty-five years ago, had the following to say:
“These mountain people have some occasional times of recreation. I was at one recently. A few days ago I received an invitation to ‘a Kickin’.’ In this neighborhood every well-regulated family has a clumsy, old-fashioned loom to weave the wool of the mountain sheep into fabrics for home consumption. Some of this material requires to be fulled, and to do this ‘a Kickin’’ is instituted, and it was to one of these gatherings that your correspondent was invited. It was held at one of the houses, common in this section, with a big fireplace and no windows, located on the banks of the Spillcorn Branch. The envoy with the invitation was diplomatic. ‘Hev ye ever bin to a Kickin’ afore?’ queried he. I told him I had, and I had, too, in Pennsylvania at that, and the only one I ever saw before. ‘Would ye like to go to one of our Kickin’s down yere?’ I responded that it would certainly afford me great pleasure. ‘Then,’ said the mountaineer, ‘they’re a-goin’ to hev a Kickin’ over in Spillcorn to-night, an’ you kin come over.’