“So you didn’t spend your 2 cents?” observed the worker in charge.

“Oh, no,” he replied, “but a fellow just likes to have a little cash on hand over Sunday.”

See also Domestic finance.

MORAL EDUCATION

Two little boys, four and five years old respectively, were playing quietly, when the one of four years struck the other on his cheek.  An interested bystander stepped up and asked him why he had hit the other who had done nothing.

“Well,” replied the pugilistic one, “last Sunday our lesson in Sunday-school was about if a fellow hit you on the left cheek turn the other and get another crack, and I just wanted to see if Bobbie knew his lesson.”

MOSQUITOES

Senator Gore, of Oklahoma, while addressing a convention in Oklahoma City recently, told this story, illustrating a point he made: 

“A northern gentleman was being entertained by a southern colonel on a fishing-trip.  It was his first visit to the South, and the mosquitoes were so bothersome that he was unable to sleep, while at the same time he could hear his friend snoring audibly.

“The next morning he approached the old darky who was doing the cooking.

“‘Jim,’ he said, ’how is it the colonel is able to sleep so soundly with so many mosquitoes around?’

“‘I’ll tell yo’, boss,’ the darky replied, ’de fust part of de night de kernel is too full to pay any ’tenshum to de skeeters, and de last part of de night de skeeters is too full to pay any ‘tenshum to de kernel.’”

See also Applause; New Jersey.

MOTHERS

While reconnoitering in Westmoreland County, Virginia, one of General Washington’s officers chanced upon a fine team of horses driven before a plow by a burly slave.  Finer animals he had never seen.  When his eyes had feasted on their beauty he cried to the driver:  “Hello good fellow!  I must have those horses.  They are just such animals as I have been looking for.”

The black man grinned, rolled up the whites of his eyes, put the lash to the horses’ flanks and turned up another furrow in the rich soil.

The officer waited until he had finished the row; then throwing back his cavalier cloak the ensign of the rank dazzled the slave’s eyes.

“Better see missus!  Better see missus!” he cried waving his hand to the south, where above the cedar growth rose the towers of a fine old Virginia mansion.

The officer turned up the carriage road and soon was rapping the great brass knocker of the front door.

Quickly the door swung upon its ponderous hinges and a grave, majestic-looking woman confronted the visitor with an air of inquiry.

“Madam,” said the officer doffing his cap and overcome by her dignity, “I have come to claim your horses in the name of the Government.”