“Still, Evans is most awful clumsy, too.  One time when he was t’ our house he knocked off a real cluny vase of ma’s and broke it and his wife says, ‘Evans Billhorn, th’ next time I take you anywheres I’ll crate yuh!’ she says.  Pa kep’ a piece of that vase fer a long time.  ’Pore feller suff’rer,’ he called it.

“Turn over.”

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“That’s Perfessor Tweedie.  He teaches penmanship and he knows Shakespeare better ‘n, old Mahomet knowed th’ Koran, pa says.  Ain’t he a hairy feller, though?  Onct him ‘n Frank Mendenhall was a-doin’ Brutus and Cassius wrapped up in sheets in Liberty Hall and when Prof says, ’Here is muh dagger and here muh naked breast,’ pa hollers out, ‘Git a shave, Prof!’ Well, sir, it purty nigh busted up th’ show.”

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“That’s Cousin Flora Burgstresser.  She’s th’ belle of Beardstown.  Her hair’s so long she kin set on it.  Onct a hair tonic company offered her a pile of money—­most a hunderd dollars—­fer her pitchure fer their adver-tise-ment, but she wouldn’t.

“Them society ladies don’t like notority.”

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“That’s Winfield Scott Zachary Taylor Peebles, ma’s cousin.  He was named fer two heroes of th’ rev-lutionary war, I think it was; anyway, he could allus think of th’ noblest things t’ say!  Onct when he was in th’ war an officer died and they put Cousin Win in his place, so that’s how he got t’ be a corporal.  First thing he says was, after th’ president or whoever it was give him th’ place, ‘Boys,’ he says, ’if I fall in this day’s battle, march over muh dead corpse as you would that of a common private!’ he says.

“Turn over.”

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“Uncle Adoniram Burgstresser, ma’s uncle.  He was a farmer and hardshell preacher.  Onct when ma says, ‘Uncle Ad was a power!’ pa says, ’Git out!  You don’t mean power, you mean pow-wower.’  That made ma purty mad, I tell you.  Uncle Ad was awful clost.  One time he went into a hardware store t’ git a tin cup and after he’d looked careful at sev’ral he says, ’How much is this one?’ ‘Nickel,’ says th’ storekeeper.  Then Uncle Ad says, ’I s’pose yuh make th’ usual reduction t’ th’ clergy?’ he says.

“Turn over.”

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“That there’s Emma Beale.  She’s an awful nice, refined lady.  Why, one time when her pa was a-runnin’ a tailor shop and Emma was workin’ there, pa took a pair of pants t’ have ‘m pressed fer a weddin’ and when he went t’ git ’m Emma says, ‘Mr. Peters,’ she says, ’did you know there was a hole in one of th’ limbs of yer trousers?’ she says.  And pa, he jist haw-hawed right in her face, th’ old coarse thing!”

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