■^f^'f 
 
Pa/ 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 
 E.Beal 
 
DUE 
 
 Tirn P B lyy^^ 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 PN 6161.C15 
 
 3 1924 027 250 863 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027250863 
 
^"^ I )=> 
 
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 EXCELSIOR PUBLISHING HOUSE, 
 29 and 31 Beeknian Street, ?(e^<r Ifork, ?I. V. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED 
 
 IN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 EDITED BY WM. T. CALL 
 
 (SPROUTS) 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY COULTAUS 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 29 AND 31 BEEKMAN STREET 
 
/\L5(p'jO 'j 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1567, 
 
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 EXCELSIOR PUBLISHING HOUSE. 
 
 PRIf*TW BV 
 THE HUB PUBU6HINIJ CQ. OF N. V. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 PFTER I'd writ and writ and writ 'bout my trip to York from 
 fust to last, Sprouts told me that I should have to interdooce 
 myself all to once to the folks that ware goin' to read 
 'bout my doin's. What he wanted I should do was to 'pear to 
 sorter run it down, so people would think I was dreadful bashful, 
 and didn't dare to say my soul's my own. I thought that was pooty 
 good, and I concluded that if any one was caught makin' secli a 
 darned fool of himself as that, after he'd gone and done the hull 
 thing, his name would be suthin' else besides 
 
 JOSH HAYSEED. 
 
_2^ GOOD-BYE TO JERUSHA 
 
JOSH HAYSEED'S TRIP TO NEW YORK. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH TAKES JERUSHa's ADVICE. 
 
 ^T7HERE ain't a soul in Musquash county, nor for fifty mile 
 ^ I ^ round, that don't know me and think pooty well of me too, I 
 surmise. But that ain't for me to say. Moreover, there's a 
 whisperin' that keeps sayin', " do your chores fust," and I ain't goin' 
 agin sperit voices. 
 
 To begin with then, every warm spell a lot of Yorkers come up 
 our way, and bring a pile of stuff that I don't see no use in anyhow. 
 It alluz puzzled me to find out what airthly good could come from 
 their mikerscopes, and telemscopes, and fishpole-scopes, and Lord 
 knows what kind of scopes. It got so that I couldn't stand it 
 much longer, and I says to myself : 
 
 " Enos, it's time you went down and see for yourself what sort of 
 a place York is. You don't want no scopes with you nuther. Jest 
 take your nakid eye along, and I'll bate a button you'll see all there 
 is wuth seein'." 
 
 With Enos Tooksbury 'tain't no sooner said then done, so I put a 
 good supply of gingerbread and whatnot into a precious valise 
 we've had in the family for nigh onto a hundred year, and vamoose 
 I did. 
 
 But afore I come away my cousin Jerusha says : 
 
 " Enos — Enos Tooksbury, be you really goin' to that awful wickid 
 Sodom and Gomorrah, or be you foolin' ?" 
 
 "Sartin, Jerusha," says I, "I ain't foolin', I've ben hankerin' to 
 '.ee where them bug hunters and rock smashers git their tomfool 
 idees from, and I'm goin' to York if it takes a leg." 
 
 My cousin Jerusha's a mighty pert critter, alluz readin' ominix 
 ind love po'tery, but it don't seem to do her no perticlar hurt. 
 
8 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 She wept somewhat when I said this, and I knowed suthin' 
 onusual was comin'. 
 
 " Enos," she says, "if you've made up your mind to go to York, I 
 know there ain't nothin' kin stop you short of a airthquake or a 
 tack of yaller janders to spile your good looks. You're takin' your 
 life in your hand and defyin' Providence, and I've only got one 
 final request to make." 
 
 "Out with it," says I, kinder affected, "and I'll do it onless the 
 airth caves in." 
 
 "It's this," says she, solum like; "its your boundin dooty to keep 
 a gernul." 
 
 "Lord, Jerusha," says I, "ain't I got cattle enough now, more'n I 
 kin winter over, without keepin' a gernul ? " 
 
 "Cattle," says she, sorter riled, "who said anything 'bout cattle? 
 I didn't, for one. I said a gernul — a hist'ry of your travels, and 
 what you seen and hearn and done down there." 
 
 When this come out I was jest about willin' to give up the hull 
 thing then and there, but I'd made up my mind to go, and so I says : 
 
 "I'm afeared I don't know harf enough 'bout spellin'." 
 
 " As to that,'' says she, " your nevvy Sprouts kin do most of the 
 spellin' for you." 
 
 Then she put on a look like a real theater lady, and says : 
 
 "Who knows, Enos Tooksbury, but what we've been nussin' a 
 great historian among us?" 
 
 "Don't softsodder me," I says, "I'll keep the gernul the best I 
 kin without that ; but it's got to be a truthful one, good and bad 
 alike." 
 
 "Don't put no swearin' in it," says she. 
 
 " Not if I kin help it," says I. 
 
 And then the hired man druv round, and old Suze, that gives 
 more solid butter to the quart then any Jersey in the county, stuck 
 her head over the stun wall, and 'peared to groan out like a human: 
 
 "Farwell, farwell, Enos, j^ou'U find some mighty rocky pasturin' 
 afore you git back." 
 
 It gave me a feelin' like I'd eat too many cowcumbers that had to 
 set there to pester me clean down to the steam kyars. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 HE IS PRESENTED WITH A NUMBER OF THINGS, INCLUDING A NEW NAME. 
 
 ^Tr^PHEN I got fairly ready to start for the town of York, the 
 \/\J steam kyars ware waitin' for me, and the injin was chock 
 ■^ full of impatience and hot water. I knowed it was hot, 
 becuz he had a squirtgun and let fly right agin my valise while I 
 was inspectin' him and wonderin' what sort of innards he had. I must 
 have jumped a rod, for it smarted like the doose where it didn't hit 
 the valise. I was beginnin' to git mad, when a gallus lookin' chap 
 they called the corndoctor pinted at some folks gittin' on the kyar, 
 and says : 
 
 "There's the smoker, you." 
 
 "That's a lie," says I, "for General Grant's dead." 
 He looked sorter puzzled at fust, then he larfed and says : 
 "That's so, that's so ; the great smoker is dead." 
 With that he pulls out a plaguey pooty watch that I'd darn near 
 swap my valise for if it hadn't ben in the family so long, and hollers 
 out : 
 
 "All aboard." 
 
 Not knowin what that signified, I foUered harf a dozen slick 
 lookin' fellers with seegars in their mouths and brindle valises that 
 looked as fat as a prize punkin. Suthin' bust in the injin, that I 
 thought must be the squirtgun, and off we scooted faster'n ever I 
 rid afore, 'cept when I was a boy and tried to keep holt of the tail 
 of a yaller heffer that was cuttin' cross lots. If you never see a 
 little lean yaller heffer go with a boy hangin' onto her t'other end, 
 let me tell 3'ou there ain't much outside of a henhawk scoopin' on 
 a barnyard to beat it. 
 
 Buryin' these reflections, I got mightily interested in the young 
 fellers with the seegars. They told the darndest funniest stories I 
 ever hearn. Two of 'em done most of the talkin', and as fur as I 
 could larn from what the other ones called em, one's name was 
 Chestnut and t'other Rats. 
 
lo JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 "Darn queer names," thinks I; "guess I'll investigate." So up 
 I goes and says : 
 
 "If it ain't imperlite, now that I've found out your name, kin I 
 inquire what might be your bussness, Mr. Chestnut?" 
 
 There warn't nothin' funny 'bout that as I could see, but if it's to 
 my dyin' day I'll never forgit how them fellers hollered. It bust 
 out so sudden that one of 'em spit his seegar clean across the kyar, 
 and t'other story teller nigh had a fit of highstrikes. 
 
 It was right on the end of my tongue to say, "What's the matter, 
 Mister Rats?" but I happened to think in time that it might kill 
 some one if I did. After a while they simmered down and says : 
 
 "Set down, set down, and have a seegar yourself." 
 
 So down I sot, and I knowed enough to say nuthin' for a spell- 
 I smoked that seegar in a dignified silence, and I must say that 1 
 never expect to find the equil of it agin. It took holt of my internal 
 organs better'n a plate of county fair ice cream, and made me feel 
 tip-top. I couldn't keep in much longer, so I out with : 
 
 "If it ain't a side-splitter, I'd like to ask where kin you git them 
 seegars, and what do they cost ? " 
 
 " Oh, that's a brand only stock brokers and drummers smoke," 
 says one of 'em. "It's called ' The Best You've Got,' becuz the firm 
 settles." 
 
 "I s'pose you mean sweet firm," says I. " I used to smoke sweet 
 firm when I was a boy, but they warn't knee-high to this kind." 
 
 "Have another," says he, very perlite. 
 
 'Thankee," says I, " don't care if I do, if you won't think I was 
 fishin' for it." 
 
 That seegar tasted queer like, but I didn't want to tell 'em of it, 
 so I kept pullin' away without sayin' much. Then all of a sudden 
 it seemed to me that suthin' or other was tryin' to crawl out of the 
 end of it. I was afeared my bile was goin' agin me for smokin' two 
 seegars to once, and that I was gittin' sorter jandery, but I was 
 determined not to give in, specially as I thought I'd ben feeling 
 pooty well. 
 
 Them fellers I knowed ware watchin' me mighty clus, but I'm 
 hanged if I could keep my eyes off the end of that seegar. It 
 come out faster and faster, and I felt the sweat begin to settle. 1 
 knowed then for sure that my bile was turnin', and my eyes must 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 
 have got big as sarcers. I'll be swarn I never see anything so real 
 in my life as the way that snake crawled out of the fiery end of 
 that seegar. 
 
 "Look out for yourself," I hollers, ' I'm a sick man." And out 
 the winder she Went, seegar, breakfast, and it seemed to me a piece 
 of my gizzard too. 
 
 Then I thought they would die sure. 
 
 That kinder brought me round, and I remarked a little cool ■. 
 
 UNCl-li JUSH ON THE CARS. 
 
 " Pooty good joke, ain't it. My stummick gits turned upside 
 down plaguey quick on the steam kyars." 
 
 Nevertheless I sorter suspicioned there must have ben some sort 
 of trick about that seegar, but you ketch me lettin' on that I've ben 
 fooled, and you've caught a weasel asleep. 
 
 " Have another seegar," says one of 'em. 
 
 "No, thankee," I replied, "I've had enough for the present. " 
 
 "Then out it in your pocket for some other time," says he. 
 
t2 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 It makes me appear like a nat'ral born fool to tell this, but I've 
 got to do it for the sake of the truth. I ain't blamin' them young 
 fellers ; they warn't bad to heart ; but if there warn't suthin' in the 
 end of tliat seegar that stung worse 'n a sarpent, I'll give up. 
 
 I couldn't a took that seegar if it had ben made out of gold from 
 the streets of the shinin' city. 'Twarn't no sorter use, nuther, totry 
 
 HIS NEW NAME. 
 
 to disguise my feelin's, and so I let out a yell that scared some ol 
 the other folks. I'd have give a year's growth if I could have taken 
 that seegar without blinkin', but it was more 'n ought to be expected 
 of human natur. 
 
 My actions on this occasion only proves to me that I'm mortal, 
 and that you meet some curus customers when travelin' on the 
 steam kyars. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 13 
 
 However, I got to York all right, and put up with that nevvy of 
 mine I call Sprouts, becuz that's the name of young cabbages afore 
 the head gits solid. 
 
 Sprouts is a kind of newspaper chap, and is alluz inquirin' into 
 things that don't consarn him. And when he says, " I'll take care 
 of your valise," he had to turn it around, of course, and look on 
 t'other side. I might have expected as much and looked myself, 
 but I didn't, and then for the fust time I diskivered that some one 
 on the steam kyars had got a piece of white chork, and writ right 
 out in plain letters these omnious words : 
 
 JOSH HAYSEED 
 SQUASHVILLE. 
 
 When I recovered from my surprisement, I exclaimed : 
 
 "Wal, that's the most fortunit thing that's occurred to me sense 
 I started out." 
 
 ''How's that?" says Sprouts. 
 
 "Why, don't you see," says I, " there's no tellin' what might 
 happen while I'm in this village, and though I ain't one of the kind 
 to sail under false colt>rs, that's a fust class name, and I'm goin' to 
 stick to it till I've turned this town of York upside down and lit 
 out for hum." 
 
14 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH FINDS OUT HOW THE YORKERS GIT ROUND. 
 
 MY idee was to go to the selectmen and let 'em know I had 
 come in, but I concluded to look round a leetle aforehand. 
 In less 'n forty rods, I reckon, I spied one of them hoss kyars 
 I'd hearn on come tearin' down the road like all persessed. It 
 ' peared to me there must be suthin' wrong, but I kept still for a 
 moment to make sure, when I see a fat nigger woman makin' for 
 the road with a big barskit. She throwed the barskit down and 
 waved her hands, and tried to stop the hosses that way. Now that 
 ain't nothin' wuss for a runaway hoss than to try to scare him into 
 stoppin', and as I expected the nigger woman only made 'em go 
 faster. 
 
 Then I see quicker n a wink that the hosses couldn't help it 
 anyhow. They had to run away, wily nily, as the lawyers say, for 
 there warn't no pole for 'em to hold back on. So out I rushes, and 
 hollers to the top of my voice : 
 
 "Turn 'em up the fust hill — turn 'em up the fust hill, or you're a 
 gorner." 
 
 Jest then 'bout the pootiest lot of starched up caliker and ribbon 
 I ever sot my e)res on come out from somewhere, and stuck the end 
 of a parisall that looked like a June butterfly up by her eye, and if 
 them hosses didn't stop stun still in less 'n the length of a squash 
 vine, I give up right here. 
 
 "Them must be mighty knowin' hosses," thinks I," if a nigger 
 woman with a big barskit to help her can't make no impression on 
 'em, but a pooty gal with a parisall kin make 'em back agin the kyar 
 and stop it dead in less 'n ten foot, and I'm blessed if I kin 
 understand it." 
 
 Then the driver let go some kind of crank, and off they started on 
 the full gallop, with the nigger woman puffin', and blowin', and 
 hollerin' for 'em to wait. 
 
 " Wal," I says to myself, "that beats all so fur as my experience 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 15 
 
 goes." Then I hove a gentile si, and come to another road with a 
 bridge in it 'bout as high as the houses. 
 
 I never hearn that they had spring freshets in York, and it 
 mystefied me a good deal to find out what airthly good the bridge 
 could be. But while I was tryin' to figger it out I beared a fearful 
 ratter-clatter, and afore I had time to git out of the way a hull train 
 of steam kyars went over my head like a streak. 
 
 I concluded to walk over to the end of that remarkable bridge 
 and back again. So out I started, and I should jedge I must have 
 
 
 HOW TO STOP A HORSE-CAR. 
 
 walked nigh onto ten mile without findin' a end, but seein' plenty 
 of toll houses in the air, lookin' for all the world like the martin 
 house on the liberty pole in front of the tavern to hum. 
 
 I gave it up as a bad job at last, and concluded to start my boots 
 back agin if I wanted to see Sprouts afore nightfall, when I see a 
 sight that made my blood feel like bonny-clapper. I was standin' 
 on the cross roads tryin' to make out where the singin' noise come 
 from, and didn't notice it at fust. But when I looked down the 
 road, I see a boss kyar slidin' along mighty swift and quiet, without 
 bosses to it nor ingin nuther. 
 
 I might have ben run over jest as well as not. 
 
j6 
 
 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 As luck would have it, however, they had a clock in the kyar that 
 happened to strike jest in the nick of time to save my life. 
 
 That was a leetle too much for my nervous sistern, and I sot right 
 down on the side of the road and hove another si. There never was 
 anything that shook my faith in Parson Zeke Tarbox's teachin' 
 
 ONE OF THE FINEST. 
 
 equil to them gost hoss kyars. I was fully prepared to see flyin' 
 kyars without wings and sailin' kyars without sails, but I didn't. 
 
 After I'd sot out my surprisement, I spied what I took to be 
 the May'r with his best soot on, and I says to him : 
 
 " Be you the May'r of this village ? " 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. f) 
 
 '•No," says he, eyin' me sharp, " I'm a bigger man then the May'r. 
 I'm one of the finest. " 
 
 *' P'raps you're like the cherubims and seraphims then," says I, 
 kinder sarcaustic, "and you won't mind tellin' a weary traveler how 
 them kyars go without hosses or a ingin." 
 
 " Look in the little gutter in the middle of the road, and you'll 
 find out," says he. 
 
 "That won't go down," says I, "my name's Josh Hayseed, 
 cousin to Jerusha what writ the pome for the Musquash Friendly 
 Visitor, and you can't find nothin' green in my eye." 
 
 He saw I was good for him, so he larfed and said : 
 
 "Wal, I'll tell you, Uncle Josh, them's run by sperits." 
 
 "That's more like it," says I, and back I starts lookin' for some- 
 body to give me a lift toward hum. 
 
 They were all mighty disobligin', and I had to foot the seven or 
 eight mile agin, and hire a feller to find the house for me with the 
 help of a card Sprouts had writ suthin' on, and made me take along. 
 
 ' Twan't necessary to let on 'bout the hoss kyar incident, but I had 
 to tell him 'bout the sperit kyars, and I felt sorter 'shamed when I 
 reflected how I'd misjedged the good intentions of the perlice con- 
 stable. But I determined that I'd make up for it when I see him 
 agin, and so I will, or my name's not Josh Hayseed. You won't 
 find me helpin' them bug huntin' Yorkers, though, nary a rod, the 
 next time they ask me for a ride to hum. 
 
Josh hayseed iM new york. 
 
 THE BIG BRIDGE AND HOW IT AFFECTED HIM. 
 
 5 "F"^ OUT the last thing Jerusha said when I come away was to 
 
 l^sl '^varn me agin too much modesty — not in wimmin, as you 
 
 ' ' might s'pose, but in myself as a historian of a trip to York. 
 
 "If you should see anything," she says, "that's reely astonishin', 
 don't you hold in, but come right out and tell it the same as if you 
 ware writin' Pilgrim's Progress. Who knows but what you might 
 be another Bunyon on the foot of Hist'ry's truthful muze ?" 
 
 So I says to my nevvy Sprouts : 
 
 " Show us the biggest thing you've got in the hull village of York." 
 
 "All right," says he, " I guess the Brooklyn Bridge '11 do." 
 
 " P'raps it will," I says, a leetle doubtful in my mind ; " but we've 
 got some pooty good sized bridges up our way, specially the one 
 over the county line at the Musquash crick, though 'tain't so darna- 
 tion long as them you've got with the steam kyars on 'em." 
 
 'Bout an hour afterwards me and Sprouts got landed somehow 
 or other on a big platform with near a million people runnin' and 
 pushin' and disappearin' here and there like arnts in a sand heap. 
 Lookin' over the platform I see ten times as many more dodgin' 
 and hollerin' and gittin' run over by what I took to be five or six 
 circus caravans all fightin' for the grounds. 
 
 "What do you think of that?" says Sprouts. 
 
 " 'Tain't a York temperance meetin', is it ? " says I. 
 
 "Oh, no," says he, "that's the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge." 
 
 " But Where's the bridge ? " says I. 
 
 "There," says he, pintin' with his finger. 
 
 I'm blessed if I could see anything that looked to me like a 
 bridge, but I follered him meek as a lam. He went up to a four- 
 by-six box, and gave some money to what I took to be a man at 
 fust, but as I never see him speak or move anything 'cept his hands, 
 I concluded it must be one of them merchines I hearn on that works 
 on wires. 
 
Josh hayseed m new York. ly 
 
 1 was about used up tryin' to find out what was goin' on, and when 
 Sprouts sa3's, "Git in," I got in without askin' questions, and off 
 we slid. It went so easy that I closed my eyes to try to git my 
 senses back. 
 
 "Git out," says Sprouts, and out I got. Then we got in again, 
 and away we slid soft as an egg down a hay mow. 
 
 "Git out," says Sprouts. 
 
 "I'll be darn'd if I will," says I, " onless you'll tell me where in 
 thunder we air." 
 
 "Why," says he, "we've ben across the bridge ana back agin." 
 
 There warn't no denyin' that we ware where we started from, 
 becuz there was that wire figger workin' away precisely the same as 
 when we started off. But as I hadn't seen a bridge anywheres. 
 Sprouts agreed to walk me over and ride me back. 
 
 We walked for some time without comin' to what sooted my ideer 
 of a bridge, but afore we got to the middle I must say I'd clean 
 forgot the Musquash crick bridge and all the other big things I 
 ever see. It looked to me full)' a mile down to the water, and when 
 Sprouts showed me the place where harf a dozen Irish fellers dive 
 off, I believed him, though of course I wouldn't have swallered that 
 lie anywhere else. 
 
 Why, we ware clean up above the ships that scooted under with- 
 out comin' anywhere near us, and the little flat boats scud 'round 
 way down there like apple smellers and water spiders on a still- 
 water pond. The hull town looked, as near as I kin git it, like a 
 mighty big smokin' stump clearin', and you could see further 'n the 
 eye could reach. I used to think Corncob Corners a passably big 
 place, but when I looked down on the village of York, I felt like 
 coverin' my face with mortifaction. 
 
 " Now, Uncle Josh,' says Sprouts, " I'll show you the most won- 
 derful thing 'bout the big bridge. You keep your eye on that pint 
 there, and when the kyars come along you'll see how the injineers 
 have reckoned on big weights and on hot and cold weather." 
 
 I kept my eye on the pint, to prove that Sprouts was lyin', but I 
 hope I may never see a chipmunk agin, if the kyar didn't make harf 
 of the bridge pull away from t'other harf two or three inches and 
 come together agin, without disturbin' the big clothes lines it was 
 hangin' on, 
 
2o JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 "That's enough," says I to Sprouts, "jest git me back safe agin, 
 and I won't say nuthin' more 'bout Musquash bridges. I'm satisfied 
 it ain't man's doin's to make a bridge without nothin' to hold her 
 up in the middle." 
 
 " But you haven't seen half the sights," says he. 
 
 " Never mind," says I, "I've seen all I want of her. All you've 
 got to do is to git me back agin alive. I've ben to table rappin's 
 and chair floppin's, and when I see her creep like that, /know she 
 ain't air tidy. 
 
 I ain't the kind to be afeared of any livin' critter that eats, but 
 when you come to a bridge like that you've got to count Uncle Josh 
 out every time, and I ain't ashamed to own up to it, by hemlock ! 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 ■JNCLE JOSH VISITS THE CHEAP CLOTHING DEALERS OF BAXTER STREET. 
 
 ' you want to see suthin' queer in business life in York, do 
 you ? " says nevvy Sprouts to me 
 
 "That's what I do," says I ; "suthin' that you don't find 
 nothin' else like it from Musquash to Greenland's icy mountains. 
 Kin you do it ?" 
 
 " Wouldn't be surprised if I could," says Sprouts, " if the Salva- 
 tion Army ain't camped in Baxter Street, and I don't believe it has, 
 for we'd a beared of a corner in bloo soots and brass buttons if they 
 had. 
 
 "But fust," says he, "let's take a look at Division Street." 
 
 " I s'pose," says I, " they call it Division Street becuz that's where 
 fou find the hardest sums in 'rithmetic." 
 
 " No, Uncle Josh," says he ; " it's becuz when a woman appears 
 at one end, the storekeepers size her up, and make a division of the 
 profits they're bound to git afore she reaches t'other end." 
 
 " Don't believe it," says 
 
 "All right,'' says he, "look for yourself." 
 
 Sprouts tells some fairly big stories when he gits started, but I 
 must say he warn't so fur from the truth this time as I took him to 
 be, for I never thought there was anything like that there Division 
 Street on this monday spear of ourn. 
 
 If my cousin Jerusha 'd ben there, I guess she 'd a had a connep- 
 tion fit. I never got so sick of wimmin's bunnits in my life. There 
 warn't nothin' else to see there, 'cept wimmin and nussin' babies. 
 I reckon I see enough wimmin's bunnits to supply Musquash county 
 for a hundred year. 
 
 Sprouts said most people didn't come there, but of course I 
 knowed better. I didn't stop to price none of 'em for Jerusha, be- 
 cuz he said he didn't believe I could tell the difference betwixt 
 paper and lace, whatever that's got to do with it. 
 
 " Have your own way," says I ; " but if there's any place round 
 
22 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 here where a man's got a show, fetch me to it, and I'll prove to you 
 that your Uncle Josh ain't so bad at a bargin as you think.'" 
 
 After he'd jerked me round to his heart's content, and near got 
 me killed six or eight times over, he stopped stun still, and says in a 
 omnious voice : 
 
 " Here we be. Uncle Josh. That's the celebrated Baxter Street. 
 Talk about your wildernesses, how's that for a wilderness of nothin' 
 but clothes and boots and shoes." 
 
 "Why in thunder don't them folks hire a store to keep all their 
 stuff in ? " says I. 
 
 "You'll see," says he; "meet me at t'other end." And off he 
 goes, independent as though he was the May'r himself. 
 
 "There's suthin' wrong here," thinks I, "but I suspect I'm good 
 for it,'' and off I starts too. 
 
 It ain't for me to tell all that happened afore I reached the end 
 of that wilderness ; but if there's any damages to pay, I'm willin' to 
 do what's right. All in all, men and wimmin alike, I s'pose I must 
 have licked more 'n fifty. I'm peaceable enough by natur', but when 
 I'm riled I'm wuss 'n a catamount in a clearin', and I cal'late some 
 of Mr. Baxter's hired men think so too. 
 
 They begun it fust pop. I walked along innercent as a cosset 
 lam, when, fust thing I knowed, out jumps a hull family, and afore 
 I could make out what had happened, they darn near had harf my 
 clothes off, and a new rig on. I tried to reason with 'em, but you 
 might as well talk to so many wild injins, for all the good 
 it done. Then I got mad, and, grabbin' my coat away from a gal 
 that weighed about three hundred pound, and snatchin' the nigh 
 boot — that never would come off without ilin' — from a boy no 
 bigger 'n a grasshopper, I gave a settler to the men folks and scun 
 out with a coat and a boot that didn't belong to me. 
 
 But, Lord ! I'd only just begun, though my blood was up. No 
 sooner 'd I lick one family, then another 'd grab me and act wuss 'n 
 ever. I never see such currajus people in my life. You couldn't 
 do nuthin' with 'em but lick 'em, and if I hadn't ben powerful 
 strong, I guess I'd a died afore I got through. As it was, I lost 
 everything they put on me that warn't my own, and never felt 
 more used up in my life than when Sprouts pulled me out of the 
 wilderness and we shot off of Mr. Baxter's street. When I got my 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 23 
 
 breath I felt like goin' back and cleanin' out the hull kerboodle of 
 'em, but Sprouts said I'd done a fair day's work, and that I'd made 
 a friend of the policeman on the corner for life and ought to be 
 satisfied. 
 
 So I cooled down after a while, but if ever I meet any more of 
 them steam injin -talkers with the hump-backed noses I'll know 
 how to act. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH IN BAXTER STREET. 
 
 " I kinder think," says I, " that when any of that crowd of folks 
 see your Uncle Josh agin they'll know enough to give him a leetle 
 more 'n harf the road." 
 
 Sprouts said I'd performed a feat that was worth mention in the 
 history of York. He must have meant what he said, for he never 
 treated me so respectable afore, and I could tell from his admirin' 
 glances that he was in earnest. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 A SENSATION IN CENTRAL PARK, AND NO FOUNDATION FOR IT. 
 
 'IT!' 
 
 -» r 
 
 fwan't homesickness that was troublin' me, but I was feelin' 
 bloo enough and had a powerful hankerin for suthin', and 
 couldn't for the life of me make out what it was. After musin' 
 over it for a spell, it struck me all in a heap, and I surprised Sprouts 
 by callin' out : 
 
 "I've got it at last." 
 
 " Got what ? " says he, " you don't mean to say, Uncle Josh, that 
 you've got another attack of your old enemy, the janders." 
 
 " Lord forbid ! " says I, "but I've got to the root of this 'tarnal 
 nawin' at my vittles What's the matter with me is I'm a 
 -lungerin' and thirstin' for a smell of suthin' besides stun and i'on, 
 which is all I've seen sense I've ben in the village of York. Give 
 me a look at some trees or pasture land, or even a mash, no matter 
 what they be, and I'll git over this attack mighty quick." 
 
 My nevvy's a good enough sort of a feller in some respects, but 
 the way he larfed now kinder teched me. He see I was a leetle 
 hurt, and so set me on the right track for gittin' the kind of 
 medicine wanted. 
 
 I smelled maples and elums a mile off, I guess, and when I got a 
 sight at 'em, I lit out with a reg'lar wild howl of delight and run 
 like a steer right among 'em. 
 
 "This must be the town farm," thinks I, "and p'raps they don't 
 'low no treaspassin'." 
 
 I was right too, for the minnit I got over the stun wall, and begun 
 to cut 'cross lots like a boy out of school, the head keeper of the 
 farm, all rigged out in a gray soot, starts in after me, wavin' his 
 hands and hollerin' like mad. That jest sooted me to a T, for I 
 felt like havin' a darn good romp, after bein' all choked up in that 
 pesky clus village, and round I turns and hollers to the keeper : 
 
 " Ketch me if you kin, and I'll pay for the ginger pop." 
 
 Off I goes, and he after me, but. Lord, he couldn't begin to keep 
 
JOSH Hayseed in new york. 
 
 25 
 
 up through them woods and clearin's and over the ledges. To 
 make the thing lively I got out on the road, and after a while he 
 hove in sight with p'raps a dozen under keepers whistlein' and 
 hollerin' and actin' like all persessed 
 
 There was a hull lot of the town farm wimmin out with children 
 and babies that nobody would own up to, and when they see me 
 come along with the keepers after me and actin' queer, I s'pose, they 
 
 DOING CENTRAL PARK. 
 
 screeched and scattered like a brood of patridges, and harf of 'em 
 left the babies to shift for themselves. 
 
 That was carryin' the joke a leetle too far, so I took to the woods 
 agin, but afore I got fairly out of sight and hearin' of the keepers, 
 I guess I must have scared up more 'n a hundred of the spooniest 
 lovers I ever see. I'm kind of soft hearted that way, so I switched 
 off agin, and follered a path over to some more clearin's and took 
 a rest in a clump of underbrush. 
 
26 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 That was where they have the 'sylum, and I watched the poor 
 unfortunits with a mighty sad feelin'. They ware mostly young 
 fellers and gals, and plaguey pooty ones too. I guess there ware a 
 thousand of 'em, and it made me reflect on what my cousin Jerusha 
 said of the awful wickidness of York. It made me nigh weep, too, 
 to see what almighty poor games the town had provided for the 
 unfortunits, and the soots they had to wear 
 
 What's the sense, for instance, of givin' a clean-gone, love-struck 
 gal a snowshoe to play with, and makin' her think she 's havin' 
 fun when she kin knock a rubber ball over a fish net? But the 
 grown up men ware even wuss provided for. One of 'em would 
 throw a big ball over his head, like a woman, at three sticks stuck in 
 the ground, and another one would hit it with a paddle. Then a 
 dozen of 'em would scramble to git it fust. I knowed to once that 
 was the idjut part of the town farm, and it made me si to see what 
 a waste it was of the finest meaders I ever clapped eyes on. 
 
 While I was makin' these reflections the keepers come up and 
 said suthin' to the unfortunits that made 'em git up and git like a 
 thunder shower had come on. I never in my life expect to see such a 
 shapely lot of females as them that scud by me a holdin' on to their 
 skirts that warn't none too long to begin with. 
 
 Not feelin' jest right to meet the keepers, after having travelea 
 more 'n a mile at a lively rate, I kept on for another mile or so in the 
 forest on the sunset side of the farm, and see more wonderful 
 things then I believed Natur' capable of producin'. Then I crossed 
 over and started back on t'other side: 
 
 Talk about Natur', I'm ready now to say that man's done more 
 for the town farm of York than Natur' ever dreamed of, but there 
 was natur' enough to soot me and to spare. 'Tain't no use to try to 
 tell what I did see, becuz I couldn't do harf jestice to it. I see 
 enough to convince me that there ain't a farm of eight or nine hun- 
 dred acres in the universe to compar' with the town farm of York. 
 
 Afore I got two-thirds of the way back the keepers begin to git 
 thicker 'n flies in huckleberry time, and by the time I got down to 
 where there was a big band of music playin' they near nabbed me. 
 I fooled 'em by makin' believe I had div into one of the ponds I 
 come across, and afore I knowed it I was among more 'n ten thou- 
 sand people, 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
28 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 What happened arfter that I'm blessed if I could tell if you should 
 give me the farm. 
 
 When I woke up the next mornin' I see Sprouts writhin' round 
 on the floor like he had a fit of colic. 
 
 " Kin I help you ? " says I. 
 
 " No," says he ; " jest read that and die." 
 
 I couldn't see nothin' remarkable, but for the sake of the truth 
 here's what I read afore I had to tend to Sprouts's colic : 
 
 A WILD MAN IN THE PARK. 
 
 Panic Reigns from Fifty-ninth Street to the 
 Polo Grounds and Back. 
 
 THE MALL DEMORALIZED. 
 
 Women Faint on the Tennis Grounds — Cricket Players Climb 
 Trees — The Park Police Blameless. 
 
 He Dives into the Reservoir and Reappears under 
 the Marple Arch. 
 
 INVADING THE MENAGERIE. 
 
 Thinks the Hippopotamus an Overgrown Muskrat, and Calls 
 Loudly for an Ax to Chop Down the Bears' Tree. 
 
 LIFE INSURANCE NEEDED FOR MR. CROWLEY. 
 
 He Believes that Intelligent Chimpanzee to be His Runaway 
 " Hired Man," and Insists on Taking Him Home. 
 
 The Keepers Attempt to Lasso the Wild Man, who 
 AGAIN Mysteriously Disappears. 
 
 FURTHER PARTICULARS IN OUR EXTRA EDITION 
 
JOSri HAVSEED in new YORK. 29 
 
 " Is that about the Town Farm ? " says I to Sprouts, kinder sus- 
 picionin' suthin . 
 
 " Yes," says he. " Did you see anything of the Wild Man while 
 you was up there ? " 
 
 " No," says I, innercent as a lam ; "but if I had, you kin bet I'd 
 a stopped all that nonsense quicker 'n a wink." 
 
 Sprouts's colic got better after a while, but he wouldn't take me 
 anywhere else for twenty-four hours. 
 
30 
 
 JOSH havseed in new York. 
 
 THE MARKETS HAVE A DIFFERENT NOTION OF FUN FROM 
 UNCLE josh's IDEE. 
 
 I USED to think the hay and pertater markit at Corncob 
 Corners hard to beat, but I know better now sense I've seen 
 the place where Gen. Washington had to dicker with his 
 neighbors. Yes, siree, that great man done a bigger thing when he 
 started his markit then he did when he got up his Fourth of July 
 celebrations. 
 
 His markit is suthin' that goes way beyond all my cal'lations. 
 It's the biggest thing out, and a hull world without end, amen. 
 What they ain't got somewhere round in that place ain't to be 
 found on this spear, and I'll bate on it. But I'm satisfied I'd never 
 be contented to haul my projuice there. 
 
 Fust off, there ain't no comforts, let alone profits. You can't set 
 down on your cart tongue and 'joy your cracker and cheese, with 
 raisons to top off with ; you can't find no one that'd swap horses or 
 jacknives with you. As for fun, I reckon I'd have to hunt more 'n 
 a week afore I could scare up a farmer that 'd be willin' to play a 
 game of pitch quakes for the spruce beer for two. There ain't no 
 room for that, anyhow, and no hoss shoes to be had except them 
 that weigh 'bout a ton. So I say, with all due respect for Gen. 
 Washington's mem'ry, that I don't care for his alfired big markit. 
 
 There's another reason, too, that I s'pose I've got to tell, though 
 it makes me squirm when I think on it. I thought I'd seen things 
 huddled up in York, but there ain't nothin' like that place I've come 
 across yet. There warn't a spot where you could have squeezed in 
 a sheared sheep among them thousands and thousands and thou- 
 sands of teams that moved slower 'n a funeral. If it warn't for my 
 nevvy Sprouts, I'd a ben killed more 'n a hundred times. As it was, 
 I couldn't keep up with him, and the fust thing I know'd he disap- 
 peared among the teams, and I stood there hopin' for a airthq-uake 
 or suthin' so I could git across. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 31 
 
 No quake come, but suthin' else did, and I live to bless the day 
 that sot me agin store clothes and made me stick to sech as would 
 hold. 
 
 It grabbed me right behind by the slack of my britches, and, 
 afore I could have said Jim Robinson, it jerked me clean into the 
 air and what I believed to be kingdom come. 
 
 I hollered like a stuck pig, but 'twarn't no use, for there I was 
 more 'n forty feet in the air, and about a thousand people yellin' at 
 me and tellin' me what to do. But what in thunder could I do, 
 with nothin' at all to ketch onto 'cept the air ? Put yourself in that 
 position, and see what you could do without wings. 
 
 I'd a given my yearling heffer and a hundred weight of hay to 
 boot if I could have found suthin' to ketch hold on, but all I could 
 do was to kick and holler. To make matters wuss, one of them 
 perlice constables shook a club at me and yells out : 
 
 "Come down off'n that or I'll pull you in ! " 
 
 "That's jest what I want," says I. "Pull me in, but do it easy, 
 becuz the britches might give way." 
 
 He must have pulled, for jest then I floated over, graceful as a 
 Shanghai rooster off 'n a barnyard fence, and landed square on top 
 of a big load of cabbage brung to markit. I got the teeth of that 
 bear trap out of the behind of my britches mighty quick, you kin 
 bet, and thanked the Lord matters hadn't turned out more serious. 
 
 The first thing Sprouts says to me was this : " Uncle Josh, how 'd 
 you come to let them playful fellers hitch that tackle and fall onto 
 you ? " 
 
 " How 'd I know there was any tackle and fall there ?" says I. 
 
 " Why," says he, " didn't you observe the arm of it swingin' round 
 while you was standin' there ?" 
 
 My feelin's ware too much hurt to reply, and I didn't speak to 
 him agin till we got away over on t'other side of the village in Mr. 
 Fulton's markit. 
 
 That v/as a darn sight nicer place then where we'd ben, and I got 
 my tongue back agin after a while. 
 
 "What air they smashin' all that ice for ? " says I. 
 
 " To preserve the fish," says Sprouts. 
 
 That's the fust time I ever hearn of makin' preserves out of fish, 
 but I kept in till we come to the mud turkles. 
 
32 
 
 JrOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 " What in blazes be them good for ? " says I. 
 
 " To make turkle soup," says the feller they had to head 'em off 
 when they warn't layin' on their backs. 
 
 That was one of the Yorker's queer jokes that I appreciated, and 
 I larfed till I nigh split. 
 
 " What's them ? " says I. 
 
 " Frog's kickers," says he. 
 
 " What for ? " says I. 
 
 HIS ADVENTURE IN FULTON MARKET. 
 
 " To eat," says he. 
 
 "That ain't so good," says I, "as the mud turkle joke, becuz 
 them kickers do look kinder tasty. But I've got you this time. 
 What are them vermin for ? " 
 
 " Them's crabs," says he. " Didn't you never hear of crabs on 
 toast ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," says I. " My cousin Jerusha read me a pome once 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 33 
 
 about it. But it's lucky you didn't say they et that vermin, becuz if 
 you had I'd a hove up right here." 
 
 I wanted to see what they 'd say 'bout horn pouts, but I see so 
 many unairthlyred and blue and green and yaller fishes, that I for- 
 got all about the pouts. 
 
 Shows cost a heap in York, and I come to the conclusion that 
 Mr. Fulton must be a pooty rich man to run a place like that and 
 not charge nuthin' to get in. But I didn't see more 'n harf of it 
 afore I felt sorter tired and sot down where the mud turkles air, and 
 I guess they'd want to hire me now to amuse the people if they 
 could find me. 
 
 But I wouldn't jine that show for less 'n a thousand dollars a 
 week. I'd ruther git caught in Gen. Washington's bear trap twice 
 over than to parse through what I did in Mr. Fulton's place. It's a 
 curus fact that one of them mud turkles went for the same place 
 the bear trap had caught hold of. But the mud turkle went a sight 
 deeper. He held on like he growed there, and the way I run and 
 yelled fire was a caution. I believe I'd be runnin' yet if one of the 
 show people hadn't hit the turkle with a hammer jest as Sprouts cut 
 his neck off. Of course I mean the turkle's neck. 
 
 To make a long story short, I wore a plaster all the rest of the 
 time I stayed in York, and I made up my mind the next time I went 
 to Mr. Fulton's show I'd bring a polecat with me and give a leetle 
 side show of fun accordin' to my idee. 
 
:j4 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 THE LITTLE JEDGE GIVES UNCLE JOSH A CHANCE TO SEE JESTICE 
 
 DISPENSED WITH. 
 
 IT'S never ben said of Uncle Josh that he ain't equil to most any 
 occasion, but I must admit that I near got cornered when I 
 tackled York jestice. I was dead sot on seein' the court house, 
 but I had a time to git the right idee into the cocoanut of my nevvy 
 Sprouts. 
 
 " If }'ou want to see the courts," says he, " we'll go down to Essex 
 Markit or Jefferson Markit, which is the finest speciment of the 
 Eyetalian style in town." 
 
 I felt sorter sour at this, becuz I thought I'd seen enough of 
 markits to last me a spell, and I told him so, too. 
 
 "Well, then," says he, "we'll take a look at the only example of 
 'Gyptian artichoketure in this village. What do you say to the 
 grand old Tombs ? " 
 
 "Thunderation ! " says I. "What do I care for artichoketure and 
 dead houses ? what I want is jestice, if there's any sech thing in 
 these parts." 
 
 ''Guess the Little Jedge '11 soot," says he. 
 
 "Guess he will," says I. And he did. 
 
 I thought it was a real theatre I was in at the beginnin', but the 
 minnit the Little Jedge poked his nose in, I knowed there warn't any 
 theatre folks could hold their breath like that audience did. He 
 strutted up for all the world like a bantam rooster, slingin' dignity 
 round permiscus, and plenty of it. 
 
 I had to larf though, when I got a good look at his bald head 
 peepin' over the counter when he sot down, for it struck me how 
 my cousin Jerusha 'd clapped a butter stamp on it quicker 'n a wink 
 if she 'd a got the chance. But that bald head warn't soft in any- 
 thing but looks, as I soon found out. 
 
 "Where's the accused ?" I says to Sprouts. 
 
 "Them air the prisoners," says he, pintin' to a crowd big enough 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 3S 
 
 for a barn raisin'. " Take your choice, you've got these Eyetalians, 
 doods, niggers, Jews, Rooshans, Chinymen, Dutchmen, arnykists, 
 Yankees, men, vvimmin, children, and dogs." 
 
 "For the Lord's sake," says I, "does it take all them people to 
 commit one murder in York?" 
 
 But it warn't murder, and I'm hanged if I could make out what 
 it was they all did. They come up afore the little Jedge like lams 
 on slaughterin' day, and almost afore they got there he hollers out, 
 "six months, ten days, 5 dollars, workhouse, foundlin' 'sylum," 
 and what not. 
 
 Fast as one got through a sheriff grabbed him, if it was a man, 
 or her, if it wasn't, and shot 'em through the wall somewhere, and 
 got ready for another. It was lightnin' and no mistake, and it 
 made me sweat to watch it. 
 
 Then what I took to be a woman come up with a baby, and this 
 is the way it went bout as I kin remember : 
 
 " Live or dead ?" 
 
 "Live." 
 
 "Male or female?" 
 
 "Don't know, Jedge." 
 
 "Where 'd you find it?" 
 
 "On the roof." 
 
 "Same old story. It's too young to climb so high. Take it 
 away, or I'll send you to the Island." 
 
 I couldn't figger out what in thunder he was drivin' at all the 
 time, and, after they 'd thrown out four or five more, I couldn't 
 stand it no longer, so I jerked away from Sprouts and went right 
 up to the little Jedge. 
 
 " You're discharged," says he. 
 
 "That ain't it," says I. "I'm a Jestice of the Peace, and I come 
 in to see how you do it in York. I never see so much what you call 
 jestice dispensed with in all my born days. 'Tain't right. You 
 don't git at the meat of the matter You don't give them folks any 
 show, and if that ain't the truth I'll sell out and go huntin' for hen's 
 teeth." 
 
 I wouldn't have believed that Little Jedge could smile so sweet 
 on a gal even, and the best of it was he told me to pitch right in 
 and defend the next prisoner, 
 
36 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 As luck would have it, one of them Chiny fellers was brought 
 up, and I couldn't for the life of me make out whether he was a he 
 or a she. The Little Jedge said the prisoner was charged with 
 havin' a opium j'int, and wanted to know what I had to say about 
 it. That was a poser ; and for about a minnit I guess you could 
 have beared a roUin' pin drop, the silence was so quiet. 
 
 But I warn't to be stumped that way, and jest as I see Sprouts 
 
 HE DEFENDS THE CHINAMAN BEFORE THE LITTLE JUDGE. 
 
 risin' up to come to the rescue, I let out. I surprised myself, and 
 I know darned well I did the Little Jedge too. When I got to the 
 end of the speech, I let my fist come down on his desk in a way 
 that made him look scared, and says : 
 
 "Then all I've got to say is, if that there Chiny feller has gota 
 opium j'int, and that's agin the law of this town, send out the wim- 
 min, and the men, too, if necessary, and let's take a look at the j'int 
 right here in court. If he's guilty, all you've got to do i§ to shpW 
 US the j'int." 
 
JOSM HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. J^ 
 
 That was puttin' the boot on the other leg, and I almost felt sorry 
 that the Little Jedge couldn't say anything for himself. So I told 
 him I didn't think he was bad to heart ; and that the fust time he 
 come up my way I'd give him as good a chance to speak his mind 
 as he had me. 
 
 I'd made a big hit, and I knowed the best way to make it tell was 
 to leave the court house with dignity, so I says, " That'll do for one 
 day, I guess ; " and with that I marched out grand as a turkey cock. 
 
 " Do you think they'll remember me ? " I says to Sprouts after we 
 got out. 
 
 " If they don't," says he, " 'tain't your fault." Which I take it is 
 rather a neat sort of a compliment. But I ain't the kind to boast 
 much about what I've done, 'specially when my nevvy puts in a 
 good word about it. 
 
38 
 
 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 HE HELPS THE CAUSE OF THE HEATHEN. 
 
 HOW me a man that 
 ain't fond of pooty 
 gals, and I'll show you 
 a jackass. Not that I want 
 to smooth over my short- 
 comin's, becuz what's done's 
 done, and so fur as I know 
 it's all paid for. I'll allow, 
 too, that I had a fust rate 
 time. Apple-bees and husk- 
 A HEATHEN GAME. in's ain't nowhere side of 
 
 York's free blowouts for the benefit of the heathen. 
 
 I used to be considered ruther cute in findin' red ears at a 
 huskin', but it would take more 'n four bushel of red ears to equil 
 my experience 'mong the gals of York at them heathen blowouts. 
 It cost me a heap to keep things goin', but I won't say a word about 
 that, sense I got more 'n ten times the money's worth of fun. 
 When we fust started out, me and Sprouts, he says : 
 " Let's take a look at the gilded dens of Gotham." 
 " No wild beasts for me," says I. 
 
 " Never fear," says he, " but you'll find 'em tame enough to 
 soot.'' 
 
 We went to a dozen places or more that sorter knocked me off 
 my pins. All I could do was to stand there like a darned fool and 
 look at the sights. It beat me to tell whether they ware churches, 
 or theaters, or dancin' schools, or all put together. I never see 
 wimmin dressed so fine in my life, with their dimonds and silks and 
 what not. But it warn't the music, nor the wimmin, nor the dancin' 
 that took my eye so much as it was the men folks. Some of 'em 
 with their high dickies and glass-covered boots and cats' mustaches 
 knocked all my ideas of men higher 'n a kite. The gals ware 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW VORK. 
 
 39 
 
 sociable enough, but Sprouts §ee I wasn't havin' more fun than I 
 could stand, so after a while Tie says : 
 
 " Come on, Uncle Josh, we'll go over on t'other side of the village, 
 and I guess you'll enjoy yourself a Jeetle better." 
 
 He meant well, and it ain't nothin' agin him if I let on as to how 
 he got lost, which was this way. He starts in ahead at the fust 
 place we come to, and I foUers meek as could be. But by the time 
 
 HAVSEED AMONG THE HEATHENS. 
 
 t'd got harf way suthin' riz up like a white squall, and afore I could 
 make but what it was an alfired pooty gal had jest picked my hat 
 off with her foot clean as a whistle. 1 wouldn't have ben more 
 astonished if I'd been butted by our old ram, but the minnit I see 
 her ketch the hat as it come down and run off gigglin'j I knowed 
 that was the York way of playin' chase the weasel. I was alluz 
 good at that, and I caught her afore she 'd gone harf a dozen rod. 
 
40 Josh hAyseeG in New VORii. 
 
 It was so excitin' that I forgot all about Sprouts, and we went 
 into five or six other blowouts afore I diskivered that he was lost. 
 By this time I'd got sorter used to York ways, but at fust I never 
 felt so shamed as when I see how some of them gals had outgrown 
 their clothes. 
 
 "Wal," I says to myself, "if they don't know enough to piece out 
 their dresses, it ain't your fault. Uncle Josh, even if you have got 
 eyes, and what's more you can't be blamed if you use 'em." 
 
 "I s'pose," says I to the gal I was with, "they give most of their 
 clothes to the heathen." 
 
 "Yes,"' says she, with a si ; "and I have to go 'round collectin' 
 What'll you give for the cause ? " 
 
 "I wouldn't mind five cents," says I, "if I could git this dollar 
 bill changed." 
 
 " I'll git it changed," says she, and out she went with it. 
 
 I concluded she must have found it mighty hard to git change, so 
 out I went too, but I couldn't find her, and back I started. Some 
 how or other I mistook the place and got into another blowout. 
 
 The gals knowed me to once, and round they come thicker 'n flies. 
 They got most everything I had that was wuth havin', and I ain't 
 sure they wouldn't have took what clothes I had on if it hadn't ben 
 that Sprouts come in 'bout that time and hauled me out. 
 
 " What have you ben doin'," says he. 
 
 "Contributin' to the heathen," says L. 
 
 "That's the funniest kind of heathen," says he, " I ever saw." 
 
 " If that won't do," says I, "I've ben contributin' to the shethen." 
 
 " That s more like it," says he. " What did you give to the cause ? " 
 
 "I ain't complainin'," says I. "That's the most sociable part of 
 York I've struck yet." 
 
 " I guess you'll do," says he. 
 
 " Probably so," says I, though I'm blessed if I could make out 
 what he meant, I'm so innercent 'bout some things. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 41 
 
 HOW UNCLE JOSH PAID HIS $30,000 TO THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
 
 IT'S curus how these Yorkers do mix up names. They call their 
 court houses markits and their big buildin's courts, though I'm 
 told there ain't no courts in 'em at all. And as to food they've 
 got names that they have to git a dressed up hired man to pernounce 
 for 'em. Once I see some things that made my mouth water, though 
 I knowed from the looks they ware tuffer'n horse collar. So I 
 stepped up to the big Dutch woman that had 'em, and sayls : 
 
 " What do you tax for your doughnuts ? " 
 
 " We ain't got some doughnuts to-day," says she. 
 
 I didn't want to tell her she lied, so I picked one of 'em up, and 
 says, gentile as could be : 
 
 "If them ain't doughnuts there must be a bean in my eyesight." 
 
 " If them's doughnuts," says she," " I'll undertake to eat one of 'em 
 myself, if it pulls out the last tooth I've got." 
 
 " P'raps they're rocks," says I, sorter riled, " but if they ain't, what 
 in thunder be they but doughnuts." 
 
 " Why," says she,screechin', " don't you know doughnuts when you 
 see 'em ? Them's crawlers." 
 
 I dropped that thing quicker 'n scat, and the idee took such a 
 sudden holt of me that it nigh made me sick to the stummick. I 
 don't expect to git any more comfort out of real doughnuts on 
 account of the recollection of them crawlers. 
 
 But the wust case of names I struck was what the Yorkers call 
 the stock markit, where I was told I could see bulls and bears fight- 
 in' like sin, and a terrible slaughterin' of lams. I could understand 
 'bout the lams, but it puzzled me to guess what people wanted to 
 buy up a hull lot of bulls and bears for, 'specially bears, which air 
 one of the most thievin' and useless animils that ever got into a 
 cornfield. 
 
 I was sot agin markits, but I couldn't believe there was anything 
 WVSS 'n Qen. Washington's or Mister Fulton's place^ and I live<i 
 
42 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 through that, so I got way up on top of the Stock markit, and I had 
 to sorter smile when I thought how I'd got the best of the Yorkers. 
 I looked down and see a sight that nobody would believe if they 
 didn't know that I stick to the truth rain or shine. I've hearn my 
 granddad lell about Injin war dances and how they hollered and 
 jumped round, but if thai place didn't beat all my idees of the 
 wickid hoppin' and yellin' on the gridirons of Tophet I give up. 
 
 EXCITEMENT AT THE STOCK EXCHANGE. 
 
 Talk about capturin' hornet's nests. I never see hornets so thick 
 nor so lively in my life, and the clutter was wuss 'n if a hundred hen 
 roosts ware bein' robbed. There must have ben shootin' goin' on 
 somewhere, though I couldn't hear it, for I see a big targit way down 
 to the end show up the numbers every time it was hit over their 
 heads. 
 
 I was beginnin' to feel a little disapp'inted at not seein' the 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORk. 4j 
 
 animils, when one of the fellers down below, that must have knowed 
 me from some place I'd ben, sorter quieted the others down, and 
 hollers out : 
 
 " Hullo, Uncle Josh." 
 
 At that everybody stopped stun still, and I felt bound to be per- 
 lite enough to answer, so I hollers back : 
 
 " Howdy do, howdy do. Where do you keep the animils ?" 
 
 It don't pay to be perlite all the time in York, and that must have 
 been one of the times, for it made them fellers cut up like fury. 
 There was fully five hundred of 'em all askin' questions to once 
 'bout the price of garden stuff and 'bout the health of people that 
 I never hearn of afore. Some of 'em got up on other feller's backs, 
 tryin' to get their questions answered, fust, but all I could do was 
 to keep bowin' and smilin' without sayin' a word, jest as I'd seen 
 the Guv'nor do near election time. 
 
 Finally I made up my mind that I'd. go down and tell 'em that I 
 wanted to see the live stock. That's where I had bout as well have • 
 chopped my own head off. How I got there I ain't prepared to say, 
 'cept that I had to run over some fellers that got in the way. And 
 as to what I see there I kin truthfully say that it didn't amount to 
 nothin', they kept me so plaguey busy tryin' to git suthin' to rest 
 my feet on 'cept air. Fust off they grabbed me by the slack 
 of my britches, and 'round that big hall I went, willy nilly, 
 faster 'n a race horse, with nothin' but my toenails techin'. I don't 
 believe any sperit ever traveled on the airth lighter 'n I did. 
 
 I beared afterwards that they had a game of leap frog with me, 
 but if they did I'm darn sartin I was the under frog all the time. I 
 beared too that it cost thirty thousand dollars to go on that floor, 
 and as I didn't have nothin like that much with me, I s'pose they 
 took it out that way. Leastwise, they got their money's wuth, and 
 in my opinion had some to spare. 
 
 'Tain't necessary for me to tell how I come to life, and all I've got 
 to say now is, that if you ever see any darn fool mousin' 'round a 
 live stock markit in York, don't you git the idee that it might be 
 Uncle Josh, becuz he'd ruther take his chances with a flock of ele- 
 phants any day than 'mong them two-legged bulls and bears. 
 
44 JOSH Hayseed in new yoriC. 
 
 IN SPITE OF UNPARALLELED PRECAUTIONS UNCLE JOSH GITS ROPED 
 IN ON THE BOWERY. 
 
 OW 'D you like to take a trip through the Bowery ? " says 
 Sprouts to me one day. 
 
 " Dunno," says I, " 'bout that, fact is I forgot to bring 
 my sho gun along." 
 
 He squinted at me a minit, and then says : 
 
 " Be you jokin', Uncle Josh ? " 
 
 " 'Bout what ? " says I. 
 
 " 'Bout your shotgun," says he. 
 ' " Not a bit of it," says I. " You don't expect me to travel through 
 that place unarmed, do you ? " 
 
 He kin laugh more like a fool sometimes then any one I ever see, 
 and after he got through this time, he says : 
 
 " Why not, Uncle Josh ? What's the matter with the Bowery ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothin', " says I, " nothin at all ; only if you don't think I 
 ever hearn all 'bout that place )'Ou're mightily mistaken, bein' as I 
 was warned agin it afore I come down. Howsomever if you believe 
 I'm afeared, I'll jest go through it all alone, and without a firearm 
 on my pusson." 
 
 I stuck to what I said, too, 'cept 'bout the firearms, becuz I was 
 teched up a leetle by the way he took on, but I'll admit that when 
 I stood there alone, all ready to bust right in to that 'tarnal nest 
 of swindlers and kidnappers and all sorts of desprit characters, I 
 felt a leetle shaky, to say the least. It was a pow'rful onpromisin 
 outlook to see that big place, wider 'n two or three county turnpikes, 
 and with a lot of them hoss kyars runnin' every which way, and 
 with more overhead steam kyars flyin' up and down then I'd seen 
 in the hull town afore. 
 
 'Twan't that, though, that made me feel kinder creepy, but 'twas 
 knowin the character of the place, and seein' fully a thousand swin- 
 dlers playin' their games right on the side of the road. Some of 'em 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 45 
 
 made believe sell things, with little tables hangin' round their necks 
 so they could run easy, and I had no doubt a good many of 'em car- 
 ried their loads a purpose to hide a knife or a pistol from the onsus- 
 pectin traveler's eyes. I beared the bands of music playin' all over 
 and see circus bills and play houses everywhere, but it didn't turn 
 my head, and I stepped to one side to git fairly ready to go right 
 
 AMONG THE BOWERY BOYS. 
 
 iu among 'em, sink or swim, for Uncle Josh ain't the man to be made 
 a fool of by any chipmunk like that nevvy of mine. 
 
 I hadn't let him know 'bout it, but truth was I'd bought a belt 
 and a half a dozen old pistols and knives that I got at a bargain, 
 and with them things properly put on so they could see I 
 was prepared for 'em, I felt pooty nigh equil to the occasion, and 
 out I starts. 
 
 Jest as I expected, the swiadlers begun tq git, 'rpuM UXQ like 
 
46 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 millers 'round a candle, and tried to rope me in with all sorts of 
 stuff till I see suthin' had got to be did. I kept in, though, til! one 
 of 'em made me buy five cents worth of shirt buttons without any 
 holes in 'em to sew 'em on with, and that got me so mad that with- 
 out arguin' the matter any further, I whipped out a couple of 
 pistols, and p'inted 'em square at the crowd. Of course I was only 
 scarin' 'em, but as it was the effect was wuss 'n if I'd sent a charge* 
 of scatter shot into a flock of blackbirds. 
 
 They couldn't get out of the track half quick enough, and the 
 way them buttons and galluses and chork images went flyin' was a 
 caution to swindlers. They gave me the hull road to myself, and I 
 took it without stoppin' to larn 'em any more lessons. I'll allow I 
 felt as though I owned three-fourths of the village when I started, 
 agin, and see the people clear out and give me the road. 
 
 But, as the Scriptur' says, '' pride goeth over a fall," and it wasn't 
 long afore I larned the truth of that sayin', but it warn 't from . 
 swindlers nor nothin' that I ever expected to see down there. I 
 ain't afeared of anything that's sizable, without it's sperits, but I 
 ain't a sick flee on a ton and a harf ox to the pesky little critters 
 that got after me soon as they see them pistols didn't go off. I never 
 see carrion so thick 'round a dead horse, and as to scarin' 'em or 
 ketchin' holt of 'em you might as well have tried to grab a weasel. 
 They got wuss and wuss and thicker and thicker every minit, 
 hoUerin' and throwin' things, and makin' grabs at the pistols, till 
 I got nigh crazed, and made up my mind that there warn't nothin' 
 to do but take to my heels. 
 
 I had a clear road, and would have got away if I liadn't forgot all 
 'bout the ones that rope you in. It was right in front of a place 
 all plastered over with circus bills, and I was runnin' for all I was 
 wuth with two or three constables hollerin' after me, when out 
 jumps a feller with a big broad hat and feathers on his legs, swing- 
 in' the rope over his head, and the fust thing I knowed he had me 
 right round the windpipe and hangup agin an awful fat woman 
 that come out to see what was goin' on. 
 
 To make a long story short, the constables got me away from 
 the feller they call Lasso Jim the Texas Terror, and told the iedge 
 they had caught me carryin' concealed wepons, but when I showed 
 him that the wepons warn't concealed at all, and told him how the 
 
V?»CW iOiV. QJJ THE B0W6?,Y, 
 
48 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 swindlers and little critters with boxes on their backs had got after 
 me, he said he'd take the wepons but I could go. 
 
 " But," says he, " don't come into the Bowery agin with a belt on, 
 and pistols and knives stickin' out, becuz it ain't safe ; you're likely 
 to get roped in any time for a museum curiosity." 
 
 He was right, though I didn't exactly see the p'int then, and you 
 kin bet your boots I'll never go down that way agin onless I'm 
 dressed up like a reg'lar dandy. I'm satisfied its 'bout as interest- 
 in' a place as there is in York if you ain't huntin' for sharpers all 
 the time, as I'm told most people do. But if you should go lookin' 
 for 'em, don't forgit that they come right up through the stuns 
 when it's necessary. 
 
Josh haVseed in new VoRk. 49 
 
 HE GOES TO A REAL THEATER AND HAS A VARIETY OF SENSATIONS. 
 
 MREAL theater show was one of the sights I wanted to see 
 most, and I told nevvy Sprouts to do the best he could for 
 me. 
 
 " Niblo's Garden will 'bout fill the bill," says he. 
 
 " No it won't," says I. " What I want is a panarammy with good 
 lookin' wimmin in it." 
 
 "All right," says he, "come on. I guess you'll be satisfied with 
 their great spectachlar show." 
 
 " Don't want to see no spectacled show acters," says I, " and you 
 know it. If you can't show me young and good lookin' female 
 acters, don't say you kin, and I won't be disapp'inted. 
 
 " Niblo's Garden will do," was all he said, and off we went, I 
 feelin' doubtful, but not sayin' much, as I knowed you can't tell 
 nothin' from names in York. 
 
 We walked through a big tavern that I was told used to belong to 
 Mr. Stewart, who was stole, and out through a lot of secret passages, 
 and then we ware in a hoss shoe sorter place, higher 'n a meetin' 
 house steeple, and no more like what I s'posed a real theater hall 
 was then a campmeetin' tent. 
 
 " If you won't larf," says I, " might I enquire where's the garden ? " 
 
 "Oh," says he, "there's only a little piece of it left. Didn't you 
 see it where the founting was playin' ? " 
 
 " Wal, ves," I says, " seems to me I did ketch a sight at some water 
 squirtin' out on some stones, if you call that a garden." 
 
 Truth was I was beginnin' to feel a leetle disapp'inted, and it got 
 wuss when the play acters begun their nonsense. I tried hard 
 to make out what they ware tryin' to git at, but it warn't no use, as 
 I couldn't make head nor tail of the hull thing, so I spoke right out 
 loud to Sprouts, and it surprised me to see how lonesome my voice 
 sounded. 
 
 " What's that noise ? " was what I said. 
 
^o JOSH Hayseed in new york. 
 
 He looked distressful, and says : 
 
 " Hush, don't talk so loud ; that's the sand storm in the desert 
 Pooty soon you'll see the devil's cave and the fairies' grotto and the 
 march of the Amazon, and a lot of other things." 
 
 I larfed becuz that v.'as the only funny thing I'd heared so fur. 
 
 Jest then suthin' all in white tried to fly away from a lot of other 
 sperits, and the hull place blazed up red and green and yaller. 
 
 I was scart way through, and the minnit I got my breath I let 
 out with: 
 
 " Fire, fire, fire ! " 
 
 Sprouts "clapped his hand over my mouth quicker 'n a wink and 
 held me down, though most of the other people ware gittin' ready 
 to run, and one woman toppled right over. 
 
 He said afterwards that that was a mighty narrer escape from one 
 of the greatest catastropes on record. He had to explain matters all 
 round, and they agreed to let me set it out provided I'd be quiet. 
 
 Then Sprouts hurt my feelin's not a little b)^ swearin' like a good 
 one so no one else could hear him but me. It's wonderful how he 
 could cuss without appearin' to say anything 'cept out of one corner 
 of his mouth. It subdood me so that, sence I couldn't make out 
 what was goin' on or ask questions 'bout it, I s'pose I did snore a 
 leetle bit. At any rate Sprouts fetched me a dig in the ribs that 
 brought me up double, and I bellered right out in meetin'. I 
 couldn't help it nuther. It happened that the band left off groanin' 
 and whinin' 'bout that time, and struck up some mighty lively dance 
 tunes, otherwise I'm afeared me and them fellers with the brass 
 buttons they call urshers would have had a time some one wouldn't 
 forgit. 
 
 After I got my wind back I see plain enough that all the tom- 
 fooling at the beginnin' was nothin' but a sort of gittin' ready for 
 the real thing, and I'll give Sprouts credit for not makin' no mistake 
 'bout that spectacle show, becuz if I live to be as old as Mathusalem 
 I don't expect to see nothin' so darned good as it was from that 
 p'int out. 
 
 What the wimmin wore didn't amount to more 'n a cloud so fur as 
 I could see, and the way they kicked them shapely legs of thern 
 was vvuth goin' a thousand mile to see. It was the blamdest 
 pootiest army I ever sot eyes on, and they ware got up in more 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. St 
 
 colors all over than a double rainbow in hayin' time. The band 
 played all the time sweeter 'n maple sugar, and the folks that had 
 come to see the show begun to wake up jest as I did, and forgot 
 all 'bout smilin' at me and Sprouts. 
 
 It got so mighty interestin' that I couldn't stand it where we ware 
 settin', becuz I couldn't see nothin' at all through Sprouts 's double 
 barreled show spectacles, 'cept once when I looked through the big 
 end, and then he grabbed 'em away from me quicker 'n a flash. So 
 when I spied a seat way down atnong the band players, I deter- 
 mined it would soot me better, and git it I did, though I had to 
 nock Sprouts's nuckles to m,ake him let go, and lean over and sorter 
 sneak down to it, so they wouldn't see me and make another fuss. 
 
 There I sot all through that blessed show, happy as a chickadee, 
 and ketchin' no end of winks right and left from the stage gals. 
 I wouldn't have missed that show for a pile of raisen cakes big as a 
 haystack. 
 
 At last we had to go, becuz they ware puttin' the lights out, and 
 when I got outside I realized for the fust time what my cousin 
 Jerusha means when she reads a pome and talks about the cold, 
 cold world, for I felt blooer'n a huckleberry, now it was ail over. 
 
 To make matters wuss. Sprouts sorter groaned, and says : 
 
 " Uncle Josh, I wouldn't go through that experience agin for 
 a farm." 
 
 "Jolup's what you need," says I. "Suthin's the matter with 
 your liver, I guess. For my part, I could set there till doomsday, 
 and I'm feelin' bloo becuz it's all over." 
 
 It struck me as mighty strange how contrary like things will take 
 holt of a human, when he ain't jist well. 
 
§3 JOSri HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH SEES A OPIUM j'iNT AND A NUMBER OF DISTINGUISHED 
 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 IT'S agin York law to have a opium j'int, but jest why was what 
 kept me thinkin' till I got a chance to see for myself what the 
 thing was. If it was any part of a human I hadn't hearn of 
 afore, I knowed my speech in the court house 'bout producin' the 
 j'int never would have fetched the Little Jedge the way it did, so I 
 determined to see it, and see it I did in all its gorjusness and pride, 
 and I've come to the conclusion that what them Chiny fellers don't 
 know 'bout heaven wouldn't last a Baptist preacher harf way over 
 Jerden, seemingly. 
 
 Chinyville is, beyond compare, the most remarkable part of 
 York village, so far as I kin find out. More rich men go down 
 ihere to have fun than anywhere else, and it didn't take me long to 
 find that out after I got used to the opium j'int. But fust of all I must 
 say it's a mighty hard thing to git there. You've got to sorter 
 meander like through more 'n five hundred of the funniest lookin' 
 cusses you ever see. If I could git a dozen of them fellers up to 
 Musquash I'd rid the hull county of crows and blackbirds in less 'n 
 two weeks. 
 
 Why, if I was to put one of 'em in a ten-acre corn field and git 
 him to laugh every fifteen minits it would be wuth a Thanksgiv- 
 in' dinner to hear them thievin' pests holler and see them git for the 
 State line. .1 mean to make a Chiny boy when I git hum if I kin 
 find a rootabegger turnup with a long enough root to serve for the 
 pig's tail, but I don't expect to reperduce anythin' like the Chiny grin. 
 
 As I was sayin', to git into a opium j'int it's necessary to be pooty 
 cute, and any one that can't talk reason into a cacklin' hen had 
 better keep away. But if you think you could walk throuo-h a 
 rattlesnakes' breedin' ground without bein' startled more 'n once 
 a minit, then you needn't be afeared to tackle the secret caves of 
 Chinyville. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW "ORK. 
 
 S3 
 
 AHyou've got to do is to say farewell to the world and hold onto 
 the coat-tails of somebody else and keep sayin' " Howdy do, John, 
 howdy do, John, howdy do, John," and bimeby you'll see an eye 
 lookin' through a mouse trap. Hold your breath now till you can't 
 see 4he eye any more, and when the wall begins to open you 
 squeeze in, and if you don't think Beelzebub's got you this time it's 
 becuz you don't know nothin' 'bout religion. 
 
 I expected much as could be to smell brimstone, but it was differ- 
 ent, and not so bad for them that like it. If you think you could 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF AN OPIUM JOINT. 
 
 git to hanker after the smell of a pole-cat, p'raps you'd like a 
 opium j'int from the start. 
 
 The fellers and gals in there didn't look so Chiny as the ones that 
 waited on 'em, and they laid off together on the shelves they'd ben 
 put on snug as a bug in a rug. They jest wallered in that 'tarnal 
 smell and some of 'em sied for more. 
 
 " Turn her right on strong, and give 'em enough for once," says 
 I to the Chiny feller. 
 
 Hp looked sorter scart at fust, and then he give one of them 
 Chiny grins, and went off into the kitchin to fetch some more 
 
54 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 heaven. So I stood there and watched a young one with a face like 
 a scoured milk pan prepare to pucker. 
 
 He had a nittin" needle that he dipped into a box of tar, and 
 when he'd got holt of the bean he was after he run it plum into the 
 light of a little candle he had in front of him. Then he took out 
 what looked to me like harf a broomstick with a hole through it, 
 and a ink bottle turned upside down stuck onto it nigh the other 
 end. Into this ink bottle he rammed the bean with the nittin' 
 needle, and when he sucked on the end the sizzlin' and sputterin' 
 and bloo smoke made my eyes stick out with surprisement. 
 
 " Try a pipe ? " says he. 
 
 "Don't care if I do," says I, "if you'll show me the pipe." 
 
 " This is the pipe," says he. " Now hold your breath and pull 
 with your stummick, and you'll see heaven after a while." 
 
 I tried hard enough, but nary a bit of smoke would come out. 
 Meanwhile there was the same sizzlin' goin' on all round. 
 
 "Jest give me one of them leetle paper seegars of yourn," says I, 
 "and I'll let the other folks have the heaven that warn't meant for 
 me. What's that feller talkin' 'bout?" 
 
 " Why," says he, " that's the owner of harf a dozen of railroads, 
 and he's thinkin' what kind of a house he could build out of porce- 
 lain and diamonds. That other feller's richer yet. He's just made 
 a million dollars, and now he's takin' a leetle sleep. Tomorrer he'd 
 take a door mat if he could git it off the chain. Then there's one 
 they want to git to run for President, and a lot of distinguished 
 ladies and gentlemen They own more 'n half the airth now, and are 
 schemin' how they can lassoo the moon. You jest larn how to 
 do it, and you'll think the Prince of Whales is to be pitted for not 
 enjoyin' life." 
 
 " Never mind," says I, " I ain't over ambitious. But if you could 
 git one of them beans into me so's I could sorter float out where 
 there's a leetle air that ain't wuth havin' I'd be much obleeged." 
 
 But he'd got onto the end of that broomstick agin, and I don't 
 believe I could have pulled him away with a derrick. His eyes 
 begun to roll 'round, and the sizzlin' went right on wherever there 
 was a candle. I'd have given a year's growth to get away, but 
 stood it till I thought I'd bust for want of air. Then I knowed 
 suthin' had got to be done, and I thought the best way was to let 
 
. JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. S5 
 
 right out and take my chances with the rest of the distinguished 
 people. 
 
 That privilege was denied to me, however, for jest as it got si I 
 couldn't stand it much longer, somebody hollered " perlice "• 
 through the mouse trap in the door, and all the millionaires and 
 their lady friends quit givin' away gold watches and marble palaces 
 and made a rush for the back yard. It surprised me to see how 
 careless them ladies ware about carryin' their clothes. 
 
 I skipped with the rest, though, and when I stopped climbin' 
 stairs to git my breath I found I was right on top of a fiat roof 
 house, and I guess I'd be there. yet if Sprouts, who had took me in 
 to see the distinguished people, hadn't popped up through another 
 hole in the roof, and seen me settin' there the very picture of de- 
 spair. 
 
 When we got hum he says to me, " Wal, Uncle Josh, what do you 
 think-of the opium j'ints." 
 
 "I aint ben thinkin' much as yet," says I, "but I've concluded 
 that from thisp'inton I'll take my hereafter when itcomes, and not 
 go lookin' for it in York agin." 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 MISS LIBERTY SEVERELY CRITICIZED. 
 
 r'M a leetle sot agin the Yorkers for one thing, and that is the way 
 they try to get all the big things in this land of the free right in 
 their front yards. 'T wouldn't surprise me to hear they've got 
 an eye on Niagary fall, and that they intend to git it down there 
 someway and tax the people to see the Lord's own masterwork. 
 
 Take that Statute of Liberty, now. Was she give to the Yorkers 
 any more 'n to me and the rest of the people in Musquash ? I say 
 no, and yet they made me pay 25 cents to git to that stingy little 
 island they gave her to roost on. Why, if I could have had my wayi 
 I'd a swum down there and back afore I'd a ben swindled like that. 
 But I ain't had my way often enough in York, and now I'm goin' to 
 speak out in meetin'. 
 
 It's a sharper's game. Even afore I'd teched there one feller tried 
 to sell me a ticket to go up through her to where the bonfire is 
 night-times, and I'd a bought it too if I hadn't beared some gals 
 gigglin'. Then I suspicioned it was a swindle, and sure enough 
 you kin walk up till your legs drop off and not pay a cent, for 
 which we ought to be thankful. I had a tech of the rumatiz harf a 
 dozen times afore I got up to her shoulders, and I had to set down 
 each time and rub my legs right smart. 
 
 It ain't hard to imagine my disgust, then, when I walked out on 
 what I thought must be her shoulders only to find that I was more 'n 
 fifty feet below the sole of her shoe even. That was enough to 
 satisfy me that she's the alfiredest big overgrown specimen of a 
 female woman that ever fooled confidin' man. 
 
 Now, as I understand it, she's there to let the world know how 
 much the American people think of their sweethearts, and to my 
 mind the Frenchman that got her up don't know nothin' at all 'bout 
 the wimmin of this country. 
 
 Who ever see a Americ'-.n gal with only a sheet rapped round her 
 to 5Ct Qfif l?«;r figger, the way Miss Liberty is ? Thet\ ?iaot;her thing, 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. ^7 
 
 she's the flat-footedest female I ever come across ; and if there's 
 anything that turns me agin a woman it's for her to be flat-footed. 
 As for the spikes she's got round her head, they don't belong there 
 no way you kin fix it. The American gal kirt take care of herself 
 anywhere, and she don't need copper-tipped horns to defend her 
 nuther, becuz you couldn't buss her agin her will any more 'n you 
 kin drive a hen. 
 
 My cousin Jerusha told me to be sure and let her know how Miss 
 Liberty done up her hair, but that ain't American either, and I 
 won't say what it's like, lest I should slop over in the attempt. 
 
 Takin' her for what she's wuth, I for one am in favor of lettin' 
 the Yorkers have her jest where she is. If necessary we could put 
 up a slick lookin' American gal somewheres else, say one like the 
 President's better harf, and show the world how our gals kin rig 
 themselves out when they've mind to. 
 
 I don't want to say anything disrespectful of Miss Liberty, but 
 to my mind she's an emergrant foreigner, and aught to be took off 
 from her perch and planted in the garden along by the Castle 
 where the other people from foreign parts live. 
 
 But if I was asked to tell the most outrageous thing about her, I 
 should say it was the gravestone she's got under her arm. What 
 in thunder the sense of that thing is beats me, and I guess I ain't 
 the only simpleton that comes back with the same idee after payin' 
 their respects to Miss Liberty. 
 
s8 JOSH HaYseed in new vokk. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH HAS A TRYING TIME IN SEEING THE BATTERY AND 
 CASTLE GARDEN. 
 
 /^ IVE me my choice atween a real theater and the Castle in 
 (®Y the Garden where foreigners live, and I'd take the latter 
 ^-^ from fust sight. The Garden itself is one of the nicest 
 places in the hull village of York. Some folks call it the Buttery, 
 but wrhat for I don't know. Howsomever, it's got the greenest 
 grass and the shapeliest trees of any twenty-acre lot in the county, 
 I guess. 
 
 One harf of it leans agin the Hudson River and lets in the air of 
 heaven without charge, but I'm told that's the only thing kin land 
 there free on account of Uncle Sam's mighty clus watch of what's 
 goin' on. You kin see a lot of his forts, though, without payin' for 
 it, and likewise his summer house, which they tell me he is usin' 
 for what they call a Barge office. 
 
 Most everything in York begins right there in the Garden, and 
 it done me good to find that them overhead steam kyars have to 
 stop there too. I heared that they intend to keep on one of these 
 days and go up through the Statute of Liberty, and that ain't an 
 impossible lie, jedgin' from what they've done already in the way 
 of reckin' man's peace of mind. 
 
 There's plenty of ferry boats and steam kyar boats and unairthly 
 lookin' sea monsterers round that region, but what struck me most 
 was the floatin' houses that have to hold onto the Garden for fear 
 they'll git away. 
 
 " Must have ben a freshet, somewhere," says I to a man I thought" 
 wouldn't git mad to be spoke to. 
 
 "Guess not," says he, "ain't hearn nothin' 'bout it in the papers." 
 
 " P'raps they ain't ben told of it yet, though news does travel 
 fast in these parts," says I. 
 
 "'Bout what?" says he. 
 
 "'Bout them houses that have floated down here," says I. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN -NEW YORK. 
 
 S9 
 
 "Good for you," says he, "that's the fust time I've come across 
 that joke on the town's bathin' houses." 
 
 "War," says I, "that's jest like you Yorkers. You can't even go 
 in swimmin' without gettin' in doors. You'll never be satisfied till 
 you've got a roof over the hull town and have to do your work by 
 candle light." 
 
 With that I walked over to where a band of music was playin' 
 and got into one of the biggest crowds I ever struck. I edged my 
 
 HE TAKES IN CASTLE GARDEN. 
 
 way along, but not without winkin' at a good many laughin' eyed 
 gals that seemed to be chock full of fun. 
 
 There didn't 'pear to be any skeeters or black flies round, but 
 the minges somehow begun to git at me the minnit I came along 
 by the band. 
 
 "My blood must be mighty rich to-day," thinks I, "from the way 
 they're after it." 
 
 A strong man like me could stand em for a while, but at last one 
 of 'em that I thought must have weighed a pound bit clean through 
 the thickest part of my britches and brought the blood out with 
 him. That was more 'n I could stand, and I had to let out, 
 
6o JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 "Jerusalem — thunderation — Gosh ! " I yelled in a way that made 
 the folks clear out and give me plenty of room. 
 
 I'd grabbed behind as I felt the bite gittin' in, and you kin 
 imagine my feelin's if you know anything 'bout York gals down 
 there at the Buttery. I wished then I'd never gone wiihin forty rod 
 of the place. The minge turned out to be a pine stick with as 
 p'inted a pin in the end of it as you could want to clear out bedbugs 
 with. It made me feel hoppin', and if I'd seen a man of my size in 
 that crowd I'd a licked him, but as I didn't I made tracks out of 
 that place quick enough, becuz you can't g-it satisfaction out of a 
 lot of titterin', gigglin' gals that would larf to see you break your 
 neck. 
 
 "Awful playful gals," says one of the brass-button gardeners 
 to me. 
 
 " Most tickled to death all the time," says I. "They're 'bout as 
 kittenish as a yearling mule shod with spikes." 
 
 I had a smile on the size of a schoolmaster's when he sets down 
 on a circus tack that kin stand on its head till somebody gits ready 
 to perform. 
 
 Then I started my boots for the Castle, and was a good deal 
 disapp'inted at what I see. It looks for all the world like an 
 almighty big cheese box with a butter stamp on top. 
 
 You've got to have a ticket for most everything in York, and I 
 didn't feel willin' fo pay to see the show. So I was satisfied with 
 the foreigners on the outside, who ware layin' round dressed up 
 like minstrel players and eatin' cake all the time. They may have 
 ben dooks and princes and dookeses and princeses for all I could 
 find out, but I don't think much of their style anyhow. I tried to 
 strike up a talk with some of 'em, but you might as well think of bein' 
 friendly with a lot of jumpin' Jacks, becuz all they could do was to 
 move their arms this way and that way and squat down agin the 
 Castle and do nothin . 
 
 It was gittin' discouragin', and I was thinkin' of goin' hum, when 
 up comes a feller that could talk. He could keep it up faster 'n a 
 steam injin, and wouldn't let me put a word in edgeways. 
 
 "Here, Tom," says he, "is a settler from the interior, that wants 
 a nice boardin' house." 
 
 " No, I don't," says I, " I've got a good enough one now," 
 
JOsrt MaVseed i^f new York. 6i 
 
 But, Lord, they wouldn't have heared me if I'd ben a thunder 
 clap, and afore I knowed what was up, they had me gallopin' with 
 one on each side, and kerflop I went into the middle of a wagon 
 load of tough smellin' foreigners, with babies and stuffed meal bags 
 all mixed up together. 
 
 Then I was mad clean in to the marrer ; and the way I popped 
 out of that cart and made them fellers skite round was wuth seein', I 
 should jedge. I'd a caught 'em if it hadn't ben for the gardener 
 that run after us when I got on the grass. It was bilin' in me to 
 tackle him for spite. I didn't, though, and I come to the con- 
 clusion afterwards that it was jest as well I cooled down, becuz if I 
 hadn't promised to git away from the Buttery altogether, I'm 
 convinced there 'd a ben one more boarder in the pound. 
 
 I went off, feelin' satisfied that I'd larned a good deal for nothin' 
 at all so fur as money is concerned, and I've put down my experi- 
 ence round the Castle in the Garden as one not to be forgot if I 
 should go there agin, which I ain't likely to do onless I should for- 
 git myself, and there ain't much danger of that happenin'. 
 
62 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 HE LEARNS SOMETHING ABOUT BUNKO TRICKS HE HAD NEVER 
 
 HEARD OF. 
 
 rT'S alluz ben cal'lated to hum that I'm pooty well up to snuff, 
 but I've got to give in to one lot of Yorkers, and that is the 
 bunko boys. It's no use to try to mince matters ; they're the 
 cutest chaps livin', and I've got a darned sight more respect for 'em 
 then the law has. 
 
 I'd ben warned agin 'em, and I fairly longed that they might see 
 fit to tackle me, so I could have some sport. They did come round 
 after a while, and this is the way of it. 
 
 Union common, or Union Square as the Yorkers call it, is a pleas- 
 ant place to go to any time. It's a four-acre grove with plenty of 
 seats to spark in nights, with statutes and flower gardens all round. 
 It was mostly took up when I went there with good hsokin' hired 
 gals and children, though there ware a number of citizens there too, 
 readin' papers and tryin' to snooze off a leetle. 
 
 Them that knows kin set down and look through the trees at 
 celebrated taverns, and theaters, and pictur' takers, and sewin' 
 machine makers, and music perducers, and book places that they say 
 air known all over the world. The play actors have got a markit 
 there, and you kin see some funny lookin people among 'em. I 
 could tell 'em myself now anywhere I see 'em. Most everybody, 
 rich and poor alike, seems to have to git round that way somehow, 
 and they tell me it's the only place in York that lays over the 
 Frenchmen's big town on the other side of the world. 
 
 However thet may be I only know I was tickled way through 
 when a chap come up and talked the way I'd ben told about. So 
 I played him for a while, and then I changed off to see how he'd 
 take it. 
 
 "Don't you think I'm a greenhorn," I says, "becuz if you do 
 you'll find me a plaguey hot pertater to handle. Now you jest trot 
 up the other feller that was to say to me bimeby, ' Howdy do, Uncle 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 6j 
 
 Josh ; how's all the folks in Musquash ? ' and I'll tell you chaps a 
 thing or two it might not hurt you to larn." 
 
 The other feller come up almost afore I'd got the words out of 
 my mouth, and I says to 'em both : 
 
 "Jest you look in my off eye, and see if you think I'd try to win. 
 a $10,000 prize in a Cuby lottery. Not much. You smart chaps 
 want everything for nothing, and you can't bamboozle me for one." 
 
 I expected much as could be they'd git mad, but instead of that 
 they larfed like fun, and said I was a throughbred. 
 
 " There ain't no pertater bugs on you. Uncle Josh," says one 
 of 'em. 
 
 "I guess not," says I, "at least not this season." 
 
 " Have a drink on us," says he. 
 
 " No, thankee," says I, " I ain't drinkin' with strangers in this 
 village." 
 
 "We've got money," says he, kinder hurt, and pullin' out a wad 
 as big as your fist, with a twenty-dollar bill a top. 
 
 " So have I," says I, " and what's more I'm goin' to keep it for a 
 spell." 
 
 "You're too smart for us," says he, " but I hope you won't tell 
 any one else how it's done, we ain't brought no harm to you." 
 
 "Oh, no,' says I, "if anyone's green enough to let you ketch 'em, 
 they desarve what they git, and it ain't my consarn." 
 
 When they see that I was nobody's fool they got confidin', and 
 told me how they worked the modus operandy from A to Z, and 
 said if I wasn't afeared I could come round some other day, and 
 see for myself. 
 
 " No time like the present," says I. 
 
 " But,'' says one of em, " it might take harf a day to ketch a 
 greenhorn. You'd better come round some other time." 
 
 " No," says I, "it's now or never with Uncle Josh." 
 
 " You'll have to be like one of us then for the time bein'," says 
 he, "and make believe you're buyin' harf the Island of Cuby." 
 
 "Let me alone for that," I says, and off he goes, while the other 
 one told" me how he come to leave his rich family and git down so 
 low. 
 
 It wasn't twenty minutes afore they'd caught the softest lookin' 
 victim you could think of, and after a plenty of cheap talk and soft 
 
64 JOSH HAYSEED IN NE\V YORK. 
 
 sodder, off we ware for the place where he was to git a soot of 
 clothes simply for tellin' the folks to hum where he lived that the 
 Governor's son had started a bussness in York, and had made the 
 ones he had on. 
 
 I tested my conscience, and found it was above both fear and 
 reproach, as I was only a spectater, and they'd have caught him any- 
 how. All I had to do was to make believe I was spendin' money 
 without actually puttin' out a cent. So right in the midst of it I 
 whipped out the leather wallet I carry away down next to my skin 
 for safe keepin', and says : 
 
 "I guess you kin give me forty dollars' wuth of tickets in the 
 Cuby lottery." 
 
 It wasn't intended that I-should buy any tickets, as that was to 
 be only a sham. But as soon as that wallet come out suthin' hap- 
 pened. It alluz seems to be my luck to git into scrapes jest when 
 they're goin' to holier "perlice." That's what happened this time, 
 and knowin' I was in a sharpers' place I took to my heels with the 
 rest of 'em, and we got away all right. 
 
 That's where the singular part of it comes in, for when I come to 
 my senses I found my wallet was gone, lost in the rush. I was alone 
 then, and I ain't ashamed to say that I sot down and wept the 
 best I knowed how. It wasn't the forty dollars I war moanin' 
 about, but the knowledge that I of all people had ben skun without 
 discoverin' what had happened to me till it was all over. 
 
 As I said at the start, I've got respect for the bunko chaps of 
 York. It cost me $40 for knowin' too much about a thing that I 
 didn't know anything about, and I ain't one of the kind not to give 
 the devil his due. 
 
 Go thou and don't do likewise onless you air a idiot and can't 
 tell when enough's better 'n a feast. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 6S 
 
 SOCIETY RECEIVES HIM WITH OPEN ARMS. 
 
 I I /HEY say the good things in this life come to those that air 
 (^ I ^ willin' to wait for 'cm to ketch up. One of 'em come right 
 along to me t'other day, in the shape of the most beyou- 
 tiful gal that ever stepped in shoe' leather. She was my nevvy 
 Sprouts' perticular friend, and had took quite a shine to me from 
 
 AT THE RECEPTION. 
 
 the fust when we ware interduced. It cut up Sprouts not a leetle 
 when he found she wanted me to go to a big party with her, while 
 he had to stay to hum, becuz he's pooty small apples with the high 
 and mighty 'mong perlite folks. He was mad, too, becuz I called 
 her Maria instead, of Mayree or som? other new fangled name he'd 
 got for her, 
 
66 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 When I agreed to go with her, she looked up through the bottom- 
 less pit of her soul-stirrin' eyes, and says : 
 
 " If you don't mind my callin' you Uncle Josh, you kin call me 
 Maria as much as you like." 
 
 It nigh took my breath away, but I managed to git out " agreed," 
 and then says : 
 
 " I'm afeared I might not be good enough to go to a party with 
 you, Maria." 
 
 "■Why, yes, you air. Uncle Josh," says she. "You'll be as big a 
 man as Buffalo Bill is in London, and the lion of the hour." 
 
 " Don't begin to flatter me too quick," says I, sorter modest like, 
 though it did make me feel good all over to hear her say that right 
 out. 
 
 I prepared for that party as I never did afore, and I thanked my 
 stars I had knowed enough to bring a reg'lar weddin' outfit down 
 in my valise in case of suthin' of the kind. 
 
 It's sartin I never looked so slick afore. I had on a figgered 
 westco't with collars to it as big as donkeys' ears. It was cut so low, 
 though, I had to be careful, or the false front Jerusha 'd plastered 
 up with starch would flop out when I least expected, and might 
 hit somebody I should be talkin' to. The dicky, too, was stiffer 'n 
 seasoned hickory. I had a good deal of trouble in gettin' into my 
 haircloth dancin' pumps, as I hadn't put them on for many a day. 
 But I knowed you can't go to a fust-class, bang-up party of perlite 
 folks without sufferin' some, and when I come to see my whole rig- 
 out in a lookin' glass, I was satisfied Maria 'd be proud as a pea- 
 cock to have me for a bow. And so she was. 
 
 It made me color up a leetle when I fust see her fixed up, for I 
 thought I'd come 'round afore she 'd had time to git on the upper 
 part of her dress, and I kept lookin' sheep's eyes to begin with. 
 I diskivered, though, that t'other end was long enough to bring the 
 whole git-up within the law, and when we got to the party I con- 
 cluded that if Maria had forgot anything, some of the other wimmin 
 folks had disremembered a darned sight more, and I'll admit I 
 warn't put out at their forgitfulness. 
 
 If I do say it, I was the best lookin' man at the party, and if 
 I'd wanted to I could a had my pick of the gals to say " kin I see 
 you hum" to, They come 'rourjd like bees, and the way we talked 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW-YORK. 
 
 67 
 
 and carried on was enough to make a feller forgit his grand- 
 mother. 
 
 It sorter took 'em right off, soon as one was interduced, to see how 
 much more perlite I was than the other men folks. They got the 
 best bow I'd larned from the dancin' master to hum, which I'd put the 
 finish'.n' tech on by cuttin' a pidgin's wing every time to perfection. 
 
 TELLING SPROUTS ABOUT THE MURRAY HILL RECEPTION. 
 
 As to what we talked about I couldn't say now to save me, but I 
 know that when I got warmed up I says to 'em : 
 
 " Let's have a game of Copenhagen.' 
 
 " Why, Uncle Josh," says one of 'em, '' we haven t any rope ? " 
 
 " I'll 'tend to that," says I. " You wait here, and I'll slip upstairs 
 and git a bed cord in no time.' 
 
 J wish I could reperduce the way they larfed, becuz it would do 
 
jg JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 your heart good to see it, though you might not undeistand wnere 
 the jolie come in any more 'n I did. 
 
 " You're a genius, Uncle Josh," says she to me, through her tears, 
 'and could give some of the other men 'round here p'ints on 
 knowin' how to be entertainin'." 
 
 " Shall I git it ? " says I. " All you've got to do is to say so.'' 
 
 " Never mind," says she, " we'll compromise on Copenhagen 
 with a Virginny reel, which is the best we kin do on this occa- 
 sion." 
 
 That was a dance I don't guess they'll forgit. The way I sweat 
 was awful, but I'm light on my feet, 'specially in dancin' pumps 
 and I never lost a step while I was gittin' my coat off. I didn't 
 believe perlite folks could be so frisky and take holt of a dance 
 with sech sperit. An unfortunit thing occurred, though, jest as 
 I was doin' one of my best balance to corners. You see the 
 false front had got joggled a good deal, and all of a sudden out 
 she flopped and stuck up pooty nigh level with my chin. 
 
 That ended the dance, of course, bein' that I couldn't see how I 
 was steppin'. While I was out in the preservatory coolin' off I heard 
 some people say that one of the gals had bust her corset larfin' at 
 the way the plaguey thing bobbed out. I s'pose it must have ben a 
 leetle curus, to say the least. 
 
 As to virhat happened after that I disremember mostly, 'cept that 
 when we come to the feed they gave me a square piece of 
 what I took to be cake. I picked it up, and I'd a given a dollar if 
 I could a dropped it without suspicion. As it was I detarmined to 
 hold onto it, but you might as well have tried to hold a greased 
 eel. It begun to slide, and I begun to squeeze ; but the more I'd 
 squeeze the wuss it slid, and before Maria could git her plate under 
 it, down it went plum into the place where my westco't seemed to 
 be yawnin' for it. 
 
 My hand was 'bout froze with holdin' the thing, but I got the 
 westco't open and let it slip down to the floor, kerslop. Some of 
 it soaked through and run down my leg, but that was the least un- 
 comfortable part of my experience with the patent kind of ice 
 cream they have in York. Takin it all m all, though, I had a fust 
 rate time with Maria from beginin to end, and I'd like to have an 
 invite to one of them perlite parties every night 'cept Sundays, 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 69 
 
 Sprouts was lookin' anxious when I come in, as though he thought 
 suthin' onusual must have happened. 
 
 "VVal," says he, doubtful enough, " how 'd Mayree enjoy the 
 evenin' ? " 
 
 " Said I was one of the most entertainin' men she ever see, and 
 told me I could call her Maria much as I wanted to," says I. 
 "Mighty fine cral that, and jest the kind I like. She fit like a good 
 one when we got to the gate, but I'm used to wimmin's ways and 
 done the thing up brown. I ain't like you meechy York chaps, and 
 didn't ask her for a kiss, but up and bussed her twice on her pooty 
 cheeks." 
 
 " Oh, Lord, Uncle Josh," says he, like he was havin' a tooth 
 pulled, " what in heaven's name will you do next ? " 
 
 " Buss her agin," says I, "if I kin git the chance. She liked it 
 well as I did, or she wouldn't have squirmed." 
 
 " Let's go to bed," says he, " I s'pose I'll have to suffer for this 
 night's doin's." 
 
 I could see he was jealous clean through, so I let him off without 
 injurin' his feelin's any more, becuz he's sorter narrer minded 'bout 
 some things, specially when there's a gal in the case. 
 
•fi JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 HOW TO WIN ON THE RACES AT BRIGHTON BEACH. 
 
 T"^7IME was when hoss racin' was considered rather shady buss- 
 (^ I ^ ness. And nothin' ever hurt Deacon Lige Stubbs's character 
 
 -*■ wuss in Musquash then the time he beat me and Squar' 
 Buxton and old Jake Smithers on the road to the meetin' house. 
 Old Jake turned round and cut for hum soon as he caught sight of 
 the steeple through the dust, and the Squar' druv his big piebald 
 geldin' into the elder bushes to scrape the soap suds off. Then he 
 come out meek as Moses, and put a flea into the parson's ear that 
 brought out a powerful warnin' agin the wickedness of alluz tryin' 
 to be fust, that everybody could see was aimed straight at the 
 Deacon. 
 
 Wonder what he'd say to see the way Yorkers take to hoss racin'. 
 Why, they've got nigh a dozen fair grounds, where they don't do 
 nothin' but race bosses. 
 
 When I told Sprouts that I wanted to see at least one bang-up 
 hoss race, he said he guessed we'd better go down to the Brighton 
 fair grounds, becuz that was the liveliest place in this country. 
 
 "Agreed," says I, "pervided you won't let 'em know I'm there, 
 lest they should want me for one of the jedges." 
 
 " Trust me for that," says he. 
 
 But I had a deal harder time to git out of it then I s'posed I 
 should, becuz they kept sendin' round fellers to git me to be a jedge. 
 They ware plaguey persistin' too, and every one of 'em declared that 
 I could make more 'n a thousand dollars if I'd be a jedge, and do 
 what they said. 
 
 "You can't bribe me," says I, "for if I was to be a jedge I'd see 
 there warn't no cheatin' goin' on." 
 
 They ware determined, though, and three or four of 'em seemed 
 bound to lug me right up to the stand, and I dunno but they'd a 
 done it if it hadn't ben for Sprouts, who seemed to sorter spile their 
 confidence in my abilities to be a jedge. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IM NEW YORK. 
 
 7' 
 
 But while I was gittin' myself together agin, collectin' the distant 
 parts of my body as it ware, up comes another smooth talker with 
 a letter from the Society. I had to take that, of course, for the sake 
 of perliteness. if nothin' more, and I'm hanged if he didn't make me 
 pay an outrageous price for bringin' it to me, too. 
 
 "What's this rigamarole about ? " I says to Sprouts. 
 
 '"Why," says he, "them air tips. They're supposed to tell you 
 jest how the hosscs air comin' in." 
 
 It all struck me then quick as a flash, and I grabbed Sprouts, 
 
 UNCLE JOSH AT THE RACES. 
 
 much to his surprisement, and run him off to a quiet place, and 
 says : 
 
 " I've got an idee. Now you set here till I come back, so you 
 won't git lost." 
 
 Fact was I see sech an alfired big crowd of men and wimmin, and 
 there was sech a hoUerin' and runnin' round that I was afcared we 
 might git separated when it come time for the hosscs to trot. 
 
 "So long 's they've let the cat out ot the bag as to how the hosses 
 are comin' in," thinks I, " the hull thing must be a swindle, and it's 
 my belief, Uncle Josh, you ought to take advantage of what you've 
 found out from their wantin' you to be a jedge." 
 
73 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 Off I meandered, lookin' for somebody that I thought would likely 
 be willin' to bet t'other way from me. I knowed there must be 
 plenty of 'em, becuz Yorkers wouldn't go much of anywhere onless 
 they could bet on suthin'. So I kept my eye peeled, and watched 
 the crazy actin' fellers swarm round and plank their money down 
 on the little peanut stands, of which there ware plenty. 
 
 I was cute enough not to let anyone see me lookin' at my precious 
 letter, and when I found the name I was after, I walked up to a stand 
 and shelled out ten dollars as though it warn't nothin' at all. 
 
 It made me chuckle when I got back to Sprouts and told him how 
 I'd got the best of the Yorkers, as I was sure to win when settlin' 
 time come. 
 
 " Fool and his ten dollars soon parted," says he. 
 
 "Jest you wait," says I, " till them boys on hossback git through 
 drivin' the cows off the track, and you'll see. 
 
 " Drivin' the cows off the track,'' says he, almost disgusted like, 
 "why, that's the great race for three-year olds." 
 
 " Mebbe you call that a race," says I, "but I ain't seen no trottin' 
 yet.'' 
 
 " Trottin'," says he, really mad now, " you don't s'pose Yorkers 
 care about trottin' boss racin', when they kin git this, do you ? " 
 
 " I'd ought to know as much, I'll allow," says I. " I'd ought to 
 have knowed I couldn't expect to see a real hoss race where every- 
 thing's upside down as it is in York. As for them gallopin' hosses, 
 and all that jumpin' over stun walls and hedge fences and 20-foot 
 brooks, it's all very well for a circus, but it don't fit my idee of a 
 hoss race. P'raps I might have liked it better if you'd told me they 
 ware racin', instead of gettin' ready for the trot. As it is I s'pose I 
 can't git my ten dollars back, kin I .' " 
 
 "Wait a leetle," says he, " and I'll see." 
 
 I was feelin' glum enough and no mistake, when all of a sudden 
 Sprouts clutched my arm as though he was havin' a fit, and made a 
 rush for the peanut stand, draggin' me with him and sayin' " ten to 
 one, ten to one " all the time. 
 
 I thought it was ten to one he was crazy, and when he made me 
 put my hand up, and I brung it back myself with ten ten-dollar bills 
 in it, I wouldn't have ben more petrified if a mountain had fell on 
 me. There I stood with my mouth and eyes wide open as a barn 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 73 
 
 door, tryin' to git it through me how it was that you kin bet a dollar 
 on a real hoss race and mebbe git two for it, whereas on gallopin' 
 hosses the Yorkers give you a hundred for ten. 
 
 "By hokey," says I, " that's too much for your Uncle Josh to git 
 through his noddle." 
 
 " Hayseed for luck," muttered as sprupe a lookin' chap as you 
 could wish to see, but with a face that was long enough to eat oats 
 out of a churn 
 
 Sence he knowed my name I was on the p'int of tellin' him how 
 they had sent me a letter to be a jedge, but Sprouts pulled me off 
 for hum. 
 
 I never knowed him to be so proud of his Uncle Josh afore, and 
 he stopped more 'n twenty people and told 'em how I'd got the best 
 of the hoss race without havin' to be a jedge. What they all larfed 
 about I couldn't make out, 'cept that Sprouts said the less anyone 
 knows 'bout York race hosses the more likely he is to win on 'em, 
 which may be a joke of some kind. If it is everybody is welcome 
 to it, becuz it's too much for me. 
 
74 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH VISITS RIVERSIDE PARK AND THE TOMB OF GENERAL GRANT- 
 
 TT FTER puttin' it off and puttin' it off, my bounden dooty to pay 
 1=^ reverence to General Grant's final restin' place become so 
 *-^^ hefty on me that it couldn't be sherked much longer. Fact is, 
 I never was even a fair to middlin' mourner, and I dreaded the job, 
 though I knowed full well I'd ought to be glad of the chance to 
 bow before all that was left of that great man's mortal remains. 
 
 It was Jerusha's doin's that I went there after all, for she had 
 laid the law down this wise : 
 
 "If you should come hum," says she, "without droppin' a few 
 salt tears on that great hero's grave, I'd quit all weepin' for a 
 month, and go right down to York m^yself to pay reverence to his 
 ashes." 
 
 Then she gave me a beyoutiful epitap she had writ for the 
 occasion to put where it could be seen of men. 
 
 When I got ready to start out I reckon there never was a more 
 doleful lookin' mourner. Jerusha never does things by harves, and 
 my valise had a plentiful supply of cheese cloth she'd colored black 
 purposely for this occasion. 
 
 General's Grant's tomb is a good piece up in the village, but I 
 wouldn't disgrace myself by goin' to it on the overhead steam kyars, 
 becuz you can't hold onto your respect for anything soon as you 
 git on them fretful destroyers of man's peace of mind. 
 
 So I footed it to where the big river hove into sight, and for the 
 ne.xt two mile or more it was much as I could do to keep mournful, 
 on account of the wonderful sights to be seen. Seemed to me it was 
 a clus race atween man and Natur' as to which should git the upper- 
 hand, with man likely to have a leetle the best of it in the end. 
 But it could be seen that Natur' had a holt round there that man 
 never could shake off. 
 
 Once, while I was thinkin' up all the solum reflections I could 
 muster, I caught sight of suthin', someway beyond the turnpike 
 
Josh hayseed in new vork. 
 
 IS 
 
 where all the rich folks drive up, that made me stop still as a moni- 
 ment. 
 
 Then there came a fearful fight atween conscience and nat'ral 
 curusness, and I'm sorrowful to say that conscience got bested, and 
 I was led off from the path of dooty to investigate what I couldn't 
 keep my eyes off of. It looked from where I stood like a real rock 
 
 UNCLE JOSH AND THE REINDEER. 
 
 castle, with iive dooks and queens and raindears, such as I'd seen in 
 books that I thought ware lies, amovin' round on top of the preci- 
 pise. 
 
 When I got up to it I see that the rock precipise was there jest 
 as the book picturs had it. I was satisfied now that I had come 
 across suthin' that was wuth findin' out about, and so I leaned up 
 agin the precipise to think out some way of gittin' up to the 
 top. 
 
76 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 I guess one of the raindears must have smelled me out then, for 
 pooty soon I felt my hew straw hat rise off my head, and turnin' 
 round quick I see the rairidear makin' for the top of the precipise 
 with it in his mouth. 
 
 I didn't stop any longer to consider how I should git to the 
 castle, but started right up the precipise after the raindear as fast 
 as I could climb. It was a mighty clus race up that steep rock, but 
 I couldn't afford to lose my new straw hat with the mournin' round 
 it anyhow, and I caught the critter by the hind leg jest as he 
 reached the top, and got the hat away from him. 
 
 When I see that the raindear turned out to be nothin' but a pesky 
 goat, I was madder 'n a March hare, and the way I walloped that 
 prophet-bearded cuss would have done old Jake Smithers's heart 
 good to see, for he hated a goat above all things. 
 
 I was so busy with the wallopin' that I forgot all 'bout the docks 
 and their consorts, but when I did look up I see three or four of as 
 tough lookin' queens as kin be found in a blacksmith's seven-up 
 deck bearin' right down upon me with fire in their eyes. I, let go 
 the raindear quicker 'n I caught hold of him, and down the preci- 
 pise I went with the queens after me pell mell. I slid about two- 
 thirds of the way down, and got enough stun bruises to start a 
 poultice factory on, but I guess it saved my life from them fiery 
 queens, though I had to run like a good one after I reached the 
 bottom. 
 
 After this it warn t no easy matter to git the proper sperit on for 
 my mournful task. It come back after a good deal of coaxin', how- 
 ever, and finally I marched up solum as a hoot owl to the awe- 
 inspirin' place. 
 
 That spot's wurthy of bein' the buryin' ground of that great and 
 illustrious man, for it's a sorter nat'ral Mount Zion, with a little 
 clump of trees left on top as if they'd ben placed there by 
 man. 
 
 But I was shocked to find that the Yorkers have to hire mourners 
 to stay round and do the weepin' for the hull village. Yet there 
 they ware, with a little house to live in, and dressed up a purpose 
 for the bussness they've made of it. It's true that's accordin' to 
 York ideas, through and through, but I'll admit I never would 
 have believed they'd hire people to sorrer for 'em if I hadn't seen 'em. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 77 
 
 It effected me so that all I could do was to put Jerusha's epitap 
 on the grave and depart. So I cut a pooty little bough of cedar 
 and tied the epitap onto it as I'd ben ordered. Then I went up to 
 the tomb and stuck the bough into the green earth as clus as possi- 
 ble to where the great man was said to rest, and took up my sor- 
 rerin' way hum ward. 
 
 Finally, after I'd gone off a way with uncovered head, I turned 
 for one partin' look. The sight nigh upsot me. Believe me, ye who 
 kin, them hired mourners had pulled up the cedar bough and were 
 readin Jerusha's beautiful epitap — not with reverence and submis- 
 sion, but with a larfin' and a slappin' of their knees as though 
 they ware tickled that they had found some one to help 'em 
 mourn. 
 
 That was most too much for me, and I went back a deal more 
 sadful than when I had started out to pay reverence to the great 
 man that's gone forever. 
 
yg JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH GOES TO HIGH BRIDGE, AND HEARS A MONIMENTAL LIE. 
 
 / / ffT wTSHAT I'm achin' to see now," says I to my nevvy Sprouts, 
 
 \ Ay "'^ ^ circus." 
 
 ^ J^ "Wal, then," says he, "you'd better go up High 
 Bridge this comin' Sunday." 
 
 "You don't mean," says I, "that they allow circuses to run on 
 the Lord's day, do you ?" 
 
 "You go up there," says he, "and you'll find out whether they 
 do or not." 
 
 As p'raps you know, my prejudise agin the overhead steam 
 kyars was stronger 'n sp'ilt fish, but it had to give in this time, 
 becuz he said I'd have to start out at daylight if I was to walk there. 
 
 It was lucky I took the kyars, otherwise I'd had to go hum with- 
 out havin' squenched my burnin' thirstiness to see the end of the 
 bridge they run through the village on, which I now found fetched 
 up adjiniti' the circus grounds. 
 
 There was plenty of music goin' on, and more sideshows then I 
 thought necessary to supply a hundred circuses. What surprised 
 me most, though, was the way the gals hung round for free tickets. 
 
 They didn't make any bones of it, but come up and made friendly 
 with me the easiest I ever experienced. It was so sorter onusual 
 that it took me quite a spell to git used to their sociable ways. 
 
 Besides I was afeared they might be the same as them playful 
 ones I'd run across down by the Buttery. They ware harmless 
 enough, though, fur as pins ware consarned, but it upsut mc some- 
 what, when one of 'cm kinder skipped up, and says, as though 
 she'd knowed me a year: 
 
 " Ah, there. Uncle Josh, how high kin j'ou jump." 
 
 " Course I'm here," says I, "and I ain't jumpin' much nuther." 
 
 I did jump, though, higher 'n I ever did afore, for she gave me a 
 poke in tlie ribs with her parisali that was so onexpected I wasn't 
 prepared (or it, 
 
JOSH HAYSEED iN NEW YORK. 
 
 79 
 
 "You're the highest stepper yet," says she, and with that off she 
 goes in a flutter and larfin' as though she'd split, with me gazin' 
 after her, and wonderin' whether there ware any more of that kind 
 of females round there. 
 
 As a fact there ware plenty of 'em, and it took me some time to 
 larn how to jine in the sperit of the thing. But when I found out 
 how to be sociable, and when to expect onsartin things, I looked 
 
 SIDE SHOWS. 
 
 round for the pootiest favored gal in the lot to take into the side 
 shows. 
 
 She was with a young feller, but as that didn't make any differ, 
 ence when they wanted to speak to me, I s'posed it was all right 
 if I spoke fust. 
 
 That I did, but it seems it wouldn't work both ways, at least not 
 in that instance. 
 
 1% made me larf right gut, though, to see the way that felkt 
 
8o JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 threw his head for'ard, with his hat nigh hangin' on his off ear, 
 and walked along to me, hitchin' up fust one shoulder and then 
 the other. He reminded me of a turkey cock spilin' for a fight, 
 and I come near believin' that was what he was after. 
 
 It wasn't, however, for he was bout as big as a pint of cider, and 
 after he'd cut up all the gimcracks he wanted to, he and the gal 
 walked off and left me standin' larfin' yet, and wonderin' what he'd 
 ben tryin' to do anyhow. 
 
 While I was figgerin' that matter out, two more gals come along 
 and I hitched on in the middle, and away we trotted to see the side- 
 shows together. 
 
 Sech a sightseein' time as we had ain't to be forgot. It was up 
 hill and down dale, over ledges and through groves and marshes, 
 with poppy shows and ginger beer places on all sides, and the river 
 runnin' along with a hundred boats on it from the size of a peanut 
 shell to that of a leviathan of the deep. 
 
 I never had a better rompin' time afore, 'specially in helpin' them 
 gals to climb over the rocks that Natur' had left there jest a purpose, 
 it would seem. The amount of candy and sarsparilly beer it was 
 necessary for us to consume on the way over was astonishin'. 
 Them gals could find suthin' for you to buy no matter how thick 
 the woods might be or how steep the ledges ware. 
 
 We'd gone on this way for about a mile, I should jedge, when, 
 afore I knowed it fairly, we come out plum atop of the High Bridge 
 itself, and an awe-inspirin' sight it was that met my gaze from 
 •that p'int. 
 
 I'd relished every foot of the way with them talkative gals, and 
 when we got among the people on the bridge, I made bold to do 
 the way I see others doin' on the way over, and across we marched 
 with my arms plenty long enough to hold 'em both from fallin' off. 
 It pleased the gals mightily to be hugged up like that by a good- 
 lookin' feller, and they giggled and joked all the way over. 
 
 You'll alluz find jealousy in this world when you see people 
 enjoyin' theirselves, and I noticed that a good many on the bridge 
 'peared to be put out becuz they couldn't have the fun we 
 ware. 
 
 Finally, we reached the circus grounds, and I'll admit it wasn't 
 exactly what; |'4 ^jeu lea ^Q expegt, There w^si^'t a t^nt; ^o b? 
 
JOSH haVseeO in NEW-VORK. 8i 
 
 seen, but there ware more 'n fifty new side shows, and I was fully 
 satisfied so long as the gals ware. 
 
 It happened, however, that, when I'd spent pooty much all the 
 money I had round at the time, the gals got lost, and I couldn't 
 find 'em high nor low. 
 
 There ware plenty of other ones, but I'm true and wouldn't take 
 up with 'em. While I was lookin' round I fetched up of a sudden 
 at the foot of the biggest moniment my eyes ever lit on. 
 
 " Whose gravestun is that ? " says I to one of the men folks I see 
 \ookin' at it. 
 
 " That's Croton Waters's tower," says he. 
 
 " Has he ben dead a long time ? " says I. 
 
 " Be 3'ou deef ? " says he. 
 
 " What's that got to do with it ? ' says I. 
 
 " Why, can't you understand ? " says he. " That's the tower that 
 wtMds the water round this village after it gits across the bridge." 
 
 "P'raps you think that's comical," says I, "but for my part, I 
 don't believe in jokin' 'bout the dead. Furthermore, if you think 
 you could fool me into believin' that they bring water clean across 
 this bridge, and squirt it from here down to where I'm stoppin', 
 you've got holt of some one you can't scuff that into." 
 
 " They dun't bring it across," says he, " it comes over of its own 
 accord, and that's what the bridge was built for." 
 
 When this come out, it angered me so to think that anyone could 
 stand up and toll such a nonsense lie as that, I had two-thirds of a 
 mind to lick hin; for bein' sassy. Then I knowed he must a ben 
 drinkin', and would probably be sorry for it when he got sober, 
 and so passed it off a.<=, though I believed it all. 
 
 On the way back it pleased me not a little to think how well 
 I'd acted it out about ih.". moniment, by appearin' to swallow what 
 he said as khoL^^JI^ it was Gospel truth. 
 
82 Josh haYseed in new vorK. 
 
 FIFTH AVENUE MANSIONS AND THE QUEER IDEES OF STAGE DRIVERS. 
 
 HNY one that comes to York expectin' to be amazed by them 
 millionaire palaces you hear so much of is likely to go hum 
 disapp'inted. They ware all p'inted out to me on the Fifth 
 Avenue turnpike, and while I'll allow that piles and piles of money 
 have ben wasted in disfigerin' the fust-class stun they're made of, 
 there ain't one of 'em that's harf decently painted. If I owned the 
 best of the lot, I'd clap on a false front of two-inch spruce all over, 
 and put the rest of my money jn paint. 
 
 Take that pair of fair to middlin' palaces up by the big cathedral 
 meetin' house, for instance. Let them be fixed up as I've p'inted 
 out, and, without bein' sparin' of the main thing, put on three coats 
 of early cherry red with plenty of gloss in it, with a good grade of 
 sky bloo for the blinds, and you'd hear of the people flockin' up 
 there to see them palaces in sech crowds they'd have to put a gate 
 up at both ends of the turnpike. 
 
 You kin see that they're all mighty tight-skinned folks, bein' they 
 ain't got any grounds at all 'round their palaces. As a solum fact 
 I verily believe them people think more of a square rod of land than 
 } do of a ten-acre lot on a side hill. 
 
 One place I did take to a leetle better than the rest, sense they've 
 got sort of a front yard with inch high grass in it. That makesthe 
 palace set back somewhat and look sorter respectable. It's all 
 painted white, but I could see it hadn't ben teched up lately, and I 
 heared that sense Mr. Stewart was stole it's likely to go to rack and 
 ruin. 
 
 "If it does," thinks I, " it p'raps wouldn't be a bad bargin, Uncle 
 Josh, for you to step in and buy it after the wind and rain have had 
 enough of a whack at the shingles to cheapen it up." 
 
 I thought it best to look 'round the premises anyhow, and the 
 nighest way I see to git at the porch was to climb the fence. There 
 didn't seem to be any dogs 'round, so up I climbed. 
 
Josh hayseed in n£w yorK. &i 
 
 Seems tome now as though the hull thing must have ben figgered 
 out, for jest as I got harf over so I couldn't do nothin' one way or 
 t'other the hired man grabbed me. It was about as comfortable a 
 position as that of two cats on a clothes line, but that didn't appear 
 to make any difference with the hired man, and there he held me 
 till the sheriffs come up and the road got full of people. 
 
 S.ech a fuss they made as I wouldn't if I'd found Jeddy jOnes's 
 rascally boy up in the top branches of my grafted pear tree, and 
 when I told 'em I was only goin' to look 'round with an idee to 
 buyin' the place when it should be put up to auction, they ware for 
 takin' me to the 'sylum direct and instanter. You couldn't beat no 
 sense into them people, no how, and I nigh gave up, and was jest 
 goin' to send for Sprouts, when a sight gladdened my eyes sechas I 
 don't s'pose would occur agin once in a life time. 
 
 That bein' a turnpike road, you see, all the village stage coaches 
 go up through it, and when I was feelin' at the very wust who should 
 I see drivin' one of 'em but Bill Duckers, who used to carry the mail 
 out of Musquash. 
 
 He knowed me the minnit I hollered, and up he druv and testi- 
 fied to the truth of all I'd declared. The upshot was he got 'em to 
 let me git up on top of the stage coach, and away we went, colors 
 flyin", up the turnpike. And sech a talkin' over of old times as me 
 and Bill had that day was wuth all the misery I'd ben through afore 
 he'd showed up. 
 
 Bimeby we started back agin, and Bill says to me . 
 
 " For the Lord's sake, will you hold them ribbons till I step over 
 and wet my whistle, I ain't had a chance afore to-day." 
 
 " Sartin, Bill," says I, and knowin' his ways, I added : " I'll wait 
 a good hour for you, but not a minnit more." 
 
 " I guess an hour '11 do," says he, sorter harf larfin'. 
 
 Then I knowed I was in for it, becuz that was what he was given 
 his walkin' papers for off the Musquash stage. So I concluded I'd 
 better use up the time by drivin' 'round a bit. Bill's hosses alluz 
 git so used to a whip that they become to expect it, but the pair he 
 had this time seemed to relish it so that I was afeared they'd stop 
 altogether if I licked 'em anymore. I wanted 'em to speed a leetle, 
 though, so I tied the seegar he gave me onto the butt of the whip, 
 and tickled 'em up with the lighted end. 
 
84 
 
 JOSH haVsEed in new YORK. 
 
 They struck into a gallop and I kept encouragin' 'em till I 
 thought we ware fairly flyin', and it made me feel so good to once 
 more git holt of a pair of reins that I had to holler out and let 'em 
 go. I was beatin' everything on the road, and though the passen- 
 gers kicked up a rumpus inside the people all along the road 
 ketohed the sperit of the thing when they see me passin' everybody 
 and strivin' to git a leetle more out of Bill's old hosses. 
 
 York roads air awful rocky, but most everybody works out their 
 taxes I should jedge from the way they've smothed things down. 
 It's deceivin', though, to travel over a rocky road like that, bein' it 
 makes sech a thunderin' racket you think you're goin' like a streak 
 when you ain't. That's the way it was with me, and you kin imagin' 
 my surprisement when Bill come up over the top of the stage coach, 
 which I found out he'd ben runnin' after from the time I started out 
 
 UNCLE JOSH ON THE STAGE. 
 
 I never see a much madder man in my life than he was when he got 
 holt of them reins and sp'ilt the excitement I'd got up on the turn- 
 pike, where they never see a hoss go faster 'n a dog trot. He made 
 me git fight off and walk, when I s'posed he was in some tavern 
 and would stay there at least an hour and a harf. 
 
 So fur as I'm consarned I want to say now that there ain't any 
 hard feelin's betwixt me and Bill, but I will likewise say that sence 
 he's come to York, he's got to be jest like the rest, and has got queer 
 idees into his head as how to treat an old friend. I s'pose he's 
 drivin' on the turnpike yet, but' I wouldn't go there to see, ontil he 
 comes to make friends agin with me fust. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 8S 
 
 THE OBELISK DOES NOT OVERAWE UNCLE JOSH WITH ITS AGE, AND HE 
 EXPRESSES SOME OPINIONS. 
 
 EVERYBODY'S hearn of Cleoparty's needle, but I reckon 
 there ain't many 'cept the veriest simpletons that could be 
 brought to believe she ever used it much for patchwork. If 
 so, it would be wuth suthin' to git a look at her sewin' barskit, 
 which I should think would be ruther too sizeable to be used for a 
 circus tent even. 
 
 I've alluz knowed that she was the biggest queen that ever lived, 
 still it ain't within reason that she should handle that p'inted stun 
 that way. Mebby she might have used it for sewin' up the cracks 
 in the airth ; but, however near right that may be, the Yorkers have 
 got it now, and it ain't much to be feared that anybody will steal it 
 away from 'em nuther. 
 
 Jerusha had told me that Cleo probably used that needle to make 
 a case for Pompey's piller, and when I fust come up to it I should 
 say I must have eyed it fully a quarter of an hour afore I got my 
 senses fairly collected in tryin' to reckon up how big that piller 
 must be. 
 
 Then I wouldn't venture within ten rod of the place, it looked so 
 like it was bound to topple over. It's really wonderful how they've 
 balanced that thing on its head. 
 
 Once after I'd ventured up a leetle nigher the wind come up stiff, 
 and I couldn't keep from yellin' to the people round there : 
 
 "Look out for yourself, it's goin' to fall right among you." 
 
 I made a scoot for fear it might send things flyin', but the rest of 
 em never moved 'cept to see me skedaddle. It didn't come over, 
 however, though I'm satisfied there's a good chance for it goin' the 
 fust rip-snortin' line storm that strikes that region, becuz there 
 ain't no braces to hold it. 
 
 Bimeby I got over my caution, and walked up to where the 
 Others ware, ?q I qovild. d^qlare r4 had Cleoparty's nee4l? in my 
 
86 
 
 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 hand, which is to say that I'd laid my hand agin it. But they 
 wouldn't let me even tech it, and it made me feel put out to see how 
 stiff they ware about it. 
 
 "You needn't be so skeered of your old clay needle," says I, 
 "becuz I don't want to carry it off." 
 
 " You looked sorter sneaky the way you come up," says the feller, 
 "and we didn't know but p'raps you did have designs on it." 
 
 " Oh, no," says I, "I don't own any of them designs on it, if you 
 kin call them holes and scratches and disfiggerments designs. By 
 the by, how'd you come to let people hack it up so?" 
 
 
 ^'T'-'j 
 
 FELLOW PILGRIMS. 
 
 " That warn't done round here,'' says he, sorter sneerin'. " Them's 
 scriptions that ware made thousands and thousands of years ago.'' 
 
 "You tell that to the hoss marines," says I. "As if I'm green 
 enough to believe anyone kin read them hen tracks on that thing." 
 
 He quit talkin' then, and I surrendered my soul and body up to 
 reflections, and come to the conclusion that people knowed a 
 darned sight less in Cleo's time then they do now, otherwise they'd 
 never have made her a needle that warn't round. Why, if a woman 
 should be seen nowadays with a square-cut needle like that, they'd 
 never stop pokin' fun at it in the quiltin' parties and sewin" bees. 
 
 " But then," says I to a stranger, who wa^ sort of a pilgrim in 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IV NEW YORK. 87 
 
 York like myself, but dreadful green, "3-ou couldn't expect them to 
 kno'v as much as they do now." 
 
 " That's as true a word as ever was spoke," says he. 
 
 "You can't see the eye to that needle," I says, makin' out I 
 hadn't hearn his compliment, " becuz its hid from sight." 
 
 "True agin," says lie ; " but I noticed that myself." 
 
 "If that was holler," I continues, ''like the Statute of Liberty, I' J 
 take you right up to the top of it, and show you the sights." 
 
 "That reminds me," says he, "that's it's said they're goin' to give 
 this needle to Miss Liberty to sew with on rainy days and when 
 she's lonesome." 
 
 "Man alive," says I, "what an idee ! Why, Miss Liberty couldn't 
 begin to lift that stun, if she was twice as big as she is." 
 
 "Wal, I don't know," says he, "becuz I never see Miss Liberty, 
 but that's what I've ben told." 
 
 " You shouldn't believe everything you hear in York," says I, 
 "becuz if you do you're likely to git to be an awful onbeliever 
 after a while." 
 
 He said I was one of the most informed men he'd seen, and he'd 
 ben in York two days. So we jined right in together and picked 
 out p'ints in the big needle till he was satisfied that if he should 
 ever come across it agin, he'd know where he'd seen it afore, fust 
 thing. 
 
 "'Bout how big," says he, "do )'ou cal'late you'd want to be to 
 have that thing jabbed into you? " 
 
 "That's a question," says I, " that I ain't prepared to answer with- 
 out figgerin'. Howsomever, I'll venture to say that if they ware to 
 stick that thing on the end of the North Pole, and use it to spear 
 fish with, like we do chubs and suckers, they'd have to hunt a long 
 while afore they'd find a whale big enough to stand it without 
 mashin'." 
 
 "You don't mean to tell me," says he, " that they're likely to do 
 that with it, do you ? " 
 
 "You can't tell," says I, "what they're likely to do in these parts. 
 If not, however, what is it good for anyway .' " 
 
 "That's what I've ben tryin' to make out," says he. 
 
 " Wal," says I, " it's time to go hum. But fust let me tell you that 
 when you've bea rQUOd York as otuqI; as I have, you'U fink a good 
 
88 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 many things jest as hard to understand as it is to diskiver what 
 airthly use, let alone profit, the Yorkers kin see in Cleoparty's big 
 stun needle ; at least that's my opinion, though I don't pretend that 
 I've seen every curus thing there is in this alfired great village 
 yet." 
 
JOSH Hayseed In NEW YORK. ^ 
 
 UNCLE JOSH DINES AT DELMONICO'S. 
 
 ' PROUTS ain't ordinarily what I should consider a revengeful 
 feller, but somehow he'd got it into his head that I'd injered 
 him more 'n once sence I come to York. This was found out 
 after the hull thing took place, and he was satisfied he'd paid me up 
 for what he believed I'd done to him. If he didn't do the thing up 
 brown, I'lllose my guess. He played off friendly from the start of 
 it, and says, jestly enough, I thought : 
 
 " Uncle Josh, you ain't treated me once to any real good eatin', so 
 what do you say to givin' me a nice dinner to-night ? " 
 
 "That's so," says I, " but it's nigh supper time now, and though 
 I'm powerful hungry, I'm afeared you couldn't find anyone that 
 would get up a dinner for us at this time of day." 
 
 He larfed, and said he guessed we could find somebody to accom- 
 modate us. 
 
 " Where do you think would be best to go ? " says I. 
 
 " Guess we'd better go up to Mr. Delmonico's place," says he. 
 
 " Jest what I want to see," says I, " becuz I've hearn so much 
 'bout his bang-up boardin' house I've been intendin' to go there 
 ever sence I left Musquash. But I kin tell you that he won't give 
 us a dinner after sundown, without its a picked-up one, and for my 
 part, I despise picked-up dinners." 
 
 "That's 'bout all he does give," says Sprouts, sorter gigglin' like 
 a gal. 
 
 " Wal," says I, " if you can go a picked-up dinner, I guess I won't 
 complain, becuz I never was so dainty as you air.' 
 
 He said it wouldn't do for us to go up there onless we done the 
 way the others done, and dressed ourselves up in a swaller'-tailcoat. 
 I never had one of them things on, and I never see SprOuts have 
 one, SO when he said he'd git 'em for both, I thought the hull thing 
 was a joke, includin' the dinner at night time. It was anything 
 but that, though, so fur as I'm consarned. 
 
§d JOSH Hayseed in new vORii. 
 
 " We'll git them soots," says he, " the way plenty of people git 
 theirs ; that is, we'll hire 'em." 
 
 I've ben told you could hire most anything in York, but to hire 
 a man's clothes was suthin' I'd never dreamed of. But that's what 
 he done for both of us, and when we ware fixed up to his heart's 
 content, I expected he'd want me to walk up to Delmonieo's 
 boardin' house on all fours, the way Natur' intended all monkeys 
 should travel. 
 
 All the larfter was druv clean out of_ my cistern when I thought 
 of what a larfin stock we'd be, and if he hadn't prayed and exorted 
 me, I'd never have agreed to let anyone see me in that rig. I felt 
 wuss 'n as though I was goin' to be baptized in a river where you 
 could see floatin' cakes of ice, with the grit pooty nigh run out of 
 me. 
 
 It ain't easy to imagin' my surprise when we got there at findin' 
 plenty of people lookin' jest as bad as we did. I pitied some of 
 them poor fellers that had to stand it with their hair combed on 
 both sides like a woman, which to my mind was pilin' it on a leetle 
 too strong. 
 
 After a while one of the best lookin' fellers in the room come up, 
 and it took my breath away to see the way Sprouts ordered him 
 round. It made me hide my head to see how shameful that nevvy 
 of mine acted towards him, and the meachy way he seemed to take 
 it. He got mad, though, as I expected he would, and I was jest 
 goin' to give Sprouts a piece of my mind, when back that feller 
 came and gave us both some clams to shell that he'd got harf 
 done. 
 
 I thought I'd help him out, but Sprouts picked up the clams, one 
 by one, and without any attention to who might be lookin', swallered 
 them clams raw without techin' a spoon to em. His friend 
 come along then and took the hull thing away, and brought back 
 some consumed soup, as Sprouts called it, though it seemed to be 
 all there yet. 
 
 Of course I wouldn't tech that watery lookin' stuff, and when 
 Sprouts asked me what I'd have for alewives, I told him there 
 warn't a fish I could think of that I cared less for then Ididherrin'. 
 He kept right on smilin', and seemed to enjoy my disgust much as 
 he did the stuff he was eatin'. Pooty soon his friend came back 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 9i 
 
 with what I thought was ruther cheap stuff for a fust-class boardin' 
 house, becuz I nevt;r hearn of givin' sweetened water cept to farm 
 hands. It was the only thing I thought I could stummick so fur, 
 though, and when they came to put ice in it, I thought it did lo.jk 
 a lectle tasty and took a good sized pull at it, more to keep Sprouts 
 company then for anything else. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH AT DELMONICO S. 
 
 It's shameful to tell it, but it's hist'ry that that sweetened water 
 was bitter 'n gall and wuss to take than mandrake, and I had to let it 
 go somewhere. Sprouts's friend got in the way, and it wasn't my 
 fault. The capers he cut up when that red water hit him made 
 Sprouts larf in the most heartless manner you kin imagine, and the 
 rest of 'em seemed to take it that way too. 
 
 Then Sprouts told him to bring a lot of entrails and other stuff 
 that I wouldn't have teched any more 'n I would a pison snake. He 
 kept on smilin' and eatin' though, and his friend continued bringiii' 
 in the darndest lookin' stuff I ever see, even (or a picked-up dinner. 
 
53 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK, 
 
 After a while Sprouts's friend says : 
 
 "Will you have a small bottle or a large bottle ?" 
 
 " Oh," says I, " bring on the biggest you've got ; if I'm goin' to pay 
 for a boardin' house dinner I want the hull bussness, 'specially as I 
 hain't got a mouthful yet that I could go." 
 
 To wind up with he brought on about a thimbleful of coffee, with- 
 out a bit of milk, and I wasn't surprised to see that it took Sprouts 
 sometime to git away with it. 
 
 "Wal," says he, " how'd you enjoy the dinner?" 
 
 "Never better," says I, "but if you don't mind, now that }'ou've 
 ben insultin' enough to your friend, I'd like to go out somewhere 
 and git suthin' to eat." 
 
 That seemed to tickle him clean through, and he made me give 
 his friend a quarter for the dinner I didn't help eat, which was 
 about the toughest twenty-five cents I ever let go of. 
 
 He gave me a receipt for $1.75, and I was jest goin' to show him 
 his mistake when Sprouts said I could step up to the desk and 
 settle. 
 
 " But they don't expect me to pay the hull of that, do they," 
 says I. 
 
 " Sartin," says he, " you invited me to dinner, and I s'posed you 
 ware willin' to pay for it." 
 
 "Of course I'll pay this, too," says I, "but it's a terrible steep 
 price to ask for sech a confounded mean eatin' as that." 
 
 My feelin's ware hurt now, and I detarmined to pay that swind- 
 lin' price without a word. So I planked down my $1.75 with the 
 receipt I had, and was goin' to git out as quick as I could, when 
 Mr. Delmonico said I must have made some mistake. 
 
 " That's what I thought," says I, " becuz I paid a man over yender 
 for the dinner, which I don't mind sayin' was sech as I wouldn't put 
 before two farm hands, but for all that," I continues, pickin' up 
 the fi.75, "you needn't mind the change out of the quarter." 
 
 " I'm sorry you didn't like the dinner," says he, "but if you'll pay 
 the $17.50, we'll " 
 
 " For the Lord's sake," says I, " what're you talkin' 'bout ? " 
 
 " Why," says he, " ain't that what your bill calls for ? " 
 
 My feelin's when I took another look at the bill ain't to be de- 
 scribed. It took all the starch out of me, and I couldn't have fit a 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 93 
 
 flea, though I felt like knockin' down an army. I was afeared my 
 legs were goin' to give way, and I paid that $17.50, with the full in- 
 tention of comin' back later and showin' 'em that they couldn't 
 bamboozle Uncle Josh without sufferin' for it. 
 
 This was an experience in York I'd never reckoned on, and when 
 Sprouts said that that was the only time we'd ben round together 
 that I hadn't had all the fun, I concluded to let bygones be by- 
 gones, 'specially as he'd had to eat the picked-up dinner, and I got 
 off with only payih' for it. They say a burnt child dreads the fire, 
 but it's a pretty tough thing to have to pay $17.50 to larn what to 
 steer clear of in York. 
 
94 JOSH HAYSEED IM NEW YORK. 
 
 the big summer shows at staten island too much for uncle 
 josh's understanding. 
 
 AfSTORKERS have ben said to be great on work, but I can't see it. 
 
 V So fur as I kin larn they git up somewhere round lo o'clock 
 
 ■*- and quit work 'bout 3 o'clock. They manage togit apow'rful 
 lot of money together somehow, though I never see one of 'em 
 workin' yet. 'Pears to me all they do is to hunt for some place to 
 spend what somebody else must earn for em somewhere. 
 
 To my eye the places ain't wantin' where they kin git red of 
 their money right in the village, but it seems it's necessary for 'em to 
 go off ten or twenty mile afore they'll believe they've seen a show 
 wuth goin' to. So I thought I'd go down to the campmeetin' 
 ground and see what was goin on. 
 
 To git there all you've got to do is to go into a big buildin' where 
 they drive horses and carriages and wait a minnit or two, and while 
 you're wonderin' what the shebang is for, off she goes, with a load 
 that would break down the Musquash bridge right off. 
 
 It's the York idee that them ferry boats, as they call 'em, ought to 
 hold all the teams in town to once, and I must say they've con- 
 trived pooty well for that purpose. Add to this enough people to 
 build up a hull county, all jammed up together, and you've got a 
 fair notion of what I thought of things when I got out to see that 
 land of great shows. 
 
 From what they told me on the way down I knowed it was the 
 campmeetin' that was makin' all the excitement, and as I'd seen many 
 a one in my day, I concluded to take a look round afore I went in to 
 hear the prayin', though the rest of the folks scrambled like sin to 
 git a front seat. 
 
 The people that live down there struck me as sorter offish at 
 fust, but when they see I wasn't there to tear down fences or break 
 winders, they ware pleasant enough, and showed me the place 
 where Garibaldy used to have a candle factory or suthin' of the 
 
JOSS HAYSEED IN NEW VORK. $S 
 
 kind. Then they p'inted out the private graveyard of the Vander- 
 bilt family and a rickety old house where they said General 
 Washington used to keep his army in war times. I didn't dispute 
 "em, though I was aware that you can't go within a hundred mile 
 of York without seein' some place where he'd stopped over night, 
 and it made me wonder that he'd had time enough to tend to the 
 war and take charge of all the movin' he must have done. 
 
 To tell the truth all they had to show warn't interestin' enough 
 to make me want to go down there and live, the way I see a good 
 many had already done, not exceptin' the place where Buffalo Bill 
 used to tame his wild Injins, and I wasn't sorry to start for the camp- 
 meetin', though I've kinder got out of the way of them things lately. 
 
 As I've said, I've ben to many a meetin' out in the open air afore 
 now, but I never even suspicioned there was anything in creation 
 like that one. It was jest the kind of a gospel gatherin', though, to 
 soot the Yorkers, but I couldn't see that the sperit had begun to 
 work on 'em yet, and thought it was my dooty, bein' an old hand, 
 to start the ball a roUin', so to speak. So up I pops and hollers 
 out : 
 
 " I'm with ye, brutherin', soul and body. Hallelujah, Amen ! " 
 
 Instead of j'inin' in with me, that almighty big crowd jest roared 
 out in one big larf that must have ben beared clean to York, and I 
 felt sicker 'n a lost sheep in a pastur' of thistles. A lot of the dressed 
 up deacons come over and wanted to pitch me out, and they'd have 
 done it too, if a feller hadn't pulled me down out of sight and told 
 the deacons he'd guarantee I wouldn't start the sperit of things 
 agin. 
 
 So there I sot and watched the new tangled way of gittin' religion 
 into Yorkers, and I won't deny it's in some respects an improov- 
 ment on the old way, though it don't give any one but them that's 
 on the platform a chance to say anything. 
 
 It was more like a panerammy then a real campmeetin', but I 
 s'pose that's the only way to reach the hearts of the dwellers in old 
 Sodom. What they'd done was to make believe Babylon was fallin' 
 agin afore the avengin' angels, of which there ware more'n a thous- 
 and. Most of 'em were dressed like they'd jest come out of the 
 clouds, too, which I s'pose is necessary to git the Yorkers to go there 
 at all. But the way them angels marched round and cut up generally 
 
96 JOSH MAYSfiEt) In new VORK. 
 
 struck me as scandalous ; still I'll allow I couldn't help feelin' stirred 
 up a leetle by their doin's, though I tried to keep down all sech 
 every-day feelin'. That can't be expected, though, of an ordinary 
 mortal man, when he sees sights like that, with music and the big- 
 gest army of make-believe dancin' angels that ever was got to- 
 gether. 
 
 I stood it well enough, however, till they come to batterin' down 
 the walls of Babylon and burnin' up the great city right in front of 
 your eyes. Then I felt as though it was time Uncle Josh was git- 
 tin' as far away as possible from the wrath to come, and the way I 
 got out from among them sinners was ruther sudden, I should 
 jedge, for I'd made up my mind that if anything should happen, I 
 wouldn't want it to git round Musquash that I'd gone to my doom 
 in a campmeetin' of that kind. 
 
 Sence then I've lamed that the Yorkers go down there without 
 any hope of bein' converted, and would larf at the idee of bein' 
 made any better then they air now. 
 
 That proved to me that Jerusha's opinion of this great Sodom 
 and Gomorror was 'bout as clus to the truth as kin be got without 
 crowdin', and I've made up my mind that, so far as religion is con- 
 sarned, you're as well off, if not a leetle better, if you stay on the 
 outside while in York. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH S IMPRESSIONS OF THE ASTOR LIB RY 
 
 IT was alluz a favoreyte bywf)rd with neighbor Eliphalet Booker, 
 who had ben to Philadelphy twice, and was counted the wisest 
 head 'round Musquash, that human natur' takes root in the 
 rockiest sile. That bein' so, it's my belief that there ain't a better 
 place for it to crop out then in York village. 
 
 I knowed full well that you can't turn round in York without 
 seein' plenty of human natur' of the kind that it don't pay to har- 
 vest too much of, and when I asked to see how it was flourishin' for 
 man's good, I was told to take a look at the lib'ry Mister Aster had 
 give to the poor folks. 
 
 No one ever found Uncle Josh lookin' at the teeth of a gift hoss, 
 nevertheless, it's my opinion that it would be better for a man's con- 
 stitution to lay through a hull plantin' season in a good healthy 
 jail then to be locked up for twenty-four hours inside of them stun 
 walls, without denyin', mind you, that Mister Aster meant well 
 enough. The air in that place is so thick you kin feel it pourin' 
 into your pockets, and I believe if I'd stayed there much longer 'n I 
 did I'd have took away a load of fever and ague that would be 
 enough to last a poor family clean up to Thanksgivin'. 
 
 They told me Mister Aster's lib'ry was free to everybody, and 
 that you coun't spend a cent there if you tried. I ain't the kind to 
 try for seCh things, and as to the gloom round there I'll allow 
 there's plenty of it free to them that want it, but elsewise where 
 the freedom comes in is more 'n I kin undertake to tell. 
 
 To begin with, I'd no sooner worked my way up over the stun 
 steps and into the front porch than as fierce lookin' an individooal 
 as I ever expect to meet begun to eye me suspicious like, holdin' 
 out his hands as though he was fairly achin' to git holt of me, 
 
 "For thunderation's sake,' says I, "what's ailin' you ?" 
 
 " I want your ambreel," says he. 
 
ys 
 
 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 "Oh, you do," saj-s I; "then s'pose j'ou come and git it, becuz 
 I've got kind of a likin' that way myself." 
 
 Everybody knows that I ain't a coward, but it's only the trooth 
 to say that when I see he was really comin' for it, fici-cer lookin' 
 than ever, I did feel jist aleetle shivery. 
 
 " Wal," says I, spunkin' up to him, "what you goin' to do about 
 it?" 
 
 UNCLE josh's tussle at the astor lib'ry. 
 
 Instid of sayin' anything he grabbed the ambreel so quick that 
 he got it away from me, which made the Hayseed blood bile right 
 up, and afore he could git away with it I made a flyin' leap, and 
 got back my holt on it. 
 
 I used to be reckoned a good one in a snug holt rassle, and the 
 way I tussled that old chap round would have made the reg'lar 
 comers to the store at Corncob Corners holler with joy. 
 
 When I'd got the ambreel away I felt like givin him one or two 
 sockdolagers to sorter round the thing up, but jist then a man with 
 whiskers a yard long handed him a gold-headed cane to hold, and 
 $, little woman that looked as though she'd slept in a, snuff bo:i? over 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. , 99 
 
 night gave hirn a horn-handled parisall, and then the hull troofh- 
 come to me with a rush. , All he wanted was to tend my ambreeL 
 till I come out, an^l. I concluded that if it was any satisfaction 
 to him, he was welcome to fondle my ambreel till I got read-y to 
 'want it. . 
 
 So I let him take it and look at it to his heart's content, and 
 marched ia to where the books air. 
 
 "I s'pose," says I to a feller that had his eye on me in a way that 
 drawed me right up to him, "you're one of Mister Aster's sons. 
 That tein' so without a doubt, will you tell me how in thunder it 
 is that, if yojir dad gave this, lib'ry to be free, you've gone to work 
 and fenced off the people from gittin' at the books ? " 
 
 " Do you want to look at a book ? " says he, soft as sarve. 
 
 "Oh, no," says I. "I kin look at 'em from here all I want to. 
 What I'm after is to feel of one of 'em so's to have it to say to hum 
 I'd actually hefted, one of Mister Aster's free books." 
 
 At that he went on to tell what I'd got to do to git my hands on 
 one of them books, which was to sign papers and walk on tiptoe 
 and go whisperin' round, like a lot of folks in there that to my mind 
 acted a leetle simple, to say the least. 
 
 "That's what I've got to do, is it ? " says I. 
 
 " That's it," says he. « 
 
 " And you call this a free institootion, do you ? " says I. 
 
 " Sartin," says he. 
 
 "Then," says I, "if you think the hull Aster family 's big enough 
 to make me go through all- that backgammon, you'd better set 'em 
 onto me to once, for I'm goin' to git out of this pooty quick." 
 
 With that I walked off to find somebody to show me what there 
 was that was really free round there, and when I did git clas 
 enough to see what kind of stuff the books ware made of, I was 
 fairly disgusted at the meanness of the man that bought 'em. They 
 ware actually older 'n the hills, and ware printed so bad you couldn't 
 make out harf there was in 'em. Nevertheless, they had 'em all 
 -packed away in glass cases like early cowcumbers in a hot bed, 
 and one of the Asterses said they ware wuth ten times their heft in 
 gold. 
 
 "Look ahere, Mister Aster," says I, not bein' able to hold in, "1 
 ain't nobody's fopl in perticlar ; so what'? the use for you to try tg 
 
IBO . JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 git me raswaUer that whoppin' lie ? I know as well aS you do that 
 them old things wouldn't fetch three cents a pound with a tia 
 peddler." 
 
 "Probably not," says he, gittin' down from his high hoss. 
 
 "That bein' the case," says I, "p'raps I kin dicker with you for 
 that old second hand Bible you p'inted out back there. You see, 
 my cousin Jerusha, that writes for the Musquash Friendly Visitor, 
 has got a craze for gittin' Bibles, becuz they say the one that 
 gits a hundred different ones ain'tgoin' to suffer any more in this 
 world. So, if I could git that one for what it's wuth it would 
 make a baker's dozen she'd have in all. What do you say, now ?" 
 
 "Why," says he, "that Bible was printed afore this country was 
 diskivered by Christopher Columbus. It's off the very fust printin' 
 press." 
 
 "That's it," says I ; "it's wuss 'n second hand, and won't compare 
 for news with a ten-year-old ominix." 
 
 " What do you say it's wuth ? " says he; 
 
 " As to that," says I, " it's for you to fix the price, and for me to 
 beat you down if I kin, but I won't agree anyway to buy it by, 
 weight." 
 
 " You don't wan't to buy the buildin' with it, do you ? " says he. 
 
 " Jokin' aside,'' says I, "how much do you want for that used-up 
 old Bible ? " 
 
 "Wal,"says he, "if the President of the United States was to' 
 come in here and try to buy that book, he couldn't git it for 
 $10,000, cash down." 
 
 I've lost ten pound in a week in the heat of hayin' time, but, when 
 that come out in a way that I knowed he meant, I'll bet I fell away 
 an equil amount in a second, though Lord knows I hain't any fat 
 to spare. It sorter wet all the starch there was in me, and a twelve- 
 year-old boy could have kicked me clean out of the buildin', and I 
 wouldn't- have had a word to say. 
 
 The old feller poked the ambreel under my arm as I went out, 
 and I bid farewell to York's free lib'ry, never to return so long 's 
 I've got the strength to liold out agin it. 
 
 If Jerusha ever gits that Bible I kin truthfully say that I've had 
 no hand in the robbery, so help me John Peter, 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 SOME OF THE PECULIATIITIES OF BROOKLYN. 
 
 ffi 
 
 L Y advice to anyone that wants a rest after bein' shook up in 
 
 York is to go over to Brooklyn Center, where you kin take 
 
 things easy and git back what flesh you've had scraped off 
 
 on t'other side of the river. It had alluz ben my idee that there 
 
 warn't nothin' in that place but meetin' houses, but, after lookin' it 
 
 over carefully, I've come to the conclusion that they could build a 
 
 ■ few thousand more without overcrowdin the town with religion. 
 
 I'd ben told, too, that there ware more redheaded gals over 
 
 there than elsewhere, and it was said that when you go there you 
 
 should keep repeatin' : 
 
 " See a redheaded gal 
 Then see a white hoss.'' 
 
 " See a redheaded gal 
 Then see a white hoss." 
 
 ' ' See a redheaded gal 
 Then see a white hoss." 
 
 Where the truth of that po'tery come in, I couldn't make out, but 
 I knowed it had a pow'rful holt on the Yorkers, and I made up my 
 mind to prove to 'em that there warn't no kind of sense to it. 
 
 So fur as gittin' the;po'tery out of my hfead after it had once took 
 root there, that was out of the question, and afore I got through 
 I'd have given ten days of my life if I'd never beared, of it, for 
 there it stuck and woiildn't be ousted 'till I'd proved the nonsense 
 of it. 
 
 I took one of them big mud scows to git there, and closed my 
 eyes seemingly 'till we'd got way out in the middle of the river. 
 
 "Now," thinks I, "if there's only a redheaded gal aboard, I'll 
 find her, and show 'em how that idee that there must be a white 
 hoss follerin' her is all poppycock." 
 
 I didn't have to look fur, for there was the redheaded gal ieanin' 
 9gm a post and readin' a book 'bout how love conquers the world. 
 
102 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 On her and her book I gazed as though she was an angel in disguise 
 to take my trouble away. 
 
 "Don't mind mc," says I to her, "but if there's a white hoss 
 within gun shot cf you this lime, I'll jump overboard, and say heie 
 goes nobody." 
 
 Instid of thanhin' mc for my well-meanin' remark, she was the 
 mo5t onjjratcful gal I ever run into 
 
 THE REDHEADED GAL AND THE WHITE HOSS. 
 
 " Oh, Lord," says she, "ain't there no rest for the weary, even in 
 the middle of the river?" 
 
 "That's what I'm here for," says I. "It's to prove that that 
 po'tcry ain't troo." 
 
 "If there's any barm inCilcad," says she, "I'm goin' to use it on 
 my hair, to stop sech fools as you be from brakin' their necks to 
 see the white hoss." 
 
 By that time she was in a huff, and turned the cold shoulder to 
 me with a eL Then I got up clus to her to prove to her that that 
 po'tery was all a humbug, when my eyes lit on a sight I wouldn't 
 have believed if a thousand deacons had told it. The white hoss 
 
JOSH HAVSEED IN NEW YORK. 103 
 
 was there, right on the scow, and not six foot away from where we 
 ware standin'. 
 
 If ther'd ben any halloon handy I'd have ben willin' to go right 
 up in it, but, as there wasn't, I sneaked off more sheepisii than 
 I ever felt afore, pooty well convinced that the evil one had a hand 
 in makin' that po'tery after all. 
 
 I determined then and there never to look at a redheaded gal 
 agin, but when we got over I couldn't help now and then seein' one 
 out of the corner of my eye, and I'm ready to take my Bible oath 
 that the white boss turned up every time afore she got out of sight. 
 
 Gnce I got up in a still kind of a road, where the grass was 
 growin' plentiful and there wasn't ten people to be seen in an 
 hour, when a redheaded gal shook a dust cloth at me out of the 
 winder, and I thought I had the best of it that time. There wasn't 
 a team to be seen, but the white boss was there, not three rod 
 away. He was dead as a door nail, to be sure, but he showed up 
 prowder 'n he ever had ben in life, I'll bate. 
 
 That made me think it was time to git a little religion, and over 
 I went to where the great preacher holds forth, and is all the fame 
 that town ^eems to have sence the greater Henry Ward departed. 
 
 It was only a prayer mcctin' he was holdin', but I was told it 
 would be equil to any reg'lar sermon I ever beared preached. 
 Equil! It beat any circus I ever went to. There he stood like a 
 stack of hoes in a 'later patch at dinner time, with arms and 
 hands long enough to make a windmill go buzzin' in dry times, and 
 the people larfm' and clappin' whenever he hit the nail on the 
 head, which I'm bound to say lie did offcn'r then I'd have believed. 
 
 The way the meetin' house was fi.xcd up, too, was for all the 
 world like a circus, and the music was equil to it too. So iliere I 
 sot, and it may be to my shame, but it's a fact that I settled back 
 and 'Joyed myself fully as much as if I'd ben at a minstrel show. 
 He's a power, that Brooklyn preacher is, for the minnit he'd git 
 J'ou to larfiii' he'd come down v.-i:h suthin' j-ou wasn't expectin' at 
 all, and cverybody'd make agra!)f jr their handkerchiefs to weep. 
 They'd git jist so fur when out would com© a joke that they'd have 
 to larf at if it was a funeral. 
 
 For my part, I felt moved morn twcn'.y different ways, and 
 finally I had to give up as to whr.t v ry I cught to feel at a prayer 
 
104 
 
 josM Hayseed in new yorK. 
 
 meetin', and let him carry me right along to Tophet or wherever 
 he darned pleased. I see, too, that the rest of 'em had give up 
 long ago as to the sperit in which they should feel, and let him do 
 the hull bussness for 'em. 
 
 After he got through the prayer meetin', I took my turn to shake 
 hahds with him, and says : 
 
 " Parson, I ain't harf so wickid a man as you think I be." 
 
 " Of course you ain't," says he. " Did you ever murder any one ? 
 
 UNCLE JOSH GETS A LITTLE RELIGION. 
 
 Did you ever let a human bein' go starvin' ? Did you ever do any 
 injury to your neighbor or the good name of your neighbor's wife ? 
 Did you ever smoke opium ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you the hull thing," says I, but afore I could git it out 
 a woman rushed in to tell her sins, and I was carried bodily out 
 into the road, without knowin' for sure what had happened. 
 
 " If you kin tell me," says I, to one of the congregation that had 
 ben tossed out with me, "whuther I've ben to a prayer meetin' or 
 to a theatre show, I'll be much obleeged." 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 105 
 
 "Take your choice," says he, "religion is free 'round these 
 parts." 
 
 "Wal," says I, still settin' on the side of the road where I'd land- 
 ed, "it'll take some studyin' up for me to make up my mind 'bout 
 that preachin', but I guess I'd better go 'round a bit, and see if I 
 kin find myself fust." 
 
 With that I moped away with a belief that I wasn't so wickid as 
 I thought I was, without feelin' sure about it. 
 
 As I've as much as said, Brooklyn Center minded me of Corncob 
 Corners, after bein' in York so long, and it done me good to walk 
 round and see how neighborly the folks ware. Still if I'd never 
 ben on the other side of the river I'd have said that was the big- 
 gist village I'd ever dreamed of. You kin walk there for hours 
 without comin' to any woods or clearin's, and without feelin' that, 
 you'd made any headway as yet. It done my legs good, though, 
 to git to a place where you didn't have to run to keep up with 
 people, and where the men folks ain't in the majority more 'n two 
 to one. 
 
 The Brooklynites air sorter 'shamed of their town, so I'm told, 
 and alluz claim that they're Yorkers when they're away from hum, 
 and come to think of it, I don't jest remember that I ever heared 
 any one say he hailed from that big town, though I know well 
 enough there must have ben some on em up our way. 
 
 To my way of thinkin' a real up and down Brooklynite is 'bout 
 as scurse an article as a Yorker that's basliful in tellin' you where 
 he come from. 
 
io6 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 THE LITTLE GERMAN BANDS CATCH THE EYE AND EAR OF 
 UNCLE JOSH. 
 
 !^VERY one of us to hum is musical on suthin*. There's my 
 cousin Jerusha, now. She's got the sweetest soundin' melode- 
 on that was ever put together, and she kin play it too. 
 She's a master-hand when she wants people to see how she kin 
 bring what she calls the soul of music right down to airth. When 
 she's worked 'em up 'bout right, she's got a way of liflin' 'em off 
 their feet with that great song, " Bcyoutiful I'le of the Sea, Oh, 
 How I Long to be There," by sorter dwellin' on the " Sea-a-a," and, 
 when she comes down to "there-re-re-re," by makin' that melodeon 
 mourn right out for all the world as if it was a human completely 
 overcome with dissapp'inted love. 
 
 What I play, however, is mostly base and counter on brass in- 
 struments, though I kin carry the air on a four-string fiddle. As 
 I've said the sperit of music is born in us folks, and for that reason 
 I'll have to say a good word for the Yorkers on one p'int, which is 
 that they air probably the most tuneful people in the world. 
 
 Sit outdoors in themornin'or indoors for that matter, and the 
 fust thing you hear is a hull cornet band serenadin' some new mar- 
 ried couple ; though to my mind that ain't jest the kerrect time for 
 doin' it. Whichever way you're bound, however, you're sure to 
 come across them bands, and sometimes you'll see three or four of 
 'cm within a stun's throw of each other. In which case you're 
 likely to hear some of tlie loudest music that kin be got out of 
 brass instruments. 
 
 My nevvy Sprouts, now, comes in on dad's side of the family tree, 
 and has got about as much music in him as a hemlock stump It 
 was one of the pests of my trip to York, the way he used to haul 
 me all round Robin Hood's barn whenever he see there was g .in 
 to be a serenade somewhere ahead. And when we d d git up to 
 one of 'em, he couldn't stand it more'n two minnits, though I'd be 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW-YORK. 
 
 107 
 
 drinkin' in their sweet strains like a troo music lover, and, witli him 
 pullin' affd jerkin' me away, by the time we 'd git out of sight 
 and hearin' of the band, we ware likely to be pooty nigh dead 
 enemies. 
 
 COUSIN JERUSHA BRINGS THE SOUL OF MUSIC DOWN TO AIRTH. 
 
 " For the Lord's sake, Uncle. Josh," he says once, " why don't you 
 j'ine one of them ban Is and git enough of it ? " 
 
 "The trouble is," says I, " I don't know the tunes." 
 
 " Why," says he, " that's all thcbcttcr. All you've got to do is to 
 play loud enough and let the tunes take care of themselves." 
 
 "That shows your ignorance 'bout muiic," says I. "Howsom- 
 
loS JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 ever, I'm goin' to try my hand on a base horn afore I go hum any- 
 hov/." 
 
 The idee so worked on me, that I finally went up to a feller that 
 looked as though he might bust any minnit, and gave him a quar- 
 ter to let me show him how to play. 
 
 The band didn't seem to like it at fust, but when the people be- 
 gun poppin' their heads out of the winders they took to me quick 
 enough, and started in on the fastest dance tune there is. 
 
 That sooted me to a T, and I made that old horn speak in a way 
 she never belched afore, I know. It was mighty ticklin' music, and 
 I could see that it made some of the folks feel so good they had to 
 larf, for want of a chance to dance. So we played the tune over 
 and over agin, till I got so winded I had to quit or flop. 
 
 When there's a serenadiii' party in Musquash they're sure to git 
 an invite to come in and have some doughnuts and fresh ground 
 coffee, but in York it's different. One of the serenaders takes uip a 
 collection, and they have the feed afterwards. When the fat feller 
 whose place I'd took come back from collectin', that band was 
 mightily pleased, and it made me feel a leetle stuck up at the way 
 they patted me on the back, and said I was the greatest 
 player in York village. The way the people shelled out for the sup- 
 per proved it. 
 
 " I ain't askin' to be the leader," says I, " but I'll show you what 
 I kin do if you'll strike up suthin' that's got tears in it. Jest try me, 
 for instance, on ' The Last Rose of Summer.' " 
 
 I let out then, and it was so affectin' it made some of them York 
 wimmin, that don't like to have their feelin's stirred up, hold their 
 hands over their ears, and look at me with a beseechin' look, for 
 fear they'd have to give in and be brought to tears. 
 
 I rolled out the strains pow'rful sweet and affectin', nevertheless, 
 and I'd a had 'em all weepin' in a minnit or two more if it hadn't ben 
 for one of the men folks, who opened his winder and p'inted a shot- 
 gun straight at the band. 
 
 That ended the tune short off, and it was as much as I could do 
 to keep up with the rest of 'em, they skedaddled 'off so plaguey fast. 
 
 I was for quittin' 'em then, but they clung on so hard, tellin' me 
 that I could make my fortune as a player, that when they offered 
 me a dollar an hour, I agreed to keep on, barrin' the tearful music. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 109 
 
 yNCLE JOSH JOINS A GERMAN BAND, 
 
iio JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 We played all 'round the village, and it ain't braggin* too much to 
 say that we beat the other serenaders all holler. The fat feller would 
 come back every time with nis cap harf full of money, and hurry us 
 off to git more. 
 
 ' THANK THE LORD, YOUR UNCLE JOSH IS STILL AMONG THE LIVIN'." 
 
 What I've told is only part of it, but the rest ain't to be hid under 
 a bushel, becuz it shows liovv the onjxpected is likely to happen 
 most any time ia Viirk, when you ain't luok'.n' for it. 
 
 We'd got follerin" us a good sized crow J (f them dreadful little 
 cusses the Yorkers call gamings, or suthin' of the sort, but which I 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. iii 
 
 call devils, becuz you can't git at one of 'em any more 'n you kin at 
 a flea. I'd ruther take a small dose of pizen then to have them 
 gamings playin' innercent round me. When they're a mind to, 
 they kin look as though they ware the most harmless leetle critters 
 on the footstool, and that's why it was that I didn't larn till some- 
 time afterwards that what they'd finally done was to put an almighty 
 big East Injy firecracker down the nozzle of my base horn. 
 
 I didn't see it go in, but, when it went off, it must have took me 
 along with it, for I follered that brass horn 'bout a rod in the air 
 afore I kt her go through the winder she was bound for. When I 
 did come down I stood a minnit like the nigger parson's balky mule 
 with a brier under his tail, and then off I went, minus the brier, but 
 at a gate that mule never could have equilled. 
 
 " Thank the Lord," says I to Sprouts when I got to the house, 
 "your Uncle Josh is still among the livin'." 
 
 "What kin have happened to you now?" says he, more 'n harf 
 ready to larf, without bein' told. 
 
 "Nothin' much," says I, careless like, "only I j'ined that sera- 
 nadin' band as you told me to, and I guess I'm the only livin' man 
 there is left scnccwe played over that blast." 
 
 "Give me your hand. Uncle Josh," says he. "If you've brought 
 destruction to one of them bands, you're a bigger hero then I ever 
 believed you ware, and your trip to York is the best thing that's 
 happened to us poor sufferers in many a day." 
 
 "Sprouts," says I, "you're a nevvy of mine, which, more 's the 
 pity, I can't help ; but I'm ashamed of ye, I am ashamed of ye." 
 
 Ill admit, though, that, away down deep,' I felt as though I'd had 
 enough of them serenadia' bands to last me till I started back for 
 hum. 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH MEETS THE AUTHOR OF "BEAUTIFUL SNOW" AND OTHER 
 
 IMPORTANT PERSONS IN AN OLD TIME RESORT. 
 
 OW'D you like to be interdooced to the author of ' Beyouti- 
 ful Snow ?' " says Sprouts one day. 
 
 " That would be the greatest honor yet," says I ; " but 
 I'm afeared I ain't got time enough left to see 'em all." 
 
 " All what ? " says he. 
 
 "Why, all them three of four hundred po'tery writers," says I, 
 "that Jerusha says it took to git up that immortal pome." 
 
 At that Sprouts flared up, and says : 
 
 "Don't you be a fool like the rest, Uncle Josh, becuz I and every 
 other newspaper feller kin tell j'ou that that pome was writ by Old 
 Whetstun alone. He kin be seen in flesh and blood in the old 
 place down here where a lot of liter'y fellers hang out off and on." 
 
 I'd alluz felt sure as the measles that no one man could have 
 writ Jerusha's favoreyte pome all alone, but I didn't want to git 
 Sprouts's dander up any more, so I says : 
 
 "What sort of a place is it where that great man kin be found ?" 
 
 " For that matter," says he, " it ain't much on show, but it's 
 comfortable and soothin' to the nerves after you git inside, and has 
 ben known beyond the memory of most folks now livin' as The Old 
 Squashvine." 
 
 " That's jest like one of them potes," says I, " to mope 'round 
 among squashvines." But when we come to it, I see it was 
 another case of York names, for I wanted to bet there wan't a 
 bearin' squashvine within a mile, and nobody would take me up. 
 
 There ware a lot of old fellers sittin' round, though, drinkin' out 
 of lead mugs, and crackin' jokes 'bout things that had happened, 
 as far as I could jedge, when York warn't much bigger 'n Corncob 
 Corners is now. 
 
 After a while they all jumped up and begun throwin' copper 
 cents up agin' the ceilin' like roacl. Then they got tQ wardn' 
 
jOSH HAYSEED i?i NEW YORK. 113 
 
 words, and measurin' off on the floor with a piece of broom corn. 
 At fust I was afeared there was goin' to be a row, but then I see 
 what they ware up to, and it surprised me the way them old fellers 
 capered round and got down on the floor, rumatiz or no rumatiz, 
 to see how fur their copper cents had landed from where the boards 
 come together. It made me feel real frisky watchin' 'em, and I 
 says to 'em : 
 
 "Jest let me take a hand in that there game, will ye ?" 
 
 "More the merrier," says they. 
 
 So out come my wallet, and up agin the ceilin' went my copper 
 cent harder 'n any one had hit yet. I thought I had 'em sure, but 
 when it come down it bounced off, and I had to chase it to keep it 
 from runnin' out under the door. 
 
 That seemed to do them old fellers more good than an alkyhol 
 sweat, and I thought they'd give up afore they got through larfin'. 
 They said it was my treat right off, without any more measurin', 
 and on come the iead mugs agin, which I'm bound to say ain't so 
 bad to drink out of as I s'posed. 
 
 "What in thunder do you call that game ? " says I. 
 
 " Why," says one of 'em, " that's old Crack Loo, that General 
 Washington used to play with General Lafayette right on this very 
 spot." 
 
 "That bein' the case," says I, " I guess I'd better quit you, becuz 
 you've had too darn long a time to practice for me to play with 
 you." 
 
 They treated on the head of that, and then Sprouts said the pote 
 was ready to have me interdooced. 
 
 " I s'pose," says I, " you fed sorter to hum here. Mister Whetstun.'' 
 
 "That ain't exactly my name," says he ; "but it's good enough, 
 sence it's suthin' that needs lubercation." 
 
 Sprouts nudged me, and I took the hint to once, and told 'em to 
 fetch me on the lead mugs agin. 
 
 " I'll take mine in one of them little glass tumblers," says he ; 
 "only don't be afeared of spillin' it over." 
 
 " Mr. Whetstun," says I, " it 's ben told to me that you writ 
 that great pome all alone. I'm cousin to Jerusha, that writes 
 for the Musquash Friendly Visitor, and I'd like to know, now — be you 
 really the author of it ? " 
 
!t4 JOSH HAYSEED IN NeW VO&K. 
 
 "No," says he, wipin' a tear from his eye, "I'm the only liter'y 
 cuss in this country or Canada that didn't write it." 
 
 "Don't weep," says I, " bccuz you've got somebody right here 
 that never had a hand in it, nuiher, and I ain't mournin'." 
 
 " Fact is," says he, " I used to believe, when it fust came out, that 
 1 had writ it, but I'm old enough now to^know better." 
 
 " P'raps," says I, " you've done suthin' else pooty nigh as good." 
 
 "A good deal better." says he, " but I'll admit that was the most 
 pop'lar pome-I ever writ." 
 
 "For goodness sake. Mister Whetstun," says I, "warn't you jest 
 mournin' this very minnit becuz you hadn't writ it? " 
 
 " Was I lookin' mournful ? " says he. 
 
 " Sartin you ware," says I. 
 
 " 1 hen," says he, " I must have ben thinkin' 'bout how small they 
 make the tumblers nowadays to what they used to." 
 
 Jest then a lot of young potes and editurs pulled their cheers up, 
 and Sprouts said he'd have to go for a spell, but that I d better set 
 there and see hov^r interestin' liter'y fellers could be when they got 
 together. 
 
 "Wal," I says to myself, "Uncle Josh, you want to take this all 
 in, so jest )-ou keep quiec and let them fellers take turns, so you kin 
 hear suthin' wuth rememberin'." 
 
 At the start off they did sorter take turns, each one tellin' what a 
 great feller the other one was, and how he'd done some things that 
 probably never would be equilled in this world. While one feller 
 was talkin', t'other, that he was talkin' 'bout, would look solum as a 
 funeral. Then he'd 'pear to git mad and say it was all bosh ; but, 
 Lord ! I could see he was eanamost tickled to death. Sech a love 
 feast as that was I'd never ben to, so I kept mum all the time. 
 
 Bimeby the potes and editurs begun to tell me what they'd done 
 theirselves, and then I commenced to feel sorter oneasy. One of 
 'em would go to work to prove that he was the most no-account 
 critter that ever breathed, and then he'd slide into sayin' how he'd 
 made three or four fortunes for other folks, and when we'd have to 
 take a drink he'd kinder bind us over with suthin' startlin', like 
 "Now I'll tell you how I killed him," and I couldn't have got a word 
 in if I'd wanted to. 
 
 Tl.ey ware the most ingenious fellers for holdin' you down to 
 
josri Hayseed in new york. u^ 
 
 listenin', without seemin' to be imperlite, that I ever come across, 
 and after a while I'd have given a dollar if I could have got away 
 without hurtin' their feelin's. 
 
 What seemed to me the best thing to do was to back out, grad- 
 ual like, till I'd got far enough away not to have to listen. But the 
 more I backed the cluser they come. 
 
 Finally I see suthin' had got to be did, or my hearin" would be 
 gone forever, so up I riz from the cheer, but I warn't on my feet 
 any quicker 'n they ware. I ain't ashamed to admit that I was 
 gittin' skeered now, becuz I hadn't beared my own voice sence they'd 
 sot down with me and Mr. Whetstun. My off eye cal'lated the dis- 
 tance betwixt me and the door, and I reckoned I could git there 
 fust. 
 
 Not to go too fur into perticlars I'll only say that I went through 
 that door like a streak, without stoppin' to see whether they ware 
 follerin' or not. I knowed that was Sprouts's favoreyte hangin' out 
 place, so, when he asked me how I'd enjoyed myself, I had to tell 
 part truth and let the rest down easy by ansvverin' this way : 
 
 "As fur as the place is consarned, it's the most homelike I've ben 
 in yet ; as for the old fellers, they ware right after my own heart ; 
 then as to that great pome-, I ain't made up my mind yet what to 
 think ; but as to the young potes and editurs — wal, I ain't complain- 
 in' now that I've got back my speech." 
 
 " Uncle Josh," says he, " you ain't got no more appriciation of 
 genius then a settin' hen." 
 
 "P'raps not," says I, "but if you ever git me cornered agin _that 
 way, it'll be when I ain't got any say as to where I shall be buried 
 Vou hear me on that p'int." 
 
josM haVseed ta UEVf VoRii. 
 
 A LOOK AT THE TIGER, IN WHICH IT WAS NOT UNCLE JOSH THAT 
 
 GOT SCRATCHED. 
 
 1^ S I'd ben in York quite a spell, Sprouts said he thought I must 
 psl be edicated enough to look on the tiger when he's fierce 
 ■^"^ without wantin' to rassle with him. 
 
 " You needn't be afeared 'bout my tacklin' any wild beasts," 
 says I. 
 
 " I was only warnin' j'ou," says he, " not to git to playin' Pharo's 
 game, or Roleit, or Hashad, when we git there, becuz if you should, 
 you'd be sure to want to own the Post Office and the "Town Hall 
 afore you'd let go the tiger's tail. 
 
 " What you're tryin' to git through you," says I, " is a mystery 
 to me." 
 
 " Wal, then," says he, " all you've got to do is to keep mum to be- 
 gin with. Then you want to put your hand under j-our coat-tail 
 and walk round with a seegar p'inted towards 3'our nose and a 
 knowin' look on, like as though you could tell a heap if you ware 
 a mind too. But don't, for the Lord's sake, begin to buck up agin 
 the tiger." 
 
 "IPears to me," says I, "you're ruther familiar with the animil." 
 
 " Then take my advice," says he, " and let him alone." 
 
 When we got to the cage door where the beast is kept, Sprouts 
 stuck his thumb agin a white spot in the wall, and to my sufprise- 
 ment a nigger feller's nose was poked through the gratin' to 
 once. 
 
 " Look out, nevvy," says I, " he'll git at you." 
 
 " Be quiet, will you," says Sprouts, " ain't I told 5-ou time and 
 agin that the tiger won't hurt you if you don't fool with him ? " 
 
 It took some spunk, though, to walk through that cage 
 door. I done it, however, and through another one, too, at 
 the top of the stairs, and there we ware right in the tiger's den. 
 
 The place was chock full of well-dressed fellers and tobacker 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 "7 
 
 smoke, which was so thick they had to keep every light goin' so 
 you could see through it. 
 
 Then I remembered what Sprouts had said, and up I walked with 
 one hand under my coat-tail, my mouth puckered up with a seegar 
 and a mighty knowin' look on my face. 
 
 It took the very fust thing, and made sech an impression on a 
 feller that was playin' marbles in a five-gallon milk pan that he 
 praised me up right afore the hull of 'em by singin'out : 
 
 " Eagle Bird ! " 
 
 " Double O ! " 
 
 MU>-S 
 
 UNCLE JOSH VISITS THE TIGEK. S CAGE. 
 
 " Pays you thirty-five for one ! " 
 
 " Look ahere," says I, " you kin call me ' Eagle Bird ' and ' Double 
 0,' without stretchin' my qualifications too much, but when you 
 come to tell 'em that I pay any sech outrageous debts as that, 
 you're pilin' it on too thick." 
 
 " Try your luck at Roleit," says he. 
 
 '• Role it j-ourself," says I, " if it amuses you. For my part, I got 
 through bein' a boy some years ago." 
 
 With that I went over to what I was told was a sweatin' board, 
 tiigugh I w^§ leelin' a Uuk moist myself, and ■watched them felkr^ 
 
ii8 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 settin' there takin' a sweat with their clothes on. What done it I 
 couldn't make out, onless it was the one that was droppiii' leetle 
 square chunks down through a wooden hour glass. 
 
 " I s'pose," says I to a chap that was wipin' the sweat off his face, 
 " it's like one of them buzzin' machines with handles on it that you 
 can't let go of." 
 
 " The kind," says he, " that if you hold on to long enough is bound 
 to bust you ? " 
 
 " That's it," says I. 
 
 " Then," says he, " you're the fust man that ever guessed this 
 merchine right at the start.'' 
 
 From the way they larfed I see I'd made a hit somehow, and not 
 to spile it, off I moped to where I spied a slick-lookin' man with an 
 old straw hat on, without any top to it, that I wouldn't wear 'bout 
 the barn even. There was a crowd of m.en round liim that ware 
 puUin' their moustaches and fum^lin' iheir chins as though they 
 ware afeared their faces would git away from 'cm. The one with 
 the old straw hat looked as cool and comfortable as a cowcumber 
 in the shade of a cabbage leaf, and was playin' a new game of soli- 
 taire, with a pooty box to hold the cards. He didn't seem to be 
 much taken up with liis lonely game, but the others ware all dread- 
 ful excited as to whether he'd git it or not and kept Iiandin' him 
 over what I tuok to be peppermint lozenges to encourage him on. 
 
 It was too slow for my likin', and I was jest Ihinkin' of lookin" 
 up Sprouts, when a feller punched me in the stummick with his el- 
 bow, and says through his teeth : 
 
 "Take your foot off from my cheer, you darned fool, you're 
 spilin' my luck." 
 
 I was goin' to give him as good as he'd sent, when, lo and behold, 
 I see it was Sprouts. 
 
 " Never do that to a man that's gamblin' with Phaxo's game," 
 says one of the onlookers to me. 
 
 When I heard that word "gamblin"' the hull truth come to me to 
 once. Sprouts was doin' the very selfsame thing lie'd beii warnin" 
 me agin so much. That made me do some tall thinkin', and I con- 
 cluded it was my dooty to rescue that ncvvy of mine from the evil 
 that had befel bim, for I could see he had the gamblin' sperit on. 
 
 Then I besccched and besought him in my best- prayer-meetin' 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. ,,5 
 
 Style to quit the evil of his ways while there was yet time. That 
 made him turn on me agin, fiercer 'n ever, and he sorter hissed out : 
 
 "Uncle Josh, if you don't go off to a corner somewhere, and let 
 me alone till 1 git back what I've lost, I'll have j-ou pitched out 
 bodily." 
 
 "Ongrateful youth," says I, "have your own way. Give the 
 gtim'jlin' demon your hard-earned ten dollars, and repent at 
 luzure." 
 
 If a bumshell had ben dropped down, it couldn't have had a more 
 sudden effect then them words. Not one of the solum faces round 
 that awful board but split wide open with a heathen larf that I 
 never want to hear agin. That is, all 'cept Sprouts, who looked 
 sick enough to need a doje of castor ile. 
 
 That made my dander rise up, and I'd probably have cleaned out 
 the hull place if a perlite nigger feller hadn't come up and asked 
 mc what I'd have on the head of it. 
 
 '' Mot a darned thing," says I, " that I've got to pay for." 
 
 "You can't pay anything in this house," says he, '• 'cept for chips." 
 
 " There lain't anything nuriihia' in chips that I know on," says I, 
 'thougli the Tiger may git fat on 'em ; but if you've got anything 
 to lat and drink free bring it on." In less time than it takes to tell 
 it, I was munchin' away at the alfiredest best feed I ever struck. It 
 was i.n free, and I wished I had two stummicks like they say some 
 dum anim'.ls have. 
 
 A.'ter IM ef all I could Sprouts come round lookin' blooer 'n an 
 indl-'j bag. 
 
 "You don't happin to have a five-dollar note you could tend me 
 for a m'.nnit, do you ? " says he. 
 
 "Of course I have," says I, " but I ain't goin' to take out my 
 wallet in here where the Tiger is," says I. 
 
 "We'll ^o out and come back agm, then," says he. 
 
 Batter wouldn't melt in my mouth f.U we got out doors, but once 
 on the other side of that cage door, I grabbed my nevvy by the 
 nap of the neck and the slack of the britches, and he'll allow to 
 this day he never t.avelled lighter for a harf a mile or so in his life 
 
 " Now," says I, "the next lime you take your Uncle Josh round to 
 see any wild-cat animils of that kind, you want to look out that 
 they don't git their claws on you instid." 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH SEES THE ELEPHANT AT LAST AND RIDES HOME 
 TRIUMPHANT. 
 
 Tl 
 
 UNCLE JOSH IN SEARCH OF SPROUTS. 
 
 T takes more 'n harf a mince 
 pie to affect my sleep, but the 
 last night 'cept one that I was 
 to stay in York my conscience 
 got to workin' without my know- 
 in', and up I riz and run in to 
 where Sprouts was sleepin', for 
 fear / should forgit it when 
 mornin' come. 
 
 "Good land," says he, scared 
 enough, " what's the matter ? 
 House afire, or have you got the 
 cramps in the stummick ? " 
 
 "Wuss 'n that," says I, "Here 
 I'm goin* back hum day after 
 to-morrer, and ain't seen the Ele- 
 phant yet." 
 
 "Is that what you're makin' 
 all this fuss 'bout in the mid- 
 dle of the night ? " says he, mad 
 enough to hit me with a boot- 
 jack. 
 " Jest imagine my goin' back to 
 
 " That's cause sufficient," says I, 
 Musquash, and puttin' on airs 'bout how I'd turned York Village 
 topsy turvy. What do you s'pose would be the fust question they'd 
 put to me ? Oh, you don't know and don't care, don't you. Wal, 
 I know, and I care, too. There ain't one of them folks round Corn- 
 cob Corners that wouldn't say to me: to pace ; ' Pi4 you see thq 
 Elephant?' l^ow'4 Ueel then ?'' 
 
i6SH MaVsEED in new YORK. i2t 
 
 "Jest let me alone at this midnight hour," says he, "and jrou 
 shall see him to-morrer sure " 
 
 "Nuff said," says I, and off I poked to bed agin, but not with- 
 out tyin' a piece of yarn round my big toe as a rememberancer. 
 
 Sprouts kept his word, and put me aboard a steamship he said 
 was ail i'on. That I found out to be one of his fable stories, not 
 only becuz it would have to sink if it was all i'on, but becuz I come 
 near gittin' thrown overboard for hackin' up the wood of it with 
 my toadstabber to prove how big a lie it was. 
 
 " Keep your eye open, Uncle Josh," says Sprouts, "and see if you 
 can see any signs of him." 
 
 We ware pooty nigh out to the middle of the ocean when he said 
 that, I should jedge, but I kept watchin' round, thinkin' p'raps he 
 might be a swimin' elephant. Not seein' any signs of him, how- 
 ever, I turned my eye in shore for a change, and I nigh fell off the 
 steamship at the sight I saw. It took me sometime to git my wind 
 together, and then I had to let out or bust. 
 
 "There he is, by gosh ! " I hollers to the rest of 'em, and p'intin' 
 him out, "standin' right over there on the land, nat'ral as life, and 
 bigger 'n fourteen barns all put together." 
 
 At that the gals set up a gigglin', and I turned round and says to 
 'em in a rebukin' way : 
 
 "It may be all very well to larf now you're three or four mile 
 away from that critter, but it wouldn't be a very comical matter for 
 some folks if he should be teched up behind and should bring his 
 foot down on the houses round there.'' 
 
 That got 'em off wuss 'n ever, and I found out when we come up 
 to him that there was some cause for it, as he was really dead, and, 
 like most other things round York, holler from top to toe. ' But 
 sech a whopper as he is I don't believe was ever seen afore, even in 
 Bible times. 
 
 Afore Sprouts would let me go up to him, however, he said I'd 
 better go round the place and see what I thought of Coney's Island 
 which he said was where the elephant finally settled after the 
 May'r of the village had druv him out time and agin. 
 
 " Do you mean to say," says I, " that there's any one man, or any 
 army of men, tor that matter, big enough to drive that critter 
 round ? " 
 
121 
 
 JOSH! HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH DISCOVERS THE ELEPHANT. 
 
JOSH HAVSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 123 
 
 "That was some time ago^" says he, "but to tell the tiuth there's 
 ■jlenty of little elephants ia the village still, and I suspect some of 
 sm may git to be full s.zed yet." 
 
 " Oh, you go along," says I, " with your riddlesome talk, and 
 show me what sort cf a place Mr. Coney 'j got here. " 
 
 We hadn't gone ten rod c n the bridge whc-re we landed afore [ 
 see one of the most surprisin' sights cf my Kfe. Happenin' to look 
 over a Icetla I caught sight of more 'n three hundred men and boys 
 in swimmin' with their clothes on. 
 
 UNCLE JOSH AND THE BATHERS. 
 
 " Wal," I says to Sprouts, " that is a curus sight. Ain't them 
 boys lively ? " 
 
 "Them ain't boys," says he. 
 
 "They ain't?" says I, "then will you be kind enough to inform 
 your Uncle Josh what they might be, becuz I'm darned sure they 
 ain^t monkeys, otherwise they'd be more hairy round the shins." 
 
 "Why," says he, "them's gals. and wimmin." 
 
 The minnit that come out I had my coat and hat off, and had got 
 Lhe nigh boot off, too, though it pulls dreadful hard ginerally. 
 
 " For heaven's sake," says Sprouts, hoppin' around like parch 
 corn in a popper, " put on your clothes, or you'll be arrested." 
 
 "Gan't help it," says I, "I've got to git into that water gomehov;-, 
 it I'm hung for it," 
 
1*4 JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORK. 
 
 He conqjuered, and in about fifteen minnits had me rigged up in 
 one of them home-made meal-bag soots without any pockets, and 
 off I scoots for that blessed huntin' ground. The water was 
 plaguey cold, but sech a thing as that don't trouble a man when he 
 gits the chance of a lifetime, and in I went, helter-skelter, slam- 
 bang. 
 
 It skeered the gals somewhat at fust, but when they see how 
 good lookin' I was you couldn't keep 'em away from me. The 
 water was the meanest tastin' stuff that ever I swallered a quart of, 
 but as for the frolic, it beat anything in the shape of a free-love 
 picnic I've hearn of yet. The only drawback was that I was under 
 that high-seasoned water so much of the time I couldn't enjoy the 
 larfin' harf so much as the gals, who ware on top most of the 
 time. 
 
 It was pooty hard sometimes to tell the difference betwixt a gal 
 and a feller without a mustache, but they didn't fool Uncle Josh 
 much that way, for I took good care to tickle 'em afore I'd agree 
 to have fun. 
 
 I shrunk up awful while I was in there, but when I'd hove un 
 all the water I'd swallered, and Sprouts had fixed me up with a gcoa 
 nipper or two, I felt as prime as June butter, and if I live till I'm 
 gray-headed, or bald-headed either, I'll never forgit whatatime me 
 and them gals had in swimmin'. 
 
 Now I've got harvestin' to do this comin' fall, and durin' the 
 winter I cal'late to layoff somewhat and fat up a leetle to offset my 
 trip to York ; so I ain't goin' into particulars 'bout Coney's Island, 
 Decuz if I did I couldn't do it jestice in six months' thinkin'. 
 
 I'd alluz ben led to believe that York Village was the head 
 center of everything that's of any account in this country. But, for 
 the matter of fun, and music, and spendin' money, and seein' sights, 
 by the side of Coney's Island, it ain't a handful of oats in a forty- 
 acre piece of harrered muck and loam. 
 
 You kin git anything to eat down there you want from a sas- 
 senger for five cents to a dinner that would make you morgige 
 your farm, and as for shows and music, you can't git away from 'em 
 whether its a jewsharp or a band that bigger 'n a hull Baptist con- 
 gregation. Without speakin' of the steam k3-ars on the water, you 
 kin go up on a mountain and glide down like lighnin', with a lot 
 
josrt Hayseed in new-Vork. 
 
 i»S 
 
 of pooty gals, and when you land you're right up on top agin ; or 
 you kin git in a dumb waiter and be hauld up so high that if you 
 should throw a green apple off it would be dead ripe when it hit 
 the ground. 
 
 As to grab-bags, and whirligigs, and maypoles, and ring toss, and 
 sech — wal, that must be where they all come from fust off. I'm 
 
 UNCLE JOSH IN A BATHING SUIT. 
 
 inclined to the opinion that the Elephant got there not becuz he 
 was druv round, but becuz that's his nat'ral hum. 
 
 He's what ketches your eye fust and last down there. I traveled 
 up through his nigh hind leg and down his off one, and I'll say 
 that in gittin' red of his innards they've made as clean a job as 
 could be wished. His hull insides are boarded up as tight as a 
 whistle, and right in his belly they've got a big dancin' hall that 
 you wouldn't believe any animil was sizeable enough to have. 
 
 When I come to look him all over from the outside, I couldn't 
 help thinkin' what a pow'rful beefy critter he was. Jest to think, a 
 
136 JOSH HAYSEED l^f NEW YORIt 
 
 slice of rump off from his quarters, if hung up in the woodshed out 
 of reach of the cats, would be enough to keep a fair-sized family in 
 good eatin' all winter. 
 
 "This sight," says Ito Sprouts with considerable awe, "is a fit 
 endin' to my eventful trip to York Village. 
 
 " Hold on," says he, " you musn't go hum till you've got suthin' 
 to show that you've rid on the Elephant, to which end you'll have 
 to have your pictur taken " 
 
 " Good land," says I, " they couldn't see me atop of that critter." 
 
 "Troo enough," says he, "but they've got a little elephant inside, 
 that you can git astraddle of and have a pictur that's perfect to 
 life." 
 
 "That's all very well," sa}-s I, "but I wouldn't want even a little 
 elephant to bite me jest as I'm gittin' ready to go hum." 
 
 "He can't bite you," says he, larfin' as usual. 
 
 " Nor kick, nuther ? " says I. 
 
 " No, nor kick," says he. 
 
 " Wal' then," says I, "I guess I'll try it, becuz I do want suthin' 
 of the kind to show for what I've ben through. 
 
 With that in we went, and when at lact I got atop of that elephant, 
 which I'd beared so much about, I felt as proud as Lucifer ridin' 
 the sun. 
 
 " How's this," says I, "for a pictur to show the folks to hum? " 
 
 " Ger lang, Jerusha ! " 
 
JOSH HAYSEED IN NEW YORlL 
 
 til 
 
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 Burdett's New Comic Recitations and Humorous Readings.— A sew 
 
 volume of comic and humorous selections, compiled by the celebrated humorist, James 
 S. Burdett, many oC which have never before been published in book form. lUiunin- 
 ated paper cover 25ctl. 
 
 Burdett's Negro Dialect Recitations and Hnmorous Readings.— 
 
 Containing the latest and best hits of Modem Negro Minstrelsy, being by far the moslE 
 perfect book of its kind ever published. Bound in illuminated paper cover 26 CtB. 
 
 Burdett's Serio-Comic Recitations and Readings,— A miscellaneous 
 
 collection of Burdett's latest and most successful pieces in prose and poetry 160 pages. 
 Paper cover ?^ eta. 
 
 Burdett's Patriotic Recitations and Readings.— A oarefully compiled 
 
 collection of Patriotic Recitals, designed and arranged for Public or Parlor Reading. 
 Bound in illustrated paper cover 26 eta. 
 
 Burdett's Dramatic Recitations and Readings. — Compiled and arranged 
 
 for Reading, Speaking, Recitation, and Mocutionary Exercises. Bound in illustrated 
 paper cover 85 CtB. 
 
 Burdett's Heroic Recitations and Readings.— A carefully compiled col- 
 lection of original extracts in Prose and Poetry, for the use ot Schools, Colleges, and 
 Public Readers. Bound in illustrated paper cover 26 CtB. 
 
 Burdett's Irish Dialect Recitations and Readings.— This new coiiectibn 
 
 of rare Irisn sketches. In prose and verse, arranged for public reprfesentation, embraces 
 the most sparkhng Irish wit, set forth with the irresistible humor of Irish brogue. 
 Illuminated paper cover 26 CtB. 
 
 De Vere's Wit, Humor, Pathos, and Parodies.— Being a new and original 
 
 collection of the author's best efforts in the field of wit, humor, and pathos. These 
 beautiful selections have been delivered by some of the great '"stars''^ of thfi "pro- 
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 pact form. Containing 150 pp . , bound in elegant illuminated cover 26 CtB, 
 
 Excelsior Series of Recitations and Readings.— The great demand for 
 
 new and suitable Readings and Recitations has led to the compilation of these books 
 Our experience of the past warrants the belief that our efforts will be appreciated by 
 the public. Each number will contain about 176 pages, bound in a beautiful illustrated 
 
 cover printed in colors. Nos. 1, 8, 3, and 4 now ready 26 cts, each 
 
 Other numbers to follow in rapid succession. ' * 
 
 CONTENTS OS" THE ABOVE BOOKS SENT FREE ON APPLIOATION. 
 
 JVilson's Ball-Boom Guide ; or. Dancing- Self-Taught.— The latest and 
 
 most complete of any publication of its kind out, embracing not only the whole theory 
 and practice ot Terpsichorean Art, but full and requisite information for the giving of 
 Receptions, Parties, Balls, etc., with clear directions for calling out the figures of e-very 
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 rauaio, and containing nearly one hundred flgures for the " German " 
 
 Bound in illuminated board cover, with cloth tiack 75 .t. 
 
 Bound in illuminated paper cover 60 Ota' 
 
 How to Draw and Paint.— A complete hand-book on the -whole art of 
 Drawing and Painting, containing concise instructions in Onthne, Light and Shade 
 Perspective, Sketching from Nature, Figure Drawing, Artistic Anatomy, Landscape,' 
 Marine, and Portrait Painting, the principles of colors applied to paintings etc etc 
 with over 100 illustrations. 18mo, boards, with cloth back [ 5() jj^l 
 
 Drummers' Yarns.— The latest and funniest book published. Containing 
 all the modem funny stories as related by Our Commercial Travelers. 96 pages with 
 humorous illustrations lOotB. 
 
 Bzcelsior Publishing Honse. Tft iiii i 1 til Wt i nl iiii inn Fi t i ranty IP i n York, N. T.