VVAV ■R iS V r.ii ^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. -pfu-m §{pp.' ©ijfajrir$tf lf$* Slielft£-5_J:i 3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J?rtce 10 <3ents* New York: J. S. OGILVIE AND COMPANY, 31 Rose Street. YOUMAN'S DICTIONARY OF Every- Day Wants. Containing 20,000 Receipts in Every Department of Human Effort. BY A. E. YOTJMAJNL M. D. Royal Octayt), 530 Pages. Price ia CM, $4.00; Leaner, $4.75 $100 a Year Saved to all who Possess and Head this Book ! No book of greater value was ever offered to Agents to sell. The following list of trades and professions are fully represented, and information of great value given in each, department. Our 16-page circular, giving full description, sent free to any address. Clerks, Lumber Dealers, Hardware Dealers, Watchmakers, Bookkeepers, Miners, Engravers, Dyers, Farmers, Opticians, Furriers, Coopers, Stock-raisers, Whitewashers, Glaziers, Coppersmiths, Gardeners, Soapmakers, Grocers, Machinists, Florists, Trappers, Hotel Keepers, Curriers. 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Box 2767. 31 Rose Street New York SOIMIIE FUNNY THINGS SAID BY Clever Children. Edited by FRANK HARRISON. Copyright, 1886, by J. S. Ogilvie & Co. NEW YORK! J. S. OGILVIE & COMPANY, 31 Rose Street, Some Funny Things SAID BY CLEVER CHILDREN. Johnny attends school, which will explain the following brief dialogue between him and his father : " Johnny, I didn't know you got whipped the other day." " You didn't ? Well, if you'd been in my breeches you'd have known it." The reason an urchin gave for being late at school was, that the boy in the next house was going to have a dress- ing down with a trunk-strap, and he wanted to hear him howl. A little girl, being asked to what church her mother be- longed, said the "Lutheran." ''And your father?" said the questioner. " He's nothing," said she ; and then added, "and not much of that." Several little Sabbath-school pupils were riding together in a carriage. Happening to pass an apple-tree little Nellie asked, with serious face, " Auntie, how did God make apples ? " To which, as quick as thought, little Ida replied, "Just like He made light : He said, 'Let there be apples,' and there was apples." " Maj" said a little girl, " if you'll let me buy some candy I'll be so good !" " My child," solemnly responded the mother, "you should not be good for pay." "Why, ma," exclaimed the child, "you wouldn't like me to be good for nothing." 4 SOME FUNNY THINGS. A confirmed tippler remarked in the presence of his little son that at one period he didn't touch a drop for two years. " Pa," said the little fellow, "was that your first two years ? " A little child was addressed by a gentleman the other day. '-' How old are you, my dear ?" he asked. "Old ? " said the child, indignantly, " I'm not old at all ; I'm quite young." A friend, who had some unexpected visitors, and was bothered about not having enough cake, concluded she would not buy any more, and told the two little children, Willie and Russell, not to ask for cake, and do without their share. When at the table, Willie was a little "pouty," and not wanting to eat anything. Russell, seeing him, said in the hearing of the whole company : " What's the mat- ter, Willie ? Did mother tell you not to ask for cake, too ?" A little ten-year-old miss told her mother that she was never going to marry, but meant to be a widow ; because widows dressed in such nice black, and always looked so happy. " Who made you ?" inquired a lady teacher of a lub- berly boy who had lately joined her class. " I don't know," said he. " Don't know ! You ought to be ashamed of yourself ! A boy fourteen years old. Why, there's Dickey Felton ; he's only three ; he can tell, I dare say. Come here, Dickey. Who made you ?" God," lisped the infant prodigy. "There !" said the teacher, triumphantly. " I knew he would remember." "Well, he oughter," said the stupid boy ; " 'taint but a little while ago since he was made." " Freddy," said his maiden aunt, "you should eat the barley in your soup, or you'll never get a man." Freddy, looking up, innocently inquired : " Is that what you eat it it for, aunty ?" SOME FUNNY THINGS. 5 An old lady, possessed of a fine fortune, and noted for her penchant for the use of figurative expressions, one day assembled her grandchildren, when the following conversation took place : " My children," said the old lady, " I am the root and you are the branches." "Grandma," says one. "What, my child?" "I was thinking how much better the branches would flourish if the root was underground." " My son," said a father to his son, who was taking off the outer portion of a piece of cheese, "I eat rind." " All right," replied young hopeful* " I'm cutting this off for you." Father (to his little son, who has just handed him the teacher's report of progress and conduct for the last month) : "This report is very unsatisfactory ; I'm not at all pleased with it !" Little So?i : " I told the teacher I thought you wouldn't be, but he wouldn't alter it." A little boy, whose father was a rather immoderate drinker of the moderate kind, one day sprained his wrist, and his mother utilized the whiskey in her hus- band's bottle by bathing the little fellow's wrist with it. After awhile the pain began to abate, and the child sur- prised his mother by exclaiming, " Ma, has pa got a . sprained throat ?" A gentleman was engaged in teaching mutes. He was explaining by signs the use and meaning -of the particle " dis" and requested one of them to write on the black- board a sentence showing her knowledge of the sense of the prefix. A bright little one immediately stepped for- ward and wrote the following : " Boys love to play, but girls to display." A little girl, suffering from rheumatism, was crying piteously, when her father, thinking to divert her mind from the pain, said, " Mamie, I've just been to see your cousin Joe, and he has the measles." She at once cried out, " Why didn't he send me some ?" 6 SOME FUNNY THINGS. " Come here, my little Eddy," said a gentleman to a youngster of seven years of age, while sitting in the par- lor, where a large company was assembled, " Do you know me?" "Yes, sir, I think I do." "Who am I, then ? " "You are the man that kissed sister Belle, last night in the conservatory." There is nothing so difficult as to ascertain, with any degree of preciseness, how many summers a lady has en- joyed after she has passed the rubicon of youth. Some- time ago a lady who, when young, was much flattered for her beauty, but who, although somewhat advanced in life, was as much a coquette as ever, paid a visit to a gentle- man, a very old friend of hers, who thoughtlessly asked her "age. She replied, "Twenty-eight years." "But, madam, how old is that young man, your son, who is with you? " rejoined the gentleman. The boy, answering for his youthful parent, replied, " I am a year older than my mamma ' " Minnie (her kitten being dead) : "Has Pussy gone to Heaven, Papa?" Papa : "No, darling." "Why not?" "They don't want cats in Heaven." Minnie : " Would they scratch the angels ?" " Bobby, what does your father do for a living ? " "He's a philanthropist, sir." "A what?" "A philan- thropist, sir : he collects money for Central Africa, and builds houses with it." "Mamma," said little Lydia, "ought teacher to flog me for something I have not done ? " " No, my dear ; why do you ask ? " " Cause she flogged me to-day when I didn't do my sum." A butcher-boy in Washington Market says he has often heard of the /ore quarters of the globe, but never heard any person say anything about the hind quarters. " Please, I wan't to buy a dollar's worth of hay." " Is it for your father ?" " Oh, no ; it's for the horse ; father doesn't eat hay !" SOME FUNNY THINGS. 7 A schoolboy was asked by his teacher to give an ex- ample of earnestness. He looked bothered for a moment, but his face brightened like the dewdrops glistening on the leaves of the rose in early morning as he delivered himself of the following happy thought : "When you see a boy engaged on a mince-pie till his nose touches the middle raisin, and his ears drop on the outer crusts, you may know he has got it !" An indignant parent, in rebuking a refractory son, ex- claimed : " Remember who you are talking to, sir ! I'm your father !" To which the youth rejoined : " Oh, come now, I hope you ain't goin' to blame me for that !" " Home's the place for boys," said a stern parent to his son, who was fond of going out at night. " That's just what I think when you drive me off to school every morning," said the son. A Sunday-school boy was asked by the superintendent if his father was a Christian. " Yes, sir," he replied ; "but he's not working at it much." Freddy is a little one of seven years' growth, the sonfof a minister, who, with his wife, has just arrived at a new field of labor. Hearing his mother say to his father that she had been deceived by his saying the parsonage was a three-story building, when in fact, it was only two, he said, "Ma?" "Well, Freddy." " The kitchen is one." " Yes." " This floor's two, and the story that pa told is three." "Oh, Aunty," cried little Amy in the nursery yester- day, "make Freddy behave himself ; every time I happen to hit him on the head with the mallet he bursts out cry- ing." Johnny was telling his mamma how he was going to dress and show off when he was a man. His mamma asked, " Johnny, what do you expect to do for a living when you get to be a man ?" " Well, I'll get married, and lodge with my wife's pa." 8 SOME FUNNY THINGS. A little boy, who was to pass the afternoon with a neighbor's little daughter, was given two pieces of candy. When he returned his mother asked if he gave the larger piece to the little girl. " No, mamma, I didn't. You told me always to give the biggest piece to company, and I was company over there." Mother : " Now, Gerty, be a good girl, and give Aunt Julia a kiss and say good night." Gerty : " No, no ! If I kiss her she'll box my ears, like she did papa's last night." A boy of twelve, dining at his uncle's, made such a good dinner that his aunt observed, " Johnny, you appear to eat well." "Yes, auntie," replied the urchin, "I've been practicing eating all my life." A yomig Minister : "What's a miracle ?" Boy : " Dunno." Minister : " Well, if the sun were to shine in the mid- dle of the night what should you say it was ?" Boy: "The moon." Mi?dster : " But if you were told that it was the sun, what would you say it was ?" Boy : " A lie." Mi?iister : " I don't tell lies. Suppose I told you it was the sun, what would you say then ?" Boy : " That you wasn't sober." Small Boy : " When I get bigger, Mr. Brown, you'll let me ride your horse, won't you ? " Mr. Brown : " Why, Charlie, I haven't any horse ; what made you think so ? " Charlie : " Why, I heard mother say that you'd been riding a high-horse lately." Papa : " How is' it, Alice, that you never get a prize at school ?" Mamma : "And your friend Louisa Sharp gets so many ? " Alice (innocently) : " Ah! Louisa Sharp has got such clever Barents." SOME FUNNY THINGS. 9 Lulu's grandma, becoming impatient with her noise, said to her : " Lulu, you are a mistake ; you should have been a boy." Lulu was very thoughtful for a few minutes, then gravely answered, " Grandma, God don't make mistakes." "Boy," said an ill-tempered old fellow to a noisy lad, "^what are you hollerin' for when I'm goin' by? " " Humph," returned the boy, "what are you goin' by for when I'm hollerin'? " (Scene : A Refreshment Counter.) Uncle : "„Well, Tommy, you see I'm back ; are you ready ? What have I to pay for, clerk?" Clerk : " Three buns, four sponge-cakes, two sand- wiches, one jelly, five crullers and " Uncle : " Great Scott, boy ! are you ill?" Tommy : " No, uncle ; but I'm thirsty." Ada (aged four) was doing something and was told to desist by her mother. Mother : " Ada, am I to speak to you again ? " Ada : " Yes, ma ; you may if vou like." Teacher : '' John, what are your boots made of?" Boy : " Of leather, sir." Teacher : " Where does the leather come from ?" Boy : " From the hide of the ox." Teacher : " What animal, therefore, supplies you with boots and shoes, and gives you meat to eat ?" Boy : " My father." A wee boy beset his mother to talk to him, and say something funny. " How can I ?" she asked ; " don't you see how busy I am baking these pies ?" " Well, you might say, ' Charlie, won't you have a pie ? ' That would be funny for you." " Can you tell me," asked a Sunday-school teacher of a little girl, " why the Israelites made a golden calf ?" "Because they hadn't gold enough to make a cow," was the reply. io SOME FUNNY THINGS. "What is that, children?" asked a Sunday-school superintendent, exhibiting a magic-lantern picture of a poor sinner clinging to the cross, towering out of stormy waves in mid-ocean. " Robinson Crusoe !" was the in- stant reply. "Why should we celebrate Washington's birthday more than mine ?" asked a teacher ? " Cos he never told a lie !" shouted a small boy. "A little five-year-old remarked to her mamma on going to bed, " I am not afraid of the dark." "No, of course you are not," replied mamma, "for it can't hurt you." " But, mamma, I was a little afraid once, when I went into the pantry to get a cake." "What were you afraid of?" asked her mamma. " I was afraid I shouldn't be able to find the cakes !" Mamma : " Look here, George ; here's a nice pudding. Will you be a good boy now, and come and have some ?" George : (who has been put in the corner for bad be- havior), "What sort o' puddin' is it, ma ?" A little girl was reproved for playing out of doors with boys, and informed that, being seven years old, she was "too big for that now." But, with all imaginable inno- cence, she replied, " Why, the bigger we grow the better we like 'em !" Arthur (who has been listening with breathless interest to one of grandpa's Bible stories) : " And were you in the ark, grandpa, along with Noah and all the rest of 'em ?" Grandpa (indignantly): "No, sir; certainly not !" Arthur : " Then how is it you wasn't drowned ?" " There is no rule without exception, my son." " Oh, isn't there, pa ? A man must always be present while he is being shaved ! " "Well, Jem, what is a commentator ? " "Why," was Jem's reply, " I suppose it must be the commonest of all taturs." SOME FUNNY THINGS. n A minister was addressing a school concert recently, and was trying to enforce the doctrine that the hearts of the little ones were sinful, and needed regulating. Tak- ing out his watch, and holding it up, he said : " Now, here is my watch. Suppose it don't keep good time — now goes too fast and now too slow — what shall I do with it ?" " Sell it !" shouted a flaxen-headed youngster. The other day some ladies were out visiting. There being a little three-year-old present, one of the ladies asked him if he would not kiss her. He answered : "No." "What is the reason you will not kiss me?" " I'm too little to kiss you ; papa will kiss you ; papa kisses all the big girls." Pet: " Mamma, I want to make a little bargain with you." Mamma : " What is it, my dear ?" Pet : "If you'll give me a paper of candy every day I won't tell anybody you take your hair out of a drawer." Teacher : " What bird did Noah send out of the Ark ?" Smallest boy in the class (after a pause) : "Dove, sir." Teacher: "Very well. But I should have thought some of you big boys would have known that." Tall pupil : " Please, sir, that boy ought to know, 'cause his daddy keeps a bird store." "This is a stormy day, my boy," said a minister to a little boy whom he met. "Yes, sir : it's a wet rain." " Why, did you ever see any rain that wasn't wet ?" " No, sir, I never did ; but I heard you read once that it 'rained fire and brimstone,' and I think that wasn't a very wet rain." " Papa, what does it mean to be tried by a jury of one's peers ?" " It means, my son, that a man is to be tried by a jury composed of men who are his equals, on an equality with him, so that they will have no prejudice against him." " Then, pa, I suppose you'd have to be tried by a jury of bald-headed men ?" 12 SOME FUNNY THINGS. Harry sat at his father's side at a friend's table. Some- body passed him the bread. Harry took a piece that was dry ; so he dropped it and took a softer one. " My son," said the father, reprovingly, "never touch a piece of bread or cake that you never mean to take." Harry ate his bread and remembered. After a while the cake was passed round. When it came to Harry the little fingers made a quick, adroit movement, and hauled off three large slices. " Why, Harry ! " cried his father. " Weil, papa, you told me to take all the pieces I touched, and I touched all these." " No, no, my son ; I said touch only those you mean to take." "That's just it, papa. I meant to take every one, and I tried for that other big slice with the pile of sugar on it, but I didn't quite catch on." A child, on being shown the picture of Daniel in the lions' den, began to cry. " Don't cry, pet," said the mother ; " God won't let them harm a hair of his head." " Oh ! I ain't crying for that ; but just see that little lion : Daniel is so small it won't get any." A teacher, questioning little boys about the graduation in the scale of being, asked : " What comes next to man?" whereupon a little lad, who was evidently smarting under a sense of previous defeat, immediately distanced all competitors by promptly shouting, "His shirt, ma'am !" A tutor, lecturing a lad for his irregular conduct, added, with great pathos, "The report of your bad conduct will bring your father's gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." " I beg your pardon, sir," replied the incorrigible ; " my father wears a wig." "Edward," said his mother to a boy of eight, who was playing in the front yard, " Edward, you mustn't go out of the gate into the street." " No, ma, I won't," was the reply. A few moments afterwards she saw Edward in the street, engaged in the edifying employment of manu- facturing dirt-pies. " Didn't I tell you," said she, angrily, "not to go through the gate ?" " Well, I didn't, mother," was the very satisfactory reply ; " I climbed over the fence t" SOME FUNNY THINGS. 13 One day, a little girl, about five years old, heard a ranting preacher praying most lustily, till the roof rang with the strength of his supplication. Turning to her mother, and beckoning the maternal ear down to a speak- ing-place, she whispered, "Mother, don't you think that if he lived nearer to God he wouldn't have 4 to talk so loud ?" " Peter, what are you doing to that boy ?" said a school- master. " He wanted to know, if you take ten from seventeen, how many will remain ; so I took ten of his apples to show him, and now he wants me to give 'em back." "Well, why don't you do it?" " Coz, sir, he would forget how many is left." "I say, friend, is there anything to shoot about here ?" asked a Kentucky sportsman of a small boy. Boy: " Wal, nothing just about here, stranger ; but the school- master is down the hill yonder. You can pop him over as far as I am concerned." " You must not play with that little girl, my dear," said an injudicious parent. "But, ma, I like her ; she is a nice little girl, and I'm sure she dresses as prettily as I do, and she has lots of toys." " I cannot help that, my dear," responded the vain mother, whose husband kept a fish market, "her father is a shoemaker." "But I don't play with her father ; I play with her. She ain't a shoemaker." A father was questioning his children one Sunday eve- ning on the portion of sacred writ in Genesis descriptive of the construction of the ark. " How was light admitted into the ark — glass being then unknown ?" queried papa of one of the misses. " Oh, Noah just turned on the electric light." "Mamma," said a wee child one Sunday evening, after having sat in the house all day like a good child, " have I honored you to-day ?" " I don't know," replied the mother ; why do you ask ?" " Because," said the little one, sadly shaking her head, " the Bible says, ' Honor thy father and mother, that thy days may be long" and this has been, oh ! the longest day I ever saw !" i 4 SOME FUNNY THINGS. A sick man, who noticed his little daughter looking eagerly at some fruit at his bedside, said to her : "You would not take them away from your sick papa, would you?" She replied, hesitatingly: "No, I wouldn't," and then colored up, and ingeniously added : "but, papa, I tell a story when I say so." He gave her the fruit. A little boy three years old, who has a brother of three months, gave as a reason for the latter's good conduct, " Baby doesn't cry tears because he doesn't drink any water; he can't cry milk." " Bill Jones," said a bullying urchin to another lad, " next time I catch you alone I'll flog you like anything !" "Well," replied Bill, "I ain't often much alone; I commonly have my legs and fists with me." " Now, you children, I tell you what it is ; if you make any more noise in front of my house, I'll speak to that policeman !" Chorus of Juveniles (much tickled) : "That policeman ! Lor', we ain't afeered of him ! Why, that's dad! " A little boy of seven had been ordered by the doctor to take claret. A person dining with the family said to him, '" You should put a little water with it ; it brings out the taste." " That's very fine," responded the child,, "but I prefer the taste left in." "Mamma, I want to see what is in that box." "There isn't anything in it, Tom." " Oh, then, I want to see what there isn't in it." A little boy, disputing with his sister recently, exclaimed, " It's true, for ma says so; and if ma says so, it is so if it ain't so." A gentleman sent his little son with a letter to the post- office, and money to pay the postage. Having returned with the money, he said : " I've done the thing properly. I saw a good many folks puttin' letters in the post-office through a hole, and so I watched my chance and got mine in for nothing." SOME FUNNY THINGS. 15 A veteran was relating his exploits to a crowd of boys, and mentioned having been in five engagements. "That's nothing !" broke in a little shaver. " My sister Sarah's been eneased eleven times." "Ma, is Mr. Thompson respectable?" "Certainly, my child. Why do you ask that question ?" " Because he wears such poor clothes." "You should not judge per- sons by their clothes ; none but silly people do that." " Then everybody's silly, ain't they, ma?" " Did any of you ever see an elephant's skin ?" inquired a teacher. " I have," exclaimed a small boy. " Where ?" asked the teacher, "On the elephant," said the youth, 1 6 SOME FUNNY THINGS. A clergyman having called up a class of girls and boys, began with one of the former in these words : " My dear child, tell me who made your vile body ?" She had no idea of the question applying to anything beyond her per- sonal appearance, and dropping a quick curtsey, replied, "Please, sir, mother made the body and I made the skirt." A little boy named Knight was told by his Sunday- school teacher that he must be a good boy, and when he died he would go to heaven. The little boy was well pleased with the prospect, and promised to be the best kind of a boy. The next Sunday he appeared in his place, looking sorrowful, and the teacher asked him if he had been a good boy. " Yes," he replied, '* I've tried to be good, but it's no use. The boys say I can't go to heaven if I am ever so good." "Why do the boys say that?" asked the teacher. "They say," said the boy, with the utmost simplicity, " there'll be no night there." An Irish lad complained the other day of the harsh treatment he had received from his father. " He trates me," said he, mournfully, " as if I was his son by another father and mother." " I don't want mother to marry again," said a little boy m for little boys ? This Catechism is too hard for me." A little child asked her mamma if she thought nurse would go to Heaven. Her mamma replied she hoped she would. " Then," said the child, " / don't want to go there." " William, if you go out in the street I'll whip you." " But, mother, if I let you whip me now, may I go out afterwards ?" " Isn't your papa a little bald ?" asked one child of another. "There isn't a bald hair on his head," indig- nantly replied her companion. A small boy, who was playing truant, when asked if he wouldn't get a whipping when he got home, replied, " What is five minutes' whacking to five hours of fun ?" "I'll make you dance !" cried an irate mother, pursu- ing her erring son, slipper in hand. "Then," remarked the young hopeful, " we shall have a bawl." " I'll teach you to play pitch and toss !" shouted an enraged father. "I'll flog you for an hour, I will!" " Father," instantly replied the incorrigible, as he balanced a penny on his thumb and finger, "I'll toss you to make it two hours or nothing !" " If you children quarrel so about that doll I'll break it up ; there's no peace where you are !" " Oh, do, mam- ma !" screamed the young hopefuls, " then we shall all have a little piece" 1 8 SOME FUNNY THINGS. A country doctor, being out for a day's shooting, took the errand boy to carry his game-bag. Entering a field of turnips, the dog pointed, and the boy, overjoyed at the prospect of his master's success, exclaimed : " Lor', master, there's a covey ! If you get near 'em won't you physic 'em ?" " Physic them, you young rascal ! What do you mean ?" said the doctor. " Why, kill 'em, to be sure !" replied the lad. A doting mother of a waggish boy bottled a lot of nice preserves, and labeled them, "Put up by Mrs. Doo." Johnny, having discovered the goodies, soon ate the con- tents of one bottle, and wrote on the label, " Put down by Johnny Doo." " Eliza, my child," said a prudish old maid to her pretty niece, who would curl her hair in pretty ringlets, " if the Lord had intended your hair to be curled He would have done it Himself." "So He did, aunty, when I was a baby, but He thinks I am big enough now to curl it myself." " Why on earth don't you get up earlier, my son ?" said an anxious father to his sluggard boy ; " don't you see the flowers even spring out of their beds at the early dawn?" "Yes, father," said the boy, "I see they do ; and I would do the same if I had as dirty a bed as they have." "Boy, what is your name?" "Robert, sir." "Yes, that is your Christian name ; but what is your other name?" "Bob, sir." Aunt Ellen was trying to persuade little Eddie to re- tire at sunset, using as an argument that the little chick- ens went to rest at that time. "Yes," said Eddie, "but the old hen always goes with them." Aunty tried no more arguments with him. " The boy at the head of the class will state what were the dark ages of the world." Boy hesitates. "Next. Master Jones can you tell me what the dark ages were ?" "I fancy they were ages before spectacles were invented." SOME FUNNY THINGS. 19 " Do you understand me now ?" thundered out a hasty- pedagogue to an urchin at whose head he threw an ink- stand. " I have got an inMifig of what you mean," re- plied the boy. "While a teacher was learning a boy his lesson, the fol- lowing passage occurred : "The wages of sin is death." The teacher wishing to get the word "wages" out by de- duction, asked, " What does your father get on Saturday night ?" The boy answered, "He gets drunk." A gentleman riding came to the edge of a morass, which he considered not safe. Seeing a peasant lad, he asked whether the bog was hard at the bottom. "Oh, yes, quite hard," replied the youth. The gentleman rode on, and the horse began to sink. " You rascal !" shouted he, " did you not say it was hard at the bottom ?" "So it is," rejoined the rogue; "but you're not half-way to it yet." A good joke is told of a young man who attended a social circle a few evenings since. The conversation turn- ed on California, and getting rich. Tom remarked that, " if he was in California he would, instead of work- ing in the mines, waylay some rich man who had a bag full of gold, knock out his brains, gather up the gold, and skedaddle." A little girl quietly replied "That he'd better gather up the brains, as he evidently stood in more need of that article than gold." A pupil of the public schools, during his parsing exer- cise, came to the word "with," which he boldly declared "a noun." "You have never seen it used as such," re- plied the teacher. " But I have, though !" confidently retorted the young Hopeful. " Where ?" " Doesn't the Bible say, ' Bind me with seven withs and I shall be as another man." The teacher was vanquished. " Please, sir, I don't think Mr. Jones takes his physic reg'lar," said a doctor's boy to his employer. "Why so !" " Cause vy, he' getting' veil so precious fast," replied the boy. j 20 ' SOME FUNNY THINGS. A lady had been cautioning her son, a bright, affection- ate little boy, in the matter of taking cold. " You know, my child," she said, " I cannot help being anxious and troubled about you when you are ill. Ah, Freddy, you have little idea of the feelings of a mother !" " No, mamma," replied the dear little fellow, with genuine earnestness ; " but I may know something of the feelings of a father." A Sunday-school teacher asked the children if they could quote any text of Scripture which forbade a man having two wives. One~of the children sagely quoted in reply the text : " No man can serve two masters." At one of the customary school examinations an urchin was asked, " What is the chief use of bread ?" To which he replied, with an archness that implied, "What a sim- pleton you must be to ask such a question?" " To spread butter upon." Self-made man (examining school, of which he is a manager) : " Now, boy, what is the capital of 'Olland ?" Boy : " An ' H,' sir." " Well, Patsy, what is a commentator ?" " Why," said Patsy, " I suppose it must be the commonest of all taturs." "Johnny, what have you been doing?" "Oh, Charlie and I have been seeing who could break the most win- dows in the hothouse." A little girl was listening with much interest to the story of Jonah. When the question was asked, "What would you suppose would be the first thing Jonah would do after the great fish threw him upon the land ?" she an- swered promptly : " I sh'd fink he'd go home quick as he could and get cleaned up." Young Hopeful : " What does pa paint all day long for, ma?" Mamma: " That you may have your dinner, my sweetie." Young Hopeful (pondering) : " Does he smoke all day long for my dinner, too, ma ?" SOME FUNNY THINGS. 21 A cross old aunt said to her niece, whom she saw tast- ing various liquid preparations in the kitchen, "Child, you shouldn't be sipping and sipping at everything you see. It's very naughty for a child to be sipping all the time ?" " Well," retorted the child, your kind of sipping is the worst land of all!" "Indeed, Miss Impertinence ! and what is that ?" "Gossiflfiing," said the child. " Pa," said a small boy, " there's a poor man out there that would give anything to see you." "Who is it, my son ?" " It's a blind man." "We had short-cake for tea," said a little girl to a little boy over the fence. " So had we ; so short it didn't go round !" There was company to supper, the table was set out splendidly, and all were enjoying themselves exceedingly, when the pet of the household unfortunately whispered : " Ma, why don't you have this sort of supper when there isn't any company ?" Mamma: "Ted, go upstairs and change your clothes. Now you are at the seaside I want you to wear out your old suit." Ted, who is nine, appears four hours later a sight to behold. Mamma : " Ted, what have you been doing?" Ted: "Oh, mamma, I've been having such a jolly roll down the cliff. You wished me to wear out my clothes, you know." " Pa, will you get me a pair of skates if I prove to you that a dog has got ten tails ?" "Yes, my son." "Well, to begin : one dog has one more tail than no dog, hasn't he ?" "Yes." "Well, no dog has nine tails ; and if one dog has one more tail than no dog, then one dog must have ten tails." He got the skates. In a school a member of the committee asked the members of a class which was under examination, "What is the cause of the saltness of the ocean?" Soon one little girl raised her hand. "You may tell," said the commit- tee-man. "Salt fish, sir," said the pupil. SOME FUNNY THINGS. THE BALD-HEADED MAN. The other day a lady, accompanied by her son, a very small boy, boarded a train at Little Rock. The woman had a careworn expression hanging over her face like a tattered veil, and many of the rapid questions asked by the boy were answered by unconscious sighs. " Ma," said the boy, "that man's like a baby ; ain't he ?" pointing to a bald-headed man sitting just in front of them. "Hush." " Why must I hush ?" After a few moments silence : " Ma, what's the mat- ter with that man's head?" "Hush, I tell you. He's bald." "What's bald?" " His head hasn't got any hair on it." " Did it come off ?" " I guess so." " Will mine come off ? " " Sometime, mavbe." " Then I'll be bald, won't I ?" "Yes." "Will you care?" "Don't ask me so many questions." After another silence the boy exclaimed: "Ma, look at the fly on the man's head." SOME FUNNY THINGS. 23 "If you don't hush, I'll whip you when we get home." "Look! There's another fly. Look at 'em fight; look at 'em !" " Madam," said the man, putting aside a newspaper and looking around. "What's the matter with the young hyena ?" The woman blushed, stammered out something, and attempted to smooth back the boy's hair. " One fly, two flies, three flies," said the boy innocently, following with his eyes a basket of oranges carried by the newsboy. " Here, you young hedge-hog," said the bald-headed man. " If you don't hush, I'll have the conductor put you off the train." The poor woman, not knowing what else to do, boxed the boy's ears and then gave him an orange to keep him from crying. " Ma, have I got red marks on my head ?" " I'll slap you again if you don't hush." " Mister," said the boy, after a short silence, " does it hurt to be bald-headed ?" "Youngster," said the man, "If you'll keep quiet I'll give you a quarter." The boy promised, and the money was paid over. The man took up his paper and resumed his reading. "This is my bald-headed money," said the boy. "When I get bald-headed I'm going to give boys money. Mister, have all bald-headed men got money?" The annoyed man threw down his paper, arose and ex- claimed : " Madam, hereafter when you travel leave that young gorilla at home. Hitherto I always thought that the old prophet was very cruel for calling the she-bears to kill children for making sport of his head, but now I am forced to believe that he did a Christian act. If your boy had been in the crowd he would have died first. If I can't find another seat on this train I'll ride on the cow- catcher rather than remain here." " The bald-headed man is gone !" said the boy, and the woman leaned back and blew a tired sigh from her lips. Dr. Cuyler related the following touching story : A friend gave me, lately, the experience of a skillful profes- 24 SOME FUNNY THINGS. sional man, in about the following words : " My early practice," said the doctor, "was successful, and I soon at- tained an enviable position. I married a lovely girl, two children were born to us, and my domestic happiness was complete. But I was invited often to social parties, where wine was freely circulated, and I soon became a slave to its power. Before I was aware of it I was a drunkard. My noble wife never forsook me, never taunted me with a bitter word, never ceased to pray for my reformation. We became wretchedly poor, so that my family were pinched for daily bread. One beautiful Sabbath my wife went to church, and left me on a lounge sleeping off my previous night's debauch. I was aroused by hearing something fall heavily on the floor; I opened my eyes and saw my little boy of six years old tumbling on the carpet. His elder brother said to him, " Now get up and fall again ; that's the way papa does it. Let's play we are drunk !" I watched the child as he personated my beastly movements in a way that would have done credit to an actor. I arose and left the house, groaning in agony and remorse. I walked off miles into the country thinking over my abominable sin, and the ex- ample I was setting before my children. I solemnly re- solved that, with God's help, I would quit my cups, and I did. No lecture I ever heard moved my soul like the spectacle of my own sweet boys " playing drunk as papa does." " And what should you do," asked a lady of her little nephew, who had been assuring her of his unbounded affection for her; "What should you do, Harry, if your poor aunty were to die, and your uncle were to marry again ?" "Why," replied Harry, without the slightest hesitation, " I should go to the wedding, of course !" Among the Sunday-school children of a certain church was a poor little fellow. He could not tell the number of the house in which he lived, and was charged when he next came to school to bring it. The next time he ap- peared he was asked if he brought the number. "No, sir," said he ; " it was nailed on the door so tight tha«t I couldn't get it off." SOME FUNNY THINGS. 25 A little boy, six years old, and a little girl, eight, were looking at the clouds one beautiful summer evening, watching their fantastic shapes, when the boy exclaimed, " Oh, Minnie, I see a dog in the sky !" "Well, Willie," replied the sister, "it must be a skye-terrier." Jones' mouth is disfigured by the absence of one of his front teeth. His little son surprised him yesterday by asking, "Pop, why do you part your teeth in the mid- dle ?" This"is a boy's composition on girls. He says : "Girls are the only folks that has their own way every time. Girls is of several thousand kinds, and sometimes one girl can be like several thousand girls if she wants to do anything. They are also like kittens; they go singing and purring about until you stroke them the wrong way, and then they get mad. This is all I know about girls, and father says the less I know about them the better off I am." " Thank goodness," said a tormented passenger, "there are no newsboys in Heaven!" "No," replied the news- boy : " but what comfort would you find in that ?" " Ma thinks a great deal of you, I think," said a little girl to a physician. " Why do you think that, my child ?" " Because I heard her say she thought you wasn't nearly such a fool as that other old humbug." A very ugly woman, toying with a pug dog in front of a cafe on the boulevard, said to Puggy, " Kiss me, and I will give you this piece of sugar." A boy passing by ex- claimed, " Don't she ask a high price for her sugar ?" When the Rev. J. S. Day was pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Weston he was to exchange one Sunday with a Waltham minister, and starting on Monday morning to walk down about half a mile from home, he found a little boy playing in a mud-puddle, and asked him : " Do you know what day this is ?" "Yes," was the prompt reply, " it is Mr. Day, the Methodist minister." The minister walked along. 26 SOME FUNNY THINGS. The mother stood by the gas jet reading a scrap of paper. Through the open door out from the shadowy- recesses of a small adjoining room came a quaint, sleepy little voice, " Now I lay me down to — to — s'eep," and then a stop, as the little head of the little white-robed figure sank deeper and deeper in the cot's side, "Well ?" said the mother, expectantly, " go on, Lilly." ''Now — I — lay — me — down — to — s'eep — s' — ." Then another stop, and there was no response to the mother's soft "Well?" But as the drowsy little figure in white, with angel-locked eyes, coddled up on the pillow where mother's arms placed it, the little lips parted, and, all asleep, came the murmured words, " Dood night, Dod." " Doctor ! Doctor !" panted a boy, "come down the street quick ! There's a man in a fit ! " In an apoplec- tic ?" questioned the Doctor. " No, sir ; he's in an ulster/'^answered the boy. A little ijgirl, who had been visiting the family of a neighbor, hearing them speak of her father being a wid- ower, on her return addressed him thus : " Pa, are you a widower ?" " Yes, my child ; don't you know your mother's dead ?" " Why, yes, I knew mamma was dead ; but you always told me you were a New Yorker." A Scotch minister, in one of his parochial visits, met a small boy, and asked him what o'clock it was. " About twelve, sir," was the reply. "Well," remarked the min- ister, "I thought it was more." "It's never any more here," said the boy ; "it just begins at one again." " Come here, my little dear," said a young man to a lit- tle girl, to whose sister he was paying his addresses: "you are the sweetest thing on earth." "No, I'm not," she re- plied, artlessly; "sister says_>w are the sweetest." A Schoolmaster (examining a class, and vainly trying to elicit the name of the serpent by leading questions) : "Well, now, children, what is that creeping thing that everybody has such a horror of?" Chorus of children: " Oh, if ye please, sir, a cockroach." SOME FUNNY THINGS. 27 A lady, who superintended a Sunday-school, having occasion to interrogate one of her pupils as to the cause of her father's non-attendance at church, received the- fol- lowing innocent reply, prefaced, of course, by a sweet lit- tle drop of a curtsey: " Please, ma'm, my father says he isn't coming to church again, t' parson hollers out so he can't get a bit o' sleep." A little girl hearing it said that she was born on the Queen's birthday, took no notice of it at the time; but a day or two after asked her father if she and the Queen were twins. "Well, my child," said a stern parent to his little daughter after church, " what do you remember of all the preacher said?" " Nothing," was the timid reply. "Nothing?" said he, gravely. "Now remember, the next time you tell me something he says, or you must stay away from church." The next Sunday she came home all excitement. "I remember something," said she. "Ah! very glad of it," replied the father; "What did he say?" " He said, papa," cried she, delightedly, " ' a collection will now be taken.'" Charlie's tather wished to find out his son's bent, so he asked: " Charlie, what are you going to be when you grow up?" "Going to be a man!" came quick as a flash, "Jsn't that a good thing to be?" A little boy having broken his rocking-horse the day it was bought, his mamma began to scold, when he silenced her by inquiring, " What's the good of a horse till it's broke." " Who was the first man?" asked a Sunday-school teacher of her prodigy. "Adam." "And who was the first woman?" He hesitated a moment, and then shouted, "Madam!" " Ma," said Fred., " I would rather be a wild turkey, and live my life on the prairies,than be a tame turkey and be killed every year." 28 SOME FUNNY THINGS. In a police case in New York, lately, a boy being asked if he knew the nature of an oath, gave an affirmative re- ply. When asked what they do to persons who swear to a lie, he replied: "They make policemen out of 'em!" " Here, James, take these two cakes and give the small- er one to your little brother." James examined the cakes carefully, appeared undecided, and finally took a heroic bite out of one of them, which he passed over to his brother with the remark: "There, Tommy, I've made you a smaller one — they were both the same size." A little girl of six years, when asked to whom she gave the order at the butcher's, replied, " To the man with the dimples in his face." The man was deeply pitted by small-pox. A teacher, after reading to her scholars the story of a generous child, asked them what generosity was. One lit- tle fellow raised his hand and said, " I know ! It's giving to others what you don't want yourself." Teacher: " Define the word excavate." Scholar: " It means to hollow out." Teacher: " Construct a sentence in which the word is properly used." Scholar: "The baby excavates when it gets hurt." A lady was saying that she did not know how to make both ends meet. "Well," said her little son, "why don't you make one end vegetables ?" A little fellow once observed, in reference to step- fathers, "I do not like those new papas; they whip the old papa's children." " Oh, dear !" yelled out an urchin, who had just been suffering from the application of a birch. " Oh, my ! they tells me about forty rods makes one furlong, but I can tell a bigger story than that. Let 'em get such a plaguey lickin' as I've had, and then they'll find out that one rod makes an acher!" SOME FUNNY THINGS. 29 A pedagogue had two pupils, Dick and Tom. To one he was very partial, and to the other very severe. One morning it happened that both were late, and were called to account for it. "You must have heard the bell, boys; why did you not come ?" " Please, sir," said his favorite, "I was dreaming that I was goin' to Margate, and I thought the school-bell was the steamboat-bell that I was goin' in." "Very well, sir," (glad of any pretext to excuse his favorite.) " And now, sir," turning to the other, "what have you to say!" " Please, sir," said the puzzled boy, '' I — I was waiting to see Tom off." A kind mamma was taking to task her little boy, who had stolen an orange. "Are you not sorry?" "Yes." "Won't you try and do better next time?" "Yes; I'll steal two!" "You had better ask for manners than money!" said a dandy to a beggar-boy who had ask for alms. " I asked for what I thought you had the most of! " was the urchin's reply. Little Bobby begged hard the other day, when some friends were dining with us, to be allowed to come in and sit at table during dessert ; which I told him he might do, providing he neither talked nor annoyed people by talk- ing, or asking for fruit. He very readily assented to this condition, whiVh he honestly fulfilled to the letter. At last I saw the poor little fellow up in a corner, crying and sobbing most pitifully. "What is the matter, Bob ?" I said, "What are you crying about?" "Why, ma," he replied, " here am I asking for nothing, and getting noth- ing." A man in Ohio, well mounted, while urging a drove of fat pigs, met a charming group of little girls as they were returning from school, when one of them as she passed the "swinish multitude" made a pretty curtsey. " My little girl," said the man, " why do you curtsey to a whole drove of hogs?" "Oh, sir," said she, with a most provok- ing smile, " I only curtsey to the one on horseback." 3° SOME FUNNY THINGS. A minister's son so misbehaved himself as to tire the patience of the "head" of the school. Finally, the doctor said to him, after a gross act of misconduct, " You must prepare yourself for a severe whipping." When the appointed time came the doctor was on hand, drew his rattan, and laid it with considerable unction upon the boy's back. Nothing but dust followed. The subject of the discipline was entirely at his ease. "Take off your coat," was the command. Again whistled the rattan around the boy's shoulders, but with no more SOME FUNNY THINGS. 31 effect. " Take off your vest, sir !" shouted the doctor. Off went the vest, but there was another under it. "Off with the other !" and then, to the astonishment of the ad- ministrator of justice, he exposed a dried codfish defend- ing the back of the culprit like a shield, while below there was, evidently stretching over the exposed portions of the body, a stout leather apron. " What does this mean ?" said the doctor. "Why," said the rogue, "you told me to prepare myself for punishment, and I have done the best I could." An excited individual accosted a street gamin with the question, " I say, boy, which is the quickest way for me to get to the depot ?" " Run," was the response. A clergyman who had been staying some time at the house of a friend, on going away called to him little Tommy, and asked him what he should give him for a present. Tommy, who had great respect for the " cloth," thought it was his duty to suggest something of a relig- ious nature,so he answered, hesitatingly, "I — I — think I should like a Testament, and I know I should like a pop- gun." "Is it true, mamma," inquired a little girl, "that a Quaker never takes his hat off ? " " It is true, my dear," answered the fond mother; "it is a mark of respect which he thinks he should pay to no man." " But then tell me, mamma," answered the clever child, "how does a Quaker manage when he goes to have his hair cut ?" A little boy running, struck his toe and fell on the pavement. "Never mind, my little fellow, you won't feel the pain to-morrow," said a bystander. "Then," an- swered the little fellow, "I won't cry to-morrow." Mr. D.'s little daughter came running to her aunt one day saying, "Aunt Katie, little Mattie has swallowed a button ? " Seeing her terror, her aunt calmly replied, "Well, what good will that do her?" Said the child very seriously, " Not any good, as I can see, unless she swallows a button-hole ! " 32 SOME FUNNY THINGS. A clergyman engaged in catechising a village school asked a youngster, " what his god-fathers and god-mothers did for him?" " I don't know what they mean to do, please your reverence," rejoined the lad; " they've done nothing for me yet!" " My son," said a stern parent, " I dislike your low ways!" "Never mind, papa," said young Hopeful; " when I grow up I'll be a. highway man. The practical boy, Tommy, wanted to prove things that he read. "Mother," said he, " do you think our big dog Lion would save a little girl's life if she fell into the water?" " I dare say he would, dear," responded the mother, whereupon Tommy cried enthusiastically, " Oh, then, mamma, do frow Totsy in!" " Now, Johnny," said a venerable lady to her little nephew, who was persistently denying an offense of which she accused him, " I know you are not telling me truth; I see it in your eye." Pulling down the lower lid of the organ that had so nearly betrayed his veracity, Johnny exultingly replied, " You can't tell anything about it, aunt; that eye always was a little streaked!" A little fellow, who had just commenced reading the papers, asked his father if the words "Hon. Gentleman," applied to a member of Congress, meant "honest?" One day, as a little urchin was running along he saw a silver dollar in the footpath, which he had no sooner picked up than it was claimed by a carman, who thought to frighten the boy out of his prize. The latter, assuming a terrified air, blubbered out, " Your dollar hadn't got a hole in it?" " Oh, yes it had," shouted the eager rogue. " Then this 'un arn't he," cooly replied the boy, and off he walked in triumph. Said a youngster in high glee, displaying his purchases to a bosom friend in the street: " Two cocoa-nuts for ten cents! That will make me ill to-morrow, and I won't have to go to school." SOME FUNNY THINGS. 33 A lady, who was urging some friends to dinner, felt disgusted when her eight-year-old son came in and said, " Mrs. Jones says she can't spare no bread, and Mrs. Fox ain't at home ; so I didn't get any butter." The friends thought they had better dine elsewhere, and the lady thought so, too ; but she taught that boy that the way of the transgressor was hard. " Now, my boy," said an examiner, "if I had a mince- pie and should give two-twelfths to Isaac, two-twelfths to Harry, and two-twelfths to John, and should take half the pie myself, what would there be left? Speak up loud — loud, so that the people can hear." "The plate!" shouted the boy. A little urchin, seven years old, in a school where a Miss Blodgett was teacher, composed the following, and wrote it on his slate at prayer- time, to the great amuse- ment of his companions : " A little mouse ran up the stairs To hear Miss Blodgett say her prayers." The teacher discovered the rhyme, and called out the culprit. For punishment she gave him his choice, to make another in five minutes, or be whipped. So, after thinking and scratching his head till his time was nearly up, and the teacher was lifting her cane in a threatening manner, at the last moment he exclaimed : " Here I stand before Miss Blodgett ; She's going to strike, but I will dodge it." " What miracle was performed at the time of this les- son ?" asked the Sunday-school teacher. " The miracle of the loaves and fishes," was the prompt reply. " How many persons were fed? " " Five thousand," echoed the class. " How do you account for five loaves of bread feeding five thousand persons, Willie?" "I guess our hired girl baked it, and they couldn't eat it ! Gosh ! you ought to taste her bread ! You can't get the taste outen yer mouth for a week !" 34 SOME FUNNY THINGS. A little boy, being annoyed in his play by a little girl, who always wished to have her own way, was told he would have to humor her, because she was an only child. Some time after a lady called him to her, and said she wished to introduce him to a sweet little girl, when he said, " Is she an only child ! If so, I would rather not know her." A little boy, who went on a visit with an elder sister, was told by her that he must not be greedy, but must eat what seemed to want eating. He shortly after horrified his sister by remarking, when asked what he would have, " I think I'll take that piece of toast ; it looks as if it wanted eating." The Earl of , of pompous notoriety and parsi- monious celebrity, superintended personally the produce of his dairy, and not unfrequently sold the milk to the village children with his own hands. One morning a pretty little girl presented her penny and her pitcher to> his lordship for milk. Pleased with the appearance of the child, he patted her on the head, and gave her a. kiss. "Now, my pretty lass," he said, "you may tell as. long as you live that you have been kissed by an earl.'" "Oh, but," replied the child, "you took the penny,, though!" A rustic youngster, being asked out to take tea with a friend, was admonished to praise the eatables. Presently the butter was passed to him, when he remarked, "Very nice butter, what there is of it;" and observing a smile, he added, " and plenty of it, such as it is." A religious society decided to build a new church, and the pastor, among others, was chosen to solicit funds. He did his work very zealously, taking not only the widow's but the child's mites. He had a class of children in the Sunday-school, and one SundayJ while instructing them, he compared himself to the Good Shepherd, and then in- quired what the latter did with His flock. One bright- eyed little fellow promptly replied, " He. shears 'em!" There was some smiling at that answer, SOME FUNNY THINGS. 35 " Mother," said a little urchin when he came home from church, " I have heard such a clever preacher. He stamped and made such a noise, and then he got angry : he shook his fist at the folks, and there wasn't anybody dared to go up and fight him." " Some more cheese, please," said a small boy of eight to his papa at dinner. " No, my child," said the prudent parent; "you have already had enough. When I was a child I had to eat my bread and smell my cheese." "Very well," retorted the small boy, "give us a piece to smell." A little boy, who was hungry, one night recently, just at bed-time, but didn't wish to ask directly for something more to eat, put it in this way: " Mother, are little chil- dren who starve to death happy after they die?" A good big slice of bread and butter was the answer. At a school, during a lesson on the animal kingdom, the teacher put the following question ' " Can any boy name to me an animal of the order edentata ; that is, a front-tooth toothless animal?" A boy, whose face beamed with pleasure at the prospect of a good mark re- plied, " I can." Well, what is the animal ? " " My grand- mother! " replied the boy in great glee. A Simday -school urchins illustration of responsibility : "Boys has two buttons for their braces, so's to keep their trowsers up. When one button comes off, why there's a good deal of responsibility on the other button." A vulgar, blustering man, attempting to push past a small crossing-sweeper who was lame, said: "I never make way for an idiot." "I'm not so particular ; I always do," replied the boy, calmly looking in his face and mov- ing on one side. A schoolmaster, asking one of the boys on a sharp winter's morning what was the Latin for cold, the boy hesitated a little. "What, sir," said he, "can't you tell ? " "Yes, yes," said the boy, " I have it at my fin- gers' ends," 3 6 SOME FUNNY THINGS. A little boy fell into the river a few days since, and barely escaped drowning. When asked by his mother what he was thinking about while in the water, he replied, " I was thinking what a lot of things you'd give me if I got home safe." At a dinner-party the little son of the host and hostess was allowed to come down to dessert. Having had what his mother considered a sufficiency of fruit, he was told that he must not have any more, when, to the surprise of every one of the guests, he exclaimed, " If you don't give me some more I'll tell !" A fresh supply was at once given him, and as soon as it was finished he repeated his threat ; whereupon he was suddenly and swiftly removed from the room, but he had just time to convulse the com- pany by exclaiming, " My new knickerbockers are made out of ma's old bedroom curtains !" " What three men were cast into the fiery furnace ?" asked the Sunday-school teacher. "Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego," shouted the class. " Did they burn ?" " No, mum." "That is correct. Not a hair of their heads was singed. Now, Willie, can you tell me why their hair was not singed ?" " Yes, mum ; they was bald-headed." A female teacher of a school that stood on the banks of a quiet English stream once wished to communicate to her pupils an idea of faith. While she was trying to ex- plain the meaning of the word a small covered boat glided in sight along the stream. Seizing upon the incident for an illustration, she exclaimed, " If I were to tell you that there is a leg of mutton in that boat, you would believe me, wouldn't you, even without seeing it yourselves ?" "Yes, ma'am," replied the scholars. "Well, that is faith," said the schoolmistress. The next day, in order to test their recollection of the lesson, she inquired, " Well, what is faith ?" "A leg of mutton in a boat ?" was the answer, shouted from all parts of the schoolroom. SOME FUNNY THINGS. 37 The grandmamma of a little girl had been telling her one day not to say that people lied, but lather that they were mistaken. Her grandmamma, to amuse her, told her a story, which was a tough one to believe. After she had finished, the little girl looked up into her face and exclaimed, " Grandma, that is the biggest mistaken I ever heard! " A young man home from college, wishing to inspire his little sister with awe for his learning, pointed to a star and said : " Sis, do you see that little luminary ? It's bigger than this whole world !" " No 'taint," said Sis. "Yes, it is," declared the young collegian. " Then why don't it keep off the rain ?" was the triumphant rejoinder. " Tommy, my son," said a fond mother, " do you say your prayers night and morning?" "Yes; that is, at nights; but any smart boy can take care of himself in the daytime." In a dry goods store is employed a young man of di- minutive stature and somewhat feminine appearance. One day a little girl was sent to the store to make some purchases, and it fell to the lot of this young man to at- tend to her. She was a mere bunch of femininity, notable to talk plain. She asked him if he had any " dotten dannel." He replied that he had, and asked her how much she wanted. " I don't know," was the reply. ''Well, what do you want it for?" said the clerk. "Want to make papa a shirt." " Well, how big is your papa? Is he as big as me?'' " Big as you!" said the little maiden. " I dess he is : he wouldn't be much of a papa if he wasn't." A lady leaving home was thus addressed by her little boy: " Mamma, will you remember and buy me a penny whistle? And let it be a religious one, so that I can use it on Sunday." " Now, George, you must divide the cake honorably with your brother Charlie." " What is honorable, mother!" " It means that you must give him the largest piece." "Then, mother, I should rather Charlie would cut it." 38 SOME FUNNY THINGS. " What is the name of your cat?" asked one boy of another. " His name was William until he had fits, but now we call him Fitz- William." A child being asked, upon her return from church, what the text was, unhesitatingly replied, " Blessed are the dressmakers." " Well, Tommy, my boy, you appear to have made rapid progress in your studies," said the paternal. " Yes, father. The professor says the same thing, and that I shall be a great man." "Well, I must give you a Christ- mas gift. How would you like to have Hayden's Dic- tionary of Dates?" "I think, pa, I'd rather have a box of figs." A little girl in Sunday-school, who had been pull- ing her doll to pieces during the week, was asked by the teacher, "What was Adam made of? " " Dust," replied the little girl. "And what was Eve made of?" "Saw- dust," was the answer. A bright little girl, six years of age, named Rosa, was teased a good deal by a gentleman who visits the family. He finally wound up by saying, "Rosa, I don't love you." "Ah, but you've got to love me," said the child. " How so?" asked the tormentor. "Why," said Rosa, "the Bible says you must love those that hate you ; and I'm sure I hate you." A little girl being sent to a shop to purchase some dye- stuff, and forgetting the name of the article, said to the shopman, " What do folks dye with ? " " Die with ? Why — cholera sometimes," he replied. " Well I believe that's the name," said she, " I want to get five cents worth." "My dear boy!" said a mother to her son, as he handed round his plate for more turkey, " this is the fourth time you've been helped! " " I know, mother," replied the boy ; "but that turkey pecked at me once, and I want to get square with him." SOME FUNNY THINGS. 39 Being asked what made him so dirty, a street Arab's answer was: " I was made, as they tell me, of dust, and I suppose it works out." Trothie (aged seven) : " Papa, what is gossip?" Papa : " Oh, gossip means a lot of old women talking of'each other's affairs ; nothing worth hearing or remem- bering you may be sure." Trothie (after a pause) : "But didn't the Apostles preach the gossip? " A boy describing a kitten, said, "A kitten is remarkable for rushing like mad at nothing whatever, and stopping before it gets there." A Sunday-school teacher deploring the lack of attend- ance in his class, appealed to the few present : " What can I do," said he, "to get the boys and girls here? " "i know," said a small boy with red hair. "What is it?" " Have a Christmas tree ! " was the reply. " Can a man see without eyes ? " asked a schoolmaster. "Yes sir," was the prompt answer. "Pray, sir, how do you make that out ? " cried the astonished pedagague. " He can see with one, sir," replied the youth. " Why is it," said a teacher to a scapegrace who had caused her much trouble by bad conduct, " you behaved so well when you first came to school, and are so dis- obedient now ?" " Because," said young Hopeful, look- ing up into the teacher's face, " I wasn't much acquainted then." " Mother wants to know if you wouldn't please to lend her your preserving-kettle, 'cause you know as how we wants to preserve ?" "We would, with pleasure, boy ; but the truth is the last time we lent it to your mother, she pre- served it so effectually that we h^ve never seen it since." "Well, you needn't be so sass} about your old kettle. Guess it was full of holes when we borrowed it ; and mother wouldn't a troubled you again only we see'd you bringing home a new 'un," 4 o SOME FUNNY THINGS. A lady was dining the other day in company with her little neices, who are brought up very strictly. Mamma detected the youngest in the act of pocketing a piece of bread. " What are you doing, miss ?" " Oh, mamma, it is so nice and new I want to keep it." " Keep it ?" " Yes, ma, till to-morrow, to eat instead of the stale." A beggar boy applied to a lady for relief, and was re- fused on the ground that she "had no copper," to which the boy very accommodatingly replied, " I take silver, A young lady remarked to a dude the other day that his penknife in one respect resembled him. The ladies in the room commenced guessing what it could be. At last a smart-looking little boy, who until now sat in one cor- ner silent, was asked to guess. After examining the knife closely, he turned round, and in a cunning manner, said, "Well, I don't know, unless it's because it's dull." " How did you break off your front teeth ?" asked a visitor of the small boy. " I didn't break 'em," replied the youngster. " I was just fooling a teeny bit with a horse's tail in the street. The man that picked me up got his hands and his vest awful bloody. It wasn't my fault." " But, mother, dear, is it really true that the world was made in six days ?" Mamma: "Yes, Ernie, and if God had pleased He could have made it in two days." Ernest (after a moment's consideration) : "Oh, mamma, that would never have done, you know ; why, we should have had Sunday every other day." The late Lord H lost his arm at Ligny. After his return to England, on the occasion of his dining with his brother-in-law at a country vicarage in Kent, his little neice, then in the nursery, was cautioned to make no per- sonal remark to him on his lost arm. She obeyed orders implicitly till she went to kiss him " Good night." Then she said : " I haven't said a word about your poor arm, have I ?" SOME FUNNY THINGS. 41 " Good morning, Tommy," said a lawyer to a little boy. "Good morning, sir," said the boy. "What makes you carry your head down so ? Why don't you walk with your head upright, like me ?" " Have you ever been through a field of wheat when it's ripe ?" questioned the boy. "Yes, Tommy." "Well, did you notice that some of the heads stand up and some hang down ? Those that stand up have got no grain in 'em." " Good gracious, John !" said a fond mother to her son, " that's twice you've come home and forgotten that lard !" " So it is," said the boy, "it was so greasy that it slipped my memory." An unconscious but comical play upon words was made by a little girl not long since, while relating to a sympa- thizing lady the loss of two pet calves. " What caused their death ?" said the lady. " Oh," was the answer, " one was hooked to death, and the other died on its own hook." A gentleman was contending with tiresome prolixity that "Art could not improve Nature," when his little eight-year-old boy, losing all patience, set the room (which was full of company) in a roar by exclaiming: " How would you look without your wig?" A few days ago two young men were stopped by a little boy with, " Young gentlemen, please help the blind." "How do you know we are young gentlemen," said one, " if you are blind ?" " Oh," said the boy, " I meant deaf and dumb /" They gave him a penny. " Mamma, how was it that Jacob saw the angels in his dream going up to Heaven by a ladder ? I thought angels had wings." " So they have, dear." "Then what did they want a ladder for ? Were they moulting ?" " Halloo !" shouted one boy to another whom he saw running wildly down the street. "Halloo ! Are you train- ing for a race ?" " No," yelled back the flying boy, " I'm racing for a train !" 42 SOME FUNNY THINGS. A gluttonous boy at a children's party shoveled the food into his mouth with his knife till he accidentally cut his mouth, which was observed by a boy seated opposite, who bawled out, " I say, don't cut! that hole in your face any larger, or we shall all starve." Sammy was a little boy at school in a village far from his home. One day his father came to see him, and they took a walk together. Meeting the principal of the school, Sammy performed the ceremony of introduction, " Mr S ," said he, " this is a father of mine," SOME FUNNY THINGS. 43 '" Does your sister May ever say anything about me. Sissy?" asked an anxious lover of a little girl. "Yes," was the reply ; " she said if you had rockers on your shoes they'd make such a nice cradle for my doll." A little boy brought a visitor into the garden to see a hutch he had just finished for his rabbits. The visitor admired it very much, and asked him who showed him how to do it. " No one," said he ; "I made it all out of my own head." "Yes," remarked his younger brother, anxious to have a say in the matter, "and he's wood enough left for another." "What would I do were you to die ?" said a lady to her husband, who had just purchased a sealskin sacque for her. " Oh, come off !" said the eight-year-old hope- ful; "you'd marry that old codger you kissed when pa was asleep on the sofa." A youth asked permission of his mother to go to a ball. She told him it was a bad place for little boys. "Why, mother, didn't you and my father use to go to balls when you were young ? " " Yes ; but we have seen the folly of it," said the mother. "Well, mother," exclaimed the son, "I want to see the folly of it, too ! " " It is not proper for you to play school, my dear, to- day, for it is Sunday." "I know it, mother," replied the little girl ; "but it is Sunday-school that I'm playing." A little girl was the happy recipient of a velvet cloak, of which she was very proud. One day, soon afterwards, she was discussing her dresses, their beauty, style, etc., when her mother, by way of nipping her vanity in the bud, said : " My dear, do you not know that there are more important things to talk about than dress ? " Quickly she replied, " Oh, yes, mamma : velvet cloaks ! " "Joe," said a lady to the milk-boy, "I guess from the looks of your milk, that your mother put dirty water in it." "No, she didn't, neither; I see'd her draw it clean out of the well 'fore she put it in." 44 SOME FUNNY THINGS. Little Fred. Cleveland having just returned from Sunday- school asked his mamma to explain to him the mystery of the Deity: how Father, Son and Holy Ghost could be one. His mother, to quiet his mind, told him that was something that had puzzled a great many; that even gray- haired men could not explain; whereupon he asked her, " Can men without any hair at all tell." "Why did Adam bite the apple?" said a schoolmaster to a country lad. " ' Cause he had no knife," replied the urchin. A clergyman praising the soft word that turns away wrath, said, " It is with honey that we catch flies." A child who heard him remarked, " Yes, to kill 'em." A young gentleman who was returning home from a night's conviviality about getting-up time, when he entered the hall was sufficiently thoughtful to pull off his boots before mounting the stairs. He had not proceeded far when his little brother, who was watching him over the Danisters above, sang out, " Nevermind the noise, George; we're all up." "What celebrated King ate grass?" asked the Sunday- school teacher. "Nebuchadnezzar," was the prompt reply. " Why did he eat grass ?" " ' Cause his mammy cooked it in the greens!" said a little boy who had had some experience. " Johnnie, have you been fighting ?" gravely inquired a fond mother. "No ma'm," promptly answered Johnnie. "John Schermerhorn, how dare you tell me an un- truth ?" exclaimed his mother. "Where did you get that black eye, sir ?" " I traded another boy two front teeth and a broken nose for it," replied Johnnie, as he crossed the woodpile. Two children are "making up " conundrums at a party. One asks: " At what time was Adam married?" "Give it up.'' "Oh, on his wedding Eve f SOME FUNNY THINGS. 45 A clergyman, being recently absent from home on busi- ness, his little son clamly folded his hands and asked the blessing usually pronounced by his father at their morn- ing meal. At noon, being asked to pronounce the bless- ing, he replied, with a grave face, " No ; I don't like the look o' them taters." Master : " First little bov, what is your name ?" Boy: "Jule." Master: "Oh, no; your name is Julius. Next little boy, what is yours?" Second Boy: "My name is Bill-ious." "Johnny," said a mother to a son nine years old, "go and wash your face; I am ashamed to see you coming to dinner with so dirty a mouth." " I did wash it, mamma." "And feeling his upper lip, he added, grandly, "I think it must be a moustache comin°;!" The following dialogue is reported between two boys : " What do you think ? My father, the other day, shot nine hundred and ninety-nine pigeons with one barrel of his gun." "Oh! why didn't he say a thousand at once?" [Reply, provokingly] : " Do you suppose my father would tell a lie just for the sake of one pigeon ?" A boy being praised for his shrewdness in replying, a person remarked that when children were sharp it fre- quently turned out that in after life they became dull and stupid, and vice versa. " You must have been a very sensible child, sir, I should think," rejoined the boy. A boy, having stated that one cannot taste in the dark, as Nature intends us to see our food, was nearly floored by some one asking, " How is it with a blind man at dinner?" But he spontaneously recovered when another lad remarked, "Nature has provided him with e. PRICE, 25 CENTS. A NEAT, NEW BOOK CONTAINING OVER THIRTY FINELY EXECUTED ENGRAVINGS OF DWELLINGS, OF ALL SIZES, FROM TWO ROOMS UP; ALSO CHURCHES, BARNS AND OUT- HOUSES, IN GREAT VARIETY. This handy, compact and very useful volume contains, in addition to the foregoing, plans for each floor in each and every dwelling of which an en- graving is given. It has, also, valuable information relative to building con- tracts, tells how to calculate for everything in connection witha building, such as number of shingles required in a roof, quantity of plaster for a house, quan- tity of materials required for building a house, etc., etc., and much other in- formation of permanent and practical value. Any one of the plans is alone worth very much more than the price asked for the book. It is invaluable to every architect, builder, mason or carpenter, and particularly do we urge all who anticipate erecting a new or remodeling an old dwelling to send for a copy, as its fortunate possessor may save hun- dreds of dollars by following the suggestions it contains. B3P* It .will be sent, post paid, on receipt of price, by J. S. OGILVLE & CO., Publishers, 31 Rose Street, New York. THE PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. Number. Price. 100— FOR LOVE OR GOLD 1 By Miss Jennie S. Alcott 20c 101— THAT AMAZING PROFESSOR 10c 102— A HAPPY RELEASE. 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We desire to call the attention of lovers of pure fiction to the fact that we now offer, in bound book form, the following seven complete storios, written by Mrs. Henry Wood, one of the most popular and pleasing authors in the world, and which are usually sold, in book form, for from $1.25 to $1.50 EACH. We offer the Seven Stories, bound in handsome English cloth, with elegant ornamental gold side and back stamp, seat by mail, post-paid, to any address, for only $1.50! Bound in heavy paper covers, $1.00. List of Stories we send for $1.50 s East Lynne ; A Life's Secret; The Tale of Sin; Was He Severe? Tht Lost Bank-Note; The Doctor's Daughter-; The Haunted Tower* These stories are printed on fine heavy paper, from large, new type, and we guarantee satisfaction in every respect to all purchasers. Ask your bookseller for " SOMETHING TO BEAD," puV lished by us; or send $1.50 to us and we will send them by mail, post-paid. The stories are not sold separately est this poem. We want Agents to sell them in every town and village in th« whole land, to whom we offer liberal terms. Address all orders and applications for Agency to J. S. OGILVIE & CO., Publishers, P. O. Box 2767, 35 Hose Street New York LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 027 249 981 5] I