“Then I seen about a thousand million drownded sailors which I hadnt noticed, some like him and some worse. They all had sea weed in their hair and eyes like hisn, but some was black and some was yellow and some was white and some was French, and they all wore the clothes they was drownded in. They didnt say much, but they spoke in every tongue which is known to man, and Dutch too. Some was a playin cards, and some was a splicin ropes, and some was makin believe to scrub the decks, and some was a tattooin the others arms, and some was a carvin pictures on walrus teeths, and some was a fightin mity solemn to inattentive audiences, and every thing which sailor men do for to pass the time. When they see me they all knocked off work and arose up as one man and crowded around me and pointed their fingers at me, unmovin, like I was a show! And that is the awfulest thing which has ever befel me except bein born.” I asked Jack what did he do for to escape. Just then Uncle Ned, which had come in and heard the last part of the story, he spoke up and said, Uncle Ned did: “Johnny, you will have to excuse the witness, for he cant be compelled to say any thing which will disgrace him, so I will jest answer that question my own self. He escaped from them terrible fellers by lyin down and sleepin it off.” DOMESTICAL HENS Hens is good to eat, but not the old he ones, which is a fighter. They lay eggs and cackle. Some boys can cackle as good as a hen, but no eggs. Hens dont lay eggs on Sunday, but the minister he preaches. Billy says if the hens didnt lay eggs they would bust and if the minister didnt preach he would be sick. Our old hen she wanted for to set, but father he didnt, so he boiled a egg real hot and laid it in her nest. She went and straddled it and looked up at father like he was a fool. Then she shaked her self together and shut up her eyes and settled down to her work, much as to say: “You see I am a havin my way about this thing.” But pretty soon she gave a awful squok and jumped up and run round and round, like her head was cut off and she couldnt see her way. After that she was so afraid of eggs that when she couldnt help layin one she would run and fly, and some times the egg was lain in one place and some times it wasnt. One time she laid it on the roof of the church and it rolled off and busted on a toomb stone close to where my father stood a talkin to old Gaffer Peters. Old Gaffer he looked up to the weather cock on the steeple and shook his head and said: “Ive been agin that dam thing from the first.”