The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)Ward, Artemus
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The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
I have been looking at Zion all day, and my feet are sore and my legs
are weary. I go back to the Salt Lake House and have a talk with
landlord Townsend about the State of Maine. He came from that bleak
region, having skinned his infantile eyes in York county. He was
at Nauvoo, and was forced to sell his entire property there for 50
dollars. He has thrived in Utah, however, and is much thought of by
the Church. He is an Elder, and preaches occasionally. He has only two
wives. I hear lately that he has sold his property for 25,000 dollars
to Brigham Young, and gone to England to make converts. How impressive
he may be as an expounder of the Mormon gospel, I don't know. His
beefsteaks and chicken-pies, however, were first-rate. James and I
talk about Maine, and cordially agree that so far as pine boards and
horse-mackerel are concerned, it is equalled by few and excelled by
none. There is no place like home, as Clara, the Maid of Milan, very
justly observes; and while J. Townsend would be unhappy in Maine, his
heart evidently beats back there now and then.
I heard the love of home oddly illustrated in Oregon, one night, in a
country bar-room. Some well-dressed men, in a state of strong drink,
were boasting of their respective places of nativity.
"I," said one, "was born in Mississippi, where the sun ever shines and
the magnolias bloom all the happy year round."
"And I," said another, "was born in Kentucky--Kentucky, the home of
impassioned oratory: the home of Clay, the State of splendid women, of
gallant men!"
"And I," said another, "was born in Virginia, the home of Washington:
the birthplace of statesmen: the State of chivalric deeds and noble
hospitality!"
"And I," said a yellow-haired and sallow-faced man, who was not of this
party at all, and who had been quietly smoking a short black pipe by
the fire during their magnificent conversation--"and I was born in the
garden-spot of America."
"Where is that?" they said.
"SKEOUHEGAN, MAINE!" he replied; "kin I sell you a razor strop?"
_______________
XI.
"I AM HERE."
There is no mistake about that, and there is a good prospect of my
staying here for some time to come. The snow is deep on the ground, and
more is falling.
The Doctor looks glum, and speaks of his ill-starred countryman, of Sir.
J. Franklin, who went to the Arctic once too much.
A good thing happened down here the other day, said a miner from New
Hampshire to me. "A man of Boston dressin' went through there, and at
one of the stations there wasn't any mules. Says the man who was fixed
out to kill in his Boston dressin', 'Where's them mules?' Says the
driver, 'Them mules is into the sage brush. You go catch 'em--that's
wot you do.' Says the man of Boston dressin', 'Oh no!' Says the
driver! 'Oh, yes!'and he took his long coach-whip and licked the man
of Boston dressin' till he went and caught them mules. How does that
strike you for a joke?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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