XII. TAKING THE CENSUS 120 XIII. A FAMILY PICTURE 129 XIV. COLONEL JONES’S FIGHT 136 XV. THE FASTEST FUNERAL ON RECORD 147 XVI. OLD TUTTLE’S LAST QUARTER RACE 154 XVII. SPEECH ON THE OREGON QUESTION 160 XVIII. BILL DEAN, THE TEXAN RANGER 165 XIX. THE FIRE-HUNT 169 XX. A PAIR OF SLIPPERS 188 XXI. A SWIM FOR A DEER 202 XXII. DILLY JONES; OR, THE PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENT 214 XXIII. LANTY OLIPHANT IN COURT 224 XXIV. OLD SINGLETIRE 229 XXV. MAJOR JONES’S COURTSHIP 234 XXVI. DOWN-EAST CURIOSITY 314 XXVII. A SAGE CONVERSATION 319 T R A I T S OF A M E R I C A N H U M O U R. I. THE THIMBLE GAME. Forty years ago, Augusta, Ga., presented a very different appearance from the busy and beautiful city of the present day. Its groceries, stores, and extensive warehouses were few in number, and the large quantities of cotton and other produce, which are still conveyed thither, were transported entirely by waggons. The substantial railroad, which links it with the richest and most beautiful regions of the empire state of the South, was a chimera, not yet conceived in the wild brain of Fancy herself; and many of the improvements, luxuries and refinements, which now make it the second city in the state, were then “in the shell.” _Yet_, by the honest yeomanry of forty years ago, Augusta was looked upon as Paris and London are now viewed by us. The man who had _never_ been there was a cipher in the community—nothing killed an opinion more surely, nothing stopped the mouth of “argyment” sooner, than the sneering taunt: “Pshaw! you ha’n’t been to _Augusty_.”