Wall, they had a parrit in that place and the way he sputtered and
jabbered and talked! He wuz a whole show all to himself. Wall, I bought
one of them birds from a feller one time--he said it wuz a good talker.
Wall, I took it hum and hed it about three months, and it never sed
a durned word. I put in most of my spare time tryin' to git it to say
"Uncle Josh," but the durned critter wouldn't do it, so I got mad at him
one day and throwed him out in the barn yard amongst the chickens, and
left him thar. Wall, when I went out the next mornin', I tell you thar
wuz a sight. Half of them chickens wuz dead, and the rest of 'em wuz
skeered to death, and that durned parrit had a rooster by the neck up
agin the barn, and jist a givin' him an awful whippin', and every time
he'd hit him he'd say, "Now you say Uncle Josh, gol durn you, you say
Uncle Josh."
Uncle Josh in Wall Street
I USED to read in our town paper down home at Punkin Centre a whole lot
about Wall street and them bulls and bears, and one thing and another,
so I jist sed to myself--now Joshua, when you git down to New York City,
that's jist what you want to see. Wall, when I got to New York, I got
a feller to show me whar it wuz, and I'll be durned if I know why they
call it Wall street; it didn't hav any wall round it. I walked up and
down it bout an hour and a half, and I couldn't find any stock exchange
or see any place fer watterin' any stock. I couldn't see a pig nor a
cow, nor a sheep nor a calf, or anything else that looked like stock
to me. So finally I sed to a gentleman--Mister, whar do they keep the
menagery down here. He sed "what menagery?" I sed the place whar they've
got all them bulls and bears a fitin'. Wall he looked at me as though he
thought I wuz crazy, and I guess he did, but he sed "you cum along with
me, guess I can show you what you want to see." Wall I went along with
him, and he took me up to some public institushun, near as I could make
out it wuz a loonytick asylem. Wall he took me into a room about two
akers and a half squar, and thar wuz about two thousand of the crazyest
men in thar I ever seen in all my life. The minnit I sot eyes on them I
knowed they wuz all crazy, and I'd hav to umer them if I got out of thar
alive. One feller wuz a standin' on the top of a table with a lot of
papers in his hand, and a yellin' like a Comanche injin, and all the
rest of them wuz tryin' to git at him. Finally I sed to one of
'em--Mister, what are you a tryin' to do with that feller up thar on the
table? And he sed, "Wall he's got five thousand bushels of wheat and we
are tryin' to git it away from him." Wall, jist the minnit he sed that I
knowed fer certain they wuz all crazy, cos nobody but a crazy man would
ever think he had five thousand bushels of wheat in his coat and pants
pockits. Wall when they wan't a looking I got out of thar, and I felt
mighty thankful to git out. There wuz a feller standin' on the front
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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