Paradox--I can't exactly describe it, but it looks to me like a tramp who once told me how to be successful in life. --Punkin Centre Philosophy. A Meeting of the School Directors WE had bin havin' a good deal of argufyin' about the school house. You see it had got to be a sort of a tumble-down ram-shackle sort of an affair, and when it wuz bad weather we couldn't have school in it, 'cause you might jist as well be a sittin' under a siv when it rained as to be a settin' in that school house. Wall, it wuz a-cummin' along the fall term, and we wanted our boys and girls to git all the schoolin' an' eddication what they could; so we called a meetin' of the school directors to devise ways and means of buildin' a new school-house without stoppin' school. Wall, we all met down at the school-house; thar wuz Deacon Witherspoon, Ezra Hoskins, Ruben Hendricks, Si Pettingill, old Jim Lawson and me. Before we commenced debatin' and argufyin' on the matter, Si Pettingill alowed he'd sing a song. Wall, he got up and sang the durndest old-fashioned song I calculate I ever heered in my life; went somethin' like this: Oh a frog went a courtin' and he did ride, oohoo--oohoo. Oh a frog went a courtin' and he did ride, With a sword and a pistol by his side, oohoo--oohoo. He rode till he came to the mouse's door, oohoo--oohoo, He rode till he came to the mouse's door, And there he knelt upon the floor, oohoo--oohoo. He took Miss Mousey on his knee, oohoo--oohoo. He took Miss Mousey on his knee, Said he, Missy Mouse will you marry me? oohoo--oohoo. Wall, we headed Si off right thar; I guess if we hadn't he'd bin singin' about that frog and the mouse yet. Wall, jist then old Jim Lawson he sed, "I make a moshen;" and Deacon Witherspoon, he wuz chairman, and he sed, "Now look here, young feller, don't you make any moshens at me or durned if I don't git down thar and flop you in about a minnit. You take your feet off'n that desk and that corncob pipe out'n your mouth, and conduct yourself with dignity and decorum, and address the chairman of this yere meetin' in a manner benttin' to his station." Wall, Jim he got right smart riled over the matter, and he sed, "Wall, you gosh durned old gospel pirate, I want you to understand that I'm a member of this body, a citizen, a taxpayer and a honorably discharged servant of the government, and I make a moshen that we build a new school-house out of the bricks of the old school-house, and I do further offer an amendment to the original moshen, that we don't tear down the old schoolhouse until the new one is built."