11. 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 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 as a joke?”
It didn't strike me as much of a joke to pay a
hundred and seventy-five dollars in gold fare, and
then be horse-whipped by stage-drivers, for declin
ing to chase mules. But people's ideas of humor dif-fer,
just as people's ideas differ in regard to shrewd-ness—which
“reminds me of a little story.” Sitting
in a New England country store one day I overheard
the following dialogue between two brothers:
“Say, Bill, wot you done with that air sorrel mare
of yourn?”
“Sold her,” said William, with a smile of satisfaction.
“Wot'd you git?”
“Hund'd an' fifty dollars, cash deown!”
“Show! Hund'd an' fifty for that kickin' spavin'd
critter? Who'd you sell her to?”
“Sold her to mother!”
“Wot!” exclaimed brother No. 1, “did you railly
sell that kickin' spavin'd critter to mother?
Wall, you air a shrewd one!”
A Sensation-Arrival by the Overland Stage of two
Missouri girls, who have come unescorted all the
way through. They are going to Nevada territory
to join their father. They are pretty, but, merciful
heavens! how they throw the meat and potatoes
down their throats. “This is the first Squar' meal
we've had since we left Rocky Thompson's,” said
the eldest. Then addressing herself to me, she said:
“Air you the literary man?”
I politely replied that I was one of “them fellers.”
“Wall, don't make fun of our clothes in the papers.
We air goin' right straight through in these here
clothes, we air! We ain't goin' to rag out till we git
to Nevady! Pass them sassiges!”
