Testimony
Paul Smith, the famous hotel-keeper in the Adirondacks, told of a law
suit that he had with a man named Jones in Malone.
"It was this way: I sat in the courtroom before the case opened with my
witnesses around me. Then Jones bustled in. He stopped abruptly, and
looked my witnesses over carefully. Presently he turned to me.
"'Paul,' he asked, 'are those your witnesses?'
"'They a
e,' I replied.
"'Then you win,' he exclaimed. 'I've had them witnesses twice myself.'"
* * *
The grateful woman on the farm in Arkansas wrote to the vendors of the
patent medicine:
"Four weeks ago I was so run down that I could not spank the baby. After
taking three bottles of your Elegant Elixir I am now able to thrash my
husband in addition to my other housework. God bless you!"
* * *
In one of the most desolate areas of Montana, a claim was taken by a man
from Iowa. The nearest neighbor, from twenty miles away, visited the
homesteader's shack, and introduced himself.
"Where did you come from?" the visitor inquired presently, and when he
had been told:
"I can't understand why anybody should want to get out of that civilized
country to come and live in this lonesomeness."
"Fact was," the man from Iowa explained somberly, "I didn't exactly like
it down there any more. You see, it was this way. They got to telling
things about me. Why, they even said I was a liar and hoss thief, and no
better than I ought to be. And, by Jemima, I jest pulled out and went
right away from them scandalous folks."
"Well, I swan!" the visitor exclaimed indignantly. "You can bet I
wouldn't leave a place for any reason like that. I'd make them prove
what they said."
The homesteader sighed dismally as he answered:
"That's jest the trouble--they did prove it!"