Once upon a time, not very far from a town pretty much like yours,
an old, nearsighted man was wandering down a country road quite
pleasantly, musing to himself thusly: "I wonder what I should seek
today? Some new treasure of the Orient, or a lost clue to the
secrets of nature? That would be nice, as I spit" (and here, had
there been but a small brass spittoon by the wayside, a clear ring
would have sounded across the nearby pastures), "but," continued the
old man, "this is pretty barren ground hereabouts, so I'd best not
set my hopes too high. I'll start by looking for a silver dollar."
With this thought, the man's eyes brightened and he continued now
more alertly down the road, staring intently at the ground and
knocking little pebbles around with his cane. After a little, he
thought he saw something ahead. Mending his pace somewhat, he
hurried (as an old man with a cane hurries) up to the object, which
he now believed to be a quarter. When he stooped down to pick it
up, however, he found it to be merely a bottle cap, covered with red
ants eating the remaining sugar. "Just what I was looking for!"
exclaimed the old man with glee, even though the ants began to sting
him on the thumb and forefinger. "Bottlecaps can be very useful."
So he put the new possession into his pocket and once more began his
stroll, still watching the ground.
He had hardly begun to wonder what he might find next, when, there,
just a little way off, he saw a pearl lying in the roadbed.
"Surely," he thought, "nothing is round or shiny exactly like a
pearl, so I could not be mistaken this time." So he began to amble
over without delay. As he came nearer, his joy increased. "Hee
hee!" the old man laughed, before stifling his mirth lest he call
attention to himself and bring competitors for his newfound
treasure. He even paused a moment and looked around to see if
anyone had noticed him or the pearl.
The way seemed clear so he closed the final distance, reached down,
and picked it up. Instantly he was aware that this was no pearl,
but just a partly dried up chicken brain, which must have fallen off
some farmer's cart, or been left by some animal in haste. "Just
what I was looking for!" the old man said very joyfully. "Chicken
brains make real good soup." Into his pocket with the bottle cap
went the brains, and down the road with his cane went the old man.
It was not long after this that he saw another, much larger item in
the road before him, which looked, from where he now was, just
exactly like a fat roll of paper money. Blessing his astrological
reading promising riches for that day, he made his way up to the
spot with a speed truly remarkable for a person of his age and
infirmities, and anxiously bent over to retrieve his treasure. A
closer look, however, and a confirming touch revealed that the man
had found a "road apple," or, as it is sometimes called, a "horse
biscuit." "Just what I was looking for," the old man said, now more
perfectly pleased than ever; "I can use this biscuit to cook my
chicken soup. Seems dry enough to burn right well."
Now the old man, between his nearsightedness and his preoccupation
with his great discoveries, wandered unknowingly over to the side of
the road, and pretty soon he stepped off into a ditch and fell down
with remarkable violence. A farmer not very far off saw this
episode, and hurried over to help the old man up. As he got to his
feet, the old man, wincing with pain and holding one arm, cried out
with a tone of satisfaction, "A broken arm! Just what I was looking
for! A broken arm can be very useful." The farmer blinked once or
twice, recognizing that this sentiment did not conform with what his
own would have been under the like circumstances, but he said
nothing. Instead, he quite generously helped the old gentleman into
his cart and took him to town.
When the two arrived, the farmer dutifully summoned a doctor and the
constable and some others of note in the place and repeated how the
old man had fallen and broken his arm, only to exclaim that such a
result was apparently what he had intended. This narrative caused
some strange looks and a little discussion among them, and no one
could think what to do next (aside from fixing the man's arm), when
the constable suddenly remembered that he did not know the man's
name. "Sir," he asked, "have you any identification?"
"Why, I think so, sonny," replied the old man, beginning to fumble
in his various pockets, and then, to the indescribable surprise of
his audience, to remove what they did not know, and could not have
imagined, were the souvenirs from his previous wanderings. When his
pockets were finally emptied, there was still no identification, but
instead, on the table before them, his interrogators saw the
following objects, namely, viz., and to wit: the bottle cap, the
chicken brains, the horse manure, a piece of grimy string, a cigar
butt, three pieces of chewed and flattened gum, a wing nut with
stripped threads, a rusty nail (bent in two places), part of a candy
wrapper, some rat pills (eleven of them), half a marble, and a
common pebble.
After a moment or two of reflective silence, the mayor made bold to
speak (seeing the constable in a reverie), and asked gently and
softly, "Where did you get all these, uh, items?"
"Why, looking for gold and treasure, sonny," the old man answered,
in a tone that implied that the mayor should have known the answer
already. "But," he added as a second thought, and in the face of
these gentlemen's now rather extravagantly and injudiciously raised
eyebrows and opened mouths, "they were all just what I was looking
for--like the broken arm here. Quite a find, eh?"
At this point, the farmer, who had been standing generally in the
background holding his hat in both hands, came forward and begged an
audience with the constable. "I didn't want to say this before," he
began in a low tone, "but now I think I must, in case it should be
important. All the way into town that old fellow kept saying
something to me about wanting to cook his brains by burning a horse
biscuit under his cap."
That was enough. And, needless to say, the Authorities from the
Institution in the city were immediately summoned, and the old man
was taken to a very pleasant place where he could rest among friends
and nice people, have no worries, and be free to enjoy the
"butterflies, blue skies, and happiness always." It is reported by
reliable sources that shortly after arriving the old man was heard
to exclaim cheerfully, "Just what I was looking for! Mattresses on
the walls!"