Three soldiers—an American, an Englishman and an Irishman—from a trench
watched a German airplane overhead. A piece of paper fluttered down and
landed in a shell hole a few feet away.
Thinking it might be of value, the American crawled out after it. It
proved to be a crumpled bit torn from a piece of wrapping paper. Thinking
to have some fun with his comrades, he returned and said: “It looks as
though it has been of value, all right, but I can’t make it out.”
The Englishman said he would try, and after he had investigated he took
his cue from the American and admitted that he also was unable to read it.
“Faith,” said the Irishman, “I’ll bet I can dissect it,” and he started
for the shell hole. In a few minutes he was back.
“Did you read it?” he was asked.
“Sure and I read it,” he replied, “but all I could make out was that the
Germans are badly frightened and their entire rearguard has been wiped
out.”
* * * * *
The Irish lad and Yiddish boy were engaged in verbal combat. First one
would insist that his father or mother were better than the other’s. Then
it was their pet bulldogs and their teachers. Finally the subject came
down to respective churches.
“I guess I know that Father Harrity knows more than your Rabbi,” the
little Irish boy insisted.
“Shure, he does; vy not?” replied the Jew boy. “You tell him everything.”
_Our Rural Mail Box_
=Skipper Bill=: Accept my best wishes for the season, and may each
festive day find you squatted ’round some board arrangement heaped with
viands, digestible and otherwise; and may the platitudes, provoked by the
year’s munificence and the fact that you’re alive, be salt to the root of
the tree of good fellowship. And may the years to come endear you more to
the thousands of American “Bohemians,” who recognize you now as a damn
good fellow.
Even though the desert remain arid, and we are forced to sip from lips
that burn, and betray, for inspiration, we’ll remain in the fight until
old Mother Earth calls upon us for our quota of bone and flesh—dust.
Yours for the bull-con, E. W. Welty.
* * * * *
=Ima Cumming=: If, while going through the park at night, you should hear
some maiden say, “Sweet, Daddy,” that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s
talking to her father.
* * * * *
=Betty B. Good=: Don’t complain that your confidence has been betrayed.
The fault is your own for pouring unsafe talk into a leaky mind.
* * * * *
=Van Perry=—It seems plausible enough that Mandy acquired her big feet
from walking through the squashy, mushy mud of the rich Brazos county
soil but I hardly believe she was so lazy as to have ever sat down on the
job of cotton picking. Too good to be true.
* * * * *
=Tiny.=—Can not quite make out the letter. If it was an (o) your father
shot himself. If it wasn’t, he didn’t.
* * * * *
=Henpeck=—If your wife really loved you she’d have married someone else.
* * * * *
=Lover=—Squeeze them, tease them, anything will please them.
* * * * *
=Lord Helpus=: You don’t have to be a seasoned veteran to put “pep” in
your work.
* * * * *
=Dolly Dollars=: Yes, we all blow many beautiful bubbles of iridescent
hue, and of course, some of ’em are just bound to bust.
* * * * *
Said mother to father:
“It’s time that girl of ours was married.”
“Oh, what’s the rush? Let her wait till the right man comes along.”
“Why should she? I didn’t.”
* * * * *