Irvin S. Cobb

“ A righteous belief in our sacred cause inspires us, every one. Each one feels himself a giant. And what is the result? Suddenly we leap forward in the charge. We grapple with them, we fight like demons. And, gentlemen, such is the impetuosity of our attack, such the ferocity of our blows that soon the blue lines break and in mad disorder routed the enemy flees, unable to face that irresistible torrent of Southern manhood. ”

“ The proprietor of a small hotel of a small New England town was hunched behind the clerk’s desk of his establishment when the door opened and there strode in a typical heavy man of a traveling repertoire company. The newcomer wore a mangy fur overcoat and a soiled white waistcoat and, as if to make up for his lack of baggage, bore himself with an air of jaunty assurance. ”

“ The conjurer, who is making his way across country afoot, is sitting alongside the dusty road, resting. There passes him an ancient negro returning from a fishing expedition. The darky is not going home empty-handed. He has captured a huge snapping-turtle. He is holding it fast by its long tail, which is stretched tautly over his right shoulder so that the flat undershell of the captive rests against his back. He bids the stranger a polite good-morning and trudges on. He has gone perhaps twenty feet further when an impish inspiration leaps into the magician’s brain. ”

“ She plastered herself flat against the wooden background. Zeno gave her a look seemingly fraught with undying hate. He took up his longest, sharpest bowie-knife. He tested its needle-like point upon his thumb. He poised it, aimed it, flung it.
Like a javelin it hurtled and hissed in its flight through the air. Striking tip first a scant quarter of an inch from the lobe of the mother-in-law’s left ear, it buried itself deep in the tough oaken planking and stood there, the hilt quivering. ”

“ Those who remember the late Swifty may recall that it was his custom, clad in silken tights, to ascend to the top of a slender ladder which reared nearly ninety feet aloft and after poising himself there for a moment to leap forth headlong into air, describing a graceful curve in his downward flight, then with a great splatter and splash to strike in a tank of water but little larger and wider and deeper than the average well-filled family bathtub, and immediately thereafter to emerge from it, in his glittering spangles, amid the plaudits of the admiring multitude. ”

“ The clowns would sprawl on the backs of the living obstacles. Always there was one clown who, dashing down the runway, would suddenly halt and fling his peaked cap across. There was another, dressed as a country woman, who, as he somersaulted, lost a pair of bifurcated white garments, while the audience whooped its delight.
This season, though, a culminating treat had been provided by the management: The lesser gymnasts had done their stunts. Now, to the head of the runway mounted the premier tumbler. ”

“ One day an automobile run to a near-by town was organized. Every proud proprietor of a car joined in. As the procession headed out past the corporate limits it was met by a farmer, from the Massac Creek section on his way to the warehouse with a wagon-load of tobacco. His half-grown son rode with him.
As the head of the column loomed through the dust the farmer’s two mules, unused to the sight of automobiles, showed signs of skittishness. The boy leaped down from his seat and held the heads of the team, the mules flinching and trembling as the cavalcade roared past. ”

“ The Northern tourist, who was making a detour through the foothills, halted his car and hailed the industrious worker.
“My friend,” he said, “you look like a live chap and a hustler.”
“Well,” said the native, “I aim to keep busy.” He laid down his hoe and advanced to the edge of the road.
“That’s what I said to myself as soon as I saw you. I’m wondering why you’re content to slave your life out in this God-forsaken country. I never saw such poor-looking soil in my life. Why don’t you pull up stakes and move up into Ohio where I live?” ”

“ He was sitting in a courtroom one day when a young and struggling member of the local bar, who was not especially renowned for mental brilliancy, undertook to read a petition in a divorce suit and speedily got himself badly tangled up in a confused maze of legal phrases. The judge sought to set the young lawyer right, but the only result was to tangle him worse than ever. The judge was showing signs of losing his temper when Col. Hendrick arose.
“I hope, your Honor,” he said, “that you will bear patiently with our young friend here. He is doing his best.” ”

“ On his first Sunday morning in the mountain hamlet Wilkins felt the need of a shave. He had no razor and there was no regular barber in the town; but he learned from the hotel-keeper that there was an old cobbler living a few doors away who sometimes shaved transients.
In a tiny shop Wilkins found an elderly native with straggly chin whiskers and a gentle blue eye. The old chap got out an ancient razor and was soon scraping away on the patron’s jowls. Wilkins felt the desire for conversation stealing over him. ”

“ One day the train—there was only one train a day, each way—was laboring slowly upgrade when the engineer halted his locomotive to let a cavalcade cross the track ahead of him. First there streaked past a pack of hounds, all baying. Behind the dogs followed men, on horseback and mule-back, galloping at top speed and cheering the hunt on with shrill whoops and blasts from a horn. The troupe had vanished into the deep timber bordering the right-of-way when a Northern man, riding in the shabby day-coach, addressed a fellow-passenger who was a native.
“Sheriff’s posse, I suppose?” ”

“ The white man was named Ferguson. He owned a string of two-room frame cottages and his tenants exclusively were colored. Very great was his chagrin when a negro man in a fit of pique cut a woman’s throat in one of his houses so that she bled to death, leaving a large dark stain on the floor, because immediately the word spread among the black population that the building was haunted and thereafter nobody would rent it, even at reduced rates. ”

“ Toastmaster and Gentlemen, I speak to-night of water. What visions does that word conjure up! What delectable thoughts does it bring to the contemplative mind. Water, I maintain, is the most beneficent, the most benign and the most beautiful of all the elements with which a generous Creator has endowed this mundane sphere. ”

“ The old Irishman would range alongside him and in an undertone ask of him certain questions, then call out the answers to the clerk sitting fifteen feet away, who duly recorded them on the back of the indictment. This ceremony was more or less automatic, since from long experience the old man knew exactly what facts regarding the prisoner’s past life he must ascertain. As the convicted man usually made his responses in an undertone, only the functionary’s voice would be heard as he chanted his own version of the disclosures just made to him. ”

“ If ever again you utter a word of disparagement for the Union cause or a word of approval for the Confederates, and I hear of it, you’ll suffer severely; because now you’re a loyal Unionist. A single disloyal remark makes you guilty of treason. ”

“ Soon after his arrival in New York he paid a visit to the Bronx Zoo. He halted in front of a cage containing one of the largest kangaroos in captivity. After watching the curious creature for some time in an awed silence, he hailed a keeper.
“What’s that thing?” he asked.
“That,” said the keeper in his best professional manner, “is a marsupial, a mammal that carries its young in a pouch on its breast, lives on roots and herbs, can jump twenty feet at one leap, is able to knock a human being down with a kick from either hind leg, and is a native of Australia.” ”

“ Zeno When the circus reached the small New Hampshire town the proprietor feared that his afternoon performance might lack its chief feature. The star of the aggregation was Zeno, the Mexican Knife Thrower, answering in private life to the name of Hennessy. Twice a day Zeno, dressed in gaudy trappings, would enter the arena accompanied by his wife, a plump young woman in pink tights, and followed by a roustabout bearing a basket full of long bowie-knives and shining battle-axes. ”

“ The manager gave him a hurt look.
“Say, what’s the matter with this gang, anyhow?” he demanded; “always wanting money. What do you think I am—a National bank, or something? It’s only yesterday that the heavy man kept nagging after me for two dollars. Said he wanted to get his laundry out. What does he need with laundry? Am I bothering about my laundry? No. Here I am working like a tiger to dig up railroad fares for you people and square up hotel-keepers and keep this show moving across the country until we run into some good territory. ”

“ Slawson, the senior of the pair, was exceedingly deaf. She used one of those old-fashioned, flexible rubber ear-trumpets with a tip at one end and a bell-like aperture at the other. Her crony, Mrs. Ream, had a high-pitched, far-carrying voice.
On a blue-painted bench, with the old ladies at one end, my father at the other and the row of youngsters in between, we watched the show. The time came for the crowning feature of a circus of those times. Perhaps the reader is of sufficient age to recall what this was. Elephants and camels and horses would be close-ranked at the foot of a springboard. ”

“ While the funeral services were in progress at the late home of the deceased, two of the men mourners stood on the front porch of the house lamenting the passing of their friend and praising his virtues.
Said one of them:
“There wasn’t no finer feller anywhere than what Bill was, but the main trouble with him was he wasn’t forehanded. He had a wife and a whole passel of children and he should a-been more saving than what he was. He might a-knowed he couldn’t live on forever. But no, he lived up to everything he made. ”

“ First one would chant off a purely imaginary account of a round, and then the other would.
Adams had a bet down on the negro to win, and accordingly favored the dark contender. In his turn to “read” a round, he would depict Johnson as hammering Jeffries to a pulp. But Mercer, who was a partisan of Jeffries, would each time retaliate with a spirited but, of course, purely fictitious account of how the white man, having rallied heroically, was now dealing mighty blows upon the head and body of the tottering, weakening black. ”

“ A distinguished French diplomat lately put into a few words what I think is the best possible explanation yet offered as a reason for the failure of his countrymen to perceive what our national attitude is, touching on the post-war issues which so deeply concern France and, by the same token, the failure of our countrymen to make out what the people of France want and what they are striving for. ”

“ But I am quite certain that we, more than any other people, have made it a part of our daily life, using it to point morals, to express situations, to help us solve puzzles. To these extents, at least, it is a national institution with us. ”

“ Americans like to tell short stories and like to laugh at them. We are by inheritance a race of story-tellers. There are short stories which sum up the characteristics of white Americans or black Americans, Jews or Gentiles, city folk or country folk more completely than could ponderous essays or scholarly expositions. ”

“ When the jury very promptly had returned a verdict of guilty, His Honor, pointing to the chief complaining witness and addressing the defendant, said:
“This is the most lamentable example of brutality I have ever seen in a long experience on the criminal bench. Surely no human being, unless he were inspired by infernal influences and suggestions, could deliberately work such wreckage as you have worked upon the countenance of a defenseless and helpless fellow creature. ”

“ The proud father escorted the young man through the shining new mansion, followed by the other members of the household. When the grand tour had been completed the millionaire inquired whether the son had any suggestions to make.
“Well,” said the young man, “to me it seems complete in every possible detail except one.”
“What’s missin’?” demanded the parent.
“You ought to have a chandelier in the music-room,” said the boy.
“All right,” said the father. “I’ll order one by telegraph to-night, but I’ll bet a thousand dollars there ain’t a damn one in the family can play it.” ”

“ Then they shouted it loudly as one always does, somehow, when using one’s own language, one is dealing with a stranger who doesn’t understand that language. The waiter merely shrugged his shoulders and spread his fingers in a gesture of helplessness.
The man who wanted milk imitated the action of one milking a cow, meanwhile mooing plaintively, and then, to round out the illustration, went through the pantomime of emptying an imaginary glass. Still the waiter stared at him uncomprehendingly. ”

“ But it is a tenet of our political faith that in a Democratic gathering no man who calls himself a Democrat shall be denied the right to be heard. If the gentleman will be content to ask his question, whatever it is, and to abide by my answer to it, I am willing that he should speak.”
“That suits me,” proclaimed the interrupter. “My question is this: Didn’t you say at the Louisville convention not four weeks ago that if the Democrats of Kentucky, in convention assembled, nominated a yaller dog for Governor, you would vote for him?”
“I did,” said Hallam calmly. ”

“ Naturally the excitement was intense—for this game was for blood money and the Afro-American championship of the county. The umpire, a small, dapper man, a barber by profession and naturally mild-mannered, was filled with regret that the opportunity for prominence had lured him into taking this job. He had a sincere conviction that, no matter what decision he made next, somebody would feel aggrieved. ”

“ There have been other frugal actors from time to time, but probably none quite so much so as this gentleman is. His passion for personal economy has come to be proverbial. Let us for convenience call him Jones, which isn’t his name at all.
One day in the early part of December of last year a gentleman of a waggish turn of mind came, with a look of concern on his face, into the Lambs Club. ”

“ But the only rig in sight was an ancient carriage drawn by a scrawny, old crow-bait with an old negro man for a driver.
“Right this way, boss,” shouted the old man as he ran forward to relieve the traveler of his hand-baggage. “Tek you anywhars in the city fur fifty cents. Hop right abode, suh!”
“I’ve got to rush over to the other depot,” said the white man, “That mare of yours doesn’t look very fast. Do you think she can make it?” ”

“ One dark night a colored man from the country, driving home from town, steered his mules across the track just as the Memphis flier came through and abolished him, along with his team and his wagon. His widow sued the railroad for damages. ”

“ Whereupon, Colonel Roosevelt was moved to preach him a sermon on the subject of the moralities.
“See here, Chief,” he said, “why don’t you set your people a still better example of obedience to the laws of the land and the customs of the whites? A white man has only one wife; he’s allowed only one at a time. ”