The Arkansaw traveler., 1889-10-12
Josh Bnlings' Biography.
Mwnnnm~

AH8s yuAAub MuMUEt4ts b084 01Ak~ ings, penned the following letter in Carletonis book store in this city more than a score of years gro, and for- warded it to his literary friend, Mr. Bowen of Fort Plain:
 "DEAR CHARLES: If you can get mo a few kAlls to lektur out your way 1t will be clever in you. Sorry that 1 have no pictoriol biog- raphy of my face to send you the fact Is that l am % cussed humbly that l can't be took. I have sent to England for one of the Book Billings. Those publishersare worse than resur- rectionists-they steal c man while living. I ought to have had at least
 i've hundred dollars from the London publishers, but never had . cent. My lektur on milk has been skimmed for lyceum tastes. There ain't anything in 1t that need make anybody faint away, and believe there is some nerv. ous truth in 1t.
 "As regards the catastophys in my biography thus far, can only state that was born in Massachusetts, be- tween two mountains, in tho year of 1920. At the ago of fifteen the frst business attacted was the wool busi- ness-driving sheep. Ihad never been away before, and everybody seemed to know more than did. I saved my. self, but lost the flock of sheep pretty thoroughly. At sixteen I brought up on the west bank of the Mississippi, even in them days quite . stream. The past thirty years have been di- vided, multiplied and subtrActed in and among the various schemes of . vagrant temperament supplanted in strong natural constitution, such as husbandry in the wilderness, where there was more wild bees to hunt than oats to cut; merchandising ct the forks of a mud turnpike with . stock of brogsn boots, Lowell calico and whisky by the quart; running high pressure steamboat on the Ohio river -a lively life, where man can SO human natur with the bark on, and learn how to swear with great pre- ciss'on. Also speculated in Wet In- dia stores and potash, the two first crops of a new country an auctioneer, and for eight years land hunter on Indian trails, and made tough by rid- ing hog skin saddle and eating acorn fed pork and corn dodgers.
 "My life has been . success thus far, for I am still alive, but pecuniarily, who ever made money by playing tho eccentric wanderer from one rude vo- cation to another but little better than a common trapper and honey and veni- son hunter3 have had much com- fort out of all this, and would not take the best farm in the state of New York for the sights have seen. Ny literary raid has been short but sweet. I have had as much fun out of it as any man who ever lived, and when I reflect that 1t is but little moro than i've years since first put comic on paper, can certainly feel that have not made much coin. I have the quite satisfaction of knowing that I have never written line in malice against the truth or virtue of the world. | might have gained more wisdom by sleeping in cloister, but would have missed the lark's wild song in the morning and the sober boot of the midnight owl in the wilderness. | was never sick all day in my life never saw 6 man in tight spot but what I was willing to loosen the screws; have lived among the high and the low, and never put in my pocket knife or . pistol Excuse this If 1t looks like egotism. I only mean fo hrar or the inv tho w0rld has fur