Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-01-22
FUNNY YANkeEIsMs.

Characteristics OF New England Life and
Speech Cleverly Illustrated.
Clarence Deming contributes to the
Christian Union some characteristics of
rural New England life and speech taken
from notebook of twenty-five years
standing. When, many years ago, 1
asked rustic citizen of the town, after
his first visit to New York, his opinion
of the great city, his reply was: "Waal,
/ neveri Why, there on Broadway it
alters seemed s though meetin's just
out"
The note book abounds in miscel-
laneous Yankeeisms CLEANED from the
whimsical characters to be found in
every back town of Yankeedom. Among
the oldest of this odd species was Mr..
D., rugged and antique resident of
Western Connecticut village. While
driving his cows to pasture Mr.. D.
used to address them in most emphatic
terms. One day. while the animals were
in uncommonly frolicsome mood, he was
overheard to say: Eyes, scatter, will
ye! Blast We! If there warn't but one of
ye ye'd scatter" On a night dark
as Erebus, Mr.. D. rushed out ex-
citedly on boys pilfering his favorite
pear tree, exclaiming: ~ see ye!
know ye! Where be We! Who are
YEP" His profanity was often most
voluble and redundant; but it never
reached loftier climax than on an oc-
casion when he missed the blackboard of
his wagon after five-mile drive, and,
on going back for it, found that he had
been using it ASA seat. One of his near
neichbors was good old dame, the
Mrs. Mafspyop Of the viii e who once
remarked at 0Hx. dinner t,bl". Il know
person who ca11ssthe cornish of a roof
the tarnish." She was matched by one
of my old Yankee friends, now gone to
his reward, who corrected an acQuaint-
ance reading aloud an account of Presi-
dent Lincoln's funeral, saying that the
word corpse" was French, and ought to
be pronounced "core." 1t was not long
before, at local sword presentation,
during the civil war, l heard one of the
orators exhort the ladies not to forget
the soldiers in the hospitals as well as
on the field. For" added he, there's
more that is not Slowed on the field Of
battle than what is killed by ball. At
court in that village was present when
a witness testified that "there was
somewhere between 'leven and twelve
eggs in the basket" Among the good
Yankee stories of the neighborhood are
the following: "Mr. b, before driv-
ing from his farm to town, used to
delay long delivering what he called
his "last words.'' His vexed hired man
OF los y. u no
an awful bad man to die; you'd have so
many last words that the undertaker's
bill would come in before yer was
dead" One of the oldest native charac-
ters was Mr.. B, an ardent defender
of the doctrine of election. One day
while ''argyfying' with neighbor at
dinner, he lifted a morsel of beef on a
fork, asserting: 81 have no more doubt,
sir, of the doctrine of election than that
! shall eat that meat" With the en-
phasis of his gesture the meat few off
and was instantly devoured by the
family dog.
Here are few Yankeeisms, drawn
from the most part from the same To-
| cality: "He buffers sausages"-i e.,
lives too extravagantly; Back up your
cart for pass your plate; "Waal, that's
huckleberry too much;" ''He died of
plexy;" Cant let yer have no eggs to-
day, we're settin';" II have written
receipt for my husbands tombstone;"
Draw long scythe" (sigh); 'These
corns hurt me so most want TO walk
| backwards" Newark, New Jersey, is
in New York State, isn't it?" ''Wc had
| a fine ball last night! the I. Ostrich
Orchestral played for u.s."
Let me close with this rural telegram
| which, many years ago, was permitted
to copy, and which pen literally. save
| the substitution of spurious name;
John Smith has broken his lags badley
All we'll"