He Had a Good Excuse

“Good-morning, Mrs. Stubbins,” said the parson; “is your husband at home?”

“’E’s ’ome, sir, but ’e’s abed,” replied Mrs. Stubbins, who had just finished hanging a pair of recently-patched trousers on the clothesline.

“How is it he didn’t come to church on Sunday?  You know we must have our hearts in the right place.”

“Lor’, sir,” retorted the faithful wife,"’is ’eart’s all right.  It’s ’is trouziz!”

One of Lincoln’s Little Notes

President Lincoln once wrote to General McClellan, when the latter was in command of the army.  General McClellan, as is well known, conducted a waiting campaign, being so careful not to make any mistakes that he made very little headway.  President Lincoln sent this brief but exceedingly pertinent letter: 

“My Dear McClellan:  If you don’t want to use the army I should like to borrow it for a while.”

  “Yours respectfully,
    A. LINCOLN.”

Fair Play

A group of drummers were trading yarns on the subject of hospitality, says “Lippincott’s Magazine,” when one of them took up his parable thus: 

“I was down in Louisiana last month travelin’ cross country when we kinder got lost in a lonesome sort of road just about dark, and when we saw a light ahead I tell you it looked first rate.  We drove up to the light, findin’ ’twas a house, and when I hollered the man came out and we asked him to take us in for the night.  He looked at us mighty hard, then said, ‘Wall, I reckon I kin stand it if you kin.’

“So we unhitched, went in, and found ’twas only a two-room shanty and just swarmin’ with children.  He had six from four to ’leven years old, and as there didn’t seem to be but one bed, me an’ Stony was wonderin’ what in thunder would become of us.

“They gave us supper, and then the old woman put the two youngest kids to bed.  They went straight to sleep.  Then she took those out, laid them over in the corner, put the next two to bed, and so on.  After all the children were asleep on the floor the old folks went in the other room and told us we could go to bed if we wanted to, and, bein’ powerful tired out, we did.

“Well, sir, the next morning when we woke up we was lying over in the corner with the kids, and the old man and the old woman had the bedl”

Cold Comfort That

A country minister who lived quite a distance from his church was overtaken on the way over one Sunday morning by a heavy shower.  The rain poured in torrents, and by the time he arrived at the church he was almost drenched.  Shaking the water from his hat and coat he remarked: 

“Really, friends, I am almost too wet to preach.”

“Oh, never mind,” replied one of his congregation; “you’ll be dry enough in the pulpit!”

A “Billet-Doux"