y delighted with. Well, he is
not a story-teller, and especially he is not a funny story-teller. His
funny stories, indeed, are oftentimes touchingly pathetic. But to such
a story as he tells, being a good-natured man and kindly disposed, we
have to listen, because we do not want to wound his feelings by
telling him that we have heard that story a great number of times, and
that we have heard it ably told by a great number of people from the
time we were children. But, as I say, we can not hurt his feelings. We
can not stop him. We can not kill him; and so the story generally
proceeds. He selects a very old story always, and generally tells it
in about this fashion:--

I heerd an awful funny thing the other day--ha! ha! I don't know
whether I kin git it off er not, but, anyhow, I'll tell it to you.
Well!--le's see now how the fool-thing goes. Oh, yes!--W'y, there was
a feller one time--it was durin' the army, and this feller that I
started in to tell you about was in the war, and--ha! ha!--there was a
big fight a-goin' on, and this feller was in the fight, and it was a
big battle and bullets a-flyin' ever' which way, and bombshells
a-bu'stin', and cannon-balls a-flyin' 'round promiskus; and this
feller right in the midst of it, you know, and all excited and het up,
and chargin' away; and the fust thing you know along come a
cannon-ball and shot his head off--ha! ha! ha! Hold on here a
minute!--no sir; I'm a-gittin' ahead of my story; no, no; it didn't
shoot his _head_ off--I'm gittin' the cart before the horse there--shot
his _leg_ off; that was the way; shot his leg off; and down the poor
feller drapped, and, of course, in that condition was perfectly
he'pless, you know, but yit with presence o' mind enough to know that
he was in a dangerous condition ef somepin' wasn't done fer him right
away. So he seen a comrade a-chargin' by that he knowed, and he
hollers to him and called him by name--I disremember now what the
feller's name was....

Well, that's got nothin' to do with the story, anyway; he hollers to
him, he did, and says, "Hello, there," he says to him; "here, I want
you to come here and give me a lift; I got my leg shot off, and I want
you to pack me back to the rear of the battle"--where the doctors
always is, you know, during a fight--and he says, "I want you to pack
me back there where I can get med-dy-cinal attention er I'm a dead
man, fer I got my leg shot off," he says, "and I want you to pack me
back