e bullets and cannon-balls were
flying in all directions, and presently one of the latter took the
wounded man's head off--without, however, his deliverer being aware of
it. In no long time he was hailed by an officer, who said:

"Where are you going with that carcass?"

"To the rear, sir--he's lost his leg!"

"His leg, forsooth?" responded the astonished officer; "you mean his
head, you booby."

Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood
looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said:

"It is true, sir, just as you have said." Then after a pause he added,
"BUT HE TOLD ME IT WAS HIS LEG!!!!!"

Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous
horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gasping
and shriekings and suffocatings.

It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form;
and isn't worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story
form it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever
listened to--as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.

He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just
heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is
trying to repeat it to a neighbor. But he can't remember it; so he gets
all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious
details that don't belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them
out conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless;
making minor mistakes now and then and stopping to correct them and
explain how he came to make them; remembering things which he forgot
to put in in their proper place and going back to put them in there;
stopping his narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name
of the soldier that was hurt, and finally remembering that the soldier's
name was not mentioned, and remarking placidly that the name is of no
real importance, anyway--better, of course, if one knew it, but not
essential, after all--and so on, and so on, and so on.

The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has
to stop every little while to hold himself in and keep from laughing
outright; and does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like way with
interior chuckles; and at the end of the ten minutes the audience have
laughed until they are exhausted, and the tears are running down their
faces.

The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and unco