Humorous American Short Stories Read online

  It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed down from his ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings; that it was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the Half-Moon, being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river, and the great city called by his name; that his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine-pins in a hollow of the mountain; and that he himself had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant peals of thunder.

  To make a long story short, the company broke up, and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip’s daughter took him home to live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip’s son and heir, who was the ditto of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm; but evinced an hereditary disposition to attend to anything else but his business.

  Rip now resumed his old walks and habits; he soon found many of his former cronies, though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time; and preferred making friends among the rising generation, with whom he soon grew into great favor.

  Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old times “before the war.” It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his torpor. How that there had been a Revolutionary war—that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England—and that, instead of being a subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him; but there was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was—petticoat government. Happily that was at an end; he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes; which might pass either for an expression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliverance.

  He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle’s hotel. He was observed, at first, to vary on some points every time he told it, which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently awakened. It at last settled down precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman or child in the neighborhood, but knew it by heart. Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained flighty. The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave it full credit. Even to this day they never hear a thunderstorm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine-pins; and it is a common wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle’s flagon.

  SOURCE: Washington Irving. The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. New York: George P. Putnam, 1848.

  SELECTING THE FACULTY (1855)

  Robert Carlton (Baynard Rush Hall)

  Hall wrote The New Purchase: Or, Early Years in the Far West as a history of the settlement of Monroe County, Indiana, but in his wonderful unsupressible excess of humor, could not help himself from including comical fictionalized episodes, including this one.

  OUR BOARD OF Trustees, it will be remembered, had been directed by the Legislature to procure, as the ordinance called it, “Teachers for the commencement of the State College at Woodville.” That business, by the Board, was committed to Dr. Sylvan and Robert Carlton—the most learned gentlemen of the body, and of—the New Purchase! Our honourable Board will be more specially introduced hereafter; at present we shall bring forward certain rejected candidates, that, like rejected prize essays, they may be published, and thus have their revenge.

  None can tell us how plenty good things are till he looks for them; and hence, to the great surprise of the Committee, there seemed to be a sudden growth and a large crop of persons even in and around Woodville, either already qualified for the “Professorships,” as we named them in our publications, or who could “qualify” by the time of election. As to the “chair” named also in our publications, one very worthy and disinterested schoolmaster offered, as a great collateral inducement for his being elected, “to find his own chair!”—a vast saving to the State, if the same chair I saw in Mr. Whackum’s school-room. For his chair there was one with a hickory bottom; and doubtless he would have filled it, and even lapped over its edges, with equal dignity in the recitation room of Big College.

  The Committee had, at an early day, given an invitation to the Rev. Charles Clarence, A. M., of New Jersey, and his answer had been affirmative; yet for political reasons we had been obliged to invite competitors, or make them, and we found and created “a right smart sprinkle.”

  Hopes of success were built on many things—for instance, on poverty; a plea being entered that some thing ought to be done for the poor fellow—on one’s having taught a common school all his born days, who now deserved to rise a peg—on political, or religious, or fanatical partisan qualifications—and on pure patriotic principles, such as a person’s having been “born in a canebrake and rocked in a sugar trough.” On the other hand, a fat, dull-headed, and modest Englishman asked for a place, because he had been born in Liverpool! and had seen the world beyond the woods and waters too! And another fussy, talkative, pragmatical little gentleman, rested his pretensions on his ability to draw and paint maps!—not projecting them in roundabout scientific processes, but in that speedy and elegant style in which young ladies copy maps at first chop boarding schools! Nay, so transcendent seemed Mr. Merchator’s claims, when his show or sample maps were exhibited to us, that some in our Board, and nearly everybody out of it, were confident he would do for Professor of Mathematics and even Principal.

  But of all our unsuccessful candidates, we shall introduce by name only two—Mr. James Jimmey, A.S.S., and Mr. Solomon Rapid, A. to Z.

  Mr. Jimmey, who aspired to the mathematical chair, was master of a small school of all sexes, near Woodville. At the first, he was kindly, yet honestly told, his knowledge was too limited and inaccurate; yet, notwithstanding this, and some almost rude repulses afterwards, he persisted in his application and his hopes. To give evidence of competency, he once told me he was arranging a new spelling-book, the publication of which would make him known as a literary man, and be an unspeakable advantage to “the rising generation.” And this naturally brought on the following colloquy about the work:—

  “Ah! indeed! Mr. Jimmey?”

  “Yes, indeed, Mr. Carlton.”

  “On what new principle do you go, sir?”

  “Why, sir, on the principles of nature and common sense. I allow school-books for schools are all too powerful obstruse and hard-like to be understood without exemplifying illustrations.”

  “Yes, but Mr. Jimmey, how is a child’s spelling-book to be made any plainer?”

  “Why, sir, by clear explifications of the words in one column, by exemplifying illustrations in the other.”

  “I do not understand yo
u, Mr. Jimmey, give me a specimen.”

  “Sir?”

  “An example.”

  “To be sure—here’s a spes-a-example; you see, for instance, I put in the spelling column, C-r-e-a-m, cream, and here in the explification column, I put the exemplifying illustration—Unctious part of milk!”

  We had asked, at our first interview, if our candidate was an algebraist, and his reply was negative; but, “he allowed he could ‘qualify’ by the time of election, as he was powerful good at figures, and had cyphered clean through every arithmetic he had ever seen, the rule of promiscuous questions and all!” Hence, some weeks after, as I was passing his door, on my way to a squirrel hunt, with a party of friends, Mr. Jimmey, hurrying out with a slate in his hand, begged me to stop a moment, and thus addressed me:—

  “Well, Mr. Carlton, this algebra is a most powerful thing—aint it?”

  “Indeed it is, Mr. Jimmey—have you been looking into it?”

  “Looking into it! I have been all through this here fust part; and by election time, I allow I’ll be ready for examination.”

  “Indeed!”

  “Yes, sir! but it is such a pretty thing! Only to think of cyphering by letters! Why, sir, the sums come out, and bring the answers exactly like figures. Jist stop a minute—look here; a stands for 6, and b stands for 8, and c stands for 4, and d stands for figure 10; now if I say a+b—c=d, it is all the same as if I said, 6 is 6 and 8 makes 14, and 4 subtracted, leaves 10! Why, sir, I done a whole slate full of letters and signs; and afterwards, when I tried by figures, they every one of them came out right and brung the answer! I mean to cypher by letters altogether.”

  “Mr. Jimmey, my company is nearly out of sight—if you can get along this way through simple and quadratic equations by our meeting, your chance will not be so bad—good morning, sir.”

  But our man of “letters” quit cyphering the new way, and returned to plain figures long before reaching equations; and so he could not become our professor. Yet anxious to do us all the good in his power, after our college opened, he waited on me, a leading trustee, with a proposal to board our students, and authorized me to publish—“as how Mr. James Jimmey will take strange students— students not belonging to Woodville—to board, at one dollar a week, and find every thing, washing included, and will black their shoes three times a week to boot, and—give them their dog-wood and cherry-bitters every morning into the bargain!”

  The most extraordinary candidate, however, was Mr. Solomon Rapid. He was now somewhat advanced into the shaving age, and was ready to assume offices the most opposite in character; although justice compels us to say Mr. Rapid was as fit for one thing as another. Deeming it waste of time to prepare for any station till he was certain of obtaining it, he wisely demanded the place first, and then set to work to become qualified for its duties, being, I suspect, the very man, or some relation of his, who is recorded as not knowing whether he could read Greek, as he had never tried. And, beside, Mr. Solomon Rapid contended that all offices, from president down to fence-viewer, were open to every white American citizen; and that every republican had a blood-bought right to seek any that struck his fancy; and if the profits were less, or the duties more onerous than had been anticipated, that a man ought to resign and try another.

  Naturally, therefore, Mr. Rapid, thought he would like to sit in our chair of languages, or have some employment in the State college; and hence he called for that purpose on Dr. Sylvan, who, knowing the candidate’s character, maliciously sent him to me. Accordingly, the young gentleman presented himself, and without ceremony, instantly made known his business thus:—

  “I heerd, sir, you wanted somebody to teach the State school, and I’m come to let you know I’m willing to take the place.”

  “Yes, sir, we are going to elect a professor of languages who is to be the principal, and a professor.”

  “Well, I don’t care which I take, but I’m willing to be the principal. I can teach sifring, reading, writing, joggerfree, surveying, grammur, spelling, definitions, parsin—”

  “Are you a linguist?”

  “Sir?”

  “You of course understand the dead languages?”

  “Well, can’t say I ever seed much of them, though I have heerd tell of them; but I can soon larn them—they aint more than a few of them I allow?”

  “Oh! my dear sir, it is not possible—we—can’t—”

  “Well, I never seed what I couldn’t larn about as smart as any body—”

  “Mr. Rapid, I do not mean to question your abilities; but if you are now wholly unacquainted with the dead languages, it is impossible for you or any other talented man to learn them under four or five years.”

  “Pshoo! foo! I’ll bet I larn one in three weeks! Try me, sir,—let’s have the furst one furst—how many are there?”

  “Mr. Rapid, it is utterly impossible; but if you insist, I will loan you a Latin book—”

  “That’s your sorts, let’s have it, that’s all I want, fair play.”

  Accordingly, I handed him a copy of Historiae Sacrae, with which he soon went away, saying, he “didn’t allow it would take long to git through Latin, if ’twas only sich a thin patch of a book as that.”

  In a few weeks to my no small surprise, Mr. Solomon Rapid again presented himself; and drawing forth the book began with a triumphant expression of countenance: “Well, sir, I have done the Latin.”

  “Done the Latin!”

  “Yes, I can read it as fast as English.”

  “Read it as fast as English!”

  “Yes, as fast as English—and I didn’t find it hard at all.”

  “May I try you on a page?”

  “Try away, try away; that’s what I’ve come for.”

  “Please read here then, Mr. Rapid”; and in order to give him a fair chance, I pointed to the first lines of the first chapter, viz: “In principio Deus creavit coelum et terram intra sex dies; primo die fecit lucem,” etc.

  “That, sir?” and then he read thus, “in prinspo duse creevit kalelum et terrum intra sex dyes—primmo dye fe-fe-sit looseum,” etc.

  “That will do, Mr. Rapid—”

  “Aha! I told you so.”

  “Yes, yes—but translate.”

  “Translate!” (eyebrows elevating).

  “Yes, translate, render it.”

  “Render it! how’s that?” (forehead more wrinkled).

  “Why, yes, render it into English—give me the meaning of it.”

  “Meening!” (staring full in my face, his eyes like saucers, and forehead wrinkled with the furrows of eighty)—“meaning! I didn’t know it had any meaning. I thought it was a Dead language!”

  Well, reader, I am glad you are not laughing at Mr. Rapid; for how should any thing dead speak out so as to be understood? And indeed, does not his definition suit the vexed feelings of some young gentlemen attempting to read Latin without any interlinear translation? and who inwardly, cursing both book and teacher, blast their souls “if they can make any sense out of it.” The ancients may yet speak in their own languages to a few; but to most who boast the honour of their acquaintance, they are certainly dead in the sense of Solomon Rapid.

  Our honourable board of trustees at last met; and after a real attempt by some, and a pretended one by others, to elect one and another out of the three dozen candidates, the Reverend Charles Clarence, A. M., was chosen our principal and professor of languages; and that to the chagrin of Mr. Rapid and other disappointed persons, who all from that moment united in determined and active hostility towards the college, Mr. Clarence, Dr. Sylvan, Mr. Carlton, and, in short, towards “every puss proud aristocrat big-bug, and blasted Yankee in the New Purchase.”

  SOURCE: Baynard Rush Hall. The New Purchase: Or, Early Years in the Far West. New Albany, Indiana: R. Nunemacher, 1855.

  “THE JUMPING FROG”: IN ENGLISH. THEN IN FRENCH. THEN CLAWED BACK INTO A CIVILIZED LANGUAGE ONCE MORE, BY PATIENT, UNREMUNERATED TOIL (1865 & 1879)

  Mark Twain (Sam
uel Clemens)

  America’s most famous humorist (1835–1910) first came to national attention for “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (originally titled “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog”). While the story is well known and appreciated, his comic rendering of its French translation back into English is less so. This selection presents his commentary, the original story and then his re-translation of the French version (which may be found in, among other sources, “The Jumping Frog”: In English. Then in French. Then Clawed Back into a Civilized Language Once More, by Patient, Unremunerated Toil. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1903).

  EVEN A CRIMINAL is entitled to fair play; and certainly when a man who has done no harm has been unjustly treated, he is privileged to do his best to right himself. My attention has just been called to an article some three years old in a French Magazine entitled, Revue des Deux Mondes (Review of Some Two Worlds), wherein the writer treats of “Les Humoristes Americaines” (These Humorists Americans). I am one of these humorists Americans dissected by him, and hence the complaint I am making.

  This gentleman’s article is an able one (as articles go, in the French, where they always tangle up everything to that degree that when you start into a sentence you never know whether you are going to come out alive or not). It is a very good article, and the writer says all manner of kind and complimentary things about me—for which I am sure I thank him with all my heart; but then why should he go and spoil all his praise by one unlucky experiment? What I refer to is this: he says my Jumping Frog is a funny story, but still he can’t see why it should ever really convulse anyone with laughter—and straightway proceeds to translate it into French in order to prove to his nation that there is nothing so very extravagantly funny about it. Just there is where my complaint originates. He has not translated it at all; he has simply mixed it all up; it is no more like the Jumping Frog when he gets through with it than I am like a meridian of longitude. In order that even the unlettered may know my injury and give me their compassion, I have been at infinite pains and trouble to re-translate this French version back into English; and to tell the truth I have well-nigh worn myself out at it, having scarcely rested from my work during five days and nights. I cannot speak the French language, but I can translate very well, though not fast, I being self-educated. I ask the reader to run his eye over the original English version of the Jumping Frog, and then read my re-translation from the French, and kindly take notice how the Frenchman has riddled the grammar. I think it is the worst I ever saw; and yet the French are called a polished nation. If I had a boy that put sentences together as they do, I would polish him to some purpose. Without further introduction, the Jumping Frog, as I originally wrote it, was as follows—[after it will be found my re-translation from the French]: