In the midst of these proceedings the swinging doors were thrustĪsunder and there entered one of those self-sufficient, self-important One Saturday night in a local life-saving station on the principalĬorner of a small Kentucky town, engaged in the quaint old pastime Officially they ended then-a group of congenial spirits were gathered There is only one mother-in-law story in it. Them I heard years ago others no longer ago than yesterday.įor the book I claim two distinctions, namely, as follows: Those short stories which made the greatest appeal to me. For the contents of this book I have sought to choose I prefer them to be new,īut an old one, properly told, is often better than a new one badly The Kansas City man conveys it by dot-and-dash to a pal inĭenver and next morning folks are grinning over it in the streets of The Buffalo man passes it along to KansasĬity. ![]() Operator, say, in New York, tells his friend in Buffalo a good one Night when the flood tides of news matter have slackened off, the Operators serving on “leased” wires in newspaper offices. ![]() Properly belongs to telegraph operators and notably to telegraph To the extent with which they generally are credited. The printed page are not responsible for the spread of good stories One crisis with some homely anecdote, some aptly barbed retort.Īfter-dinner speakers and professional jokesmiths of the stage or It is of record thatĪbraham Lincoln, in the darkest days of the Union, cured more than Jews or Gentiles, city folk or country folk more completely thanĬould ponderous essays or scholarly expositions. Which sum up the characteristics of white Americans or black Americans, WeĪre by inheritance a race of story-tellers. These extents, at least, it is a national institution with us.Īmericans like to tell short stories and like to laugh at them. To point morals, to express situations, to help us solve puzzles. Than any other people, have made it a part of our daily life, using it So it would not do for us to lay claim to sole responsibility for ![]() Ham and Japhet one of the ones which begin: “It seems there were Wiled away many a dragging half hour in the Ark by telling Shem, The mother-in-law jokeĬould not have originated with Adam, because Adam had no mother-in-law,īut I have not the slightest doubt that Cain began using it The standard jokes of the period-a joke which, dressed in newĬlothes, is doing duty somewhere to-day. The piper who piped before Moses rounded out his act with one of Rounds which were old when the Pyramids were young. Indeed, some short stories still are making their The anecdotal form of humor is largely, I think, a native institution.Īmericans did not invent or discover the short humorous
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