



Produced by Charles Keller





UNCLE JOSH'S PUNKIN CENTRE STORIES

By Cal Stewart




Preface

To the Reader.

The one particular object in writing this book is to furnish you with an
occasional laugh, and the writer with an occasional dollar. If you get
the laugh you have your equivalent, and the writer has his.

In Uncle Josh Weathersby you have a purely imaginary character, yet one
true to life. A character chuck full of sunshine and rural simplicity.
Take him as you find him, and in his experiences you will observe there
is a bright side to everything.

Sincerely Yours

Cal Stewart


Contents PREFACE

LIFE SKETCH OF AUTHOR

MY OLD YALLER ALMANAC

ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK

UNCLE JOSH IN SOCIETY

UNCLE JOSH IN A CHINESE LAUNDRY

UNCLE JOSH IN A MUSEUM

UNCLE JOSH IN WALL STREET

UNCLE JOSH AND THE FIRE DEPARTMENT

UNCLE JOSH IN AN AUCTION ROOM

UNCLE JOSH ON A FIFTH AVENUE 'BUS

UNCLE JOSH IN A DEPARTMENT STORE

UNCLE JOSH'S COMMENTS ON THE SIGNS SEEN IN NEW YORK

UNCLE JOSH ON A STREET CAR

MY FUST PAIR OF COPPER TOED BOOTS

UNCLE JOSH IN POLICE COURT

UNCLE JOSH AT CONEY ISLAND

UNCLE JOSH AT THE OPERA

UNCLE JOSH AT DELMONICO'S

IT IS FALL

SI PETTINGILL'S BROOMS

UNCLE JOSH PLAYS GOLF

JIM LAWSON'S HOGS

UNCLE JOSH AND THE LIGHTNING ROD AGENT

A MEETING OF THE ANNANIAS CLUB

JIM LAWSON'S HOSS TRADE

A MEETING OF THE SCHOOL DIRECTORS

THE WEEKLY PAPER AT PUNKIN CENTRE

UNCLE JOSH AT A CAMP MEETING

THE UNVEILING OF THE ORGAN

UNCLE JOSH PLAYS A GAME OF BASE BALL

THE PUNKIN CENTRE AND PAW PAW VALLEY RAILROAD

UNCLE JOSH ON A BICYCLE

A BAPTISIN' AT THE HICKORY CORNERS CHURCH

A REMINISCENCE OF MY RAILROAD DAYS

UNCLE JOSH AT A CIRCUS

UNCLE JOSH INVITES THE CITY FOLKS TO VISIT HIM

YOSEMITE JIM, OR A TALE OF THE GREAT WHITE DEATH

UNCLE JOSH WEATHERSBY'S TRIP TO BOSTON

WHO MARCHED IN SIXTY-ONE




Life Sketch of Author

THE author was born in Virginia, on a little patch of land, so poor we
had to fertilize it to make brick. Our family, while having cast their
fortunes with the South, was not a family ruined by the war; we did not
have anything when the war commenced, and so we held our own. I secured
a common school education, and at the age of twelve I left home, or
rather home left me--things just petered out. I was slush cook on an
Ohio River Packet; check clerk in a stave and heading camp in the knobs
of Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia; I helped lay the track of the M.
K. & T. R. R., and was chambermaid in a livery stable. Made my first
appearance on the stage at the National Theatre in Cincinnati, Ohio,
and have since then chopped cord wood, worked in a coal mine, made cross
ties (and walked them), worked on a farm, taught a district school (made
love to the big girls), run a threshing machine, cut bands, fed the
machine and ran the engine. Have been a freight and passenger brakeman,
fired and ran a locomotive; also a freight train conductor and check
clerk in a freight house; worked on the section; have been a shot
gun messenger for the Wells, Fargo Company. Have been with a circus,
minstrels, farce comedy, burlesque and dramatic productions; have been
with good shows, bad shows, medicine shows, and worse, and some shows
where we had landlords singing in the chorus. Have played variety houses
and vaudeville houses; have slept in a box car one night, and a swell
hotel the next; have been a traveling salesman (could spin as many
yarns as any of them). For the past four years have made the Uncle Josh
stories for the talking machine. The Lord only knows what next!




My Old Yaller Almanac

     Hangin' on the
     Kitchen Wall

     I'M sort of fond of readin' one
     thing and another,

     So I've read promiscus like
     whatever cum my way,

     And many a friendly argument's cum up 'tween
     me and mother,

     'Bout things that I'd be readin' settin' round
     a rainy day.

      Sometimes it jist seemed to me thar wa'nt
     no end of books,

      Some made fer useful readin' and some jist
     made fer looks;

      But of all the different books I've read,
     thar's none comes up at all

      To My Old Yaller Almanac, Hangin' on
     the Kitchen Wall.

      I've always liked amusement, of the good
     and wholesome kind,

      It's better than a doctor, and it elevates the
     mind;

      So, often of an evening, when the farm
     chores all were done,

      I'd join the games the boys would play, gosh
     how I liked the fun;

      And once thar wuz a minstrel troop, they
     showed at our Town Hall,

      A jolly lot of fellers, 'bout twenty of 'em all.

      Wall I went down to see 'em, but their
     jokes, I knowed 'em all,

      Read 'em in My Old Yaller Almanac,
     Hangin' on the Kitchen Wall.


      Thar wuz Ezra Hoskins, Deacon Brown and
     a lot of us old codgers,

      Used to meet down at the grocery store,
     what wuz kept by Jason Rogers.

      There we'd set and argufy most every market
     day,

      Chawin' tobacker and whittlin' sticks to pass
     the time away;

      And many a knotty problem has put us on
     our mettle,

      Which we felt it wuz our duty to duly solve
     and settle;

      Then after they had said their say, who
     thought they knowed it all,

      I'd floor 'em with some facts I'd got

      From My Old Yaller Almanac, Hangin' on
     the Kitchen Wall.


      It beats a regular cyclopedium, that old
     fashioned yeller book,

      And many a pleasant hour in readin' it I've
     took;

      Somehow I've never tired of lookin' through
     its pages,

      Seein' of the different things that's happened
     in all ages.

      One time I wuz elected a Justice of the
     Peace,

      To make out legal documents, a mortgage
     or a lease,

      Them tricks that lawyers have, you bet I
     knowed them all,

      Learned them in My Old Yaller Almanac,
     Hangin' on the Kitchen Wall.


     So now I've bin to New York, and all your
     sights I've seen,

      I s'pose that to you city folks I must look
     most awful green,

      Gee whiz, what lots of fun I've had as I
     walked round the town,

      Havin' Bunco Steerers ask me if I wasn't
     Mr. Hiram Brown.


      I've rode on all your trolloly cars, and hung
     onto the straps,

      When we flew around the corners, sat on
     other peoples' laps,

      Hav'nt had no trouble, not a bit at all,

      Read about your city in My Old Yaller
     Almanac, Hangin' on the Kitchen Wall.




Uncle Josh Weathersby's Arrival in New York

WALL, fer a long time I had my mind made up that I'd cum down to New
York, and so a short time ago, as I had my crops all gathered in and
produce sold I calculated as how it would be a good time to come down
here. Folks at home said I'd be buncoed or have my pockets picked fore
I'd bin here mor'n half an hour; wall, I fooled 'em a little bit, I wuz
here three days afore they buncoed me. I spose as how there are a good
many of them thar bunco fellers around New York, but I tell you them
thar street keer conductors take mighty good care on you. I wuz ridin'
along in one of them keers, had my pockit book right in my hand, I
alowed no feller would pick my pockits and git it long as I had it in
my hand, and it shet up tight as a barrel when the cider's workin'. Wall
that conductor feller he jest kept his eye on me, and every little bit
he'd put his head in the door and say "hold fast." But I'm transgressin'
from what I started to tell ye. I wuz ridin' along in one of them
sleepin' keers comin' here, and along in the night some time I felt a
feller rummagin' around under my bed, and I looked out jest in time to
see him goin' away with my boots, wall I knowed the way that train wuz a
runnin' he couldn't git off with them without breakin' his durned neck,
but in about half an hour he brot them back, guess they didn't fit him.
Wall I wuz sort of glad he took em cause he hed em all shined up slicker
'n a new tin whistle. Wall when I got up in the mornin' my trubbles
commenced. I wuz so crouded up like, durned if I could git my clothes
on, and when I did git em on durned if my pants wa'nt on hind side
afore, and my socks got all tangled up in that little fish net along
side of the bed and I couldn't git em out, and I lost a bran new collar
button that I traded Si Pettingill a huskin' peg fer, and I got my right
boot on my left foot and the left one on the right foot, and I wuz so
durned badly mixed up I didn't know which way the train wuz a runnin',
and I bumped my head on the roof of the bed over me, and then sot
down right suddin like to think it over when some feller cum along and
stepped right squar on my bunion and I let out a war whoop you could a
heerd over in the next county. Wall, along cum that durned porter and
told me I wuz a wakin' up everybody in the keer. Then I started in
to hunt fer my collar button, cause I sot a right smart store by that
button, thar warns another one like it in Punkin Centre, and I thought
it would be kind of doubtful if they'd have any like it in New York,
wall I see one stuck right in the wall so I tried to git it out with my
jack knife, when along came that durned black jumpin' jack dressed in
soldier clothes and ast me what I wanted, and I told him I didn't want
anything perticler, then he told me to quit ringin' the bell, guess he
wuz a little crazy, I didn't see no bell. Wall, finally I got my clothes
on and went into a room whar they had a row of little troughs to wash
in, and fast as I could pump water in the durned thing it run out of a
little hole in the bottom of the trough so I jest had to grab a handful
and then pump some more. Wall after that things went along purty well
fer a right smart while, then I et a snack out of my carpet bag and felt
purty good. Wall that train got to runnin' slower and slower 'till it
stopped at every house and when it cum to a double house it stopped
twice. I hed my ticket in my hat and I put my head out of the window to
look at suthin