WENT BACK ON THE CROWD.
Every boy of us in the villiage knew Uncle Crawford, says a New York Sun man. He was a dried-up old man, and neveoeemed to get any older, although always complaining. The form of salutation was invariably thus : “ Hollo ! Uncle Jerry ! ’ “ Yass, yass ! ” _ “ How you feeling ? ” “ Wretched, wretched, thank ye.” I’ve heard that at least 1000 times, and never knew a deviation but once. A drummer who used to come up occasionally from St Louis got on to it, and one day when a dozen of us sat on the steps of the drug store Uncle Jerry was seen coming up the street. “Isn’t that old Crawford?” asked the drummer as he shaded his eyas with his hand. “Yes.” “He’s the man who always replies that he’s pretty well, praise God ? ” “ Ob, no. He’s the man who always replies that he’s wretched, wretched, thank yo.” “I may be mistaken, but I don’t think so.’
“ Of course you are.” “ Well, I hate to give in. I’ll bat £4 that when he comes up, and you ask him how he is, he’ll reply as I said.” There were seven of us there, and all we could raise was £3. We handed that out fast enough, however, and it had been covered when Uncle Jerry came along. Wo were on the grin as the drummer called out. “Hobo, Uncle Jerry 1” “ Yass, yass ! ” “ How you feeling ? ”
11 Pretty well, praise God ! ” replied Uncle Jerrv as he passed on. It was about two minutes before we could get breath, and then the drummer had gone with the stakes. An hour later I asked Uncle Jerry what he meant by such conduct, and he replied— , “ Took mo Jail day to learn it, ana the feller gin me two big dollars.”
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Bibliographic details
Western Star, Issue 1540, 28 February 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)
Word Count
300WENT BACK ON THE CROWD. Western Star, Issue 1540, 28 February 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)
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