Good Stories from The Ladies Home Journal | Page 8

to 'spoon' all the way. If you don't like it you can get out and walk. She's my violet and I'm her sheltering oak."
During the remainder of the journey they were left in peace.

Both of the Same Kind A lady stepped from the Limited Express at a side station, on a special stop order. To the only man in sight she asked:
"When is the train for Madison due here, please?"
"The train went an hour ago, ma'am: the next one is to-morrow at eight o'clock."
The lady in perplexity then asked:
"Where is the nearest hotel?"
"There is no hotel here at all," replied the man.
"But what shall I do?" asked the lady. "Where shall I spend the night?"
"I guess you'll have to stay all night with the station agent," was the reply.
"Sir!" flashed up the lady, "I'd have you know I'm a lady."
"Well," said the man as he strode off, "so is the station agent."

"_Follow the Leader_"
A young curate was asked to take a Sunday-school class of girls of eighteen or nineteen years each, which had formerly been taught by a lady. The young clergyman consented, but insisted upon being properly introduced to the class. The superintendent accordingly took him to the class for this purpose and said:
"Young ladies, I introduce to you Mr. Chase, who will in future be your teacher. I would like you to tell him what your former teacher did each Sunday so that he can go on in the same way. What did she always do first?"
And then a miss of sixteen said: "Kiss us."

Very Easily Explained A neighbor whose place adjoined Bronson Alcott's had a vegetable garden in which he took a great interest. Mr. Alcott had one also, and both men were especially interested in their potato patches. One morning, meeting by the fence, the neighbor said, "How is it, Mr. Alcott, you are never troubled with bugs, while my vines are crowded with them?"
"My friend, that is very easily explained," replied Mr. Alcott. "I rise very early in the morning, gather all the bugs from my vines and throw them into your yard."

Proved His Teacher Wrong Little Willie's father found his youthful son holding up one of his rabbits by the ears and saying to him: "How much is seven times seven, now?"
"Bah," the father heard the boy say, "I knew you couldn't. Here's another one. Six times six is how much?"
"Why, Willie, what in the world are you doing with your rabbit?" asked the father.
Willie threw the rabbit down with disgust. "I knew our teacher was lying to us," was all he said.
"Why, how?" asked his father.
"Why, she told us this morning that rabbits were the greatest multipliers in the world."

At the Department Store
A man with a low voice had just completed his purchases in the department store, says the "Brooklyn Eagle."
"What is the name?" asked the clerk.
"Jepson," replied the man.
"Chipson?"
"No, Jepson."
"Oh, yes, Jefferson."
"No, Jepson; J-e-p-s-o-n."
"Jepson?"
"That's it. You have it. Sixteen eighty-two----"
"Your first name; initial, please."
"Oh, K."
"O.K. Jepson."
"Excuse me, it isn't O. K. You did not understand me. I said 'Oh'."
"O. Jepson."
"No; rub out the O. and let the K. stand."
The clerk iooked annoyed. "Will you please give me your initials again?"
"I said K."
"I beg your pardon, you said O. K. Perhaps you had better write it yourself."
"I said 'Oh'----"
"Just now you said K."
"Allow me to finish what I started. I said 'Oh,' because I did not understand what you were asking me. I did not mean that it was my initial. My name is Kirby Jepson."
"Oh!"
"No, not O., but K. Give me the pencil, and I'll write it down for you myself. There, I guess it's O. K. now."

The Worst Death There Is BY BILL NYE
It is now the proper time for the cross-eyed woman to fool with the garden hose. I have faced death in almost every form, and I do not know what fear is, but when a woman with one eye gazing into the zodiac and the other peering into the middle of next week, and wearing one of those floppy sunbonnets, picks up the nozzle of the garden hose and turns on the full force of the institution, I fly wildly to the Mountains of Hepsidam.
Water won't hurt any one, of course, if care is used not to forget and drink any of it, but it is this horrible suspense and uncertainty about facing the nozzle of a garden hose in the hands of a cross-eyed woman that unnerves and paralyzes me.
Instantaneous death is nothing to me. I am as cool and collected where leaden rain and iron hail are thickest as I would be in my own office writing the obituary of the man who steals my jokes. But I hate to be drowned slowly in my good clothes and on dry land, and have my dying gaze