The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I | Page 6

by Wilbur D. Nesbit, from The Athlete's Garland.
DAVID MCKAY for "Hans Breitmann's Party," "Breitmann and the Turners," "Ballad," "Breitmann in Politics" and "Love Song," from Hans Breitmann's Ballads, by Charles Godfrey Leland, and "A Boston Ballad," from Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman.
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY for "In a State of Sin," from The Virginian, by Owen Wister.
THE MONARCH BOOK COMPANY for "The Apostasy of William Dodge," from The Seekers, by Stanley Waterloo.
THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY for "An Educational Project" and "The Woman-Hater Reformed," by Roy Farrell Greene; "The Trial That Job Missed," by Kennett Harris; "The Education of Grandpa," by Wallace Irwin; "An Improved Calendar," by Tudor Jenks.
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY for "Mr. Dooley on Gold Seeking," "Mr. Dooley on Expert Testimony," "Mr. Dooley on Golf," "Mr. Dooley on Football," "Mr. Dooley on Reform Candidates," from Mr. Dooley in Peace and War, by Finley Peter Dunne; "E.O.R.S.W." from Alphabet of Celebrities, by Oliver Herford; "A Letter," from The Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, by George Horace Lorimer; "Vive La Bagatelle" and "Willy and the Lady," from A Gage of Youth, by Gelett Burgess; "When the Allegash Drive Goes Through," from Pine Tree Ballads, by Holman F. Day; "Had a Set of Double Teeth," from Up in Maine, by Holman F. Day; "Similar Cases," from In This Our World, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman; "Barney McGee," by Richard Hovey, from More Songs from Vagabondia; "A Modern Eclogue," "The Sceptics," "A Staccato to O le Lupe," "A Spring Feeling," "Her Valentine" and "In Philistia," by Bliss Carman, from Last Songs from Vagabondia, and "Vive la Bagatelle," "A Cavalier's Valentine" and "Holly Song," from Hills of Song, by Clinton Scollard.
THE MUTUAL BOOK COMPANY for "James and Reginald" and "The Story of the Two Friars," from The Tribune Primer, by Eugene Field.
THE ORANGE JUDD COMPANY for "Spelling Down the Master," from The Hoosier Schoolmaster, by Edward Eggleston.
JAMES POTT & COMPANY for "The Gusher," from I've Been Thinking, by Charles Battell Loomis.
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS for "When Albani Sang" and "The Stove Pipe Hole," from The Habitant, by William Henry Drummond; "National Philosophy," from The Voyageur, by William Henry Drummond; "The Siege of Djklxprwbz," "Grizzly-gru," "He and She," "The Jackpot," "A Shining Mark," "The Reason," "Pass" and "The Whisperer," from The Rhymes of Ironquill, by Eugene F. Ware, and "A Family Horse," from The Sparrowgrass Papers, by Frederick S. Cozzens.
RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY for "An Arkansas Planter," from An Arkansas Planter, by Opie Read.
A.M. ROBERTSON for "The Drayman," from Songs of Bohemia, by Daniel O'Connell.
R.H. RUSSELL for "Mr. Carteret and His Fellow-Americans Abroad," by David Gray, from The Metropolitan Magazine.
THE SMART SET PUBLISHING COMPANY for "An Evening Musicale," by May Isabel Fisk, from The Smart Set.
THE FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY for "Colonel Sterett's Panther Hunt," from Wolfville Nights, by Alfred Henry Lewis; "The Bohemians of Boston," "The Purple Cow" and "Nonsense Verses," from The Burgess Nonsense Book, by Gelett Burgess, and "My Grandmother's Turkey-tail Fan," "Little Bopeep and Little Boy Blue" and "My Sweetheart," by Samuel Minturn Peck.
THE TANDY-WHEELER PUBLISHING COMPANY for "Utah," "A New Year Idyl," "The Warrior," "Lost Chords" and "The Advertiser," from A Little Book of Tribune Verse, by Eugene Field.
THOMPSON & THOMAS for "The Grammatical Boy," by Edgar Wilson Nye ("Bill Nye").
THE A. WESSELS COMPANY for "The Dying Gag," by James L. Ford.
M. WITMARK & SONS for "Walk," from Jim Marshall's New Pianner, by William Devere.
Special thanks are due to George Ade, Wallace Bruce Amsbary, John Kendrick Bangs, H.W. Boynton, Gelett Burgess, Ellis Parker Butler, Hayden Carruth, Robert W. Chambers, Charles Heber Clarke, Joseph I.C. Clarke, Mary Stewart Cutting, John James Davies, Caroline Duer, Mrs. Edward Eggleston, May Isabel Fisk, Elliott Flower, James L. Ford, David Gray, Sarah P. McLean Greene, Jennie Betts Hartswick, William Dean Howells, Wallace Irwin, Charles F. Johnson, S.E. Kiser, A.H. Laidlaw, Alfred Henry Lewis, Charles B. Lewis, Charles Battell Loomis, Charles F. Lummis, T.L. Masson, William Vaughn Moody, R.K. Munkittrick, W.D. Nesbit, Meredith Nicholson, Alden Charles Noble, Samuel Minturn Peck, Sydney Porter, Wallace Rice, James Whitcomb Riley, Doane Robinson, Henry A. Shute, F. Hopkinson Smith, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Howard V. Sutherland, John B. Tabb, Bert Leston Taylor, Juliet Wilbor Tompkins, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Eugene F. Ware, Anne Warner French and Stanley Waterloo for permission to reprint selections from their works and for many valuable suggestions.

THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA

MELONS
BY BRET HARTE
As I do not suppose the most gentle of readers will believe that anybody's sponsors in baptism ever wilfully assumed the responsibility of such a name, I may as well state that I have reason to infer that Melons was simply the nickname of a small boy I once knew. If he had any other, I never knew it.
Various theories were often projected by me to account for this strange cognomen. His