Jokes For All Occasions by Anonymous (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

had been the wailing of the outraged beast that had caused the mother to look out.

"Why, Clarence!" she cried, aghast. "What are you doing to that poor cat? And you a member of the Band of Mercy!"

Little Clarence released the cat, but he showed no shame as he explained:

"I was—but I lost my star."

*         *         *

The teacher put a question to the class:

"What does a cat have that no other animal has?"

A number cried in unison:

"Fur!"

But an objector raised the point that bears and skunks have fur. One pupil raised an eager hand:

"I know, teacher—whiskers!"

But another objector laughed scornfully.

"Haw-haw! My papa has whiskers!"

The suggester of whiskers defended her idea by declaring: "My papa ain't got whiskers."

"'Cause he can't!" the objector sneered. "Haw-haw! Your pa ain't no good. My pa says——"

The teacher rapped for order, and repeated her question. A little girl raised her hand, and at the teacher's nod spoke timidly.

"Kittens!"

*         *         *

The little girl returned from church deeply musing on the sermon, in which the preacher had declared that animals, lacking souls, could not go to heaven. As the result of her meditation, she presented a problem to the family at the dinner table, when she asked earnestly:

"If cats don't go to heaven, where do the angels get the strings for their harps?"

CHARITY

"Oh, mamma," questioned the child, "who's that?" He pointed to a nun who was passing.

"A Sister of Charity," was the answer.

"Which one," the boy persisted, "Faith or Hope?"

CHICKEN-STEALING

The Southern planter heard a commotion in his poultry house late at night. With shot gun in hand, he made his way to the door, flung it open and curtly ordered:

"Come out of there, you ornery thief!"

There was silence for a few seconds, except for the startled clucking of the fowls. Then a heavy bass voice boomed out of the darkness:

"Please, Colonel, dey ain't nobody here 'cept jes' us chickens!"

CHRISTIANITY

A shipwrecked traveler was washed up on a small island. He was terrified at thought of cannibals, and explored with the utmost stealth. Discovering a thin wisp of smoke above the scrub, he crawled toward it fearfully, in apprehension that it might be from the campfire of savages. But as he came close, a voice rang out sharply:

"Why in hell did you play that card?" The castaway, already on his knees, raised his hands in devout thanksgiving.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed brokenly. "They are Christians!"

CHRISTMAS

A political boss wished to show his appreciation of the services of a colored man who possessed considerable influence. He suggested to the darky for a Christmas present the choice between a ton of coal and a jug of the best whiskey.

The colored man spoke to the point:

"Ah burns wood."

*         *         *

Santa Claus inserted an upright piano, a fur dolman, a Ford, and a few like knick-knacks in the Chicago girl's stocking. When he saw that it was not yet half filled, he withdrew to the roof, plumped down on the snow, and wept bitterly.

CHURCH

The young members of the family had been taught to be punctilious in contributing to the collection at church. One Sunday morning, when the boxes were being passed, James, aged six, ran his eye over those in the pew, and noticed that a guest of his sister had no coin in her hand. "Where is your money?" he whispered. She answered that she hadn't any. But James was equal to the emergency:

"Here, take mine," he directed. "That'll pay for you. I'll get under the seat."

Which he did.

*         *         *

The old negro attended a service in the Episcopal Church for the first time in his life. Someone asked him afterward how he had enjoyed the experience.

"Not much, shohly not much," he declared, shaking his head. "Dat ain't no church for me. No' suh! Dey wastes too much time readin' the minutes ob the previous meetin'."

CLEANLINESS

The little boy was clad in an immaculate white suit for the lawn party, and his mother cautioned him strictly against soiling it. He was scrupulous in his obedience, but at last he approached her timidly, and said:

"Please, mother, may I sit on my pants?"

*         *         *

The mother catechised her young son just before the hour for the arrival of the music teacher.

"Have you washed your hands very carefully?"

"Yes, mother."

"And have you washed your face thoroughly?"

"Yes, mother."

"And were you particular to wash behind your ears?"

"On her side I did, mother."

COMMUNITY

The young man at the summer resort, who had become engaged to the pretty girl, received information that led him to question her:

"Is it true that since you came up here you've got engaged to Billy, Ed, George and Harry, as well as me?"

The young lady assumed an air of disdain.

"What is that to you?" she demanded.

"Just this," he replied gently. "If it's so, and you have no objection, we fellows will all chip in together to buy an engagement ring."

COMPENSATION

Isaac and Moses dined in a restaurant that was new to them, and were pained seriously by the amount of the check. Moses began to expostulate in a loud voice, but Isaac hushed him with a whisper:

"'Sh! I haf the spoons in my pocket."

COMPLIMENTS

"Would you like a lock of my hair?" asked the gallant old bachelor of the spinster who had been a belle a few decades past.

"Why don't you offer me the whole wig?" the maiden lady gibed, with a titter.

The bachelor retorted with icy disdain:

"You are very biting, madam, considering that your teeth are porcelain."

*         *         *

The young man, dancing with the girl to whom he had just been introduced, remarked with the best of intentions, but rather unfortunately:

"That's the new waltz. My sister was raving about it. I think it's pretty bad. I expect she danced it with somebody rather nice."

*         *         *

In former times, when royalties were more important, a lady at a court ball was intensely gratified when a prince selected her as a partner. She was almost overwhelmed with pride when he danced a second measure with her.

"Oh," she gushed, as she reposed blissfully in his arms, "your highness does me too great honor."

The prince answered coldly:

"But no, madam. Merely, my physician has directed me to perspire."

CONCEALMENT

The widow was deep in suds over the family wash, when she saw her pastor coming up the path to the door. She gave directions to her young son to answer the bell, and to tell the clergyman that his mother had just gone down the street on an errand. Since the single ground floor room of the cottage offered no better hiding place against observation from the door, she crouched behind a clothes-horse hung with drying garments. When the boy had opened the door to the minister, and had duly delivered the message concerning his mother's absence, the reverend gentleman cast a sharp look toward the screen of drying clothes, and addressed the boy thus:

"Well, my lad, just tell your mother I called. And you might say to her that the next time she goes down the street, she should take her feet along."

CONCEIT

"I suppose I must admit that I do have my faults," the husband remarked in a tone that was far from humble.

"Yes," the wife snapped, "and in your opinion your faults are better than other folks' virtues."

CONSCIENCE

The child had been greatly impressed by her first experience in Sunday school. She pressed her hands to her breast, and said solemnly to her sister, two years older:

"When you hear something wite here, it is conscience whispering to you."

"It's no such thing," the sister jeered. "That's just wind on your tummie."

CONSTANCY

His companion bent over the dying man, to catch the last faintly whispered words. The utterance came with pitiful feebleness, yet with sufficient clearness:

"I am dying—yes. Go to Fannie. Tell her—I died—with her name—on my lips, that I—loved her—her alone—always ... And Jennie—tell Jennie—the same thing."

CONVERSION

A zealous church member in a Kentucky village made an earnest effort to convert a particularly vicious old mountaineer named Jim, who was locally notorious for his godlessness. But the old man was hard-headed and stubborn, firmly rooted in his evil courses, so that he resisted the pious efforts in his behalf.

"Jim," the exhorter questioned sadly at last, "ain't you teched by the story of the Lord what died to save yer soul?"

"Humph!" Jim retorted contemptuously. "Air ye aimin' to tell me the Lord died to save me, when He ain't never seed me, ner knowed me?"

"Jim," the missionary explained with fervor, "it was a darn sight easier for the Lord to die fer ye jest because He never seed ye than if He knowed ye as well as we-alls do!"

COOKERY

The housewife gave the tramp a large piece of pie on condition that he should saw some wood. The tramp retired to the woodshed, but presently he reappeared at the back door of the house with the piece of pie still intact save for one mouthful bitten from the end.

"Madam," he said respectfully to the wondering woman, "if it's all the same to you, I'll eat the wood, and saw the pie."

COURTESY

The witness was obviously a rustic and quite new to the ways of a court-room. So, the judge directed him:

"Speak to the jury, sir—the men sitting behind you on the benches."

The witness turned, bowed clumsily and said:

"Good-morning, gentlemen."

COWARDICE

The old farmer and his wife visited the menagerie. When they halted before the hippopotamus cage, he remarked admiringly:

"Darn'd curi's fish, ain't it, ma?"

"That ain't a fish," the wife announced. "That's a rep-tile."

It was thus that the argument began. It progressed to a point of such violence that the old lady began belaboring the husband with her umbrella. The old man dodged and ran, with the wife in pursuit. The trainer had just opened the door of the lions' cage, and the farmer popped in. He crowded in behind the largest lion and peered over its shoulder fearfully at his wife, who, on the other side of the bars, shook her umbrella furiously.

"Coward!" she shouted. "Coward!"

CURIOSITY

The colored man, passing through the market, saw a turtle for the first time, and surveyed it with great interest. The creature's head was withdrawn, but as the investigator fumbled about the shell, it shot forward and nipped his finger. With a howl of pain he stuck his finger in his mouth, and sucked it.

"What's the matter?" the fishmonger asked with a grin.

"Nothin'—jest nothin' a tall," the colored man answered thickly. "Ah was only wonderin' whether Ah had been bit or stung."

DAMAGES

The child came to his mother in tears.

"Oh, mama," he confessed, "I broke a tile in the hearth."

"Never mind, dear," the mother consoled. "But how ever did you come to do it?"

"I was pounding it with father's watch?"

DANGER

One foot in the grave, and the other slipping.

DEAD CERTAINTY

On Tuesday, a colored maid asked her mistress for permission to be absent on the coming Friday. She explained that she wished to attend the funeral of her fiancé. The mistress gave the required permission sympathetically.

"But you're not wearing mourning, Jenny," she remarked.

"Oh, no, ma'am," the girl replied. "You see, ma'am, he ain't dead yet. The hanging ain't till Friday."

DEAD MEN'S SHOES

When a certain officer of the governor's staff died, there were many applicants for the post, and some were indecently impatient. While the dead colonel was awaiting burial, one aspirant buttonholed the governor, asking:

"Would you object