Paradox--I can't exactly describe it, but it looks to
me like a tramp who once told me how to be successful
in life.
--Punkin Centre Philosophy.



A Meeting of the School Directors

WE had bin havin' a good deal of argufyin'
about the school house. You see it had got to
be a sort of a tumble-down ram-shackle sort
of an affair, and when it wuz bad weather we
couldn't have school in it, 'cause you might
jist as well be a sittin' under a siv when it
rained as to be a settin' in that school house.
Wall, it wuz a-cummin' along the fall term,
and we wanted our boys and girls to git all
the schoolin' an' eddication what they could;
so we called a meetin' of the school directors
to devise ways and means of buildin' a new
school-house without stoppin' school. Wall,
we all met down at the school-house; thar
wuz Deacon Witherspoon, Ezra Hoskins,
Ruben Hendricks, Si Pettingill, old Jim
Lawson and me. Before we commenced
debatin' and argufyin' on the matter, Si
Pettingill alowed he'd sing a song. Wall, he
got up and sang the durndest old-fashioned
song I calculate I ever heered in my life;