Preface
To the Reader.
The one particular object in writing this book is to furnish you with an occasional laugh, and the writer with an occasional dollar. If you get the laugh you have your equivalent, and the writer has his.
In Uncle Josh Weathersby you have a purely imaginary character, yet one true to life. A character chuck full of sunshine and rural simplicity. Take him as you find him, and in his experiences you will observe there is a bright side to everything.
Sincerely Yours
Cal Stewart
CONTENTS
Preface
Life Sketch of Author
My Old Yaller Almanac
Uncle Josh Weathersby's Arrival in New York
Uncle Josh in Society
Uncle Josh in a Chinese Laundry
Uncle Josh in a Museum
Uncle Josh in Wall Street
Uncle Josh and the Fire Department
Uncle Josh in an Auction Room
Uncle Josh on a Fifth Ave. 'Bus
Uncle Josh in a Department Store
Uncle Josh's Comments on the Signs Seen in New York
Uncle Josh on a Street Car
My Fust Pair of Copper Toed Boots
Uncle Josh in Police Court
Uncle Josh at Coney Island
Uncle Josh at the Opera
Uncle Josh at Delmonico's
It is Fall
Si Pettingill's Brooms
Uncle Josh Plays Golf
Jim Lawson's Hogs
Uncle Josh and the Lightning Rod Agent
A Meeting of the Annanias Club
Jim Lawson's Hoss Trade
A Meeting of the School Directors
The Weekly Paper at Punkin Centre
Uncle Josh at a Camp Meeting
The Unveiling of the Organ
Uncle Josh Plays a Game of Base Ball
The Punkin Centre and Paw Paw Valley Railroad
Uncle Josh on a Bicycle
A Baptizin' at the Hickory Corners Church
Reminiscence of My Railroad Days
Uncle Josh at a Circus
Uncle Josh Invites the City Folks to Visit Him
Yosemite Jim, or a Tale of the Great White Death
Uncle Josh Weathersby's Trip to Boston
Who Marched in Sixty-One
Life Sketch of Author
THE author was born in Virginia, on a little patch of land, so poor we had to fertilize it to make brick. Our family, while having cast their fortunes with the South, was not a family ruined by the war; we did not have anything when the war commenced, and so we held our own. I secured a common school education, and at the age of twelve I left home, or rather home left me—things just petered out. I was slush cook on an Ohio River Packet; check clerk in a stave and heading camp in the knobs of Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia; I helped lay the track of the M. K. & T. R. R., and was chambermaid in a livery stable. Made my first appearance on the stage at the National Theatre in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have since then chopped cord wood, worked in a coal mine, made cross ties (and walked them), worked on a farm, taught a district school (made love to the big girls), run a threshing machine, cut bands, fed the machine and ran the engine. Have been a freight and passenger brakeman, fired and ran a locomotive; also a freight train conductor and check clerk in a freight house; worked on the section; have been a shot gun messenger for the Wells, Fargo Company. Have been with a circus, minstrels, farce comedy, burlesque and dramatic productions; have been with good shows, bad shows, medicine shows, and worse, and some shows where we had landlords singing in the chorus. Have played variety houses and vaudeville houses; have slept in a box car one night, and a swell hotel the next; have been a traveling salesman (could spin as many yarns as any of them). For the past four years have made the Uncle Josh stories for the talking machine. The Lord only knows what next!