Judge, 1911-01-28 · page 16 of 24
Judge — January 28, 1911 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous tall tale by Ellis Parker Butler about Uncle Ashdod, a ship captain, recounting an absurd voyage of the *Sally Ann* to a skeptical listener named Sim Perkins. The joke is that Uncle Ashdod tells increasingly implausible stories—a ship that shrinks, loading it with ice instead of snow, a fire that burns everything yet leaves the ship floating on a giant ice cake shaped exactly like the ship, a mast made from a frozen fire hose, sails woven from frozen mosquito netting—and Sim Perkins keeps catching him in logical contradictions, which Uncle Ashdod dismisses with folksy charm. The humor relies on the classic "yarn-spinning" tradition: an old sailor who tells wildly impossible stories with complete confidence, undeterred by obvious holes in the narrative. It's gentle satire of tall-tale telling itself rather than political commentary. The sidebar cartoon about a donkey appears unrelated to the main story.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Judge's Suggestion for City Seals. WASHINGTON. Uncle Ashdod, Skipper of the ‘Sally Ann.” By ELLIS PARKER BUTLER, ther of" Pigs Ls Pigs.” y HE ONLY time Lever saw a ship shrink,” said Uncle Ashdod, ““was when I was skipper of the Sally Ann. We all got aboard the Sally Ann''—— “Ain't you skipped some of the yarn?"’ asked Sim Perkins. “Only what I aimed to skip,” said Uncle Ashdod. ‘‘I was skipper that voyage, and that was the part I skipped. So when the Sally Ann was loaded’’—— “What with?" asked Sim Perkins. “Iee,’’ said Uncle Ashdod. ‘*What else was there in them regions but ice and snow? ‘You wouldn't want a ship joaded with snow, would you? So we piled the Sally Ann chock full of ice and A CASE FOR THE S. P.C. A. “ An’ shure, no dacent man would wur-ruk a poor baste wid a leg th’ loikes 0° that. sailed for Calcutta, sixty- seven souls aboard. The first mate was only second rate, and the second mate was only third rate, and the bo’s'n was tough; but the carpenter was quite a handy man after I got him to cut his mustache off. Before that he was always twirling it; but when the fire broke out’’—— “What did it break out of?" asked Sim Perkins, “I remember when the measles broke out when I was a kid “And we got out the and manned the pumps,”’ continued Uncle Ashdod, ‘tand begun to pump water on the ice’” “Was the ice asked Sim. “Not much," Uncle Ashdod. “Not to much! No. But I seen the only way to save the crew was to pump in water and let it trickle down between them ice cakes and freeze fast and make one solid chunk of it. And I was right, for every stick and timber of the Sally Ann burned. The masts burned down, and the insides burned out, and the hull burned off; and there we were, afloat ona big cake of ice. But we wasn't so bad off’’—— “Off of what?’ asked Sim Per- kins, “Off nothing,’’ said Uncle Ashdod. “That cake of ice was just the shape the Sally Ann had been—-pointed bow, hose afire?"’ said Bisa PUZZLE. Find the scenter of the German Em blunt stern, and all. So the carpenter rigged up a mast"” “One of them that was burned up?"’ asked Sim Perkins, “Rigged up a mast out of the hose," continued Uncle Ashdod. ‘‘He fastened a pulley to the nozzle of the hose and hauled the hose straight up into the air and turned on the water, and there she froze. The ice made the hose-mast stiff, and the rubber hose kept it from being brittle. Onto that we rigged the sails’’—— “Of course, if everything burned up'’—began Sim Perkins; but Uncle Ashdod continued. “And to make the sails we took the wire of the rigging and wove mosquito nets out of it, and poured water on the net until it froze, which made a handy sort of wire-net ice-cloth. Then we was all right’’—— “Except for food,’’ said Sim Perkins, “which’’—— “Which, as I said before,’’ said Uncle Ashdod, ‘‘the bo’s’n was tough; but he was made to do, and I'll say no more about food. So away we sailed for Cal- cutta, with no accidents, except my left wasn't 4 — “Friz off, didn’t it?’’ said Sim Perkins scornfully. “Well, no, not exactly,’’ said Uncle Ashdod. ‘It friz stiff and snapped off one day when I aimed to kick the first mate, when he come to me one day, eight weeks out, and says, ‘Cap'n Clootz, I beg to report warm winds followed by comicbooks.com