Judge — April 15, 1911 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

O WE come along toward East- er,’’ said Uncle Ashdod; but Sim Perkins interrupted him. “Who come along?” he asked. ‘*Me and the whole crew of the Sally Ann and the Mohammedan barber and the little boy with the blue sash. We come along toward Easter, ‘cause we was sailin’ in an Easterly direction at that time. And the last old hen couldn't lay no eggs, because she was set- tin’ "—— “‘What was she settin’ on?"’ asked Sim Perkins. “On the table. That's why she could- n’t lay. She was roasted and stuffed, and you can’t expect a roast, stuffed hen to produce no eggs. So the little boy with the blue sash, he begin to hol- ler’’. ‘“‘What did he holler?’’ asked Sim Perkins. “Bloody murder, that’s what he hol- lered,'’’ said Uncle Ashdod; ‘‘and so would you if you was a kid and no col- ored eggs in sight. So I hushed him up by tellin’ him to hush up. I says to him how his Uncle Ashdod would see he had plenty of Easter eggs, come Easter Day. Who was you goin’ to get to lay "em?" asked Sim Perkins. “Well, we had a feller, a negro feller, we all called Hen for short, but I seen he wasn’t the right kind of a hen; and the Mohammedan barber was a Turk, but he was- n't the right kind of a turk; and after I made that kid that promise I felt like a goose, but I wasn't the right kind of goose. The whole lot of us couldn’t have laid an egg in forty-six years; so I says to the barber, I says, ‘Shave ’em!’"’ “Shave what?"’ asked Sim Perkins. “Shave their heads, of course,”’ said Uncle Ashdod. “*You don’t reckon I'd ask him to shave their feet? So he shaved all their heads, clean as a whistle, and mine, too’’-—— By ELLIS PARKER BUTLER, Author of“ Pigs Is Pigs.” “Sometimes I think the tariff is a tax, and sometimes I don’t,”’ said Sim Perkins gloomily. ‘‘Now, if it is a tax?’ —— “And some of our heads was round and some was egg-shaped when shaved,”’ said Uncle Ashdod; ‘‘and I sent the sec- ond mate down into the hold for them cans of mixed paint’’—— “Take the tax on suspender buttons, now,’’ said Sim Perkins, ‘‘The ques- tion is, if the button comes off, does the tax come off with it? That's the’’ “And I ain't no artist,’ said Uncle Ashdod, ‘‘but I done a good job on them heads. Some was red, and some was blue, and some was other colors; but I done mine in sea green with yaller spots, and it was real tasty lookin’, But the negro feller’s I didn’t paint, because it was a good, clean brown, and there ain't nothin’ prettier than a rich brown egg onan Easter Day. So'’—— “‘And then take the tax on tacks,"’ said Sim Perkins gloomily. ‘‘There's something we ought to sit on! That there carpet tacks tax’ “So, bright and fresh Easter morn- ing,’’ said Uncle Ashdod, ‘‘all of us egg- tops we went and hid ourselves around, with just the tops of our heads stickin’ out. I remember I hid in a barrel of dried apples. Dogged if I mustn’t have looked cunnin’, just my sea-green head with yaller spots stickin’ up out of them THE PARIS-ITES. dried apples! And the little boy with the blue sash he run around and dis- kivered us, one by one, and he made us gather together all in one place with our egg-heads stuck close together’ “And then there is the tax on taxi- cabs,’’ said Sim Perkins hopelessly. “*And on the tacks in taxicabs. It ain't right to tax taxi tacks, But if a feller attacks a tax on taxi tacks’’—— “We was a swell bunch of Easter eggs, we was,’’ said Uncle Ashdod; “but that little boy with the blue sash he says to the Mohammedan barber, he ys, ‘Come on, Mike,’ he says, just like ‘us'Il divide up!’ Just like that, he says it. So him and that paynim barber they divided us up, and the bar- ber he got me, and the little boy with the blue sash he got the brown egg, which was the negroman. Yep! And then the little boy in the blue sash he says, says he, ‘Come on, Mike,’ he says; ‘us’ll tap eggs!’ Just like that, he says it. ‘Us'll tap eggs!’ So they tapped eggs, to see which could bust the other feller’s eggs. And, first off, the brown egg busted a blue one’’—— “Durn it!"’ said Sim Perkins reck- lessly. ‘‘Let ’em tax if they want -to. I don’t give ahang! No, sir’’—— “And then the brown egg busted a pink one,’’ continued Uncle Ashdod, “tand then the brown egg busted a pur- ple cranium that belonged to the second mate. Contusion of the brain, that’s what it was. And then the brown egg give a lavender egg fracture of the skull, and then the barber he hadn’t no more eggs left but me, and he took me by the back of the neck and jammed the top of my sea- green and yaller head against that brown egg-head, and we didn’t neitherof us bust. ‘You got a thick-headed egg this time,’ says the little boy with the blue sash. ‘Bang ‘em again!’ Just like that, he saysit. ‘Bang em again!’ So i, they banged us again. Now, I'm — = about the thickest-headed old codger that ever"”’— comicbooks.com