Puck — August 1, 1877 — page 4: what you’re looking at

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

PUCK’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, CHAPTER I, INTRODUCTORY. YAS, MERICA did not amount to much until va Columbus discovered it. “Qs> Prior to 1492, Destiny had not pointed out his chosen field to the gayand festive para- grapher. ‘The red Indian ate his succotash in solitude, and the expansive bird of freedom whistled his native airs to an unappreciative desert, where the bean-patches of Boston now court the sum- mer breeze, It is truly wonderful what great events may flow from an apparently unimportant cause. If Columbus's mother had not in her tender rlhood waltzed the elder Columbus into an ice-cream saloon on a moonlight night, when his youthful heart was particularly susceptible to feminine influences, Yankee Doodle might never have thrilled the tympanum of the age. ‘This is a beautiful lesson of promptness and decision for young ladies. Columbus was born like most other babies, with a bald head and a wild and maniacal in- clination to chew his big toe. Nobody recognized in him the germs of fu- ture greatness. Nobody believed that he would grow up and discover a country that should bear to the world an Eli Perkins—a Geo. Francis ‘Train— a Sergeant Bates. ‘This was fortunate for Columbus. If any- body had suspected it, they might have stran- led him in his tender infancy. Columbus's first name was Christopher. His father wanted to call hi mucl, but was over- ruled for the sake of alliteration. i private page from the domestic history never before been it from our spe- at he Columbus family has given to the world. We h: cial correspondent.) It is unnecessary to say that Columbus passed asad and gloomy boyhood, uncheered. by any Fourth-of-July, which institution was not then invented. In his early manhood, Columbus conceived an unfortunate attachment for a young lady who did not reciprocate his attachment. She turned her back on ‘This is a picture of the young lady turning her back on Columbus: | young gentleman from Genoa; | pose I ain't had no education 2” | quired the ruler. PUCK. “Ohhh, come off ! “Taon't object to cri cism, but I don’t want any blessed, rotten, Sit, bloody, knock-kneed remarks from an Jou. If I say it's so, it’s so, even if it ain’t. In this way he made himself very influential | and popular. He was quite a boy when one day a comrade | accused him of cheating at marbles. | “J did not,” said Christopher. | “I'm as sure you did as Iam that the earth | is flat,” responded his companion, who was of | a scientific turn of mind. | “ You're a flat,” said Columbus; “ the earth | is round.” It was at that time the generally received | opinion that the earth was built on the model | of a billiard-table, and Columbus's friend told | Columbus he didn’t know beans about geogra- | hy. | This provoked Columbus, and he punched | the other boy's head, and devoted the rest of his life to proving that the carth was round, leaving the original question of marbles entirely out of the discussion. ‘Thus did Columbus's obstinate temperament and vigorous style of conversation influence the destiny of the world. Columbus lived in Genoa, Italy, and he went | to the mayor of that town and asked him to furnish a fleet of ships, in which the modest Christopher could sail around the world and come upon the other side. ‘The mayor's reply is not on record. | Columbus then wandered to Spain, and ap- | peared at the court of Ferdinand with his little | suggestion, | | ‘The king is not v He is under the table, trying to dissemble his mortification. Columbus did not, as may be imagined, get much ship from the King of Spain. But he saw the mistake of his undliplomatic conduct, and resolved to rectify it by getting himself solid with the queen. He went about this job with such assiduity that there has been trouble in the family ever since. At the expiration of six months, the king was particularly glad to give Columbus three ships and all the encouragement possible, to go pretty nearly anywhere away from Spain. So Columbus started out across the raging main, ‘These are the three ships he sailed in: If way across the Atlantic his crew struck, | But Columbus talked to them like a Teutonic | kicked The monarch stepped down from off his throne, walked up to Columbus, looked him straight in the cye, and said: “What are you giving me? “Tam not,” said Columbus. “Well, you have gall enough for a regiment, anyway,” His Majesty remarked. “T have,” replied Columbus, ‘ but that doesn’t alter the question, Can you let me have them ships?” Columbus had paid a little too much atten- tion to marbles in his school-days. “ Those ships,” said the king, “not them.” “ Them it is,” was the unmoved reply of the * do you sup- | ‘Tapioca ?” “Which knows better, you or 1?” angrily in- “Me,” said Columbus. “I'll bet you. Can | tijo up, he could make things lively. | promptly accepted Columbus's wager, and | ‘This sad affair soured his disposition, and | when he grew older, he developed into a pecu- | liarly obstinate and obstreperous character. If people objected to anything he said, he | would remark, placidly: | you make an egg stand on its end?” “ What kind of an egg ?” asked Ferdinand. se-egg! Got you there!” Columbus cried in triumph, ‘The king felt all the blood of his extended pedigree boiling in him. He was allied to all the best families in Spain, and his courtiers used to say that when he got his Jones de Mon- He failed ignominiously. Columbus then sent the | egg down-stairs to be boiled, and when it came up, he stove in one end of it, and made it | stand up with a perpendicularity that riled the king’s inmost spirit. This is a picture of Columbus and the egg. | water bottle floating on the surfa | ocean, and this proved to their satisfaction that | they were near land. avuncular, and got them to go on. ‘They went some distance, and then they again. ‘Then Columbus pointed out to them a soda- of the In a few days more they struck the West In- dies. The inhabitants came down to the shore, and expressed surprise at the arrival of the white men, Columbus went ashore at once, and solidified {himself with the population by. introducing them to the. mint julep, the construction of _ which was at that time an unknown art in America. ‘This caused one profoundly philosophic old | chief to go apart and meditate by himself, with folded arms and a look of gloomy abstrac- tion. “ You sabe me,” he said, “poco tiempo, In- | jun heap dam drunk.” comicbooks.com