Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, February 1922 · page 11 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #30 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains humorous anecdotes and folk verses typical of early 20th-century American comic magazines. The content includes: 1. **Old Man Foss's woodpecker story**: A practical joke setup where Foss trained chickens to respond to rapping (not calling) after losing his voice. The humor lies in the unintended consequence—woodpeckers now compulsively peck, mimicking the sound. 2. **The old gray mare song**: A nostalgic childhood ditty about a horse sitting on wooden harness parts (single tree, whipple tree). The joke is the repetitive, absurd lyrics. 3. **Minnesota hunting camp song**: A crude folk ditty about sticking a finger in a woodpecker's hole, with the bird's exasperated response ("Take it out"). This is ribald humor typical of the era's working-class culture. 4. **Street car anecdote**: Begins an incomplete story about a woman with a poodle, seemingly setting up another humorous observation. The page showcases rural American humor, folk traditions, and working-class comedy of the 1920s-30s era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
9 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang “What makes them act that way?” I asked John. “Well,” replied old man Foss, “last winter I had a throat infection and lost the power of speech for a month or more and couldn’t call them to their feed, so I taught them to come by rapping on a post or a tree, and now the darn woodpeckers are setting them crazy.” * * * A T Breezy Point Lodge I have an old gray mare and I love to sing this melody of my boyhood days: The old gray mare She sits on the single tree, Sits on the whipple tree, Sits on the single tree. And, believe me, her greatest indoor and outdoor sport is sitting on the single tree. * * * U P IN the deer hunting grounds of north- ern Minnesota the jack-pine savages are still singing that old familiar ditty about the much maligned bird—the woodpecker. These heart throbbing words peal gently through the evening air: “I stuck my finger in a woodpecker’s hole, And the woodpecker said: ‘Gosh darn your soul,’ ‘Take it out; take it out; take it out.’” * * * T HE other day I was riding on a street car in Minneapolis. Sitting opposite me was a very pretty young lady who had a poodle dog in her lap. Bluenose lady sitting