IX. OUR TOWN.[9]
Reading edition
IX. OUR TOWN.[9]
I spent a summer in the Eastern States, for the purpose of studying Yankee character, and picking up such peculiarities of dialect and expression as I could, from constant communication with the “critters” themselves. In Boston, I was thus invited by a countryman to visit the town in which he lived.
“Wal, stranger, can’t you come down our way, and give us a show?”
“Where do you live?” inquired I.
“Oh, abeout half way between this ere and sunrise.”
“Oh, yes,” said I, adopting at once the style of the countryman, “I know; where the trees grow under-ground, and galls weigh two hundred pounds. Where some on ’em are so fat, they grease the cart-wheels with their shadow, and some on ’em so thin, you’re obliged to look at ’em twice afore you can see ’em at all.”
“Wal, I guess you’ve been there,” says he, saying which, the countryman departed.