During recent pilgrimages that carried me east, west, north and south, I ran across many amusing, although sometimes embarrassing situations. Chief among them was the constantly manifested surprise of newly-found friends that there was actually such a personage, in flesh and blood, as Captain Bilious Billy.
Here is a fair list of the questions usually dished out by new acquaintances:
“Why, I supposed the Whiz Bang was only ‘kidding’ and that ‘Captain Billy’ was merely a book name.”
“And do you really drink that horrid moonshine?”
“Is Pedro your honest-to-goodness pedigreed bull?”
“Is there actually a town named Robbinsdale?”
“Did a honeymooning couple really leave their automobile seat with you when they went to the village constable to report the theft of their car?”
It was necessary to plead guilty to nearly all the allegations heaped on me. Of course, poor Pedro is no more, he having “kicked the bucket” last July, and Gus, too, has sorta back-slid. Gus always was an in-and-outer anyway.
Gus, my old time hired man, has busted into poetry again. The old boy must be getting a whiff of the pine forests about Breezy Point Lodge. Well, here you go, Gus,—we’ll publish this one:
_I am only a poor old wanderer;_ _I have no place to call my home;_ _No one to pity me, no one to cheer me,_ _As friendless and sadly I roam._
_It is tramp, tramp along though I’m weary;_ _To rest through the long, long day;_ _Through the rain and the snow I must tramp to and fro,_ _For it’s the poor tramp’s way._
_How I long for a place by the fireside,_ _When the night it is cold, chill and damp;_ _Vacant places I see, but there’s no room for me,_ _For I’m only a poor old tramp._
A traveler in the Tennessee mountains sought refuge one evening at a wayside cabin.
He had traveled all one chill, April day and was cold, hungry and footsore. With true mountain hospitality the old mountaineer invited him to supper, and insisted that he spend the night.
The host made him comfortable before a huge open fireplace, and set a jug of mountain dew beside his chair. Also introduced him to his eighteen-year-old daughter, who was the only other occupant of the cabin, unless we may include four lank hounds stretched before the fireplace.