Folk Travelers: Ballads, Tales and Talk Page: 13
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THE TRAVELING ANECDOTE
governor's wife. As soon as telegraphic communications were estab-
lished, he sent her this telegram:
'Train wreck on L. and N. Railroad fatal to Governor Jackson of
Mississippi. Two legs broken, two arms, one neck, one back, nine
ribs. Corpse following by train."
An hour later more careful examination prompted the secretary
to tone down his report. Accordingly he wired: "Train wreck on
L. and N. not so bad as previously reported. Only one of Governor
Jackson's legs broken, only one arm, only three ribs. Also neck and
back. Corpse following by train."
Take the increasingly rare combination of silence and taciturnity.
Harry Oliver, who publishes the Desert Rat Scrap Book at Thousand
Palms, California, avers that a sheepherder told him the story as a
personal happening. It is also related of a driller and a tool dresser
in an Oklahoma oil field. I take my version from Carl Sandburg, who
has a "constructive memory" on such things - and I don't claim
not to have it.
Out in Montana two line-riders (cowboys) stayed alone in the
same camp. Every morning one rode east and the other rode west.
They usually got back to camp late in the evening. Each had said
nothing all day, as there was nobody to say it to, and at night they
kept on saying nothing. But one night while they were getting under
their tarpaulins, the silence was broken by a deep bellowing from
down the canyon.
"Bull," one said.
"Sounds like an old steer to me," the other said.
That was as far as the conversation went. The next morning after
breakfast of coffee, fried salt bacon, and warmed-over biscuits, the
cowboy who had said "bull" the night before caught his pack horse
and went to tying up his bedroll.
"Riding?" the other queried.
"Yes. Too damned much argu-ment."
Chess players are usually a long way off the range. One night
two of them sat down at their board right after supper. For hours
they moved their pieces in absolute silence, after intense planning13
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Folk Travelers: Ballads, Tales and Talk (Book)
This volume of the Publications of the Texas Folklore Society contains popular folklore of Texas and Mexico, including traveling anecdotes, folk ballads, folklore in natural history, as well as information about black and white magic, Western animals, and cattle brands. The index begins on page 259.
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Texas Folklore Society. Folk Travelers: Ballads, Tales and Talk, book, 1953; Dallas, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38314/m1/19/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.