HIS LIFE AND WORK 



was soon out of milk. "Have some more milk 

 to finish your mush, Colonel," said McCormick. 

 Several minutes later the ColoneFs mush bowl 

 was empty, at which McCormick said, "Have 

 some more mush to finish your milk." And 

 so it went, with milk for the mush and mush 

 for the milk, until the unfortunate Colonel was 

 hopelessly incapacitated for the four or five 

 courses that came afterwards. 



McCormick was not by any means a teller 

 of stories, but he had a few simple and well- 

 worn anecdotes that appealed so strongly to his 

 sense of humor that he told and re-told them 

 many times. There was the story of the man 

 who stole the pound of butter and hid it in his 

 hat, and how the grocer saw him and kept talk- 

 ing in the store, beside a hot stove, until the 

 butter melted and exposed the man's thievery. 

 Another favorite story was about the pig that 

 found its way into a garden by walking through 

 a hollow r log, and how the gardener fooled 

 the pig by placing the hollow log in such a way 

 that both ends of it were on the outside 

 of the garden. 



[175] 



