- Aug. 4, 1916. 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
Mark ‘Twain-ing on the Yankee Coast 
The Everlasting Humor of the North Shore Native in the Hands of a New Interpreter 
RALPH HENRY BARBOUR 
(Reprinted from Boston Evening Transcript, of July 15, 1916) 
| Supposr the old kind of New England wit and humor 
is dying out. Nowadays, in our town, when some of 
“us get together on the porch of the Harbor House ’long 
toward five or half-past, and put our feet on the railing 
and our pipes in our mouths, about all the good stories 
that are told are old ones. If there’s a new one it’s dol- 
lars to doughnuts someone heard it up in the city at a 
vaudeville show ; and somehow that style of humor doesn’t 
suit us old stagers; sounds too—well, too machine-made. 
Seems as if modern inventions were dulling wits, doesn’t 
it? Nowadays when the young fellows want a joke they 
go to the theatre or buy a funny paper. In the old days 
we didn’t go to the theatres much and there weren't any 
funny papers; or, if there were, they didn’t get to Old 
Neck. Our humor had to be home-made, most of it, 
and, like home-irade things generally, it lasted! <A lot of 
the jokes and stories we used to laugh over forty years 
ago are still doing service here, and blamed if they don’t 
still get a laugh out of me quicker than the Smart-Aleck 
things we hear nowadays. 
A Paradox—Gossip and Clams 
We had some great characters in our town, though 
I don’t suppose they were any brighter or quick-witteder 
than those in other New England villages. Still, we like 
to think they were. There was Jim Epps. Jim lived 
across the harbor on Hunter’s Spit and dug clams. Most 
any day you'd see Jim ambling through the streets with 
his blue barrow shouting his wares: “Cla-ams! Cla-ams! 
Who wants a nice mess o’ clams?”~ Our town wasn’t 
very big then and a four-year-old boy could have walked 
through it in two hours, but Jim made a full day’s job 
of it, mostly because he served about ten pecks of gossip 
with every peck of clams. Jim drank, however, and so 
_ there were days —not more than two a week, though— 
when he didn’t appear. One time Jim’s supply of liquor 
must have run out sooner than usual, for Jim appeared 
with his barrow and started on his route with wavering 
steps. He didn’t stop anywhere, though. He kept right 
on going. And as he staggered along he proclaimed 
loudly: “Epps is too drunk to be over today, Epps is!” 
Hasty Tour of the West 
But that was unintentional humor. ‘To show that 
Jim could produce the other kind let me tell you about 
when Kimball Billings went West. Going West in those 
days was something of a feat, for the West was popularly 
believed to be a howling wilderness of Indians, rattlers 
and wolves, with an occasional gold mine. Kimball had 
tried most every sort of thing at home and hadn’t made 
good, and one day he announced that he was going West 
to dig gold. Kimball was the sort of man who can fail 
at everything and still make you believe in him, and so 
‘when he said he was going to make his fortune in the 
gold mines of Oregon we didn’t doubt it. We didn’t 
expect to see Kimball again for years and years, but we 
were pretty certain that when he did return it would be 
in his private car and that his pockets would be fat with 
money. 
About everyone in town saw him off and wished 
him luck, and the young and adventurous ones made 
him promise to write right back and tell them as soon 
as he struck it rich. 
Well, Kimball came back in just two weeks to a day. 
And there wasn’t any private car and Kimball’s pockets 
we.e as flat as a pancake. I think he got as far as Chi- 
cago. Anyhow, he said he didn’t approve of the West, 
and after that the West took an awful slump in our esti- 
mation. Kimball went back to working for Stacey in his 
livery stable for six dollars a week. Between whiles he’d 
tell of his adventures, and they grew with every telling, too. 
We were quite proud of Kimball. It was something 
to have a citizen who had travelled as he had. Well, 
one day Kimball met Jim Epps on Middle streét, opposite 
the engine house. Jim was sober that day, or nearly 
sober. Kimball thought he’d have a joke with Jim, and 
so he said: / 
“Jim, did you see that flight o’ clams go over a 
while back?” 
Jim put down his barrow and nodded. 
answered, “they're going to Oregon, Kim. 
back in a fortnit. Cla-ams!” 
The Half-Wit 
Like most every town we had our half-witted humor- 
ist. His name was Jones Tuttle. Jones was about fifty 
years old, but had never really grown up; he never got 
to looking much past twenty-four or five up to the time 
he died. Jones lived at the edge of the village in a 
shanty he’d built himself. The boys used to like to go 
there of an evening and plague him. Finally Jones fixed 
a bar across the inside of the door and when the young 
fellows came and demanded to be let in Jones would put 
the bar up and get into bed. If they persisted too long 
in howling and banging at the door Jones would put 
his head out from under the bed-clothes and squeak: 
“T ain’t home, boys! Honest, I ain’t home!” 
One day Jones was cutting wood for Mrs. Watson, 
the widow, who lived about fifty yards from Andrews’ 
mill. When there was a fire the engineer at the mill 
would throw a rope, tied at each end to a brick, over 
the whistle cord and let it hang there until all the steam 
was shrieked out of the boiler. By that time the fire was 
usually either under control or the house had burned 
down. ‘This day the whistle across the street began to 
bellow and the Widow Watson came to her back door. 
“Jones,” she said, “do you know where the fire is?” 
“No’m,” replied Jones as he swing the ax up and 
down, “but | cal’late it’s pretty nigh, the whistle’s so loud.” 
A One-Track Mind 
Jones was a great chap for. reading. He’d read 
anything he could find that-had printing on it. In those 
days not many papers came to town and what did come 
were handed around from house to house. In that way 
Jones used to get hold of a weekly paper pretty regularly. 
And he made it last until the next one came. He wasn’t 
a rapid reader; had to spell out all the big words and 
most of the litthke ones; but he knew more about what 
was in the paper than anyone else in the village. He 
used to start right at the top of the left-hand column 
and read to the bottom, advertisements and everything 
else, and then go up to the top of the second column 
and read right through to the bottom of that, and so on 
to the last word on the last page. It didn’t make any 
(Continued ta page 62) 
“Yep?” he 
They’ll be 
