"'You-all's nacherally a somber, morose party,' says Doc Peets this
time, 'an' nothin' jocose or jocund about you. Your disp'sition,
Jaybird, don't no more run to jokes than a prairie-dog's."
"'Which I would admire to know why not?' says Jaybird Bob.
"'Well,' goes on Doc Peets, 'you thinks too slow--too much like a
cow in a swamp. Your mind moves sluggish that a-way, an' sorter
sinks to the hocks each step. If you was born to be funny your
intellects would be limber an' frivolous.'
"'Bein' all this is personal to me,' says Jaybird Bob, 'I takes
leave to regard you as wrong. My jokes is good, high-grade jokes;
an' when you-all talks of me bein' morose, it's a mere case of
bluff.' An' so Jaybird goes on a-holdin of himse'f funny ontil we-
alls has him to bury.
"No; Jaybird ain't his shore-'nough name; it's jest a handle to his
'dentity, so we-alls picks it up handy and easy. Jaybird's real name
is Graingerford,--Poindexter Graingerford. But the same is cumbersom
an' onwieldy a whole lot; so when he first trails into Wolfville we-
alls considers among ourse'fs an' settles it's a short cut to call
him 'Jaybird Bob,' that a-way. An' we does.
"It's on the spring round-up this yere Jaybird first develops that
he regards himse'f witty.
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