THE WOUNDED SOLDIER

Too Long; Didn't Read

In the course of a certain battle a soldier whose leg had been shot off appealed to another soldier who was hurrying by to carry him to the rear, informing him at the same time of the loss which he had sustained; whereupon the generous son of Mars, shouldering the unfortunate, proceeded to carry out his desire. The bullets and cannon-balls were flying in all directions, and presently one of the latter took the wounded man’s head off—without, however, his deliverer being aware of it. In no-long time he was hailed by an officer, who said: “Where are you going with that carcass?” “To the rear, sir—he’s lost his leg!” “His leg, forsooth?” responded the astonished officer; “you mean his head, you booby.” Whereupon the soldier dispossessed himself of his burden, and stood looking down upon it in great perplexity. At length he said: “It is true, sir, just as you have said.” Then after a pause he added, “But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG—” Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gaspings and shriekings and suffocatings. It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form; and isn’t worth the telling, after all. Put into the humorous-story form it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever listened to—as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.