Partingtonian Patchwork (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 edition. Excerpt: ...beefsteak Strange, but true, 'pon my life." He glanced up into the fierce man's face as he concluded, and saw the greatest incredulity depicted there. Indeed, his mouth was just puckering into a whistle; but catching the earnest look of the informant, he commuted it by rapping on the table. " I have heard that it was good for a black eye," said he, at length, "caused, perhaps, by feelings like those named; but hang me if ever I heard any use so strange as that to put it to. How was it? " " As it takes some time to cook what I have ordered," replied the philosopher, " perhaps I shall be able to tell you. Well, you see, old Farmer Wilbur, of Branch Creek, Vermont, had two sons--only sons--good, likely fellows, but they were always quarrelling. Cats and dogs weren't a priming to them. The old farmer was a widower, and they and their quarrels made him about as uncomfortable as one could well be. At last, when the oldest boy was about sixteen, after a terrible fight with his brother, he ran away; and soon after, the old man, having a chance to sell his farm to a railway company, improved it to good advantage, and moved West, where he became swallowed up, to all intents and purposes, for nobody knew where he had gone; ( out West/ in some unrememberable locality, being all that his old neighbors knew about it. ( Where's Farmer Wilbur?' strangers would sometimes inquire; ( Gone West/ was the reply. ( Whereabouts ( Don't remember/ He was just as good as dead, you see--as though he had been buried for a century. Nobody had heard from him for twenty years, nor the runaway son. Bat at the end of twenty years back came the runaway son, with lots of money. He had been in California, and was rich as a Jew. He tried every way to find out what had become of...