Page:Masterpieces of American Humor (Little Blue Book 959).djvu/57

Rh they erect a monument in Philadelphia or New York to the Pilgrim or Puritan, they say: "See how these people respect the man whom they profess to revile." But they paid for them and built the monuments themselves. The only New Englanders of Philadelphia whom I have met are the officials of the Pennsylvania Rail-road. When I dine with them, enjoy their hospitality, revel in that glorious sociability which is their characteristic and charm, I think that they are Dutchmen; when I meet them in business, and am impressed with their desire to possess the earth, I think that they came over in the Mayflower.

There is no part of the world to-night, whether it be in the Arctic zone, or under the equatorial sun, or in monarchies, or in despotisms, or among the Fiji Islanders, where the New Englanders are not gathered for the purpose of celebrating and feasting upon Forefathers' Day. But there is this peculiarity about the New Englander, that if he cannot find any-body to quarrel with, he gets up a controversy with himselfinside of himself. We who expect to eat this dinner annuallyand to take the consequenceswent along peacefully for years with the understanding that the 22d of December was the day, when it suddenly broke out that the New Englander, within himself, had got up a dispute that the 21st was the day. I watched it with interest, because I always knew that when a Yankee got up a controversy "with anybody else, it was for his profit; and I wondered how he could make anything by having a quarrel with himself. Then I found