Uncle Josh Keeps House

Transcript

Well gosh all hemlock, about a week ago, Sari Ann Martin was took down sick with a fever and Nancy had to go down and take care on her, she being a widder woman, and I had to stay home and keep house. Well Cindy Lawson come over to go down with Nancy and left her boy with me to take care on and Nancy said now Joshua the bread is set to rise and the churning's all ready to do and don't let the soft soap pile over and keep your eye on the smokehouse and don't let it catch fire and I guess maybe speckled hen will hatch today and I wouldn't wonder if the bees didn't swarm. And Joshua,

don't you let Cindy's boy fall in the well or nothing. Gosh I had a few things to do besides taking care of Cindy's boy and that boy could ask more fool questions. He said to me Uncle Joyce where does the wind come from?

Well I told him some of it come from Ohio and most of it come from Nebraska. He said well Uncle Joyce what's Nebraska? I told him it was a state and he said well Uncle Joyce what's a state?

Well I took off my coat and vest and pinned one of Nancy's aprons on me and I hadn't took more than a dozen steps when I tripped and fell down over that darned apron and my head hit the stove made my nose bleed and knocked down the stove pipe and the soot went all over the bread and just as I was getting things straightened out that boy said to me Uncle Joyce does the Lord know everything? I told him I calculated is how the Lord did. He said well then the Lord knows I'm hungry don't he?

Well I gave him some bread and butter and put applesauce on it and I started in to do the churning. Well I churned quite a spell and I looked in the churn to see if the butter was coming and my spectacles fell off and the churn dasher broke them and while I was trying to fish them out my plug of tobacco fell in the churn and spiled the cream. Well I wouldn't have cared but I didn't have any more tobacco.

Just then I heard that boy say Uncle Joyce is there a bug in it and I looked around and darn if he didn't have my watch open and was poking in it with a hairpin. Well I took it away from him and he started to squall and you could hear him a mile and a half. Well I gave him some maple sugar to keep him quiet and just then the soft soap piled over and while I was trying to soot it off of the stove it up soot run all over the kitchen floor and some of it run through a hole in my boot and I had to go out and stick my foot in the rain water barrel.

Well I heard that boy yelling when I got in the house darn if he didn't have his finger caught in the mouse trap and I got it out and tied a rag around it and he said Uncle Joyce it's a leaking ain't it? Well I heard a noise out in the hen house and I went out there and the speckled hen had a lot of little chickens and the cat was trying to get them. Well I started to chase that cat and the clothesline caught me under the chin and I turned about four somersets and sat down in the middle of a flower bed and I heard that boy say Uncle Joyce a bee bit me.

I looked around darn if them bees hadn't swarmed and while I was trying to hive them they got all over me and while I was fighting them off that boy fell in the wash tub and the smokehouse caught fire and fire department turned out and when I come to Cindy said I'd been abusing her boy and Nancy said a woman can't leave home a minute men are such helpless critters. Laughing

Transcribed by AI from the recording above. These are noisy hundred-year-old cylinders, so expect misheard words and the occasional invented line — trust your ears over the text.