Document text
VA-e(rti
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Wayne Weldon
ADDRESS 51 Bank Street, NYC
DATE December 8, 1938
SUBJECT THE JOKE ON JAKE
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
1. Date and time c" interview Afternoons of December 5 and 7, 1938
2. Place of interview Home of informant
3. Name and address of informant Mrs. Annette Hamilton, 145 Waverly Pl., NYC
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant. None
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you None
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc. Informant lives in small three
or four -roam apartment on the ground floor.- She is a dressmaker and does most
of the work at home. I judge my informant to be nearing 56 or 60 years of age.
She is a loquacious lady when "wound up," and may serve me further as a source
for tales of various kinds. An American, of American parentage, she vas born
in Texas and lived for a considerable time in western States, -coming here to
Now York about 20 years ago.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE New York
NAVE OF WORKER Wayne Walden
ADDRESS 51 Bank Street, NYC
DATE December 8, 1938
SUBJECT THE JOKE ON JAKE
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
"Gosh knows I don't live in a swanky apartment. Neither
the house nor the neighborhood I live in would seem attractive
enough for a tramp to try his luck in. He might possibly get a lump,
but to expect a sitdown, or to throw his feet under the table in such
a dump as I must call my home, would mean that the man was either balmy
or so desperately bard -up as to take a chance an anything.
"But occasionally a guy on his uppers does take a creek at
the neighborhood, and as my dingy apartment is on the ground floor, I
probably am visited by them more often than dwellers who inhabit the
caves higher up in the house.
"Sometimes, too darned often in fact, the pesky peddlers
come bussing around. And generally when I answer the door it is to
be met by one of themitrying to sell me a can of scouring powder or
a bottle of hair tonic, or something I don't need. Sometimes, the
lino of chatter they hand out-- you can't help pitying some of them,
I buy a can of roach dust or some such article. But they, on the
whole, are bigger nuisances than the down -and -outs, and harder to
get rid of. In truth I'd much rather put up with the bums. Some
of them weren't always on the bum, and now and then you meet one who
is interesting to talk to.
"I guess it 111118 about two months ago a knock caused me to
answer the door, and when I looked out I see a tall, lean and rather
ragged old fellow. I knew right away he wasn't a salesman. For one
thing he didn't spring at me with his sales baloney, nor try to get
his foot in the door. He just took off his hat and seemed kind of
uncertain haw to begin his spiel. Most of 'em have some sort of spiel.
He didn't look so very old-- about seventy maybe-- and he seemed fairly
clean, at least not lousy. And the more I looked at him the more he
struck me as someone not of these parts, and possibly not a bum at all.
"Well, since he didn't seem to know how to speak up for him-
self, I finally says, 'Mat is it you want?' and, thinking maybe the man
is hungry and a bit embarrassed about asking, I finally says, 'Are you
hungry?' He was, of course, but I guess he hadn't planned on negotia-
ting a feed quite so easy as all that. So I says, 'Como on in' and so
he comes in and I sets him up to the table. I put out some grub before
him and made him a pot of coffee-- if there was one thing he fell for,
it was coffee.
"So, as he was eating, he starts to warm up a bit, and starts
to tell me something of his travels. He'd been everywhere I guess, from
Maine to California and back again it seemed. After awhile he mentions
Colorado. 'I've been in that state myself,' I says. 'I know that
old state like a book myself, I says. I guess that remark jerked
the old man out of himself more than anything else I'd said before.
He looked at me then with real interest. 'Do you really?' he says.
'Do you know the Lone Cone country? I used to punch cattle all around
that part,' he says. 'I've rode the range from hell to breakfast all
over that district.' From his talk and looks, I guess he wasn't
kiddin' either. He looked like that was what he'd been.
"'I did some prospecting up in the hills of Boulder County
and I used to work around the northern part of the state quite a bit.
Do you know Where Eton is?' he asked me. I didn't remember that town,
but when he told me it was near Greeley, not so far south of the
Wyoming line, I had an idea. 'I had some mighty fine times up in
that part of the state,' he said, 'but I guess now it's not the same
as it used to be, with the automobile and everything. The open range
is about gone,' he says, 'a lot of it become fenced in and made farms
of. It can't be the caw country that it used to be.
"II wasn't around there during the dry spell, when Prohibition
hit the country, but I bet it was hell then. It sure most of been dreary.
As I recollect the old place, and the fellows I used to know, I don't
see how they put it over,' he says. 'Well, thank you, ma'am, for the
meal,' he says, 'I appreciate it very kindly,' he says, land I sure was
glad to find someone from the old country,' he says as he gets up to go.
"'That's all right,' if you happen around again, drop in,'
I says. 'I haven't much, but a little something to eat won't break
me nor make me, so don't go hungry,' I tells him. He would have done
the dishes, if I'd wanted him, but I didn't oare to have him messing
around with 'ems probably making the joint worse looking than it was.
So he beats it.
"Well, that visit was, as I said, a couple of months ago, and
I'd about forgotten all about it. But, lo and behold& my Mister Man
shows up again. I'm going back,' he says, 'I'm going back to the old
stamping grounds. And being in the neighborhood, I thought I'd call
an you again,' he says, 'and see if you had any message you wanted ma
to take along to anyone out there,' he says.
"'I just can't think of anybody I might know that you might
know,' I says. 'If I did know anybody you might have known, it would
probably be since your day,' I told him, 'but thanks, just the same.'
"But, as he was eating, he gets to telling me about oertain
people and asking if I knew any of them. It seemed that I didn't,
though.
"I bet you knew old Jake Snyder, or heard of him anyway.
Everybody knew old Jake.' I had to admit that old Jake was not on my
calling list, and shameful as it was, I'd never heard tell of him.
For a moment I imagined the old man doubted that I'd ever been west
of Hoboken, that maybe I was stringing him about being one, in Colorado.
Anyhow, pretty soon he goes on, evidently giving me the benefit of the
doubt.
"'Old Jake,' he says, 'was a saloon keeper, and a man that
weighed well over three hundred pounds-- three twenty seven so he told
everybody, and he looked it. And so far as anyone knew he bad always
been a bachelor. It's too bad you didn't know Jake; it would be easier
to describe him if you'd a known him.'
"The old man poured himself another cup of coffee and rolled
a cigarette. 'Poor old Jake,' the old man sort of cnuokled, 'about
as moan and low-down a trick as the boys could play on him happened
one night when the Duke came to town. And gosh, how Jake liked to
eat! One reason he bached I guess, was 'cause he didn't have a woman.
They wasn't many women out there anyway, and what there was didn't
seem to hanker much for Jake. He was too heavy to be in the running,
I s'pose. But he wasn't all fat. He was stout as a bull, and in a•
rough and tumble fight it would take a darned good man to go up against
him.'
"'But what was the joke they played on him when the Duke
came to town?" I asked.
"'I was comin' to that,' says the old man, 'but I'm glad
you reminded me, or I might of strayed off the trail. I was thinking
of another time, but I'll tell you that later.
"'You see Jake did his batchen in the rear part of the house.
The saloon, naturally, was in the front part. So When he wasn't too
busy at the bar, he'd be in the back a cookin'. He was great for
dumplings, and bragged that he could make as good dumplings as any
woman in the country. Well, it happened that several times when Jake
cooked a stew with dumplings in it, he'd invite one or two of the boys
back to eat with him, and see for themselves how good them dumplings were.
"'But the trouble with Jake was, that when he'd go to test
the dumplings, to see if they was done, his test wouldn't be just a
taste, but a whole darned dumpling. And he'd do this testing so often,
that by the time the dumplings aught to of been done, they'd all be et
up.
"'It wasn't that he was greedy or selfish. He'd just kinda
forget about his having company for dinner. Be was always sorry of
course, and would try to fill them up with something else. So whether
the dumplings was as good as Jake said they was, no one ever knew.
"Jake was so good-natured that even when the boys got stung
on his dumplings they didn't hardly get mad at him. But while they
wasn't mad, some of the boys thought the joke had gone far enough,
and it was time to play a joke on Jake.
"'So they lays their heads together and figures out a plan.
There was a fellow around town good on doing ventriloquism talkin'
dawn his throat. He might not a been quite what this Charley McCarthy
is, but he was so good at it that he had a lot of 'em fooled, includin'
me the first time I heard him. So they gets him as the first move.
"'Then they borrow a clothes store dummy from Greeley. The
next thing was to get the dummy trimmed right. After some argument they
decides to fix him up like a real dude; as right fresh from England,
a member of the House of Lords. "Where the Sam Bill they ever got all
the duds and trappings they finally dolled him out in, I never heard.
"'The next thing they does, is to lug this dummy into 01'
Jake's place and to interduce him as a Duke with plenty of money, and
out for a good time. They explains that His Highness was purty drunk
as he was,, but the rest of 'em wasn't, and that the Duke wanted his
guests to have service and lots of it. 'What's more the Duke is sen-
sitive to a slight, but there is one thing he has, besides a bun on,
and that was a big wad of good United States money.
"'Glad to meet you,' says Jake, to the Duke, not noticing
that the hand he shook belonged to one of the bunch standing 'round
the Duke.
""What'll you havi to drink, Mister Duke,' he says. 'Set
'em up to the boys,' the ventriloquist makes the Mike answer.
"'So old Jake puts out the drinks to the whole caboodle
except the Duke. As he went to serve him, one of the fellows winks
and tells Jake to let the Duke sober up a bit. So they lays the Duke
out on a table where he could sleep it off, and the rest of the bunch
begins to injoy themselves.
"'But every so often the Nike would rouse from his drunken
slumber enough to holler out, 'set 'em up to the boys.' And it went
on that way, round after round, way into the night.
"'Course, ol' Jake was happy as a lark, thinkin' of his
profits rolling in. It wasn't within Jake's memory that so rich and
wonderful a customer had ever patronised his saloon. Of course His
Graze had spent most of the time sleepin' on the table. But his fre-
quent orders kept Jake jumping and sweatin' a servin' the rest of the
orowd•
"'No wonder ol' Jake was pleased. No other bar was as busy
as his that night, and by cheese and crackers, no other saloon had a
real live Duke as its customer. 'Dose boys who brung him in,' I guess
011' Jake was thinkint, 'I vill gif dam a goot meal of duMblings.'
"'Finally, Jake began to notice that the crowd had thinned
out somewhat. Some of them still stuck around singin' songs, and
the Duke still lay on the table. After awhile the gang grew scarcer
yet, and purty soon they'd all cleared out, 'cepting Jake and the
Duke,
"'Golly,' thinks Jake, 'that darned Duke didn't do any
drinking, and he ought to be cominl out of it by now.'
"'So Jake does some tidying up of the place; kicks the
spitoons back where they belonged; picks up after the crowd; and to
kill a little more time, he swabs the bar. All the while he keeps
lookin' at the clock and hoping the Duke will wake up. It was long
past closing time, and Jake too was getting all in and sleepy.
"'Mello to make a long story short, Jake at last goes over
to the Duke and speaks.to him. 'Mister Duke,' he says, 'Mister Duke,
vill you blease -make op.'
"'Ho answer, of course, from the Duke. 'Hey Mister Duke, I
vish to glose up now, and vill you blease bay your bill.' Still the
Duke slept on, and Jake was beginning to lose his good nature.
"'Mister Duke,' Jake shouts, py golly, I vent you to bay up
your bill. I vent to gloss up, dlye hear?' But the Duke remains dead
to the world.
"Maybe,' thinks Jake, 'that damned Duke is trying to get
out of paying him. That was something he hadn't thought of, and,
horrified by the awful suspicion, he makes another try at getting
the Duke to sit up and take notice. He shakes the Duke, and then
he tumbles him off the table and lets him fall on the floor. By
now with his Dutoh temper up, he was just on the point of cuffing
the Mike into sobriety, and collecting his account when some of
the gang rushed in. They'd been watching all the time through a
window. Seeing the Duke stretched out on the floor, and seeming
to be plumb dead, they says: 'My God, Jake wbatcha done! Ohl Jake
it looks as if you've killed the Duke. Bet you that's just what
you done!'
"Old Jake had been purty mad a moment before, but now he
gets purty darned scared. He tries to do some swift thinkinl.
"'Boys,' he said, 'py Golly I had to do it. I didn't vant
to hit him, but that son -of -a -gun of a Duke drew a knife on me.'
"Then, of course the bunch begin to laugh and, pioking the
Duke up, they exposes him to Jake for the wooden dummy he was.
"Boys,' said Jake, forgetting intirely the Duke's bill,
and tickled to death that he wasn't goin' to be hung for murder,
'boys gone cop and haf a drink. Py Golly dat vas a goot joke on
met'
10
NOTE:
(Were I a better typist this story mould have been rewritten,
with a little alteration and better paragraphing. My awn criticism
of this would likely be that it moves too oircumlocutorily and
languidly to the essential part of the narration, and is also af-
flicted with verbosity. But as told to me the story was unhurried
and even wordier. I have taken care, however, to err in retaining
all odd words and expressions rather than in omitting them.)