A rural Missourian was trying to sell his farm to a hillman from Arkansas.

"Does the river ever flood this here wood lot?" Asked the hillman.

"Hell, no," replied the farmer, "we ain't had no high water in forty years."

The Arkansawyer noticed a ring of mud on every tree trunk, about six feet above the ground. "Then how did that mud git away up thar?" he asked suspiciously.

"Oh, it's them damn hawgs o' mine," said the Missourian. "They're always a-rubbin' ag'in the trees."

The hillman said no more, but prepared to take his departure.

"Well, do you aim to buy the farm," asked the Missourian.

"Naw, I don't want the farm," said the hillbilly, "but I sure would like to git a start o' them hawgs!"

<>Oil versus Water

Water in a place like [Texas], and in time such as we have had, transcends almost everything else--politics, morality, and the international tension. Water is our life.

While we were drilling our second well, Ross Smart, the driller, called me over one day and said, "Feel this stuff on the drill, and smell it. It's slippery and smells oily," Another time, his drill pulled up some sparkling sand. "Looks like gold," he said hopefully. "Hell," I told him, "I don't want oil and I don't want gold. I only want water." So he went on for another hundred feet and got water.

Arkansas and the Civil War

[During the Civil War] the soldiers at Helena, in Arkansas, used to amuse the inhabitants of that place, on their first arrival, by telling them yarns, of which the following is a sample.

Some time ago Jeff Davis got tired of the war, and invited President Lincoln to meet him on neutral ground to discuss terms of peace. They met accordingly, and after a talk concluded to settle the war by dividing the territory and stopping the fighting. The North took the Northern states and the South the Gulf and seaboard Southern States. Lincoln took Texas and Missouri, and Davis [took] Kentucky and Tennessee, so that all were parceled off excepting Arkansas. Lincoln didn't want it--Jeff wouldn't have it. Neither would consent to take it, and on that they split, and the war has been going on ever since.

Dr. A.O. Goldsmith of Kennett is a retired director of the School of Journalism, Louisiana State University.