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"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't Banner 9"

"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Banner's the very one."

"My goodness -- and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?"

"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane

said, and they don't think she'll last many hours."

"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her!"

I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says:

"Mumps." ssssssssss

"Mumps your granny! They don't set up

with people that's got the mumps." ssssssssss

"They don't, don't they? You better

bet they do with these mumps. These mumps ssssssssss

is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane

said."

"How's it a new kind?"

"Because it's mixed up with other things."

"What other things?"

"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and

erysiplas, and consumption, and yaller janders,

and brain fever, and I don't know what all."

"My land! And they call it the mumps 9"

"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."

"Well, what in the nation do they call it the

mumps for?" ssssssssss

"Why, because it is the mumps. That's

what it starts with." ssssssssss

"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take pison,

and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains out, and some-

body come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull up and say, 'Why,

he stumped his toe.' Would ther' be any sense in that? No. And there ain't

no sense in this, nuther. Is it ketching?"

"Is it ketching? Why, how you talk. Is a harrow catching? -- in the dark?

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