Traits of American Humour, Vol. 3 of 3

In Short

This book serves as a sprawling anthology of regional American humor, collecting anecdotes, character sketches, and fictional letters that reflect the distinct temperaments of the country’s developing states. From the "Gimblit-man" of the city to the backwoods storytellers of Georgia, the narrative explores a society defined by its sparseness, its physical hardships, and its penchant for elaborate storytelling. It has lasted because it functions as a linguistic time capsule, capturing the vernacular and social anxieties of a young America grappling with its own identity and rapid expansion.

The Story

The narrative arc is less a single plot than a mosaic of provincial life, beginning with an analytical preface that distinguishes the "Yankee" character from the disparate temperaments found in the West, South, and Middle states. This framing establishes the book’s intent: to document the diversity of American mirth.

The story then shifts into the specific experiences of individuals navigating these landscapes. We follow a young man named Peter, who journeys to the city to sell cotton, only to be outwitted by a "Gimblit-man" who teaches him the "Thimble Rig"—a swindling game meant to secure "pocket-change" but which reveals the predator-prey dynamics of commerce. The perspective then moves to the raw, rugged frontier, where characters like Mike Hooter regale listeners with accounts of bears that "wiggle" their fingers in mockery and feuds that break out because a man is too hungry for a fight to bother with his dinner.

The middle section delves into the social and civic life of these communities. We witness the bureaucratic absurdities of a rural courtroom, where an illiterate deacon struggles with a thumb-worn psalm-book, and the farcical efforts of an officer trying to drill a disorganized battalion of men who would rather listen to political candidates than perform a maneuver. The tension between the old world and the new emerges in the letters of Major Joseph Jones, a man who navigates the domestic anxieties of courtship and fatherhood, worrying about "earthquakes" that threaten his happiness, while his neighbors engage in a constant cycle of petty misfortune involving lost chickens, hunting accidents, and the "varment" that plague their daily existence.

The journey concludes with a series of domestic vignettes, such as the idle chatter of women gossiping about the neighborhood’s bad luck with poultry. This final, mundane scene contrasts sharply with the earlier, hyperbolic stories of panthers and fighting bears, grounding the reader back in the slow, repetitive rhythm of village life. By the end, the book presents a complete portrait of a society that moves from the high-stakes swindles of the city to the quiet, superstitious, and deeply localized concerns of the farm, leaving the reader with a vivid sense of the American frontier as a place where the line between tragedy and comedy was perpetually blurred.

How It Unfolds

The regional introduction The book opens by mapping the American character, arguing that climate, soil, and religious enthusiasm created distinct, non-homogeneous humor in the Eastern, Western, and Southern states. It posits that to understand America, one must stop using "Yankee" as a blanket term and start recognizing the unique "droll appellations" and temperaments of groups like the Hoosiers, Suckers, and Mud-heads.

The lessons of the city The narrative shifts to Peter’s naive trip to the metropolis, where he encounters a swindler who exploits his desire for easy money through a game of thimbles. This beat demonstrates the clash between rural innocence and urban craftiness, setting the tone for a world where everyone is looking for a way to get ahead.

The frontier tall tale Moving into the backwoods, the focus shifts to oral storytelling, featuring larger-than-life characters like Mike Hooter. These accounts prioritize the absurd—bears that act like humans and feuds that start over nothing—emphasizing the high-spirited, hyperbolic nature of frontier life.

The civic comedy The narrative moves into the courtroom and the militia field, where the formal structures of government and military drill collide with the stubborn, illiterate, or uncooperative nature of the citizenry. These scenes highlight the humor inherent in trying to impose order on a population that prefers local custom and "reserved rights" over authority.

The domestic reality The final beats follow the letters of Joseph Jones and the gossip of neighborhood women, shifting the focus to the private, domestic sphere. Here, the grand adventures of the frontier yield to the small, recurring crises of family, marriage, and poultry management, closing the book on a note of intimate, everyday life.

The People

The book is populated by archetypes who embody the regional spirit of the age. Peter represents the naive country youth, whose ambition to make a profit leads him into the clutches of the Gimblit-man, a sharp-eyed urban predator who uses flattery and deceit to fleece his prey. These two define the transactional nature of the era’s commerce.

Mike Hooter is the classic frontier raconteur, a man whose identity is wrapped up in his ability to tell a story and "r’ar up" when insulted. He stands in contrast to Arch Coony, the "rantankerous hossfly," whose aggressive love of fighting serves as a foil for Mike’s own, slightly more tempered bravado. Major Joseph Jones serves as the book’s most consistent voice; he is a man of domestic concern, deeply attached to his wife, Mary, and their child. His letters track his transition from an anxious bachelor to a settled, if still easily rattled, family man.

Finally, the Deacon Dogskin and Lanty Oliphant represent the rural establishment and the unruly individual respectively. The Deacon clings to the "antique forms" of his faith, while Lanty uses his time in court to brag about his "nippers" of whiskey. These figures are not static; they change from figures of minor authority or irritation into sympathetic, often humorous, participants in a community that values endurance over refinement.

In Its Own Voice

“The Eastern and Western, Northern and Southern States, though settled by a population speaking the same language, and enjoying the same institutions, are so distant from each other, and differ so widely in climate, soil, and productions, that they have but few features in common.”

The opening preface establishes the argument that American humor is as diverse as the geography of the country itself.

“Then a crash sorter like as if a waggon-load of wood had bruck down, and the fust thing I know’d, the t’other leg shot up like, and started him; and the last thing I seed ov Brother Joe, he was a whirlin’ round like a four-spoked wheel with the rim off, away overclost toward sundown!”

This description of a man caught in a sapling provides a quintessential example of the hyperbolic, tall-tale style favored by the frontier narrators.

What It's Really About

At its core, the book explores the tension between civilization and the frontier, and the way language shapes a culture. It asks how a massive, disparate territory can share a national identity when its people live such vastly different lives, separated by miles of wilderness and distinct social codes. The underlying argument is that humor serves as a necessary coping mechanism for the physical and moral "darkness" of the frontier. By turning misfortune—be it swindling, failing crops, or erratic animals—into a story, the characters reclaim agency over their environment. It is a study of how a young nation processes its own transition from a collection of raw, isolated provinces into a cohesive, if argumentative, whole.

Why Read It Today

This collection is essential for readers who appreciate the origins of American vernacular storytelling. It captures the rhythm of a spoken, pre-telegraphic age, and there is a visceral pleasure in hearing the voice of the frontier, with its "allfiredest" cracks and "bim" punches. However, a modern reader must be prepared for the realities of the text: the heavy use of phonetic dialect can be difficult to parse, and the book reflects the period's casual, often jarring attitudes toward race, social status, and gender. The excerpts show a world where "niggers" are mentioned as labor and women are often portrayed as either "curious critters" or objects of superstitious concern. These attitudes are part of the historical document, not separate from it.

Read this if you want to see where the tradition of the American tall tale began, or if you enjoy the raw, unpolished energy of voices long since silenced. It is not a smooth or polished narrative; it is a rough-cut collection that offers an honest, sometimes uncomfortable, look at the humor that sustained a generation of people living on the edge of a new world. What stays with you is the sheer inventiveness of the language—the way these people used words to make sense of a landscape that was often as dangerous as it was vast.