Beech Tree News Network

 “Now Cloudy, didn’t you in fact say at the scene of the accident, ‘You never felt better in your life?”  

Cloudy Witherspoon was suing Mars Jackson’s Coal Yard for bodily harm to his mules, distruction of his wagon, and bodily harm to himself.  He was being cross-examined by counsel for the defense.
“I got up that mornin’, put three sausage and biscuit sandwiches in a gallon Bob White syrup bucket, laid a choclat Moon Pie right on top….”
    “But Cloudy, didn’t you say at the scene of the accident you never felt better in your life?  Didn’t you say that?”  
    “I got up that mornin` fixed three sausage and biscuit in a gallon Bob White bucket….”
    “Come on Cloudy”, the defense counsel kept badgering, “Didn’t you make the statement that you nev…”
    About that time the judge had had enough; He came down on the cross-examiner pretty good:  “Counsel, will you for goodness sake let Mister Witherspoon answer the question you keep asking, then not giving him a chance to answer?   I’m about a gnat’s-hair away from citing you for contempt.  NOW LET HIM ANSWER!  Mister Witherspoon you may continue.”
Cloudy cleared his throat and started over:  “I got up that mornin`, fixed me three sausage and biscuit sandwiches in a gallon Bob White syrup bucket; I laid a choclat Moon Pie right on top.  I set the bucket up on the spring seat of the wagon and commenced to hook up the mules----I always hook Lucy in the lead and Sam in the off.  Lucy, she’s the smaller of the two mules, but she’s got more sense than Sam…I don’t know where Sam is really that dumb, or the ole lunkhead don’t really give a thin-cuss.
    “Anyways, we headed in to the County Seat---it was County Court Day; things are always sturrin` in town then.  That’s Jockey Day too…every first Monday.   Jockey is always helt down behind the fire station and the City Building.  That’s where they swap knives and guns, and livestock of all kinds.  There’s always somebody sellin` some kind of a-salve for about anything that’s sore…for your backside or any where’s else.  Too, somebody’s nearly always there picking a guitar and blowin` a French harp at the same time.  Sometimes this fellow comes with a dummy on his knee; the dummy always does all the talkin`.
    “Well, when we come even with Mars Jackson’s Coal Yard at the edge of town, one of his loaded dump-trucks tore out of there like a bat out of a board-pile---run right square over all of us…me and the mules and the wagon…teeth-hair-and-eyeballs!  The wagon looked like it had been dropped out of a real-high airplane.  I was laying on my back in a ditch on one side of the road; the mules were in a ditch on the other side.”  
    After a while the Sheriff got there.  He looked at the mules, pulled out his pistol and shot both of them, graveyard-dead.  Then he walked across and looked down at me laying flat on my back there in that ditch.  He still had that great big pistol in his hand.  It had a long, silver barrel, with them bright pearl handles.  He stood there a minute or so and finally said, “Cloudy, how you feelin`?”
    “I looked at him and that big silver pistol in his hand and I said, “I NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE”.
Kindest regards