YANKEE SHREWDNESS.
- In a little country village,
- Not many years ago,
- There lived a real "live Yankee,"
- Whom they called "Old Uncle Snow."
- In trade he had no equal;
- And storekeepers would say,
- "We're always 'out of pocket'
- When Snow comes round this way."
- 'Twas the custom of the villagers —
- Few of them being rich —
- To trade their surplus "garden-sass"
- For groceries and " sich."
- One store supplied the village
- With goods of every kind,
- Including wines and liquors
- For those that way inclined.
- A counter in the "sample-room"
- Was fixed up very neat;
- And after every "barter-trade"
- The storekeeper would "treat."
- Old Snow brought in, one morning,
- An egg fresh from the barn,
- And said, "Give me a needle:
- My woman wants to darn."
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Yawcob_Strauss_1910-026.jpg)
- The trade was made: the storekeeper
- Asked him to take a drink.
- "I'll humor him," he said, aside,
- As the lookers-on did wink.
- "Don't care, naow, ef I do," says Snow;
- "And, as your goin' to treat,
- Just put a leetle sugar in,—
- I like my liquor sweet.
- "And, say, while you're about it, —
- Though I don't like to beg,—
- 'Twill taste a leetle better
- If you drop in an egg."
- "All right, friend," says the grocer,
- Now being fairly "caught,"
- And dropped into the tumbler
- The egg that Snow had brought!
- The egg contained a double yolk.
- Says Snow, "Here, this won't do:
- Give me another needle, 'Squire;
- This egg's the same as two!"
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Yawcob_Strauss_1910-027.png)