Huck Finn cracks me up, especially when he's tellin' a big one. In chapter 28, he has to cover up someone going away and makes like she has to tend to someone who's sick:
I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says, "Mumps."
"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the mumps."
"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with these mumps. These mumps 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?"
"That's what Miss Mary Jane said."
"Well, what in the nation do they call it the mumps for?"
"Why, because it is the mumps. That's what it starts with."
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Ever since I shared this passage with my family, we've had an outbreak of yaller janders and brain-fever in our house.
"I can't brush my teeth! I have yaller janders!"
"How 'm I s'pposed to fix dinner with this here brain-fever heatin' me up good?"
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