LAST LAUGH: COLD ROAST BOSTON

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 Issue # 106 - July/August 1987

—Grant Wood

Well sir, the Traveling Humor Hunters of Plumtree Crossing figured that two issues (Nos. 104 and 105) was almost enough time to freeload off Ott Bartlett's cousin Hiram. So they told Hiram they figured it was time to get back to their railroad explorations.

"Gorry," Hiram chipped in, "I've got a mind to go a ways with ye. Why don't we all ride on down to Boston and visit my relation, Lewis Stilwett."

"Now," Ott said, "we wouldn't want to impose."

"I would," replied Hiram. "He's the starched shirt kind. Claims that although his family didn't come over on the Mayflower, some ancestor tried to hop on the ship and missed." Hiram's eyes twinkled. "Might be kind of fun to drop in on the old boy."

So Hiram turned the farm over to the hired man, and the whole mess of’ em climbed on the next train headed to "the hub of the universe." On the way, Hiram talked about what to expect. "Every person Lewis knows is either a Boston Brahmin or a Hopi."

"A Hopi Indian?" Purvis Jacobs asked.

"No, a fella who hopes he can become a Brahmin. Heck, one of his neighbors once tried to get a job at a Chicago bank, so he asked a family acquaintance at the Old Colony Trust Fund to write him a reference letter. 'I can recommend him to you whole-heartedly,' the friend wrote. 'His mother was a Cabot, his father was a Lowell and his ancestors were all Applebys, Forbeses and Peabodys.'

"The Chicago people wrote right back, 'Sorry, but we are not contemplating using the young man for breeding purposes.' "

Hiram continued, "Heck, one time I visited Cousin Stilwett in December and he took me to the city's planetarium. Said they were showing the night skies as they looked on Christmas Eve 2,000 years ago.

'Over Bethlehem?' I asked.
'No, no,' he said. 'Over Boston.' "
Four hours later, our motley heroes were at 10½ Beacon Street, on the fifth floor of the Athenaeum Library. There, in a giant chandeliered reading room, filled with ancient busts and musty oils, Lewis Stilwett, Hiram Bartlett and Plumtree Crossing's Diplomatic Corps were attending an afternoon tea in honor of the Society of Descendants of the Illegitimate Sons and Daughters of the Colonial Governors.

Most of the fellas wandered shyly around the reading room, nibbling bravely on tiny crustless sandwiches ("too small to pink a piglet," Clarence Smithers complained) and listening to casual conversations:

"I just got back from New York. I went down for an intellectual rest."
"Really? I don't believe in traveling. I'm already here."
"I know just what you mean. My sister and I went to San Francisco last summer. When she complained about how hot it was, I told her, 'My dear, you must remember. We're 3,000 miles from the ocean.' "

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