Bass-Ackwards1Jump to section
He said he was riding bass-ackwards on a jass-ack, through a patton-cotch, on a pair of baddle-sags, stuffed full of binger-gred, when the animal steered at a scump, and the lirrup-steather broke, and throwed him in the forner of the kence and broke his pishing-fole. He said he would not have minded it much, but he fell right in a great tow-curd; in fact, he said it give him a right smart sick of fitness---he had the molera-corbus pretty bad. He said, about bray dake he come to himself, ran home, seized up a stick of wood and split the axe to make a light, rushed into the house, and found the door sick abed, and his wife standing open. But thank goodness she is getting right hat and farty again.
Annotation
[1] AD Taper collection. In transcribing a copy of this piece of foolery, Jesse W. Weik identified it merely as ``a `piece' which Lincoln wrote and gave to the bailiff of one of the Springfield courts'' (Hertz, The Hidden Lincoln, p. 400). Whether or not it was original with Lincoln has not been established.