| PAGE |
| Note | xi |
| My Dog—Bill Nye | 1 |
| Knee-Deep in June—James Whitcomb Riley | 4 |
| Baked Beans and Culture—Eugene Field | 8 |
| The Nice People—H. C. Bunner | 12 |
| The Eureky Rat-Trap—C. B. Lewis (“M Quad”) | 24 |
| The School Examination—George Washington Cable | 28 |
| “Wouldn’t You like to Know?”—John G. Saxe | 35 |
| The Artless Prattle of Childhood—Robert Jones Burdette | 38 |
| Speech on the Babies—Samuel L. Clemens (“Mark Twain”) | 44 |
| On Cyclones—Bill Nye | 49 |
| Our Correspondent has the Honour to be—R. H. Newell (“Orpheus C. Kerr”) | 51 |
| Yawcob Strauss—Charles Follen Adams | 61 |
| The Minister’s Wooing—Harriet Beecher Stowe | 63 |
| Albina McLush—Nathaniel Parker Willis | 73 |
| A Long Time Ago—John Barr | 77 |
| The Professor under Chloroform—Oliver Wendell Holmes | 82 |
| Our Travelled Parson—Will Carleton | 85 |
| A Railroad “Recussant”—L. Gaylord Clark | 91 |
| An Unmarried Female—Marietta Holley | 93 |
| The Courtin’—James Russell Lowell | 103 |
| The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story—Joel Chandler Harris | 108 |
| Pomona’s Novel—Frank R. Stockton | 111 |
| Tempest in a Tub—J. M. Bailey | 128 |
| The Stout Gentleman—Washington Irving | 131 |
| My Summer in a Garden—Charles Dudley Warner | 144 |
| The Quaker Coquette—Charles Graham Halpine | 156 |
| Cat-Fishing—W. L. Alden | 158 |
| Captain Stick and Tony—Johnson T. Hooper | 162 |
| “Items” from the Press of Interior California—Ambrose Bierce (“Dod Grile”) | 166 |
| An Avalanche of Drugs | 168 |
| Music—Ambrose Bierce (“Dod Grile”) | 174 |
| Maxims—Benjamin Franklin | 175 |
| Model of a Letter of Recommendation of a Person you are Unacquainted with—Benjamin Franklin | 176 |
| Echo-Song—Thos. Bailey Aldrich | 176 |
