the author was born in virginia, on a little patch of land, so poor we had to fertilize it to make brick. our family, while having cast their fortunes with the south, was not a family ruined by the war; we did not have anything when the war commenced, and so we held our own. i secured a common school education, and at the age of twelve i left home, or rather home left me—things just petered out. i was slush cook on an ohio river packet; check clerk in a stave and heading camp in the knobs of tennessee, virginia and georgia; i helped lay the track of the m. k. & t. r. r., and was chambermaid in a livery stable. made my first appearance on the stage at the national theatre in cincinnati, ohio, and have since then chopped cord wood, worked in a coal mine, made cross ties (and walked them), worked on a farm, taught a district school (made love to the big girls), run a threshing machine, cut bands, fed the machine and ran the engine. have been a freight and passenger brakeman, fired and ran a locomotive; also a freight train conductor and check clerk in a freight house; worked on the section; have been a shot gun messenger for the wells, fargo company. have been with a circus, minstrels, farce comedy, burlesque and dramatic productions; have been with good shows, bad shows, medicine shows, and worse, and some shows where we had landlords singing in the chorus. have played variety houses and vaudeville houses; have slept in a box car one night, and a swell hotel the next; have been a traveling salesman (could spin as many yarns as any of them). for the past four years have made the uncle josh stories for the talking machine. the lord only knows what next!