I Ain't Lost (standard:humor, 418 words)
Author: J P St. Jullian	Added: Jan 03 2003	Views/Reads: 3558/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Sometimes the simple and inane can make the sophisticated and intelligent feel like idiots!

I Ain't Lost 

My stepfather was born in 1890.  Why my mom married a man so much older
than herself has remained a mystery to me, but he had many wonderful 
stories that he told me about life in the days of his youth.  Here's 
one of them. 

It was a fine summer evening and Dr. Catchings thought he'd take his new
two-horse carriage out for a drive in the country.  Doc Catchings never 
went anywhere alone.  On house calls, he had a driver handle the 
carriage and never paid much attention to where he was going.  Mostly, 
he nodded in and out of sleep until he reached his destination.  Well, 
today he decided to drive himself. 

He drove along country roads, speeding a little here, walking a little
there, studying all the good points and admiring the beauty of his new 
rig.  He wasn't paying attention to the road.  Later on, he realized 
that he was hopelessly lost.  He hoped by driving on he'd find his way 
back to familiar territory, or at least meet someone he knew that could 
tell him how to get back to where he should be. 

The road he was on was long and lonesome.  It would be dark in a few
hours and the doc started to worry.  For a long time he followed the 
winding road, hoping every hilltop would bring him within sight of some 
dwelling.  When it was almost dark he saw in front of him a cotton 
patch and a good sized country boy chopping away in the rows of cotton. 
 He pulled his tired horses over next to the fence and called out to 
the boy. 

“Hello, boy.” he called. 

“Hello yourself,” the boy replied without breaking stride in his work. 

“Where does this road go son,” asked Doc Catchings. 

“Hain't never seed it go nowhars.  It always stays right whar it is,”
said the boy, still digging away. 

“How far is it to the next town then?” 

“Don't know; never measured it,” replied the boy. 

By this time Doc Catchings was thoroughly disgusted and frustrated.  He
vented his wrath on the boy.  He said with some heat, “You don't know 
anything.  You are certainly the biggest fool I ever saw!” 

The farm boy stopped digging then.  He fixed Doc Catchings with a
straight stare right in the eyes; then he said with some contempt of 
his own, “I knows I don't know nothing.  I knows I'se a fool too, but 
you see, I AIN'T LOST!” 


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