Word: yarning
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...last century an itinerant house painter named John St. Helen appeared in the Southwest. When drunk, he would confess that he was Booth, that U. S. troopers had got the wrong man in Virginia, that he had escaped to Mexico. When sober, he would deny the whole yarn. There was just enough doubt about the identification of Booth's body to make St. Helen's story sound plausible. In 1903 at Enid, Okla., he committed suicide with arsenic. Finis Bates who later became Attorney General of Tennessee, believed his story, had his body embalmed, exhibited the mummy...
...much else besides; wrote several excellent sea stories, a naval history of the United States, and the "Wept of Wish ten Wish" which appears to be a bit whimsy. He was the first great American story teller who set the stage, most regrettably, for a series of other yarn spinners, whose only qualifications were that they had carefully read Cooper. Professor Matthiessen will enlarge upon all this today in Harvard 6 at 10 o'clock...
...hours to cover 100 miles?over roads so perilous that night driving is usually prohibited?to Kalka. Arriving at Kalka in time's nick, he was cheered by a crowd of devotees as he boarded the frontier express for Bombay. En route, admirers gave him coins and homespun yarn. One woman auspiciously sprinkled his forehead with red powder. From Bombay he was to sail for London and the Round Table Conference...
...thing that puzzles me is the fact that the publishers of the different newspapers and magazines would use such a story as the shooting yarn without making the least effort to verify it. During the entire dispute over the Red River free and toll bridges, I did not have a pistol in my hand, in fact 1 am such a poor marksman that I never shoot until the other fellow has shot at me. I have been busy writing letters trying to explain how it could be do'ne. Ranger Bob Goss, a member of my company...
...Raynolds, though he is at some pains to set a convincing forest-&-wilderness scene, is not concerned with being historically accurate. The Brothers talk sometimes like minor prophets and sometimes like sophomores; but you don't mind: it is all a kind of legend, with a good enough yarn to carry...