PADUTCH-LIFE-L Archives

From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: 12-The Dutchman & the Yankee
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 1998 12:47:00 -0400

THE DUTCHMAN AND THE YANKEE

The other day one of those hunch-backed, flat-ribbed,
long-eared, dried-out Yankees visited our Mountain and asked
Polly how to get to Schwineford town, She described the way as
best she could in Pennsylvania Dutch, then he turned his horse
around and said, "Damned Dutch!" He could only speak English,
and couldn't understand Polly. This made him angry, but it's a good
thing I wasn't home, or I would have tried my new boots on him.

The fact is I'm proud that I'm Dutch. It could be that we're not
as smart as the Yankees in not knowing how to like potatoes with
fatback, cornbread and fish. I still prefer to stick to the good old
Pennsylvania Dutch style of living.

Anywhere you go you can see a difference depending on
whether Dutch or English is spoken. When you see a neighborhood
with first rate land, a nice barn, a good post fence, nice fat oxen,
smart horses, plenty of good-laying chickens, a smart wife, pretty
girls and fat babies, and where people have plenty of the good
things for eating--such as the best young beef, wheat bread, and
Lenten cakes, fresh butter and apple butter, and sauerkraut--where
the people are so good-natured that they'll invite any casual visitor
to dinner--in seeing these things, most everyone would agree that
no one can surpass the good old Pennsylvania Dutch.

Now, visit an English-speaking community and see how it
looks there. The farmers have their plows and reapers exposed to
the weather from year to year, the broken down fences, the poor
wheat crop, thin livestock, stinking butter, spoiled eggs, hash made
from chicken meat--everything backwards. They wear handsome
shirts over an empty stomach. Visit a large city sometime, call on
the local jail, and ask the sheriff how many thieves and other rascals
are kept there under lock, and he'll say, "pretty many." Then ask
him who the majority are, English-speaking or Dutch, and I know
that he'll tell you that the thieves and other offenders are all
English-speaking--and only now and then will a Dutchman be jailed
for some minor woman problem.

Anyhow, I'll stick to the good old Dutch way, and not give a
damn whether those starving slop-eaters like us or not, Polly and I.

* * *

Note: This collection of Boonastiel stories was written by H. A.
Harter in the original Penna-Dutch dialect and were published in the
Keystone Gazette, Bellefonte, PA, between 1894 and 1904. They
were translated and transcribed by Bob James of Alaska and they
are being posted to this PADUTCH-LIFE mailing list with his
permission.

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• 12-The Dutchman & the Yankee by "Vee L. Housman" <>