THE BABY AND THE GOAT--THE BAD BOY THINKS HIS SISTER WILL BE
A FIRE ENGINE--“OLD NUMBER TWO “--BABY REQUIRES GOAT MILK--
THE GOAT IS FRISKY--TAKES TO EATING ROMAN CANDLES--THE OLD
MAN, THE HIRED GIRL AND THE GOAT--THE BAD BOY BECOMES TELLER
IN A LIVERY STABLE.
“Well, how is the baby?” asked the grocery man of the bad boy, as he
came into the grocery smelling very “horsey,” and sat down on the chair
with the back gone, and looked very tired.
“O, darn the baby. Everybody asks me about the baby as though it was
mine. I don't pay no attention to the darn thing, except to notice the
foolishness going on around the house. Say, I guess that baby will grow
up to be a fire engine. The nurse coupled the baby onto a section of
rubber hose that runs down into a bottle of milk, and it began to get up
steam and pretty soon the milk began to disappear, just like the water
does when a fire engine couples on to a hydrant. Pa calls the baby “Old
Number Two.” I am “Number One,” and if Pa had a hook and ladder truck
and a hose cart, and a fire gong he would imagine he was chief engineer
of the fire department. But the baby kicks on this milk wagon milk, and
howls like a dog that's got lost. The doctor told Pa the best thing he
could do was to get a goat, but Pa said since we 'nishiated him into the
Masons with the goat he wouldn't have a goat around no how. The doc told
Pa the other kind of a goat, I think it was a Samantha goat he
said, wouldn't kick with its head, and Pa sent me up into the Polack
settlement to see if I couldn't borrow a milk goat for a few weeks. I
got a woman to lend us her goat till the baby got big enough to chew
beef, for a dollar a week, and paid a dollar in advance, and Pa went up
in the evening to help me get the goat. Well it was the darndest mistake
you ever see. There was two goats so near alike you could not tell which
was the goat we leased, and the other goat was the chum of our goat,
but it belonged to a Nirish woman. We got a bed cord hitched around the
Irish goat, and that goat didn't recognize the lease, and when we tried
to jerk it along it rared right up, and made things real quick for Pa.
I don't know what there is about a goat that makes it get so spunky, but
that goat seemed to have a grudge against Pa from the first. If there
were any places on Pa's manly form that the goat did not explore, with
his head, Pa don't know where the places are. O, it lammed him, and
when I laffed Pa got mad. I told him every man ought to furnish his own
goats, when he had a baby, and I let go the rope and started off, and Pa
said he knew how it was, I wanted him to get killed. It wasn't that, but
I saw the Irish woman that owned the goat coming around the corner of
the house with a cistern pole. Just as Pa was getting the goat out of
the gate the goat got cross ways of the gate, and Pa yanked, and doubled
the goat right up, and I thought he had broke the goats neck, and the
woman thought so too, for she jabbed Pa with the cistern pole just
below the belt, and she tried to get a hold on Pa's hair, but he had her
there. No woman can get the advantage of Pa that way 'cause Ma has tried
it. Well, Pa explained it to the woman, and she let Pa off if he would
pay her two dollars for damages to her goat, and he paid it, and then we
took the nanny goat, and it went right along with us. But I have got
my opinion of a baby that will drink goat's milk. Gosh, it is like this
stuff that comes in a spoiled cocoanut. The baby hasn't done anything
but blat since the nurse coupled it onto the goat hydrant. I had to take
all my playthings out of the basement to keep the goat from eating them.
I guess the milk will taste of powder and singed hair now. The goat got
to eating some Roman candles me and my chum had laid away in the coal
bin, and chewed them around the furnace, and the powder leaked out and
a coal fell out of the furnace on the hearth, and you'd a dide to see
Pa and the hired girl and the goat. You see Pa can't milk nothing but
a milk wagon, and he got the hired girl to milk the goat, and they were
just hunting around the basement for the goat, with a tin cup, when the
fireworks went off.”
[Illustration: The old man, the hired girl and the goat 074]
“Well, there was balls of green, and red and blue fire, and spilled
powder blazed up, and the goat just looked astonished, and looked on as
though it was sorry so much good fodder was spoiled, but when its hair
began to burn, the goat gave one snort and went between Pa and the hired
girl like it was shot out of a cannon, and it knocked Pa over a wash
boiler into the coal bin, and the hired girl in amongst the kindling
wood, and she crossed herself and repeated the catekism, and the goat
jumped up on the brick furnace, and they couldn't get it down. I heard
the celebration and went down and took Pa by the pants and pulled him
out of the coal bin, and he said he would surrender, and plead guilty of
being the biggest fool in Milwaukee. I pulled the kindling wood off the
hired girl, and then she got mad, and said she would milk the goat or
die. O, that girl has got sand. She used to work in the glass factory.
Well, sir, it was a sight worth two shillings admission, to see that
hired girl get upon a step ladder to milk that goat on top of the
furnace, with Pa sitting on a barrel of potatoes, bossing the job. They
are going to fix a gang plank to get the goat down off the furnace. The
baby kicked on the milk last night. I guess besides tasting of powder
and burnt hair, the milk was too warm on account of the furnace. Pa has
got to grow a new lot of hair on that goat, or the woman won't take it
back. She don't want no bald goat. Well, they can run the baby and goat
to suit themselves, 'cause I have resigned. I have gone into business.
Don't you smell anything that would lead you to surmise that I had gone
into business? No drugstore this time,” and the boy got up and put his
thumbs in the armholes of his vest, and looked proud.
“O, I don't know as I smell anything except the faint odor of a horse
blanket. What you gone into anyway?” and the grocery man put the
wrapping paper under the counter, and put the red chalk in his pocket,
so the boy couldn't write any sign to hang up outside.
“You hit it the first time I have accepted a situation of teller in a
livery stable,” said the boy, as he searched around for the barrel of
cut sugar, which had been removed.
“Teller in a livery stable! Well that is a new one on me. What is a
teller in a livery stable?” and the grocery man looked pleased, and
pointed the boy to a barrel of seven cent sugar.
“Don't you know what a teller is in a livery stable? It is the same as
a teller in a bank. I have to grease the harness, oil the buggies, and
curry off the horses, and when a man comes in to hire a horse I have to
go down to the saloon and tell the livery man. That's what a teller is.
I like the teller part of it; but greasing harness is a little too
rich for my blood, but the livery man says if I stick to it I will be
governor some day, 'cause most all the great men have begun life taking
care of horses. It all depends on my girl whether I stick or not. If she
likes the smell of horses I shall be a statesman, but if she objects
to it and sticks up her nose, I shall not yearn to be governor, at the
expense of my girl. It beats all, don't it, that wimmen settle every
great question. Everybody does everything to please wimmen, and if they
kick on anything that settles it. But I must go and umpire that game
between Pa, and the hired girl, and the goat. Say, can't you come over
and see the baby? 'Taint bigger than a small satchel,” and the boy
waited till the grocery man went to draw some vinegar, when he slipped
out and put up a sign written on a shingle with white chalk:
YELLOW SAND WANTED
FOR MAPLE SUGAR.