"What is that stuff on your shirt bosom, that looks like soap grease?"
said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came into the grocery the
morning after Christmas.
The boy looked at his shirt front, put his finger on the stuff and smelled
of his fingers, and then said, "O, that is nothing but a little of the
turkey dressing and gravy. You see after Pa and I got back from the roller
skating rink yesterday, Pa was all broke up and he couldn't carve the
turkey, and I had to do it, and Pa sat in a stuffed chair with his head
tied up, and a pillow amongst his legs, and he kept complaining that I
didn't do it right. Gol darn a turkey any way. I should think they would
make a turkey flat on the back, so he would lay on a greasy platter
without skating all around the table. It looks easy to see Pa carve a
turkey, but when I speared into the bosom of that turkey, and began to saw
on it, the turkey rolled around as though it was on castors, and it was
all I could do to keep it out of Ma's lap. But I rasseled with it till I
got off enough white meat for Pa and Ma and dark meat enough for me, and I
dug out the dressing, but most of it flew into my shirt bosom, cause the
string that tied up the place where the dressing was concealed about the
person of the turkey, broke prematurely, and one oyster hit Pa in the eye,
and he said I was as awkward as a cross-eyed girl trying to kiss a man
with a hair lip. If I ever get to be the head of a family I shall carve
turkeys with a corn sheller.
"But what broke your Pa up at the roller skating rink?" asked the grocery
man.
"O, everything broke him up. He is split up so Ma buttons the top of his
pants to his collar button, like a bicycle rider. Well, he had no business
to have told me and my chum that he used to be the best skater in
North America, when he was a boy. He said he skated once from Albany to
New York in an hour and eighty minutes. Me and my chum thought if Pa was
such a terror on skates we would get him to put on a pair of roller skates
and enter him as the 'great unknown,' and clean out the whole gang. We
told Pa that he must remember that roller skates were different from ice
skates, and that maybe he couldn't skate on them, but he said it didn't
make any difference what they were as long as they were skates, and he
would just paralyze the whole crowd. So we got a pair of big roller skates
for him, and while we were strapping them on, Pa looked at the skaters
glide around on the smooth wax floor just as though they were greased. Pa
looked at the skates on his feet, after they were fastened, sort of
forlorn like, the way a horse thief does when they put shackles on his
legs, and I told him if he was afraid he couldn't skate with them we would
take them off, but he said he would beat anybody there was there, or bust
a suspender. Then we straightened Pa up, and pointed him towards the
middle of the room, and he said, 'leggo,' and we just give him a little
push to start him, and he began to go. Well, by gosh, you'd a dide to have
seen Pa try to stop. You see, you can't stick in your heel and stop, like
you can on ice skates, and Pa soon found that out, and he began to turn
sideways, and then he threw his arms and walked on his heels, and he lost
his hat, and his eyes began to stick out, cause he was going right towards
an iron post. One arm caught the post and he circled around it a few
times, and then he let go and began to fall, and, sir, he kept falling all
across the room, and everybody got out of the way, except a girl, and Pa
grabbed her by the polonaise, like a drowning man grabs at straws, though
there wasn't any straws in her polonaise as I know of, but Pa just pulled
her along as though she was done up in a shawl-strap, and his
feet went out from under him and he struck on his shoulders and kept a
going, with the girl dragging along like a bundle of clothes. If Pa had
had another pair of roller skates on his shoulders, and castors on his
ears, he couldn't have slid along any better. Pa is a short, big man, and
as he was rolling along on his back, he looked like a sofa with castors on
being pushed across a room by a girl. Finally Pa came to the wall and had
to stop, and the girl fell right across him, with her roller skates in his
neck, and she called him an old brute, and told him if he didn't let go of
her polonaise she would murder him. Just then my chum and me got there and
we amputated Pa from the girl, and lifted him up, and told him for
heaven's sake to let us take off the skates, cause he couldn't skate any
more than a cow, and Pa was mad and said for us to 'let him alone,' and he
could skate all right, and we let go and he struck out again. Well, sir, I
was ashamed. An old man like Pa ought to knonv better than to try to be a
boy. This last time Pa said he was going to spread himself, and if I am
any judge of a big spread, he did spread himself. Some how the skates had
got turned around side-ways on his feet, and his feet got to going in
different directions, and Pa's feet were getting so far apart that I was
afraid I would have two Pa's, half the size, with one leg apiece.
[Illustration: "PA GRABBED HER BY THE POLONAISE."]
"I tried to get him to take up a collection of his legs, and get them in
the same ward but his arm flew around and hit me on the nose, and I
thought if he wanted to strike the best friend he had, he could
run his old legs his self. When he began to separate I could hear the
bones crack, but maybe it was his pants, but anyway he came down on the
floor like one of these fellows in a circus who spreads hisself, and he
kept agoing and finally he surrounded an iron post with his legs, and
stopped and looked pale, and the proprietor of the rink told Pa if he
wanted to give a flying trapeze performance he would have to go to the
gymnasium, and he couldn't skate on his shoulders any more, cause other
skaters were afraid of him. Then Pa said he would kick the liver out of
the proprietor of the rink, and he got up and steaded himself, and then he
tried to kick the man, but both heels went up to wonct, and Pa turned a
back summersault and struck right on his vest in front. I guess it knocked
the breath out of him, for he didn't speak for a few minutes, and then he
wanted to go home, and we put him in a street car, and he laid down on the
hay and rode home. O, the work we had to get Pa's clothes off. He had
cricks in his back, and everywhere, and Ma was away to one of the
neighbors, to look at the presents, and I had to put liniment on Pa, and I
made a mistake and got a bottle of furniture polish, and put it on Pa and
rubbed it in, and when Ma came home, Pa smelled like a coffin at a charity
funeral, and Ma said there was no way of getting that varnish off of Pa
till it wore off: Pa says holidays are a condemned nuisance anyway. He
will have to stay in the house all this week.
"You are pretty rough on the old man," said the grocery man, "after he has
been so kind to you and given you nice presents."
"Nice presents nothin. All I got was a 'Come to Jesus' Christmas card,
with brindle fringe, from Ma, and Pa gave me a pair of his old suspenders,
and a calender with mottoes for every month, some quotations from
scripture, such as 'honor thy father and mother,' and 'evil communications
corrupt two in the bush,' and a bird in the hand beats two pair.' Such
things don't help a boy to be good. What a boy wants is club skates, and
seven shot revolvers, and such things. Well, I must go and help Pa roll
over in bed, and put on a new porous plaster. Good bye."