"Say, you are getting too alfired smart," said the grocery man to the bad
boy as he pushed him into a corner by the molasses barrel, and took him by
the neck and choked him so his eyes stuck out. "You have driven away
several of my best customers, and now, confound you, I am going to have
your life," and he took up a cheese knife and began to sharpen it on his
boot.
"What's the--gurgle--matter?" asked the choking boy, as the grocery man's
finger let up on his throat a little, so he could speak. "I haint done
nothing."
"Didn't you hang up that gray torn cat by the heels, in front of my store,
with the rabbits I had for sale? I didn't notice it until the minister
called me out in front of the store, and pointing to the rabbits, asked
what good fat cats were selling for. By crimus, this thing has got to
stop. You have got to move out of this ward or I will."
The boy got his breath and said it wasn't him that put the cat up there.
He said it was the policeman, and he and his chum saw him do it, and he
just come in to tell the grocery man about it, and before he could speak
he had his neck nearly pulled off. The boy began to cry, and the grocery
man said he was only joking, and gave him a box of sardines, and they made
up. Then he asked the boy how his Pa put in his New Years, and the boy
sighed and said:
"We had a sad time at our house New Years. Pa insisted on making calls,
and Ma and me tried to prevent it, but he said he was of age, and guessed
he could make calls if he wanted to, so he looked at the morning paper and
got the names of all the places where they were going to receive, and he
turned his paper collar, and changed ends with his cuffs, and put some
arnica on his handkerchief, and started out. Ma told him not to
drink anything, and he said he wouldn't, but he did. He was full the third
place he went to. O, so full. Some men can get full and not show it, but
when Pa gets full, he gets so full his back teeth float, and the liquor
crowds his eyes out, and his mouth gets loose and wiggles all over his
face, and he laughs all the time, and the perspiration just oozes out of
him, and his face gets red, and he walks so wide. O, he disgraced us all.
At one place he wished the hired girl 'a happy new year' more than twenty
times, and hung his hat on her elbow, and tried to put on a rubber hall
mat for his over shoes. At another place he walked up a lady's train, and
carried away a card basket full of bananas and oranges. Ma wanted my chum
and me to follow Pa and bring him home, and about dark we found him in the
door yard of a house where they have statues in front of the house, and he
grabbed me by the arm, and mistook me for another caller, and insisted on
introducing me to a marble statue without any clothes on. He said it was a
friend of his, and it was a winter picnic. He hung his hat on an
evergreen, and put his overcoat on the iron fence, and I was so mortified
I almost cried. My chum said if his Pa made such a circus of himself he
would sand bag him. That gave me an idea, and when we got Pa most home I
went and got a paper box covered with red paper, so it looked just like a
brick, and a bottle of tomato ketchup, and when we got Pa up on the steps
at home I hit him with the paper brick, and my chum squirted the ketchup
on his head, and we demanded his money, and then he yelled murder, and we
lit out, and Ma and the minister, who was making a call on her, all the
afternoon, they came to the door and pulled Pa in. He said he had been
attacked by a band of robbers, and they knocked his brains out, but he
whipped them, and then Ma saw the ketchup brains oozing out of his head,
and she screamed, and the minister said. 'Good heavens, he is murdered!'
and just then I came in the back door and they sent after the
doctor, and they put Pa on the lounge, and tied up his head with a towel
to keep the brains in, and Pa began to snore, and when the doctor came in
it took them half an hour to wake him, and then he was awful sick to his
stummick, and then Ma asked the doctor if he would live, and the doc.
analyzed the ketchup and smelled of it and told Ma he would be all right
if he had a little Worcester sauce to put on with the ketchup, and when he
said Pa would pull through, Ma looked awful sad. Then Pa opened his eyes
and saw the minister and said that was one of the robbers that jumped on
him, and he wanted to whip the minister, but the doc. held Pa's arms and
Ma sat on his legs, and the minister said he had got some other calls to
make, and he wished Ma a happy new year in the hall, much as fifteen
minutes. His happy new year to Ma is most as long as his prayers. Well, we
got Pa to bed, and when we undressed him we found nine napkins in the
bosom of his vest, that he had picked up at the places where he had
called. He is all right this morning, but he says it is the last time he
will drink coffee when he makes New Years calls.
"Well, then you didn't have much fun yourself on New Years. That's too
bad," said the grocery man, as he looked at the sad eyed youth. "But you
look hard. If you were old enough I should say you had been drunk, your
eyes are red."
[Illustration: HAPPY NEW YEAR, MUM!]
"Didn't have any fun eh? Well, I wish I had as many dollars as I had fun.
You see, after Pa got to sleep Ma wanted me and my chum to go to the
houses that Pa had called at and return the napkins he had kleptomaniaced,
so we dressed up and went. The first house we called at the girls were
sort of demoralized. I don't know as I ever saw a girl drunk, but those
girls acted queer. The callers had stopped coming, and the girls were
drinking something out of shaving cups that looked like lather, and they
said it was 'aignogg.' They laffed and kicked up their heels wuss nor a
circus, and their collars got unpinned, and their faces was red, and they
put their arms around me and my chum and hugged us and asked us if we
didn't want some of the custard. You'd a dide to see me and my chum drink
that lather. It looked just like soap suds with nutmaig in it, but by gosh
it got in its work sudden. At first I was afraid when the girls hugged me,
but after I had drank a couple of shaving cups full of the 'aignogg' I
wasn't afraid no more, and I hugged a girl so hard she catched her breath
and panted and said, 'O, don't.' Then I kissed her, and she is a great big
girl, bigger'n me, but she didn't care. Say, did you ever kiss a girl full
of aignogg? If you did it would break up your grocery business. You would
want to waller in bliss instead of selling mackerel. My chum ain't no
slouch either. He was sitting in a stuffed chair holding another New
Year's girl, and I could hear him kiss her so it sounded like a cutter
scraping on bare ground. But the girl's Pa came in and said he guessed it
was time to close the place, unless they had a license for an all night
house, and me and my chum went out. But _wasn't_ we sick when we got out
doors. O, it seemed as though the pegs in my boots was the only thing that
kept them down, and my chum he like to dide. He had been to dinner and
supper and I had only been skating all day, so he had more to contend with
than I did. O, my, but that lets me out on aignogg. I don't know how I got
home, but I got in bed with Pa, cause Ma was called away to attend a baby
matinee in the night. I don't know how it is, but there never is anybody
in our part of town that has a baby but they have it in the night, and
they send for Ma. I don't know what she has to be sent for every time for.
Ma ain't to blame for all the young ones in this town, but she has got up
a reputashun, and when we hear the bell ring in the night Ma gets up and
begins to put on her clothes, and the next morning she comes in the dining
room with a shawl over her head, and says, 'its a girl and weighs ten
pounds,' or 'a boy,' if it's a boy baby. Ma was out on one of her
professional engagements, and I got in bed with Pa. I had heard Pa blame
Ma about her cold feet, so I got a piece of ice about as big as a raisin
box, just zactly like one of Ma's feet, and laid it right against the
small of Pa's back. I couldn't help laffing, but pretty soon Pa began to
squirm and he said, 'Why'n 'ell don't you warm them feet before you come
to bed,' and then he hauled back his leg and kicked me clear out in the
middle of the floor, and said if he married again he would marry a woman
who had lost both her feet in a railroad accident. Then I put the ice back
in the bed with Pa and went to my room, and in the morning Pa said he
sweat more'n a pail full in the night. Well, you must excuse me. I have an
engagement to shovel snow off the sidewalk. But before I go, let me advise
you not to drink aignogg, and don't sell tom cats for rabbits," and he got
out of the door just in time to miss the rutabaga that the grocery man
threw at him.