CHAPTER XXXVI.

HIS PA GETS BOXED--PARROT FOR SALE--THE OLD MAN IS DOWN ON THE

GROCER--“A CONTRITE HEART BEATS A BOB-TAILED FLUSH!”--POLLY'S

RESPONSES--CAN A PARROT GO TO HELL?--THE OLD MAN GETS ANOTHER BLACK

EYE--DUFFY HITS FOR KEEPS!--NOTHING LIKE AN OYSTER FOR A BLACK EYE

PECK'S BAD BOY.

CHAPTER I.

THE BOY WITH A LAME BACK--THE BOY COULDN'T SIT DOWN--A

PRACTICAL JOKE ON THE OLD MAN--A LETTER FROM “DAISY”--

GUARDING THE FOUR CORNERS--THE OLD MAN IS UNUSUALLY

GENEROUS--MA ASKS AWKWARD QUESTIONS--THE BOY TALKED TO WITH

A BED-SLAT--NO ENCOURAGEMENT FOR A BOY!

A young fellow who is pretty smart on general principles, and who is

always in good humor, went into a store the other morning limping and

seemed to be broke up generally. The proprietor asked him if he wouldn't

sit down, and he said he couldn't very well, as his back was lame. He

seemed discouraged, and the proprietor asked him what was the matter.

“Well,” says he, as he put his hand on his pistol pocket and groaned,

“There is no encouragement for a boy to have any fun nowadays. If a boy

tries to play an innocent joke he gets kicked all over the house.” The

store keeper asked him what had happened to disturb his hilarity. He

said he had played a joke on his father and had been limping ever since.

“You see, I thought the old man was a little spry. You know he is no

spring chicken yourself; and though his eyes are not what they used to

be, yet he can see a pretty girl further than I can. The other day I

wrote a note in a fine hand and addressed it to him, asking him to meet

me on the corner of Wisconsin and Milwaukee streets, at 7:30 on Saturday

evening, and signed the name of 'Daisy' to it. At supper time Pa he was

all shaved up and had his hair plastered over the bald spot, and he got

on some clean cuffs, and said he was going to the Consistory to initiate

some candidates from the country, and he might not be in till late. He

didn't eat much supper, and hurried off with my umbrella. I winked at

Ma but didn't say anything. At 7:30 I went down town and he was standing

there by the post-office corner, in a dark place. I went by him and

said, “Hello, Pa, what are you doing there?” He said he was waiting for

a man. I went down street and pretty soon I went up on the other corner

by Chapman's and he was standing there. You see, he didn't know what

corner “Daisy” was going to be on, and had to cover all four corners.

I saluted him and asked him if he hadn't found his man yet, and he said

no, the man was a little late. It is a mean boy that won't speak to his

Pa when he sees him standing on a corner, I went up street and I saw

Pa cross over by the drug store in a sort of a hurry, and I could see a

girl going by with a water-proof on, but she skited right along and Pa

looked kind of solemn, the way he does when I ask him for new clothes.

I turned and came back and he was standing there in the doorway, and I

said, “Pa you will catch cold if you stand around waiting for a man. You

go down to the Consistory and let me lay for the man.” Pa said, “never

you mind, you go about your business and I will attend to the man.”

“Well, when a boy's Pa tells him to never you mind, and looks spunky, my

experience is that a boy wants to go right away from there, and I went

down street. I thought I would cross over and go up the other side, and

see how long he would stay. There was a girl or two going up ahead of

me, and I see a man hurrying across from the drug store to Van Pelt's

corner. It was Pa, and as the girls went along and never looked around

Pa looked mad and stepped into the doorway. It was about eight o'clock

then, and Pa was tired, and I felt sorry for him and I went up to him

and asked him for half a dollar to go to the Academy. I never knew him

to shell out so freely and so quick. He gave me a dollar, and I told him

I would go and get it changed and bring him back the half a dollar, but

he said I needn't mind the change. It is awful mean of a boy that has

always been treated well to play it on his Pa that way, and I felt

ashamed. As I turned the corner and saw him standing there shivering,

waiting for the man, my conscience troubled me, and I told a policeman

to go and tell Pa that “Daisy” had been suddenly taken with worms, and

would not be there that evening. I peeked around the corner and Pa and

the policeman went off to get a drink. I was glad they did cause Pa

needed it, after standing around so long. Well, when I went home the

joke was so good I told Ma about it, and she was mad. I guess she was

mad at me for treating Pa that way. I heard Pa come home about eleven

o'clock, and Ma was real kind to him. She told him to warm his feet,

cause they were just like chunks of ice. Then she asked him how many

they initiated in the Consistory, and he said six, and then she asked

him if they initiated “Daisy” in the Consistory, and pretty soon I heard

Pa snoring. In the morning he took me into the basement, and gave me

the hardest talking to that I over had, with a bed slat. He said he knew

that I wrote, that note all the time, and he thought he would pretend

that he was looking for “Daisy,” just to fool me. It don't look

reasonable that a man would catch epizootic and rheumatism just to fool

his boy, does it? What did he give me the dollar for? Ma and Pa don't

seem to call each other pet any more, and as for me, they both look at

me as though I was a hard citizen. I am going to Missouri to take Jesse

James's place. There is no encouragement for a boy here. Well, good

morning. If Pa comes in here asking for me tell him that you saw an

express wagon going to the morgue with the remains of a pretty boy who

acted as though he died from concussion of a bed slat on Peck's bad boy

on the pistol pocket. That will make Pa feel sorry. O, he has got the

awfulest cold, though.” And the boy limped out to separate a couple of

dogs that were fighting.

CHAPTER II.

THE BAD BOY AT WORK AGAIN--THE BEST BOYS FULL OF TRICKS--THE

OLD MAN LAYS DOWN THE LAW ABOUT JOKES--RUBBER-HOSE MACARONI--

THE OLD MAN'S STRUGGLES--CHEWING VIGOROUSLY BUT IN VAIN--AN

INQUEST HELD--REVELRY BY NIGHT--MUSIC IN THE WOODSHED--

“'TWAS EVER THUS.”

Of course all boys are not full of tricks, but the best of them are.

That is, those who are the readiest to play innocent jokes, and who are

continually looking for chances to make Rome howl, are the most apt to

turn out to be first-class business men. There is a boy in the Seventh

Ward who is so full of fun that sometimes it makes him ache. He is the

same boy who not long since wrote a note to his father and signed the

name “Daisy” to it, and got the old man to stand on a corner for two

hours waiting for the girl. After that scrape the old man told the boy

that he had no objection to innocent jokes, such as would not bring

reproach upon him, and as long as the boy confined himself to jokes that

would simply cause pleasant laughter, and not cause the finger of scorn

to be pointed at a parent, he would be the last one to kick. So the boy

has been for three weeks trying to think of some innocent joke to play

on his father. The old man is getting a little near sighted, and his

teeth are not as good as they used to be, but the old man will not admit

it. Nothing that anybody can say can make him own up that his eyesight

is failing, or that his teeth are poor, and he would bet a hundred

dollars that he could see as far as ever. The boy knew the failing,

and made up his mind to demonstrate to the old man that he was rapidly

getting off his base.. The old person is very fond of macaroni, and eats

it about three times a week. The other day the boy was in a drug store

and noticed in a show case a lot of small rubber hose, about the size of

sticks of macaroni, such as is used on nursing bottles, and other rubber

utensils. It was white and nice, and the boy's mind was made up at once.

He bought a yard of it, and took it home. When the macaroni was cooked

and ready to be served, he hired the table girl to help him play it

on the old man. They took a pair of shears and cut the rubber hose in

pieces about the same length as the pieces of boiled macaroni, and

put them in a saucer with a little macaroni over the rubber pipes, and

placed the dish at the old man's plate. Well, we suppose if ten thousand

people could have had reserved seats and seen the old man struggle with

the India rubber macaroni, and have seen the boy's struggle to keep

from laughing, they would have had more fun than they would at a circus,

First the old delegate attempted to cut the macaroni into small pieces,

and failing, he remarked that it was not cooked enough. The boy said his

macaroni was cooked too tender, and that his father's teeth were so poor

that he would have to eat soup entirely pretty soon. The old man said,

“Never you mind my teeth, young man,” and decided that he would not

complain of anything again. He took up a couple of pieces of rubber and

one piece of macaroni on a fork and put them in his mouth. The macaroni

dissolved easy enough, and went down perfectly easy, but the flat

macaroni was too much for him. He chewed on it for a minute or two, and

talked about the weather in order that none of the family should see

that he was in trouble, and when he found the macaroni would not down,

he called their attention to something out of the window and took the

rubber slyly from his mouth, and laid it under the edge of his plate. He

was more than half convinced that his teeth were played out, but went on

eating something else for a while, and finally he thought he would just

chance the macaroni once more for luck, and he mowed away another fork

full in his mouth. It was the same old story. He chewed like a seminary

girl chewing gum, and his eyes stuck out and his face became red, and

his wife looked at him as though afraid he was going to die of apoplexy,

and finally the servant girl burst out laughing, and went out of the

room with her apron stuffed in her mouth, and the boy felt as though it

was unhealthy to tarry too long at the table and he went out.

Left alone with his wife the old man took the rubber macaroni from his

mouth and laid it on his plate, and he and his wife held an inquest

over it. The wife tried to spear it with a fork, but couldn't make any

impression on it, and then she see it was rubber hose, and told the old

man. He was mad and glad, at the same time; glad because he had found

that his teeth where not to blame, and mad because the grocer had sold

him boarding house macaroni. Then the girl came in and was put on the

confessional, and told all, and presently there was a sound of revelry

by night, in the wood shed, and the still, small voice was saying, “O,

Pa, don't! you said you didn't care for innocent jokes. Oh!” And then

the old man, between the strokes of the piece of clap-board would say,

“Feed your father a hose cart next, won't ye. Be firing car springs and

clothes wringers down me next, eh? Put some gravy on a rubber overcoat,

probably, and serve it to me for salad. Try a piece of overshoe, with a

bone in it, for my beefsteak, likely. Give your poor old father a slice

of rubber bib in place of tripe to-morrow, I expect. Boil me a rubber

water bag for apple dumplings, pretty soon, if I don't look out. There!

You go and split the kindling wood.” 'Twas ever thus. A boy cant have

any fun now days.

CHAPTER III.

THE BAD BOY GIVES HIS PA AWAY--PA IS A HARD CITIZEN--

DRINKING SOZODONT--MAKING UP THE SPARE BED--THE MIDNIGHT

WAR-DANCE--AN APPOINTMENT BY THE COAL BIN.

The bad boy's mother was out of town for a week, and when she came home

she found everything topsy turvey. The beds were all mussed up, and

there was not a thing hung up anywhere. She called the bad boy and asked

him what in the deuce had been going on, and he made it pleasant for his

Pa about as follows:

“Well, Ma, I know I will get killed, but I shall die like a man. When

Pa met you at the depot he looked too innocent for any kind of use,

but he's a hard citizen, and don't you forget it. He hasn't been home

a single night till after eleven o'clock, and he was tired every night,

and he had somebody come home with him.”

“O, heavens, Hennery,” said the mother, with a sigh, “are you sure about

this?”

“Sure!” says the bad boy, “I was on to the whole racket. The first

night they came home awful tickled, and I guess they drank some of your

Sozodont, cause they seemed to foam at the mouth. Pa wanted to put his

friend in the spare bed, but there were no sheets on it, and he went to

rumaging around in the drawers for sheets. He got out all the towels and

table-cloths, and, made up the bed with table-cloths, the first night,

and in the morning the visitor kicked because there was a big coffee

stain on the table-cloth sheet. You know that tablecloth you spilled

the coffee on last spring, when Pa scared you by having his whiskers cut

off. O, they raised thunder around the room. Pa took your night-shirt,

you know the one with the lace work all down the front, and put a pillow

in it, and set it on a chair, then took a burned match and marked eyes

and nose on the pillow, and put your bonnet on it, and then they had a

war dance. Pa hurt the bald spot on his head by hitting it against the

gas chandelier, and then he said dammit. Then they throwed pillows at

each other. Pa's friend didn't have any night shirt, and Pa gave his

friend one of your'n, and the friend took that old hoop-skirt in the

closet, the one Pa always steps on when he goes in the close, after a

towel and hurts his bare foot, you know, and put it on under the night

shirt, and they walked around arm in arm. O, it made me tired to see a

man Pa's age act so like a darn fool.”

“Hennery,” says the mother, with a deep meaning in her voice, “I want to

ask you one question. Did your Pa's friend _wear a dress?_”

“O, yes,” said the bad boy, coolly, not noticing the pale face of his

Ma, “the friend put on that old blue dress of yours, with the pistol

pocket in front, you know, and pinned a red cloth on for a train, and

they danced the can-can.”

Just at this point Pa came home to dinner, and the bad boy said, “Pa, I

was just telling Ma what a nice time you had that first night she went

away, with the pillows, and--”

“Hennery!” says the old gentleman severely, “you are a confounded fool.”

“Izick,” said the wife more severely, “Why did you bring a female home

with you that night. Have you got no--”

“O, Ma,” says the bad boy, “it was not a woman. It was young Mr. Brown,

Pa's clerk at the store, you know.”

“O!” said Mas with a smile and a sigh.

“Hennery,” said his stern parent, “I want to see you there by the coal

bin for a minute or two. You are the gaul durndest fool I ever see. What

you want to learn the first thing you do is to keep your mouth shut,”

and then they went on with the frugal meal, while Hennery seemed to feel

as though something was coming.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BAD BOY'S FOURTH OF JULY--PA IS A POINTER NOT A SETTER--

SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY--A GRAND SUPPLY

OF FIRE WORKS--THE EXPLOSION--THE AIR FULL OF PA AND DOG AND

ROCKETS--THE NEW HELL--A SCENE THAT BEGGARS DESCRIPTION.

“How long do you think it will be before your father will be able to

come down to the office?” asked the druggist of the bad boy as he was

buying some arnica and court plaster.

“O, the doc. says he could come down now if he would on some street

where there were no horses to scare,” said the boy as he bought some

gum, “but he says he aint in no hurry to come down till his hair grows

out, and he gets some new clothes made. Say, do you wet this court

plaster and stick it on?”

The druggist told him how the court plaster worked, and then asked him

if his Pa couldn't ride down town.

“Ride down? well, I guess nix. He would have to set down if he rode down

town, and Pa is no setter this trip, he is a pointer. That's where the

pinwheel struck him.”

“Well how did it all happen?” asked the druggist, as he wrapped a yellow

paper over the bottle of arnica, and twisted the ends, and then helped

the boy stick the strip of court plaster on his nose.

“Nobody knows how it happened but Pa, and when I come near to ask him

about it he feels around his night shirt where his pistol pocket would

be if it was pants he had on, and tells me to leave his sight forever,

and I leave too, quick. You see he is afraid I will get hurt every 4th

of July, and he told me if I wouldn't fire a fire-cracker all day he

would let me get four dollars' worth of nice fire-works and he would

fire them off for me in the evening in the back yard. I promised, and he

gave me the money and I bought a dandy lot of fire-works, and don't you

forget it. I had a lot of rockets and Roman candles, and six pin-wheels,

and a lot of nigger chasers, and some of these cannon fire-crackers,

and torpedoes, and a box of parlor matches. I took them home and put the

package in our big stuffed chair and put a newspaper over them.

“Pa always takes a nap in that stuffed chair after dinner, and he went

into the sitting room and I heard him driving our poodle dog out of the

chair, and heard him ask the dog what he was a-chewing, and just then

the explosion took place, and we all rushed in there, I tell you what I

honestly think. I think that dog was chewing that box of parlor matches.

This kind that pop so when you step on them. Pa was just going to set

down when the whole air was filled with dog, and Pa, and rockets, and

everything.”

[Illustration: Air was filled with dog, and Pa, and rockets p023]

“When I got in there Pa had a sofa pillow trying to put the dog out, and

in the meantime Pa's linen pants were afire. I grabbed a pail of this

indigo water that they had been rinsing clothes with and throwed it on

Pa, or there wouldn't have been a place on him biggern a sixpence that

wasn't burnt, and then he threw a camp chair at me and told me to go

to Gehenna. Ma says that's the new hell they have got up in the

revised edition of the Bible for bad boys. When Pa's pants were out his

coat-tail blazed up and a Roman candle was firing blue and red balls

at his legs, and a rocket got into his white vest. The scene beggared

description, like the Racine fire. A nigger chaser got after Ma and

treed her on top of the sofa, and another one took after a girl that Ma

invited to dinner, and burnt one of her stockings so she had to wear one

of Ma's stockings, a good deal too big for her, home. After things got

a little quiet, and we opened the doors and windows to let out the

smoke and the smell of burnt dog hair, and Pa's whiskers, the big fire

crackers began to go off, and a policeman came to the door and asked

what was the matter, and Pa told him to go along with me to Gehenna, but

I don't want to go with a policeman. It would give me dead away. Well,

there was nobody hurt much but the dog and Pa. I felt awful sorry for

the dog. He hasn't got hair enough to cover hisself. Pa, didn't have

much hair anyway, except by the ears, but he thought a good deal of

his whiskers, cause they wasn't very gray. Say, couldn't you send this

anarchy up to the house? If I go up there Pa will say I am the damest

fool on record. This is the last 4th of July you catch me celebrating.

I am going to work in a glue factory, where nobody will ever come to see

me.”

And the boy went out to pick up some squib firecrackers, that had failed

to explode, in front of the drug store.

CHAPTER V.

THE BAD BOY'S MA COMES HOME--NO DEVILTRY ONLY A LITTLE FUN--

THE BAD BOY'S CHUM--A LADY'S WARDROBE IN THE OLD MAN'S ROOM--

MA'S UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL--WHERE IS THE HUZZY?--DAMFINO!--THE

BAD BOY WANTS TO TRAVEL WITH A CIRCUS.

“When is your ma coming back?” asked the grocery man, of the bad boy, as

he found him standing on the sidewalk when the grocery was opened in the

morning, taking some pieces of brick out of his coat tail pockets.

“O she got back at midnight, last night,” said the boy, as he eat a few

blue berries out of a case. “That's what makes me up so early, Pa has

been kicking at these pieces of brick with his bare feet, and when

I came away he had his toes in his hand and was trying to go back up

stairs on one foot. Pa haint got no sense.”

“I am afraid you are a terror,” said the grocery man, as he looked at

the innocent face of the boy, “You are always making your parents some

trouble, and it is a wonder to me they don't send you to some reform

school. What deviltry were you up to last night to get kicked this

morning?”

“No deviltry, just a little fun. You see, Ma went to Chicago to stay a

week, and she got tired, and telegraphed she would be home last night,

and Pa was down town and I forgot to give him the dispatch, and after he

went to bed, me and a chum of mine thought wo would have a 4th of July.

“You see, my chum has got a sister about as big as Ma, and we hooked some

of her clothes and after P got to snoring we put them in Pa's room. O,

you'd a laffed. We put a pair of number one slippers with blue

stockings, down in front of the rocking chair, beside Pa's boots, and a

red corset on a chair, and my chum's sister's best black silk dress on

another chair, and a hat with a white feather on, on the bureau, and some

frizzes on the gas bracket, and everything we could find that belonged

to a girl in my mum's sister's room. O, we got a red parasol too, and

left it right in the middle of the floor. Well, when I looked at the

lay-out, and heard Pa snoring, I thought I should die. You see, Ma knows

Pa is, a darn good feller, but she is easily excited. My chum slept with

me that night, and when we heard the door bell ring I stuffed a pillow

in my mouth, There was nobody to meet Ma at the depot, and she hired a

hack and came right up. Nobody heard the bell but me, and I had to go

down and let Ma in. She was pretty hot, now you bet, at not being met

at the depot. “Where's your father?” said she, as she began to go up

stairs.

“I told her I guessed Pa had gone to sleep by this time, but I heard

a good deal of noise in the room about an hour ago, and may be he was

taking a bath. Then I slipped up stairs and looked over the banisters.

Ma said something about heavens and earth, and where is the huzzy, and

a lot of things I couldn't hear, and Pa said damfino and its no such

thing, and the door slammed and they talked for two hours. I s'pose

they finally layed it to me, as they always do, 'cause Pa called me very

early this morning, and when I came down stairs he came out in the hall

and his face was redder'n a beet, and he tried to stab me with his big

toe-nail, and if it hadn't been for these pieces of brick he would have

hurt my feelings. I see they had my chum's sister's clothes all pinned

up in a newspaper, and I s'pose when I go back I shall have to carry

them home, and then she will be down on me. I'll tell you what, I have

got a good notion to take some shoemaker's wax and stick my chum on

my back and travel with a circus as a double headed boy from Borneo. A

fellow could have more fun, and not get kicked all the time.”

And the boy sampled some strawberries in a case in front of the store

and went down the street whistling for his chum, who was looking out of

an alley to see if the coast was clear.

CHAPTER VI.

HIS PA IS A DARN COWARD--HIS PA HAS BEEN A MAJOR---HOW HE

WOULD DEAL WITH BURGLARS--HIS BRAVERY PUT TO THE TEST--THE

ICE REVOLVER--HIS PA BEGINS TO PRAY--TELLS WHERE THE CHANGE

IS--“PLEASE MR. BURGLAR SPARE A POOR MAN'S LIFE!”--MA WAKES

UP--THE BAD BOY AND HIS CHUM RUN--FISH-POLE SAUCE--MA WOULD

MAKE A GOOD CHIEF OF POLICE.

“I suppose you think my Pa is a brave man,” said the bad boy to the

grocer, as he was trying a new can opener on a tin biscuit box in the

grocery, while the grocer was putting up some canned goods for the boy,

who said the goods where (sp.) for the folks to use at a picnic, but

which was to be taken out camping by the boy and his chum.

“O I suppose he is a brave man,” said the grocer, as he charged the

goods to the boy's father. “Your Pa is called a major, and you know at

the time of the reunion he wore a veteran badge, and talked to the boys

about how they suffered during the war.”

“Suffered nothing,” remarked the boy with a sneer, “unless they suffered

from the peach brandy and leather pies Pa sold them. Pa was a sutler,

that's the kind of a veteran he was, and he is a coward.”

“What makes you think your Pa is a coward?” asked the grocer, as he saw

the boy slipping some sweet crackers into his pistol pocket.

“Well, my chum and me tried him last night, and he is so sick this

morning that he can't get up. You see, since the burglars got into

Magie's, Pa has been telling what he would do if the burglars got into

our house. He said he would jump out of bed and knock one senseless with

his fist, and throw the other over the banister. I told my chum Pa was

a coward, and we fixed up like burglars, with masks on, and I had Pa's

long hunting boots on, and we pulled caps down over our eyes, and looked

fit to frighten a policeman. I took Pa's meerschaum pipe case and tied

a little piece of ice over the end the stem goes in, and after Pa and

Ma was asleep we went in the room, and I put the cold muzzle of the ice

revolver to Pa's temple, and when he woke up I told him if he moved a

muscle or said a word I would spatter the wall and the counterpane with

his brains. He closed his eyes and began to pray. Then I stood off and

told him to hold up his hands, and tell me where the valuables was. He

held up his hands, and sat up in bed, and sweat and trembled, and told

us the change was in his left hand pants pocket, and that Ma's money

purse was in the bureau drawer in the cuff box, and my chum went and got

them, Pa shook so the bed fairly squeaked and I told him I was a good

notion to shoot a few holes in him just for fun, and he cried and said

please Mr. Burglar, take all I have got, but spare a poor old man's

life, who never did any harm! Then I told him to lay down on his stomach

and pull the clothes over his head, and stick his feet over the foot

board, and he did it, and I took a shawl strap and was strapping his feet

together, and he was scared, I tell you. It would have been all right

if Ma hadn't woke up. Pa trembled so Ma woke up and thought he had the

ager, and my chum turned up the light to see how much there was in Ma's

purse, and Ma see me, and asked me what I was doing and I told her I

was a burglar, robbing the house. I don't know whether Ma tumbled to the

racket or not, but she threw a pillow at me, and said “get out of

here or I'll take you across my knee,” and she got up and we run. She

followed us to my room, and took Pa's jointed fish pole and mauled us

both until I don't want any more burgling, and my chum says he will

never speak to me again. I didn't think Ma had so much sand. She is

brave as a lion, and Pa is a regular squaw. Pa sent for me to come to

his room this morning, but I ain't well, and am going out to Pewaukee to

camp out till the burglar scare is over. If Pa comes around here talking

about war times, and how he faced the enemy on many a well fought field,

you ask him if he ever threw any burglars down a banister. He is a frod

(sp.), Pa is, but Ma would make a good chief of police, and don't you

let it escape you.”

And the boy took his canned ham and lobster, and tucking some crackers

inside the bosom of his blue flannel shirt, started for Pewaukee, while

the grocer looked at him as though he was a hard citizen.

CHAPTER VII.

HIS PA GETS A BITE--HIS PA GETS TOO MUCH WATER--THE DOCTOR'S

DISAGREE--HOW TO SPOIL BOYS--HIS PA GOES TO PEWAUKEE IN

SEARCH OF HIS SON--ANXIOUS TO FISH--“STOPER I'VE GOT A

WHALE!”--OVERBOARD--HIS PA IS SAVED--GOES TO CUT A SWITCH--

A DOLLAR FOR HIS PANTS.

“So the doctor thinks your Pa has ruptured a blood vessel, eh,” says the

street car driver to the bad boy, as the youngster was playing sweet on

him to get a free ride down town.

“Well, they don't know. The doctor at Pewaukee said Pa had dropsy, until

he found the water that they wrung out of his pants was lake water, and

there was a doctor on the cars belonging to the Insane Asylum, when we

put Pa on the train, who said from the looks of his face, sort of red

and blue, that it was apoplexy, but a horse doctor that was down at the

depot when we put Pa in the carriage to take him home, said he was off

his feed, and had been taking too much water when he was hot, and got

foundered. O, you can't tell anything about doctors. No two of 'em

guesses alike,” answered the boy, as he turned the brake for the driver

to stop the car for a sister of charity, and then punched the mule with

a fish pole, when the driver was looking back, to see if he couldn't

jerk her off the back step.

“Well, how did your Pa happen to fall out of the boat? Didn't he know

the lake was wet?”

“He had a suspicion that it was damp, when his back struck the water,

I think. I'll tell you how it was. When my chum and I run away to

Pewaukee, Ma thought we had gone off to be piruts, and she told Pa it

was a duty he owed to society to go and get us to come back, and be

good. She told him if he would treat me as an equal, and laugh and joke

with me, I wouldn't be so bad. She said kicking and pounding spoiled

more boys than all the Sunday schools. So Pa came out to our camp, about

two miles up the lake from Pewaukee, and he was just as good natured as

though we had never had any trouble at all. We let him stay all night

with us, and gave him a napkin with a red border to sleep on under

a tree, cause there was not blankets enough to go around, and in the

morning I let him have one of the soda crackers I had in my shirt bosom

and he wanted to go fishing with us. He said he would show us how to

fish. So he got a piece of pork rind at a farm house for bait, and put

it on a hook, and we got in an old boat, and my chum rowed and Pa and I

trolled. In swinging the boat around Pa's line got under the boat, and

come right up near me. I don't know what possessed me, but I took hold

of Pa's line and gave it a “yank,” and Pa jumped so quick his hat went

off in the lake.”

[Illustration: Stoper, says Pa, I've got a whale p034]

“Stoper,” says Pa, “I've got a whale.” It's mean in a man to call his

chubby faced little boy a whale, but the whale yanked again and Pa began

to pull him in. I hung on, and let the line out a little at a time, just

zackly like a fish, and he pulled, and sweat, and the bald spot on his

head was getting sun burnt, and the line cut my hand, so I wound it

around the oar-lock, and Pa pulled hard enough to tip the boat over. He

thought he had a forty pound musculunger, and he stood up in the boat

and pulled on that oar-lock as hard as he could. I ought not to have

done it, but I loosened the line from the oar-lock, and when it slacked

up Pa went right out over the side of the boat, and struck on his pants,

and split a hole in the water as big as a wash tub. His head went down

under water, and his boot heels hung over in the boat. “What you doin'?

Diving after the fish?” says I as Pa's head came up and he blowed

out the water. I thought Pa belonged to the church, but he said “you

damidyut.”

“I guess he was talking to the fish. Wall, sir, my chum took hold of Pa's

foot and the collar of his coat and held him in the stern of the boat,

and I paddled the boat to the shore, and Pa crawled out and shook

himself. I never had no ijee a man'-pants could hold so much water. It

was just like when they pull the thing on a street sprinkler. Then Pa

took off his pants and my chum and me took hold of the legs and Pa

took hold of the summer kitchen, and we rung the water out. Pa want so

sociable after that, and he went back in the woods with his knife;

with nothing on but a linen duster and a neck-tie, while his pants were

drying on a tree, to cut a switch, and we hollered to him that a party

of picnicers from Lake Side were coming ashore right where his pants

were, to pic-nic, and Pa he run into the woods. He was afraid there

would be some wimmen in the pic-nic that he knowed, and he coaxed us to

come in the woods where he was, and he said he would give us a dollar

a piece and not be mad any more if we would bring him his pants. We got

his pants, and you ought to see how they was wrinkled when he put them

on. They looked as though they had been ironed with waffle irons. We

went to the depot and came home on a freight train, and Pa sneezed all

the way in the caboose, and I don't think he has ruptured any blood

vessel. Well, I get off here at Mitchell's bank,” and the boy turned the

brake and jumped off without paying his fare.

CHAPTER VIII.

HE IS TOO HEALTHY. AN EMPTY CHAMPAGNE BOTTLE AND A BLACK

EYE--HE IS ARRESTED--OCONOMOWOC FOR HEALTH--HIS PA IS AN OLD

MASHER--DANCED TILL THE COWS CAME HOME--THE GIRL PROM THE

SUNNY SOUTH--THE BAD BOY IS SENT HOME.

“There, I knew you would get into trouble,” said the grocery man to

the bad boy, as a policeman came along leading him by the ear, the boy

having an empty champagne bottle in one hand, and a black eye. “What has

he been doing Mr. Policeman?” asked the grocery man, as the policeman

halted with the boy in front of the store.

“Well, I was going by a house up here when this kid opened the door with

a quart bottle of champagne, and he cut the wire and fired the cork at

another boy, and the champagne went all over the sidewalk, and some of

it went on me, and I knew there was something wrong, cause champagne is

to expensive to waste that way, and he said he was running the shebang

and if I would bring him here you would say he was all right. If you say

so I will let him go.”

The grocery man said he had better let the boy go, as his parents would

not like to have their little pet locked up. So the policeman let go

his ear, and he throwed the empty bottle at a coal wagon, and after the

policeman had brushed the champagne off his coat, and smelled of his

fingers, and started off, the grocery man turned to the boy, who was

peeling a cucumber, and said:

“Now, what kind of a circus have you been having, and what do you mean

by destroying wine that way! and where are your folks?”

“Well, I'll tell you. Ma she has got the hay fever and has gone to Lake

Superior to see if she can't stop sneezing, and Saturday Pa said he

and me would go out to Oconomowoc and stay over Sunday, and try and

recuperate our health. Pa said it would be a good joke for me not to

call him Pa, but to act as though I was his younger brother, and we

would have a real nice time. I knowed what he wanted. He is an old

masher, that's what's the matter with him, and he was going to play

himself for a batchelor. O, thunder, I got on to his racket in a minute.

He was introduced to some of the girls and Saturday evening he danced

till the cows come home. At home he is awful fraid of rheumatic, and he

never sweats, or sits in a draft; but the water just poured off'n him,

and he stood in the door and let a girl fan him till I was afraid he

would freeze, and just as he was telling a girl from Tennessee, who was

joking him about being a nold batch, that he was not sure as he could

always hold out a woman hater if he was to be thrown into contact with

the charming ladies of the Sunny South, I pulled his coat and said,

'Pa how do you spose Ma's hay fever is to-night. I'll bet she is just

sneezing the top of her head off.” Wall, sir, you just oughten seen that

girl and Pa. Pa looked at me as if I was a total stranger, and told the

porter if that freckled faced boot-black belonged around the house

he had better be fired out of the ball-room, and the girl said the

disgustin' thing, and just before they fired me I told Pa he had better

look out or he would sweat through his liver pad.

“I went to bed and Pa staid up till the lights were put out. He was mad

when he came to bed, but he didn't lick me, cause the people in the next

room would hear him, but the next morning he talked to me. He said I

might go back home Sunday night, and he would stay a day or two. He sat

around on the veranda all the afternoon, talking with the girls, and

when he would see me coming along he would look cross. He took a girl

out boat riding, and when I asked him if I couldn't go along, he said

he was afraid I would get drowned, and he said if I went home there

was nothing there too good for me, and so my chum and me got to firing

bottles of champane, and he hit me in the eye with a cork, and I drove

him out doors and was just going to shell his earth works, when the

policeman collared me. Say, what's good for a black eye?”

The grocery man told him his Pa would cure it when he got home, “What do

you think your Pa's object was in passing himself off for a single man

at Oconomowoc,” asked the grocery man, as he charged up the cucumber to

the boy's father.

“That's what beats me. Aside from Ma's hay fever she is one of the

healthiest women in this town. O, I suppose he does it for his health,

the way they all do when they go to a summer resort, but it leaves a

boy an orphan, don't it, to have such kitteny parents.”

CHAPTER IX.

HIS PA HAS GOT 'EM AGAIN! HIS PA IS DRINKING HARD--HE HAS

BECOME A TERROR--A JUMPING DOG--THE OLD MAN IS SHAMEFULLY

ASSAULTED--“THIS IS A HELLISH CLIMATE MY BOY!”--HIS PA

SWEARS OFF--HIS MA STILL SNEEZING AT LAKE SUPERIOR.

'“If the dogs in our neighborhood hold out I guess I can do something

that all the temperance societies in this town have failed to do,” says

the bad boy to the grocery man, as he cut off a piece of cheese and took

a handful of crackers out of a box.

“Well for Heaven's sake, what have you been doing now, you little

reprobate,” asked the grocery man, as he went to the desk and charged

the boy's father with a pound and four ounces of cheese and two pounds

of crackers. “If you was my boy and played any of your tricks on me I

would maul the everlasting life out of you. Your father is a cussed fool

that he dont send you to the reform school. The hired girl was over this

morning and says your father is sick, and I should think he would be.

What you done? Poisoned him I suppose.”

“No, I didn't poison him; I just scared the liver out of him that's

all.”

“How was it,” asked the groceryman, as he charged up a pound of prunes

to the boy's father.

“Well, I'll tell you, but if you ever tell Pa I wont trade here any

more. You see, Pa belongs to all the secret societies, and when there is

a grand lodge or anything here, he drinks awfully. There was something

last week, some sort of a leather apron affair, or a sash over the

shoulder, and every night he was out till the next day, and his breath

smelled all the time like in front of a vinegar store, where they keep

yeast. Ever since Ma took her hay fever with her up to Lake Superior, Pa

has been a terror, and I thought something ought to be done. Since that

variegated dog trick was played on him he has been pretty sober till Ma

went away, and I happened to think of a dog a boy in the Third Ward has

got, that will do tricks. He will jump up and take a man's hat off, and

bring a handkerchief, and all that. So I got the boy to come up on our

street, and Monday night, about dark, I got in the house and told

the boy when Pa came along to make the dog take his hat, and to pin a

handkerchief to Pa's coat tail and make the dog take that, and then for

him and the dog to lite out for home. Well, you'd a dide. Pa came up

the street as dignified and important as though he had gone through

bankruptcy, and tried to walk straight, and just as he got near the

door the boy pointed to Pa's hat and said, “Fetch it!” The dog is a big

Newfoundland, but he is a jumper, and don't you forget it. Pa is short

and thick, and when the dog struck him on the shoulder and took his hat

Pa almost fell over, and then he said get out, and he kicked and backed

up toward the step, and then turned around and the boy pointed to the

handkerchief and said, “fetch it,” and the dog gave one bark and went

for it, and got hold of it and a part of Pa's duster, and Pa tried to

climb up the steps on his hands and feet, and the dog pulled the other

way, and it is an old last year's duster anyway, and the whole back

breadth come out, and when I opened the door there Pa stood with the

front of his coat and the sleeves on, but the back was gone, and I

took hold of his arm, and he said, “Get out,” and was going to kick me,

thinking I was a dog, and I told him I was his own little boy, and asked

him if anything was the matter, and he said, “M (hic) atter enough. New

F (hic) lanp dog chawing me last hour'n a half. Why didn't you come

and k (hic) ill'em?” I told Pa there was no dog at all, and he must be

careful of his health or I wouldn't have no Pa at all. He looked at

me and asked me, as he felt for the place where the back of his linen

duster was, what had become of his coat-tail and hat if there was no

dog, and I told him he had probably caught his coat on that barbed wire

fence down street, and he said he saw the dog and a boy just as plain as

could be, and for me to help him up stairs and go for the doctor. I got

him to the bed, and he said, “this is a hellish climate my boy,” and I

went for the doctor. Pa said he wanted to be cauterised, so he wouldn't

go mad. I told the doc. the Joke, and he said he would keep it up,

and he gave Pa some powders, and told him if he drank any more before

Christmas he was a dead man. Pa says it has learned him a lesson and

they can never get any more pizen down him, but don't you give me away,

will you, cause he would go and complain to the police about the dog,

and they would shoot it. Ma will be back as soon as she gets through

sneezing, and I will tell her, and _she_ will give me a cho-meo, cause

she dont like to have Pa drink only between meals. Well, good day.

There's a Italian got a bear that performs in the street, and I am

going to find where he is showing, and feed the bear a cayenne pepper

lozenger, and see him clean out the Pollack settlement. Good bye.”

And the boy went to look for the bear.

CHAPTER X.

HIS PA HAS GOT RELIGION--THE BAD BOY GOES TO SUNDAY SCHOOL--

PROMISES REFORMATION--THE OLD MAN ON TRIAL FOR SIX MONTHS--

WHAT MA THINKS--ANTS IN PA'S LIVER-PAD--THE OLD MAN IN

CHURCH--RELIGION IS ONE THING--ANTS ANOTHER.

“Well, that beats the devil,” said the grocery man, as he stood in front

of his grocery and saw the bad boy coming along, on the way home from

Sunday school, with a clean shirt on, and a testament and some dime

novels under his arm. “What has got into you, and what has come over

your Pa. I see he has braced up, and looks pale and solemn. You haven't

converted him have you?”

“No, Pa has not got religion enough to hurt yet, but he has got the

symptoms. He has joined the church on prowbation, and is trying to be

good so he can get in the church for keeps. He said it was hell living

the way he did, and he has got me to promise to go to Sunday school. He

said if I didn't he would maul me so my skin wouldn't hold water. You

see, Ma said Pa had got to be on trial for six months before he could

get in the church, and if he could get along without swearing and doing

anything bad, he was all right, and we must try him and see if we could

cause him to swear. She said she thought a person, when they was on a

prowbation, ought to be a martyr, and try and overcome all temptations

to do evil, and if Pa could go through six months of our home life, and

not cuss the hinges off the door, he was sure of a glorious immortality

beyond the grave. She said it wouldn't be wrong for me to continue

to play innocent jokes on Pa, and if he took it all right he was a

Christian but if he got a hot box, and flew around mad, he was better

out of church than in it. There he comes now,” said the boy as he got

behind a sign, “and he is pretty hot for a Christian. He is looking for

me. You had ought to have seen him in church this morning. You see, I

commenced the exercises at home after breakfast by putting a piece of

ice in each of Pa's boots, and when he pulled on the boots he yelled

that his feet were all on fire, and we told him that it was nothing but

symptoms of gout, so he left the ice in his boots to melt, and he said

all the morning that he felt as though he had sweat his boots full.

But that was not the worst. You know, Pa he wears a liver-pad. Well, on

Saturday my chum and me was out on the lake shore and we found a nest

of ants, these little red ants, and I got a pop bottle half full of the

ants and took them home. I didn't know what I would do with the ants,

but ants are always handy to have in the house. This morning, when Pa

was dressing for church, I saw his liver-pad on a chair, and noticed a

hole in it, and I thought what a good place it would be for the ants. I

don't know what possessed me, but I took the liver-pad into my room, and

opened the bottle, and put the hole over the mouth of the bottle and

I guess the ants thought there was something to eat in the liver-pad,

cause they all went into it, and they crawled around in the bran and

condition powders inside of it, and I took it back to Pa, and he put

it on under his shirt, and dressed himself, and we went to church. Pa

squirmed a little when the minister was praying, and I guess some of the

ants had come out to view the landscape o'er. When we got up to sing

the hymn Pa kept kicking, as though he was nervous, and he felt down his

neck and looked sort of wild, this way he did when he had the jim-jams.

When we sat down Pa couldn't keep still, and I like to dide when I saw

some of the ants come out of his shirt bosom and go racing around his

white vest. Pa tried to look pious, and resigned, but he couldn't

keep his legs still, and he sweat mor'n a pail full. When the minister

preached about “the worm that never dieth,” Pa reached into his vest and

scratched his ribs, and he looked as though he would give ten dollars if

the minister would get through. Ma she looked at Pa as though she would

bite his head off, but Pa he just squirmed, and acted as though his soul

was on fire. Say, does ants bite, or just crawl around? Well, when the

minister said amen, and prayed the second round, and then said a brother

who was a missionary to the heathen would like to make a few remarks

about the work of the missionaries in Bengal, and take up a collection,

Pa told Ma they would have to excuse _him_, and he lit out for home,

slapping himself on the legs and on the arms and on the back, and he

acted crazy. Ma and me went home, after the heathen got through,

and found Pa in his bed room, with part of his clothes off, and the

liver-pad was on the floor, and Pa was stamping on it with his boots,

and talking offul.

“What is the matter,” says Ma.. “Don't your religion agree with you?”

“Religion be dashed,” says Pa, as he kicked the liver pad. “I would

give ten dollars to know how a pint of red ants got into my liver pad.

Religon is one thing, and a million ants walking all over a man, playing

tag, is another. I didn't know the liver pad was loaded. How in Gehenna

did they get in there?” and Pa scowled at Ma as though he would kill

her.

“'Don't swear dear,” says Ma, as she threw down her hymn book, and took

off her bonnet. “You should be patient. Remember Job was patient, and he

was afflicted with sore boils.”

“I don't care,” says Pa, as he chased the ants out of his drawers,

“Job never had ants in his liver pad. If he had he would have swore the

shingles off a barn. Here you,” says Pa, speaking to me, “you head off

them ants running under the bureau. If the truth was known I believe

you would be responsible for this outrage.” And Pa looked at me kind of

hard.

“O, Pa,” says I, with tears in my eyes, “Do you think your little Sunday

school boy would catch ants in a pop bottle on the lake shore, and bring

them home, and put them in the hole of your liver pad, just before you

put it on to go to church? You are to (sp.) bad.” And I shed some tears.

I can shed tears now any time I want to, but it didn't do any good this

time. Pa knew it was me, and while he was looking for the shawl strap I

went to Sunday school, and now I guess he is after me, and I will go and

take a walk down to Bay View.

The boy moved off as his Pa turned a corner, and the grocery man said,

“Well, that boy beats all I ever saw. If he was mine I would give him

away.”

CHAPTER XI.

HIS PA TAKES A TRICK--JAMAICA RUM AND CARDS--THE BAD BOY

POSSESSED OF A DEVIL--THE KIND DEACON--AT PRAYER MEETING--

THE OLD MAN TELLS HIS EXPERIENCE--THE FLYING CARDS--THE

PRAYER MEETING SUDDENLY CLOSED.

“What is it I hear about your Pa being turned out of prayer meeting

Wednesday night,” asked the grocer of the bad boy, as he came over after

some cantelopes for breakfast, and plugged a couple to see if they were

ripe.

“He wasn't turned out of prayer meeting at all. The people all went away

and Pa and me was the last ones out of the church. But Pa was mad, and

don't you forget it.”

“Well, what seemed to be the trouble? Has your Pa become a backslider?”

“O, no, his flag is still there. But something seems to go wrong. You

see, when we got ready to go to prayer meeting last night. Pa told me to

go up stairs and get him a hankerchief, and to drop a little perfumery

on it, and put it in the tail pocket of his black coat. I did it, but I

guess I got hold of the wrong bottle of fumery. There was a label on the

fumery bottle that said 'Jamaica Rum,' and I thought it was the same as

Bay Rum, and I put on a whole lot. Just afore I put the hankerchief in

Pa's pocket, I noticed a pack of cards on the stand, that Pa used to

play hi lo-jack with Ma evenings when he was so sick he couldn't go down

town, before he got 'ligion, and I wrapped the hankercher around the

pack of cards and put them in his pocket. I don't know what made me do

it, and Pa don't, either, I guess, 'cause he told Ma this morning I was

possessed of a devil. I never owned no devil, but I had a pair of pet

goats onct, and they played hell all around, Pa said. That's what the

devil does, ain't it? Well, I must go home with these melons, or they

won't keep.”

“But hold on,” says the grocery man as he gave the boy a few rasins with

worms in, that he couldn't sell, to keep him, “what about the prayer

meeting?”

“O, I like to forgot. Well Pa and me went to prayer meeting, and Ma came

along afterwards with a deakin that is mashed on her, I guess, 'cause he

says she is to be pitted for havin' to go through life yoked to such an

old prize ox as Pa. I heard him tell Ma that, when he was helping her

put on her rubber waterprivilege to go home in the rain the night of the

sociable, and she looked at him just as she does at me when she wants me

to go down to the hair foundry after her switch, and said, “O, you dear

brother,” and all the way home he kept her waterprivilege on by putting

his arm on the small of her back. Ma asked Pa if he didn't think the

deakin was real kind, and Pa said, “yez, dam kind,” but that was afore

he got 'ligion. We sat in a pew, at the prayer meeting, next to Ma and

the deakin, and there was lots of pious folks all round there. After the

preacher had gone to bat, and an old lady had her innings, a praying,

and the singers had got out on first base, Pa was on deck, and the

preacher said they would like to hear from the recent convert, who was

trying to walk in the straight and narrow way, but who found it so hard,

owing to the many crosses he had to bear. Pa knowed it was him that had

to go to bat, and he got up and said he felt it was good to be there. He

said he didn't feel that he was a full sized Christian yet, but he

was getting in his work the best he could. He said at times everything

looked dark to him, and he feared he should falter by the wayside,

but by a firm resolve he kept his eye sot on the future, and if he was

tempted to do wrong he said get thee behind me, Satan, and stuck in

his toe-nails for a pull for the right. He said he was thankful to the

brothers and sisters, particularly the sisters, for all they had done to

make his burden light, and hoped to meet them all in--When Pa got as

far as that he sort of broke down, I spose he was going to say heaven,

though after a few minutes they all thought he wanted to meet them in a

saloon. When his eyes began to leak, Pa put his hand in his tail pocket

for his handkercher, and got hold of it, and gave it a jerk, and out

came the handkercher, and the cards. Well, if he had shuffled them, and

Ma had cut them, and he had dealt six hands, they couldn't have been

dealt any better. They flew into everybody's lap. The deakin that was

with Ma got the jack of spades and three aces and a deuce, and Ma got

some nine spots and a king of hearts, and Ma nearly fainted, cause she

didn't get a better hand, I spose. The preacher got a pair of deuces,

and a queen of hearts, and he looked up at Pa as though it was a

misdeal, and a old woman who sat across the aisle, she only got two

cards, but that was enough. Pa didn't see what he done at first, cause

he had the handkerchief over his eyes, but when he smelled the rum

on it, he took it away, and then he saw everybody discarding, and he

thought he had struck a poker game, and he looked around as though he

was mad cause they didn't deal him a hand. The minister adjourned the

prayer meeting and whispered to Pa, and everybody went out holding their

noses on account of Pa's fumery, and when Pa came home he asked Ma what

he should do to be saved. Ma said she didn't know. The deakin told her

Pa seemed wedded to his idols. Pa said the deakin better run his own

idols, and Pa would run his. I don't know how it is going to turn out,

but Pa says he is going to stick to the church.”

CHAPTER XII.

HIS PA GETS PULLED. THE OLD MAN STUDIES THE BIBLE--DANIEL IN

THE LION'S DEN--THE MULE AND THE MULE'S FATHER--MURDER IN

THE THIRD WARD--THE OLD MAN ARRESTED--THE OLD MAN FANS THE

DUST OUT OF HIS SON'S PANTS.

“What was you and your Ma down to the police station for so late last

night?” asked the grocery man of the bad boy, as he kicked a dog away

from a basket of peaches standing on the sidewalk “Your Ma seemed to be

much affected.”

“That's a family secret. But if you will give me some of those rotton

peaches I will tell you, if you won't ever ask Pa how he came to be

pulled by the police.”

The grocery man told him to help himself out of the basket that the dog

had been smelling of, and he filled his pockets, and the bosom of his

flannel shirt, and his hat, and said:

“Well, you know Pa is studying up on the Bible, and he is trying to get

me interested, and he wants me to ask him questions, but if I ask him

any questions that he can't answer, he gets mad. When I asked him about

Daniel in the den of lions, and if he didn't think Dan was traveling

with a show, and had the lions chloroformed, he said I was a scoffer,

and would go to Gehenna. Now I don't want to go to Gehenna just for

wanting to get posted in the show business of old times, do you? When

Pa said Dan was saved from the jaws of the lions because he prayed three

times every day, and had faith, I told him that was just what the duffer

that goes into the lions den in Coup's circus did because I saw him in

the dressing room, when me and my chum got in for carrying water for the

elephant, and he was exhorting with a girl in tights who was going to

ride two horses. Pa said I was mistaken, cause they never prayed in

circus, 'cept the lemonade butchers. I guess I know when I hear a man

pray. Coup's Daniel talked just like a deacon at class meeting, and told

the girl to go to the place where the minister says we will all go if we

don't do different. Pa says it is wicked to speak of Daniel in the same

breath that you speak of a circus, so I am wicked I 'spose. Well, I

couldn't help it and when he wanted me to ask him questions about Elijah

going up in a chariot of fire, I asked him if he believed a chariot like

the ones in the circus, with eight horses, could carry a man right up to

the clouds, and Pa said of course it could. Then I asked him what they

did with the horses after they got up there, or if the chariot kept

running back and forth like a bust to a pic-nic, and whether they

had stalls for the horses and harness-makers to repair harnesses,

and wagon-makers, cause a chariot is liable to run off a wheel, if it

strikes a cloud in turning a corner. Pa said I made him tired. He said

I had no more conception of the beauties of scripture than a mule, and

then I told Pa he couldn't expect a mule to know much unless the mule's

father had brought him up right, and where a mule's father had been a

regular old bummer till he got jim-jams, and only got religon to keep

out of the inebriate asylum, that the little mule was entitled to more

charity for his short comings than the mule's Papa. That seemed to make

Pa mad, and he said the scripture lesson would be continued some other

time, and I might go out and play, and if I wasn't in before nine

o'clock he would come after me and warm my jacket. Well, I was out

playing, and me and my chum heard of the murder in the Third Ward,

and went down there to see the dead and wounded, and it was after ten

o'clock, and Pa was searching for me, and I saw Pa go into an alley,

in his shirt sleves and no hat on, and the police were looking for the

murderer, and I told the policeman that there was a suspicious looking

man in the alley, and the policeman went in there and jumped on his

back, and held him down, and the patrol wagon came, and they loaded Pa

in, and he gnashed his teeth, and said they would pay dearly for this,

and they held his hands and told him not to talk, as he would commit

himself, and they tore off his suspender buttons, and I went home and

told Ma the police had pulled Pa for being in a suspicious place, and

she said she had always been afraid he would come to some bad end, and

we went down to the station and the police let Pa go on promise that he

wouldn't do so again, and we went home and Pa fanned the dust out of

my pants. But he did it in a pious manner, and I can't complain. He was

trying to explain to Ma how it was that he was pulled, when I came away,

and I guess he will make out to square himself. Say, don't these peaches

seem to have a darn queer taste. Well, good bye. I am going down to the

morgue to have some fun.”

CHAPTER XIII.

HIS PA GOES TO THE EXPOSITION. THE BAD BOY ACTS AS GUIDE--

THE CIRCUS STORY--THE OLD MAN WANTS TO SIT DOWN--TRIES TO

EAT PANCAKES--DRINKS SOME MINERAL WATER--THE OLD MAN FALLS

IN LOVE WITH A WAX WOMAN--A POLICEMAN INTERFERES--THE LIGHTS

GO OUT--THE GROCERY-MAN DON'T WANT A CLERK.

“Well, everything seems to be quiet over to your house this week,” says

the groceryman to the bad boy, as the youth was putting his thumb into

some peaches through the mosquito netting over the baskets, to see if

they were soft enough to steal, “I suppose you have let up on the old

man, haven't you?”

“O, no. We keep it right up. The minister of the church that Pa has

joined says while Pa is on probation it is perfectly proper for us to do

everything to try him, and make him fall from grace. The minister says

if Pa comes out of his six months probation without falling by the

wayside he has got the elements to make the boss christian, and Ma and

me are doing all we can.”

“What was the doctor at your house for this morning?” asked the

groceryman, “Is your Ma sick?”

“No, Ma is worth two in the bush. It's Pa that ain't well. He is having

some trouble with his digestion. You see he went to the exposition

with me as guide, and that is enough to ruin any man's digestion. Pa is

near-sighted, and he said he wanted me to go along and show him things.

Well, I never had so much fun since Pa fell out of the boat. First

we went in by the fountain, and Pa never had been in the exposition

building before. Last year he was in Yourip, and he was astonished at

the magnitude of everything. First I made him jump clear across the

aisle there, where the stuffed tigers are, by the fur place. I told him

the keeper was just coming along with some meat to feed the animals,

and when they smelled the meat they just clawed things. He run against a

show-case, and then wanted to go away.

“He said he traveled with a circus when he was young, and nobody knew the

dangers of fooling around wild animals better than he did. He said once

he fought with seven tigers and two Nubian lions for five hours, with

Mabee's old show. I asked him if that was afore he got religin, and he

said never you mind. He is an old liar, even if he is converted. Ma says

he never was with a circus, and she has known him ever since he wore

short dresses. Wall, you would a dide to see Pa there by the furniture

place, where they have got beautiful beds and chairs. There was one blue

chair under a glass case, all velvet, and a sign was over it, telling

people to keep their hands off. Pa asked me what the sign was, and I

told him it said ladies and gentlemen are requested to sit in the chairs

and try them. Pa climbed over the railing and was just going to sit

down on the glass show case over the chair, when one of the walk-around

fellows, with imitation police hats, took him by the collar and yanked

him back over the railing, and was going to kick Pa's pants. Pa was mad

to have his coat collar pulled up over his head, and have the set of his

coat spoiled, and he was going to sass the man, when I told Pa the man

was a lunatic from the asylum, that was on exhibition, and Pa wanted to

go away from there. He said he didn't know what they wanted to exhibit

lunatics for. We went up stairs to the pancake bazar, where they broil

pancakes out of self rising flour, and put butter and sugar on them and

give them away. Pa said he could eat more pancakes than any man out of

jail, and wanted me to get him some. I took a couple of pancakes

and tore out a piece of the lining of my coat and put it between the

pancakes and handed them to Pa, with a paper around the pancakes. Pa

didn't notice the paper nor the cloth, and it would have made you laff

to see him chew on them. I told him I guessed he didn't have as good

teeth as he used to, and he said never you mind the teeth, and he kept

on until he swallowed the whole business, and he said he guessed he

didn't want any more. He is so sensitive about his teeth that he would

eat a leather apron if anybody told him he couldn't. When the doctor

said Pa's digestion was bad, I told him if he could let Pa swallow a

seamstress or a sewing machine, to sew up the cloth, he would get well,

and the Doc. says I am going to be the death of Pa some day. But I

thought I should split when Pa wanted a drink of water. I asked him if

he would druther have mineral water, and he said he guessed it would

take the strongest kind of mineral water to wash down them pancakes, so

I took him to where the fire extinguishers are, and got him to take

the nozzle of the extinguisher in his mouth, and I turned the faucet. I

don't think he got more than a quart of the stuff out of the saleratus

machine down him, but he rared right up and said he be condamed if

believed that water was ever intended to drink, and he felt as though he

should bust, and just then the man who kicks the big organ struck up and

the building shook, and I guess Pa thought he _had_ busted. The most fun

was when we came along to where the wax woman is. They have got a wax

woman dressed up to kill, and she looks just as natural as if she could

breathe. She had a handkerchief in her hand, and as we came along I told

Pa there was a lady that seemed to know him. Pa is on the mash himself,

and he looked at her and smiled and said good evening, and asked me who

she was.

“I told him it looked to me like the girl that sings in the choir at our

church, and Pa said corse it is, and he went right in where she was and

said “pretty good show, isn't it,” and put out his hand to shake hands

with her, but the woman who tends the stand came along and thought Pa

was drunk and said “old gentleman I guess you had better get out of

here. This is for ladies only.”

“Pa said he didn't care nothing about her lady's only, all he wanted was

to converse with an acquaintance, and then one of the policemen came

along and told Pa he had better go down to the saloon where he belonged.

Pa excused himself to the wax woman, and said he would see her later,

and told the policeman if he would come out on the sidewalk he would

knock leven kinds of stuffin out of him. The policeman told him that

would be all right, and I led Pa away. He was offul mad. But it was the

best fun when the lights went out. You see the electric light machine

slipped a cog, or lost its cud, and all of a sudden the lights went out

and it was as dark as a squaw's pocket. Pa wanted to know what made it

so dark, and I told him it was not dark. He said boy don't you fool

me. You see I thought it would be fun to make Pa believe he was struck

blind, so I told him his eyes must be wrong. He said do you mean to

say you can see, and I told him everything was as plain as day, and

I pointed out the different things, and explained them, and walked Pa

along, and acted just as though I could see, and Pa said it had come

at last. He had felt for years as though he would some day lose

his eyesight and now it had come and he said he laid it all to that

condamned mineral water. After a little they lit some of the gas

burners, and Pa said he could see a little, and wanted to go home, and

I took him home. When we got out of the building he began to see things,

and said his eyes were coming around all right. Pa is the easiest man to

fool ever I saw.”

“Well, I should think he would kill you,” said the grocery man. “Don't

he ever catch on, and find out you have deceived him?”

“O, sometimes. But about nine times in ten I can get away with him. Say,

don't you want to hire me for a clerk?”

The grocery man said that he had rather have a spotted hyena, and the

boy stole a melon and went away.

CHAPTER XIV.

HIS PA CATCHES OK--TWO DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE BATH ROOM--

RELIGION CAKES THE OLD MAN'S BREAST--THE BAD BOY'S CHUM--

DRESSED UP AS A GIRL--THE OLD MAN DELUDED--THE COUPLE START

FOR THE COURT HOUSE PARK--HIS MA APPEARS ON THE SCENE--“IF

YOU LOVE ME KISS ME”--MA TO THE RESCUE--“I AM DEAD AM I?”

HIS PA THROWS A CHAIR THROUGH THE TRANSOM.

“Where have you been for a week back,” asked the grocery man of the

bad boy, as the boy pulled the tail board out of the delivery wagon

accidentally and let a couple of bushels of potatoes roll out into the

gutter. “I haven't seen you around here, and you look pale. You haven't

been sick, have you?”

“No, I have not been sick. Pa locked me up in the bath-room for two days

and two nights, and didn't give me nothing to eat but bread and water.

Since he has got religious he seems to be harder than ever on me. Say,

do you think religion softens a man's heart, or does it give him a caked

breast? I 'spect Pa will burn me at the stake next.”

The grocery man said that when a man had truly been converted his heart

was softened, and he was always looking for a chance to do good and be

kind to the poor, but if he only had this galvanized religion, this roll

plate piety, or whitewashed reformation, he was liable to be a harder

citizen than before. “What made your Pa lock you up in the bath-room on

bread and water?” he asked.

“Well,” says the boy, as he eat a couple of salt pickles out of a jar on

the sidewalk, “Pa is not converted enough to hurt him, and I knowed it,

and I thought it would be a good joke to try him and see if he was so

confounded good, so I got my chum to dress up in a suit of his sister's

summer clothes. Well, you wouldn't believe my chum would look so much

like a girl. He would fool the oldest inhabitant. You know how fat he

is. He had to sell his bicycle to a slim fellow that clerks in a store,

cause he didn't want it any more. His neck is just as fat and there are

dimples in it, and with a dress low in the neck, and long at the trail

he looks as tall as my Ma. He busted one of his sister's slippers

getting them on, and her stockings were a good deal too big for him, but

he tucked his drawers down in them and tied a suspender around his leg

above the knee, and they stayed on all right. Well, he looked killin', I

should prevaricate, with his sister's muslin dress on, starched as

stiff as a shirt, and her reception hat with a white feather as big as a

Newfoundland dog's tail. Pa said he had got to go down town to see some

of the old soldiers of his regiment, and I loafed along behind. My chum

met Pa on the corner and asked him where the Lake Shore Park was. “She”

said she was a stranger from Chicago, that her husband had deserted her

and she didn't know but she would jump into the lake. Pa looked in my

chum's eye and sized her up, and said it would be a shame to commit

suicide, and asked if she didn't want to take a walk, My chum said he

should titter, and he took Pa's arm and they walked up to the lake and

back. Well, you may talk about joining the church on probation all you

please, but they get their arm around a girl all the same. Pa hugged my

chum till he says he thought Pa would break his sister's corset all to

pieces, and he squeezed my chum's hand till the ring cut right into his

finger and he has to wear a piece of court plaster on it. They started

for the Court House park, as I told my chum to do, and I went and got

Ma. It was about time for the soldiers to go to the exposition for the

evening bizness, and I told Ma we could go down and see them go by. Ma

just throwed a shawl over her head and we started down through the park.

When we got near Pa and my chum I told Ma it was a shame for so many

people to be sitting around lally-gagging right before folks, and she

said it was disgustin', and then I pointed to my chum who had his head

on Pa's bosom, and Pa was patting my chum on the cheek, while he held

his other arm around his waist, They was on the iron seat, and we came

right up behind them and when Ma saw Pa's bald head I thought she would

bust. She knew his head as quick as she sot eyes on it.”

[Illustration: Ma appears on the scene p066]

“My chum asked Pa if he was married, and he said he was a widower, He

said his wife died fourteen years ago, of liver complaint. Well, Ma

shook like a leaf, and I could hear her new teeth rattle just like

chewing strawberries with sand in them. Then my chum put his arms around

Pa's neck and said, “If you love me kiss me in the mouth.” Pa was just

leaning down to kiss my chum when Ma couldn't stand it any longer, and

she went right around in front of them, and she grabbed my chum by the

hair and it all came off, hat and all; and my chum jumped up and Ma

scratched him in the face, and my chum tried to get his hands in his

pants pocket to get his handkerchief to wipe off the blood on his nose,

and Ma she turned on Pa and he turned pale, and then she was going for

my chum again when he said, “O let up on a feller,” and he see she was

mad and he grabbed the hat and hair off the gravel walk and took the

skirt of his sister's dress in his hand and sifted out for home on a

gallop, and Ma took Pa by the elbow and said, “You are a nice old party,

ain't you? I am dead, am I? Died of liver complaint fourteen years ago,

did I? You will find an animated corpse on your hands. Around kissing

spry wimmen out in the night, sir.” When they started home Pa seemed to

be as weak as a cat, and couldn't say a word, and I asked if I could

go to the exposition, and they said I could, I don't know what happened

after they got home, but Pa was setting up for me when I got back and he

wanted to know what I brought Ma down there for, and how I knew he was

there.

“I thought it would help Pa out of the scrape and so I told him it was

not a girl he was hugging at all, but it was my chum, and he laffed at

first, and told Ma it was not a girl, but Ma said she knew a darn sight

better. She guessed she could tell a girl.

“Then Pa was mad and he said I was at the bottom of the whole bizness,

and he locked me up, and said I was enough to paralyze a saint. I told

him through the key-hole that a saint that had any sense ought to tell a

boy from a girl, and then he throwed a chair at me through the transom.

The worst of the whole thing is my chum is mad at me cause Ma scratched

him, and he says that lets him out. He don't go into any more schemes

with me. Well, I must be going. Pa is going to have my measure taken

for a raw hide, he says, and I have got to stay at home from the sparing

match and learn my Sunday school lesson.”

CHAPTER XV.

HIS PA AT THE REUNION. THE OLD MAN IN MILITARY SPLENDOR--

TELLS HOW HE MOWED DOWN THE REBELS--“I AND GRANT”--WHAT IS A

SUTLER?--TEN DOLLARS FOR PICKELS!--“LET US HANG HIM!”--THE

OLD MAN ON THE RUN--HE STANDS UP TO SUPPER--THE BAD BOY IS

TO DIE AT SUNSET.

“I saw your Pa wearing a red, white, and blue badge, and a round red

badge, and several other badges, last week, during the reunion,” said

the grocery man to the bad boy, as the youth asked for a piece of

codfish skin to settle coffee with. “He looked like a hero, with his old

black hat, with a gold cord around it.”

“Yes, he wore all the badges he could get, the first day, but after he

blundered into a place where there were a lot of fellows from his own

regiment, he took off the badges, and he wasn't very numerous around

the boys the rest of the week. But he was lightning on the sham battle,”

says the boy.

“What was the matter? Didn't the old soldiers treat him well? Didn't

they seem to yearn for his society?” asked the grocery man, as the boy

was making a lunch on some sweet crackers in a tin cannister.

“Well, they were not very much mashed on Pa. You see, Pa never gets

tired telling us about how he fit in the army. For several years I

didn't know what a sutler was, and when Pa would tell about taking a

musket that a dead soldier had dropped, and going into the thickest of

the light, and fairly mowing down the rebels in swaths the way they cut

hay, I thought he was the greatest man that ever was. Until I was eleven

years old I thought Pa had killed men enough to fill the Forest Home

cemetery. I thought a sutler was something higher than a general, and

Pa used to talk about “I and Grant,” and what Sheridan told him, and how

Sherman marched with him to the sea, and all that kind of rot, until

I wondered why they didn't have pictures of Pa on a white horse, with

epaulets on, and a sword. One day at school I told a boy that my Pa

killed more men than Grant, and the boy said he didn't doubt it, but he

killed them with commissary whiskey. The boy said his Pa was in the same

regiment that my Pa was sutler of, and his Pa said my Pa charged him

five dollars for a canteen of peppersauce and alcohol and called it

whiskey. Then I began to enquire into it, and found out that a sutler

was a sort of liquid peanut stand, and that his rank in the army was

about the same as a chestnut roaster on the sidewalk here at home. It

made me sick, and I never had the same respect for Pa after that. But

Pa, don't care. He thinks he is a hero, and tried to get a pension on

account of losing a piece of his thumb, but when the officers found he

was wounded by the explosion of a can of baked beans, they couldn't give

it to him. Pa was down town when the veterans were here, and I was with

him, and I saw a lot of old soldiers looking at Pa, and I told him they

acted as though they knew him, and he put on his glasses, and said to

one of them, “How are you Bill?” The soldier looked at Pa and called

the other soldiers, and one said, That's the old duffer that sold me the

bottle of brandy peaches at Chickamauga, for three dollars, and they eat

a hole through my stummick. Another said, 'He's the cuss that took ten

dollars out of my pay for pickles that were put up in _aqua fortis_.

Look at the corps badges he has on.' Another said, 'The old whelp!

He charged me fifty cents a pound for onions when I had the scurvy at

Atlanta.' Another said, 'He beat me out of my wages playing draw poker

with a cold deck, and the aces up his sleeve. Let us hang him.' By this

time Pa's nerves got unstrung and began to hurt him, and he said he

wanted to go home, and when we got around the corner he tore off his

badges and threw them in the sewer, and said it was all a man's life was

worth to be a veteran now days. He didn't go down town again till next

day, and when he heard a band playing he would go around a block. But

at the sham battle where there were no veterans hardly, he was all right

with the militia boys, and told them how he did when he was in the army.

I thought it would be fun to see Pa run, and so when one of the cavalry

fellows lost his cap in the charge, and was looking for it, I told the

dragoon that the pussy old man over by the fence had stolen his cap.

That was Pa. Then I told Pa that the soldier on the horse said he was a

rebel, and he was going to kill him. The soldier started after Pa with

his sabre drawn, and Pa started to run, and it was funny you bet.”

[Illustration: Pa on the run p071]

“The soldier galloped his horse, and yelled, and Pa put in his best

licks, and run up the track to where there was a board off the fence,

and tried to get through, but he got stuck, and the soldier put the

point of his sabre on Pa's pants and pushed, and Pa got through the

fence and I guess he ran all the way home. At supper time Pa would not

come to the table, but stood up and ate off the side board, and Ma said

Pa's shirt was all bloody, and Pa said mor'n fifty of them cavalry men

charged on him, and he held them at bay as long as he could, and then

retired in good order. This morning a boy told him that I set the

cavalry man onto him, and he made me wear two mouse traps on my ears all

the forenoon, and he says he will kill me at sunset. I ain't going to be

there at sunset, and don't you remember about it. Well, good bye. I

have got to go down to the morgue and see them bring in the man that

was found on the lake shore, and see if the morgue keeper is drunk this

time.”

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BAD BOY IN LOVE--ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?--NO GETTING TO

HEAVEN ON SMALL POTATOES!--THE BAD BOY HAS TO CHEW COBS--MA

SAYS IT'S GOOD FOR A BOY TO BE IN LOVE--LOVE WEAKENS THE BAD

BOY--HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO GET MARRIED?--MAD DOG!--NEVER

EAT ICE CREAM.

“Are you a christian?” asked the bad boy of the grocery man, as that

gentleman was placing vegetables out in front of the grocery one

morning.

“Well, I hope so,” answered the grocery man, “I try to do what is

right, and hope to wear the golden crown when the time comes to close my

books.”

“Then how is it that you put out a box of great big sweet potatoes, and

when we order some, and they come to the table, they are little bits of

things, not bigger than a radish? Do you expect to get to heaven on such

small potatoes, when you use big ones for a sign?” asked the boy, as he

took out a silk handkerchief and brushed a speck of dust off his nicely

blacked shoes.

The grocery man blushed and said he did not mean to take any such

advantage of his customers.

He said it must have been a mistake of the boy that delivers groceries.

“Then you must hire the boy to make mistakes, for it has been so every

time we have had sweet potatoes for five years,” said the boy. “And

about green corn. You have a few ears stripped down to show how nice and

plump it is, and if we order a dozen ears there are only two that have

got any corn on at all, and Pa and Ma gets them, and the rest of us

have to chew cobs. Do you hope to wear a crown of glory on that kind of

corn?”

“O, such things will happen,” said the grocery man with a laugh, “But

don't let's talk about heaven. Let's talk about the other place. How's

things over to your house? And say, what's the matter with you. You are

all dressed up, and have got a clean shirt on, and your shoes blacked,

and I notice your pants are not raveled out so at the bottoms of the

legs behind. You are not in love are you?”

“Well, I should smile,” said the boy, as he looked in a small mirror on

the counter, covered with fly specks. “A girl got mashed on me, and Ma

says it is good for a boy who hasn't got no sister, to be in love with

a girl, and so I kind of tumbled to myself and she don't go no where

without I go with her. I take her to dancing school, and everywhere,

and she loves me like a house afire. Say, was you ever in love? Makes a

fellow feel queer, don't it? Well sir, the first time I went home with

her I put my arm around her, and honest it scared me. It was just like

when you take hold of the handles of a lectric battery, and you can't

let go till the man turns the knob. Honest, I was just as weak as a cat.

I thought she had needles in her belt and was going to take my arm away,

but it was just like it was glued on. I asked her if she felt that way

too, and she said she used to, but it was nothing when you got used to

it. That made me mad. But she is older than me and knows more about it.

When I was going to leave her at the gate, she kissed me, and that was

worse than putting my arm around her. By gosh, I trembled all over just

like I had chills, but I was as warm as toast. She wouldn't let go for

much as a minute, and I was tired as though I had been carrying coal up

stairs.”

[Illustration: The Bad Boy and his Girl p071]

“I didn't want to go home at all, but she said it would be the best way

for me to go home, and come again the next day, and the next morning I

went to her house before any of them were up, and her Pa came out to let

the cat in, and I asked him what time his girl got up, and he laffed and

said I had got it bad, and that I had better go home and not be picked

till I got ripe. Say, how much does it cost to get married?”

“Well, I should say you had got it bad,” said the grocery man, as he set

out a basket of beets. “Your getting in love will be a great thing for

your Pa. You won't have any time to play any more jokes on him.”

“O, I guess we can find time to keep Pa from being lonesome. Have you

seen him this morning? You ought to have seen him last night. You see,

my chum's Pa has got a setter dog stuffed. It is one that died two years

ago, and he thought a great deal of it, and he had it stuffed, for a

ornament.

“Well, my chum and me took the dog and put it on our front steps, and

took some cotton and fastened it to the dog's mouth so it looked just

like froth, and we got behind the door and waited for Pa to come home

from the theatre. When Pa started to come up the steps I growled and Pa

looked at the dog and said, “Mad dog, by crimus,” and he started down

the sidewalk, and my chum barked just like a dog, and I “Ki-yi'd” and

growled like a dog that gets licked, and you ought to see Pa run. He

went around in the alley and was going to get in the basement window,

and my chum had a revolver with some blank cartridges, and we went down

in the basement and when Pa was trying to open the window my chum began

to fire towards Pa. Pa hollered that it was only him, and not a burglar,

but after my chum fired four shots Pa run and climbed over the fence,

and then we took the dog home and I stayed with my chum all night, and

this morning Ma said Pa didn't get home till four o'clock and then a

policeman came with him, and Pa talked about mad dogs and being taken

for a burglar and nearly killed, and she said she was afraid Pa had took

to drinking again, and she asked me if I heard any firing of guns, and I

said no, and then she put a wet towel on Pa's head.”

“You ought to be ashamed,” said the grocery man “How does your Pa like

your being in love with the girl? Does he seem to encourage you in it?”

“Oh, yes, she was up to our house to borry some tea, and Pa patted her

on the cheek and hugged her and said she was a dear little daisy, and

wanted her to sit in his lap, but when I wanted him to let me have fifty

cents to buy her some ice cream he said that was all nonsense. He said:

“Look at your Ma. Eating ice cream when she was a girl was what injured

her health for life.” I asked Ma about it, and she said Pa never laid

out ten cents for ice cream or any luxury for her in all the five years

he was sparking her. She says he took her to a circus once but he

got free tickets for carrying water for the elephant. She says Pa was

tighter than the bark to a tree. I tell you its going to be different

with me. If there is anything that girl wants she is going to have it if

I have to sell Ma's copper boiler to get the money, What is the use of

having wealth if you hoard it up and don't enjoy it? This family will be

run on different principles after this, you bet. Say, how much are those

yellow wooden pocket combs in the show case? I've a good notion to buy

them for her. How would one of them round mirrors, with a zinc cover, do

for a present for a girl? There's nothing too good for her.”

CHAPTER XVII.

HIS PA FIGHTS HORNETS--THE OLD MAN LOOKS BAD--THE WOODS OF

WAUWATOSA--THE OLD MAN TAKES A NAP--“HELEN DAMNATION”--

“HELL IS OUT FOR NOON”--THE LIVER MEDICINE--ITS WONDERFUL

EFFECTS--THE BAD BOY IS DRUNK!--GIVE ME A LEMON!--A SIGHT OF

THE COMET!--THE HIRED GIRL'S RELIGION.

“Go away from here now,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came

into the store and was going to draw some cider out of a barrel into

a pint measure that had flies in it. “Get right out of this place, and

don't let me see you around here until the health officer says you Pa

has got over the small pox. I saw him this morning and his face is all

covered with postules, and they will have him in the pest house before

night. You git,” and he picked up a butter tryer and went for the boy

who took refuge behind a barrel of onions, and held up his hands as

though Jesse James had drawn a bead on him.

“O, you go and chase yourself. That is not small pox Pa has got. He had

a fight with a nest of hornets,” said the boy.

“Hornets! Well, I'll be cussed,” remarked the grocery man, as he put up

the butter tryer, and handed the boy a slice of rotten muskmelon. “How

in the world did he get into a nest of hornets? I hope you did not have

anything to do with it.”

The boy buried his face in the melon, until he looked as though a yellow

gash had been cut from his mouth to his ears, and after swallowing

the melon, he said: “Well, Pa says I was responsible, and he says that

settles it, and I can go my way and he will go his. He said he was

willing to overlook everything I had done to make his life unbearable,

but steering him onto a nest of hornets, and then getting drunk, was too

much, and I can go.”

“What, you haven't been drunk,” says the grocery man, “Great heavens,

that will kill your poor old father.”

“O, I guess it won't kill him very much. He has been getting drunk for

twenty years, and he says he is healthier to-day than he ever was, since

his liver has got to working again. You see, Monday was a regular Indian

summer day, and Pa said he would take me and my chum out in the woods

to gather hickory nuts, if we would be good. I said I would, and my

chum said he would, and we got a couple of bags and went away out to

Wauwatosa, in the woods. We clubbed the trees and got more nuts than

anybody, and had a lunch, and Pa was just enjoying his relidgin first

rate. While Pa was taking a nap under a tree, my chum and me looked

around and found a hornets' nest on the lower limb of the tree we were

sitting under, and my chum said it would be a good joke to get a pole

and run it into the hornet's nest, and then run. Honest, I didn't think

about Pa being under the tree, and I went into a field and got a hop

pole, and put the small end up into the nest, and gouged the nest a

couple of times, and when the boss hornet came out of the hole and

looked sassy, and then looked back in the hole and whistled to the other

hornets to come out and have a circus, and they began to come out, my

chum and me run and climbed over a fence, and got behind a pile of hop

poles that was stacked up.”

[Illustration: Helen Damnation p079]

“I guess the hornets saw my Pa just as quick as they got out of the nest,

cause pretty soon we heard Pa call to 'Helen Damnation,' or some woman

we didn't know, and then he took his coat, that he had been using for a

pillow, and whipped around, and he slapped hisself on the shoulders,

and then took the lunch basket and pounded around like he was crazy, and

bime-by he started on a run towards town, holding his pants up, cause

his suspenders was hanging down on his hips, and I never see a fat man

run so, and fan himself with a basket. We could hear him yell, 'come on,

boys. Hell is out for noon,' and he went over a hill, and we didn't see

him any more. We waited till near dark because we was afraid to go after

the bags of nuts till the hornets had gone to bed, and then we came

home. The bags were awful heavy, and I think it was real mean in Pa to

go off and leave us, and not help carry the bags.”

“I swan,” says the grocery man, “You are too mean to live. But what

about your getting drunk?”

“O, I was going to tell you. Pa had a bottle of liver medicine in his

coat pocket, and when he was whipping his hornets the bottle dropped

out, and I picked it up to carry it home to him. My chum wanted to smell

of the liver medicine, so he took out the cork and it smelled just like

in front of a liquor store on East Water street, and my chum said his

liver was bad, too, and he took a swaller, and he said he should think

it was enough to cut a feller's liver up in slices, but it was good, and

then I had a peculiar feeling in my liver, and my chum said his liver

felt better after he took a swaller, and and so I took a swaller, and it

was the offulest liver remedy I ever tasted. It scorched my throat

just like the diptheria, but it beats diptheria, or sore throat, all to

pieces, and my chum and me laffed, we was so tickled. Did you ever take

liver medicine? You know how it makes you feel as if your liver had got

on top of your lights, and like you wanted to jump and holler. Well,

sir, honest that liver medicine made me dance a jig on the viaduct

bridge, and an old soldier from the soldiers' home came along and asked

us what was the matter, and we told him about our livers, and the liver

medicine, and showed him the bottle, and he said he sposed he had the

worst liver in the world, and said the doctors at the home, couldn't

cure him. It's a mean boy that won't help a nold vetran cure his liver,

so I told him to try Pa's liver remedy, and he took a regular cow

swaller, and said, 'here's to your livers, boys.' He must have a liver

bigger nor a cow's, and I guess it is better now.

“Then my liver begun to feel curus again, and my chum said his liver

was getting torpid some more, and we both took another dose, and started

home and we got generous, and give our nuts all away to some boys. Say,

does liver medicine make a feller give away all he has got? We kept

taking medicine every five blocks, and we locked arms and went down a

back street and sung 'O it is a glorious thing to be a pirut king,' and

when we got home my heart felt bigger nor a washtub and I thought p'raps

my liver had gone to my head, and Pa came to the door with his face

tied up in towels, and some yellow stuff on the towels that smelted like

anarchy, and I slapped him on the shoulder and shouted, 'Hello, Gov.,

how's your liver,' and gave him the bottle, and it was empty, and

he asked me if we had been drinking that medicine and he said he was

ruined, and I told him he could get some more down to the saloon, and he

took hold of my collar and I lammed him in the ear, and he bounced me

up stairs, and then I turned pale, and had cramps, and I didn't remember

any more till I woke up and the doctor was over me, and Pa and Ma

looked scared, and the Doc. had a tin thing like you draw water out of

a country cistern, only smaller, and Ma said if it hadn't been for the

stomach pump she wouldn't have had any little boy, and I looked at the

knobs on Pa's face and I laffed and asked Pa if he got into the hornets,

too. Then the Doc. laffed, and Ma cried, and Pa swore, and I groaned,

and got sick again, and then they let me go to sleep again, and this

morning I had the offulest headache, and Pa's face looks like he had

fell on a picket fence. When I got out I went to my chum's house to see

if they had got him pumped out, and his Ma drove me out with a broom,

and she says I will ruin every boy in the neighborhood. Pa says I was

drunk and kicked him in the groin when he fired me up stairs, and I

asked him how I could be drunk just taking medicine for my liver, and

he said go to the devil, and I came over here. Say, give me a lemon to

settle my stomach.”

“But, look-a-here,” says the grocery man, as he gave the boy a little

dried up lemon, about as big as a prune, and told him he was a terror,

“what is the matter of your eye winkers and your hair? They seem to be

burned off.”

“O, thunder, didn't Pa tell you about the comet exploding and burning

us all? That was the worst thing since the flood, when Noar run the

excursion boat from Kalamazoo to Mount Ararat. You see we had been

reading about the comet, which is visible at four o'clock in the

morning, and I heard Pa tell the hired girl to wake him and Ma up when

she got up to set the pancakes and go to early mass so they could, see

the comet. The hired girl is a Cathlick, and she don't make no fuss

about it, but she has got more good, square relidgin than a dozen like

Pa. It makes a good deal of difference how relidgin affects different

people, don't it. Now Pa's relidgin makes him wild, and he wants to kick

my pants, and pull my hair, but the hired girl's relidgin makes her want

to hug me, if I am abused, and she puts anarchy on my bruises, and gives

me pie. Pa wouldn't get up at four o'clock in the morning to go to early

mass, unless he could take a fish pole along and some angel worms. The

hired girl prays when no one sees her but God, but Pa wants to get a

church full of sisterin', and pray loud, as though he was an auctioneer

selling tin razors. Say, it beats all what a difference liver medicine

has on two people, too. Now that hickory nut day, when me and my chum

got full of Pa's liver medicine, I felt so good natured I gave my

hickory nuts away to the children, and wanted to give my coat and pants

to a poor tramp, but my chum, who ain't no bigger'n me, got on his ear

and wanted to kick the socks off a little girl who was going home from

school. It's queer, ain't it. Well, about the cornet. When I heard Pa

tell the hired girl to wake him and Ma up, I told her to' wake me up

about half an hour before she waked Pa up, and then I got my chum to

stay with me, and we made a comet to play on Pa, you see my room is

right over Pa's room, and I got two lengths of stove pipe and covered

them all over with phosphorus, so they looked just as bright at as a

comet. Then we got two Roman candles and a big sky rocket, and we were

going to touch off the Roman candles and the sky rocket just as Pa and

Ma got to looking at the comet. I didn't know that a sky rocket would

kick back, did you? Well, you'd a dide to see that comet. We tied a

piece of white rubber garden hose to the stove pipe for a tail and went

to bed, and when the girl woke us up we laid for Pa and Ma. Pretty soon

we heard Pa's window open, and I looked out, and Pa and Ma had their

heads and half their bodies out of the window. They had their night

shirts on and looked just like the pictures of Millerites waiting for

the world to come to an end. Pa looked up and seed the stove pipe and he

said:

“Hanner, for God's sake, look up there. That is the damest comet I

ever see. It is as bright as day. See the tail of it. Now that is worth

getting up to see.”

“Just then my chum lit the two Roman candles and I touched off the

rocket, and that's where my eye winkers went. The rocket busted the

joints of the stove pipe, and they fell down on Pa, but Ma got her head

inside before the comet struck, and wasn't hurt, but one length of stove

pipe struck Pa endways on the neck and almost cut a biscuit out of him,

and the fire and sparks just poured down in his hair, and burned his

night shirt. Pa was scart. He thought the world was coming to an end,

and the window came down on his back, and he began to sing, “Earth's but

a desert drear, Heaven is my home.” I see he was caught in the window,

and I went down stairs to put out the fire on his night shirt, and put

up the window to let him in, and he said, “My boy, your Ma and I are

going to Heaven, but I fear you will go to the bad place,” and I told

him I would take my chances, and he better put on his pants if he was

going anywhere that there would be liable to be ladies present, and when

he got his head in Ma told him the world was not coming to an end, but

somebody had been setting off fireworks, and she said she guessed it was

their dear little boy, and when I saw Pa feeling under the bed for a bed

slat I got up stairs pretty previous now, and don't you forget it, and

Ma put cold cream on where the sparks burnt Pa's shirt, and Pa said

another day wouldn't pass over his head before he had me in the Reform

School. Well, if I go to the Reform School, somebody's got to pay

attention, you can bet your liver. A boy can't have any fun these days

without everybody thinks he is a heathen. What hurt did it do to play

comet? It's a mean father that wont stand a little scorchin' in the

interests of science.”

The boy went out, scratching the place where his eye winkers were, and

then the grocery man knew what it was that caused the fire engines to be

out around at four o'clock in the morning, looking for a fire.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HIS PA GOES HUNTING. MUTILATED JAW--THE OLD MAN HAS TAKEN TO

SWEARING AGAIN--OUT WEST DUCK SHOOTING--HIS COAT-TAIL SHOT

OFF--SHOOTS AT A WILD GOOSE--THE GUN KICKS!--THROWS A CHAIR

AT HIS SON--THE ASTONISHED SHE DEACON.

“What has your Pa got his jaw tied up for, and what makes his right eye

so black and blue,” asked the grocery man of the bad boy, as the boy

came to bring some butter back that was strong enough to work on the

street. “You haven't hurt your poor old Pa, have you?”

“O, his jaw is all right now. You ought to have seen him when the gun

was engaged in kicking him,” says the boy as he set the butter plate on

the cheese box.

“Well, tell us about it. What had the gun against your Pa? I guess

it was the son-of-a-gun that kicked him,” said the grocery man, as he

winked at a servant girl who came in with her apron over her head, after

two cents worth of yeast.

“I'll tell you, if you will keep watch down street for Pa. He says he is

dammed if he will stand this foolishness any longer.”

“What, does your father swear, while he is on probation?”

“Swear! Well, I should cackle. You ought to have heard him when he come

to, and spit out the loose teeth. You see, since Pa quit drinking he is

a little nervous, and the doctor said he ought to go out somewhere

and get bizness off his mind, and hunt ducks, and row a boat, and get

strength, and Pa said shooting ducks was just in his hand, and for me to

go and borrow a gun, and I could go along and carry game. So I got a gun

at the gun store, and some cartridges, and we went away out west on the

cars, more than fifty miles, and stayed two days. You ought to seen Pa.

He was just like a boy that was sick, and couldn't go to school. When

we got out by the lake he jumped up and cracked his heels together, and

yelled. I thought he was crazy, but he was only cunning. First I scared

him nearly to death by firing off the gun behind him, as we were going

along the bank, and blowing off a piece of his coat-tail. I knew it

wouldn't hurt him, but he turned pale and told me to lay down that gun,

and he picked it up and carried it the rest of the way, and I was offul

glad cause it was a heavy gun. His coat-tail smelled like when you burn

a rag to make the air in the room stop smelling so, all the forenoon.

You know Pa is a little near sighted but he don't believe it, so I got

some of the wooden decoy ducks that the hunters use, and put them in the

lake, and you ought to see Pa get down on his belly and crawl through

the grass, to get up close to them.

“He shot twenty times at the wooden ducks, and wanted me to go in and

fetch them out, but I told him I was no retriever dog. Then Pa was mad,

and said all he brought me along for was to carry game, and I had come

near shooting his hind leg off, and now I wouldn't carry ducks. While he

was coaxing me to go in the cold water without my pants on, I heard some

wild geese squawking, and then Pa heard them, and he was excited. He

said you lay down behind the muskrat house, and I will get a goose. I

told him he couldn't kill a goose with that fine shot, and I gave him

a large cartridge the gun store man loaded for me, with a handful of

powder in, and I told Pa it was a goose cartridge, and Pa put it in the

gun. The geese came along, about a mile high, squawking, and Pa aimed at

a dark cloud and fired. Well, I was offul scared, I thought I had killed

him.”

[Illustration: The gun just rared up p088]

“The gun just rared up and come down on his jaw, shoulder and everywhere,

and he went over a log and struck on his shoulder, the gun flew out of

his hands, and Pa he laid there on his neck, with his feet over the log,

and that was the first time he didn't scold me since he got relidgin. I

felt offul sorry, and got some dirty water in my hat and poured it down

his neck, and laid him out, and pretty soon he opened his eyes and asked

if any of the passengers got ashore alive. Then his eye swelled out so

it looked like a blue door-knob, and pa felt of his jaw, and asked

if the engineer and fireman jumped off, or if they went down with the

engine. He seemed dazed, and then he saw the gun, and he said take the

dam thing away, it is going to kick me again. Then he got his senses and

wanted to know if he killed a goose, and I told him no, but he nearly

broke one's jaw, and then he said the gun kicked him when it went off,

and he laid down and the gun kept kicking him more than twenty times,

when he was trying to sleep. He went back to the tavern where we were

stopping and wouldn't touch the gun, but made me lug it. He told the

tavern keeper that he fell over a wire fence, but I think he began to

suspect, after he spit the loose teeth out, that the gun was loaded for

bear. I suppose he will kill me some day. Don't you think he will?”

“Any coroner's jury would let him off and call it justifiable, if he

should kill you. You must be a lunatic. Has your Pa talked much about it

since you got back?” asked the grocery man.

“Not much. You see he can't talk much without breaking his jaw. But he

was able to throw a chair at me. You see I thought I would joke him a

little, cause when anybody feels bad a joke kind of livens em up, so we

were talking about Pa's liver, and Ma said he seemed to be better

since his liver had become more active, and I said, 'Pa, when you was a

rolling over with the gun chasing you, and kicking you every round, your

liver was active enough, cause it was on top half the time.' Then Pa

throwed the chair at me. He says he believes I knew that cartridge was

loaded. But you ought to seen the fun when an old she deacon of Pa's

church called to collect some money to send to the heathens.

“Ma wasn't in, so Pa went to the parlor to stand her off, and when she

see that Pa's face was tied up, and his eye was black, and his jaw

cracked, she held up both hands and said, 'O, my dear brother, you

have been drunk again. You have backslid. You will have to go back and

commence your probation all over again, and Pa said, 'Damfido,' and the

old she deacon screamed and went off without getting enough money to

buy a deck of round cornered cards for the heathen. Say, what does

'damfido,' mean? Pa has some of the queerest expressions, since he

joined the church.”

CHAPTER XIX.

HIS PA IS “NISHIATED”--ARE YOU A MASON?--NO HARM TO PLAY aT

LODGE--WHY GOATS ARE KEPT IN STABLES--THE BAD BOY GETS THE

GOAT UP STAIRS--THE GRAND BUMPER DEGREE--KYAN PEPPER ON THE

GOAT'S BEARD--“BRING FORTH THE ROYAL BUMPER “--THE GOAT ON

THE RAMPAGE.

“Say, are you a Mason, or a nodfellow, or anything?” asked the bad boy

of the grocery man, as he went to the cinnamon bag on the shelf and took

out a long stick of cinnamon bark to chew.

“Why, yes, of course I am, but what set you to thinking of that,” asked

the grocery man, as he went to the desk and charged the boy's father

with a half a pound of cinnamon.

“Well, do the goats bunt when you nishiate a fresh candidate?”

“No, of course not. The goats are cheap ones, that have no life, and

we muzzle them, and put pillows over their heads, so they can't hurt

anybody,” says the grocery man, as he winked at a brother Odd Fellow who

was seated on a sugar barrel, looking mysterious, “But why do you ask?”

“O, nothin, only I wish me and my chum had muzzled our goat with a

pillow. Pa would have enjoyed his becoming a member of our lodge better.

You see, Pa had been telling us how much good the Masons and Odd Fellers

did, and said we ought to try and grow up good so we could jine the

lodges when we got big, and I asked Pa if it would do any hurt for us

to have a play lodge in my room, and purtend to nishiate, and Pa said it

wouldn't do any hurt. He said it would improve our minds and learn us to

be men. So my chum and me borried a goat that lives in a livery stable.

Say, did you know they keep a goat in a livery stable so the horses

won't get sick? They get used to the smell of the goat, and after that

nothing can make them sick but a glue factory. I wish my girl boarded in

a livery stable, then she would get used to the smell. I went home with

her from church Sunday night, and the smell of the goat on my clothes

made her sick to her stummick, and she acted just like an excursion on

the lake, and said if I didn't go and bury myself and take the smell

out of me she wouldn't never go with me again. She was just as pale as a

ghost, and the prespiration on her lip was just zif she had been hit by

a street sprinkler. You see my chum and me had to carry the goat up to

my room when Pa and Ma was out riding, and he blatted so we had to tie

a handkerchief around his nose, and his feet made such a noise on the

floor that we put some baby's socks on his feet. Gosh, how frowy a goat

smells, don't it? I should think you Masons must have strong stummix,

Why don't you have a skunk or a mule for a trade mark. Take a mule,

and annoint it with limburg cheese and you could initiate and make a

candidate smell just as bad as with a gosh darn mildewed goat.

“Well, my chum and me practiced with that goat until he could bunt the

picture of a goat every time. We borried a buck beer sign from a saloon

man and hung it on the back of a chair, and the goat would hit it every

time. That night Pa wanted to know what we were doing up in my room, and

I told him we were playing lodge, and improving our minds, and Pa said

that was right, there was nothing that did boys of our age half so much

good as to imitate men, and store by useful nollidge. Then my chum asked

Pa if he didn't want to come up and take the grand bumper degree, and Pa

laffed and said he didn't care if he did, just to encourage us boys in

innocent pastime, that was so improving to our intellex.

“We had shut the goat up in a closet in my room, and he had got over

blatting, so we took off the handkerchief, and he was eating some of my

paper collars, and skate straps. We went up stairs, and told Pa to come

up pretty soon and give three distinct raps, and when we asked him who

comes there he must say, 'a pilgrim who wants to join your ancient order

and ride the goat.' Ma wanted to come up too, but we told her if she

come in it would break up the lodge, cause a woman couldn't keep a

secret, and we didn't have any side saddle for the goat. Say, if you

never tried it, the next time you nitiate a man in your Mason's lodge

you sprinkle a little kyan pepper on the goat's beard just afore you

turn him loose. You can get three times as much fun to the square inch

of goat. You wouldn't think it was the same goat. Well, we got all fixed

and Pa rapped, and we let him in and told him he must be blindfolded,

and he got on his knees a laffing and I tied a towel around his eyes,

and then I turned him around and made him get down on his hands also,

and then his back was right towards the closet door, and I put the buck

beer sign right against Pa's clothes. He was a laffing all the time, and

said we boys were as full of fun as they made 'em, and we told him

it was a solemn occasion, and we wouldn't permit no levity, and if he

didn't stop laffing we couldn't give him the grand bumper degree.”

[Illustration: Then everything was ready p093]

“Then everything was ready, and my chum had his hand on the closet door,

and some kyan pepper in his other hand, and I asked Pa in low bass tones

if he felt as though he wanted to turn back, or if he had nerve enough

to go ahead and take the degree. I warned him that it was full of

dangers, as the goat was loaded for bear, and told him he yet had

time to retrace his steps if he wanted to. He said he wanted the whole

bizness, and we could go ahead with the menagerie. Then I said to

Pa that if he had decided to go ahead, and not blame us for the

consequences, to repeat after me the following: 'Bring forth the Royal

Bumper and let him Bump.' Pa repeated the words, and my chum sprinkled

the kyan pepper on the goat's moustache, and he sneezed once and looked

sassy, and then he see the lager beer goat raring up, and he started for

it, just like a cow catcher, and blatted. Pa is real fat, but he knew he

got hit, and he grunted, and said, 'Hell's-fire, what you boys doin?'”

[Illustration: Hell's-fire, what you boys doin p094]

“And then the goat gave him another degree, and Pa pulled off the towel

and got up and started for the stairs, and so did the goat, and Ma

was at the bottom of the stairs listening, and when I looked over the

banisters Pa and Ma and the goat were all in a heap, and Pa was yelling

murder, and Ma was screaming fire, and the goat was blatting, and

sneezing, and bunting, and the hired girl came into the hall and the

goat took after her and she crossed herself just as the goat struck her

and said, 'Howly mother, protect me!' and went down stairs the way we

boys slide down hill, with both hands on herself, and the goat rared up

and blatted, and Pa and Ma went into their room and shut the door, and

then my chum and me opened the front door and drove the goat out. The

minister, who comes to see Ma every three times a week, was just ringing

the bell and the goat thought he wanted to be nishiated too, and gave

him one, for luck, and then went down the sidewalk, blatting, and

sneezing, and the minister came in the parlor and said he was stabbed,

and then Pa came out of his room with his suspenders hanging down, and

he didn't know the minister was there, and he said cuss words, and Ma

cried and told Pa he would go to hell sure, and Pa said he didn't care,

he would kill that kussid goat afore he went, and I told Pa the minister

was in the parlor, and he and Ma went down and said the weather was

propitious for a revival, and it seemed as though an outpouring of the

spirit was about to be vouchsafed to His people, and none of them sot

down but Ma, cause the goat didn't hit her, and while they were talking

relidgin, with their mouths, and kussin the goat inwardly, my chum and

me adjourned the lodge, and I went and stayed with him all night, and I

haven't been home since. But I don't believe Pa will lick me, cause he

said he would not hold us responsible for the consequences. He ordered

the goat hisself, and we filled the order, don't you see? Well, I guess

I will go and sneak in the back way, and find out from the hired girl

how the land lays. She won't go back on me, cause the goat was not

loaded for hired girls. She just happened to get in at the wrong time.

Good bye, sir, Remember and give your goat kyan pepper in your lodge.”

As the boy went away, and skipped over the back fence, the grocery man

said to his brother odd fellow,

“If that boy don't beat the devil then I never saw one that did. The old

man ought to have him sent to a lunatic asylum.”

CHAPTER XX.

HIS GIRL GOES BACK ON HIM--THE GROCERY MAN IS AFRAID--BUT

THE BAD BOY IS A WRECK!--“MY GIRL, HAS SHOOK ME!”--THE BAD

BOY'S HEART IS BROKEN--STILL HE ENJOYS A BIT OF FUN--COD-

LIVER OIL ON THE PANCAKES--THE HIRED GIRLS MADE VICTIMS--THE

BAD BOY VOWS VENGEANCE ON HIS GIRL AND THE TELEGRAPH

MESSENGER.

“Now you git right away from here,” said the grocery man to the bad boy,

as he came in with a hungry look on his face, and a wild light in his

eye. “I am afraid of you. I wouldn't be surprised to see you go off half

cocked and blow us all up. I think you are a devil. You may have a billy

goat, or a shot gun or a bottle of poison concealed about you. Condemn

you, the police ought to muzzle you. You will kill somebody yet. Here

take a handful of prunes and go off somewhere and enjoy yourself, and

keep away from here,” and the grocery man went on sorting potatoes, and

watching the haggard face of the boy. “What ails you anyway?” he added,

as the boy refused the prunes, and seemed to be sick to the stomach.

“O, I am a wreck,” said the boy, as he grated his teeth, and looked

wicked. “You see before you a shadow. I have drank of the sweets of

life, and now only the dregs remain. I look back at the happiness of the

past two weeks, during which I have been permitted to gaze into the fond

blue eyes of my loved one, and carry her rubbers to school for her to

wear home when it rained, to hear the sweet words that fell from her

lips as she lovingly told me I was a terror, and as I think it is all

over, and that I shall never again place my arm around her waist, I feel

as if the world had been kicked off its base and was whirling through

space, liable to be knocked into a cocked hat, and I don't care a darn.

My girl has shook me.”

“Sho! You don't say so,” says the grocery man as he threw a rotten

potato into a basket of good ones that were going to the orphan asylum.

“Well, she showed sense. You would have blown her up, or broken her

neck, or something. But don't feel bad. You will soon find another girl

that will discount her, and you will forget this one.”

“Never!” said the the boy, as he nibbled at a piece of codfish that he

had picked off. “I shall never allow my affections to become entwined

about another piece of calico. It unmans me, sir. Henceforth I am a

hater of the whole girl race. From this out I shall harbor revenge in

my heart, and no girl can cross my path and live. I want to grow up to

become a he school ma'am, or a he milliner, or something, where I can.

grind girls into the dust under the heel of a terrible despotism, and

make them sue for mercy. To think that girl, on whom I have lavished my

heart's best love and over thirty cents, in the past two weeks, could

let the smell of a goat on my clothes come between us, and break off, an

acquaintance that seemed to be the forerunner of a happy future, and say

“ta-ta” to me, and go off to dancing school with a telegraph messenger

boy who wears a sleeping car porter uniform, is too much, and my

heart is broken. I will lay for that messenger some night, when he is

delivering a message in our ward, and I will make him think lightning

has struck the wire and run in on his bench. O, you don't know anything

about the woe there is in this world. You never loved many people, did

you?”

The grocery man admitted he never loved very hard, but he knew a little

something about it from-an aunt of his, who got mashed on a Chicago

drummer. “But your father must be having a rest while your whole mind is

occupied with your love affair,” said he.

“Yes,” says the boy, with a vacant look, “I take no interest in the

pleasure of the chase any more, though I did have a little quiet fun

this morning at the breakfast table. You see Pa is the contrariest man

ever was. If I complain that anything at the table don't taste good, Pa

says it is all right. This morning I took the syrup pitcher and emptied

out the white syrup and put in some cod liver oil that Ma is taking for

her cough. I put some on my pancakes and pretended to taste of it, and

I told Pa the syrup was sour and not fit to eat. Pa was mad in a second,

and he poured out some on his pancakes, and said I was getting too

confounded particular. He said the syrup was good enough for him, and

he sopped his pancakes in it and fired some down his neck. He is a gaul

durned hypocrite, that's what he is. I could see by his face that the

cod liver oil was nearly killing him, but he said that syrup was all

right, and if I didn't eat mine he would break my back, and by gosh, I

had to eat it, and Pa said he guessed he hadn't got much appetite, and

he would just drink a cup of coffee and eat a donut.

“I like to dide, and that is one thing, I think, that makes this

disappointment in love harder to bear. But I felt sorry for Ma. Ma ain't

got a very strong stummick, and when she got some of that cod liver oil

in her mouth she went right up stairs, sicker'n a horse, and Pa had to

help her, and she had noo-ralgia all the morning. I eat pickles to take

the taste out of my mouth, and then I laid for the hired girls. They eat

too much syrup, anyway, and when they got on to that cod liver oil, and

swallowed a lot of it, one of them, a nirish girl, she got up from the

table and put her hand on her corset, and said, “howly Jaysus,” and went

out in the kitchen, as pale as Ma is when she has powder on her face,

and the other girl who is Dutch, she swallowed a pancake and said, “Mine

Gott, vas de matter from me,” and she went out and leaned on the coal

bin, then they talked Irish and Dutch, and got clubs, and started to

look for me, and I thought I would come over here.

“The whole family is sick, but it is not from love, like my illness, and

they will get over it, while I shall fill an early grave, but not till I

have made that girl and the telegraph messenger wish they were dead. Pa

and I are going to Chicago next week, and I'll bet we'll have some fun.

Pa says I need a change of air, and I think he is going to try and lose

me. It's a cold day when I get left anywhere that I can't find my way

back, Well, good bye, old rotten potatoes.”