"O, I don"t know anything about special providences," said the grocery man, "but I know you have got two of your pockets filled with them boneless raisins since you have been talking, and my opinion is you will steal. But, say, what is your Pa on crutches for? I see him hobbling down town this morning. Has he sprained his ankle?"
"Well, I guess his ankle got sprained with all the rest. You see, my chum and me went bobbing, and Pa said he supposed he used to be the greatest bobber, when he was a boy, that ever was. He said he used to slide down a hill that was steeper than a church steeple. We asked him to go with us, and we went to that street that goes down by the depot, and we had two sleds. .h.i.tched together, and there were mor"n a hundred boys, and Pa wanted to steer, and he got on the front sled, and when we got about half way down the sled slewed, and my chum and me got off all right, but Pa got shut up between the two sleds, and the other boys behind fell over Pa and one sled runner caught him in the trowsers leg, and dragged him over the slippery ice clear to the bottom, and the whole lay out run into the street car, and the mules got wild and kicked, and Pa"s suspenders broke, and when my chum and me got down there Pa was under the car, and a boy"s boots was in Pa"s shirt bosom, and another boy was straddle of Pa"s neck, and the crowd rushed up from the depot, and got Pa out, and began to yell "fire," and "police," and he kicked at a boy that was trying to get his sled out of the small of Pa"s back, and a policeman came along and pushed Pa and said, "Go away from here, ye owld divil, and let the b"ys enjoy themselves," and he was going to arrest Pa, when me and my chum told him we would take Pa home. Pa said the hill was not steep enough for him, or he wouldn"t have fell off. He is offul stiff to-day: but he says he will go skating with us next week, and show us how to skate. Pa means well, but he don"t realize that he is getting stiff and can"t be as kitteny as he used to be. He is very kind to me, If I had some fathers I would have been a broken backed, disfigured angel long ago. Don"t you think so?"
The grocery man said he was sure of it, and the boy got out with his boneless raisins, and pocket full of lump sugar.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
HIS PA GOES SKATING--THE BAD BOY CARVES A TURKEY--HIS PA"S FAME AS A SKATER--THE OLD MAN ESSAYS TO SKATE ON ROLLERS-- HIS WILD CAPERS--HE SPREADS HIMSELF--HOLIDAYS A CONDEMNED NUISANCE--THE BAY BOY"S CHRISTMAS PRESENTS.
"What is that stuff on your shirt bosom, that looks like soap grease?"
said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came into the grocery the morning after Christmas.
The boy looked at his shirt front, put his fingers on the stuff and smelled of his fingers, and then said, "O, that is nothing but a little of the turkey dressing and gravy. You see after Pa and I got back from the roller skating rink yesterday, Pa was all broke up and he couldn"t carve the turkey, and I had to do it, and Pa sat in a stuffed chair with his head tied up, and a pillow amongst his legs, and he kept complaining that I didn"t do it right. Gol darn a turkey any way. I should think they would make a turkey flat on the back, so he would lay on a greasy platter without skating all around the table. It looks easy to see Pa carve a turkey, but when I speared into the bosom of that turkey, and began to saw on it, the turkey rolled-around as though it was on castors, and it was all I could do to keep it out of Ma"s lap. But I ra.s.seled with it till I got off enough white meat for Pa and Ma and dark meat enough for me, and I dug out the dressing, but most of it flew into my shirt bosom, cause the string that tied up the place where the dressing was concealed about the person of the turkey, broke prematurely, and one oyster hit Pa in the eye, and he said I was as awkward as a cross-eyed girl trying to kiss a man with a hair lip. If I ever get to be the head of a family I shall carve turkeys with a corn sh.e.l.ler."
"But what broke your Pa up at the roller skating rink," asked the grocery man.
"O, everything broke him up. He is, split up so Ma b.u.t.tons the top of his pants to his collar b.u.t.ton, like a by cycle rider. Well, he no business to have told me and my chum that he used to be the best skater in North America, when he was a boy. He said he skated once from Albany to New York in an hour and eighty minutes. Me and my chum thought if Pa was such a terror on skates we would get him to put on a pair of roller skates and enter him as the "great unknown," and clean out the whole gang. We told Pa that he must remember that roller skates were different from ice skates, and that maybe he couldn"t skate on them, but he said it didn"t make any difference what they were as long as they were skates, and he would just paralyze the whole crowd. So we got a pair of big roller skates for him, and while we were strapping them on, Pa he looked at the skaters glide around on the smooth wax floor just as though they were greased. Pa looked at the skates on his feet, after they were fastened, sort of forlorn like, the way a horse thief does when they put shackles on his legs, and I told him if he was afraid he couldn"t skate with them we would take them off, but he said he would beat anybody there was there, or bust a suspender. Then we straightened Pa up, and pointed him towards the middle of the room, and he said, "leggo," and we just give him a little push to start him, and he began to go.
"Well, by gosh, you"d a dide to have seen Pa try to stop. You see, you can"t stick in your heel and stop, like you can on ice skates, and Pa soon found that out, and he began to turn sideways, and then he threw his arms and walked on his heels, and he lost his hat, and his eyes began to stick out, cause he was going right towards an iron post.
One arm caught the post and he circled around it a few times, and then he let go and began to fall, and, sir, he kept falling all across the room, and everybody got out of the way, except a girl, and Pa grabbed her by the polonaise, like a drowning man grabs at straws, though there wasn"t any straws in her polonaise as I know of, but Pa just pulled her along as though she was done up in a shawl-strap, and his feet went out from under him and he struck on his shoulders and kept a going, with the girl dragging along like a bundle of clothes."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Pa grabbed her by the polonaise p143]
"If Pa had had another pair of roller skates on his shoulders, and castors on his ears, he couldn"t have slid along any better. Pa is a short, big man, and as he was rolling along on his back, he looked like a sofa with castors on being pushed across a room by a girl. Finally Pa came to the wall and had to stop, and the girl fell right across him, with her roller skates in his neck, and she called him an old brute, and told him if he didn"t let go of her polonaise she would murder him. Just then my chum and me got there and we amputated Pa from the girl, and lifted him up, and told him for heaven"s sake to let us take off the skates, cause he couldn"t skate any more than a cow, and Pa was mad and said for us to let him alone, and he could skate all right, and we let go and he struck out again. Well, sir, I was ashamed. An old man like Pa ought to know better than to try to be a boy. This last time Pa said he was going to spread himself, and if I am any judge of a big spread, he did spread himself. Somehow the skates had got turned around side-ways on his feet, and his feet got to going in different directions, and Pa"s feet were getting so far apart that I was afraid I would have two Pa"s, half the size, with one leg apiece.
"I tried to get him to take up a collection of his legs, and get them both in the same ward but his arms flew around and one hit me on the nose, and I thought if he wanted to strike the best friend he had, he could run his old legs hisself. When he began to seperate I could hear the bones crack, but maybe it was his pants, but anyway he came down on the floor like one of these fellows in a circus who spreads hissel, and he kept going and finally he surrounded an iron post with his legs, and stopped, and looked pale, and the proprietor of the rink told Pa if he wanted to give a flying trapeze performance he would have to go to the gymnasium, and he couldn"t skate on his shoulders any more, cause other skaters were afraid of him. Then Pa said he would kick the liver out of the proprietor of the rink, and he got up and steaded himself, and then he tried to kick the man, but both heels went up to wonct, and Pa turned a back summersault and struck right on his vest in front. I guess it knocked the breath out of him, for he didn"t speak for a few minutes, and then he wanted to go home, and we put him in a street car, and he laid down on the hay and rode home. O, the work we had to get Pa"s clothes off. He had cricks in his back, and everywhere, and Ma was away to one of the neighbors, to look at the presents, and I had to put liniment on Pa, and I made a mistake and got a bottle of furniture polish, and put it on Pa and rubbed it in, and when Ma came home, Pa smelled like a coffin at a charity funeral, and Ma said there was no way of getting that varnish off of Pa till it wore off. Pa says holidays are a condemned nuisance anyway. He will have to stay in the house all this week.
"You are pretty rough on the old man," said the grocery man, "after he has been so kind to you and given you nice presents."
"Nice presents nothin. All I got was a "come to Jesus" Christmas card, with brindle fringe, from Ma, and Pa gave me a pair of his old suspenders, and a calender with mottoes for every month, some quotations from scripture, such as "honorthy father and mother," and "evil communications corrupt two in the bush," and "a bird in the hand beats two pair." Such things don"t help a boy to be good. What a boy wants is club skates, and seven shot revolvers, and such things. Well, I must go and help Pa roll over in bed, and put on a new porous plaster. Good bye."
CHAPTER XXIX.
HIS PA GOES CALLING--HIS PA STARTS FORTH--A PICTURE OF THE OLD MAN "FULL "--POLITENESS AT A WINTER PICNIC--a.s.sAULTED BY SANDBAGGERS--RESOLVED TO DRINK NO MORE COFFEE--A GIRL FULL OF "AIG NOGG."
"Say, you are getting too alfired smart," said the grocery man to the bad boy as he pushed him into a corner by the mola.s.ses barrel, and took him by the neck and choked him so his eyes stuck out. "You have driven away several of my best customers, and now, confound you, I am going to have your life," and he took up a cheese knife and began to sharpen it on his boot.
"What"s the--gurgle--matter," asked the choking boy, as the grocery man"s fingers let up on his throat a little, so he could speak. "I haint done nothin."
"Didn"t you hang up that dead gray torn cat by the heels, in front of my store, with the rabbits I had for sale? I didn"t notice it until the minister called me out in front of the store, and pointing to the rabbits, asked what good fat cats were selling for. By crimus, this thing has got to stop. You have got to move out of this ward or I will."
The boy got his breath and said it wasn"t him that put the cat up there.
He said it was the policeman, and he and his chum saw him do it, and he just come in to tell the grocery man about it, and before he could speak he had his neck nearly pulled off. The boy began to cry, and the grocery man said he was only joking, and gave him a box of sardines, and they made up. Then he asked the boy how his Pa put in his New Years, and the boy sighed and said:
"We had a sad time at our house New Years. Pa insisted on making calls, and Ma and me tried to prevent it, but he said he was of age, and guessed he could make calls if he wanted to, so he looked at the morning paper and got the names of all the places where they were going to receive, and he turned his paper collar, and changed ends with his cuffs, and put some arnica on his handkerchief, and started out. Ma told him not to drink anything, and he said he wouldn"t, but he did. He was full the third place he went to. O, so full. Some men can get full and not show it, but when Pa gets full, he gets so full his back teeth float, and the liquor crowds his eyes out, and his mouth gets loose and wiggles all over his face, and he laughs all the time, and the perspiration just oozes out of him, and his face gets red, and he walks _so_ wide. O, he disgraced us all. At one place he wished the hired girl a happy new year more than twenty times, and hung his hat on her elbow, and tried to put on a rubber hall mat for his over shoes. At another place he walked up a lady"s train, and carried away a card basket full of bananas and oranges. Ma wanted my chum and me to follow Pa and bring him home, and about dark we found him in the door yard of a house where they have statues in front of the house, and he grabbed me by the arm, and mistook me for another caller, and insisted on introducing me to a marble statue without any clothes on. He said it was a friend of his, and it was a winter picnic."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Happy New Year Mum p149]
"He hung his hat on an evergreen, and put his overcoat on the iron fence, and I was so mortified I almost cried. My chum said if his Pa made such a circus of himself he would sand bag him. That gave me an idea, and when we got Pa most home I went and got a paper box covered with red paper, so it looked just like a brick, and a bottle of tomato ketchup, and when we got Pa up on the steps at home I hit him with the paper brick, and my chum squirted the ketchup on his head, and we demanded his money, and then he yelled murder, and we lit out, and Ma and the minister, who was making a call on her, all the afternoon; they came to the door and pulled Pa in. He said he had been attacked by a band of robbers, and they knocked his brains out, but he whipped them, and then Ma saw the ketchup brains oozing out of his head, and she screamed, and the minister said, "Good heavens he is murdered," and just then I came in the back door and they sent me after the doctor, and they put him on the lounge, and tied up his head with a towel to keep the brains in, and Pa began to snore, and when the doctor came in it took them half an hour to wake him, and then he was awful sick to his stummick, and then Ma asked the doctor if he would live, and the doc. a.n.a.lyzed the ketchup and smelled of it and told Ma he would be all right if he had a little Worcester sauce to put on with the ketchup, and when he said Pa would pull through, Ma looked awful sad. Then Pa opened his eyes and saw the minister and said that was one of the robbers that jumped on him, and he wanted to whip the minister, but the doc. held Pa"s arms and Ma sat on his legs, and the minister said he had got some other calls to make, and he wished Ma a happy new year in the hall, much as fifteen minutes. His happy new year to Ma is most as long as his prayers. Well, we got Pa to bed, and when we undressed him we found nine napkins in the bosom of his vest, that he had picked up at the places where he called. He is all right this morning, but he says it is the last time he will drink coffee when he makes New Year"s calls."
"Well, then you didn"t have much fun yourself on New Years. That"s too bad," said the grocery man, as he looked at the sad eyed youth. "But you look hard. If you were old enough I should say you had been drunk, your eyes are so red."
"Didn"t have any fun eh? Well, I wish I had as many collars as I had fun. You see, after Pa got to sleep Ma wanted me and my chum to go to the houses that Pa had called at and return the napkins he had Kleptomaniaced, so we dressed up and went. The first house we called at the girls were sort of demoralized. I don"t know as I ever saw a girl drunk, but those girls acted queer. The callers had stopped coming, and the girls were drinking something out of shaving cups that looked like lather, and they said it was "aignogg." They laffed and kicked up their heels wuss nor a circus, and their collars got unpinned, and their faces was red, and they put their arms around me and my chum and hugged us and asked us if we didn"t want some of the custard. You"d a dide to see me and my chum drink that lather. It looked just like soap suds with nutmaig in it, but by gosh it got in its work sudden. At first I was afraid when the girls hugged me, but after I had drank a couple of shaving cups full of the "aignogg" I wasn"t afraid no more, and I hugged a girl so hard she catched her breath and panted and said, "O, don"t."
Then I kissed her, and she is a great big girl, bigger"n me, but she didn"t care. Say, did you ever kiss a girl full of aignogg? If you did it would break up your grocery business. You would want to waller in bliss instead of selling mackerel. My chum ain"t no slouch either. He was sitting in a stuffed chair holding another New Year"s girl, and I could hear him kiss her so it sounded like a cutter sc.r.a.ping on bare ground. But the girl"s Pa came in and said he guessed it was time to close the place, unless they had a license for an all night house, and me and my chum went out. But _wasn"t_ we sick when we got out doors. O, it seemed as though the pegs in my boots was the only thing that kept them down, and my chum he like to dide. He had been to dinner and supper and I had only been skating all day, so he had more to contend with than I did. O, my, but that lets me out on aignogg. I don"t know how I got home, but I got in bed with Pa, cause Ma was called away to attend a baby matinee in the night. I don"t know how it is, but there never is anybody in our part of the town that has a baby but they have it in the night, and they send for Ma. I don"t know what she has to be sent for every time for. Ma ain"t to blame for all the young ones in this town, but she has got up a reputashun, and when we hear the bell ring in the night Ma gets up and begins to put on her clothes, and the next morning she comes in the dining room with a shawl over her head, and says, "its a girl and weighs ten pounds," or a boy, if its a boy baby. Ma was out on one of her professional engagements, and I got in bed with Pa. I had heard Pa blame Ma about her cold feet, so I got a piece of ice about as big as a raisin box, just zactly like one of Ma"s feet, and I laid it right against the small of Pa"s back. I couldn"t help laffing, but pretty soon Pa began to squirm and he said, "Why"n "ell don"t you warm them feet before you come to bed," and then he hauled back his leg and kicked me clear out in the middle of the floor, and said if he married again he would marry a woman who had lost both of her feet in a railroad accident. Then I put the ice back in the bed with Pa and went to my room, and in the morning Pa said he sweat more"n a pail full in the night. Well, you must excuse me, I have an engagement to shovel snow off the side-walk. But before I go, let me advise you not to drink aignogg, and don"t sell torn cats for rabbits," and he got out the door just in time to miss the rutabaga that the grocery man threw at him.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
HIS PA DISSECTED--THE MISERIES OP THE MUMPS--NO PICKLES THANK YOU--ONE MORE EFFORT TO REFORM THE OLD MAN--THE BAD BOY PLAYS MEDICAL STUDENT--PROCEEDS TO DISSECT HIS PA-- "GENTLEMEN I AM NOT DEAD!"--SAVED FROM THE SCALPEL!--"NO MORE WHISKY FOR YOU."
"I understand your Pa has got to drinking again like a fish," says the grocery man to the bad boy, as the youth came in the grocery and took a handful of dried apples. The boy ate a dried apple and then made up a terrible face, and the grocery man asked him what he was trying to do with his face. The boy caught his breath and then said:
"Say, don"t you know any better than to keep dried apples where a boy can get hold of them when he has got the mumps? You will kill some boy yet by such dum carelessness. I thought these were sweet dried apples, but they are sour as a boarding house keeper, and they make me tired.
Didn"t you ever have the mumps? Gosh, but don"t it hurt though? You have got to be darn careful when you have the mumps, and not go out bob-sledding, or skating, or you will have your neck swell up biggern a milk pail. Pa says he had the mumps once when he was a boy and it broke him all up.
"Well, never mind the mumps, how about your Pa spreeing it. Try one of those pickles in the jar there, wont you. I always like to have a boy enjoy himself when he comes to see me," said the grocery man, winking to a man who was filling and old fashioned tin box with tobacco out of the pail, who winked back as much as to say, "if that boy eats a pickle on top of them mumps we will have a circus, sure."
"You can"t play no pickle on me, not when I have the mumps. Ma pa.s.sed the pickles to me this morning, and I took one mouthful, and like to had the lockjaw. But Ma didn"t do it on purpose, I guess. She never had the mumps and didn"t know how discouraging a pickle is. Darn if I didn"t feel as though I had been struck in the b.u.t.t of the ear with a brick.
But about Pa. He has been fuller"n a goose ever since New Year"s day. I think its wrong for women to tempt feeble minded persons with liquor on New Year"s. Now me and my chum, we can take a drink and then let it alone. We have got brain, and know when we have got enough, but Pa, when he gets to going don"t ever stop until he gets so sick that he can"t keep his stummick inside of hisself. It is getting so they look to me to brace Pa up every time he gets on a tear, and I guess I fixed him this time so he will never touch liquor again. I scared him so his bald head turned gray in a singe night.
"What under the heavens have you done to him now?" says the grocery man, in astonishment. "I hope you haven"t done anything you will regret in after years."
"Regret nothing," said the boy, as he turned the lid of the cheese box back and took the knife and sliced off a piece of cheese, and took a few crackers out of a barrel, and sat down on a soap box by the stove, "You see Ma was annoyed to death with Pa. He would come home full, when she had company, and lay down on the sofa and snore, and he would smell like a distillery. It hurt me to see Ma cry, and I told her I would break Pa of drinking if she would let me, and she said if I would promise not to hurt Pa to go ahead, and I promised not to. Then I got my chum and another boy, quite a big boy, to help, and Pa is all right. We went down to the place where they sell arms and legs, to folks who have served in the army, or a saw mill, or a thrashing machine, and lost their limbs, and we borrowed some arms and legs, and fixed up a dissecting room.
We fixed a long table in the bas.e.m.e.nt, big enough to lay Pa out on you know, and then we got false whiskers and moustaches, and when Pa came in the house drunk and laid down on the sofa, and got to sleep we took him and laid him out on the table, and took some trunk straps, and a sircingle and strapped him down to the table. He slept right along all through it, and we had another table with the false arms and legs on, and we rolled up our sleeves, and smoked pipes, Just like I read that medical students do when they cut up a man. Well, you"d a dide to see Pa look at us when he woke up. I saw him open his eyes, and then we began to talk about cutting up dead men. We put hickory nuts in our mouths so our voices would sound different, so he wouldn"t know us, and I was telling the other boys about what a time we had cutting up the last man we bought. I said he was awful tough, and when we had got his legs off and had taken out his brain, his friends come to the dissecting room and claimed the body, and we had to give it up, but I saved the legs.
I looked at Pa on the table and he began to turn pale, and he squirmed around to get up, but found he was fast. I had pulled his shirt up under his arms, while he was asleep, and as he began to move I took an icicle, and in the dim light of the candles, that were sitting on the table in beer bottles, I drew the icicle across Pa"s stummick and I said to my chum, "Doc, I guess we had better cut open this old duffer and see if he died from inflamation of the stummick, from hard drinking, as the coroner said he did." Pa shuddered all over when he felt the icicle going over his bare stummick, and he said, "For G.o.d"s sake, gentlemen, what does this mean? I am not dead.""
"The other boys looked at Pa with astonishment, and I said "Well, we bought you for dead, and the coroner"s jury said you were dead, and by the eternal we ain"t going to be fooled out of a corpse when we buy one, are we Doc?" My chum said not if he knowed his self, and the other students said, "Of course he is dead. He thinks he is alive, but he died day before yesterday, fell dead on the street, and his folks said he had been a nuisance and they wouldn"t claim the corpse, and we bought it at the morgue. Then I drew the icicle across him again, and I said, "I don"t know about this, doctor. I find that blood follows the scalpel as I cut through the cuticle. Hand me the blood sponge please." Pa began to wiggle around, and we looked at him, and my chum raised his eye-lid, and looked solemn, and Pa said, "Hold on, gentlemen. Don"t cut into me any more, and I can explain this matter. This is all a mistake. I was only drunk." We went in a corner and whispered, and Pa kept talking all the time. He said if we would postpone the hog killing he could send and get witnesses to prove that he was not dead, but that he was a respectable citizen, and had a family. After we held a consultation I went to Pa and told him that what he said about being alive might possibly be true, though we had our doubts. We had found such cases before in our practice east, where men seemed to be alive, but it was only temporary. Before we had got them cut up they were dead enough for all practical purposes.
Then I laid the icicle across Pa"s abdomen, and went on to tell him that even if he was alive it would be better for him to play that he was dead, because he was such a nuisance to his family that they did not want him, and I was telling him that I had heard that in his lifetime he was very cruel to his boy, a bright little fellow who was at the head of his cla.s.s in Sunday school and a pet wherever he was known, when Pa interrupted me and said, "Doctor, please take that carving knife off my stomach, for it makes me nervous. As for that boy of mine, he is the condemndest little whelp in town, and he isn"t no pet anywhere. Now, you let up on this dissectin" business, and I will make it all right with you." We held another consultation and then I told Pa that we did not feel that it was doing justice to society to give up the body of a notorious drunkard, after we had paid twenty dollars for the corpse. If there was any hopes that he would reform and try and lead a different life, it would be different, and I said to the boys, "gentlemen, we must do our duty. Doc, you dismember that leg, and I will attend to the stomach and the upper part of the body. He will be dead before we are done with him. We must remember that society has some claims on us, and not let our better natures be worked upon by the _post mortem_ promises of a dead drunkard." Then I took my icicle and began fumbling around the abdomen portion of Pa"s remains, and my chum took a rough piece of ice and began to saw his leg off, while the other boy took hold of the leg and said he would catch it when it dropped off. Well, Pa kicked like a steer. He said he wanted to make one more appeal to us, and we acted sort of impatient but we let up to hear what he had to say. He said if we would turn him loose he would give us ten dollars more than we paid, for his body, and that he would, never drink, another drop as long as he lived. Then we whispered some more and then told him we thought favorably of his last proposition, but he must swear, with his hand on the leg of a corpse we were then dissecting that he would never drink again, and then he must be blindfolded and be conducted several blocks away from the dissecting room, before we could turn him loose. He said that was all right, and so we blindfolded him, and made him take a b.l.o.o.d.y oath, with his hand on a piece of ice that we told him was a piece of another corpse, and then we took him out of the house and walked him around the block four times, and left him on a corner, after he had promised to send the money to an address that I gave him. We told him to stand still five minutes after we left him, then remove the blindfold, and go home. We watched him, from behind a board fence, and he took off the handkerchief, looked at the name on a street lamp, and found he was not far from home. He started off saying "That"s a pretty narrow escape old man. No more whiskey for you." I did not see him again until this morning, and when I asked him where he was last night he shuddered and said "none of your darn business. But I never drink any more, you remember that." Ma was tickled and she told me I was worth my weight in gold. Well, good day. That cheese is musty." And the boy went and caught on a pa.s.sing sleigh.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
HIS PA JOINS A TEMPERANCE SOCIETY. THE GROCERY MAN SYMPATHISES WITH THE OLD MAN--WARNS THE BAD BOY THAT HE MAY HAVE A STEP-FATHER!--THE BAD BOY SCORNS THE IDEA--INTRODUCES HIS PA TO THE GRAND "WORTHY DUKE!"--THE SOLEMN OATH--THE BRAND PLUCKED FROM THE BURNING.
"Don"t you think my Pa is showing his age good deal more than usual?"
asked the bad boy of the grocery man, as he took a smoked herring out of a box and peeled off the skin with a broken bladed jack-knife, and split it open and ripped off the bone, threw the head at a cat, and took some crackers and began to eat..
"Well, I don"t know but he does look as though he was getting old,"