“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.