“You are pretty rough on the old man,” said the grocery man, “after he has been so kind to you and given you nice presents.”
“Nice presents nothin. All I got was a ’come to Jesus’ Christmas card, with brindle fringe, from Ma, and Pa gave me a pair of his old suspenders, and a calender with mottoes for every month, some quotations from scripture, such as ‘honor thy father and mother,’ and ‘evil communications corrupt two in the bush,’ and ‘a bird in the hand beats two pair.’ Such things don’t help a boy to be good. What a boy wants is club skates, and seven shot revolvers, and such things. Well, I must go and help Pa roll over in bed, and put on a new porous plaster. Good bye.”
CHAPTER XXIX.
HIS PA GOES CALLING—HIS PA STARTS FORTH—A PICTURE OF THE
OLD MAN “FULL “—POLITENESS AT A WINTER PICNIC—ASSAULTED 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 molasses barrel, and took him by the neck and choked him so his eyes stuck out. “You have driven away several of my best customers, and now, confound you, I am going to have your life,” and he took up a cheese knife and began to sharpen it on his boot.
“What’s the—gurgle—matter,” asked the choking boy, as the grocery man’s 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.”