“No, that is not necessary,” the old man said. “Now, you haven't got much religion, and never jined, but you give thanks to the Lord quite often. When you are happy, and enjoying yourself, and smile and laugh, you are unconsciously thanking the Ruler for making things so comfortable. All pleasure is made possible by a higher power, and all you got to do is to feel grateful, same as you would to me if I gave you a dollar, and there you are. You just be square, and do business on the golden rule plan, and you have got a heap more religion than some people who are Matting about all the time. I just thought I would paralyze you kids by showing you that I was all wool, and wanted the Lord to keep tab on us, and know that we appreciated good health, and all that. Now, you go to school, and don't say anything to that blue-eyed teacher of yours that you have nominated me for President. I don't want to get girls after me, thinking they will be mistress of the White House,” and the old man took his gun and went down into the marsh looking for snipe.
CHAPTER XXII.
Uncle Ike had been reading the morning paper, as he sat before the grate fire, in the sitting room, while the red-headed boy was using a slate and pencil trying to figure out something to make it match the answer as given in the arithmetic, and having guessed the answer right he was drawing a picture of Uncle Ike and his pipe, and occasionally wetting his finger in his mouth and rubbing out some feature of the old man that didn't suit. He had the old man pictured in a football costume of padded trousers, nose guard, ear guard, knee pads, and all the different things used in football, and when he showed the picture to Uncle Ike, that old citizen sighed, though he looked a bit pleased that he should be the study of so eminent an artist. Uncle Ike had been reading that there was to be a football game that afternoon, between the State university and Beloit college, and he wanted to go like a dog, but he had abused football so much that he was ashamed to speak of going.
“I hope you are not interested in that disreputable game,” said Uncle Ike, knocking the ashes out of his pipe on the andirons of the fireplace. “I hope you don't want to go and see respectable boys maimed and killed, and knocked down and dragged out, and sandbagged, and brained. I have seen a bull fight in Mexico, but I never want to see anything as bloody as a football game,” and the old man winked to himself, and filled the pipe.
“Oh, what you giving me?” said the boy, jumping up in indignation. “Football is no worse than the old-fashioned pullaway you used to play. I am going to see this game through a knothole in the fence I rented from a boy who has the knothole concession at the baseball park.”
“No, you don't,” said Uncle Ike, “you will go in the gate like a gentleman. No nephew of mine is going to grow up and be a knothole audience. You get two or three of your chums and come around here about 2 o'clock, and I will go with you, and stand between you and the sluggers, and see this game out. I don't want to go, and detest the game, but I will go to please you,” and the old man looked wise and fatherly.
“Oh, you don't want to go, like the way the woman kept tavern in Michigan,” said the boy, as he edged toward the door.
“How was it that the woman kept the hotel in Michigan?” he asked, looking mad.
“Like hades,” said the boy, “only the man who told me about it said she kept tavern like h——l, but I wouldn't say that in the presence of my dear old uncle,”, and the boy slipped out ahead of a slipper that was kicked at him by the laughing old man.