CHAPTER XVII.

HIS PA FIGHTS HORNETS--THE OLD MAN LOOKS BAD--THE WOODS OF WAUWATOSA--THE OLD MAN TAKES A NAP--"HELEN d.a.m.nATION"-- "h.e.l.l 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 sa.s.sy, 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Helen d.a.m.nation 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 d.a.m.nation,' 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. h.e.l.l 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, 'h.e.l.lo, 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 k.n.o.bs 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.s, unless he could take a fish pole along and some angel worms. The hired girl prays when no one sees her but G.o.d, 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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 ap.r.o.n 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 gra.s.s, 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sengers got ash.o.r.e alive. Then his eye swelled out so it looked like a blue door-k.n.o.b, 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 b.u.mPER DEGREE--KYAN PEPPER ON THE GOAT'S BEARD--"BRING FORTH THE ROYAL b.u.mPER "--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 b.u.mper 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 b.u.mper degree."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ba.s.s 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 b.u.mper and let him b.u.mp.' Pa repeated the words, and my chum sprinkled the kyan pepper on the goat's moustache, and he sneezed once and looked sa.s.sy, 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, 'h.e.l.l's-fire, what you boys doin?'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: h.e.l.l's-fire, what you boys doin p094]