“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 apron 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 grass, 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.”
“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 passengers got ashore alive. Then his eye swelled out so it looked like a blue door-knob, 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 BUMPER DEGREE—KYAN PEPPER ON THE GOAT’S BEARD—“BRING FORTH THE ROYAL BUMPER “—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 do
ing 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 bumper 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 bumper degree.”
“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 bass 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 Bumper and let him Bump.’ Pa repeated the words, and my chum sprinkled the kyan pepper on the goat’s moustache, and he sneezed once and looked sassy, 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, ‘Hell’s-fire, what you boys doin?’”
“And then the goat gave him another degree, and Pa pulled off the towel and got up and started for the stairs, and so did the goat, and Ma was at the bottom of the stairs listening, and when I looked over the banisters Pa and Ma and the goat were all in a heap, and Pa was yelling murder, and Ma was screaming fire, and the goat was blatting, and sneezing, and bunting, and the hired girl came into the hall and the goat took after her and she crossed herself just as the goat struck her and said, ‘Howly mother, protect me!’ and went down stairs the way we boys slide down hill, with both hands on herself, and the goat rared up and blatted, and Pa and Ma went into their room and shut the door, and then my chum and me opened the front door and drove the goat out. The minister, who comes to see Ma every three times a week, was just ringing the bell and the goat thought he wanted to be nishiated too, and gave him one, for luck, and then went down the sidewalk, blatting, and sneezing, and the minister came in the parlor and said he was stabbed, and then Pa came out of his room with his suspenders hanging down, and he didn’t know the minister was there, and he said cuss words, and Ma cried and told Pa he would go to hell sure, and Pa said he didn’t care, he would kill that kussid goat afore he went, and I told Pa the minister was in the parlor, and he and Ma went down and said the weather was propitious for a revival, and it seemed as though an outpouring of the spirit was about to be vouchsafed to His people, and none of them sot down but Ma, cause the goat didn’t hit her, and while they were talking relidgin, with their mouths, and kussin the goat inwardly, my chum and me adjourned the lodge, and I went and stayed with him all night, and I haven’t been home since. But I don’t believe Pa will lick me, cause he said he would not hold us responsible for the consequences. He ordered the goat hisself, and we filled the order, don’t you see? Well, I guess I will go and sneak in the back way, and find out from the hired girl how the land lays. She won’t go back on me, cause the goat was not loaded for hired girls. She just happened to get in at the wrong time. Good bye, sir, Remember and give your goat kyan pepper in your lodge.”
As the boy went away, and skipped over the back fence, the grocery man said to his brother odd fellow,
“If that boy don’t beat the devil then I never saw one that did. The old man ought to have him sent to a lunatic asylum.”
CHAPTER XX.
HIS GIRL GOES BACK ON HIM—THE GROCERY MAN IS AFRAID—BUT THE BAD BOY IS A WRECK!—“MY GIRL, HAS SHOOK ME!”—THE BAD BOY’S HEART IS BROKEN—STILL HE ENJOYS A BIT OF FUN—COD-LIVER OIL ON THE PANCAKES—THE HIRED GIRLS MADE VICTIMS—THE BAD BOY VOWS VENGEANCE ON HIS GIRL AND THE TELEGRAPH MESSENGER.
“Now you git right away from here,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in with a hungry look on his face, and a wild light in his eye. “I am afraid of you. I wouldn’t be surprised to see you go off half cocked and blow us all up. I think you are a devil. You may have a billy goat, or a shot gun or a bottle of poison concealed about you. Condemn you, the police ought to muzzle you. You will kill somebody yet. Here take a handful of prunes and go off somewhere and enjoy yourself, and keep away from here,” and the grocery man went on sorting potatoes, and watching the haggard face of the boy. “What ails you anyway?” he added, as the boy refused the prunes, and seemed to be sick to the stomach.
“O, I am a wreck,” said the boy, as he grated his teeth, and looked wicked. “You see before you a shadow. I have drank of the sweets of life, and now only the dregs remain. I look back at the happiness of the past two weeks, during which I have been permitted to gaze into the fond blue eyes of my loved one, and carry her rubbers to school for her to wear home when it rained, to hear the sweet words that fell from her lips as she lovingly told me I was a terror, and as I think it is all over, and that I shall never again place my arm around her waist, I feel as if the world had been kicked off its base and was whirling through space, liable to be knocked into a cocked hat, and I don’t care a darn. My girl has shook me.”
“Sho! You don’t say so,” says the grocery man as he threw a rotten potato into a basket of good ones that were going to the orphan asylum. “Well, she showed sense. You would have blown her up, or broken her neck, or something. But don’t feel bad. You will soon find another girl that will discount her, and you will forget this one.”
“Never!” said the the boy, as he nibbled at a piece of codfish that he had picked off. “I shall never allow my affections to become entwined about another piece of calico. It unmans me, sir. Henceforth I am a hater of the whole girl race. From this out I shall harbor revenge in my heart, and no girl can cross my path and live. I want to grow up to become a he school ma’am, or a he milliner, or something, where I can grind girls into the dust under the heel of a terrible despotism, and make them sue for mercy. To think that girl, on whom I have lavished my heart’s best love and over thirty cents, in the past two weeks, could let the smell of a goat on my clothes come between us, and break off, an acquaintance that seemed to be the forerunner of a happy future, and say “ta-ta” to me, and go off to dancing school with a telegraph messenger boy who wears a sleeping car porter uniform, is too much, and my heart is broken. I will lay for that messenger some night, when he is delivering a message in our ward, and I will make him think lightning has struck the wire and run in on his bench. O, you don’t know anything about the woe there is in this world. You never loved many people, did you?”
The grocery man admitted he never
loved very hard, but he knew a little something about it from-an aunt of his, who got mashed on a Chicago drummer. “But your father must be having a rest while your whole mind is occupied with your love affair,” said he.
“Yes,” says the boy, with a vacant look, “I take no interest in the pleasure of the chase any more, though I did have a little quiet fun this morning at the breakfast table. You see Pa is the contrariest man ever was. If I complain that anything at the table don’t taste good, Pa says it is all right. This morning I took the syrup pitcher and emptied out the white syrup and put in some cod liver oil that Ma is taking for her cough. I put some on my pancakes and pretended to taste of it, and I told Pa the syrup was sour and not fit to eat. Pa was mad in a second, and he poured out some on his pancakes, and said I was getting too confounded particular. He said the syrup was good enough for him, and he sopped his pancakes in it and fired some down his neck. He is a gaul durned hypocrite, that’s what he is. I could see by his face that the cod liver oil was nearly killing him, but he said that syrup was all right, and if I didn’t eat mine he would break my back, and by gosh, I had to eat it, and Pa said he guessed he hadn’t got much appetite, and he would just drink a cup of coffee and eat a donut.
“I like to dide, and that is one thing, I think, that makes this disappointment in love harder to bear. But I felt sorry for Ma. Ma ain’t got a very strong stummick, and when she got some of that cod liver oil in her mouth she went right up stairs, sicker’n a horse, and Pa had to help her, and she had noo-ralgia all the morning. I eat pickles to take the taste out of my mouth, and then I laid for the hired girls. They eat too much syrup, anyway, and when they got on to that cod liver oil, and swallowed a lot of it, one of them, a nirish girl, she got up from the table and put her hand on her corset, and said, “howly Jaysus,” and went out in the kitchen, as pale as Ma is when she has powder on her face, and the other girl who is Dutch, she swallowed a pancake and said, “Mine Gott, vas de matter from me,” and she went out and leaned on the coal bin, then they talked Irish and Dutch, and got clubs, and started to look for me, and I thought I would come over here.
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