HIS PA GETS MAD.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3706, 1 June 1883, Page 4

HIS PA GETS MAD.

'' I was down to the drug , store this morning and saw your ma buying , a lot of court-plaster—enough to make a shirt, I should think. What's sho doing with so much oourt-plastor r" askod tho grocery man of tho bad boy, as ho camo in and pulled off Ills boots by tho stove, and emptied out; a lot of snow that had collected as he walked through a drift, on the hearth, where it molted, au4 wade a bad6mell.

" Oh, I guess she is going to patch pa up ho he will hold water. Pa's temper got him into the worst muss you ever see last night. If that museum was here now they would hire pa and exhibit him as the tattooed man. I toll, you I have got too old to be mauled as though I was a kid, and any man who attacks me from this out wants to have his peace made with the insurance companies, and know that his calling and election is sure, because lam a bad man, and don't you forget it." And the boy pulled on his "boots and looked so cross and desperate that tho grocery man asked him if he wouldn't try a little new cider. " Good heavens !" said the grocery man, as tho boy swallowed the cider and his face returned to its natural look and the piratical frown disappeared with the rider, "you have not stabbed your father, have you? I have feared that one thing would bring on another with you and that you would yet be hung." " Naw, I haven't stabbed him. It was another cat that stabbed him. You see, pa wants mo to do all the work around tho house. Tho other day he bought a load of kindling wood and told me to carry it into the basement. I have not been educated up to kindling , wood, and I didn't do it. When supper lime came and pa found that I had not carried in the kindling wood lie had a hot box, and he told me if that wood was not in when he came back from the lodge that he would warm my jacket. Well, I tried to hire someone to carry it in, and got a man to promise to come in the morning , and cany it in and take his pay in groceries, and I was going' to buy the groceries here and have them charged to pa. But that wouldn't help me out that night. I knew when pa came home he would search for mo. So I slept in the back hall on a cot. But I didn't want pa to have all his trouble for nothing, so I borrowed an old torn cat that my chum's old-muid aunt owns, and put the cat in my bed. I thought if pa came to my room after mo and found that by his unkindness I had changed to a torn cat, he would be sorry. That is the biggest cat you ever see, and tlio worst fighter in our ward. It isn't afraid of anything, and can whip a Newfoundland clog quicker th v you could put sand in sugar. Well, ajo lit cloven o'clock I heard pa tumble over the kindling wood, and I knew by the lO.iiark he made as the wood slid around under him that there was going to be a cat fight real quick. He come up to ma's room and .sounded ma as to whether Ilenry had retired to his virtuous couch. Pa is awful sarcastic when he tries to be. I could hear him take oft' his clothes, and hear him say aa ho picked up a trunk strap : "I guess I will go up to his room and watch the smile on his face as he dreams of angels. I yearn to press him to my aching bosom." I thought to myself, mobbe you won't yearn so much direutly. lie come up stairs, and I could hear him breathing hard. I looked out around the corner and could see he just had on his shirt and pants, and his suspenders were hanging down and his bald head shown like a calcium light just before it explodes. Pa went into my room and up to the bed, and I could hear him say, " Come out hero and bring in that kindling - wood, or I will start a fire on your base burner with this strap." And then there was a yowling such as I never heard before, and pa said " Helen Blazes," and the furniture in my room began to fall around and break. Oil my ! I think pa took tho tomcat right by the nock, the way ho does me, and that left all the cat's feet free to get in their work. By tho way the cat squalled, as though it was being choked, I know pa had him by the neck. I suppose the cat thought pa was a whole flock of Newfoundland dogs, and the cat had a record on dogs, and kicked awful. Pa's shirt was no protection at nil in a. dog- fiylit, and tho cat just walked all around pa's stomach, and pa jX'lled 'Police !' and 'Fire !' and 'Turn on the hose !' And he called me; and the cat yowled. If \rd had had the presence of mind enough to have dropped the cat or rolled it up in the mattress it would have been all right; but a man always gets rattled in time of danger, and he held on to the cat and started down stairs yelling 'Murder!' and he met ma coming up. I guess ma's nightcap or eomethiug frightened the cat some more, 'cause he stabbed ma on the nightshirt witi , one hind foot, and ma said ' Mercy on us' and she went back, and pa stumbled on a haudv.led that was on the stairs, stud they all fell down, and the cat got away and went down in the coal bin and yowled all night. Pa and ma went into their room, and I guess they anointed themselves with vaseline and Pond's extract, and I went and got into bed, 'cause it was cold out in the hall and the cat had warmed my bed as well as it had warmed pa. It was all I could do to go to sleep, with pa and ma talking all night, and this morning , I came down the back stairs and haven't been to breakfast, 'cause I don't want to sec pa when ho is vexed. You let the man that carries in the kindling wood have six shillings' worth of groceries and charged them to pa. I have passed tho kindling wood period in a boy's life and have arrived at the coal period. I will carry in coal, but 1 draw the line at kindling wood." —Peck's Sun.