The Bad Boy's Pa Opens a Boarding house.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 125, 24 October 1885, Page 6

The Bad Boy's Pa Opens a Boarding house.

"Say, what's the matter over to your house ?" asked the grocery man of the bad boy as he came in with a big basket and ordered a quantity of groceries. "Your pa's grocery bill is five times as big as it used to be. What's up ?" "0, we are keeping boarders," said the boy, as he wiped the mould off some prunes on his coat tail. " You see, after election pa and ma held a council of war, and something had to be done, 'cause pa can't get any officeoutof Cleveland before next March, if he does then. So they concluded to go keeping boarders ; ma to manage the house, and pa to bustle around outside and pick up boarders, and collect the money, and sort of boss things. I have to do aboutall the work, though." " Well, that is enterprising, and I am glad to see your pa is settling down to steady business. But how does it work so Tar ?" and the grocery man handed the boy a bill for the week's groceries, with a request that his pa would pay it at once, as he had to pay his rent. " I don't think it is a success," said the boy, as lie backed up to the stove to get warm, "and I gue e s it will use ma up entirely. You see pa han't got no sense. If he finds a man that is looking for board, he hustles him right home, without making any inquiries as whether the man can pay or not, and when they don't pay pa hasn't got Band enough to bounce 'em, and ma has to do it. It is one continued round of pleasure between pa and ma, each finding fault with the way the other runs things. Then pa struck a music teacher, and gave her the privilege of giving lessons in the parlour, and she mauled the piano all day, and had a feller come and sit with her every evening, and when she came to pay her bill there was something coming to her. j She charged for giving me music lessons, 'cause I used to go in the parlour and stand up by the piano to turn her music, and put my arm around her once in a while. Gosh, I thought she liked it, 'cause the used to look up at me and smile, and when ma told her to pay up, we owed her, and she said she would stay another week and board out the balance if ma would keep her naughty boy out of the parlour. Ma hustled her, you bet ! Ma finds the most fault with pa about carving. She has tried to teach him to cut meat thin that you can see through it, but he m carves as though we had visitors instead of boarders, and ma says that will break the best boarding-house in the world. I think pa showed the least cense when he took the living skeleton from the dime museum to board. Pa told me that we could make more money on one living skeleton than we could on four ordinary boarders, apd that encouraged ma, and she let pa bring him home ; but, lordy, the first round at the table convinced ma. The skeleton ate as much as any four boarders, and after dinner three boarders left. The skeleton Is a darned nuisance, 'cause he don't know hia place. When the music-teacher was playing some tune, and the boarders were sitting around the parlour listening, the darned old skeleton would play an accompaniment with his shin bones like a minstrel Bhow,and the music-teacher fainted, and pa had to hold her, and ma didn t like that very well. The skeleton is down on me, though, and says he will kick the i liver outen me when he catches me. You see he went into the bath-room to take a bath, and wanted me to come in and take a towel and sort of polish his limbs. So 1 took some furniture polish and varnished his legs and arms, and the next morning he *as so mad he couldn't eat any breakfast. I told him that was the way the ancient Eevptians treated their mummies, and they kept for centuries, but it didn't encourage him, and he reached one. of bis bony arms across the table towards my chair, and I 'crawled under the table and let out. Pa said I was cruel. He said I must remember that a skeleton has feelings as well as anybody. He said I shouldn't do anything to the skeleton that I wouldn't do to any other boarder ; and when I looked at the music-teacher and snickered right out, ma she slapped me on one side of my head, and pa slapped me on the other, and the music-teacher got me by the hair, and^the

dude that waits on her he , kicked me, Ob, we were having a monkey and a parrot time at our tiouee." , "Well, I should think you were," Mid tto grocery man.