Chapter 3. The Bad Boy Gives His Pa Away...

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_ CHAPTER III. THE BAD BOY GIVES HIS PA AWAY--PA IS A HARD CITIZEN-- DRINKING SOZODONT--MAKING UP THE SPARE BED--THE MIDNIGHT WAR-DANCE--AN APPOINTMENT BY THE COAL BIN

The bad boy's mother was out of town for a week, and when she came home she found everything topsy turvey. The beds were all mussed up, and there was not a thing hung up anywhere. She called the bad boy and asked him what in the deuce had been going on, and he made it pleasant for his Pa about as follows:

"Well, Ma, I know I will get killed, but I shall die like a man. When Pa met you at the depot he looked too innocent for any kind of use, but he's a hard citizen, and don't you forget it. He hasn't been home a single night till after eleven o'clock, and he was tired every night, and he had somebody come home with him."

"O, heavens, Hennery," said the mother, with a sigh, "are you sure about this?"

"Sure!" says the bad boy, "I was on to the whole racket. The first night they came home awful tickled, and I guess they drank some of your Sozodont, cause they seemed to foam at the mouth. Pa wanted to put his friend in the spare bed, but there were no sheets on it, and he went to rumaging around in the drawers for sheets. He got out all the towels and table-cloths, and, made up the bed with table-cloths, the first night, and in the morning the visitor kicked because there was a big coffee stain on the table-cloth sheet. You know that tablecloth you spilled the coffee on last spring, when Pa scared you by having his whiskers cut off. O, they raised thunder around the room. Pa took your night-shirt, you know the one with the lace work all down the front, and put a pillow in it, and set it on a chair, then took a burned match and marked eyes and nose on the pillow, and put your bonnet on it, and then they had a war dance. Pa hurt the bald spot on his head by hitting it against the gas chandelier, and then he said dammit. Then they throwed pillows at each other. Pa's friend didn't have any night shirt, and Pa gave his friend one of your'n, and the friend took that old hoop-skirt in the closet, the one Pa always steps on when he goes in the close, after a towel and hurts his bare foot, you know, and put it on under the night shirt, and they walked around arm in arm. O, it made me tired to see a man Pa's age act so like a darn fool."

"Hennery," says the mother, with a deep meaning in her voice, "I want to ask you one question. Did your Pa's friend _wear a dress?_"

"O, yes," said the bad boy, coolly, not noticing the pale face of his Ma, "the friend put on that old blue dress of yours, with the pistol pocket in front, you know, and pinned a red cloth on for a train, and they danced the can-can."

Just at this point Pa came home to dinner, and the bad boy said, "Pa, I was just telling Ma what a nice time you had that first night she went away, with the pillows, and--"

"Hennery!" says the old gentleman severely, "you are a confounded fool."

"Izick," said the wife more severely, "Why did you bring a female home with you that night. Have you got no--"

"O, Ma," says the bad boy, "it was not a woman. It was young Mr. Brown, Pa's clerk at the store, you know."

"O!" said Mas with a smile and a sigh.

"Hennery," said his stern parent, "I want to see you there by the coal bin for a minute or two. You are the gaul durndest fool I ever see. What you want to learn the first thing you do is to keep your mouth shut," and then they went on with the frugal meal, while Hennery seemed to feel as though something was coming. _

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