Connecticut western news., 1883-02-07
HIS PA GOES SKATING.
Said He Was Going to Spread Himself, and
 He Did.
From Peck's Sum-

the bad boy. "He is split up so ma buttons the top of his pants to his collar button, like a bicycle rider. We'll, he had no business to have told me and my chum that he used to be the best skater in North America, when he was boy. He said he skated once from Albany to New York in an hour and eighty minutes. Me and my chum thought if pa was such terror on skates we would get him to put on pair of roller skates and enter him as the great unknown, and clean out. the whole gang. We told pa that he must remember that roller skates were different from ice skates, 'and that maybe he couldn't skate on them; but he said it didn't make any difference what they were as long as they were skates, and he would just paralyze the whole crowd. So we got pair of big roller skates for him, and while we were strapping them on pa he looked at the skaters glide around on the smooth waxed floor just as though they were greased. Then pa looked at the skates on his feet, after they were fastened sort of forlorn-like, the way horse thief does when they put shackles on his legs, and I told him if he was afraid he couldn't skate with them we would take them off; but he said he would beat any body there was there, or bust suspender.
 ''Then we strengthened pa up and pointed him toward the middle of the room, and he said leggo, and we just give him a little push to start him, and he began to go. We'll, by gosh, you'd dide to have seen pa try to stop. You see, you can't stick in your heel and stop, like you can on ice-skates, and pa soon found that out, and he began to turn sideways, and then he threw his arms and walked on his heels, and he lost his hat, and his eyes began to stick out, cause he was going right toward an iron post. One arm caught the post, and he circled around at 8 few times, and then he let go and began to fall and, sir, he kept falling all across the room, and everybody got out of the way except girl, and pa grabbed her by the polo naise like drowning man grabs at straw, though there wasn't any straws in her polonaise as I know of, but pa just pulled her along as though she was done up in 8 shawl-strap, and his feet went out from under him, and he struck on his shoulders and kept a-going, with the girl dragging along like 8 bundle of clothes. If pa had another pair of roller skates on his shoulders, and casters on his ears, he couldn't have slid along any better. Pa is short, big man, and as he was rolling along on his back, he looked like sofa with casters on being pushed across room by girl. Finally, pa came to the wall and had to stop, and the girl fell right across him, with her roller skates in his neck, and she called him an old brute, and told him if he didn't let go of her polonaise, she would murder him.
 ''Just then my chum and me got there and we amputated pa from the girl and lifted him up, and I told him for heavens sake to let us take off the skates, cause he couldn't skate any more than g. COW, and pa was mad and said for us to let him alone, and he could skate all right, and we let go and he struck out again We'll, sir, am ashamed. An old man like pa ought to know better than to be boy. This last time pa said he was a.o:ocr &o c,,rooJ b;nosx,1e o,,J ;eTo,o o,-, judge of big spread, he did spread him. self. Somehow the skates had got turned around sideways on his feet. and his feet got to going in different di- rections, and pas feet were getting SC far apart that thought I would have two pas, half the size, with one leg apiece. tried to get him to take up z collection of his legs, and get them botl in the same ward, but his arms flew around and one hit me on the nose, anc thought if he wanted to strike the best friend he had, he could run his ow1 legs hisself. When he began to sepa rate, could hear the bones crack; bu maybe it was his pants; but anyway h, came down to the floor like one of thos, fellows in circus who spreads himself and he kept going, and finally he sur rounded an iron post with his legs ant stopped, and he looked pale, and tn
 proprietor of the rink told pa if h.
 wanted to give 8 flying -trapeze perfo1
 nance he would have to go to the gym
 nasium, and he couldn't skate on hi
 shoulder any more, cause other skaters
 were afraid of him.
 "Then pa said he would kick the live
 out of the proprie or of the rink, an
 got up and steadied himself, and the
 he tried to kick the man, but his hee
 went up to wonet, and pa turned bac
 somersault and struck right on his ves
 in front. I guess it knocked the breat out of him, for he didn't speak for fe 7 minutes, and then he wanted to go hom,
 and we put him in street car and I
 laid down on the hay and rode hom, Oh, the work we had to get pas cloth, ) off. He had cricks in his back, an
 everywhere, and ma was away to one the neighbors, to look at the present and I had to put hniment on pa, and made mistake and got bottle of flu 5 niture polish, and put it on pa ar 7 rubbed it in, and when ma came hon r pa smelled like coffin at chari K funeral, and ma said there was no W, n of getting that varnish off pa until
 wore off. Pa says holidays are a co d demned nuisance anyway. He will ha d to stay in the house all this week.