Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-09-27
CHAPTER XIV.


Il understand your Pa has got 10 drink
ing again like a fish, says the grocery
man to the bad boy as the youth came
in the grocery and took handful Of
dried apples. The boy ate a dried apple
and then made up terrible face. and
the grocery man asked him what he was
trying to do with his face. The boy
caught hi breath and then said:
Say. don't You know any better than
to Keep drIeu apples where boy can get
hold of them when he has got the
munps: You will kill some boy Yet 10y
such dun carelessness. l thought these
We're sweet dried apples, but they are
sour as . boarding house keeper. and
they make me tired. Didn't you ever
have the mumpe? Gosh. hut To- S.
hurt though: You have got t. Jg q. -..
careful when you have the mumps. am.
not go ont bob Shedding or skating. or
you will have your necl, swell up bigger
a milk pal. Pa says he had the mumps
once when he was a boy and it broke
him all NJ.
We'll, never mind the mumps; how
about yolr Pa spreeing it: Try one of
those pickles in the jar there, won't you?
l always like to have a boy enjoy him
self when he comes to see me" said the
grocery II an, winking to a man who was
filling an old fashioned tin box with to-
bacco out of the pail, who winked back,
as much as to say, If that boy eats
pickle on top of them mumps, we viii
have a circus sure
You can't play no pickle ON me, not
when | have the mumps. Ma passed the
pickles to me this morning, and l took
one mouthful and like to had the lock-
jaw. But Ma didn't do it on purpose. /
guess. She never had the humps and
didn't know how discouraging a pickle
is. Darn if didn't feel as though had
been struck in the butt of the ear with
brick. But about Pa. He has been
fullern g. goose ever since New Years
day. ! think it's wrong for women to
tempt fee BILE minded persons with liquor
on New Years. Now, me and my chum
we can take drink and then let it alone.
We have got brain, and know when we
have got enough, but Pa when he gets
to going don't ever stop until he gets so
sick that he can't keep his stummick in
side of hisself. 1t is getting so they look
TO me to brace Pa up every time he gets
on a tea-, and l guess fixed him this
time so he will never touch liquor again.
l scared him so his bald head turned
gray in a single night"
What under the heavens have you
done to him now?" says the grocery man
in astonishment. Il hope you haven't
done anything you will regret in after
years.
Regret nothing said the boy as he
turned the IL of the cheesebox back
and took the knife and sliced off piece
of cheese and took few crackers out of
a barrel and sat down ON a soapboX bv
the stove. "You see, Ma was annoyed to
death with Pa. He would come home
full when she had company and lay
down OF the sofa and snore, and he
would smell like a distillery. 1t hurt
me to see Ma cry and l told her would
break Pa of drinking if she would let
me, and she said if l would promise not
to hurt Pa to go ahead, and l promised
not to. Then l got my chum and an
other boy-quite big boy-to help, and
Pa is all right. We went down to the
place where they sell arms and legs to
folks who have served in the army, or
sawmill. or thrashing machine and
lost Their limbs, and we borried some
arms and legs and fixed up dissecting
room.
'We liked long table in the base
ment big enough to lay Pa out on, you
know, and then we got false whiskers
and mustaches, and when Pa came IN
the house drunk and laid down on the
sofa and got to sleep we took him and
laid him out on the table and took some
trunk straps and surcingle and strapped
him down to the table. He slept night
along all through it, and we had another
table with false arms and legs on, and
we rolled up our sleeves and smoked
pipes just like read that medical stu
dents do when they cut I'D a man. Well