Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1893-10-06
CHAPTER XIII.
HIS PA AND DYNAMITE.

i CHAPTER ANIL
HIS PA AND DYNAMITE.
II guess your Pas losses in the silver
r;ae have made him crazy, haven't
t!'5r:" said the grocery man to the bad
walkers singed off and powder marks on
his face and began to play on the har-
monica as he sat down on the end Of q
stick of stove wood and balanced himself
"Oh, guess not. He has hedged. He
got in with a deacon of another church
and sold some of his stock to him, and
Pa says if l will keep my condemn
mouth shut he will unload the whole Of
it if the churches hold out. He goes to
a new church every night there is prayer
meeting or anything and makes Ma so
with him to give him tone, and after
meeting she talks to the sisters about
how to piece silk bed quilt, while Pa
gets in his work selling silver stock. I
don't know but he will order some more
stock from the factory if he sells all he
has got" and the boy went on playing
There's land that is fairer than day."
But what was he skipping up street
for the other night with his hat off.
grabbing at his coat tails as though they
were on fire? l thought l never saw q
pussy man run any faster. And what
was the celebration down on your street
about that time? thought the world
was coming to an end" and the grocery
man kept away from the boy for fear
he would explode.
"Oh. that was only a Fenian scare.
Nothin serious. You see Pa is sort Of
half Englishman. He claims to be an
American citizen when he wants office,
but when they talk about a draft he
claims to be a subject of Great Britain,
and he says they can't touch him. Pa is
darn smart man and don't you forget
it. There don't any of them get ahead
of Pa much. Well. Pa has said a good
deal about the wicked Fenians, and that
they ought to DO pulled and all that, and
when read the story in the papers
about the explosion in the British par
Lament Pa was hot. He said the dam
Nir,sh was running the whole world. He
didn't dare say it at the table or our
hired girl would have knocked him silly
with a spoonful of mashed potatoes,
cause she is Nirish girl, and she can
lick any Englishman in this town.
PA said there ought to have been
somebody there to have taken that bomb
up and throwed it in the sewer before it
exploded. He said that if he ever should
see bomb he would grab it right up
and throw it away where it wouldn't
hurt anybody. Pa has me read the pa
pers to him nights, cause his eyes have
got splinters in 'em, and after had read
all there was in the paper made up q
lot more and pretended to read it, about
how it was rumored that the Fenians
here in Milwaukee were going to place
dynamite bombs at every house where
an Englishman lived and at given sig
nal blow them all up. Pa looked pale
around the gills. but he said he wasn't
scared.
"Pa and Ma were going to call on q
she deacon that night, that has lots Of
money in the bank, to see if she didn't
want to invest in dead sure paying sill
yer mine, and me and my chum conclud-
ed to give them sendoff. We got my
big black injy rubber football and paint
ed 'Dinymight' in big white letters on it
and tied piece of tarred rope to it for a
fuse and got big firecracker, one of
those old Fourth of July horse scarers,
and basket full of broken glass. We
put the football in front of the step and
Lit the tarreG rope and got under the
step with the firecrackers and basket,
where they 60 down into the basement.
Pa and Ma came out the front door and
down the steps, and Pa saw the football
and the burning fuse, and he said, Great
God, Hammer. we are blowed upv and he
started to run, and Ma she stopped to
look at it.
"Just as Pa started to run touched
off the firecracker, and my chum ar
ranged it to pour out the broken gl3ss
on the brick pavement just as the fire.
cracker went off. Well, everything went
just as we expected, except Ma. She had
examined the football and concluded it
was not dangerous and was just giving
kick as the firecracker went off and
the glass fell, and the firecracker was so
near her that it scared her, and when Pa
looked around Ma was flying across the
sidewalk, and Pa heard the noise, and he
thought the house was blown to atoms
Oh, you'd a died to see him go around the
corner. You could play crokay on his
coattail, and his face was as pale as Mas
when she goes to party. But Ma didn't
scare much. As quick as she stopped
against the hitching post she knew it was
US boys. and she came down there, and
maybe she didn't maui me. cried and
tried to gain her sympathy by telling her
the firecracker went off before it was
due and burned my eyebrows off, but
she didn't let up until promised to 60
and find Pa
81 tell you my Ma ought to be engaged
by the British government to hunt cut
the dynamite fiends. She would corral
them in two minutes. If Pa had as much
sand as Ma has got, it would be warm
weather for me- Well, me and my chum