Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1897-08-06
PECK'S BAD BOY.
Uses HIS Influence TO Bring About
a Reformation I'm HIS Pa.


Peck's San.
81 understand your pa has got to
drinking again." said the grocery man.
at is too bad. l can't thing OF any
thing that humiliates a boy, and
makes him so ashamed, as to have a
father that is in the habit of hosting
in too much benzine."
ayes; but 1 guess We have got him
all right now. He is the scartest man
you ever saw" and the boy took can
opener and began to cut the zinc UNI
der the stove, just as if it would work
as well ON zinc as on tin.
What, you haven't been dissecting
him again, have your" said the grocery
man, as he pulled a stool beside the
boy to hear the news. GLOW did you
bring him to his senses?"
"Well, you see ma had the minister
and some of the sisters try talking to
pa, but he broke them all up by talk
ing about what an appetite they had
for champagne punch when they were
out in camp last summer, and they
couldn't have any effect on him, and
ma said she guessed l would have to
exercise my ingenuity on pa again.
Ma has an idea that l have got some
sense yet, so I told her that if she would
do just as 1 said, me and my chum
would scare pa so he would swear off.
She said she would, and we went to
work. First took pas spectacles
down to an optician, Saturday night,
and had the glasses taken out and a
pair put in their place that would
magnify, and 1 took them home
and put them in pas spectacle case.
Then I got suit of clothes from my
chum's uncle's trunk, about half the
size of pas clothes. My chum's uncle
is very small man, and pa is corpulent.
I got plug hat three sizes smaller than
pas hat, and took the name out of pas
hat and put it in the small hat. Igot a
shirt about half big enough for pa,
and put his initials on the thing under
the bosom, and got number fourteen
collar. Pa wears seventeen, Pa had
promised to brace up and 60 to church
Sunday morning, and ma put these
small clothes where pa could put them
on. I told ma, when pa woke up, to
tell pa he looked awfully bloated, and
excite his curiosity, and then send for
me-"
"You didn't play such a trick as
that on poor old man, did your" said
the grocery man, as smile came over
his face.
"You bet. Desperate disease re-
quire q desperate remedy. Well, ma
told pa he looked awfully bloated, and
that his dissipation was killing him,
as we'll as all the rest of the family.
Pa said he guessed he wasn't bloated
much, but he got up and put on his
spectacles and looked at himself in
the glass. You'd died to see him
looked at himself. His face looked as
big as two faces, through the glasses,
and his nose was a sight. Pa looked
scared, and then he held up his hand
and looked at that. His hand looked
like ham. Just then came in, and
I turned pale, with some chalk on my
face, and began to cry, and said
oh, pa, what ails you? You are so
swelled up I hardly knew YOU Pa
looked sick to his stomach, and then
he tried to get on the pants. Oh, my,
it was all I could do to keep from
laughing to see him pull them on.
He could just get his legs in, and when
I got shoe horn and gave it to him,
he was mad. He said it was q mean
boy that would give his pa shoe horn
to put on pants with. The pants
wouldn't come around pa into ten
inches, and he said he must have eat
something that disagreed with him,
and he laid it to watermelon. Ma
stuffed her handkerchief in her
mouth to keep from laffing, when
she see pa look at himself. The legs
of the pants we're so tight pa couldn't
hardly breathe, and he turned pale,
and said, 'Hennery, your pa is a
mighty sick man. and then ma and me
both laughed, and he said we wanted
him to die so we could spend his life
insurance in riotous living. But when
he put on that condensed shirt, ma
she laid down on the lounge and fairly
yelled, and I LATED till my side
ached. Pa got it over his head, and
got his hands in the sleeves, and
couldn't get it either way, and he
couldn't see us laugh, but he could
hear us, and he said, Its darned
funny, amt it, to have parent
swelled up this way. If I bust you
will both be sorry Well, ma took
hold of one side of the shirt, and !
took hold of the other, and we pulled it
on and when pas head came up through
the collar, his face was fairly blue.
Ma told him she was afraid he would
have stroke of apoplexy before he
got his clothes on, and 1 guess pa
thought so too. He tried to get the
collar on, but it wouldn't 60 half way
around his neck, and he looked in the
glass and cried, he looked so. He SAT
down in chair and painted, he was SC
ont Of breath and the shirt and Dants