Year: 1874

That Emerson boy is dead, and there
isn't any one around that house now to
make fun. He was cheerful, lively
boy, and he did his best TO make that
household put on the mantle of joyful
ness. Emerson often remarked that Bob
didn't seem ever to sit down and think
of the grave and death, and he proba-
bly, never did.


No, Bob wasn't of that make. He
wanted to have fun, and if the coroner
should have his body exhumed to-day
l have no doubt that certain portions
of il would be found calloused where
the press-board used to fall. Both his
ears were nearly worn up by being cuff
ed so much, and it took whole row of
currant bushes to furnish whips to dust
his jacket for for one summer.


Emerson didn't know what fun was
until Bob was eight years old. The boy
began to launch out. He would bore
gimlet holes in the bottom of the water
pail, put cartridges in the coal stove,
unscrew the door-knobs, fill kerosene
lamps with water, and good thrashing
didn't burden his mind over five minu-
ties. Sometimes his father would take
him by the hair and yank him up to
the sofa and sit down and ask:


Robert Parathon Emerson, what in
blazes alls YEP"


"It's the yaller jaunders, l guess"
Bob would meekly reply.


Robert, don't you want to be an an
gel?" the old man would continue


"And have wings?"


"Yes, my son."


"And Hy higher'n kite?"


eyes"


"And fight hawke"


Eyes, guess So"


"Bet your beef would-whoopl Bull
ly for the angels?"


That's sacrilege, that is!' the old
man would remark, and he would jerk
the young rascal was bound for the gal
laws After lying under the pear tree
for six minutes Bob would recover from
his sadness and 60 over 10 the barn and
run the pitchfork through the straw-cut-
ter, harness up the COW, and stick pins
into the family horse.


One night he brought home a wolf
trap and set it in the middle of the
woodshed floor to catch a rat. He
chuckled a good deal that evening at
the thought of what would happen to
the rats, and he fell asleep and dreamed
that he was a hand-organ, and that some
one stole the crank to him so that he
couldn't he played on. Just before 60
ing to bed old Emerson went out after
scuttle Of coal, and he stepped his
bootless foot into that trap. He made a
mighty spring and uttered a mighty
yell, and, it took two men ten menutes
to spring the trap off his leg.


It's that boys work." he groaned, as
he nursed his foot, and he took up the
boot-jack, Gmped into the bedroom, and
gave Bob and awful clip just as the
child was dreaming of playing baseball
with a mermaid.


an pound ye to death if ye don't
stop this foolingr' cried the old man,
but he hadn't been out of the bedroom
ten minutes before Bob was planning to
stop up the chimney next day and smoke
everybody out of the house. 1t wasn't
many days before he fixed a darning
needle in the cushion of his fathers arm
chair and bounced the old man three
feet high; and his licking hadn't got
over smarting before he exploded fire.
cracker in his mothers snuff box. That
night the old man said to him as he took
him by the ear:


"Robert Parathon Emerson, do you
ever think of where you will go tor"


"Yes, sir" he answered, "I'll go to
bed purity soon."


Then he got another mauling, and
went to bed to dream that he was a
three-tined pitchfork, and that man
was using him to load hay with.


Poor boy! Even three days before he
died, and while on his dying bed, he
managed to slip an eight-ounce tack in
to his fathers left boot, and get up an
other circus. If he's in heaven now, l
truly believe that he'll put up some sort
of job on the first angel who comes
around him.-[ Detroit Free Press.