ry man of the bad boy, as the boy
came to bring some butter back that was strong enough to work on the
street. "You haven't hurt your poor old Pa, have you?"

"O, his jaw is all right now. You ought to have seen him when the gun
was engaged in kicking him," says the boy as he set the butter plate on
the cheese box.

"Well, tell us about it. What had the gun against your Pa? I guess
it was the son-of-a-gun that kicked him," said the grocery man, as he
winked at a servant girl who came in with her apron over her head, after
two cents worth of yeast.

"I'll tell you, if you will keep watch down street for Pa. He says he is
dammed if he will stand this foolishness any longer."

"What, does your father swear, while he is on probation?"

"Swear! Well, I should cackle. You ought to have heard him when he come
to, and spit out the loose teeth. You see, since Pa quit drinking he is
a little nervous, and the doctor said he ought to go out somewhere
and get bizness off his mind, and hunt ducks, and row a boat, and get
strength, and Pa said shooting ducks was just in his hand, and for me to
go and borrow a gun, and I could go along and carry game. So I got a gun
at the gun store, and some cartridges, and we went away out west on the
cars, more than fifty miles, and stayed two days. You ought to seen Pa.
He was just like a boy that was sick, and couldn't go to school. When
we got out by the lake he jumped up and cracked his heels together, and
yelled. I thought he was crazy, but he was only cunning. First I scared
him nearly to death by firing off the gun behind him, as we were going
along the bank, and blowing off a piece of his coat-tail. I knew it
wouldn't hurt him, but he turned pale and told me to lay down that gun,
and he picked it up and carried it the rest of the way, and I was offul
glad cause it was a heavy gun. His coat-tail smelled like when you burn
a rag to make the air in the room stop smelling so, all the forenoon.
You know Pa is a little near sighted but he don't believe it, so I got
some of the wooden decoy ducks that the hunters use, and put them in the
lake, and you ought to see Pa get down on his belly and crawl through
the grass, to get up close to them.

"He shot twenty times at the wooden ducks, and wanted me to go in and
fetch them out, but I told him I was no retriever dog. Then Pa was mad,
and said all he brought me along for was to carry game, and I had come
near shooting his hind leg off, and now I