awful tickled, and I guess they drank some of your
Sozodont, cause they seemed to foam at the mouth. Pa wanted to put his
friend in the spare bed, but there were no sheets on it, and he went to
rumaging around in the drawers for sheets. He got out all the towels and
table-cloths, and, made up the bed with table-cloths, the first night,
and in the morning the visitor kicked because there was a big coffee
stain on the table-cloth sheet. You know that tablecloth you spilled
the coffee on last spring, when Pa scared you by having his whiskers cut
off. O, they raised thunder around the room. Pa took your night-shirt,
you know the one with the lace work all down the front, and put a pillow
in it, and set it on a chair, then took a burned match and marked eyes
and nose on the pillow, and put your bonnet on it, and then they had a
war dance. Pa hurt the bald spot on his head by hitting it against the
gas chandelier, and then he said dammit. Then they throwed pillows at
each other. Pa's friend didn't have any night shirt, and Pa gave his
friend one of your'n, and the friend took that old hoop-skirt in the
closet, the one Pa always steps on when he goes in the close, after a
towel and hurts his bare foot, you know, and put it on under the night
shirt, and they walked around arm in arm. O, it made me tired to see a
man Pa's age act so like a darn fool."

"Hennery," says the mother, with a deep meaning in her voice, "I want to
ask you one question. Did your Pa's friend _wear a dress?_"

"O, yes," said the bad boy, coolly, not noticing the pale face of his
Ma, "the friend put on that old blue dress of yours, with the pistol
pocket in front, you know, and pinned a red cloth on for a train, and
they danced the can-can."

Just at this point Pa came home to dinner, and the bad boy said, "Pa, I
was just telling Ma what a nice time you had that first night she went
away, with the pillows, and--"

"Hennery!" says the old gentleman severely, "you are a confounded fool."

"Izick," said the wife more severely, "Why did you bring a female home
with you that night. Have you got no--"

"O, Ma," says the bad boy, "it was not a woman. It was young Mr. Brown,
Pa's clerk at the store, you know."

"O!" said Mas with a smile and a sigh.

"Hennery," said his stern parent, "I want to see you there by the coal
bin for a minute or two. You are the gaul durndest fool I ever see. What
you want to learn the first thing you do is to keep your mouth sh