hen is your ma coming back?" asked the grocery man, of the bad boy, as
he found him standing on the sidewalk when the grocery was opened in the
morning, taking some pieces of brick out of his coat tail pockets.

"O she got back at midnight, last night," said the boy, as he eat a few
blue berries out of a case. "That's what makes me up so early, Pa has
been kicking at these pieces of brick with his bare feet, and when
I came away he had his toes in his hand and was trying to go back up
stairs on one foot. Pa haint got no sense."

"I am afraid you are a terror," said the grocery man, as he looked at
the innocent face of the boy, "You are always making your parents some
trouble, and it is a wonder to me they don't send you to some reform
school. What deviltry were you up to last night to get kicked this
morning?"

"No deviltry, just a little fun. You see, Ma went to Chicago to stay a
week, and she got tired, and telegraphed she would be home last night,
and Pa was down town and I forgot to give him the dispatch, and after he
went to bed, me and a chum of mine thought wo would have a 4th of July.

"You see, my chum has got a sister about as big as Ma, and we hooked some
of her clothes and after P got to snoring we put them in Pa's room. O,
you'd a laffed. We put a pair of number one slippers with blue
stockings, down in front of the rocking chair, beside Pa's boots, and a
red corset on a chair, and my chum's sister's best black silk dress on
another chair, and a hat with a white feather on, on the bureau, and some
frizzes on the gas bracket, and everything we could find that belonged
to a girl in my mum's sister's room. O, we got a red parasol too, and
left it right in the middle of the floor. Well, when I looked at the
lay-out, and heard Pa snoring, I thought I should die. You see, Ma knows
Pa is, a darn good feller, but she is easily excited. My chum slept with
me that night, and when we heard the door bell ring I stuffed a pillow
in my mouth, There was nobody to meet Ma at the depot, and she hired a
hack and came right up. Nobody heard the bell but me, and I had to go
down and let Ma in. She was pretty hot, now you bet, at not being met
at the depot. "Where's your father?" said she, as she began to go up
stairs.

"I told her I guessed Pa had gone to sleep by this time, but I heard
a good deal of noise in the room about an hour ago, and may be he was
taking a bath. Then I slipped up stairs and looked over the banister