-meo, cause
she dont like to have Pa drink only between meals. Well, good day.
There's a Italian got a bear that performs in the street, and I am
going to find where he is showing, and feed the bear a cayenne pepper
lozenger, and see him clean out the Pollack settlement. Good bye."

And the boy went to look for the bear.

CHAPTER X.

HIS PA HAS GOT RELIGION--THE BAD BOY GOES TO SUNDAY SCHOOL--
PROMISES REFORMATION--THE OLD MAN ON TRIAL FOR SIX MONTHS--
WHAT MA THINKS--ANTS IN PA'S LIVER-PAD--THE OLD MAN IN
CHURCH--RELIGION IS ONE THING--ANTS ANOTHER.

"Well, that beats the devil," said the grocery man, as he stood in front
of his grocery and saw the bad boy coming along, on the way home from
Sunday school, with a clean shirt on, and a testament and some dime
novels under his arm. "What has got into you, and what has come over
your Pa. I see he has braced up, and looks pale and solemn. You haven't
converted him have you?"

"No, Pa has not got religion enough to hurt yet, but he has got the
symptoms. He has joined the church on prowbation, and is trying to be
good so he can get in the church for keeps. He said it was hell living
the way he did, and he has got me to promise to go to Sunday school. He
said if I didn't he would maul me so my skin wouldn't hold water. You
see, Ma said Pa had got to be on trial for six months before he could
get in the church, and if he could get along without swearing and doing
anything bad, he was all right, and we must try him and see if we could
cause him to swear. She said she thought a person, when they was on a
prowbation, ought to be a martyr, and try and overcome all temptations
to do evil, and if Pa could go through six months of our home life, and
not cuss the hinges off the door, he was sure of a glorious immortality
beyond the grave. She said it wouldn't be wrong for me to continue
to play innocent jokes on Pa, and if he took it all right he was a
Christian but if he got a hot box, and flew around mad, he was better
out of church than in it. There he comes now," said the boy as he got
behind a sign, "and he is pretty hot for a Christian. He is looking for
me. You had ought to have seen him in church this morning. You see, I
commenced the exercises at home after breakfast by putting a piece of
ice in each of Pa's boots, and when he pulled on the boots he yelled
that his feet were all on fire, and we told him that it was nothing but
symptoms of gout,