s so a good man should grow
old, and have pains. The red-headed boy and quite a flock of kids of
about his age were sitting on the sidewalk, outside the fence, arguing
something in loud voices, and finally he heard them agree to leave it to
Uncle Ike, and then they piled over the fence and came up to the porch,
and the red-headed boy was the spokesman.

He said: "Say, Uncle Ike, us boys have got a bet and you are to
decide it. Isn't it true that the people of Cuba, Porto Rico and the
Philippines are gamblers, and hasn't our government fought them to a
standstill to send people there to induce them to stop gambling and to
attend to business? Isn't gambling a sin, and is it not our duty as a
nation, to teach these ignorant people the wickedness of gambling, bull
fighting, cock fighting, and all that?" and the boys sat all around
Uncle Ike, waiting for a decision to be handed down, as they say in
court.

The old man rapped the bowl of his pipe on the arm of the rocking chair,
blew through the stem, made up a face when he got some of the nicotine
on his tongue, took a piece off the broom and run through it, blew
again, reached for the tobacco bag, filled it up, lighted it, smoked a
minute or two in silence, while five pairs of big boys' eyes watched him
as though he was a chief justice. He wiggled around a little, to ease
his leg, knitted his brow as the pain shot through his leg, almost said
damn; then the pain let up, his face cleared off, a smile came over it,
he looked at the little statesmen around him, and finally said:

"Well, boys, you must not grow up with the idea that our own beloved
country has no faults. Just love it, with all its faults; fight for it,
if necessary, but don't get daffy over it. In the countries you speak
of, everybody gambles more or less. In this country only a small
proportion gamble, and yet the element of chance is something that is
very attractive to most people here at home. The other evening your Aunt
Almira brought home a beautiful goblet she won at a progressive euchre
party of neighbors. How much more of a sin is it for the Cuban woman to
win five dollars at monte, and buy a goblet? It is scarcely three years
since tickets in Havana lotteries were publicly sold in this country.
There is more money lost and won on draw poker in one day in New York
than is lost and won in Havana on monte and roulette. You can find
almost any gambling game in Chicago or Milwaukee that you can find in