l of husks that the
hogs won't eat, all the diseases that are going in the set you have
moved in, and a desire to die on the doorstep of the old home before
they can cook the calf? Which you want to be, boy?"

"I'll tell you, Uncle Ike," said the boy, laying his head in the old
man's lap, as they sat under the tree; "I am going to be the kind of
a prodigal who comes home with the good health, and the money, and the
appetite for calf; and when you are old, Uncle Ike, you sha'n't get wet
any more, for I will buy you a duck boat that can't be tipped over with
jackscrews, that you can't break with an ax, and that has air chambers
in both ends, so it couldn't be sunk if loaded with railroad iron; and
I will buy you a pump gun that will shoot ducks without your aiming it,
and you shall have a picnic as long as you live. That is the kind of
prodigal nephew I am going to be"; and the old man stroked the red hair
on the head that lay in his lap, and the tears stole down his cheeks as
he thought what a difference there was in prodigals. He thought of his
own prodigal days, when he went out from the home roof tree to make his
way in the world; how he worked on a farm from long before daylight in
the morning, till all the rest had gone to bed, and his back ached so
he could not sleep; how he jumped the farm when he found his wages
decreased as the work became harder and the weather colder, and he went
into the city and worked at many different trades, and finally became
a printer, and grew up to be an editor, made money and went back home a
grown man, with a moustache that actually had to be combed; and how the
girls that would not speak to him when he was a dirty, freckled boy,
wanted to give parties in his honor, and how he shook them; and now he
regretted, old bachelor that he was, that he had not allowed them to
entertain him, so he might have picked out the best one of them for his
wife; and he sighed, and got up and wrung some more water out of his
wet clothes hanging on the fence, and wondered how in the world he could
have allowed himself to be tipped over in a boat, and if he actually did
make a fool of himself when he was there in the water, wishing he hadn't
gone hunting at all.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy, by
George W. Peck

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PECK'S UNCLE IKE ***

***** This file should be named 25490.txt or 25490.zip *****
This and al