in daylight looking like that? Get me a piece of
smoked glass, or I shall have cataracts on both eyes," and the old man
knocked the ashes and deceased tobacco out of his pipe on his boot heel,
and dug the stuff out of the bottom of the pipe with a jack-knife.
"Well, I had to have my hair cut, because the boys at the picnic filled
my hair with burdock burrs, and it couldn't be combed out," said the
boy, as he took a match and scratched it on top of his head, and lit
it, while the uncle sniffed at the burned hair. "Aunt Almira cut my
hair first with a pair of dull shears, to get the burrs out, and then a
barber cut off all there was left, with these horse-clippers, and I feel
like a dog that has had his hindquarters clipped to make a lion of him.
Aunt Almira says I have got a great head. Say, Uncle Ike, did you ever
examine the bumps on my head? I was at a phrenology lecture once, and
the feeler could tell all that was going on in a man's head just by the
bumps. Feel of mine, Uncle, and tell my fortune," and the red-headed boy
came up to the old man for examination.
"I am no phrenologist," said Uncle Ike, as he smoked up and got the boy
to coughing, "but there are some bumps I know the names of," and he felt
all around the boy's head, and looked wise. "This place where there is
a dent in your head is where the bump of veneration will grow, later, if
you get in the habit of letting old people have a show, and get up and
offer them your chair, and run errands for them without expecting them
to pay you. This place on the back of your head, where there is a bump
as big as a hickory nut, is what we call the hat rack bump, because you
can hang your hat on it. The barber ought to have cut a couple of slices
off that bump with his lawn mower. Here is a bump that shows that you
are color blind. Be careful, or you will marry a negro girl by mistake.
As a precaution, when you begin to get in love serious, bring the girl
to me that I may see if she is white. Here is a soft bump that indicates
that you will steal-------"
[Illustration: Bump that indicates that you will steal 077]
"Oh, come off," said the boy, laughing, and removing his head from the
investigation. "That is where I was struck by a golf ball. You are no
phrenologist. I know what you are, Uncle Ike; you are a fakir.
But, say, I was sick last night, after we had that green watermelon for
dinner, and Aunt Almira said I was troubled with sewer gas, and she gave
me th
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