st on
the top of my hat, the sight of me might produce fatal results upon the
already exhausted family.

At last the point was reached where I thought patience ceased to be a
virtue, and I rebelled against being any longer made a spectacle.

I declared if they would all go away but mother, I would tell her all
about it. The crowd retired, commissioned to send up a crock of butter,
a tub of hot water, and a pair of shears. Maternal love is strong, but I
doubt if it was often put to a severer test of its long-suffering than
was that of my mother that night.

[Illustration: THE SHOWER-BATH.]

Suffice it to say that, after my clothes had been cut to ribbons, the
sheets torn up, my head well-nigh shaved, and my whole person subjected
first to an African bath of melted butter, and afterward to one of hot
soap-suds, I had had my fill of bathing for one day, and was, shortly
before midnight, pronounced to be tolerably clean.

P.S.--I never made any marbles of coal-tar.

DAB KINZER: A STORY OF A GROWING BOY

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

CHAPTER V.

During the week which followed the wedding-day, the improvements on the
Morris house were pushed along in a way that surprised everybody.

Every day that passed, and with every dollar's worth of work that was
done, the good points of the long-neglected old mansion came out
stronger and stronger; for Mrs. Kinzer's plans had been a good while
getting ready, and she knew exactly what was best to be done.

Before the end of the week Mr. Foster came over, bringing Ford with him,
and he soon arrived at an understanding with Dabney's mother.

"A very business-like, common-sense sort of a woman," he remarked to his
son. "But what a great, dangling, overgrown piece of a boy that is.
Still, you may find him good company."

"No doubt," said Ford, "and thus I can be useful to him. He looks as if
he could learn if he had a fair chance."

"I should say so," responded Mr. Foster, thoughtfully; "and we mustn't
expect too much of fellows brought up away out here, as he has been."

Ford gravely assented.

There was a surprise in store for the village people; for, early in the
following week it was rumored from house to house, "The Kinzers are all
a-movin' over to Ham Morris's."

And before the public mind was settled enough to inquire into the
matter, the rumor was changed into, "The Widder Kinzer's moved to Ham's
house, bag and baggage."

So it was, although the carpenters