but he's a grand jollier. And I thought
the man's eyes would drop out; I almost felt like holdin' out my hands
to catch 'em. And he says to my Pa, he says, 'Where do you come from?'
and Pa says, 'A free country,' he says, 'where every man gets a square
deal and can say what he likes.'

"Well, the man looked at him hard and he says, very sarkastic, he says,
'Where's that?'

"'Russia,' says Pa, and, say, you'd orter heard that man yell. Honest,
it made me sick at the stomach. Jimmy Duggan was just giving the
committee the last orders on the platform when that yell man cut loose.
Jimmy he looks around like he'd been shot, takes a flying leap off'n
the platform, and comes rushing down towards my Pa and the man with the
whiskers and the bulging eyes. And the man was yelling all the time
like the fans do at the baseball game when the score's a tie and the
home team's heavy hitter slugs the ball on the left ear for a home run.
And he was standing up pointing at Pa with a hand the size of a shovel,
and all the rest of the bunch around us was getting restless and
cacklin' furrin' talk.

"So when Jimmy gets up to the man with the steam whistle in his throat,
he grabs him by the whiskers, gives 'em a tug like he'd pull 'em off,
and he says pretty sharp, 'Sit down.' And the feller set, and just as
he did he opens his mouth to let out another yell, and Jimmy grabs a
cap from another man's head and sticks it in his mouth, and that
stopped him. So after he gets the cap out, Jimmy says, 'Now what's the
row?'

"And the man points at my Pa and says, 'That man says Russia is a free
country,' he says, and starts in to give another yell, only Jimmy lifts
a finger at him and the man stops with his mouth open, and he looked
foolish I tell you. So then Jimmy bends down and whispers something in
the man's ear, and the feller smiles and pats Pa on the shoulder
gentlelike, every once in a while, and Pa lets on he never notices it,
though I seen he's kinder mad about something.

"Just as Jimmy gets back to the platform a Dago and a Hungarian gets to
words about who's the best mus-i-cans in the ward.

"Oh! moosicians, is it? Have it your own way.

"You see the Hungarians was awful mad because the Dagos beat 'em out
catering to supply the music for the night, and the Dago orchestra was
playing the swellest ragtime music you ever heard. Well, them two gets
to blows, and about fifteen others are jumping around ready to pile in
when