and hold a bottle for. This affair breaks me all
up," and the boy picked the cheese out of his teeth with a sliver he cut
from the counter.

"Well, how does your Pa take it?" asked the grocery man, as he charged
the boy's Pa with cheese, and saffron, and a number of such things.

"O, Pa will pull through. He wanted to boss the whole concern until Ma's
chum, an old woman that takes snuff, fired him out into the hall. Pa sat
there on my hand-sled, a perfect picture of dispair, and I thought it
would be a kindness to play in on him. I found the cat asleep in the
bath-room, and I rolled the cat up in a shawl and brought it out to Pa
and told him the nurse wanted him to hold the baby. It seemed to do Pa
good to feel that he was indispensible around the house, and he took
the cat on his lap as tenderly as you ever saw a mother hold her infant.
Well, I got in the back hall, where he couldn't see me, and pretty soon
the cat began to wake up and stretch himself, and Pa said 's-h-h-tootsy,
go to sleep now, and let its Pa hold it,' and Pa he rocked back and
forth on the hand sled and began to sing 'by, low, baby.' That settled
it with the cat."

[Illustration: By low baby 066]

"Well, some cats can't stand music, anyway, and the more the cat
wanted to get out of the shawl, the louder Pa sung, and bimeby I heard
something-rip, and Pa yelled, 'scat you brute,' and when I looked
around the corner of the hall the cat was bracing hisself against Pa's
vest with his toe nails, and yowling, and Pa fell over the sled and
began to talk about the hereafter like the minister does when he gets
excited in church, and then Pa picked up the sled and seemed to be
looking for me or the cat, but both of us was offul scarce. Don't you
think there are times when boys and cats are kind of few around their
accustomed haunts? Pa don't look as though he was very smart, but he can
hold a cat about as well as the next man. But I am sorry for Ma. She was
just getting ready to go to Florida for her neuralgia, and this will put
a stop to it, cause she has to stay and take care of that young one. Pa
says I will have a nice time this summer pushing the baby wagon. By
the great horn spoons, there has got to be a dividing line somewhere,
between business and pleasure, and I strike the line at wheeling a
baby. I had rather catch a string of perch than to wheel all the babies
ever was. They needn't procure no baby on my account, if it is to amuse
me. I don't see