goat, and they were
just hunting around the basement for the goat, with a tin cup, when the
fireworks went off."

[Illustration: The old man, the hired girl and the goat 074]

"Well, there was balls of green, and red and blue fire, and spilled
powder blazed up, and the goat just looked astonished, and looked on as
though it was sorry so much good fodder was spoiled, but when its hair
began to burn, the goat gave one snort and went between Pa and the hired
girl like it was shot out of a cannon, and it knocked Pa over a wash
boiler into the coal bin, and the hired girl in amongst the kindling
wood, and she crossed herself and repeated the catekism, and the goat
jumped up on the brick furnace, and they couldn't get it down. I heard
the celebration and went down and took Pa by the pants and pulled him
out of the coal bin, and he said he would surrender, and plead guilty of
being the biggest fool in Milwaukee. I pulled the kindling wood off the
hired girl, and then she got mad, and said she would milk the goat or
die. O, that girl has got sand. She used to work in the glass factory.
Well, sir, it was a sight worth two shillings admission, to see that
hired girl get upon a step ladder to milk that goat on top of the
furnace, with Pa sitting on a barrel of potatoes, bossing the job. They
are going to fix a gang plank to get the goat down off the furnace. The
baby kicked on the milk last night. I guess besides tasting of powder
and burnt hair, the milk was too warm on account of the furnace. Pa has
got to grow a new lot of hair on that goat, or the woman won't take it
back. She don't want no bald goat. Well, they can run the baby and goat
to suit themselves, 'cause I have resigned. I have gone into business.
Don't you smell anything that would lead you to surmise that I had gone
into business? No drugstore this time," and the boy got up and put his
thumbs in the armholes of his vest, and looked proud.

"O, I don't know as I smell anything except the faint odor of a horse
blanket. What you gone into anyway?" and the grocery man put the
wrapping paper under the counter, and put the red chalk in his pocket,
so the boy couldn't write any sign to hang up outside.

"You hit it the first time I have accepted a situation of teller in a
livery stable," said the boy, as he searched around for the barrel of
cut sugar, which had been removed.

"Teller in a livery stable! Well that is a new one on me. What is a
teller in a livery stabl