nies, was
over on the next street, and I told Pa I guessed some of his friends who
had heard we had a baby at the house, had hired a band and was coming in
a few minutes to serenade him, and he better prepare to make a speech.
Pa is proud of being a father at his age, and he thought it no more than
right for the neighbors to serenade him, and he went to loading himself
for a speech, in the library, and me and my chum went out and told the
leader of the band there was a family up there that wanted to have some
music, and they didn't care for expense, so they quit blowing where they
was and came right along. None of them could understand English except
the leader, and he only understood enough to go and take a drink when
he is invited. My chum steered the band up to our house and got them to
play 'Babies on our Block,' and 'Baby Mine,' and I stopped all the men
who were going home and told them to wait a minute and they would
see some fun, so when the band got through the second tune, and the
Prussians were emptying the beer out of the horns, and Pa stepped out
on the porch, there was more nor a hundred people in front of the house.
You'd a dide to see Pa when he put his hand in the breast of his coat,
and struck an attitude. He looked like a congressman, or a tramp. The
band was scared, cause they thought he was mad, and some of them were
going to run, thinking he was going to throw pieces of brick house
at them, but my chum and the leader kept them. Then Pa sailed in. He
commenced, 'Fellow Citizens,' and then went way back to Adam and Eve,
and worked up to the present day, giving a history of the notable people
who had acquired children, and kept the crowd interested. I felt sorry
for Pa, cause I knew how he would feel when he came to find out how
he had been sold. The Bohemians in the band that couldn't understand
English, they looked at each other, and wondered what it was all about,
and finally Pa wound up by stating that it was every citizen's duty to
own children of his own, and then he invited the band and the crowd in
to take some refreshments. Well, you ought to have seen that band come
in the house. They fell over each other getting in, and the crowd went
home, leaving Pa and my chum and me and the band. Eat? Well, I should
smile. They just reached f'or things, and talked Bohemian. Drink? O,
no. I guess they didn't pour it down. Pa opened a dozen bottles of
champagne, and they fairly bathed in it, as though they