Peck's Compendium of Fun Part 3

PECK'S BAD BOY AND HIS PA.

HIS PA GOES SKATING.

"What is that stuff on your shirt bosom, that looks like soap grease?"

said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came into the grocery the morning after Christmas.

The boy looked at his shirt front, put his finger on the stuff and smelled of his fingers, and then said, "O, that is nothing but a little of the turkey dressing and gravy. You see after Pa and I got back from the roller skating rink yesterday, Pa was all broke up and he couldn't carve the turkey, and I had to do it, and Pa sat in a stuffed chair with his head tied up, and a pillow amongst his legs, and he kept complaining that I didn't do it right. Gol darn a turkey any way. I should think they would make a turkey flat on the back, so he would lay on a greasy platter without skating all around the table. It looks easy to see Pa carve a turkey, but when I speared into the bosom of that turkey, and began to saw on it, the turkey rolled around as though it was on castors, and it was all I could do to keep it out of Ma's lap. But I ra.s.seled with it till I got off enough white meat for Pa and Ma and dark meat enough for me, and I dug out the dressing, but most of it flew into my shirt bosom, cause the string that tied up the place where the dressing was concealed about the person of the turkey, broke prematurely, and one oyster hit Pa in the eye, and he said I was as awkward as a cross-eyed girl trying to kiss a man with a hair lip. If I ever get to be the head of a family I shall carve turkeys with a corn sh.e.l.ler.

"But what broke your Pa up at the roller skating rink?" asked the grocery man.

"O, everything broke him up. He is split up so Ma b.u.t.tons the top of his pants to his collar b.u.t.ton, like a bicycle rider. Well, he had no business to have told me and my chum that he used to be the best skater in North America, when he was a boy. He said he skated once from Albany to New York in an hour and eighty minutes. Me and my chum thought if Pa was such a terror on skates we would get him to put on a pair of roller skates and enter him as the 'great unknown,' and clean out the whole gang. We told Pa that he must remember that roller skates were different from ice skates, and that maybe he couldn't skate on them, but he said it didn't make any difference what they were as long as they were skates, and he would just paralyze the whole crowd. So we got a pair of big roller skates for him, and while we were strapping them on, Pa looked at the skaters glide around on the smooth wax floor just as though they were greased. Pa looked at the skates on his feet, after they were fastened, sort of forlorn like, the way a horse thief does when they put shackles on his legs, and I told him if he was afraid he couldn't skate with them we would take them off, but he said he would beat anybody there was there, or bust a suspender. Then we straightened Pa up, and pointed him towards the middle of the room, and he said, 'leggo,' and we just give him a little push to start him, and he began to go. Well, by gosh, you'd a dide to have seen Pa try to stop. You see, you can't stick in your heel and stop, like you can on ice skates, and Pa soon found that out, and he began to turn sideways, and then he threw his arms and walked on his heels, and he lost his hat, and his eyes began to stick out, cause he was going right towards an iron post. One arm caught the post and he circled around it a few times, and then he let go and began to fall, and, sir, he kept falling all across the room, and everybody got out of the way, except a girl, and Pa grabbed her by the polonaise, like a drowning man grabs at straws, though there wasn't any straws in her polonaise as I know of, but Pa just pulled her along as though she was done up in a shawl-strap, and his feet went out from under him and he struck on his shoulders and kept a going, with the girl dragging along like a bundle of clothes. If Pa had had another pair of roller skates on his shoulders, and castors on his ears, he couldn't have slid along any better. Pa is a short, big man, and as he was rolling along on his back, he looked like a sofa with castors on being pushed across a room by a girl. Finally Pa came to the wall and had to stop, and the girl fell right across him, with her roller skates in his neck, and she called him an old brute, and told him if he didn't let go of her polonaise she would murder him. Just then my chum and me got there and we amputated Pa from the girl, and lifted him up, and told him for heaven's sake to let us take off the skates, cause he couldn't skate any more than a cow, and Pa was mad and said for us to 'let him alone,' and he could skate all right, and we let go and he struck out again. Well, sir, I was ashamed. An old man like Pa ought to knonv better than to try to be a boy. This last time Pa said he was going to spread himself, and if I am any judge of a big spread, he did spread himself. Some how the skates had got turned around side-ways on his feet, and his feet got to going in different directions, and Pa's feet were getting so far apart that I was afraid I would have two Pa's, half the size, with one leg apiece.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "PA GRABBED HER BY THE POLONAISE."]

"I tried to get him to take up a collection of his legs, and get them in the same ward but his arm flew around and hit me on the nose, and I thought if he wanted to strike the best friend he had, he could run his old legs his self. When he began to separate I could hear the bones crack, but maybe it was his pants, but anyway he came down on the floor like one of these fellows in a circus who spreads hisself, and he kept agoing and finally he surrounded an iron post with his legs, and stopped and looked pale, and the proprietor of the rink told Pa if he wanted to give a flying trapeze performance he would have to go to the gymnasium, and he couldn't skate on his shoulders any more, cause other skaters were afraid of him. Then Pa said he would kick the liver out of the proprietor of the rink, and he got up and steaded himself, and then he tried to kick the man, but both heels went up to wonct, and Pa turned a back summersault and struck right on his vest in front. I guess it knocked the breath out of him, for he didn't speak for a few minutes, and then he wanted to go home, and we put him in a street car, and he laid down on the hay and rode home. O, the work we had to get Pa's clothes off. He had cricks in his back, and everywhere, and Ma was away to one of the neighbors, to look at the presents, and I had to put liniment on Pa, and I made a mistake and got a bottle of furniture polish, and put it on Pa and rubbed it in, and when Ma came home, Pa smelled like a coffin at a charity funeral, and Ma said there was no way of getting that varnish off of Pa till it wore off: Pa says holidays are a condemned nuisance anyway. He will have to stay in the house all this week.

"You are pretty rough on the old man," said the grocery man, "after he has been so kind to you and given you nice presents."

"Nice presents nothin. All I got was a 'Come to Jesus' Christmas card, with brindle fringe, from Ma, and Pa gave me a pair of his old suspenders, and a calender with mottoes for every month, some quotations from scripture, such as 'honor thy father and mother,' and 'evil communications corrupt two in the bush,' and a bird in the hand beats two pair.' Such things don't help a boy to be good. What a boy wants is club skates, and seven shot revolvers, and such things. Well, I must go and help Pa roll over in bed, and put on a new porous plaster. Good bye."

TRYING TO SAVE TWO SHILLINGS.

No person ever wants to tell us again how to save two shillings. When we started for Chippewa Falls, to attend the celebration, we only had a few hundred dollars along, and we felt like saving all that was possible. Just before arriving at Sparta, where we were to take supper, Dan McDonald got to telling about how to save twenty-five cents on meals at these eating houses, when traveling. He said that all you had to do when you come out from supper was to look like a b.u.mmer, or "traveling man," hand the door-keeper fifty cents and wink twice with the left eye, and he would pa.s.s you right out, as though you had paid seventy-five cents. If you handed out a dollar bill, and he only gave you back twenty-five cents, you only had to hold out your hand and wink a couple of times, and the man would give you the other quarter. Dan said he always did that way, and he had saved hundreds of dollars. He said these b.u.mmers only paid fifty cents a meal, and there was no use of anybody else paying more, if they had cheek enough to play it on the landlord.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OH, THAT WILL BE ALL RIGHT!"]

We never had anything strike us any more reasonable than the statement of Mr. McDonald, and we determined to try it. To a man who was traveling a good deal lecturing, a saving of twenty-five cents a meal was worth looking into, and we made up our mind to begin to economize that very night. The train stopped and we walked across the platform as near like a b.u.mmer as possible. With our hat on one side, we threw a cigar stub into the parlor window, said "h.e.l.lo, old tapeworm," to the landlord in a familiar sort of way, chucked our hat into a chair; rushed into the dining-room, took a seat at the head of the table, and told a girl to cart out all she had got. The landlord looked at us as though he thought we were one of Field, Leiter & Co.'s b.u.mmers, his good wife looked frightened, as though she feared we would kick a leg off the table and spill things. However, there is no use of describing the meal, and how we went through brook trout and strawberry shortcake, and things. We couldn't help feeling sorry for the man that was destined to furnish all that for fifty cents. Finally we went out. We felt a sort of palpitation of the heart when we approached the hungry-looking man at the door, taking the money. He looked as though he was a sick orphan trying to save money enough to get to a water cure. Picking our teeth with our finger, like a Chicago b.u.mmer, and pulling our handkerchief out of our pistol pocket and blowing our nose like a thirty-two pounder, just as we had heard a Chicago fellow do, we handed the man fifty cents, winked a couple of times and started to go by. The tobacco sign standing there said, "twenty-five cents more, please." We looked at him, winked, and said, "O, that will be all right." "Two shillings more, my friend," said the summer resort. We winked some more, and punched him in the ribs with our thumb, and said, "O, now, old tapeworm, don't try to play it on us boys." And we laughed a sickly sort of laugh. The fact of it was, we began to have doubts about the thing working, and had a suspicion that the twinkle in Dan McDonald's eye meant that he had been playing it on us. The landlord said he should have to have two shillings more, and that we were blocking up the thoroughfare, and we fumbled around and found it and paid him, and went out, probably the most disgusted excursionist that ever was. Dan, who had watched the whole business, slapped us on the shoulder, and said, "How did it work?"

Though not particularly hungry, we could have eaten him raw. When we go east now, we take a lunch along, and when the other pa.s.sengers are in to supper, we sit on the woodpile at Sparta, eat our lunch and gaze at the fountains, talk with the brakemen, and wonder if the landlord would know us if we should go in and take a toothpick off the counter. Not any more b.u.mmer for us, and no man must ever tell us how to save two shillings on a meal.

HOW TO REACH YOUNG MEN.

"How to reach young men," was the topic at the young men's prayer meeting on Thursday. An old gentleman on the East Side who broke a toe nail by kicking the gate post just as the young man went down the sidewalk, would also like to know. Bait your hook with a mighty good looking girl that wears a sealskin cloak, and you can reach the young men.

CRUSHING NIHILISM.

The Russian government is making an average of four thousand arrests a day of persons charged with nihilism. At this rate it is only a question of time when the last of the conspirators will be in prison, and the emperor can walk out without fear of a.s.sa.s.sination from his wife and children, as these will probably be all the people that will be left.

WOMAN-DOZING A DEMOCRAT.

A fearful tale conies to us from Columbus. A party of prominent citizens of that place took a trip to the Dells of Wisconsin one day last week. It was composed of ladies and gentlemen of both political parties, and it was hoped that nothing would occur to mar the pleasure of the excursion.

When the party visited the Dells, Mr. Chapin, a lawyer of Democratic proclivities, went out upon a rock overhanging a precipice, or words to that effect, and he became so absorbed in the beauty of the scene that he did not notice a Republican lady who left the throng and waltzed softly up behind him. She had blood in her eye and gum in her mouth, and she grasped the lawyer, who is a weak man, by the arms, and hissed in his ear:

"Hurrah for Garfield, or I will plunge you headlong into the yawning gulf below!"

It was a trying moment. Chapin rather enjoyed being held by a woman, but not in such a position that, if she let go her hold to spit on her hands, he would go a hundred feet down, and become as flat as the Greenback party, and have to be carried home in a basket.

In a second he thought over all the sins of his past life, which was pretty quick work, as anybody will admit who knows the man. He thought of how he would be looked down upon by Gabe Bouck, and all the fellows, if it once got out that he had been frightened into going back on his party.

He made up his mind that he would die before he would hurrah for Garfield, but when the merciless woman pushed him towards the edge of the rock, and, "Last call! Yell, or down you go!" he opened his mouth and yelled so they heard it in Kilbourn City:

"Hurrah for Garfield! Now lemme go!"

Though endowed with more than ordinary eloquence, no remarks that he had ever made before brought the applause that this did. Everybody yelled, and the woman smiled as pleasantly as though she had not crushed the young life out of her victim, and left him a bleeding sacrifice on the altar of his country, but when she had realized what she had done her heart smote her, and she felt bad.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YELL, OR GO DOWN!"]

Chapin will never be himself again. From that moment his proud spirit was broken, and all during the picnic he seemed to have lost his cud. He leaned listlessly against a tree, pale as death, and fanned himself with a skimmer. When the party had spread the lunch on the ground and gathered around, sitting on the ant-hills, he sat down with them mechanically, but his appet.i.te was gone, and when that is gone there is not enough of him left for a quorum.

Friends rallied around him, pa.s.sed the pickles, and drove the antmires out of a sandwich, and handed it to him on a piece of shingle, but he either pa.s.sed or turned it down. He said he couldn't take a trick. Later on, when the lemonade was brought on, the flies were skimmed off of some of it, and a little colored water was put in to make it look inviting, but his eyes were sot. He said they couldn't fool him. After what had occurred, he didn't feel as though any Democrat was safe. He expected to be poisoned on account of his politics, and all he asked was to live to get home.

Nothing was left undone to rally him, and cause him to forget the fearful scene through which he had pa.s.sed. Only once did he partially come to himself, and show an interest in worldly affairs, and that was when it was found that he had sat down on some raspberry jam with his white pants on.

When told of it, he smiled a ghastly smile, and said they were all welcome to his share of the jam.

They tried to interest him in conversation by drawing war maps with three-tined folks on the jam, but he never showed that he knew what they were about until Mr. Moak, of Watertown, took a brush, made of cauliflower preserved in mustard, and shaded the lines of the war map on Mr. Chapin's trousers, which Mr. b.u.t.terfield had drawn in the jam. Then his artistic eye took in the incongruity of the colors, and he gasped for breath, and said:

"Moak, that is played out. People will notice it."

But he relapsed again into semi-unconsciousness, and never spoke again, not a great deal, till he got home.

He has ordered that there be no more borrowing of sugar and drawings of tea back and forth between his house and that of the lady who broke his heart, and be has announced that he will go without saurkraut all winter rather than borrow a machine for cutting cabbage of a woman that would destroy the political prospects of a man who had never done a wrong in his life.

He has written to the chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee to suspend judgment on his case, until he can explain how it happened that a dyed-in-the-wood Democrat hurrahed for Garfield.

THE WRONG CORPSE.

A corpse got a good joke on the people of Quebec the other day. It came there by express, and was only an ordinary, every-day man, but the Kanucks were looking for a military corpse, and supposing our ordinary corpse to be he, they got up a Fifth avenue funeral, and buried it with military honors. The corpse, who didn't know a thing about military matters, must have many a good laugh over the mistake. And how the military corpse must have felt, when HE came!

THE DAY WE REACHED CANADA.

D.H. Pulcifer, of Shawano, announces that he is about to prepare a biography of all the members of the territorial legislature and subsequent legislatures, state officers, members of congress, etc., and desires all men who may have been great or may be so now, to send in the particulars.

Well, you can get our record at the adjutant general's office, though there is one mistake in that record. It was in June, 1862 that we arrived in Canada, the day before the draft.

A LIVELY TRAIN LOAD.

Last week a train load of insane persons were removed from the Oshkosh Asylum to the Madison Asylum. As the train was standing on the sidetrack at Watertown Junction it created considerable curiosity. People who have ever pa.s.sed Watertown Junction have noticed the fine old gentleman who comes into the car with a large square basket, peddling popcorn. He is one of the most innocent and confiding men in the world. He is honest, and he believes that everybody else is honest.

He came up to the depot with his basket, and seeing the train he asked Pierce, the landlord there, what train it was. Pierce, who is a most diabolical person, told the old gentleman that it was a load of members of the legislature and female lobbyists going to Madison. With that beautiful confidence which the pop corn man has in all persons, he believed the story, and went into the car to sell pop corn.