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.

[Illustration:  “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.”