se marching and
banner-holding laborers from going to destruction.

"And you haven't any father, poor little man?"

"Yer bet yer life I don't want no more father in mine. He knocked me
down them stairs, and then he went off in a ship, and I don't go a cent
on fathers! Say, is this a 'zamination?"

I was a good deal amused and should have felt a little rebuked, had I
asked a single question from idle curiosity. "Yes, it's a sort of one,
Patsy,--all the kind we have."

"And do I hev to bring any red tape?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why, Jim said he bet 't would take an orful lot o' red tape t' git me
in."

Here he withdrew with infinite trouble from his ragged pocket an orange,
or at least the remains of one, which seemed to have been fiercely dealt
with by circumstances.

"Here's an orange I brung yer! It's been skwuz some, but there's more in
it."

[Illustration: "HERE'S AN ORANGE I BRUNG YER."]

"Thank you, Patsy." (Forced expression of radiant gratitude.) "Now, let
us see! You want to come to the Kindergarten, do you, and learn to be a
happy little working boy? But oh, Patsy, I'm like the old woman in the
shoe, I have so many children I don't know what to do."

"Yes, I know. Jim knows a boy what went here wunst. He said yer never
licked the boys; and he said, when the 'nifty' little girls come to git
in, with their white aprons, yer said there warn't no room; but when the
dirty chaps with tored close come, yer said yer'd _make_ room. Jim said
as how yer'd never show _me_ the door, sure." (Bless Jim's heart!)
"P'raps I can't come every day, yer know, 'cos I might have fits."

"Fits! Good gracious, child! What makes you think that?"

"Oh, I has 'em" (composedly). "I kicks the footboard clean off when I
has 'em bad, all along o' my losin' them three year! Why, yer got an
orgind, hain't yer? Where's the handle fur to make it go? Couldn't I
blow it for yer?"

"It's a piano, not an organ; it doesn't need blowing."

"Oh, yes, I see one in a s'loon; I seen such an orful pretty lady play
on one. She give her silk dress a _swish_ to one side, so! and then she
cocked her head over sideways like a bird, and then her hands, all
jinglin' over with rings, went a-whizzin' up and down them black and
white teeth just like sixty!"

"You know, Patsy, I can't bear to have my little Kindergarten boys stand
around the saloon doors; it isn't a good place, and if you want to be
good men you must learn to be good little boys