er join no Good Templars. Your system could not stand the
racket. Say, I want you to put some cold cream on my back.' I think Pa
will be a different man now, don't you?"

The grocery man said if he was that boy's pa for fifteen minutes he
would be a different boy, or there would be a funeral, and the boy took
a handful of soft-shelled almonds and a few layer raisins and skipped
out.

CHAPTER XXXII.

HIS PA'S MARVELOUS ESCAPE--THE GROCERY MAN HAS NO VASELINE--
THE OLD MAN PROVIDES THREE FIRE ESCAPES--ONE OF THE ESCAPES
TESTED--HIS PA SCANDALIZES THE CHURCH--"SHE'S A DARLING!"--
WORLDLY MUSIC IN THE COURTS OF ZION.

"Got any vaseline," said the bad boy to the grocery man, as he went into
the store one cold morning, leaving the door open, and picked up a cigar
stub that had been thrown down near the stove, and began to smoke it.

"Shut the door, dum you. Was you brought up in a saw mill? You'll freeze
every potato in the house. No, I haven't got vaseline. What do you want
of vaseline?" said the grocery man, as he set the syrup keg on a chair
by the stove where it would thaw out.

"Want to rub it on Pa's legs," said the boy, as he tried to draw smoke
through the cigar stub.

"What is the matter with your Pa's legs? Rheumatiz?"

"Wuss nor rheumatiz," said the boy, as he threw away the cigar stub and
drew some cider in a broken tea cup. "Pa has got the worst looking hind
legs you ever saw. You see, since there has been so many fires Pa has
got offul scared, and he has bought three fire escapes, made out of rope
with knots in them, and he has been telling us every day how he could
rescue the whole family in case of fire. He told us to keep cool,
whatever happened, and to rely on him. If the house got on fire we were
all to rush to Pa, and he would save us. Well, last night Ma had to
go to one of the neighbors, where they was going to have twins, and we
didn't sleep much, cause Ma had to come home twice in the night to get
saffron, and an old flannel petticoat that I broke in when I was a kid,
cause the people where Ma went did not know as twins was on the bill
of fare, and they only had flannel petticoats for one. Pa was cross
at being kept awake, and told Ma he hoped when all the children in
Milwaukee were born, and got grown up, she would take in her sign and
not go around nights and act as usher to baby matinees. Pa says there
ought to be a law that babies should arrive on the regular day