around here talking
about war times, and how he faced the enemy on many a well fought field,
you ask him if he ever threw any burglars down a banister. He is a frod
(sp.), Pa is, but Ma would make a good chief of police, and don't you
let it escape you."

And the boy took his canned ham and lobster, and tucking some crackers
inside the bosom of his blue flannel shirt, started for Pewaukee, while
the grocer looked at him as though he was a hard citizen.

CHAPTER VII.

HIS PA GETS A BITE--HIS PA GETS TOO MUCH WATER--THE DOCTOR'S
DISAGREE--HOW TO SPOIL BOYS--HIS PA GOES TO PEWAUKEE IN
SEARCH OF HIS SON--ANXIOUS TO FISH--"STOPER I'VE GOT A
WHALE!"--OVERBOARD--HIS PA IS SAVED--GOES TO CUT A SWITCH--
A DOLLAR FOR HIS PANTS.

"So the doctor thinks your Pa has ruptured a blood vessel, eh," says the
street car driver to the bad boy, as the youngster was playing sweet on
him to get a free ride down town.

"Well, they don't know. The doctor at Pewaukee said Pa had dropsy, until
he found the water that they wrung out of his pants was lake water, and
there was a doctor on the cars belonging to the Insane Asylum, when we
put Pa on the train, who said from the looks of his face, sort of red
and blue, that it was apoplexy, but a horse doctor that was down at the
depot when we put Pa in the carriage to take him home, said he was off
his feed, and had been taking too much water when he was hot, and got
foundered. O, you can't tell anything about doctors. No two of 'em
guesses alike," answered the boy, as he turned the brake for the driver
to stop the car for a sister of charity, and then punched the mule with
a fish pole, when the driver was looking back, to see if he couldn't
jerk her off the back step.

"Well, how did your Pa happen to fall out of the boat? Didn't he know
the lake was wet?"

"He had a suspicion that it was damp, when his back struck the water,
I think. I'll tell you how it was. When my chum and I run away to
Pewaukee, Ma thought we had gone off to be piruts, and she told Pa it
was a duty he owed to society to go and get us to come back, and be
good. She told him if he would treat me as an equal, and laugh and joke
with me, I wouldn't be so bad. She said kicking and pounding spoiled
more boys than all the Sunday schools. So Pa came out to our camp, about
two miles up the lake from Pewaukee, and he was just as good natured as
though we had never had any trouble at all. We let him