orn, he wouldn't let them begin the meal until he
made a welcoming speech, and had the chaplain ask a blessing over the
corn; and then he would go without his share, and tell funny stories
until the guests would laugh until they almost choked. The Irish soldier
is worth his weight in gold in any army, boy, and he is in all
armies, on one side or the other, and generally on both sides. The only
objection I have to an Irishman is that he smokes one of these short
pipes," and the old man lit up his long clay pipe, and let the boy go
out to think over the lesson of the morning.

CHAPTER II.

Uncle Ike sat and smoked his pipe in silence for a few minutes, blew the
smoke out in clouds, and looked at it as though searching for something,
and there was a serious look on his face, as though he was trying to
fathom some mystery, while the redheaded boy was looking at himself in a
hand mirror to see if the freckles on his nose were any smaller since
he had been using some of his mother's toilet powder to remove them.
Finally Uncle Ike put the bowl of the pipe to his nose and smelled of
the burning tobacco, turned up his nose and snuffed, and said:

[Illustration: Something the matter with this 'ere terbacker 017]

"There is something the matter with this 'ere terbacker. I suppose the
terbacker makers have got into a trust, and they don't care how the
stuff smells. Condemned if I ain't half a mind to quit smoking and break
up the trust."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you," said the red-headed boy, "that I fixed your
tobacco for you so it would not smell so bad. I put some cinnamon bark
and wiener skins in it."

"Well, of all things!" said Uncle Ike, as he emptied the tobacco out of
the pipe by rapping it on the heel of his boot, and looked sick. "What
in the name of heaven is wiener skins?"

"Why, it is the envelope that goes around a wiener sausage. Us boys were
smoking cigarettes one day made of paper and dried dandelion leaves, and
the boy at the butcher shop said if we would dry some wiener skin and
cut it up and put it in the cigarette and smoke it, it would make the
finest flavor, and make us strong. I tried it, and the cigarette smelled
just like camping out and cooking over a camp-fire, and the next day I
was so strong ma noticed it. I thought you were getting old, and I would
make you strong and young again. Don't you notice how different the
smoke smells since I fixed the tobacco? I was going to put in some red
pep