tent with
us, and is a great favorite with Tom, who amuses himself by
plying her with difficult questions, which she patiently
puzzles her ingenious little brain to answer.

P.S. I obtained permission of Recta to send you Daddy's
temperance lecture, with the request that you carefully
preserve and return it to her."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

DADDY'S TEMPERANCE LECTURE.

Having slightly modified the spelling in Daddy's lecture, in order to
make it the more easily read, and at the same time to render it in his
own diction, we now place it, with the preliminary arrangments, "fur
tu be read silent," before the reader.

"Fust, haul out my specks.

Second, haul out my yeller silk hankercher.

Third, wipe them air specks.

Fourth, put them air specks on my nose.

Fifth, put that air yeller silk handkercher in my pocket.

Sixth, clar my throat.

Seventh, go at it loud.

I don't expect fur to say nothin new on the subject of temperance, but
it wont du fur tu say nothin cause you can't get up no new ideas. Now
supposen a neat housekeeper shouldn't hev nothin fur to say, tu a
parcel of careless heedless boys and gals, cause she must say the same
old thing over every day. Hezekiah clean yer feet. Matilda, hang up
yer shawl. Susan Maria put away yer gloves, what kind of a house du ye
think that air would be, all topsy turvey and kivered with dirt? If
them air children don't mind at fust, she keeps up that air kind of
talk from one year's end tu 'tother, and ginerally speaking they grow
up tu be orderly men and women.

Just so we've got to hammer and ding away at the temperance cause from
generation to generation, if we want our children tu be nice
temperate men. Never mind gitten up no new ideas: tech not, taste not,
handle not, is good enough for any age. Then agin, ken ye expect yer
boys fur tu be tidy when yer own feet are dirty and yer things out of
place over the hull house? Them are little shavers think it's big tu
du what daddy does and they are pretty nigh sartin fur to drink that
air nasty lager beer if daddy does. Hev a mat at yer door and keep yer
own feet clean, and hev Hezekiah and Matilda and Susan Maria put
theirn there, tu. That's the way fur tu du.

Some say, a little wine won't hurt a pussen; some say, lager beer
won't hurt a pussen; some say, cider won't hurt nobody: but I say, the
infarnel stuff which makes men drunk, no matter what name it goes by,
is the stuff fu