urkey bath. Some feller told me
it was the healthiest bath a feller could take when there was no creek
around. You see, I looked at the Chicago river and decided it wasn't
altogether a proper place fer a swim; then I went over to the lake whar
they were a paddling around, but somehow the water didn't warm up even a
little bit in the afternoons, and then I thought I might just as well
pay a dollar and take a Turkey bath.

"Well, it do beat anything in the wash line I ever see. I went into the
barber shop where the sign was and paid a woman a dollar, and she took
my silver ticker and chain and all my spare change, and my pocket book,
and put 'em all into a box and locked it and then fastened the key
around my wrist. Well, I wondered if I was a going down there whar they
had to protect me that way from getting robbed.

"I went down stairs where I stopped to see a feller a doing some thing
to a feller's feet. I seed he was a cutting the nails, and then I
thought how awful lazy these city people do get, that they can't even
cut their own toe nails.

"A feller came up and put me in a little room and told me to strip off
and foller him. Well, sir, that feller he just stuck me into a room that
was hot enough to fry eggs and bake Johnny cakes. I dassent breathe hard
for fear of burning my nose off. He set me into a lean back chair and
decently covered me over with a sheet. I've biled sap, an' I've rolled
logs; I've scraped hogs over the kettle and made soap, but this beat
anything I ever see fer hot weather. If I hadn't seen other respectable
folks goin' in there I'd a knowed I was a gittin' basted for my sins in
the bad world. I couldn't set there, so I tried to walk around, but I
seen my feet was liable to get roasted, and the air was hotter at the
top, so I set down again.

"Well, sir, I sot there till I got hotter'n biled corn, and then I
hollered worse nor the Johnnies at Kenesaw mountain.

"Then a feller stuck his head in at the door and told me to come out
there, and when I did a colored feller shoved me on to a bench and began
to slap the daylights out o' me with both hands, and then another feller
he turned the hose on me, and then I cut loose.

"Well, sir, you ought to a seed me. I'm gittin' old, but 'nough is
'nough, and I kin be painters an' wild cats when I want to. I was in a
pecooliar place without a stitch on me, but I jest run the slapper into
the bake oven, and I made the buggy washer jump into the fish p