polish, and put it on Pa and
rubbed it in, and when Ma came home, Pa smelled like a coffin at a charity
funeral, and Ma said there was no way of getting that varnish off of Pa
till it wore off: Pa says holidays are a condemned nuisance anyway. He
will have to stay in the house all this week.

"You are pretty rough on the old man," said the grocery man, "after he has
been so kind to you and given you nice presents."

"Nice presents nothin. All I got was a 'Come to Jesus' Christmas card,
with brindle fringe, from Ma, and Pa gave me a pair of his old suspenders,
and a calender with mottoes for every month, some quotations from
scripture, such as 'honor thy father and mother,' and 'evil communications
corrupt two in the bush,' and a bird in the hand beats two pair.' Such
things don't help a boy to be good. What a boy wants is club skates, and
seven shot revolvers, and such things. Well, I must go and help Pa roll
over in bed, and put on a new porous plaster. Good bye."

TRYING TO SAVE TWO SHILLINGS.

No person ever wants to tell us again how to save two shillings. When we
started for Chippewa Falls, to attend the celebration, we only had a few
hundred dollars along, and we felt like saving all that was possible. Just
before arriving at Sparta, where we were to take supper, Dan McDonald got
to telling about how to save twenty-five cents on meals at these eating
houses, when traveling. He said that all you had to do when you come out
from supper was to look like a bummer, or "traveling man," hand the
door-keeper fifty cents and wink twice with the left eye, and he would
pass you right out, as though you had paid seventy-five cents. If you
handed out a dollar bill, and he only gave you back twenty-five cents, you
only had to hold out your hand and wink a couple of times, and the man
would give you the other quarter. Dan said he always did that way, and he
had saved hundreds of dollars. He said these bummers only paid fifty cents
a meal, and there was no use of anybody else paying more, if they had
cheek enough to play it on the landlord.

[Illustration: "OH, THAT WILL BE ALL RIGHT!"]

We never had anything strike us any more reasonable than the statement of
Mr. McDonald, and we determined to try it. To a man who was traveling a
good deal lecturing, a saving of twenty-five cents a meal was worth
looking into, and we made up our mind to begin to economize that very
night. The train stopped and we walked across the platfor