"Well, this takes me entirely by surprise;" said Uncle Ike, as he laid the shotgun on the table; "I certainly have not sought this office. But I cannot accept the trust until I know what is the object of the organization. Who do you propose to fight?"

"We are organized to fight the French, both with weapons and by the boycott," said the leader, swelling out his chest, and each red hair sticking up straight. "We have watched the trial of Dreyfus, and the outrage of his conviction without a particle of testimony against him, has just made us sick, and we are forming a regiment to fight Frenchmen wherever we find them. We had the first battle at daylight this morning, when a French milkman drove along, and we threw eggs at him, and his horse run away and spilled four cans of milk. We are for blood, or milk, or any old thing that Frenchmen deal in. We will not drink any French champagne, and have decided not to visit the Paris Exposition."

"Well, I swow! you have got it up your noses pretty bad, haven't you?" said the old man as he ordered the platoon to sit down on the floor and go into camp. "It is pretty tough, the way the French treated Dreyfus, but how are you going to make your boycott work?"

"We are going to petition the President to cut off supplies for the Paris Exposition, withdraw from participation in it, and we are going to ask all the people that were intending to go to Paris to stay away."

"I see, I see," said Uncle Ike, feeling in the pocket of his old sweater, and finding a handful of leaves, twigs and plug tobacco that had accumulated there for years. "How many Jew boys have you got enlisted in your army? You know this Dreyfus trouble is a fight on the Jews, not only in France, but of the whole world. You ought to have a whole regiment of Jew boys. How many have you got?"

"Well, we haven't got any yet, but a whole lot of them are going to think about it, and ask their parents if they can join," said the captain.

"Yes, they will think about it, but they won't join," said the old man, reaching for his pipe, and lighting up for a talk. "The Jews are the most patient, peaceful people in the world. They come the nearest to acting on the theory of the Golden Rule, of any class of people, and they are about the only people that will turn the other cheek, when hit on the jaw. They have been assailed for thousands of years, until they look upon being ostracised and trodden upon as one of the things they must expect, and they don't kick half as much as they ought to. If they had the enthusiasm and the fighting qualities of the Irish, they would take blackthorn clubs and mow a swath through France wide enough for an army to march over. Why don't you fellows wait until the Jews map out a plan of campaign, and then follow them? It is no dead sure thing that if the people of other countries boycotted France, that they would not ruin more Jews than Frenchmen, as the Jews are in business that the Exposition will make or break, while the French just sit around and drink absinthe and shout 'viva la armee!' Don't you see you may ruin the very people you want to help? Then, stop and think of another thing. It is not many months ago that a Jew cadet at West Point was hazed and abused and ostracised by the other cadets, and had his life made such a burden that he had to resign and go home, heart-broken to a heart-broken mother. That was almost as bad as the Dreyfus case as far as it went. How can the President boycott France for abusing Jews when our own army officers, that are to be, have shown a meanness that will size up pretty fairly with the French army devils. I'll tell you, boys, what you do. Let your sympathy go out to Dreyfus, and all his people, but don't go off half-cocked. Wait until the representative Jews of this country decide what it is their duty to do in this case, and then join them, and help them, whether it is to fight or to pray. If they conclude to sit down, and look sorry, and turn the other cheek, and be swatted some more, you be sorry also. If they decide to get on their ears, and fight, with money, or guns, or boycott, you do as you like about helping them out. But if you read, in a day or two, that France has borrowed a few more millions of Rothschild, to pay off these officers who have persecuted Dreyfus, you can make up your minds that it is a good deal like our politics here at home, mighty badly mixed. Now you go and get me a wash basin of hot soft water, and some rags, and I will clean this gun, and you disband your army, and appoint a good Jew for colonel, and when he says the affair is ripe for a fight you can spiel," and the old man took the gun apart and prepared to clean it.

"Atten-shun!" shouted the red-headed boy to his army, and each soldier jumped up off the carpet and stood erect as possible. "I will now disband you, and deliver my farewell address." Then he whispered to Uncle Ike, and the old man handed him a half dollar, when the captain gave the money to a boy who seemed to be second in command, and added, "Go and buy you some ice-cream soda, and be prepared to respond to the call to arms at a minute's notice. If France does not pardon Dreyfus, and I can get a lot of Jew boys to join us, we won't do a thing to France. Break ranks! Git!" and the boys went outdoors and made a rush for a soda fountain.

"Now, Uncle Ike," said the boy, as he watched his army going clown the street, "I have got a favor to ask of you. I want you to give me music lessons."

"Well, I'll be bunkoed," said Uncle Ike, as he began to pull the sweater off over his head. "I can't sing anything but 'Marching Through Georgia.' What you want music lessons for?"

"Well, sir, I'll tell you, if you won't laugh at me," said the boy, blushing. "You see, my girl has got back from the seashore, where she has been taking salt-water baths. She was too fresh, but she is salty enough now, and her face and arms are tanned just like these Russia leather moccasins. You couldn't tell her from an Indian, only she doesn't smell like buckskin. She has been taking lessons all summer at a conservatory of music, and she can sing away up so high that when she strikes a high note and gargles on it, it makes your hair raise right up, and bristle, it is so full of electricity. She has got a tenor voice that——"

"Hold on, hold on, you have got all mixed up," said the old man. "She does not gargle. That is called warbling, or trilling, or trolling, or something. And no girl has a tenor voice. She must be a soprano."

"Well, that's what I want to take music lessons for, so I can talk with her intelligently about her music. Why, last night we were at a party, and I turned the music while she played and sang, and I got the wrong page, and got her all tangled up, and when she got through, and the people were telling her how beautiful she sang, I told her she had the most beautiful bass voice I ever saw, and she was so mad she wouldn't speak to me, so I want you to teach me which is tenor, and which is baritone, and which is that other thing, you know, Uncle Ike."

"Yes, I think I do," said the old man as he turned his head away to keep from laughing. "You want to learn to be a he Patti, in four easy lessons. Why, you couldn't learn enough about music to be in her class in fourteen years. What you want to do is to look wise, and applaud when anybody gets through singing, and say bravo, and beautiful, and all that, but not give yourself away by commenting on the technique, see?"

"Stopper! Backerup! What is technique on a girl, Uncle Ike?" asked the red-headed boy, as his eyes stuck out like peeled onions. "I have been around girls ever since I was big enough to go home alone after seeing them home, without being afraid of spooks, but I hope to die if I ever saw a technique."

"The technique," said Uncle Ike, looking wise, "is what we musicians call the—the—get there, Eli. You know when a girl is singing, and gets away up on a high note, and keeps getting it down finer all the time, until it is not much bigger than a cambric needle, and she draws in a whole lot of air, and just fools with that wee bit of a note, and draws it out fine like a silk thread, and keeps letting go of it a little at a time until it seems as though it was a mile long, and the audience stops talking and eating candy, and just holds its breath, and listens for her to bite it off, and she wiggles with it, and catches another breath when it is keeping right on, and it seems so sweet and smooth that you can almost see angels hovering around up in the roof, and she stands there with her beautiful eyes shining like stars, and her face wreathed in smiles, and that little note keeps paying out like a silk fish line with a four-pound bass running away with the bait, and the audience gets red in the face for not breathing, and when everybody thinks she is going to keep on all night, or bust and fill the house with little notes that smell of violets, she wakes up, raises her voice two or three degrees higher, and finds a note that is more beautiful still, but which is as rare as the bloom of a century plant, so rare and radiant that she can't keep it long without spoiling, and just as you feel like dying in your tracks and going, to heaven where they sing that way all the time, she shakes that note into little showers of crystal musical snowflakes, and then raises her voice one note higher just for a second, and backs away with a low bow and a sweet smile, and the audience is dumb for a minute, and when it comes to, and she has almost gone behind the scenes, everybody cheers, and waves handkerchiefs, and stands up and yells until she comes back and does it over again, that is technique."

"Well, sir, my girl has got a technique just like that. She can sing the socks right off of——"

"Oh, hold on; don't work any of your slang into this musical discussion. When you want to know anything about music, or falling in love, or farming, come to your Uncle Ike. Office hours from 9 a. m. to 4 p. m. No cure no pay. If you are not satisfied your money will be cheerfully refunded," and the old man got an oil can and begun to oil the old shotgun, while the boy started to sing "Killarney" in a bass voice, and Uncle Ike drew the gun on him and said: "If you are looking for trouble, sing in that buzz-saw voice in my presence. I could murder a person that sang like that."



CHAPTER XIX.

Uncle Ike was leaning over the gate late in the afternoon, waiting for the red-headed boy and some of his chums to come back from the State fair. He had gone to the fair with them, and gone around to look at the stock with them, and had staked them for admission to all the side shows, and when they had come out of the last side show, and were hungry, he had bought a mess of hot wiener sausages for them, and while they were eating them somebody yelled that the balloon was going to go up, and the boys grabbed their wieners and run across the fair grounds, losing Uncle Ike; and being tired, and not caring to see a young girl go up a mile in the air, and come down with a parachute, with a good prospect of flattening herself on the hard ground, he had concluded to go home before the crowd rushed for the cars, and here he was at the gate waiting for the boys, saddened because a pickpocket had taken his watch and a big seal fob that had been in the family almost a hundred years. As he waited for the boys to come back he smoked hard, and wondered what a pickpocket wanted to fool an old man for, a man who would divide his money with any one out of luck, and he wondered what they could get on that poor old silver watch, that never kept time that could be relied on, and a tear came to his eye as he thought of some jeweler melting up that old fob that his father and grandfather used to wear before him, and he wondered if the boys would guy him for having his pocket picked, he, who had mixed up with the world for half a century and never been touched. It was almost dark when the red-headed boy and his partners in crime, came down the sidewalk, so tired their shoes interfered, and they stubbed their toes on the holes in the walk, even.

"Well, I s'pose you ducks spent every cent you had and had to walk five miles from the fair ground," said Uncle Ike, as he opened the gate and let them fall inside and drop on the grass, their shoes covered with dust, and their clothes the same. He invited them in to supper, but the peanuts, the popcorn, the waffles, the lemonade, the cider and the wieners had been plenty for them, and it did not seem as though they ever wanted to eat a mouthful again.

"Where is your fob and watch?" said the redheaded boy, as he noticed that the big stomach of the old man carried no ornament.

"Well, I decided this afternoon that it did not become a man of my age to be wearing gaudy jewelry," said Uncle Ike, "and hereafter you have got to take your uncle just as he is, without any ornaments. The watch never did keep time much, and I have had enough of guessing whether it was 1 o'clock or 3."

"Never going to wear it any more?" asked the red-headed boy, with a twinkle in his eye.

"No, I guess not," said Uncle Ike, as he heaved a sigh.

"Then I guess we can draw cuts for the old rattle-box," said the boy, as he pulled the watch and fob out of his pants pocket.



"Here! where did you get that watch?" said Uncle Ike, in excitement. "I thought a pickpocket on the trolley car got it, and I was hot. Say, that is one of the best watches in this town. Where did you find it? Did the police get the man?"

"Oh, police nothin'," said the boy. "Say, Uncle Ike, you were the easiest mark on the fair ground. There you stood, looking up at the kites, with your hands behind your back, like a jay from way back, and I knew somebody would get your watch; so I just reached up and took it, and left you standing there. I wanted to teach you a lesson. Don't ever wear your jewelry at a fair. Here's your old ticker. Sounds as though it had palpitation of the heart," and the boy handed it to the old man.

"Well, by gum! To think I should live all these years, and go through what I have, and then have an amateur pickpocket take me for a Reuben, and go through me! But how did you like the great agricultural display?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the boy, taking off his shoes and emptying the sand out. "It seems to me the farmers ought to be encouraged. I wonder how many hundred dollars it cost to hire that girl to go up in a balloon; and what good could that exhibition do the farmers? If that girl's parachute hadn't parachuted at the proper time, and she had come down and been killed, wouldn't the people have been so horrified they would never go to another fair, and couldn't the state have been sued for damages for hiring her to kill herself?"

"Oh, maybe," said the old man, winding up his watch a lot ahead, and holding it to his ears to see if it had heart disease, as the boy had intimated. "But, you see, people have got to be amused. It has got so there is not the inspiration in looking at vegetables that there used to be, and the patchwork quilt does not draw like a house afire. The farmers are not going to blow in money to exhibit things for a blue ribbon, and the wealthy people who have fancy stock take the premiums and advertise their business. Money is paid for exhibits that more properly belong to the circus and the vaudeville, that ought to be paid in premiums to farmers who raise things. We hire a balloonist, believing that she will fall and kill herself before the season is over. We take the chance that she will kill herself at our fair, but if she does not, and is killed at some cheap fair, somewhere else, we feel that we are abused, and have been trifled with. What interested you the most at the fair?" asked the old man.

"The wieners," said the boys, all at once. And the red-headed boy added: "When a feller is so hungry his eyes look straight ahead, and he can't turn them in the sockets, there is nothing like a hot wiener to start things moving, and the man who invented wieners ought to have a chromo. By gosh, I am going to bed," and the boys all started for their resting places, while Uncle Ike felt of his stomach where the fob rested, and looked as happy as though he had never been robbed.

"Come on, Mr. Train-robber," said Uncle Ike the next morning, as the boy showed up in the breakfast room, and the old man held up his hands as he supposed passengers did when train-robbers attacked a train. "Go through me, condemn you, and take every last dollar I have got. I have brought you up to be an honest boy, and you turn out to be a pickpocket, and rob me of my watch. Oh, I tell you, no old bachelor ever had so much trouble bringing up a boy as I have. Now, I expect you will graduate in burglary, bunko, and politics, won't you?" and the old man looked at the laughing boy with such pride that the boy knew he was only fooling.

"No, if I went into burglary and kindred industries, I could never find such easy marks to practice on as dear old Uncle Ike," and the boy put his arms around the old man and asked him what time it was, and the Uncle grabbed his fob as though he was not sure whether it was there or not. "Now, let's eat breakfast," and they sat down together, and Aunt Almira poured the coffee, while Uncle Ike looked over the morning paper.

"You can disband your army, and let them go back to the paths of peace, for Dreyfus has been pardoned," said the old man. "I knew that they would pardon that man."

"Now, wouldn't that kill you," said the boy, as he sampled two or three pieces of canteloupe to find one to his taste. "That breaks up my scheme to fight the French. Uncle Ike, I have about made up my mind to lead a different life and become a minister, and preach, and go to sociables, and just have a dandy time. Say, it's a snap to be a minister, and only have to preach an hour Sunday, and have all the week to go fishing and hunting. What denomination would you advise me to become a minister of?"

"Well," said Uncle Ike, as he dropped a few lumps of sugar into his coffee, and looked at the boy across the table, "from the color of your hair, and your constant talk about falling in love every time you see a pretty girl, and the manner in which you take up a collection every time you see me anywhere, I should say you would make a pretty fair Mormon. Yes, if I was in your place I would preach Mormonism, as your experience in taking things out of people's pockets, in the way of watches, would come handy, and you are so confounded freckled you would have to have wives sealed to you or they would not stay. A minister has got to be pretty condemned good-looking, nowadays, to hold a job in a fashionable church."

"But the minister business is easy, ain't it? They don't have to work, anyway," and the boy looked at Uncle Ike as though life expected an opinion that was sound.

"If you took a job preaching," said the old man, whirling around from the table, and sitting down in his old armchair, and lighting his pipe, "you wouldn't have any, soft snap. Do you know anything about what a minister has to do? Let's take one week out of the life of a regular minister. He starts in on Monday morning by having a woman call at the parsonage, a woman dressed poorly, and whose pained face makes his heart ache, and she tells him a tale of woe, and he goes to his wife and gets a basket of stuff out of the kitchen to give her, a kitchen not stocked any too well, and sends her home with immediate relief, and then goes out to hunt up the relief committee of his church to give the woman permanent relief. He comes back after a while and finds other callers, some to have him make a diagnosis of their souls, over which they are worrying, another to have him help get a son out of the police station, who used to belong to the Sunday-school, and one man wants him to preach a funeral sermon in the afternoon. He gets out of the police station in time for the funeral, and they make him go clear to the cemetery, and stop at the house with the mourners on the way back, and he gets a cold dinner that night, and has to call on several sick friends that evening, and one of them is so nearly gone that he remains with him to the last, and gets home at midnight. The other days of the week are the same, only more so, and in addition he has to run a prayer meeting, several society meetings, a sociable, settle a quarrel in the choir, and bring two members of the church together who have not spoken to each other for months, attend a ministers' meeting and map out a plan of campaign against the old boy, run out into the country to preach a little for a neighboring preacher who is sick, or off on a vacation, attend a missionary meeting, marry a few couples, and prepare two sermons for Sunday forenoon and evening, sermons that are new, and on texts that have not been preached on before. One night in the week he can get on his slippers and sit in the library, and the other nights he is running from one place to another to make a lot of other people happier, and he has more sickness at home than any man in his congregation, and he works harder than the man who digs in the sewer, and half the time the people kick on his salary and wonder why he doesn't do more, and say he looks so dressed up it can't be possible he has much to do, and when he gets worn down to the bone, and his cheeks are sunken, and his voice fails, and his step is not so active, they saw him off on to some country church that never did pay a minister enough to live on, and he never kicks, but just keeps on praying for them until he kicks the bucket, when he ought to give them a piece of his mind. How do you like it?"

"Say, Uncle Ike, I surrender. I don't want to preach. Where can a man enlist as a pirate? The pirate business appeals to me," and the boy got up and took his golf club to go out.

"Yes, you have many qualifications that would come in handy as a pirate, and I will use my influence to get you into politics, you young heathen," and the old man gave the red-headed boy a poke in the ribs with his big hard thumb, and they separated for the day, the old man to smoke and dream, and the boy to have fun and get tired and hungry.



CHAPTER XX.

Uncle Ike did not get up very early, on account of a little pain in one of his hind legs, as he expressed it, a rheumatic pain that he had almost come to believe, as the pension agent had often suggested, was caused by his service in the army thirty-five years ago. The pension agent, who desired to have the honor of securing a pension for the old man, had asked him to try and remember if he was not exposed to a sudden draft, some time in the army, which might have caused him to take cold, and thus sow the seeds of rheumatism in his system, which had lain dormant all these years and finally appeared in his legs. The old man had thought it over, and remembered hundreds of occasions when he was soaked through with icy water, and had slept on the wet ground, and gone hungry and taken cold, but he realized that he had taken no more colds in the army than he had at home, and he could not see how he could swear that a chill he received thirty-five years ago could have anything to do with his present aches, and though he knew thousands of the old boys were receiving pensions, that were no worse off than he was, he had told the pension agent that he need not apply for a pension for his pain in the knee. He said he felt that he might just as well apply for a pension on account of inheriting rheumatism from an uncle who fought in the Mexican war, and he would wait until the government did not insist on a veteran having such an abnormal memory about sneezing during the war, as a basis for pension claims, and when it got so a pension would come to a soldier by simply looking up his record, and examining his physical condition, he would take a pension. The old man had heard a peculiar clicking down in the sitting room, all the morning, while he was dressing, and he wondered what it was. As he limped into the sitting room, with his dressing-gown on, and began to round up his shaving utensils, preparatory to his morning shave, he found the red-headed boy in his night shirt, sitting at a table with an old telegraph instrument that looked as though it had been picked out of a scrap-pile, and the boy was ticking away for dear life, his hair standing on end, his brow corrugated, and his eyes glaring.



"What dum foolishness you got on hand now?" asked the old man, as he set a cup of hot water on the mantel, and began to mix up the lather. "What you ticking away on that contrivance for, and looking wise?"

"This is a telegraph office," said the boy, as he stopped operations long enough to draw his cold bare feet up under him, and pulled his night shirt down to cover his knees. "I am learning to telegraph, and am going into training for president of a railroad. Did you see in the papers the other day that Mr. Earling was elected president of a railroad, and did you know that he started in as a telegraph operator and a poor boy, with hair the color of tow? They used to call him Tow-Head."

"Yes, I read about that," said Uncle Ike, as he looked in the glass to see if the lather was all right on his face, and began to strop his razor. "I knew that boy when he was telegraphing. But he knew what all those sounds meant. You just keep ticking away, and don't know one tick from another."

"Yes, I do," said the boy, as he smashed away at the key. "That long sound, and the short one, and the one about half as long as the long one—that spells d-a-m, dam."

"Well, what do you commence your education spelling out cuss words for?" asked the old man, as he raked the razor down one side of his face, pulling his mouth around to one side so it looked like the mouth of a red-horse fish. "Anybody would think you were in training for one of these railroad superintendents who swear at the men so their hair will stand, and then swear at them because they don't get their hair cut. The railroad presidents and general managers nowadays don't swear a blue streak, and keep the men guessing whether they will get discharged for talking back. This man Earling never swore a half a string in his life, and in thirty years of railroading he never spoke a cross word to a living soul, and his brow was never corrugated as much as yours has been spelling out that word dam. Got any idea what railroad you will be president of?" and the old man wiped his razor, stropped it on the palm of his hand, put it in a case, and went to a washbowl to wash the soap off his face.

"Well, I thought I would start in on some narrow-gauge railroad, and work up gradually for a year or two, and finally take charge of one of those Eastern roads, where I can have a private car, and travel all over the country for nothing. As quick as I get this telegraph business down fine I shall apply for a position of train dispatcher, and then jump right along up. Uncle Ike, you will never have to pay a cent on my railroad. I will have a caboose fixed up for you, with guns and dogs, and you can hunt and fish all your life, with a nigger to cook for you, and a porter to put on your bait, and another nigger chambermaid to make up your bed, and I will wire them from the general office to sidetrack you, and pick you up, and all that."

"Is that so?" said the old man, as he stood rubbing his face with a crash towel till it shone like a boiled lobster. "You are hurrying your railroad career mighty fast, and if you are not careful you will replace Chauncey Depew before you get long pants on. Now, you go get your clothes on and come to breakfast, and after breakfast I will tell you something." The boy dropped the key, after ticking to the imaginary general office not to disturb him with any messages for half an hour, as he was going to be busy on an important matter, and he went to his room and soon appeared at the breakfast table, and after the breakfast was over, and the old man had lighted his pipe, the boy said:

"Now, Uncle Ike, tell me all you know about railroading in one easy lesson, for I have to go to a directors' meeting at ten, and then we are going out to look over the right of way," and the boy ticked off a message to have his special car ready at eleven-thirty, stocked for a trip over the line.

"I see you are getting well along in your railroad career, and like nine out of ten boys who want to be railroad men, you are beginning at the private car instead of the gravel train, issuing general orders instead of working in the ranks," and the old man smoked up and thought a long time, and continued: "The successful railroad man begins at the bottom, and learns the first lesson well. Do you know how long this man Earling has been getting where he is today? Thirty-five years. More than the average age of man. The successful railroad man, if he begins telegraphing, gets so he can send or receive anything, with his eyes shut, and never makes a mistake. After a long time he gets a measly country station, where he does all kinds of work, and he is satisfied. He goes to work to increase the business of that station, to clean up around the depot, and please all the customers, as though he was going to live there all his life. He never thinks he is going to be a high official, but just makes the best of the present. Some day he is awfully surprised to be given a better station, and he hates to leave, and maybe sheds a tear as he parts with the friends he has made there. But he goes to his new place and improves it, and gets in with a new, pushing class of people, and begins to grow. He maybe works there ten years, and his work shows so the officials recognize it, and he never makes a mistake in his telegraphing, and some day they call him into headquarters during a rush, to help the train dispatcher, and then he has to move into the city and watch trains on thousands of miles of road, to see that they don't get together, as train dispatcher. He thinks that position is good enough, and he hopes they will let him alone in it, but some day he assists the superintendent, and he is so well posted they are all surprised. They wonder how that station agent got to knowing all the men on the road, and how much a train of freight cars weigh, and how many cents per mile each loaded car earns for the company, and what cars ought to go to the shops for repairs, and how many new cars will have to be bought to handle the crops on his division. The 'old man,' as the president is always called, gets to leaning on this always good-natured, promoted, station agent, who is so modest he wouldn't offer a suggestion unless asked his opinion, and when asked gives it so intelligently that you could set your watch by it, as the boys say. He is always sober, never sleepy, and whether figuring on the wheat crop of Dakota to a carload, or wearing rubber boots and dining on sausage and bread for a couple of days fixing up a washout, he is always calm and smiling, and every man works as though his own house was afire, till the washout is repaired and the first train pulls over. When the rich, fat, gouty directors come around, once a year, to take an account of stock, and see the property at work, they see the modest man, and by and by he is taken off his feet by a promotion that almost makes him dizzy. Other railroads see that he is all wool, and they try to steal him away, but he says he has got used to his old man, and he knows every spike in the system, and there are gray hairs beginning to come around his ears, and he guesses he will not go away and have to make new acquaintances, and he remains with the road where he learned to tick, as you are ticking, and one day he is at the head of it. But if you examine into the head of the man who gets up from station agent to president, you will find that there is brain there and no cut feed. Another station agent might get the bighead the first time he was promoted, and they would have to promote him backward, on that account, but it would be because there was excelsior in his head, instead of brain, and he would be mad and jealous, and say mean things about those who got promoted, and stayed promoted. Now, let me give you a pointer. Don't train for general manager or president of a road. Train for the thing you are going to get first, whether it is operator or brakeman, and when you have mastered the details of that place, learn something about the next above. It is like going up a ladder; you have got to go up one step at a time, and get your foot on the step so it will stay, then go up another step. If you attempt to step from the ground to the top of the ladder, you are going to split your pants from Genesis to Revelations, and come down on your neck, and show your nakedness to those who have watched you try to climb too fast, and they will laugh at you. Now, go on with your condum ticking, but tick out something besides d—a—m, dam," and the old man went out to see if there had been any frost the night before, with an idea that if there was he would shoot a few teal duck, and cure his rheumatism that way, instead of putting on liniment.



CHAPTER XXI.

Uncle Ike was out in the front yard in the early morning, in his shirt sleeves, with no collar on, an old pair of rubber boots to keep the dew from wetting his feet, and he was helping the Indian summer haze all he could, by smoking the clay pipe and blowing the smoke up among the red and yellow leaves of autumn, and as he kicked the beautiful leaves on the lawn into piles he thought what foolish people they were who claimed last week that winter had come, because it was a little chilly, when he could have told them, by half a century's experience, that the most beautiful part of the year was to come, the Indian summer, the lazy days when you want to shoot snipe, and eat grapes, and have appendicitis. The red-headed boy came out yawning, half awake, and raised his arms and stretched until it seemed that he would break his back.

"You remind me of Indian summer," said the old man, as he stepped on the boy's bare foot with his soft rubber boot.

"Oh, I don't know," said the boy, as he let out a secret school society yell at some boys across the street, which brought them all over-into the yard, as though there was a dog fight on. "Uncle Ike, you remind me of Father Time, after he has been to a barber and got shaved, with your smooth old laughing face. Why do I remind you of Indian summer?"

"Well, your red hair resembles the frosted leaf of the maple tree, your brown freckles look like the dead and dying leaves of the oak, your unwashed chalky face looks like the leaves of the ash, your sparkling eyes like the dewy diamonds on the grass, and your sleepy look as you just come from your bed makes me think of the hazy atmosphere that the Indians loved so well. What all you boys around here for so early in the morning, anyway, disturbing your Uncle Ike when he wants to think?" and he grabbed half a dozen boys and piled them up in a heap on the grass, and put one of his big rubber boots on the top one, and held them down, squirming like a lot of angleworms in a tomato can.



The red-headed boy took Uncle Ike by the suspenders and pulled him off the boys, and then they all grabbed his legs and threw him down and sat on him, breaking his pipe, and pulling off his rubber boots and making him yell, "Enough!" before they would let him up, but he laughed and spanked them with a leg of a rubber boot, and finally they all sat down on the porch, panting, and Uncle Ike was the youngest boy in the gang, apparently.

"Come to order," said the red-headed boy, and every boy took off his hat, and braced back against the side of the house, and Uncle Ike looked on, wondering what was coming next. "We have met, gentlemen," said the red-headed boy, "to make arrangements to nominate Dewey for President. We have watched the manner in which the people have received him at New York and Washington; have noticed his modesty and level-headedness, and us boys, Uncle Ike, have decided that Dewey shall be the next President. If any person has got anything to say why he should not be President, let him speak now, or forever after hold his peace. It is up to you, Uncle Ike, and this assemblage would like to hear a few casual remarks from you, before breakfast, on this subject. Now, boys, hurrah for Uncle Ike, the jolliest old scrapper in the business. Now, give the yell, 'Who are we! who are we! we are the kids for old Dewe-e—siz! boom! yah!'" and the boys yelled until Uncle Ike had to respond.

"Well, you condum heathen can settle more public questions here on this porch than all the political parties," said the old man, as he fixed a broken suspender with a nail, and came up to the boys with one rubber boot in his hand, and reached for a new pipe on the window sill, loaded it, and lit it for a talk. "You ought to have better sense than to think of Dewey placing himself in the hands of the politicians, and going into politics, where he will have to be cat-hauled by all the disreputable critters in the country. Look at Grant! When he got out of the war he was just like Dewey, and would be alive today if he had not got into the hands of the politicians. Dewey can sit down in Washington as he is, and have more power for good than any President, and he will be proud of himself and his country. If he went into politics he would be betrayed, and made responsible for all the stealing and mistakes of those under him, and in a little while he would hate himself, and would like to get all the politicians into a Spanish ship and turn the Olympia loose on them."

"Yes, but nobody could say anything against Dewey," said the red-headed boy, interrupting Uncle Ike. "All he would have to do would be to appoint a cabinet of admirals, and give all the other offices to the midshipmen and jackies, and send army officers abroad as ministers and things. The people would lynch a man that said anything against Dewey."

"They couldn't say anything against, him, could they?" said Uncle Ike, pulling on the rubber boot. "Well, you are an amateur in politics. Do you know what they would do if Dewey were nominated? They would prove that he murdered a man in Vermont in 1852, in cold blood, and produce the corpse. They would swear that he was the inventor of the wooden nutmeg, and that he had six wives living, and that he was in cahoots with Aguinaldo, and that he didn't sink the Spanish fleet, but that it got waterlogged and went down without a shot being fired. They would claim that he was the originator of the process of boiling maple roots and putting the juice into glucose, and selling it for pure Vermont maple syrup. They would claim that the reception he received at the hands of the American people was a put-up job; that he paid all the expenses himself, out of money he stole from the government, and that all the cheering was done by hired claquers, who were all promised an office when he was elected. And then if he was elected, every man that knew him before he went to Manila would claim to have been the making of him, and want to be in the cabinet, and every man that has shook hands with him since, would expect the best office at his disposal, and if they didn't get the offices they would prove that he was responsible for the embalmed beef scandal, and that he was in partnership with Capt. Carter in robbing the government, and ought to be in jail. Oh, you can't tell me anything about politics, and if I could see Dewey I would tell him to say nothing but 'nixy' to every proposition to mix him up. Now, all you boys come in to breakfast," and the old man tossed the boys toward the dining room door as though they were footballs.

"Well, Uncle Ike, you have punctured our tire again. Every time we get a scheme to save the country, you come in with your condumed talky-talk, and throw us in the air. Guess you will have to take the nomination yourself, and run on a platform of seven words, 'Here's to the boys, God bless 'em,'" and the red-headed boy got under Uncle Ike's arm, and the gang went in to breakfast, Uncle Ike trying to argue against being nominated, and having to go to the White House with a lot of tough boys making life a burden to him, when he would have to get married, for no President is a success as a bachelor, as Cleveland found out. As Uncle Ike got the boys all around the table, he bent his head and reverently asked a blessing—something he had never done before in the presence of the red-headed boy, and when the meal was over and the boys had all gone away, except the warm-haired one, and Uncle Ike had begun to smoke again, the boy said to him:

"Uncle Ike, I did not know that you belonged to any church."

"Well, I don't," said Uncle Ike, as he got up and looked out of the window, and blew smoke at a fly that was buzzing on the glass.

"Then how could you ask a blessing, and expect that it will be heard? I supposed a person had to be initiated in a church, and be sworn in, and given the password, and take the degrees, before he was ordained to ask a blessing," said the boy.

"No, that is not necessary," the old man said. "Now, you haven't got much religion, and never jined, but you give thanks to the Lord quite often. When you are happy, and enjoying yourself, and smile and laugh, you are unconsciously thanking the Ruler for making things so comfortable. All pleasure is made possible by a higher power, and all you got to do is to feel grateful, same as you would to me if I gave you a dollar, and there you are. You just be square, and do business on the golden rule plan, and you have got a heap more religion than some people who are Matting about all the time. I just thought I would paralyze you kids by showing you that I was all wool, and wanted the Lord to keep tab on us, and know that we appreciated good health, and all that. Now, you go to school, and don't say anything to that blue-eyed teacher of yours that you have nominated me for President. I don't want to get girls after me, thinking they will be mistress of the White House," and the old man took his gun and went down into the marsh looking for snipe.



CHAPTER XXII.

Uncle Ike had been reading the morning paper, as he sat before the grate fire, in the sitting room, while the red-headed boy was using a slate and pencil trying to figure out something to make it match the answer as given in the arithmetic, and having guessed the answer right he was drawing a picture of Uncle Ike and his pipe, and occasionally wetting his finger in his mouth and rubbing out some feature of the old man that didn't suit. He had the old man pictured in a football costume of padded trousers, nose guard, ear guard, knee pads, and all the different things used in football, and when he showed the picture to Uncle Ike, that old citizen sighed, though he looked a bit pleased that he should be the study of so eminent an artist. Uncle Ike had been reading that there was to be a football game that afternoon, between the State university and Beloit college, and he wanted to go like a dog, but he had abused football so much that he was ashamed to speak of going.

"I hope you are not interested in that disreputable game," said Uncle Ike, knocking the ashes out of his pipe on the andirons of the fireplace. "I hope you don't want to go and see respectable boys maimed and killed, and knocked down and dragged out, and sandbagged, and brained. I have seen a bull fight in Mexico, but I never want to see anything as bloody as a football game," and the old man winked to himself, and filled the pipe.

"Oh, what you giving me?" said the boy, jumping up in indignation. "Football is no worse than the old-fashioned pullaway you used to play. I am going to see this game through a knothole in the fence I rented from a boy who has the knothole concession at the baseball park."

"No, you don't," said Uncle Ike, "you will go in the gate like a gentleman. No nephew of mine is going to grow up and be a knothole audience. You get two or three of your chums and come around here about 2 o'clock, and I will go with you, and stand between you and the sluggers, and see this game out. I don't want to go, and detest the game, but I will go to please you," and the old man looked wise and fatherly.

"Oh, you don't want to go, like the way the woman kept tavern in Michigan," said the boy, as he edged toward the door.

"How was it that the woman kept the hotel in Michigan?" he asked, looking mad.

"Like hades," said the boy, "only the man who told me about it said she kept tavern like h——l, but I wouldn't say that in the presence of my dear old uncle,", and the boy slipped out ahead of a slipper that was kicked at him by the laughing old man.

So in the afternoon Uncle Ike, the red-headed boy and two chums appeared at the gate, the old man plunked down two dollars with a chuckle, asked if he could smoke his pipe in there, and was told that he could smoke a factory chimney if he wanted to, and they went in and got seats on the bleachers, and as they sat down the old man said it was almost exactly like the bull ring in Mexico. The boys explained to him that the red ribbons were university colors and the yellow belonged to Beloit, and he must choose which side he would root for. As the red matched his flannel underwear and his flushed face, he said he was for the university, and then the boys explained the game, about carrying the ball, getting touchdowns, kicking goal, and half-back and quarter-back, and when the teams came in and the crowd yelled, Uncle Ike felt hurt, because it made so much noise, and people acted crazy. Uncle Ike looked the players over, and he said that big fellow from Beloit was John L. Sullivan in disguise, and wanted him ruled off. The play began, the ball shot out behind the crowd, a man grabbed it and started to run, when someone grabbed him by the legs and he went down, with the whole crowd on top of him. Uncle Ike raised up on his feet and waved his pipe, and when one of the men did not get up and they brought water and tried to bring him back to life, he shouted: "That is murder. I saw that fellow with the black socks strike him with a hatchet. Police!" but someone behind him yelled to him to sit down, and the red-headed boy pulled his coat tail, he sat down, and the game went on, but Uncle Ike was mad, because the dead boy was playing as lively as anybody.

Then a man got the ball and started on a run down the field, with the whole crowd after him, and finally they got him down and Uncle Ike stood up again and said: "Stop the game. I saw a fellow trip him up, and pound him with a billy, and stab him. Say, boys, he's dead, sure. Where's the police? Ain't there no ambulance here? Kill the umpire!" he shouted, remembering that he was an old baseball fan.



"Oh, don't worry, Uncle Ike, they are all right," said the boy, waving a long piece of red ribbon, as the two bands tried to play a "Hot Time" and a waltz at the same time. "Now watch the kangaroo kick off," and as he kicked the ball the whole length of the field the old man simply sat still and said:

"Gee whiz, but that was a corker. U-rah-u-rah!" and the only way to stop him was to feed him peanuts.

From an enemy of football the old man was rapidly becoming its friend. When the men came together at first, and went down in a heap, legs flying in all directions, and noises like heavy blows coming to him, he would swear he saw a man strike another with a mallet, but later in the game he said it served the man right, and he ought to have been hit with an ax, and before the game was over he was so interested that he got down off the bleachers, leaned over the railing and yelled at the'' combatants to eat 'em up, and when the game was over he rushed into the field, hugging the players, and saying that it was the greatest thing that ever was, and offering to act as one of the bearers to the funeral, if anybody had been killed, and when the boys got him out of the grounds he took up the whole sidewalk, waving his ribbons, tied on his cane, shouting the university yell till he frothed at the mouth, and on the way home he took the boys into a store and bought them a new football, and insisted that they come into the front yard and play a game every morning, and offered to have the shrubbery cut down to give them room. As they got home, and the other boys had gone away, the red-headed boy said:

"Uncle Ike, you have disgraced the whole family. You went to the football game under protest, a quiet, inoffensive citizen, ostensibly to take care of us boys, and the first jump out of the box you got crazy, and we had a terrible time to get you home. I don't suppose you remember what you did do out there. Do you remember of putting your arm around a strange lady, and hugging her, and telling her to yell? Her husband is looking for you with a gun. Do you remember of grabbing a young woman sitting in front of you, just as they made a touchdown, pulling her head over into your lap, and patting her cheeks with your great big hands, and telling her she ought to marry a football player? Her brother is coming up street now with a baseball club. I suppose you have no recollection of jumping up and sitting down in the lap of a woman in the seat behind you, throwing your arms around her, and telling her she was a darling, and squeezing her till you broke her corset. She says you offered her marriage, and her lawyer will be here in the morning to find out what you are going to do about it. I think you better be examined by doctors to see if you are not getting nutty, and let them send you to a sanitarium," and the boy sighed, and looked at the old man as though his heart was broken.

"Say, did I do any of those things?" asked Uncle Ike, as he got up and looked out of the window, and then locked the door, and acted frightened. "Well, I'll be dumbed! I recollect the woman in front of me, and the one behind, but I pledge you my word that I did not know that I hugged anybody. I am willing to apologize, but I'll be condemned if I marry any of 'em, and I'm not crazy. That confounded game got me all mixed up, and I may have acted different from what I would ordinarily, but it was not my intention to propose to any female."

"But say, Uncle Ike, what did you think of the game as a means of building up muscle, pluck, push, get there, and general usefulness?" asked the boy.

"Greatest thing I ever saw," said Uncle Ike, as he looked out of the window, to see if any females he might have hugged in his excitement were out there waiting for him. "Say, I saw young fellows in that game that I used to know, who would cry if taken across their father's knee, and beg for mercy, and they would rush into the most dangerous position, and if knocked silly they would smile, never groan, and suck a swallow of water out of a sponge, and go in for another knockdown. That game will make men of the weak boys, and cause them to be afraid of nothing that walks. The boy who pushes, and tackles, and runs through a wilderness of other boys who are trying to down him, and get his pigskin away, will become the pushing business man who will go through the line of business progress, and make a touchdown in his enterprise, and he will kick a commercial or professional goal, over the heads of all competitors. Life is only a football game, after all. Every man in business who is worth his salt is a pusher, a shover, a tackier, a punter, or half-back, and the unsuccessful ones are the ones who carry the water to bring the business players to, when they become overheated, and do the yelling and hurrahing when the pushing business man in the football game of life makes a touchdown. It is these rough players that become the rough riders when war comes to the country, and they rush the ball up San Juan hill in the face of the Spanish tacklers, and the interference of barbed wire and other things. War is a football game also, and the recruiting officers are not looking for the weak sisters who can't push and shove, and fight, and fall over each other, and when wounded laugh and say it is nothing serious. A country that has a majority of its boys growing up to fight on the football field for fun, has no cause to fear any war that may come to it, for if they will fight like that in good nature, to uphold the colors of their college, what will they do to uphold 'Old Glory,' which comprises the dearest colors in all the world? Yes, boy, you can go on playing football, and if you are injured your Uncle Ike will pay all the expenses, and sit up nights with you, but you better not take me to any more games, for the first thing you know I will be bringing home here more wives than that Utah congressman has got. Now, go rest up, and next week I will take you to see President McKinley, at the hotel here, and you will see him throw his arms around me and say, 'Hello, Uncle Ike!' I used to know him when he wasn't President," and Uncle Ike dismissed the boy, and sat by the window till dark, looking out to see if anybody was coming to claim his hand in marriage, and wondering if he did make as big a fool of himself at the football game as the boys said he did.



CHAPTER XXIII.

It was Sunday afternoon, and Uncle Ike had been to church with the red-headed boy, and they had listened to a sermon on patriotism, and the minister had expressed himself on the subject of the Philippines, and the duty the President owed to civilization to keep on killing those negroes until they learned better than to kick at having a strange race of people boss them around, and Uncle Ike had walked home along the bank of the lake, and breathed the free air that was his because his ancestors had conquered it from England, and he couldn't help having a little sympathy for those Filipinos who had been bought from a country that didn't own them, by a country that had no use for them, and wished it could get rid of them honorably, without hurting the political party that was acting as overseer over them. He didn't want to seem disloyal to a country that he loved and had fought to preserve, but when he thought of those poor, ignorant people, trying to learn what freedom meant, and what there was in it for them, studying the constitution of the United States to find out how to be good and great, and dodging bullets, he felt as though he wished he knew just what the Savior of Man would do in the matter if He had been elected President. He had left the red-headed boy at Sunday-school, and now they were both back home, waiting for the dinner bell to ring. The boy was studying some pamphlet he had brought home, and looking mighty serious.

"Any great problem been presented to you at Sunday-school that you are unable to solve?" said Uncle Ike, as he walked by the boy and tried to stroke the corrugated lines out of his forehead, and patted him on the head. "For if there is anything you are in doubt about, all you got to do is to let your Uncle Ike be umpire, and he will straighten it out for you."

"Thank you, awfully," said the boy, as he dropped his book, walked up to the old man, and looked him squarely in the face. "You are the man I have been looking for. Uncle Ike, suppose a man should haul off, without provocation, and smash you on the side of the face, a regular stinger, that would jar your head until you could see stars, what would you do?"



"Oh, say, that is an easy one," said the old man, as he filled the pipe and lighted it, and threw the match in the grate. "Do you know what I would do? I would give him one on the nose with my left hand, and when he was off his guard I would paste him one under the ear, or on the point of the jaw, and then I would stand over him and count ten, and if he came to, I would give him some more, and when he had got enough, I would say to him: 'Now, when you feel that way again, and want to enjoy yourself, you come right to me, for I don't have any too much exercise, anyway.' But why do you ask? You knew all the time what I would do if a man hit me," and the old man walked around the room as though he would like to see someone hit him.

"That's what I feared," said the boy, as the twinkles played around his eyes. "You see, among the verses in the Sunday-school lesson was this one, 'If they smite you on one cheek, turn the other cheek, also,' and I thought I would like to get the opinion of an expert as to how to go about it, to turn the other cheek the right way."

"Say, here, you don't take advantage of an old man that way," said Uncle Ike, as the boy began laughing. "When you ask questions like that you want to read the verse first, and give a man a chance. 'Course, if they smite you on one cheek, you want to do just what the Bible says. Some of you kids make me tired," and the old man wished dinner was ready, so they could change the subject.

"I told my teacher I didn't see how a fellow could turn the other cheek, also, and maintain his standing in society, but she said it was the way to do, and then the Sunday-school superintendent came along, and she asked him about it. He belongs to the athletic club of the Y. M. C. A., and I have seen him box with soft gloves, and he said it was right to turn the other cheek, but I noticed he smiled, and then the minister visited our class, and the teacher asked him to impress on us boys the idea of turning the other cheek. He looked pious, and said you must turn the other cheek when smote, as it showed a meek and forgiving disposition, but I know the minister is a boxer, also, and I heard that he almost jarred the head off a tramp last summer for sassing him, so I am worried as to what it is best to do, in a case of smoting. The teacher, you know her, the pretty girl that let you hold her hand so long at the picnic, when you was introduced to her, and you told her you used to know her mother when she was a girl, and used to go with her, and all that rot, she told me I better talk it over with you, Uncle Ike, and see what you thought about it. So you honestly think it is best for a boy to grow up letting people get in the habit of smiting, so to see him turn his other cheek, and get another bat on that cheek, eh? Don't you think a boy that takes that kind of medicine, without making up a face, ought to say, 'Thank you, ever so much,' and always wear pinafores, and stay in the kindergarten, and if he ever grows up and goes into business he better become a he-milliner, or a manicure, say? It's up to you, now, Uncle Ike, and I am ready to listen, and to follow your advice, and be a boy or a girl, just as you say, but I don't know any girl in my set that would let anybody smite her much, without pulling hair a little, at least."

Uncle Ike had been thinking pretty hard, as the boy talked, had let his pipe go out, and his face had taken on a serious look, a look also of pride as he listened to the boy, but he was trying to think how to steer him right on that turning the other cheek also business. He fumbled for the tobacco bag, and as he emptied some tobacco into the pipe, his hand was unsteady, and he spilled a good deal on the floor, and he had to scratch two or three matches on his pants before he could get one that wouldn't break off, or go out. Finally he got the pipe lighted, and he puffed a long time, and looked at himself in the big mirror over the mantel, to see if he was looking his best, and finally he said:

"I'll tell you, my boy, I don't think they are turning the other cheek also when smote, as much as they used to. The theory is all right, and if everybody would do so, there would not be any trouble, and all would be peace. I suppose that verse in the Bible was written when the Jews were trying to get along without having scraps all the time. There were people there, Jew-baiters, I suppose, who just laid for them, and knowing them to be opposed to a fight, they would smash them, and on the advice of leaders they would turn the other cheek, and go home with a black eye. I don't suppose I could write a Bible half as good as the old one, but I think if that verse had been changed a little, so the Jews would have stood up for their rights, and everlastingly lambasted anybody that came around jarring them on the cheeks, and been brought up to fight their way through, from Jerusalem to France, things would have been different. But, as I say, things have changed a good deal since Bible times. I think, now, if I was a boy, growing up to take my place in the business world, I might try to forget that verse, or think of it as we do of the Golden Rule, or the 'love one another' verse. You may try as hard as you like and you can't love your neighbor as yourself, unless he, or she, as the case may be, is a lovable person, and loves back. There can be no arbitrary rules that will bind you against what you think is right. Suppose your neighbor is a horsethief, or a liar, who belongs to another political party, and backbites, and steals your wood, and kicks your dog, and puts up jobs on you, how you going to love that neighbor as yourself? Two or three thousand years ago maybe these things would have been all right, when they didn't have any newspapers, and trolley cars, and there was no business except selling fish, and no money but coppers. I'll tell you how I shall bring up my boys, when I have any, and that is to keep their cheeks away from the smoter who smotes. Be on your guard, and if a boy tries to smite you on one cheek, you duck, and side-step, and smile at him, and keep your hands up so if he makes a feint to smite you on one cheek, just stand him off, and maybe he will think that you are onto his smiting on the cheek business yourself, and are no chicken, that is going to keep cheeks for other people to smite, and he may quit, and you can laugh over it, and consider the incident closed. But if he gets gay, and it seems to be his day to smite cheeks, and he acts as though he had picked you out for a soft mark, and rushes in to do you up, if I ever hear of your running, or putting your hands down, and letting him biff you, one, two, on both cheeks, and you come home here crying, with the nosebleed, and your eye blacked, and you haven't done a thing to that cheek smiter, I will warm your jacket so you will think there is a hornets' nest in it, hear me?" and the old man looked cross and sassy. "No, sir; you just let him search for your cheeks, and if he won't quit, you finally give him your left in the neck, and side-step, and keep out of his way, and if he wants more, find a place where there is an opening, and jab him until he quits looking for cheeks to smite, and other cheeks to turn also. I don't know as it is right, but turning the other cheek also has gone out of style, and nobody is doing it that has got any gravel in their crop. Don't let me ever catch you fighting, that is, bringing on a fight, but don't you ever let anybody use you to practice that verse on, because your minister or your Sunday-school superintendent wouldn't allow anybody to smite them without getting hurt."

"Well, I like that," said the boy, getting up and starting for the dining room. "I will do just as you say, Uncle Ike, and try to avoid trouble. But what shall I tell that blue-eyed teacher you advised me—the one, you know, that you was so sweet on at the picnic?"

"Oh, tell her I told you to try and grow up to be a regular thoroughbred, like your Uncle Ike, and only turn the other cheek to girls, see! And tell her I never squeezed anybody's hand at a picnic, unless they commenced it, by gosh!" and the old man took the red-headed boy in his arms and carried him bodily into the dining room, and there was a smile on his good old face that was good to look upon.



CHAPTER XXIV.

Uncle Ike had met with a misfortune that troubled him, and he was smoking and trying to think of some way to explain the affair. All his life he had been an all-around sport, and cluck shooting had been his hobby. He had prided himself that he could ride any boat that an Indian could, and bragged that he had never got his feet wet in his forty years as a duck shooter; but this morning he had gone out in a boat, before anybody was up about the house, and when he was not looking, a wave tipped the boat up on one side, filled it with water, and had gone down with him before he could say Jack Robinson, and he had floundered around in mud and water up to his armpits, singing "A life on the ocean wave," and yelling for somebody to come and tie him loose.



A neighbor had come with a boat, and dragged him ashore, and he had taken off his wet clothes, hung them on the fence to dry, put on some dry clothes, and he was smoking his pipe and wringing the water out of his wet pants, when the red-headed boy came out to inquire into the marine disaster.

"Getting your washing out pretty early in the morning, Uncle Ike," said the boy, as he lifted a wet sweater off the fence, and took some wet cartridges out of the pockets. "Is it healthy to go in swimming with so many clothes on? How did this thing happen, anyway?"

"Now, don't get gay," said Uncle Ike, "and I will tell you. It was blowing a hurricane, and the wind took the boat up in the air about ten feet, and it dove down head first, and what could I do but get out? A cramp took me in the leg, and I stood on t'other leg, but I wasn't afraid. I didn't yell, but just said to a man who was about half a mile away, says I, 'Kindly assist me to land,' and he took me by the shirt collar and escorted me to the shore."

"I see," said the boy; "you whispered to him, when he was half a mile away, but did not yell for help. Oh, you're a mark, trying to make believe you are young enough to enjoy sport. Say, you ought to have a shawl strap on you, so your rescuer can have something to take hold of; and if I were in your place, I would get the dimensions of Noah's ark, and have one made to fit me. You better buy your ducks, and stay on land. But now that the Prodigal Uncle has got back, I am going out to kill a fatted calf, and we will have a calf banquet. Say, Uncle Ike, did you ever read about the Prodigal Son? We had it in our Sunday-school lesson last Sunday. They didn't do a thing to him, did they?"

"Yes, I have read about the Prodigal Son, and I give it to you straight—he was the greatest chump mentioned in the Bible, and sometimes I think you are a dead ringer for him!" and the old man laughed at the boy.

"Oh, I don't know," said the boy, as he poured some water out of Uncle Ike's rubber boots, that hung on the fence; "you and Noah size up about right. If you had been running that ark, you would have spilled the whole outfit, and nobody ever would have got ashore. But that Prodigal Son makes me tired. He was a regular jay. He run away from home, and got in with a terrible crowd, and they pulled his leg for all the money he had. They steered him up against barrel houses, and filled him with liquor that would burn a hole in a copper kettle, got him mixed up with queer women, and he painted the towns red; and when his money was all gone, they kicked him out with a case of indigestion and a head on him that hurt so he could not wink without thinking there was an earthquake. Say, Uncle Ike, do you know that fellow had some sense after all? When he found that all his new-found friends wanted was his money, and to help him spend it, and that they shook him when it was gone, he had a right to be disgusted with the world; and if he had been like some of our present day prodigals, he would have turned tramp, or held up a train, or stolen a horse and been lynched; but he just tumbled to himself and took the first job that came along, herding hogs, but he didn't live high. He worked for his board and furnished his own husks. Do you know, I can't help thinking the man that hired Prod. to drive hogs was in a trust, and made all the money there was in the deal. But he was repaid for all his suffering. When he thought of the old folks at home, and drew his wages and started back, without clothes enough on him to wad a gun, thinking maybe they would stick up their noses and say he smelled bad, and quarantine him, and make him take a bath, but, instead of doing so, they just fell on his neck and wept, and set up a calf lunch for him, he must have thought the world was worth living in. Uncle Ike, were you ever a prodigal son?" and the boy turned over the wet clothes so the sun would dry the other side.

"Yes, sir, I have been a prodigal son, and every boy who goes away from home to make his own living is a prodigal son, in a way," and he and the boy sat down under a tree, the one to talk and the other to listen. "When a boy decides to leave the old roof tree at home to go out into the world, it is most always against the wishes of his parents; but he argues with them, and finally prevails on them to let him go. It is what he amounts to after he gets away that makes him either a prodigal or a thoroughbred. If a boy goes into bad company, and thinks the world is made to spend unearned money in, instead of to earn money in and save it, it is only a matter of time when he comes back home a prodigal son, either alive and needing a doctor and a mother's care, or he comes in a box to be buried, his father to pay the express charges. On the other hand, if he gets a job, doing something, anything, masters the business, and becomes a valuable citizen, maybe in time at the head of his profession or business, some day he comes home to the old folks, and there are smiles instead of tears, a brass band instead of the singing by the funeral choir, and he pays the mortgage on the old homestead, instead of having his father pay express charges on the remains. That is the difference. All boys can be prodigals if they have the prodigal bacillus in their systems when they go out into the world; but if they have the get-there-Eli microbe concealed in their pajamas when they go away, they can laugh at the traps and nets that are thrown out to catch them, stand off the alleged friends who try to induce them to go into the red paint business, use the red liquor to rub on bruises and strained muscles on the outside, instead of taking it internally to build fires that never quench. Which kind of a prodigal nephew you want to be—one who comes home with a suit of clothes and a bank account, the glow of health on your cheek, and a love of life and all that goes with it; or a prodigal with a blanket, a haversack full of husks that the hogs won't eat, all the diseases that are going in the set you have moved in, and a desire to die on the doorstep of the old home before they can cook the calf? Which you want to be, boy?"

"I'll tell you, Uncle Ike," said the boy, laying his head in the old man's lap, as they sat under the tree; "I am going to be the kind of a prodigal who comes home with the good health, and the money, and the appetite for calf; and when you are old, Uncle Ike, you sha'n't get wet any more, for I will buy you a duck boat that can't be tipped over with jackscrews, that you can't break with an ax, and that has air chambers in both ends, so it couldn't be sunk if loaded with railroad iron; and I will buy you a pump gun that will shoot ducks without your aiming it, and you shall have a picnic as long as you live. That is the kind of prodigal nephew I am going to be"; and the old man stroked the red hair on the head that lay in his lap, and the tears stole down his cheeks as he thought what a difference there was in prodigals. He thought of his own prodigal days, when he went out from the home roof tree to make his way in the world; how he worked on a farm from long before daylight in the morning, till all the rest had gone to bed, and his back ached so he could not sleep; how he jumped the farm when he found his wages decreased as the work became harder and the weather colder, and he went into the city and worked at many different trades, and finally became a printer, and grew up to be an editor, made money and went back home a grown man, with a moustache that actually had to be combed; and how the girls that would not speak to him when he was a dirty, freckled boy, wanted to give parties in his honor, and how he shook them; and now he regretted, old bachelor that he was, that he had not allowed them to entertain him, so he might have picked out the best one of them for his wife; and he sighed, and got up and wrung some more water out of his wet clothes hanging on the fence, and wondered how in the world he could have allowed himself to be tipped over in a boat, and if he actually did make a fool of himself when he was there in the water, wishing he hadn't gone hunting at all.

THE END