Pecks Compendium of Fun | Page 4

under the
piano, and Ma was trying to get her frizzes back on her head, and the
choir girl was standing on the lounge with her dress pulled up, trying to
scare cats with her striped stockings, and the minister was holding his
hands up, and I guess he was asking a blessing on the cats, and my
chum opened the front door and all the cats went out. Pa and Ma
looked at me, and I said it wasn't me, and the minister wanted to know
how so much cat hair got on my coat and vest, and I said a cat met me
in the hall and kicked me, and Ma cried, and Pa said 'that boy beats
hell,' and the minister said, I would be all right if I had been properly
brought up, and then Ma was mad, and the committee broke up. Well,
to tell the honest truth Pa basted me, and yanked me around until I had
to have my arm in a sling, but what's the use of making such a fuss
about a few cats. Ma said she never wanted to have my company again,
'cause I spoiled everything. But I got even with Pa for basting me, this
morning, and I dassent go home. You see Ma has got a great big bath
sponge as big as a chair cushion, and this morning I took the sponge
and filled it with warm water, and took the feather cushion out of the
chair Pa sits in at the table, and put the sponge in its place, and covered
it over with the cushion cover, and when we all got set down to the
table Pa came in and sat down on it to ask a blessing. He started in by
closing his eyes and placing his hands up in front of him like the letter
V, and then he began to ask that the food we were about to partake off
be blessed, and then he was going on to ask that all of us be made to
see the error of our ways, when he began to hitch around, and he
opened one eye and looked at me, and I looked as pious as a boy can
look when he knows the pancakes are getting cold, and Pa he kind of
sighed and said 'Amen' sort of snappish, and he got up and told Ma he
didn't feel well, and she would have to take his place and pass around
the sassidge and potatoes, and he looked kind of scart and went out
with his hand on his pistol pocket, as though he would like to shoot,
and Ma she got up and went around and sat in Pa's chair. The sponge
didn't hold more than half a pail full of water, and I didn't want to play
no joke on Ma, cause the cats nearly broke her up, but she sat down and
was just going to help me, when she rung the bell and called the hired
girl, and said she felt as though her neuralgia was coming on, and she

would go to her room, and told the girl to sit down and help Hennery.
The girl sat down and poured me out some coffee, and then she said,
'Howly Saint Patrick, but I blave those pancakes are burning,' and she
went out in the kitchen. I drank my coffee, and then took the big
sponge out of the chair and put the cushion in the place of it, and then I
put the sponge in the bath room, and I went up to Pa and Ma's room,
and asked them if I should go after the doctor, and Pa had changed his
clothes and got on his Sunday pants, and he said, 'never mind the
doctor, I guess we will pull through,' and for me to get out and go to the
devil, and I came over here. Say, there is no harm in a little warm water,
is there? Well, I'd like to know what Pa and Ma and the hired girl
thought. I am the only real healthy one there is in our family."
THREE INCHES OF LEG.
Blanche Williams, of Philadelphia, who met with an accident at
Fairmount Water-works, by which one leg was broken, and rendered
three inches shorter than the rest of her legs, has recovered $10,000
damages. It would seem, to the student of nature, to be a pretty good
price for three inches of ordinary leg, but then some people will make
such a fuss.
MORE DANGEROUS THAN KEROSENE.
The regular weekly murder is reported from Peshtigo. Two men named
Glass and Penrue, got to quarreling about a girl, in a hay loft, over a
barn. Glass stabbed Penrue quite a