boy that was such a care and anxiety to his parents, and just then Polly said ‘O, pull down your vest.’  Well, you’d a dide to see that woman look at me.  The parrot cage was partly behind the window curtin, and they couldn’t see it, and she thought it was me.  She looked at Ma as though she was wondering why she didn’t hit me with a poker, but she went on, and Polly said ‘wipe off your chin,’ and then the lady got through and got up, and told Ma it must be a great trial to have an idiotic child, and then Ma she was mad, and said it wasn’t half so bad as it was to be a kleptomaniac, and then the woman got up and said she wouldn’t stay no longer, and Pa said to me to take that parrot outdoors, and that seemed to make them all good natured again.  Ma said to take the parrot and give it to the poor.  I took the cage and pointed my finger at the parrot and it looked at the woman and said ‘old catamaran,’ and the woman tried to look pious and resigned, but she couldn’t.  As I was going out the door the parrot ruffed up his feathers and said ’Dammit, set ’em up,’ and I hurried out with the cage for fear he would say something bad, and the folks all held up their hands and said it was scandalous.  Say, I wonder if a parrot can go to hell with the rest of the community.  Well, I put the parrot in the woodshed, and after they all had their innings, except Pa, who acted as umpire, the meeting broke up, and Ma says it is the last time she will have that gang at her house.

“That must have been where your Pa got his black eye,” said the grocery man, as he charged the bunch of celery to the boy’s Pa.  “Did the minister hit him, or was it one of the sisters?”

“O, he didn’t get his black eye at prayer meeting!” said the boy, as he took his mittens off the stove, and rubbed them to take the stiffening out.  “It was from boxing.  Pa told my chum and me that it was no harm to learn to box, cause we could defend ourselves, and he said he used to be a holy terror with the boxing gloves when he was a boy, and he has been giving us lessons.  Well, he is no slouch, now I tell you, and handles himself pretty well for a church member.  I read in the paper how Zack Chandler played it on Conkling by getting Jem Mace, the prize fighter, to knock him silly, and I asked Pa if he wouldn’t let me bring a poor boy who had no father to teach him boxing, to our house to learn to box, and Pa said certainly, fetch him along.  He said he would be glad to do anything for a poor orphan.  So I went down in the Third ward and got an Irish boy by the name of Duffy, who can knock the socks off any boy in the ward.  He fit a prize fight once.  It would have made you laugh to see Pa telling him how to hold his hands and how to guard his face.  He told Duffy not to be afraid, but strike right out and hit for keeps.  Duffy said he was afraid Pa would get mad if he hit him, and Pa said, ’nonsense, boy, knock me down if you can, and I will laugh ha! ha!’ Well, Duffy he hauled back and gave Pa one on the nose, and another in both eyes, and cuffed him on the ear and punched him in the stomach, and lammed him in the mouth and made his teeth bleed, and then he gave him a side winder in both eyes, and Pa pulled off his boxing gloves and grabbed a chair, and we adjourned and went down stairs as though there was a panic.  I haven’t seen Pa since.  Was his eye very black?”