Mrs. Wiggs looked exasperated.  “I never was havin’ a good time in my life that one of my childern didn’t git in that rain-barrel!”

“Well, go on an’ finish,” said Miss Hazy, to whom the story had lost nothing by repetition.

“Ther’ ain’t much more,” said Mrs. Wiggs, picking up her bucket.  “Our hoss had two legs an’ his neck broke, but Jim never had a scratch.  A policeman took him to No. 6 Injun House, an’ Pete Jenkins jes’ treated him like he’d been his own son.  I was done cured then an’ there fer my feelin’ aginst Pete.”

“Ma!” again came the warning cry across the yard.

“All right, I’m comin’!  Good-by, Miss Hazy; you have a eye to Cuby till we git our shed ready.  He ain’t as sperited as he looks.”

And, with a cordial hand-shake, Mrs. Wiggs went cheerfully away to administer chastisement to her erring offspring.

CHAPTER VI

A THEATER PARTY

    “The play, the play’s the thing!”

Billy’s foreign policy proved most satisfactory, and after the annexation of Cuba many additional dimes found their way into the tin box on top of the wardrobe.  But it took them all, besides Mrs. Wiggs’s earnings, to keep the family from the awful calamity of “pulling agin a debt.”

One cold December day Billy came in and found his mother leaning wearily on the table.  Her face brightened as he entered, but he caught the tired look in her eyes.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Ain’t nothin’ the matter, Billy,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully; “I’m jes’ wore out, that’s all.  It’ll be with me like it was with Uncle Ned’s ole ox, I reckon; he kep’ a-goin’ an’ a-goin’ till he died a-standin’ up, an’ even then they had to push him over.”

She walked to the window, and stood gazing absently across the commons.  “Do you know, Billy,” she said suddenly, “I ’ve got the craziest notion in my head.  I’d jes’ give anythin’ to see the show at the Opery House this week.”

If she had expressed a wish for a diamond necklace, Billy could not have been more amazed, and his countenance expressed his state of mind.  Mrs. Wiggs hastened to explain: 

“Course, I ain’t really thinkin’ ‘bout goin’, but them show-bills started me to studyin’ about it, an’ I got to wishin’ me an’ you could go.”

“I don’t ’spect it’s much when you git inside,” said Billy, trying the effects of negative consolation.

“Yes, ’t is, Billy Wiggs,” answered his mother, impressively.  “You ain’t never been inside a theayter, an’ I have.  I was there twict, an’ it was grand!  You orter see the lights an’ fixin’s, an’ all the fine ladies an’ their beaus.  First time I went they was a man in skin-tights a-walkin’ on a rope h’isted ’way up over ever’body’s head.”

“What’s skin-tights?” asked Billy, thrilled in spite of himself.

“It’s spangles ‘round yer waist, an’ shoes without no heels to ’em.  You see, the man couldn’t wear many clothes, ’cause it would make him too heavy to stay up there in the air.  The band plays all the time, an’ folks sing an’ speechify, an’ ever’body laughs an’ has a good time.  It’s jes’ grand, I tell you!”