WHEN HIS MA CAME HOME.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3529, 30 October 1882, Page 4

WHEN HIS MA CAME HOME.

' When is your ma coming back ?' asked the grocery man of the bad boy, as he found him standing on the sidewalk when the grocery was opened in the morning, taking some pieces of brick out of his coat tail pockets. ' Oh, she got back at midnight last night;,' said the boy, as he ate a few blueberries out of a case. ' That's what makes me up so early. Pa has been kicking at these pieces of brick with his bare feet, and when I came away he had his toes in his hand and was trying to go up the stairs on one foot. Pa aint got any sense.' ' I am afraid you are a terror,' said the groceryman, as he looked at the innocent face of the boy. ' You are always making your parents some trouble, and it is a wonder to me that they don't send you to the reform school. What devilry was you up to las'" night to gee licked this morning?' 'No devilry, just a little fun. You see, ma went to Chicago to stay a week, and she got tired, and telegraphed she would be home last night; and pa was down town, and I forgot to give him the dispatch. And after he went to bed, me and a chum of mine thought we would have a Fourth of July. You see, my chum has got a big sister, and we hooked some of her clothes, and after pa got to snoring we put them in his room. Oh, you'd a laughed. We put a pair of number one slippers, with blue stockings, down in front of the rocking chair beside pa's boots, and a red corset on a chair, and my chum's sister's best silk dress on another chair, and a hat with a white feather on the bureau, and some frizzes on the gas-bracket, and everything we could find that belonged to a girl in my chum's sister's room. Oh, we got a red parasol, too, and left it right in the middle of the floor. Well, when I looked at the layout, and heard pa snoring, I thought I should die. You see, ma is easily excited. My chum slept with me that night, and when we heard the doorbell ring I stuffed a pillow in my mouth. There was nobody to meet ma at the depot, and sho hired a hack and came right up. Nobody heard the bell but me, and I had to go down and let ma in. She was pretty angry, you bet, at not being met at the depot. ' Where's your father ? ' said she, as she began to go up stairs. I told her I guessed pa had gone to sleep by this time—that he'd gone to bed an hour ago. Then I slipped up stairs, and looked over the bannisters. Ma said something about heavens and earth, and where is the huzzy, and a lot of things I couldn't hear ; and pa swore, and said it's no such thing, and the door slammed, and he talked for two hours. I s'pose they finally laid it to me, as they always do 'cause pa called me very early this morning, and when I came clown stairs he hurt my feelings. I see they had my chum's sister's clothes all pinned up in a newspaper, and I s'pose when I go back I shall have to carry them home, and then she'll be down on me too. I'll tell you what, I've a good notion to take some shoemaker's wax and stick my chum on my back, and travel with a circus, as a double-headed-boy from Borneo. A fellow could have more fun, and not get kicked all the time.' And the bo) sampled some strawberries in a ease in front of the store, and went down the street whistling for his chum, who was looking out of an alley to see if the coast was clear. —Peck's Sun.