"Good-night, Uncle. Good-night Grandpa Mischief." CHAPTER XI. PRACTISING. Ma--Bolax you are wasting your time, don't stop, you have not practised long enough. Bolax--Look at the clock, Ma, dear. It was bright sunlight when I began, and now the shades of night are falling. Ma--That's very poetical, but you must continue practising. Bolax--Oh, you are the provokingest mother I ever saw; I'll not love you a bit after a while, if you keep on making me practise. Ma--Go on with your lesson, especially that piece for the concert. Bolax--Bang, bang, oh, how I wish the man who invented pianos was dead. Ma--Well, he is dead. Bolax--Then I wish all the professors were dead. Ma--A great many of them are. Go on with your work. Bolax--Oh, Ma, dear, can't you let up on a fellow, if you don't, indeed, indeed, I'll be dead too! Ma--That has no effect upon me, Bo, I make you practise for your own good. I take the trouble to sit here and worry over you, when I might be upstairs resting. Bolax--But Ma, dear, how do other boys manage? Their mothers don't bother to make them learn music. Ma--Perhaps those boys don't need the urging you do. By this time the patient mother began to show signs of nervousness, and Bo, who really loved his "Ma dear" began to play with a will, but having the spirit of mischief strong in him, put some funny words to the tune he was playing. Bolax--Oh, twenty thousand rats and forty thousand cats, they all screamed and yelled in sharps and flats! Suddenly turning round on the stool, he said, "Ma, dear, just let me tell you a dream I had, while I'm resting my fingers." Ma--Well, only for two minutes. Bolax--Last night you made me practise so much and old Professor was so dreadful at lesson, that I dreamed I went to the piano, and all the keys turned to Brownies, they looked more like Goblins, and began to dance up and down, they played jig music. It was fine. I gave them "On the Meadow" and "Sounds from the Forest," and they played the two pieces right off. Ma--Now dear, give just one-half hour more to your lesson and I'll let you have all day tomorrow free, it's the beginning of the Christmas holidays, and the cold is so intense I shouldn't be surprised if the skating and sliding would be fine. Thus spurred on, Bo surprised himself, and the half hour was more than passed when his mother called him to come upstairs, but he was in the middle of a piece and waited to finish it. Bolax continued playing softly, then called out--"Ma, dear! I wonder if we will have an adventure this year like last Christmas." "Not very likely, my dear; fortunately there are not many placed in the position poor Mary Ryan was that night. I have invited her to come to the Sunday-school entertainment, and her little Joe is to represent the infant Jesus in the tableaux of the crib." "Oh, that will be splendid. Hurrah!" shouted Bo.