The folks in our town were going to have an Old Home Day, when everybody that used to live there and had moved away were coming home. There was going to be a celebration, with speeches and a band and decorations, but the only part of it I saw any sense to was that there was going to be lots to eat, and most of it free. That was something like. I don’t mind a band playing. I sort of like it if there’s a good snare-drum, but I can’t abide speeches. Speeches always get a fellow into trouble and the police hadn’t ought to allow them, on that account. Speeches have got me into more trouble than ’most anything else. You see, you set and a man talks and talks and talks about something nobody cares a rap about, and pretty soon you get to itching and your shoes hurt and something crawls down your back—and you jest naturally have to _do_ something. Then you up and do it, and your father takes you out to the woodshed and _he_ does something. I remember the last speech I was at I went with a garter snake. He was a pet I was raising to go into the circus business with and he had got real tame and friendly. Well, after about half an hour of listening to that man tell about something I don’t believe he understood very clear himself, I got to itching like I said, and before I knew it I jest took little Joseph—Joseph was my snake’s name—and tossed him ahead a couple of rows into Mrs. Whidden’s lap—what there was of her lap. Joseph was as quiet and well behaved a little snake as I ever owned, but I don’t suppose Mrs. Whidden knew that, for she let out a squawk and passed Joseph on awful quick to old maid Martin, and _she_ squawked and passed Joseph on to Jim Splint that has the St. Vitus dance, and he like to have flew apart, and passed Joe on to a woman I didn’t know, and she stood up and clawed the air and passed Joseph on four or five rows to the minister’s wife, and _she_ give him a scream and a toss, and so on, till almost everybody in the audience had took a turn at having Joseph. Yes, sir, almost everybody, and they all would, every one, if Mrs. Snow’s aim hadn’t been bad and she tossed him right into the speaker’s ice-water pitcher. After that there wasn’t much speaking. I heard Pazzy Bills say the snake got to the wrong kind of a speech, that he ought to have showed up at a temperance lecture. Anyhow, that’s what I think of speeches. Dad licked me that time, but it wasn’t near as hard as he could, and I heard him sort of snickering to himself even while he was laying it on. I pretended to holler so as to satisfy him, because it hain’t right for your father to have to take the trouble to lick you if he don’t git results. They like to hear a holler and I expect they’re entitled to it. So I give Dad a good one.... But that hain’t got anything to do with the Old Home celebration.