“No deviltry, 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 wo would have a 4th of July. “You see, my chum has got a sister about as big as Ma, and we hooked some of her clothes and after P got to snoring we put them in Pa's room. O, you'd a laffed. 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 black silk dress on another chair, and a hat with a white feather on, on the bureau, and some frizzes on the gas bracket, and everything we could find that belonged to a girl in my mum's sister's room. O, we got a red parasol too, and left it right in the middle of the floor. Well, when I looked at the lay-out, and heard Pa snoring, I thought I should die. You see, Ma knows Pa is, a darn good feller, but she is easily excited. My chum slept with me that night, and when we heard the door bell ring I stuffed a pillow in my mouth, There was nobody to meet Ma at the depot, and she 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 hot, now 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, but I heard a good deal of noise in the room about an hour ago, and may be he was taking a bath. Then I slipped up stairs and looked over the banisters. Ma said something about heavens and earth, and where is the huzzy, and a lot of things I couldn't hear, and Pa said damfino and its no such thing, and the door slammed and they talked for two hours. I s'pose they finally layed it to me, as they always do, 'cause Pa called me very early this morning, and when I came down stairs he came out in the hall and his face was redder'n a beet, and he tried to stab me with his big toe-nail, and if it hadn't been for these pieces of brick he would have 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 will be down on me. I'll tell you what, I have got 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 boy sampled some strawberries in a case 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. CHAPTER VI.