CHAPTER XXVIII. HIS PA GOES SKATING--THE BAD BOY CARVES A TURKEY--HIS PA'S FAME AS A SKATER--THE OLD MAN ESSAYS TO SKATE ON ROLLERS-- HIS WILD CAPERS--HE SPREADS HIMSELF--HOLIDAYS A CONDEMNED NUISANCE--THE BAY BOY'S CHRISTMAS PRESENTS. “What is that stuff on your shirt bosom, that looks like soap grease?” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came into the grocery the morning after Christmas. The boy looked at his shirt front, put his fingers on the stuff and smelled of his fingers, and then said, “O, that is nothing but a little of the turkey dressing and gravy. You see after Pa and I got back from the roller skating rink yesterday, Pa was all broke up and he couldn't carve the turkey, and I had to do it, and Pa sat in a stuffed chair with his head tied up, and a pillow amongst his legs, and he kept complaining that I didn't do it right. Gol darn a turkey any way. I should think they would make a turkey flat on the back, so he would lay on a greasy platter without skating all around the table. It looks easy to see Pa carve a turkey, but when I speared into the bosom of that turkey, and began to saw on it, the turkey rolled-around as though it was on castors, and it was all I could do to keep it out of Ma's lap. But I rasseled with it till I got off enough white meat for Pa and Ma and dark meat enough for me, and I dug out the dressing, but most of it flew into my shirt bosom, cause the string that tied up the place where the dressing was concealed about the person of the turkey, broke prematurely, and one oyster hit Pa in the eye, and he said I was as awkward as a cross-eyed girl trying to kiss a man with a hair lip. If I ever get to be the head of a family I shall carve turkeys with a corn sheller.” “But what broke your Pa up at the roller skating rink,” asked the grocery man.