on my face, 'cause it would wash off, and Pa looked at me and said it was wack, and for me to fix him up too. So I got the bottle of shoe blacking and painted Pa so he looked like a colored coal heaver. Actually, when Ma saw him she ordered him off the premises, and when he laffed at her and acted sassy, she was going to throw biling water on Pa. But I told her the scheme and she let up on Pa. O, you'd a dide to see us out in the garden. Pa looked like uncle Tom, and I looked like Topsy, only I ain't that kind of a colored person.” [Illustration: Uncle Tom and Topsy 098] “We worked till a boy throwed some tomato cans over the ally fence and hit me, and I piled over the fence after him and left Pa. It was my chum, and when I had caught him we put up a job to get Pa to chase us. We throwed some more cans, and Pa come out and my chum started and I after him, and Pa after both of us. He chased us two blocks and then we got behind a policeman, and my chum told the policeman it was a crazy old colored man that wanted to kidnap us, and the policeman took Pa by the neck and was going to club him, but Pa said he would go home and behave. He was offul mad, and he went home and we looked through the alley fence and saw Pa trying to wash off the blacking. You see that blacking won't wash off. You have to wear it off. Pa would wash his face with soap suds, and then look in the glass, and he was blacker everytime he washed, and when Ma laffed at him he said the offulest words, something like 'sweet spirit hear my prayer,' then he washed himself again. I am going to leave my burnt cork on, cause if I washed it off Pa would know there had been some smouging somewhere. I asked the shoe store man how long it would take the blacking to wear off, and he said it ought to wear off in a week. I guess Pa won't go out doors much, unless it is in the night. I am going to get him to let me go off in the country fishing, till mine wears off, and when I get out of town I will wash up. Say, you don't think a little blacking hurts a man's complexion do you, and you don't think a man ought to get mad because it won't wash off, do you?” “O, probably it don't hurt the complexion,” said the grocery man, as he sprinkled some fresh water on the wilted lettuce, so it would look fresh while the hired girl was buying some, “and yet it is mighty unpleasant, where a man has got an engagement to go to a card party, as I know your Pa has to-night. As to getting mad about it, if I was your Pa I would take a barrel stave and shatter your castle scandalous. What kind of a fate do you think awaits you when you die, anyway?”