“No, I don't want any deceased poultry, that died of grief, and you better go home and watch your hen, or you will be bereaved some more,” and the grocery man went out in the shed to see if the cat was over its fit, and when he came back the boy was gone, and after a while the grocery man saw a crowd in front of the store and he went out and found the dead rooster lying on the vegetable stand, with a paper pinned on its breast on which was a sign:-- THIS RUSTER DIDE OF COLIX. FOR SALE CHEAP TO BOARDING HOUSE ONLY. He took the dead rooster and threw it out in the street, and looked up and down the street for the bad boy, and went in and hid a raw hide where he could reach it handy. CHAPTER XIX. ONE MORE JOKE ON THE OLD MAN. UNCLE EZRA RETURNS--THE BASKET ON THE STEPS--THE ANONYMOUS LETTER--“O BROTHER THAT I SHOULD LIVE TO SEE THIS DAY!”--AN UGLY DUTCH BABY--THE OLD MAN WHEELS THE BABY NOW--A FROG IN THE OLD MAN'S BED. “I see your Pa wheeling the baby around a good deal lately,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came in the store one evening to buy a stick of striped pepperment candy for the baby, while his Pa stopped the baby wagon out on the sidewalk and waited for the boy, with an expression of resignation on his face. “What's got into your Pa to be nurse girl this hot weather?” “O, we have had a circus at our house,” said the boy, as he came in after putting the candy in the baby's hand. “You see, Uncle Ezra came back from Chicago, where he had been to sell some cheese, and he stopped over a couple of days with us, and he said we must play one more joke on Pa before he went home. We played it, and it is a wonder I am alive, because I never saw Pa so mad in all my life. Now this is the last time I go into any joke on shares. If I play any more jokes I don't want any old Uncle to give me away.” “What is it?” said the grocery man, as he took a stool and sat out by the front door beside the boy who was trying to eat a box of red raspberries on the sly.