Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1883 — HIS PA AND DYNAMITE. [ARTICLE]

HIS PA AND DYNAMITE.

“I guess your pa’s losses in the silver Jaiibhavrmad* him cMayJmven’t they?” said the grocery man to the bud boy, as he oame in the store with his eye winkers singed off, and powder marks on his face, and began to play on the harmonica, as hh sat down on the end of a stick of stove wood and balanced himself. “O, I guess not. He has hedged. He got in with a deacon of another church, and sold some of his stock to him, and pa says if I will keep my condemn mouth shut he will unload the wholeof it, if the churches hold out. He goes to a new church every night there is prayer meeting or anything, and makes ma go with him to give him tone; and after meeting she talks with the sisters about how to piece a silk bed quilt; while pa gets in his work selling silver stock. I don't know bat he will order some more stock, from the factory, if he sells all he has got,”and the boy went on playing "There’s a Land that is Fairer than Day.” "But what was he skipping up street for the other night with his hat off grabbing at his coat tails as though they were on. fire? I thought I never saw a pussy man run any faster. And what was the celebration down on your street about that time? I thpught the world was coming to an end,” and the grocery man kept away from the boy,for fear he would explode. "O, that was only a Fenian soare. Nothin serious. Yeu see pa is a sort of half Englishman. He claims to be an American citizen when he wants office,but when they talk about the draft he claims to be a subject of Great Britain, and he says they can’t touch him. Pa is a darn smart man. and don’t you forget it There don’t any of them get ahead of pa, much. Well, pa has said a good deal about the wicked Fenians,and that they ought to be pulled and all.that, and when I read the story in the papers about the explosion in the British Parliament, pa was hot He said the damirish were ruining the whole world. He didn’t dare say it at the table or our hired girl would have knocked him silly with a spoonful of mashed potatoes, ’cause she’s a nirish girl, and she can lick any Englishman in this town. Pa said there ought to have been somebody there to have taken that bomb up and throwed it in the sewer before it exploded. He said if he ever should see a bomb he would grab it right up and throw it away where it wouldn’t hurt anybody. Pa has me read the papers to him nights, ’cause his eyes have gd| splinters in ’em, and after I had read'Ali there was in the paper I made up a lot' more and pretended to read it, about how it was rumored that the Fenians here in Milwaukee were going to place dynamite bombs at every house where an Englishman lived, and at a given signal blow them all up. Pa looked pale around the gills, but he said he -wasn’t scared. Pa and ma were going to call on a she deaeon that night, that has lots of money in the bank, to see if she didn’t want to invest in a dead sure paying silver mine, and me ani my chum concluded to give them a send off. We got my big black injy rubber foot-ball, and painted "Dinymight” in big white letters on it, and tied a piece of tarred rope on it for a fuse, and got a big fire cracker, one of these old fourth of July horse Bearers, and a basket full of broken glass. We put the foot-ball in front of the step and lit the tarred rope, and got under the step with the fire crackers and basket, where they go down into the basement. Pa and ma oame out the front door, and down the steps, and pa saw the foot-ball, and the burning fuse, and he said ‘Great God, Hanner, we are blowed np,’ and he started to run, and ma she stopped to look at it. Just as pa started to run I touched off the fire cracker, and my chum arranged it to pour out the broken glass on brick pavement just as the fire cracker went off Well, everything went just as we expected, exoept ma. She had examined the foot-ball, and concluded it was not dangeroud, and was just giving it a kick as the fire craoker went off and the glass fell, and the fire cracker was so near her that it soared her, and •when pa looked around ma was flying across the Bidewalk, and pa heard the noise and he thought the house was blown to atoms, O, you’d a died to see him go around the oorner. Yon could play cro? v kay ou his coat-tail, and hisjtaoe was As pale as mp’s when she goes to a party. But ma didn’t soare much. As quick as she stopped agajnst the hitching post she knew ill was ub boys, and she oame down there, and maybe she didn’t maul me. I oried and tried to gain her sympathy by telling her the fire cracker Went off before it was due, and burned my eyebrows off but she didn't let up until I promised to go and find pa. I tell you, my ma ought to be engaged by the British government to hunt out the dynamite fiends. She would oorral them in two minutes. If pa had as much sand as ma has got, it would be warm weather for me. Well, me and my ohum went and headed pa off or I ffuees he would be running yet. We

and it seemed to relieve him very When he got home and found the house there he was tickled, and when ma called him an old bald headed coward, and said it was only a joke of the boys with a foot hall, he laughed right out, and said he knew it all the time; and be ran to see if ma would be soared. And then he wanted to hug me, but it wasn’t my night to hug and I went doffh to the theatre. Pa don’t amount to much when there is trouble. The time ma had th«wp cramps, you remember, when you got your cucumbers first lust season, pa oame near fainting Sway, and ma said ever sinoe they had bean married when anything ailed her, pa has had pains jnst the same as she has; only he grunted more; and thought he was going to d±e. Gosh, if I was a man I- wouldn’t be sick every time one of the neighbors had a back ache, would you?” All this time the boy was marking on a piece of paper, and soon after he went ou£ the grocery man noticed a crowd outside, and on going out he found a gign hanging up which read, "Wormy Figs for Parties.”