. It seems I had been considerable stepped on in that fight, and three ribs was broke. I knowed I was hurting, but I was s

fore I got out of that I was in a fever

he balloon. The newspapers had had stuff about it fur a day or two, and they guessed the b

And they wasn't no good to me without Doctor Kirby. So I tells the man that owns the livery stable to use t

in the livery stable. They offered me one, but I hated th

sion with the hospital people fur me before they cleared out. But before I left that ther

oaked him with a coupling link and felt a hull lot better. But I didn't guess it would do to pet and pamper my feelings too much. So I does it

e seeing things-big towns and rivers and mountains. Working here and there, and loafing and riding blind baggages and freight trains betwee

me. I always explains that I am not one, and am jest travelling around to see things, and working when I feels like it, and ain't no bum. But frequent I

cuse is they to stop one place more'n another? I met all kinds of 'em, and oncet I got in fur a week with a couple of real Johnny Yeggs that is both in the pen now. I hearn a feller say one time there is some good in every man. I went the same way as them two yeggmen a hull dern week to try and find out where the good in 'em was. I guess they must be some mistake somew

n't no reason, fur I wasn't no hobo. But I didn't want to disappoint that feller and spoil his book fur him. So I tells him things. Things not overly truthful, but very full of crime. About a year afterward I was into one of these here Andrew Carnegie lib'aries with the n

with a railroad show fur about two weeks, driving stakes and other rough work, and it had went off and left me sleeping on the ground. Circuses never waits fur nothing nor cares

wn to have to ast fur a me

ouse, but I makes a little talk at the back door and the I

ing toward?" asts she, pour

fur me. That there country is full of them Scandiluvian Swedes and Norwegians, and they gets into t

s, "a-working at my trade, and now I'm goin

e up careful; and I thinks I'll hand her one t

one time, and that's the first chancet I ever has to try it on any one. You can

help her none. She would of ruther died than to let on sh

dangerous kind o

s. And says no

y hands closet all the time I was eating, like she's looking fur scars wh

t in the old country. He was the

g w'ether she is making fun of me or am I making fun of

what it is yourself." And the next thing I know I'm eased out o' the

circus walk off and leave you asleep in this here town with nothing over you but a barbed wire fence this morning. Fur what ARE you going to do next? First thing you know, you WILL be a reg'

out of this ho

ays, wonderi

ching me forward toward them front s

umped loose wh

ime helping me onward with his knee from behind, and I seen they wasn't no use pulling back. I could probable of licked that man, but the

opened the door she looked kind o' sur

letting loose none. And we says nothing further till the perfessor comes, which he does, slow an

ou have there,

e, and me being secretary to the board of health, and the city pest-house being crowded too full already, I'll have to ask you to

em amphimissourian lizards in a free museum. And then he goes to the foot of the stairs and sings out in a voice that was so blea

and years ago. They was a kid about ten or eleven years old come along down with her, that had hair down to its shoulders and didn't look like it knowed whether it was a girl or a boy. Miss Estelle, she looks me over in a way that makes me shiver, while the

do with him, Aunt Est

was gone. Then I thinks it mightn't be no bad place to stay in fur a couple o' days, even risking the smallpox. Fur I had riccolected I couldn't ketch it nohow, having been vacc

dgment and his job was to keep the fatted calves s

ing would be to get his hair cut and his f

r is my frie

body's clothes and into a room at the top o' the house next to his'n, and then he comes back and buttles a comb and brush at me. James was the most mournf

t being the perfessor's guest was Miss Estelle. Soon's she found out I was a agnostic she took charge o' my intellectuals and what went into 'em, and she makes me read things and asts me

ch it ain't Biddy says, who could of blamed her? Fur things ain't joyous around that house the last year, since Miss Estelle's come there to live. The perfessor, he's so full of scientifics he don't know nothing with no sense to it, Biddy says. He's got more money'n you can shake a stick at, and he don't have to do no work, nor never has, and his scientifics gets worse and worse every year. But while scientifics is worrying to the nerves of a fambl

n Mrs. Booth would ast him if he was going to take her to the opery that night the perfessor would look up in an absent-minded sort of way and ast her did she know them Germans had invented a new germ? It wouldn't of been so bad if the perfessor had picked out jest one brand of sc

erfessor too, but he don't know it, Biddy says, and her a-saying every now and then it was too bad Frederick couldn't of married a noble woman who would of took a serious intrust in his work. The kids don't hardly dare to kiss their ma in front of Miss Estelle no more, on account of germs and things. And with Miss Estelle taking care of their religious organs and their intellectuals and the things like that, and the perf

ad fur me lipping in, and then she says mebby it is true, but she don't see why, becaus

ze wants to do is to get out and roll aro

y I seen her spreading a oilcloth on the hall floor. And then James comes a buttling in with a lot of sand what the perfessor has baked and made

ought to get closer to the soil and to nature, as is more healthy for a youth of your age. So for an hour each day, between your studies, you

ooked at that dirt in a sad kind o' way,

, fur he never would frolic none, neither. And all that nice clean di