[Illustration: "HERE'S AN ORANGE I BRUNG YER."]

"Thank you, Patsy." (Forced expression of radiant gratitude.) "Now, let
us see! You want to come to the Kindergarten, do you, and learn to be a
happy little working boy? But oh, Patsy, I'm like the old woman in the
shoe, I have so many children I don't know what to do."

"Yes, I know. Jim knows a boy what went here wunst. He said yer never
licked the boys; and he said, when the 'nifty' little girls come to git
in, with their white aprons, yer said there warn't no room; but when the
dirty chaps with tored close come, yer said yer'd _make_ room. Jim said
as how yer'd never show _me_ the door, sure." (Bless Jim's heart!)
"P'raps I can't come every day, yer know, 'cos I might have fits."

"Fits! Good gracious, child! What makes you think that?"

"Oh, I has 'em" (composedly). "I kicks the footboard clean off when I
has 'em bad, all along o' my losin' them three year! Why, yer got an
orgind, hain't yer? Where's the handle fur to make it go? Couldn't I
blow it for yer?"

"It's a piano, not an organ; it doesn't need blowing."

"Oh, yes, I see one in a s'loon; I seen such an orful pretty lady play
on one. She give her silk dress a _swish_ to one side, so! and then she
cocked her head over sideways like a bird, and then her hands, all
jinglin' over with rings, went a-whizzin' up and down them black and
white teeth just like sixty!"

"You know, Patsy, I can't bear to have my little Kindergarten boys stand