The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe: or, There's No Place Like Home

"It will be handy to have him in the house, Granny. He can do the ironing by odd spells. And on the subject of mending old clothes he will be lovely."

With that Kit made another dive.

Granny gave a sudden spring, and rescued the earthen jar that held the cakes she had just mixed and set upon the stove-hearth.

"O Kit! Those precious pancakes! We are not anxious to have them flavored with extract of old shoes."

"Nor to go wandering over the floor."

Kit looked sober and but half-awake.

"Never mind," said Granny cheerily. "You mustn't tease him so much, Joe."

"Why, I was only setting before him the peculiar advantages of this romantic and delightful employment;" and with that, Joe executed a superior double-shuffle quickstep, accompanied by slapping a tune on his knee.

"You'd do for a minstrel," said Kit.

Joe cleared his voice with a flourish, and sang out, —

"I'd be a tailor,
Jolly and free,
With plenty of cabbage,
And a goose on my knee.
Monday would be blue,
Tuesday would be shady,
Wednesday I'd set out
To find a pretty lady."

"Much work you would do in that case," commented Florence.

"It's time to go to bed, children," said Granny.

"Yes," Joe went on gravely. "For a rising young man, who must take time by the fore-lock, or scalp-lock, and who longs to distinguish himself by some great and wonderful discovery, there's nothing like, —

'Early to bed, and early to rise,
To make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.'"

With that Joe was up stairs with a bound.

"Joe!" Charlie called in great earnest.

"Well?"

"You better take a mouthful of Granny's rising before you go."

"Good for you, Charlie; but smart children always die young. Granny, won't you put a stone on Charlie's head for fear?"

Hal said his good-night in a tenderer manner.

They were all wonderfully interested in Joe's clothes; and, though it was always later on Saturday night when he reached home, they begged to sit up, but Kit took a nap by the chimney-corner with Tabby. Granny sat nodding when they heard the gay whistle without.

"Hurrah! The country's safe!" exclaimed Joe. "Get out your spectacles, all hands."

"You act as if you never had any thing before, Joe," said Florence, with an air of extreme dignity.

"But these are real 'boughten' clothes," said Joe, "and gilt buttons down the jacket. I shall feel like a soldier-boy. Just look now."

The bundle came open with a flourish of the jack-knife. All the heads crowded round, though the one candle gave a rather dim light.

Such exclamations as sounded through the little room, from every voice, and in almost every key.

"But where are the trousers?" asked Hal.

"The trousers? – why" —

Granny held up the beautiful jacket. There was nothing else in the paper.

"Why – he's made a mistake. He never put them in, I am sure."

"You couldn't have lost 'em?" asked Granny mildly.

"Lost them – and the bundle tied with this strong twine! Now, that's mean! I'll have to run right back."

Off went Joe like a flash. He hardly drew a breath until his hand was on Mr. Brigg's door-knob.

"Well, what now, Joe?" asked the astonished Mr. Briggs.

"You didn't put in the trousers!"

"Didn't? Dan done 'em up. Dan!"

Dan emerged from a pile of rags under the counter, where he was taking a snooze.

"You didn't put in Joe's trousers."

"Yes I did."

"No you didn't," said Joe, with more promptness than politeness.

Dan began to search. A sleepy-looking, red-headed boy, to whom Saturday night was an abomination, because his father was always in the drag, and cross.

"I'm sure I put 'em in. Every thing's gone, and they ain't here."

"Look sharp, you young rascal!"

"He has lost 'em out."

"Lost your grandmother!" said Joe contemptuously; "or the liberty pole out on the square! Why, the bundle was not untied until after I was in the house."