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

"Dan, if you don't find them trousers, I'll larrup you!"

Poor Dan. Fairly wide awake now, he went tumbling over every thing piled on the counter, searched the shelves, and every available nook.

"Somebody's stole 'em."

Dan made this announcement with a very blank face.

"I know better!" said his father.

"You are sure you made them, Mr. Briggs," asked Joe.

"Sure!" in a tone that almost annihilated both boys.

"If you don't find 'em!" shaking his fist at Dan.

Dan began to blubber.

Joe couldn't help laughing. "Let me help you look," he said.

Down went a box of odd buttons, scattering far and wide.

"You Dan!" shouted his father, with some buttons in his mouth, that rendered his voice rather thick. "Just wait till I get at you. I have only six buttons to sew on."

"They're not here, Mr. Briggs," exclaimed Joe.

"Well, I declare! If that ain't the strangest thing! Dan, you've taken them trousers to the wrong place!"

A new and overwhelming light burst in upon Dan's benighted brain.

"That's it," said Joe. "Now, where have you taken them?"

"I swow!" ejaculated the youth, rubbing his eyes.

"None o' your swearin' in this place!" interrupted his father sternly. "I'm a strictly moral man, and don't allow such talk in my family."

"Tain't swearin'," mumbled Dan.

Mr. Briggs jumped briskly down from the board, with a pair of pantaloons in one hand, and a needle and thread in the other. Dan dodged round behind Joe.

"You took 'em over to Squire Powell's, I'll be bound!"

Another light was thrown in upon Dan's mental vision.

"There! I'll bet I did."

"Of course you did, you numskull! Start this minute and see how quick you can be gone."

"I will go with him," said Joe.

So the two boys started; and a run of ten minutes – a rather reluctant performance on Dan's part, it must be confessed – brought them to Squire Powell's. There was no light in the kitchen; but Joe beat a double tattoo on the door in the most scientific manner.

"Who's there?" asked a voice from the second story window.

"Dan Briggs!" shouted Joe.

"Guess not," said the squire. The sound was so unlike Dan's sleepy, mumbling tone.

"There was a mistake made in some clothes," began Joe, nothing daunted.

"Oh, that's it! I will be down in a minute."

Pretty soon the kitchen-door was unlocked, and the boys stepped inside.

"I didn't know but you sent these over for one of my girls," said the squire laughingly. "They were a leetle too small for me. So they belong to you, Joe?"

"Yes, sir," said Joe emphatically, laying hold of his precious trousers.

"Look sharper next time, Dan," was the squire's good advice.

"I wish you'd go home with me, Joe," said Dan, after they had taken a few steps. "Father'll larrup me, sure!"

"Maybe that will brighten your wits," was Joe's consoling answer.

"But, Joe – I'm sure I didn't mean to – and" —

"I'm off like a shot," appended Joe, suiting the action to the word; and poor Dan was left alone in the middle of the road.

"Why, what has happened, Joe?" said Granny as he bounced in the kitchen-door.

"Such a time as I've had to find 'them trousers,' as Mr. Briggs calls them! Dan had packed them off to Squire Powell's!"

"That Dan Briggs is too stupid for any thing," commented Florence.

"There's time to try them on yet," Joe exclaimed. "Just you wait a bit."

Joe made a rush into the other room.

"Don't wake up Dot," said Hal.

"Oh! I'll go as softly as a blind mouse."

"There, Granny, what do you think of that?"

"You want a collar and a necktie, and your hair brushed a little," said Florence with critical eyes.

"But aren't they stunners!"

Granny looked at him, turned him round and looked again, and her wrinkled face was all one bright smile. For he was so tall and manly in this long jacket, with its narrow standing collar, and the trousers that fitted to a charm.