The Roller-Skating Rink Disaster

What is that stuff on your shirt bosom? It looks like soup grease, said the grocery man to the bad boy, as he came into the grocery store the morning after Christmas. The boy looked at his shirt front, put his fingers on the stuff and smelled of his fingers, and then said, 'Oh, that is nothing but a little of the turkey dressing and gravy. You see, Pa and I got luck from the roller skating rink yesterday. Pa was feeling tough and he decided to leave the cooking to me. I had to do it, and Pa sat in a saloon chair with his head tied up, a pillow amongst his legs, and he kept complaining that I didn't do it right. Oh, darn the turkey, anyway. It looks easy to see Pa carve a turkey, but when I speared into the bottom of that turkey and began to saw on it, the turkey rolled around as though it was on castors. But I wrestled with it till I got off enough white meat for Pa and Ma and dark meat enough for me, and dug out the dressing, but most of it flew into my shirt bosom. But what broke your Pa up at the roller skating rink? asked the grocery man. Oh, everything broke him up. He is split up all the way from the buttons at the top of his pants to his collar button, like a bicycle rider. Well, he had no business to have told me and my chum that he used to be the best skater in North America when he was a boy. He said he skated once from Albany to New York in an hour and eighty minutes. We told Pa he must remember that roller skates were different from ice skates, but he said it didn't make any difference what they were as long as they were skates. We straightened Pa up and pointed him toward the middle of the room, and he said 'leggo,' and we just gave him a little push to start him. Well, by gosh, you'd a died to have seen Pa try to stop. You see, you can't stick in your heel and stop like you can on ice skates. He began to turn sideways, then he threw up his arms and walked on his heels, and he lost his hat. He went right toward an iron post. One arm caught the post and he circled around it a few times, and then he let go and began to fall; and, sir, he kept falling all across the room, and everybody got out of the way except a girl, and Pa grabbed her by the polonaise. Pa just pulled her along as though she was done up in a shawl strap, and his feet went out from under him and he struck on his shoulders. Finally, Pa came to the wall and had to stop, and the girl fell right across him, with her roller skates in his neck. We amputated Pa from the girl and lifted him up, and I told him for heaven's sake to let us take off the skates, but Pa was mad and said for us to let him alone. He said he could skate all right. He started out again and somehow the skates had got turned sideways on his feet, and his feet got to going in different directions. He went down on the floor like one of those fellows in a circus who spreads himself, and he kept going, and finally he rounded an iron post with his legs. The proprietor of the rink told Pa if he wanted to give a flying trapeze performance he would have to go to the gymnasium. We put him on a street car, and he laid down on the hay and rode home. Oh, the work it was to get Pa's clothes off. I made a mistake and got a bottle of furniture polish and put it on Pa and rubbed it in, and when Ma came home, Pa smelled like a coffin at a charity funeral.'