to get boots big enough for ye, pa," she continued, looking down
disapprovingly on the old gentleman's pedal extremities, which resembled
two small scows at anchor in black cloth encasements: "and not be so
proud as to go to pinchin' yer feet into gaiters a number o' sizes too
small for ye."

"They're number tens, I tell ye!" roared Grandpa nettled outrageously by
this cutting taunt.

"Wall, thar', now, pa," said Grandma, soothingly; "if I had sech feet as
that, I wouldn't go to spreadin' it all over town, if I was you--but
it's time we stopped bickerin' now, husband, and got ready for meetin';
so set down and let me wash yer head."

"I've washed once this mornin'. It's clean enough," Grandpa protested,
but in vain. He was planted in a chair, and Grandma Keeler, with rag and
soap and a basin of water, attacked the old gentleman vigorously, much
as I have seen cruel mothers wash the faces of their earth-begrimed
infants. He only gave expression to such groans as:

"Thar', ma! don't tear my ears to pieces! Come, ma! you've got my eyes
so full o' soap now, ma, that I can't see nothin'. Phew, Lordy! ain't ye
most through with this, ma?"

Then came the dyeing process, which Grandma Keeler assured me, aside,
made Grandpa "look like a man o' thirty;" but to me, after it he looked
neither old nor young, human nor inhuman, nor like anything that I had
ever seen before under the sun.

"There's the lotion, the potion, the dye-er, and the setter," said