mouth, and I drew my legs up and kicked them
out, and clutched my hair, and rolled my eyes, and then kicked Pa in the
stummick as he bent over me, and knocked his breath out of him, and then
my limbs began to get rigid, and I said, 'Too late, Pa, I die at the
hand of an assassin. Go for a doctor.'"

[Illustration: Too late, Pa, I die at the hand of an assassin p127]

"Pa throwed his coat over me, and started down stairs on a run, 'I have
murdered my brave boy,' and he told Ma to go up stairs and stay with me,
cause I had fallen off a trunk and ruptured a blood vessel, and he went
after a doctor. When he went out the front door, I sat up and lit a
cigarette, and Ma came up and I told her all about how I fooled Pa, and
if she would take on and cry, when Pa got back, I would get him to go to
church again, and swear off drinking and she said she would.

"So when Pa and the doc. came back, Ma was sitting on a velocipede I used
to ride, which was in the store-room, and she had her apron over her
face, and she just more than bellowed. Pa he was pale, and he told the
doc. he was just a playing with me with a little piece of board, and he
heard something crack, and he guessed my spine got broke falling off the
trunk. The doctor wanted to feel where my spine was broke, but I opened
my eyes and had a vacant kind of stare, like a woman who leads a dog
by a string, and looked as though my mind was wandering, and I told the
doctor there was no use setting my spine, as it was broke in several
places, and I wouldn't let him feel of the dried bladder. I told Pa I
was going to die, and I wanted him to promise me two things on my dying
bed. He cried and said he would, and I told him to promise me he would
quit drinking, and attend church regular, and he said he would never
drink another drop, and would go to church every Sunday. I made him get
down on his knees beside me and swear it, and the doc. witnessed it, and
Ma said she was so glad, and Ma called the doctor out in in the hall and
told him the joke, and the doc. came in and told Pa he was afraid Pa's
presence would excite the patient, and for him to put on his coat and
go out and walk around the block, or go to church, and Ma and he would
remove me to another room, and do all that was possible to make my last
hours pleasant. Pa he cried, and said he would put on his plug hat and
go to church, and he kissed me, and got flour on his nose, and I came
near laughing right out, to see th