ot a piece of ice out of the water cooler, and just as he
clapped it on Pa's back I burned a piece of horses hoof in the candle
and held it to Pa's nose, and I guess Pa actually thought it was his
burning skin that he smelled. He jumped about six feet and said, 'Great
heavens, what you dewin',' and then he began to roll over a barrel which
I had arranged for him. Pa thought he was going down cellar, and he hung
to the barrel, but he was on top half the time. When Pa and the barrel
got through fighting I was beside him, and I said, 'Calm yourself, and
be prepared for the ordeal that is to follow.' Pa asked how much of this
dum fooling there was, and said he was sorry he joined. He said he could
let licker alone without having the skin all burned off his back. I
told Pa to be brave and not weaken, and all would be well. He wiped the
perspiration off his face on the end of his shirt, and we put a belt
around his body and hitched it to a tackle, and pulled him up so his
feet were just off the floor, and then we talked as though we were
away off, and I told my chum to look out that Pa did not hit the gas
fixtures, and Pa actually thought he was being hauled clear up to the
roof. I could see he was scared by the complexion of his hands and
feet, as they clawed the air. He actually sweat so the drops fell on
the floor. Bime-by we let him down, and he was awfully relieved, though
his feet were not more than two inches from the floor any of the time.
We were just going to slip Pa down a board with slivers in to give him a
realizing sense of the rough road a reformed man has to travel, and got
him straddle of the board, when the dutchman came home from the dance,
fullern a goose, and he drove us boys out, and we left Pa, and the
dutchman said, 'Vot you vas doing here mit dose boys, you old duffer,
and vere vas your pants?' and Pa pulled off the handkerchief from his
eyes, and the dutchman said if he didn't get out in a holy minute he
would kick the stuffing out of him, and Pa got out. He took his pants
and put them on in the alley, and then we come up to Pa and told him
that was the third time the drunken dutchman had broke up our Lodge,
but we should keep on doing good until we had reformed every drunkard in
Milwaukee, and Pa said that was right, and he would see us through if
it cost every dollar he had. Then we took him home, and when Ma asked if
she couldn't join the Lodge too, Pa said, 'Now you take my advice, and
don't you ev