ad on his shirt and
pants, and his suspenders were hanging down, and his bald head shone
like a calcium light just before it explodes. Pa went in my room, and up
to the bed, and I could hear him say, 'Come out here and bring in that
kindling wood, or I will start a fire on your base-burner with this
strap.' And then there was a yowling such as I never heard before, and
Pa said, 'Helen Blazes,' and the furniture in my room began to fall
around and break. O, _my!_ I think Pa took the torn cat right by the
neck, the way he does me, and that left all the cat's feet free to
get in their work. By the way the cat squawled as though it was being
choked, I know Pa had him by the neck. I suppose the cat thought Pa was
a whole flock of New Found-land dogs, and the cat had a record on dogs,
and it kicked awful. Pa's shirt was no protection at all in a cat fight,
and the cat just walked all around Pa's stomach, and Pa yelled 'police,'
and 'fire,' and 'turn on the hose,' and he called Ma, and the cat
yowled. If Pa had had the presence of mind enough to have dropped the
cat, or rolled it up in the mat-trass, it would have been all right, but
a man always gets rattled in time of danger, and he held onto the cat
and started down stairs yelling murder, and he met Ma coming up.

"I guess Ma's night-cap, or something, frightened the cat some more,
cause he stabbed Ma on the night-shirt with one hind foot, and Ma said
'mercy on us,' and she went back, and Pa stumbled on a hand-sled that
was on the stairs, and they all fell down, and the cat got away and went
down in the coal bin and yowled all night. Pa and Ma went into their
room, and I guess they anointed themselves with vasaline, and Pond's
extract, and I went and got into my bed, cause it was cold out in the
hall, and the cat had warmed my bed as well as it had warmed Pa. It was
all I could do to go to sleep, with Pa and Ma talking all night, and
this morning I came down the back stairs, and havn't been to breakfast,
cause I don't want to see Pa when he is vexed. You let the man that
carries in the kindling wood have six shillings worth of groceries, and
charge them to Pa. I have passed the kindling wood period in a boy's
life, and have arrived at the coal period. I will carry in coal, but I
draw the line at kindling wood.

"Well, you are a cruel, bad boy," said the grocery man, as he went to
the book and charged the six shillings.

"O, I don't know. I think Pa is cruel. A man who wil