ng dogs to their doom, for
my father discarded them altogether, though they still had an honorable
place in the name of the oil. So suddenly thrown into idleness, I might
naturally have been expected to become vicious and dissolute, but I did
not. The holy influence of my dear mother was ever about me to protect
me from the temptations which beset youth, and my father was a deacon in
a church. Alas, that through my fault these estimable persons should
have come to so bad an end!

Finding a double profit in her business, my mother now devoted herself
to it with a new assiduity. She removed not only superfluous and
unwelcome babes to order, but went out into the highways and byways,
gathering in children of a larger growth, and even such adults as she
could entice to the oilery. My father, too, enamored of the superior
quality of oil produced, purveyed for his vats with diligence and zeal.
The conversion of their neighbors into dog-oil became, in short, the one
passion of their lives--an absorbing and overwhelming greed took
possession of their souls and served them in place of a hope in
Heaven--by which, also, they were inspired.

So enterprising had they now become that a public meeting was held and
resolutions passed severely censuring them. It was intimated by the
chairman that any further raids upon the population would be met in a
spirit of hostility. My poor parents left the meeting broken-hearted,
desperate and, I believe, not altogether sane. Anyhow, I deemed it
prudent not to enter the oilery with them that night, but slept outside
in a stable.

At about midnight some mysterious impulse caused me to rise and peer
through a window into the furnace-room, where I knew my father now
slept. The fires were burning as brightly as if the following day's
harvest had been expected to be abundant. One of the large cauldrons was
slowly "walloping" with a mysterious appearance of self-restraint, as if
it bided its time to put forth its full energy. My father was not in
bed; he had risen in his nightclothes and was preparing a noose in a
strong cord. From the looks which he cast at the door of my mother's
bedroom I knew too well the purpose that he had in mind. Speechless and
motionless with terror, I could do nothing in prevention or warning.
Suddenly the door of my mother's apartment was opened, noiselessly, and
the two confronted each other, both apparently surprised. The lady,
also, was in her night clothes, and she he