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 night clothes 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 held in her right hand the tool of her trade, a long,
narrow-bladed dagger.

She, too, had been unable to deny herself the last profit which the
unfriendly action of the citizens and my absence had left her. For
one instant they looked into each other's blazing eyes and then sprang
together with indescribable fury. Round and round, the room they
struggled, the man cursing, the woman shrieking, both fighting like
demons--she to strike him with the dagger, he to strangle her with his
great bare hands. I know not how long I had the unhappiness to
observe this disagreeable instance of domestic infelicity, but at
last, after a more than usually vigorous struggle, the combatants
suddenly moved apart.

My father's breast and my mother's weapon showed evidences of contact.
For another instant they glared at each other in the most unamiable
way; then my poor, wounded father, feeling the hand of death upon him,
leaped forward, unmindful of resistance, grasped my dear mother in his
arms, dragged her to the side of the boiling cauldron, collected all
his failing energies, and sprang in with her! In a moment, both had
disappeared and were adding their oil to that of the committee of
citizens who had called the day before with an invitation to the
public meeting.

Convinced that these unhappy events closed to me every avenue to an
hono