en I have the mumps. Ma passed the
pickles to me this morning, and I took one mouthful, and like to had the
lockjaw. But Ma didn't do it on purpose, I guess. She never had the mumps
and didn't know how discouraging a pickle is. Darn if I didn't feel as
though I had been struck in the butt of the ear with a brick. But
about Pa. He has been fuller'n a goose ever since New Year's day. I think
its wrong for women to tempt feeble minded persons with liquor on New
Year's. Now me and my chum, we can take a drink and then let it alone. We
have got brain, and know when we have got enough, but Pa, when he gets to
going don't ever stop until he gets so sick that he can't keep his
stummick inside of hisself. It is getting so they look to me to brace Pa
up every time he gets on a tear, and I guess I fixed him this time so he
will never touch liquor again. I scared him so his bald head turned gray
in a single night."

"What under the heavens have you done to him now?" says the grocery man,
in astonishment. "I hope you haven't done anything you will regret in
after years."

"Regret nothing," said the boy, as he turned the lid of the cheese box
back and took the knife and sliced off a piece of cheese, and took a few
crackers out of a barrel, and sat down on a soap box by the stove, "You
see Ma was annoyed to death with Pa. He would come home full, when she had
company, and lay down on the sofa and snore, and he would smell like a
distillery. It hurt me to see Ma cry, and I told her I would break Pa of
drinking if she would let me, and she said if I would promise not to hurt
Pa to go ahead, and I promised not to. Then I got my chum and another boy,
to help, and Pa is all right. We went down to the place where they sell
arms and legs, to folks who have served in the army, or a saw mill, or a
threshing machine, and lose their limbs, and we borrowed some arms and
legs, and fixed up a dissecting room. We fixed a long table in the
basement, big enough to lay Pa out on you know, and then we got false
whiskers and moustaches, and when Pa came in the house drunk and lay down
on the sofa, and got to sleep, we took him and laid him out on the table,
and took some trunk straps, and a circingle and strapped him down
to the table. He slept right along all through it, and we had another
table with the false arms and legs on, and we rolled up our sleeves, and
smoked pipes, just like I read that medical students do when they cut up a
man.

"Well, yo