d I could hear him breathing hard. I looked
around the corner and could see he just had on his shirt and pants, and
his suspenders were hanging down, and his bald head shown like a calcium
light just before it explodes. Pa went into 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 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 Foundland
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 presence of
mind enough to have dropped the cat, or rolled it up in the mattrass, it
would have been all right, but a man always gets rattled in time of
danger, and he held on to 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 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 annointed 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 haven'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 th