rning, and told
me there was murder in the air at your house last night, and they were
going to have the police pull your place as a disorderly house. I think
you were at the bottom of the whole business!"

"O, its all a darn lie, and those neighbors will find they better keep
still about us, or we will lie about them a little. You see, since
Pa got that blacking on his face he don't go out any, and to make it
pleasant for him Ma invited in a few friends to spend the evening. Ma
has got up around, and the baby is a daisy, only it smells like a goat,
on account of drinking the goat's milk. Ma invited the minister, among
the rest, and after supper the men went up into Pa's library to talk.
O, you think I am bad don't you, but of the nine men at our house last
night I am an angel compared with what they were when they were boys. I
got into the bath room to untangle my fish line, and it is next to Pa's
room, and I could hear everything they said, but I went away 'cause I
thought the conversation would hurt my morals. They would all steal,
when they were boys, but darned if I ever stole. Pa has stolen over a
hundred wagon loads of water-melons, one deacon used to rob orchards,
another one shot tame ducks belonging to a farmer, and another tipped
over grindstones in front of the village store, at night, and broke
them, and run, another used to steal eggs, and go out in the woods and
boil them, and the minister was the worst of the lot, 'cause he took a
seine, with some other boys, and went to a stream where a neighbor
was raising brook trout, and cleaned the stream out, and to ward off
suspicion, he went to the man the next day and paid him a dollar to let
him fish in the stream, and then kicked because there were no trout, and
the owner found the trout were stolen and laid it to some Dutch boys.
I wondered, when those men were telling their experience, if they ever
thought of it now when they were preaching and praying, and taking up
collections. I should think they wouldn't say a boy was going to hell
right off 'cause he was a little wild now days, when he has such an
example. Well, lately, somebody has been burgling our chicken coop,
and Pa loaded an old musket with rock salt, and said he would fill the
fellow full of salt if he caught him, and while they were talking up
stairs Ma heard a rooster squawk, and she went to the stairway and
told Pa there was somebody in the hen house. Pa jumped up and told the
visitors to foll