ow him, and they would see a man running down the alley
full of salt, and he rushed out with the gun, and the crowd followed
him. Pa is shorter than the rest, and he passed under the first wire
clothes line in the yard all right, and was going for the hen house on
a jump, when his neck caught the second wire clothesline just as the
minister and two of the deacons caught their necks under the other wire.
You know how a wire, hitting a man on the throat, will set him back,
head over appetite. Well, sir, I was looking out of the back window,
and I wouldn't be positive, but I think they all turned double back
summersaults, and struck on their ears. Anyway, Pa did, and the gun must
have been cocked, or it struck the hammer on a stone, for it went off,
and it was pointed towards the house, and three of the visitors got
salted. The minister was hit the worse, one piece of salt taking him in
the hind leg, and the other in the back, and he yelled as though it was
dynamite."

[Illustration: The minister and deacons salted 110]

"I suppose when you shoot a man with salt, it smarts, like when you get
corned beef brine on your chaped hands. They all yelled, and Pa seemed
to have been knocked silly, some way, for he pranced around and seemed
to think he he had killed them. He swore at the wire clothes line, and
then I missed Pa and heard a splash like when you throw a cat in the
river, and then I thought of the cistern, and I went down and we took Pa
by the collar and pulled him out. O, he was awful damp. No sir, it was
no duel at all, but a naxident, and I didn't have anything to do with
it. The gun wasn't loaded to kill, and the salt only went through the
skin, but those men _did_ yell. May be it was my chum that stirred up
the chickens, but I don't know. He has not commenced to lead a different
life yet, and he might think it would make our folks sick if nothing
occurred to make them pay at-tion. I think where a family has been
having a good deal of exercise, the way ours has, it hurts them to break
off too suddenly. But the visitors went home, real quick, after we got
Pa out of the cistern, and the minister told Ma he always felt when he
was in our house, as though he was on the verge of a yawning crater,
ready to be engulfed any minute, and he guessed he wouldn't come any
more. Pa changed his clothes and told Ma to have them wire clothes lines
changed for rope ones. I think it is hard to suit Pa, don't you?

"O, your Pa is all