pples in the moonlight,
and trying to think of a plan of revenge. Just then I saw a skunk back
of the house, right by the outside cellar door, and I told my chum that
it would serve them right to drive the skunk down cellar and shut the
door, but my chum said that would be too mean. I asked him if it would
be any meaner than for the deacon to snatch us baldheaded because we
couldn't mow hay away fast enough for two men to pitch it, and he said
it wouldn't, and so we got on each side of the skunk and sort of scared
it down cellar, and then we crept up softly and closed the cellar doors.
Then we went in the house and I whispered to Ma and asked her if she
didn't think the deacon had some cider, and Ma she began to hint that
she hadn't had a good drink of cider since last winter, and the deacon's
wife said us boys could take a pitcher and go down cellar and draw some.
That was too much. I didn't want any cider, anyway, so I told them that
I belonged to a temperance society, and I should break my pledge if I
drawed cider, and she said I was a good boy, for me never to touch a drop
of cider. Then she told my chum where the cider barrel was, down cellar;
but he ain't no slouch. He said he was afraid to go down cellar in the
dark, and so Pa said he and the deacon would go down and draw the cider,
and the deacon's wife asked Ma to go down too, and look at the fruit
and berries she had canned for winter, and they all went down cellar. Pa
carried an old tin lantern with holes in it, to light the deacon to the
cider barrel; and the deacon's wife had a taller candle to show Ma the
canned fruit. I tried to get Ma not to go, cause Ma is a friend of mine,
and I didn't want her to have anything to do with the circus; but she
said she guessed she knew her business. When anybody says they guess
they know their own business, that settles it with me, and I don't try
to argue with them. Well, my chum and me sat there in the kitchen, and
I stuffed a piece of red table cloth in my mouth to keep from laughing,
and my chum held his nose with his finger and thumb, so he wouldn't
snort right out. We could hear the cider run in the pitcher, and then it
stopped, and the deacon drank out of the pitcher, and then Pa did, and
then they drawed some more cider, and Ma and the deacon's wife were
talking about how much sugar it took to can fruit, and the deacon told
Pa to help himself out of a crock of fried cakes, and I heard the cover
on the crock rattle,