t the rivulets of lava that flow out of the
wrinkles around the mouth of the crater are no more appalling than
making fudges over a gas stove. When the lava cools you would swear it
was fudges, only you can't eat the lava and get indigestion as you can
eating fudges.

It was hard work to get dad to go up on the volcano, because he said he
knew he would fall into it, and get his clothes burned, and he said he
couldn't climb clear to the top, on account of his breath being short,
but when I told him he could ride up on a trolley car, and have the
volcano brought right to him, he weakened, and one morning we left
Naples early and before two hours had passed we were on a little
cogwheel railroad going up, and dad was looking down on the scenery,
expecting every minute the cogs would slip and we would cut loose and go
down all in a heap and be plastered all over the vineyards and big trees
and be killed.

I don't know what makes dad so nervous, but he wanted a woman from
Chicago, who was on the car with us, to hold his hand all the way up,
but she said she was no nurse in a home for the aged, and she said she
would cuff dad if he didn't let go of her. I told her she better not
get dad mad if she knew what was good for her, for he was a regular
Bluebeard, and wouldn't take no slack from no Chicago female, 'cause
he had buried nine wives already. So she held his hand, and I guess she
thinks she will be my stepmother, but I bet she don't.

Well, after we got almost to the top the car stopped, and we had to walk
the rest of the way, several hundred feet, and we had to have a pusher
and a putter for dad, a dago to go ahead and pull him up, and another
to put his shoulder against dad's pants and shove. Gee, but it was a
picture to see dad "go up old baldhead," with the dagoes perspiring and
swearing at dad for being so heavy, and the Chicago woman laughing, and
me pushing her up.

[Illustration: It was a picture to see dad go up old baldhead 214]

One thing that scared dad was that every little way there was a shrine,
where the guides left dad lying on the ground, blocked with a piece of
cold lava, so he wouldn't roll down, like you would block a wagon wheel,
and they would go to the shrine and kneel and say some prayers.

Dad was afraid they were going to charge the prayers in the bill for
pushing him up, but I told dad that these people expected every time
they, went up to the top that it would be their last trip, as they