hell. You see Pa has been reading out of an old back number bible,
and Ma and me argued with him about getting a new revised edition.
We told him that the old one was all out of style, and that all the
neighbors had the newest cut in bibles, with dolman sleeves, and
gathered in the back, and they put on style over us, and we could not
hold up our heads in society when it was known that we were wearing
the old last year's bible. Pa kicked against it, but finally got one.
I thought I had as much right to change things in the revised bible, as
the other fellows had to change the old one, so I pasted some mottoes
and patent medicine advertisements in it, after the verses. Pa never
reads a whole chapter, but reads a verse or two and skips around. Before
breakfast, the other morning, Pa got the new bible and started to read
the ten commandments, and some other things. The first thing Pa struck
was, 'Verily I say unto you, try St. Jacobs oil for rheumatism.' Pa
looked over his specks at Ma, and then looked at me, but I had my face
covered with my hands, sort of pious. Pa said he didn't think it was
just the thing to put advertisements in the bible, but Ma said she
didn't know as it was any worse than to have a patent medicine notice
next to Beecher's sermon in the religious paper. Pa sighed and turned
over a few leaves, and read, 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,
nor his ox, if you love me as I love you no knife can cut our love in
two.' That last part was a motto that I got out of a paper of candy. Pa
said that the sentiment was good, but he didn't think the revisers had
improved the old commandment very much. Then Pa turned over and read,
'Take a little wine for the stomach's sake, and keep a bottle of Reed's
Gilt Edged tonic on your side-board, and you can defy malaria, and
chills and fever.' Pa was hot. He looked at it again, and noticed that
the tonic commandment was on yellow paper, and the corner curled up, and
Pa took hold of it, and the paste that I stuck it on with was not good,
and it come off, and when I saw Pa lay down the bible, and put his
spectacles in the case, and reach for the fire poker, I knew he was not
going to pray, and I looked out the window and yelled dog fight, and
I lit out, and Pa followed me as far as the sidewalk, and it was that
morning when it was so slippery, and Pa's feet slipped out from under
him, and he stood on his neck, and slid around on his ear, and the
special providence of s