id my head upon
the pillow.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In which my Mother gives my Father a Scriptural Lesson--My Father's
Grief at parting with an old Friend--He expostulates with my Mother
and quits the House.

I Woke early the next morning; for the whole night I had been restless,
and dreaming of the unusual occurrences of the day before. It was just
daylight, and I was recalling what had passed, and wondering what had
become of my father, when I heard a noise in my mother's room. I
listened--the door opened, and she went downstairs.

This surprised me; and being conscious, even at my age, of the
vindictive temper shown by my mother upon every occasion, and anxious to
know where my father was, I could not remain in bed. I put on my
trousers, and crept softly downstairs without my shoes. The door of the
front room was ajar, and I looked in. The light was dimly peering
through the window which pointed to the alley; the table was covered
with the empty pipes, tobacco, and large pools of beer and liquor which
had been spilled on it; the sofa was empty, and my father, who evidently
had become deeply intoxicated the night before, was lying on the sanded
floor with his face downward; my mother, in her short dressing-gown and
flannel petticoat, was standing over him, her teeth set, her fists
clinched, and arms raised, with a dire expression of revenge in her
countenance. I thought at the time that I never saw her look so ugly--I
may say so horrid; even now her expression at that moment is not effaced
from my memory. After a few minutes she knelt down and put her ear close
to his head, as if to ascertain whether he was in a sound sleep. She
then took a knife from off the table, felt the edge, looked at my
prostrate father, and raised it. I would have screamed, but my tongue
was glued to my lips with horror. She appeared to reflect, and, after a
time, laid the knife down on the table, put the palm of her hand up to
her forehead, and then a smile gleamed over her moody features. "Yes, if
he murders me; but they will be better," muttered she at last. She went
to the cupboard, took out a large pair of scissors, and, kneeling down
by my father, commenced severing his long pigtail from his head. My
father was too sound asleep to be roused: in a minute the tail was off,
and my mother rose up, holding it, with an expression of the utmost
contempt, between her finger and thumb. She then very softly laid it
down by his