ompanies, and know that his calling and election is
sure, because I am a bad man and don't you forget it." And the boy pulled
on his boots and looked so cross and desperate that the grocer-man asked
him if he wouldn't try a little new cider.

"Good heavens!" said the grocery man, as the boy swallowed the cider, and
his face resumed its natural look, and the piratical frown disappeared
with the cider. "You have not stabbed your father have you? I have feared
that one thing would bring on another, with you, and that you would yet be
hung."

"Naw, I haven't stabbed him. It was another cat that stabbed him. You see,
Pa wants me to do all the work around the house. The other day he bought a
load of kindling wood, and told me to carry it into the basement. I had
not been educated up to kindling wood, and I didn't do it. When supper
time came, and Pa found that I had not carried in the kindling wood, he
had a hot box, and told me if that wood was not in when he came
back from the lodge, that he would warm my jacket. Well, I tried to hire
some one to carry it in, and got a man to promise to come in the morning
and carry it in and take his pay in groceries, and I was going to buy the
groceries here and have them charged to Pa. But that wouldn't help me out
that night. I knew when Pa came home he would search for me. So I slept in
the back hall on a cot. But I didn't want Pa to have all his trouble for
nothing, so I borrowed an old torn cat that my chum's old maid aunt owns,
and put the cat in my bed. I thought if Pa came into my room after me, and
found that by his unkindness I had changed to a torn cat, he would be
sorry. That is the biggest cat you ever see, and the worst fighter in our
ward. It isn't afraid of anything, and can whip a New Foundland dog
quicker than you could put sand in a barrel of sugar. Well, about eleven
o'clock I heard Pa tumbing over the kindling wood, and I knew by the
remark he made as the wood slid around under him, that there was going to
be a cat fight real quick. He came up to Ma's room, and sounded Ma as to
whether Hennery had retired to his virtuous couch. Pa is awful sarcastic
when he tries to be. I could hear him take off his clothes, and hear him
say, as he picked up a trunk strap, 'I guess I will go up to his room and
watch the smile on his face, as he dreams of angels. I yearn to press him
to my aching bosom.' I thought to myself, mebbe you won't yearn so much
directly. He come up stairs, an