er, but it didn't do any good. She was
mashed on Pa, and there was no cure for her except to have Pa prescribed
for her as a husband, and they ran away. Uncle Ezra told me all about
it. Ma hain't got any patience with girls now days that have minds of
their own about fellows, and she thinks their parents ought to have all
the say. Well, maybe she thinks she knows all about it. But when people
get in love it is the same now as when Pa and Ma were trying to keep out
of the reach of my grandfather's shot gun. But Pa and Uncle Ezra and Ma
are good friends, and they talk over old times and have a big laugh.
I guess Uncle Ezra was too much for Pa in joking when they were boys,
'cause Pa told me that all rules against joking were suspended while
Uncle Ezra was here, and for me to play any thing on him I could. I told
Pa I was trying to lead a different life, but he said what I wanted to
do was to make Uncle Ezra think of old times, and the only way was to
keep him on the ragged edge. I thought if there was anything I could do
to make it pleasant for my Uncle, it was my duty to do it, so I fixed
the bed slats on the spare bed so they would fall down at 2 A. M. the
first night, and then I retired. At two o'clock I heard the awfulest
noise in the spare room, and a howling and screaming, and I went down
to meet Uncle Ezra in the hall, and he asked me what was the matter in
there, and I asked him if he didn't sleep in the spare room, and he said
no, that Pa and Ma was in there, and he slept in their room. Then we
went in the spare room and you'd a dide to see Pa."

[Illustration: Pa was all tied up 146]

"Ma had jumped out when the slats first fell, and was putting her hair
up in curl papers when we got in, but Pa was all tangled up in the
springs and things. His head had gone down first, and the mattrass and
quilts rolled over him, and he was almost smothered, and we had to take
the bedsted down to get him out, the way you have to unharness a horse
when he runs away and falls down, before you can get him up. Pa was mad,
but Uncle Ezra laughed at him, and told him he was only foundered, and
all he wanted was a bran mash and some horse liniment and he would come
out all right. Uncle Ezra went out in to the hall to get a pail of water
to throw on Pa, 'cause he said Pa was afire, when Pa asks me why in
blazes I didn't fix the other bed slats, and I told him I didn't know
as they were going to change beds, and then Pa said don't let it