d Uncle Ezra asked
him if it was the end with the head on, or the feet, and Pa told him
paralysis had marked him for a victim, and he could feel that his left
leg was becoming dead. He said he could feel the cold, clammy hand of
death walking up him, and he wanted Ma to put a bottle of hot water to
his feet. Ma got the bottle of hot water and put it to Pa's feet, and
the cork came out and Pa said he was dead, sure enough, now, because he
was hot in the extremities, and that a cold wave was going up his leg.
Ma asked him where the cold wave was, and he told her, and she thought
she would rub it, but she began to yell the same kind of murder Pa did,
and she said a snake had gone up her sleeve. Then I thought it was time
to stop the circus, and I reached up Ma's lace sleeve and caught the
frog by the leg and pulled it out, and told Pa I guessed he had taken my
frog to bed with him, and I showed it to him, and then he said I did it,
and he would maul me so I could not get up alone, and he said that a boy
that would do such a thing would go to hell as sure as preachin' and
I asked him if he thought a man who put frogs in the beds with blind
girls, when he was a boy, would get to heaven, and then he told me to
lite out, and I lit. I guess Pa will feel better when Uncle Ezra goes
away, cause he thinks Uncle Ezra talks too much about old times. Well,
here comes our baby wagon, and I guess Pa has done penance long enough,
and I will go and wheel the kid awhile. Say, you call Pa in, after I
take the baby wagon, and tell him you don't know how he would get along
without such a nice boy as me, and you can charge it in our next months'
bill."

CHAPTER XX.

FOURTH OF JULY MISADVENTURES--TROUBLE IN THE PISTOL POCKET--
THE GROCERY MAN'S CAT--THE BAD BOY A MINISTERING ANGEL--
ASLEEP ON THE FOURTH OF JULY--GOES WITH HIS GIRL TO THE
SOLDIER'S HOME--TERRIBLE FOURTH. OF JULY MISADVENTURES--THE
GIRL WHO WENT OUT COMES BACK A BURNT OFFERING.

"Here, condemn you, you will pay for that cat," said the grocery man to
the bad boy, as he came in the store all broke up, the morning after the
4th of July.

"What cat?" said the boy as he leaned against the zinc ice box to cool
his back, which had been having trouble with a bunch of fire crackers in
his pistol pocket. "We haven't ordered any cat from here. Who ordered any
cat sent to our house? We get our sausage at the market," and the boy
rubbed some cold cream on