o back on a
fellow. But if you won't give this away, here goes. You see, I heard Ma
tell Pa to bring up another bottle of liniment last night. When Ma corks
herself, or has a pain anywhere, she just uses liniment for all that
is out, and a pint bottle don't last more than a week. Well, I told my
chum, and we laid for Pa. This liniment Ma uses is offul hot, and almost
blisters. Pa went to the Langtry show, and did not get home till eleven
o'clock, and me and my chum decided to teach Pa a lesson. I don't think
it is right for a man to go to the theaters and not take his wife or his
little boy.

"So we concluded to burgle Pa. We agreed to lay on the stairs, and when
he came up my chum was to hit him on the head with a dried bladder,
and I was to stab him on his breast pocket with a stick, and break the
liniment bottle, and make him think he was killed.

"It couldn't have worked better if we had rehearsed it. We had talked
about burglars at supper time, and got Pa nervous, so when he came up
stairs and was hit on the head with the bladder, the first thing he said
was 'Burglars, by mighty,' and he started to go back, and I hit him on
the breast pocket, where the bottle was, and then we rushed by him, down
stairs, and I said in a stage whisper, 'I guess he's a dead man,' and we
went down cellar and up the back stairs to my room and undressed."

[Illustration: The old man stabbed 030]

"Pa hollered to Ma that he was murdered, and Ma called me, and I came
down in my night-shirt, and the hired girl she came down, and Pa was on
the lounge, and he said his life-blood was fast ebbing away. He held his
hand on the wound, and said he could feel the warm blood trickling clear
down to his boots. I told Pa to stuff some tar into the wound, such as
he told me to put on my lip to make my mustache grow, and Pa said, 'My
boy, this is no time for trifling. Your Pa is on his last legs. When I
came up stairs I met six burglars, and I attacked them, and forced four
of them down, and was going to hold them and send for the police, when
two more, that I did not know about, jumped on me, and I was getting the
best of them when one of them struck me over the head with a crowbar,
and the other stabbed me to the heart with a butcher knife. I have
received my death wound, my boy, and my hot southern blood, that I
offered up so freely for my country in her time of need, is passing from
my body, and soon your Pa will be only a piece of poor clay. Get