knew
that some day the volcano would open in a new place and swallow them
whole, with all the tourists. Then he gave them a dollar apiece to pray
for him, and wanted to go back down the mountain and let Vesuvius run
its own fireworks, but the Chicago lady told dad to brace up and she
would protect him, and so the guides gave a few more pushes, and we were
on top of the volcano, and dad collapsed and had to be brought to with
smelling salts and whisky that the woman carried in her pistol pocket.

Gee, but it was worth all the trouble to get up the mountain, to see the
sight that opened up. The hole in the mountain filled with boiling stuff
was worth the price of admission, and the roaring of the boiling stuff,
and the explosions way down cellar, and the flying stones, the smoke
going into the air for a mile, like the burning of an oil well, the
red-hot lava finding crevices to leak through, and flowing down the
side of the mountain in streams like hot maple sirup, made a scene thai
caused us to take off our hats and thank the good Lord that the thing
hadn't overflowed enough to hurt us. But I could see dad was scared,
'cause when I wanted him to go around the edge of the crater with me,
and see the hell-roaring free show from other points of view, and
see where the hot ashes years ago rolled down and covered Pompeii and
Herculaneum, he balked and said he had seen all he wanted to, and if he
could stay alive until the next car went down the mountain, they could
all have his interest in Vesuvius, and be darned to them, but he said if
I wanted to go around looking for trouble, he would stay there under a
big rock, with the Chicago lady, and wait for me to come back. She said
she knew dad was all tired out, and needed rest, and she would stay with
him, and keep him cheered up; so I left them and went off with one
of the dagoes, to slide down hill on some flowing lava, and pick up
specimens.

Well, sir, I wish I could get along some way without telling the rest of
this sad story, but if I am going to be a historian I have got to tell
the whole blame thing.

[Illustration: And she was stroking his hair 217]

When I left dad and the Chicago woman she had produced a lunch from
somewhere about her person, and a small bottle, and they were eating and
drinking, and dad was laughing more natural than I had seen him laugh
since we run over the old woman with the automobile at Nice, and she was
smiling on dad just as though she wa