None of them said a word until the elder put on his specs, and said it was a solemn occasion, and Ma she turned pale, and wondered who it could be, and Pa says 'don't keep us in suspense, who is dead?' and the elder said no one was dead; but they called as a duty they owed the cause to take action on them for working on Sunday. Ma, she fainted away, and they threw a pitcher of water down her back, and Pa said he guessed they were a pack of lunatics, but they all swore it was Sunday, and they saw Ma washing and Pa out hoeing, as they went to church, and they had called to take action on them. Then there was a few minutes low conversation I could not catch, and then we heard Pa kick his chair over and say it was more tricks of that darned boy. Then we knew it was time to adjourn, and I was just getting through the back fence as Pa reached me with a barrel stave, and that's what makes me limp some!” “That was real mean in you boys,” said the grocery man. “It will be hard for your Pa and Ma to explain that matter. Just think how bad they must feel.” “O, I don't know. I remember hearing Pa and Uncle Ezra tell how they fooled their father once, and got him to go to mill with a grist, on Sunday, and Pa said he would defy anybody to fool him on the day of the week. I don't think a man ought to tempt his little boy by defying him to fool his father. Well, I'll take a glass of your fifty cent cider and go,” and soon the grocery man looked out the window and found somebody had added a cypher to the 'Sweet cider, only five cents a glass,' making it an expensive drink, considering it was made of sour apples. CHAPTER XXII. THE OLD MAN AWFULLY BLOATED--THE OLD MAN BEGINS DRINKING AGAIN--THINKS BETTING IS HARMLESS--HAD TO WALK HOME FROM CHICAGO--THE SPECTACLES CHANGED--A SMALL SUIT OF CLOTHES-- THE OLD MAN AWFULLY BLOATED--“HENNERY YOUR PA IS A MIGHTY SICK MAN”--THE SWELLING SUDDENLY GOES DOWN. “Come in,” said the grocery man to the bad boy, as the youth stood on the steps in an uncertain sort of away, as though he did not know whether he would be welcome or not. “I tell you, boy, I pity you. I understand your Pa has got to drinking again. It is too bad. I can't think of anything that humiliates a boy, and makes him so ashamed, as to have a father that is in the habit of hoisting in too much benzine. A boy feels as though everybody was down on him, and I don't wonder that such boys often turn out bad. What started your Pa to drinking again?”