Pa's shirt
was no protection at all in a cat fight, and the cat just walked all
around Pa's stomach, and Pa yelled 'police,' and 'fire,' and 'turn on the
hose,' and he called Ma, and the cat yowled. If Pa had had presence of
mind enough to have dropped the cat, or rolled it up in the mattrass, it
would have been all right, but a man always gets rattled in time of
danger, and he held on to the cat and started down stairs yelling murder,
and he met Ma coming up.
"I guess Ma's night cap or something frightened the cat more, cause he
stabbed Ma on the night-shirt with one hind foot, and Ma said 'mercy on
us,' and she went back, and Pa stumbled on a hand-sled that was on the
stairs, and they all fell down, and the cat got away and went down in the
coal bin and yowled all night. Pa and Ma went into their room, and I guess
they annointed themselves with vasaline, and Pond's extract, and I went
and got into my bed, cause it was cold out in the hall, and the cat had
warmed my bed as well as it had warmed Pa. It was all I could do to go to
sleep, with Pa and Ma talking all night, and this morning I came down the
back stairs, and haven't been to breakfast, cause I don't want to see Pa
when he is vexed. You let the man that carries in the kindling wood have
six shillings worth of groceries, and charge them to Pa.
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