that he had been drunk more or less since the reunion last summer, which ought to qualify him.  Then the Grand Mogul made Pa repeat the most blood-curdling oath, in which Pa agreed, if he ever drank another drop, to allow anybody to pull his toe-nails out with tweezers, to have his liver dug out and fed to dogs, his head chopped off, and his eyes removed.  Then the Mogul said he would brand the candidate on the bare back with the initial letters of our order, ‘G.T.,’ that all might read how a brand had been snatched from the burning.  You’d a dide to see Pa flinch when I pulled up his shirt, and got ready to brand him.

“My chum got a piece of ice out of the water cooler, and just as he clapped it on Pa’s back I burned a piece of horses hoof in the candle, and held it to Pa’s nose, and I guess Pa actually thought it was his burning skin that he smelled.  He jumped about six feet and said, ’Great heavens, what you dewin,’ and then he began to roll over a barrel which I had arranged for him.  Pa thought he was going down cellar, and he hung to the barrel, but he was on top half the time.  When Pa and the barrel got through fighting I was beside him, and I said, ’Calm yourself, and be prepared for the ordeal that is to follow.’  Pa asked how much of this dum fooling there was, and said he was sorry he joined.  He said he could let licker alone without having the skin all burned off his back.  I told Pa to be brave and not weaken, and all would-be well.  He wiped the prespiration off his face on the end of his shirt, and we put a belt around his body and hitched it to a tackle, and pulled him up so his feet just off the floor, and then we talked as though we were away off, and I told my chum to look out that Pa did not hit the gas fixtures, and Pa actually thought he was being hauled clear up to the roof.  I could see he was scared by the complexion of his hands and feet, as they clawed the air.  He actually sweat so the drops fell on the floor.  Bime-by we let him down, and he was awfully relieved though his feet were not more than two inches from the floor any of the time.  We were just going to slip Pa down a board with slivers in to give him a realizing sense of the rough road a reformed man has to travel, and got him straddle of the board, when the Dutchman came home from the dance fullern a goose, and he drove us boys out, and we left Pa, and the Dutchman said, ’Vot you vas doing here mit dose boys, you old duffer, and vere vas your pants?’ and Pa pulled off the handkerchief from his eyes, and the Dutchman said if he didn’t get out in a holy minute he would kick the stuffing out of him, and Pa got out.  He took his pants and put them, on in the alley, and then we came up to Pa and told him that was the third time the drunken Dutchman had broke up our lodge, but we should keep on doing good until we had reformed every drunkard in Milwaukee, and Pa said that was right, and he would see us through, if it cost every dollar he had.  Then we took him home, and when Ma asked if she couldn’t join the lodge, too, Pa said, ’Now you take my advice, and don’t you ever join no Good Templars.  Your system could not stand the racket.  Say, I want you to put some cold cream on my back.’  I think Pa will be a different man now, don’t you?”