At about midnight some mysterious impulse caused me to rise and peer through a window into the furnace-room, where I knew my father now slept.  The fires were burning as brightly as if the following day’s harvest had been expected to be abundant.  One of the large cauldrons was slowly “walloping” with a mysterious appearance of self-restraint, as if it bided its time to put forth its full energy.  My father was not in bed; he had risen in his nightclothes and was preparing a noose in a strong cord.  From the looks which he cast at the door of my mother’s bedroom I knew too well the purpose that he had in mind.  Speechless and motionless with terror, I could do nothing in prevention or warning.  Suddenly the door of my mother’s apartment was opened, noiselessly, and the two confronted each other, both apparently surprised.  The lady, also, was in her night clothes, and she held in her right hand the tool of her trade, a long, narrow-bladed dagger.

She, too, had been unable to deny herself the last profit which the unfriendly action of the citizens and my absence had left her.  For one instant they looked into each other’s blazing eyes and then sprang together with indescribable fury.  Round and round the room they struggled, the man cursing, the woman shrieking, both fighting like demons—­she to strike him with the dagger, he to strangle her with his great bare hands.  I know not how long I had the unhappiness to observe this disagreeable instance of domestic infelicity, but at last, after a more than usually vigorous struggle, the combatants suddenly moved apart.

My father’s breast and my mother’s weapon showed evidences of contact.  For another instant they glared at each other in the most unamiable way; then my poor, wounded father, feeling the hand of death upon him, leaped forward, unmindful of resistance, grasped my dear mother in his arms, dragged her to the side of the boiling cauldron, collected all his failing energies, and sprang in with her!  In a moment, both had disappeared and were adding their oil to that of the committee of citizens who had called the day before with an invitation to the public meeting.

Convinced that these unhappy events closed to me every avenue to an honorable career in that town, I removed to the famous city of Otumwee, where these memoirs are written with a heart full of remorse for a heedless act entailing so dismal a commercial disaster.

AN IMPERFECT CONFLAGRATION

Early one June morning in 1872 I murdered my father—­an act which made a deep impression on me at the time.  This was before my marriage, while I was living with my parents in Wisconsin.  My father and I were in the library of our home, dividing the proceeds of a burglary which we had committed that night.  These consisted of household goods mostly, and the task of equitable division was difficult.  We got on very well with the napkins, towels and such things, and the silverware was parted pretty nearly equally, but you can see for yourself that when you try to divide a single music-box by two without a remainder you will have trouble.  It was that music-box which brought disaster and disgrace upon our family.  If we had left it my poor father might now be alive.