wanted to fight. Rather than not get a fight he would try both of us at once. We were not in a fighting humor, and were surely not in fighting condition, and we persuaded Dan to put that thing off a day or two. We stopped by the roadside, and wasted our matches trying to start a fire with green-oak branches. Lewis tumbled into the leaves, and was soon in a maudlin and insensible state. I took in the situation, and, with Dan's help, we loaded him up, and started down the road to Lewis's house. We had gone about twenty feet when we had a head-end collision. The ground was frozen and rough, and we both stumbled and fell. Lewis gave a pitiful, quivering whine, as his head went into a deep rut, and as we could get nothing further from him, we thought we had killed him. We felt for his pulse, and did not find any. We carried him down to his mother's house, and laid him on the top plank of the steps, made for crossing the rail-fence in front of the cabin. His mother was a widow. We could not bear the thought of taking in to her the dead boy. We straightened out his legs along the plank, and tied them together with Dan's big bandana. With my handkerchief we tied his wrists together across his breast. We put a chip on each eye, to keep them from the hideous open

death-gaze when his mother should find him next morning; and we left him there in the cold silence of that wintry night. We left him, somewhat consoling ourselves with the idea that his body, fixed in that way, would be in shape for the coffin. This was long after midnight. I went home with Dan for the two or three hours till daylight. In a silly, whimpering way, we talked of going to the funeral next day, and tried to think of the future of a boy who died drunk. I was first to come from under the influence of the intoxicants. What fearful physical depression and headache! What awful moral humiliation! What smitings and agony of remorse! There was a slight mental relief in the knowledge, without going to make inquiry, that Lewis was not dead. But physical death to myself, or to the other boys, under natural circumstances, would not have been so awful as this occurrence. I had been so familiar with drunkenness in others, and had so loathed it, and now it had touched my own life with its damning disgrace! Without feeling that the other boys were greater sinners than myself, I resolved to break their companionship. I resolved never again to enter Lanning's grocery. I started home, and the thought of meeting my parents, filled me with horror. What account could I give of myself?

We had not thought of drinking until we entered the grocery. But why did we do such a thing? I searched for mitigation and excuse, and found none. I seriously, for the first time in my life, contemplated not returning home. The thing was not done in a corner, and the news broken to my mother would put despair into her life about me, and break her heart. I saw, through the dark contrasts of that morning, how my mother's pride had been centered in me. Every stitch in my clothing had been taken by her diligent fingers. The blue-andscarlet wool-muffler around my neck had been finished by her needle the day before, and tied about me with a kiss. I could stand my father's chastisement, if it came; but I could not meet my mother's sorrow. The news reached them before I did; for it was high-noon before I had made the journey of half a mile. When I entered the house, there was silence, and there was silence in that home for days. I could see that they were wondering if this was the beginning; if all their hopes and plans were to be blasted. They showed me the greatest solicitude. Mother especially was more than usually attentive to my wants. I never saw the glory of this home-love till then, and it seemed to be burning me up. Instead of wrath, I had kindled