He would much prefer to sleep on the
floor to escape the foot-washing ordeal. Why, pray, should he wash
his feet when he knows full well that tomorrow night will find them
in the same condition? Why all the bother and trouble about a little
thing like that? Why can't folks let a fellow alone, anyhow? And,
besides, he went in swimming this afternoon, and that surely ought to
meet all the exactions of capricious parents. He exhibits his feet
as an evidence of the virtue of going swimming, for he is arranging
the preliminaries for another swimming expedition to-morrow.
I recall very distinctly how strange it seemed that my father could
sit there and calmly talk about being a Democrat, or a Republican, or
a Baptist, or a Methodist, or about some one's discovering the north
pole, or about the President's message when the dog had a rat
cornered under the corn-crib and was barking like mad. But, then,
parents can't see things in their right relations and proportions.
And there sat mother, too, darning stockings, and the dog just stark
crazy about that rat.
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