I have the same old, old story to tell. My conduct has been such again—at any rate, that\'s what father says; and I\'ve had to go up-stairs with him, and I needn\'t explain what that means. It seems very hard, for I\'d tried to do my very best, and I\'d heard Sue say, "That boy hasn\'t misbehaved for two days good gracious I wonder what can be the matter with him." There\'s a fatal litty about it, I\'m sure. Poor father! I must give him an awful lot of trouble, and I know he\'s had to get two new bamboo canes this winter just because I\'ve done so wrong, though I never meant to do it.

It happened on account of coasting. We\'ve got a magnificent hill. The road runs straight down the middle of it, and all you have to do is to keep on the road. There\'s a fence on one side, and if you run into it something has got to break. John Kruger, who is a stupid sort of a fellow, ran into it last week head-first, and smashed three pickets, and everybody said it was a mercy he hit it with his head, or he might have broken some of his bones and[Pg 64] hurt himself. There isn\'t any fence on the other side, but if you run off the road on that side you\'ll go down the side of a hill that\'s steeper than the roof of the Episcopal church, and about a mile long, with a brook full of stones down at the bottom.

The other night Mr. Travers said— But I forgot to say that Mr. Martin is back again, and coming to our house worse than ever. He was there, and Mr. Travers and Sue, all sitting in the parlor, where I was behaving, and trying to make things pleasant, when Mr. Travers said, "It\'s a bright moonlight night let\'s all go out and coast." Sue said, "Oh that would be lovely Jimmy get your sled." I didn\'t encourage them, and I told father so, but he wouldn\'t admit that Mr. Travers or Sue or Mr. Martin or anybody could do anything wrong. What I said was, "I don\'t want to go coasting. It\'s cold and I don\'t feel very well, and I think we ought all to go to bed early so we can wake up real sweet and good-tempered." But Sue just said, "Don\'t you preach Jimmy if you\'re lazy just say so and Mr. Travers will take us out." Then Mr. Martin he must put in and say, "Perhaps the boy\'s afraid don\'t tease him he ought to be in bed anyhow." Now I wasn\'t going to stand this, so I said, "Come on. I wanted to go all the time, but I thought it would be best for old people to stay at home, and that\'s why I didn\'t encourage you." So I got out my[Pg 65] double-ripper, and we all went out on the hill and started down.
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