Everybody looked at everybody else, and Pa looked at Ma as though he knew
where the sewer gas came from, and Ma looked at Pa real mad, and me and my
chum lit out, and I went home and distributed my cheese all around. I put
a slice in Ma's bureau drawer, down under her underclothes, and a piece in
the spare room, under the bed, and a piece in the bath-room in the soap
dish, and a slice in the album on the parlor table, and a piece in the
library in a book, and I went to the dining room and put some under the
table, and dropped a piece under the range in the kitchen. I tell you the
house was loaded for bear. Ma came home from church first, and when I
asked where Pa was, she said she hoped he had gone to walk around the
block to air hisself. Pa came home to dinner and when he got a smell of
the house he opened all the doors, and Ma put a comfortable around her
shoulders, and told Pa he was a disgrace to civilization. She tried to get
Pa to drink some carbolic acid. Pa finally convinced Ma that it was not
him, and then they decided it was the house that smelled so, as well as
the church, and all Sunday afternoon they went visiting, and this morning
Pa went down to the health office and got the inspector of nuisances to
come up to the house, and when he smelled around a spell he said there was
dead rats in the main sewer pipe, and they sent for plumbers, and Ma went
out to a neighbors to borry some fresh air, and when the plumbers began to
dig up the floor in the basement I came over here. If they find any of
that limberger cheese it will go hard with me. The hired girls have both
quit, and Ma says she is going to break up keeping house and board. That
is just into my hand. I want to board at a hotel, where you can have a
bill-of-fare, and tooth picks, and billiards, and everything. Well I guess
I will go over to the house and stand in the back door and listen to the
mocking bird. If you see me come flying out of the alley with my coat tail
full of boots you can bet they have discovered the sewer gas."