My father's Sunday mornings were spent in giving the thrush an outing
and in cleaning his cage. Neither my father nor mother made any
pretensions to religion; but they were strict Sabbatarians. My father
never consciously swore, but, within even the limitations of his small
vocabulary, he was unfortunate in his selection of phrases. I bounced
into the alley one Sunday morning, whistling a Moody and Sankey hymn.

"Shut up yer mouth!" said my father.

"It's a hymn tune," I replied.

"I don't care a damn," replied my father. "It's the Lord's day, and if
I hear you whistlin' in it I'll whale the hell out o' ye!"

That was his philosophy, and he lived it. Saturday nights when the
town clock struck the hour of midnight, he removed his leather apron,
pushed his bench back in the corner, and the work of the week was
over--and if any one was waiting for his shoes, so much the worse for
him. He would wait until the midnight clock struck twelve the next
night or take them as they were.

The first tragedy in my life was the death of a pet pigeon. I grieved
for days over its disappearance; but one Sunday morning the secret
slipped out. Around that neighbourhood there was a custom among the
very poor of exchanging samples of their Sunday broth. Three or four
samples came to our cottage every Sunday morning. We had meat once a
week, and then it was either the hoofs or part of the head of a cow,
or the same parts of a sheep or a calf. On this particular occasion, I
knew that there was something in our broth that was unusual, and I did
not rest until I learned the truth. They had grown tired of nettle