"'Fraid-cat!" taunted her sister, in disgust. "Do you reckon you
could hol' the chair while I climbed up on the back?"

"It ain't got no bottom."

"Well, it don't need to have no bottom if I'm goin' to stand on its
back," said Australia, sharply. Leaders of great enterprises must of
necessity turn deaf ears to words of discouragement.

"You might git killed," persisted Europena.

"'T wouldn't matter," said Australia, loftily; "'t wouldn't be but
the seventh time. I got three more times to die. 'Fore you was
borned I was drowned out in the country, that was one time; then I
fell in the ash-bar'l and was dead, that's two times; an'--an'
then I et the stove-polish, that's four times; an' I can't 'member,
but the nex' time will be seven. I don't keer how much I git killed,
till it's eight times, then I'm goin' to be good all the time,
'cause when you are dead nine times they put you in a hole an' throw
dirt on you!"

Australia had become so absorbed in her theory of reincarnation that
she had forgotten the paint, but the bottomless chair recalled it.

"Now, you lay 'crost the chair, Europena, an' I'll climb up," she
commanded.

Europena, though violently opposed to the undertaking, would not
forsake her leader at a critical moment. She had uttered her
protest, had tried in vain to stem the current of events; nothing