was three years old and ready to graduate.

That day they had the little joy and sunshine of the family in his
high-chair throne right up beside the dinner table. The coffee-pot
was within grabbing distance.

I became enamored with that coffee-pot. I decided I needed that
coffee-pot in my business. I reached over to get the coffee-pot.
Then I discovered a woman beside me, my mother. She was the most
meddlesome woman I had ever known. I had not tried to do one thing
in three years that that woman had not meddled into.

And that day when I wanted the coffee-pot--I did want it. Nobody
knows
how I desired that coffee-pot. "One thing thou lackest," a
coffee-pot--
I was reaching over to get it, that woman said, "Don't touch that!"

The longer I thought about it the more angry I became. What right
has that woman to meddle into my affairs all the time? I have stood
this petticoat tyranny three years, and it is time to stop it!

I stopped it. I got the coffee-pot. I know I got the coffee-pot. I
got it unanimously. I know when I got it and I also know where I
got it. I got about a gallon of the reddest, hottest coffee a bad
boy ever spilled over himself.

O-o-o-o-o-o! I can feel it yet!

There were weeks after that when I was upholstered. They put