"Yes," answered the mother.
"What did he say?" eagerly inquired the father.
The father, looking toward the bed, remarked half to himself:
"I hope he will be sober enough to talk to me before I leave the house."
"Why, John," hastily began the mother, "you speak as if he were an old toper."
"Well, Mary. I did not mean it that way. But I have been worried ever since that minstrel crowd has been gathering at the tan-yard. Of course, I never knew Alfred to drink whiskey but they all drink more or less and Alfred is not the boy to pass anything by there's any fun in."
"But they had no business to give a boy whiskey," argued the wife, "and I would see about it and I would make an example of them if I were you."
"I will do all of that and more," warmly answered the father. After a pause, he resumed: "They tell me they were all in Wyatt's cellar and Cal Wyatt drew a tin cup of high proof whiskey. Alfred put the cup—"
Alfred was following the father's words. At the mention of the word "cup," his stomach rebelled again. His father was holding a vessel, his mother supporting the boy's head.