Dear Father:
The tone of your last letter isn't altogether pleasing to me, nor does it reflect credit on yourself. You hint that because I am patient under this life of hardship and abuse, spent in trying to convince people that what they know about Graham & Co's. stuff is all wrong—you hint, I say, that I am a mule. If that is so, your knowledge of natural history ought to show you that you are not patting yourself on the back to any great extent; you are my father, you know. You remind me of what Johnny Doolittle, who used to live next door to us, once said to his father when the old man remonstrated at his lack of table manners.
"Johnny, you are a perfect pig!" shouted old Doolittle.
"Well, pa," replied Johnny, as innocent as could be, "ain't a pig a hog's little boy?"
I mention Johnny merely to remind you that the sort of reviling I have been getting of late out here in this God-forsaken country; on duty for the house, has its recoil and you're the fellow who's getting hit. It's worse than old Elder Hoover's famous gun that Uncle Ephraim used to tell me about. According to him, there was a big rabbit hunt one day, and the Elder was persuaded to join. Some of the backsliders had rigged up a gun for his special use, loaded with a double charge of powder and shot and rammed tighter than glue. At last Doc drew a bead on a big jack and let go. When the roar had ceased and the smoke lifted, the Elder was seen on his back, pawing the air with hands and feet and shouting for help.
"Did the gun kick, Elder?" asked one of the bad hunters.
"Kick," roared the good man, "it nearly kicked me into hell, for if I hadn't been so stunned I'd have taken the name of the Lord in vain, as sure as I'm a miserable sinner."
Now if you want me to kick, dear father, I can do a job that would make a Missouri mule look like a grasshopper. I'm shod with good hard facts which you know as much about as I do. If decency doesn't suit you, I'll give you an exhibition of bag-punching that will make your head swim.