The Parenticide Club | Page 9

an honorable place in the name of the oil. So suddenly thrown into
idleness, I might naturally have been expected to become vicious and
dissolute, but I did not. The holy influence of my dear mother was ever
about me to protect me from the temptations which beset youth, and
my father was a deacon in a church. Alas, that through my fault these
estimable persons should have come to so bad an end!
Finding a double profit in her business, my mother now devoted herself
to it with a new assiduity. She removed not only superfluous and
unwelcome babes to order, but went out into the highways and byways,
gathering in children of a larger growth, and even such adults as she
could entice to the oilery. My father, too, enamored of the superior
quality of oil produced, purveyed for his vats with diligence and zeal.
The conversion of their neighbors into dog-oil became, in short, the one
passion of their lives--an absorbing and overwhelming greed took
possession of their souls and served them in place of a hope in
Heaven--by which, also, they were inspired.
So enterprising had they now become that a public meeting was held
and resolutions passed severely censuring them. It was intimated by the
chairman that any further raids upon the population would be met in a
spirit of hostility. My poor parents left the meeting broken-hearted,
desperate and, I believe, not altogether sane. Anyhow, I deemed it
prudent not to enter the oilery with them that night, but slept outside in
a stable.
At about midnight some mysterious impulse caused me to rise and peer
through a window into the furnace-room, where I knew my father now
slept. The fires were burning as brightly as if the following day's
harvest had been expected to be abundant. One of the large cauldrons
was slowly "walloping" with a mysterious appearance of self-restraint,
as if it bided its time to put forth its full energy. My father was not in
bed; he had risen in his night clothes and was preparing a noose in a
strong cord. From the looks which he cast at the door of my mother's
bedroom I knew too well the purpose that he had in mind. Speechless
and motionless with terror, I could do nothing in prevention or warning.
Suddenly the door of my mother's apartment was opened, noiselessly,
and the two confronted each other, both apparently surprised. The lady,
also, was in her night clothes, and she held in her right hand the tool of

her trade, a long, narrow-bladed dagger.
She, too, had been unable to deny herself the last profit which the
unfriendly action of the citizens and my absence had left her. For one
instant they looked into each other's blazing eyes and then sprang
together with indescribable fury. Round and round, the room they
struggled, the man cursing, the woman shrieking, both fighting like
demons--she to strike him with the dagger, he to strangle her with his
great bare hands. I know not how long I had the unhappiness to observe
this disagreeable instance of domestic infelicity, but at last, after a more
than usually vigorous struggle, the combatants suddenly moved apart.
My father's breast and my mother's weapon showed evidences of
contact. For another instant they glared at each other in the most
unamiable way; then my poor, wounded father, feeling the hand of
death upon him, leaped forward, unmindful of resistance, grasped my
dear mother in his arms, dragged her to the side of the boiling cauldron,
collected all his failing energies, and sprang in with her! In a moment,
both had disappeared and were adding their oil to that of the committee
of citizens who had called the day before with an invitation to the
public meeting.
Convinced that these unhappy events closed to me every avenue to an
honorable career in that town, I removed to the famous city of
Otumwee, where these memoirs are written with a heart full of remorse
for a heedless act entailing so dismal a commercial disaster.

AN IMPERFECT CONFLAGRATION
Early one June morning in 1872 I murdered my father--an act which
made a deep impression on me at the time. This was before my
marriage, while I was living with my parents in Wisconsin. My father
and I were in the library of our home, dividing the proceeds of a
burglary which we had committed that night. These consisted of
household goods mostly, and the task of equitable division was difficult.
We got on very well with the napkins, towels and such things, and the
silverware was parted pretty nearly equally, but you can see for
yourself that when you try to divide a single music-box by two without
a remainder you will have trouble. It