she knelt down and put her ear close to his head, as if to ascertain whether he was in a sound sleep.  She then took a knife from off the table, felt the edge, looked at my prostrate father, and raised it.  I would have screamed, but my tongue was glued to my lips with horror.  She appeared to reflect, and, after a time, laid the knife down on the table, put the palm of her hand up to her forehead, and then a smile gleamed over her moody features.  “Yes, if he murders me; but they will be better,” muttered she at last.  She went to the cupboard, took out a large pair of scissors, and, kneeling down by my father, commenced severing his long pigtail from his head.  My father was too sound asleep to be roused:  in a minute the tail was off, and my mother rose up, holding it, with an expression of the utmost contempt, between her finger and thumb.  She then very softly laid it down by his side, and replaced the scissors in the cupboard.  As I expected that she would go upstairs again, I concealed myself in the back kitchen.  I was correct in my supposition.  A moment afterward I heard her ascending the stairs and go into her own room.

I must say that I felt indignant at this conduct of my mother’s, as, so far from provocation, she had hardly received the reward of previous treachery.  I believe, however, that, like most people, I was actuated by my own feelings toward my mother, who had treated me so unkindly.  I thought for a little while—­what would my mother do?  She would hardly remain in the house, to meet the wrath of my father, when he made the discovery.  She would escape him; this I had no wish that she should do; so I went softly into the front parlor and pushed my father to awake him.  For some time this was useless; he muttered and growled, but it appeared impossible to rouse him.  There were the remains of a jug of water on the table; and, as I had seen the same thing done before to a drunken sailor, I took the jug, and poured the water softly on the nape of his neck.  In a minute or two this had the effect of waking him.  He turned over, opened his eyes, and, when I put my finger to my lips to intimate silence, he looked at me with a vacant stare.  Time pressed; I heard my mother moving about upstairs, and I was afraid that she would leave the house before my father had recovered his senses.  I therefore took his pigtail from the floor and held it up before him.  This appeared to surprise him.  He fixed his eyes upon it for a few seconds, and then, as if at last suspecting what had taken place, he put his hand to the back of his head and found no pigtail there.  Suddenly he jumped up; he appeared to be sobered all at once.  He caught the tail out of my hand, looked at it, felt convinced of his loss, threw himself down on the sofa and wept like a child.

“I saw my mother do it, father,” said I, whispering in his ear.  This appeared to recall him.  He raised himself up, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, ground his teeth, and shook his head.  He threw his tail on the floor, and, as he eyed it, a deep melancholy spread over his countenance.  After a minute or two he folded his arms, and thus lamented over it: