Tom and I were the Madagascar Brothers, and we were going to do everything that the Patagonian Brothers did. We practiced standing on each other's head hours at a time, and I did it pretty well, only Tom he slipped once when he was standing on my head, and sat down on it so hard that I don't much believe that my hair will ever grow any more.
The barn floor was most too hard to practice on, so last Saturday Tom said we'd go into the parlor, where there was a soft carpet, and we'd put some pillows on the floor besides. All Tom's folks had gone out, and there wasn't anybody in the house except the girl in the kitchen. So we went into the parlor, and put about a dozen pillows and a feather-bed on the floor. It was elegant fun turning somersaults backward from the top of the table; but I say it ought to be spelled summersets, though Sue says the other way is right.
We tried balancing things on our feet while we laid on our backs on the floor. Tom balanced the musical box for ever so long before it fell; but I don't think it was hurt much, for nothing except two or three little wheels were smashed. And I balanced the water pitcher, and I shouldn't have broken it if Tom hadn't spoken to me at the wrong minute.
We were getting tired, when I thought how nice it would be to do the trapeze performance on the chandeliers. There was one in the front parlor and one in the back parlor, and I meant to swing on one of them, and let go and catch the other. I swung beautifully on the front-parlor chandelier, when, just as I was going to let go of it, down it came with an awful crash, and that parlor was just filled with broken glass, and the gas began to smell dreadfully.
As it was about supper-time, and Tom's folks were expected home, I thought I would say good-by to Tom, and not practice any more that day. So we shut the parlor doors, and I went home, wondering what would become of Tom, and whether I had done altogether right in practicing with him in his parlor. There was an awful smell of gas in the house that night, and when Mr. McGinnis opened the parlor door he found what was the matter. He found the cat too. She was lying on the floor, just as dead as she could be.
I'm going to see Mr. McGinnis to-day and tell him I broke the chandelier. I suppose he will tell father, and then I shall wish that everybody had never been born; but I did break that chandelier, though I didn't mean to, and I've got to tell about it.