wrote me beginning, “Dear parallelepipedon”,which sent me scurrying for a definition.
Besides words, a specialty of his was reading aloud books like Pickwick Papers and making them very funny. Then he told exciting continued stories which ran for weeks. They were mostly Western thrillers in which he played the leading role. Thus,
********
Chapter Nineteen. . . . .
From behind the low hill came a shot. My companion stood ready with gun in hand.
“We’re surrounded,” he said.
“Look yonder,” I exclaimed, “the sheriff’s posse are coming along the trail. We must try to hold out till they get here.”
Just then another shot rang out and I dropped to the ground.
“They’ve got me, Mac,” I groaned.
Gasps from someone in the audience.
‘Did they really shoot you, Mr. Earhart?”
Did they? I was killed”, answered my father seriously. “I lived just long enough to find out whether the posse arrived in time to save the others—but that’s the next chapter.”
My father’s occasional death or his losing an arm or leg was apt to disconcert literal minded neighbor children who happened to be listening.
