After Jimmy had been gone a few moments, Johnny heard a noise of some one walking near; and soon an old woman came out from behind the bushes, with some leaves in her hand. She went close to Johnny, and asked him what he was lying there for, bareheaded. Johnny told her he had a lame knee and a sore heel, and he couldn’t walk.
“Don’t tell me that!” said she. “Didn’t I just see you running across the field?”
“No—ma’am—’twasn’t—I,” sobbed Johnny.
“Don’t tell me! don’t tell me!” cried the old woman; and she walked off, picking now and then a leaf as she went. The leaves were plantain-leaves for the bruises of her little grandson, who had fallen out of the chamber-window. The boy she saw running across the field was Jimmy.
When that old woman had finished picking leaves, she went back into the house; and hardly had she spread the leaves out on the table, when Jimmy put his head in at the door slowly, then his shoulders, then the rest of himself.
THE JIMMYJOHNS AND THE GULLS.
“What do you want here?” cried the old woman. “Didn’t you tell me you couldn’t walk?”
“No—ma’am,” Jimmy answered, frightened almost out of his breath.
“Oh! oh! oh! what a big story-teller you are!” cried the woman. “Off with you!—quick too! I don’t want such a boy as you are in my house with my little Sammy.”