"We've brought you a young lady that's lost her mind!" I said. "What can you do about it?"
Something happened all at once that made our legs feel queer. What happened was that Old Man Smith didn't seem pleased at all about it. He snatched his long white beard in his hands.
"Lost her mind?" he said. "Her mind? Her mind? How dar'st you mock me?" he cried.
"We darsn't at all!" I explained. "On account of the bears! We've read all about the mocking bears in a book!"
He seemed to feel better.
"You mean in the good book?" he said. "The Elijah bears, you mean?"
"Well, it was quite a good book," I admitted. "Though my Father's got lots of books on Tulips that have heap prettier covers!"
"U—m—m—m," said Old Man Smith. "U—m—m—m——. U—m——m——m."
And all the time that he was saying "U—m——m——m—U—m——m——m," young Annie Halliway was knocking down his house. With a big chunk of rock she was chipping it off. It was a piece of blue china cup with the handle still on it that she chipped off first.
When Old Man Smith saw it he screamed.