“For pity’s sake, Ephraim! don’t ever take it out again.”
“You won’t tell father, if I won’t take it again, will you, mother?”
“You’ll promise me, Ephraim, that you will never take it again?”
“Yes, mother, if you won’t tell him.”
“Then put it where it belongs,—just as you found it. It’s a wonder you didn’t get hurt.”
Ephraim might have said that he was a little hurt; for he had a sore and swollen shoulder; but he said nothing of that, nor of the ramrod; but he tried to be as good a boy as he could all the rest of the day.
The captain was late home that night, and did not notice anything wrong; but the next day, while at his desk, his eyes fell upon his old training-gun, and he saw that the ramrod was missing. He mused upon it. Where could it be? He never lent that gun; nobody had had it out of the house that he knew of. He went and asked his wife.
Ephraim happened to be with his mother; and when his father asked about the ramrod he looked at her and she looked at him. One or the other of them must let the cat out, but which should it be?
“Do you know anything about the ramrod, Ephraim?” she asked.
“I went a-hunting, father,” said Ephraim, looking down.