"If you young ones don't get in bed inside of five minutes," said she, "you'll be sorry. Now I don't want to hear another sound. How do you suppose I can sew up your Christmas clothes if you make such an uproar?"
The next day Chinky sharpened his hatchet on Mr. Randall's grindstone. In the afternoon, accompanied by his brothers and sisters he went to the woods to cut down the tree.
"Now you all want to stand back far enough," cautioned Chinky, "so as to give me enough room to swing my arms."
"Let me chop some," begged Mike.
"Me, too," added Johnnie.
"Look a-here," declared Chinky. "No little shavers allowed on this job. You ought to be glad to have a chance to see me do the chopping."
"Oh, thay," cried Stubbins when the children reached the edge of the woods. "Who'th took our tree? Ith gone."
"It's that Randall kid," sputtered Chinky, scarcely able to believe his eyes. "Look at the stump, will you, all hacked to pieces—he said he bet he knew more about cutting down trees than me. That looks like it! I'll fix him. Come on, don't stand here like ninnies looking at the place where our tree stood."
"Leth—leth tell Mithter Hodgkinth," sobbed Stubbins.