“Eh? Dat nonsense, Mass’ George? I don’t know. If Mass’ Morgan tell and get Pomp flog, Pomp holler, ‘Oh don’t, oh don’t!’ an’ fro himself on de ground, an’ squiggle an’ kick. But soon as done flog um, Pomp rub um back up gen tree, an’ nebber mine a bit.”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“But if Mass’ George tell an’ get Pomp flog, dunno why, but no use rub back gen de tree. Hurt Pomp all de same.”
So Pomp ran off to get round to the wood-shed, where I heard him as I reached the house chopping away as hard as he could, and making the wood fly; and I need hardly say I did not tell any tales about the boy’s trick, though I thought about it a great deal.
My ideas of punishment were not of the flogging kind, but connected with some way of giving Master Pomp tit for tat by means of a scare; but my invention was rather at fault, and idea after idea was dismissed as soon as formed. They were not pleasant ideas, some of them, and they were all wanting in the element I wished to impart.
One of Sarah’s wild-plum jam puffs, with a dose of medicine concealed therein, was dismissed at once. So was a snake in his bed, because there were objections to the trick. In all probability the snake would not stop there; and if it did, as it must necessarily be a harmless one, it would not frighten Pomp a bit, and might suggest the idea of playing a similar trick on me.
I could push him into the water first time we were on the river-bank, but he would only laugh and swim out.
I might lasso him suddenly some day, and tie him up to a tree, and leave him in the forest without anything to eat for a few hours; but I knew that I couldn’t find the heart to torture the poor fellow like that; and if I could, no knots that I contrived would ever hold him very long.
“Bah! It’s waste of time!” I said; and I gave it up, not knowing that I should soon have something far more serious to think about. For just as I was deep in my cogitations I heard a step, and my father came into sight, looking very hot and tired.
That evening, as we sat together by the light of a candle, with the forest insects humming round, he said suddenly—