"Sssh!" says she; "what is it, Will?"
"You never could have done that," I says.
She squeezed my hand and whispered back, "You're right, Will," with an approving smile.
"No," says I, still full of my discovery, "you'd have pounded your thumb."
Her face went ten different ways and then she snorted right out. It was a scandal. It took her so by surprise she couldn't get the best of it, so we two had to leave the church. When we got outside she sat down and laughed for five minutes.
"Whatever does possess you to say such things?" she says. "It was dreadful!"
Next day father patted me on the back with a nice limber sapling, for misbehavior in church. This caused the first show of rebellion I ever saw in mother.
She came out to the woodshed when court was in session.
"I'd like to speak to you a minute," she says to father.
"I have no time now," he answers short.