"Jerusalem four-corners!" he exclaimed. "I'll have to—"
He stopped as he was wont to do on the threshold of strong opinions and momentous resolutions.
The rest of the conversation was drowned in my own cries and Uncle Peabody came and lifted me tenderly and carried me up-stairs.
He sat down with me on his lap and hushed my cries. Then he said very gently:
"Now, Bub, you and me have got to be careful. What-nots and albums and wax flowers and hair-cloth sofys are the most dang'rous critters in St. Lawrence County. They're purty savage. Keep your eye peeled. You can't tell what minute they'll jump on ye. More boys have been dragged away and tore to pieces by `em than by all the bears and panthers in the woods. When I was a boy I got a cut acrost my legs that made a scar ye can see now, and it was a hair-cloth sofy that done it. Keep out o' that old parlor. Ye might as well go into a cage o' wolves. How be I goin' to make ye remember it?"
"I don't know," I whimpered and began to cry out in fearful anticipation.
He set me in a chair, picked up one of his old carpet-slippers and began to thump the bed with it. He belabored the bed with tremendous vigor. Meanwhile he looked at me and exclaimed: "You dreadful child!"
I knew that my sins were responsible for this violence. It frightened me and my cries increased.
The door at the bottom of the stairs opened suddenly.
Aunt Deel called: