"What was that?" asked the little girl.
"Well, we were all away except Thumbie, and he was asleep in the doorway, and the old goat saw him and brought a paint pot and painted his back so it looked like a big fat face lying there. So when we came home we didn't know what it was, and we were scared, but Thumbie woke up and began to get up, and Ringling she squeaked, 'Run! run! Big face is after us,' so we all began to run. Thumbie he saw us all running, so he got scared too, and he ran after us, and the faster we ran the faster he ran. After a while he tripped and fell, and then he began to cry and we knew who it was."
"Oh, yes, he's as mean as mean can be," went on Middling. "Why, one time when our raspberries were ripe old Shave-head came here—"
"Who's Shave-head?" interrupted Ellen.
"Oh, he's the goat. Old Shave-head came here and asked if he couldn't have some of our raspberries, and we said yes he could if he'd give us a present, and he said he would, so he went home and brought a big pannikin and put it on the table. It was covered.
"Then he went out in the garden and began to pick raspberries as fast as ever he could.
"We all sat round and wondered what was in the pannikin.
"Littlesie guessed it was acorns, and Thumbie thought it was apple parings, and I thought it was pancakes because it was in a pannikin."
"And what was it?" asked Ellen, very much interested.
"Well, it was a joke," said Middling slowly. "He'd fixed up a sort of big jumping-jack inside, and when we took off the lid it jumped out at us and said, 'Woof!' It scared us so we all squeaked and jumped back in our chairs, and the chairs upset and down we came, clatterly-slam-bang!"