"Get along up to the house, and eat your supper! There's lots o' work to be done afore dark. An' if I catch you fishin' any more, I'll make you—-"
"But I wasn't fishin' except at the noon hour," the boy interrupted.
"That's enough of your talk!" the farmer cried as he walked toward the barn. "Go on!"
Mr. Bobbsey went back to the houseboat.
"It's all right," he said cheerfully to his wife and children. "I made him stop hurting Will."
"Did he—did he hit him very hard?" asked Freddie, for punishment of that sort was totally unknown in the Bobbsey home. Of course the children did not always do right, but they were punished by having some pleasure taken away from them, and never whipped.
"No, Will wasn't much hurt," said Mr. Bobbsey, for he did not want his children, or their cousins, to worry too much over what they had seen. Yet Mr. Bobbsey could not help but think that the cruel lash must have hurt Will more than the boy himself showed.
"He—he won't whip him any more, will he?" asked little Flossie.
"No, not any more," said Mr. Bobbsey, for he had made up his mind he would, if necessary, take the boy away from the mean farmer before any more whipping could be done.
"Suppah am ready!" called Dinah from the kitchen. "An' I done wants yo' all t' come right away fo' it gits cold!"