“Grandma told me to drive out the hens.”
“Well, she didn’t say with the broom.”
“Oh, yes,” cried Davie eagerly, “she said, ‘Take the broom and shoo ’em out.’”
“She said out of the kitchen—she didn’t say bedroom,” declared Peletiah, who was nothing if not exact.
“So she did,” said Davie, giving up the broom with a sigh. “Well, you drive ’em away from your side, but I must tell Grandma first.”
So he climbed up on the bed again and put his mouth close to the big cap-frill, and told what was going to be done.
“Land alive! what’s come to your thumb,” cried Grandma in great consternation.
David looked down at his small thumb. The blood had run down and stiffened into a small patch of red where Mrs. Biddy had nipped it. “It doesn’t hurt,” he said, trying to stick his thumb away from the eyes under the cap-frill.
“Now to think that you sh’d ’a’ come over to take care of me, an’ got hurt,” moaned Grandma. “O me—O my! what will your Ma say! Well, you must have some opedildoc on, right away. Run out an’ go to the cupboard, an’ you’ll find a bottle on th’ upper shelf. I put it there to be handy, ef any one gets hurt. My son John mos’ had his leg took off one day when he was mowin’ in th’ south medder an’ they come a-runnin’ for me.”
Grandma didn’t think to tell that the same bottle couldn’t be found on that occasion, but she had always been under the impression that it had saved son John’s life.