"I don't s'pose she would now," said Mrs. Green. "Well, Jim's a bad boy, if I am his a'nt. Like enough he'll git a trouncing from his father," she added cheerfully, as some compensation.
"What is a trouncing?" asked Joel, suddenly, as they hurried on.
"The land alive, don't know what a trouncing is!" ejaculated the tavern-keeper's wife. "It's a whipping, and Jim's father knows how to give it good, I tell you."
Joel stood still. Little David stared in horror in Mrs. Green's face.
"I don't want him to be whipped," said Joel, slowly. It was one thing to fight it out with fists in the cow-pasture, but quite another to go home to be whipped by a father.
"Oh, yes, he will," repeated Mrs. Green, in her cheeriest way, and shaking her head at him. "You needn't fear, Joel, he'll catch it when he gets home."
"But I don't want him to," declared Joel, loudly, not moving. "He mustn't! Stop his father from whipping him! He shan't." And before Mrs. Green could recover from her astonishment, he plunged her deeper yet, by bursting into tears.
She gazed from him to David, still shaking her head helplessly. "Well, if I ever!" she exclaimed, when she came out of it.
"And I shall just run and tell his father not to," blubbered Joel, realizing if Jim was to be saved from that awful whipping, he must be the one to do it. "Where does he live?" he cried, emerging from his tears at the chance of action.
"Over there," answered the tavern-keeper's wife. "Well, if I ever!" pointing to a yellow house. She kept ejaculating this over and over, as she pursued her way to the house, thoughtfully swinging her dish-towel.