As soon as Willie could regain his breath he screamed, "Oh ma, don't shut me up; I'll be good; I didn't do it, certain true; kittie knocked it off."
"None of your lies," said Mrs. Hamilton. "It's likely kittie knocked it off!"
Lenora, who had seen the whole, and knew that what Willie said was true, was about coming to the rescue, when looking up, she saw Margaret, with dilated nostrils and eyes flashing fire watching the proceedings of her stepmother.
"He's safe," thought Lenora; "I'll let Mag fire the first gun, and then I'll bring up the rear."
Margaret had never known Willie to tell a lie, and had no reason for thinking he had done so in this instance. Besides, the blows her mother gave him exasperated her, and she stepped forward just as Mrs. Hamilton was about pushing him into the closet. So engrossed was that lady that she heard not Margaret's approach until a firm hand was laid upon her shoulder while Willie was violently wrested from her grasp, and ere she could recover from her astonishment she herself was pushed into the closet, the door of which was closed and locked against her.
"Bravo, Margaret Hamilton," cried Lenora, "I'm with you now, if I never was before. It serves her right, for Willie told the truth. I was sitting by and saw it all. Keep her in there an hour, will you? It will pay her for the many times she has shut me up for nothing."
Mrs. Hamilton stamped and pushed against the door, while Lenora danced and sang at the top of her voice:
"My dear precious mother got wrathy one day
And seized little Will by the hair;
But when in the closet she'd stow him away,
She herself was pushed headlong in there."
At length the bolt, yielding to the continued pressure of Mrs. Hamilton's body, broke, and out came the termagant, foaming with rage. She dared not molest Margaret, of whose physical powers she had just received such mortifying proof, so she aimed a box at the ears of Lenora. But the lithe little thing dodged it, and with one bound cleared the table which sat in the center of the room, landing safely on the other side; and then, shaking her short, black curls at her mother, she said, "You didn't come it, that time, my darling."
Mr. Hamilton, who chanced to be absent for a few days, was, on his return, regaled with an exaggerated account of the proceeding, his wife ending her discourse by saying: "If you don't do something with your upstart daughter I'll leave the house; yes, I will."