His shrieks brought Mrs. Lardner from her kitchen.
“What under the sun are you children up to?” she demanded. “Amos Bartlett, behave yourself! What is it?”
Amos could not tell her. All he could shriek was that he was “pizened.”
He burst out of the shed, ran through the shop, and so home to his mother. Carolyn May was too frightened to speak, but Freda said shakingly: “We only got him to taste the molasses.”
“What molasses?” demanded the blacksmith’s wife, startled.
“Why—why—that,” said Freda, pointing.
“My mercy me!” gasped the woman. “That soft soap that Hiram just made for me? I don’t know but the boy is poisoned.”
Mrs. Lardner rushed after Amos, to see if she could help his mother. Carolyn May and Freda crept quietly home, two frightened little girls.
But Amos was not poisoned. The doctor brought him around all right. Freda suffered an old-fashioned spanking for her part in the performance; but Aunty Rose, who did not believe in corporal punishment, did not at first know what to do to Carolyn May.
“She should be punished, Joseph Stagg,” the housekeeper said to the hardware dealer. “I’ve put her to bed early——”