"Ah, ha," said Joe, who happened to be in a very jocular mood, "that reminds me o' a terrible thrashing I once got from mother. I was a youngster about the size of Jack there; we wor in the thick o' the harvest, it wor carting day, an' all hands on the farm mortal busy, mother wanted plooms for the pudden an' ther wor none to send to shop but I, so she calls me to her, an' gees me a shilling.
"'Joe,' she says, 'run down to the village and buy two pund o' plooms o' Mr. Carter; be quick, for I be in a mighty hurry, and I'll gi' you a ha'penny when you come back.' I wor right glad o' the chance. 'Twor aboot a mile, an' I run'd the whole way, an' bought the plooms.
"Says Mr. Carter, says he, 'doan't eat them by the way.'
"I shu'd never have thought o' that, foreby he had held his tongue. As I coomed whome a hole broke in the paper, an' plooms coomed tomblin out, one arter another; an' I kept yeating an' yeating till thar wor half gone. Dang it, I wor sceared. What shu'd a' do? Mother wor awful in them days aboot stealing, so I sat doon on bank by road side, an' thought it well over, an' by gosh, I hit on a plan I thought wud get me oot o' scrape."
"Well, feather," called out Master Dick, opening wide his round blue eyes, "what did a' do? Did granny find it oot?"
"That she did, boy. I opened the parcel, an' bit ev'ry ploom in two."
"You were about as wise then, Joe, as you be now," suggested Mrs. Barford, who, like the children and Dolly, was listening intensely to the story.
"But what did granny say?" again demanded the boy.
"She asked how they coomed in that state? I pretended I did not know. That was just the way I got e'm from Mr. Carter.