"Why—why—why—" stammered Sam, at a loss to know what to say, and trembling with fear.
"Are you afraid of him?"
"No, marm," was the faltering reply.
"Then why don't you do as I tell you?"
"Why—why, Tim won't let me," cried Sam, now so frightened that he hardly knew what he did say.
"Why, what's the matter with the boy?" Tim heard the good woman say; and then the sound of rapid footsteps on the stairs told that she was coming to make a personal investigation.
Sam, in a tremor of fear, rolled over on his face, and buried his head in the pillow, as if by such a course he could shelter himself from the storm he expected was about to break upon him.
Tim was crouching in the middle of the floor, his face close down to Tip's nose, and his arms clasped so tightly around the dog's neck that it seemed as if he would choke him.
That was the scene Mrs. Simpson looked in upon after she had been nearly frightened out of her senses by a strange dog while she was cooking breakfast. She had tried to turn the intruder out of doors, but he, thinking she wanted to play with him, had acted in such a strange and at the same time familiar manner that she had become afraid, and the confusion that had awakened the boys had been caused by both, when neither knew exactly what to do.
Mrs. Simpson stood at the room door looking in a moment before she could speak, and then she asked, "What is the meaning of this, Samuel?"