"Oh, Bill!" cried Creshy, "jest look a' Joe agin!"
Whilst he was sorrowfully restoring his hat to its pristine shape, he had been robbed of his coat. The thief had run with it behind the bed, where he had succeeded in getting into it. The collar enveloped his ears. The skirts dragged upon the floor. He had buttoned it, to make it fit better, but there was still room in it for two or three boys. He had got on his father's spectacles and Fessenden's straw hat. He looked like a frightful little old misshapen dwarf. And now, rolling up the sleeves to find his hands, and wrinkling the coat outrageously at every movement, he advanced from his retreat, and began to dance a pigeon-wing, amid the convulsive laughter of the girls.
"Oh, my soul! my soul!" cried Bill, his voice inclining again to the falsetto. "Was there ever such an imp of Satan! Was there ever"—
Here he made a lunge at the offender. Joe attempted to escape, but, getting his feet entangled in the superabundant coat-skirts, fell, screaming as if he were about to be killed.
"Good enough for you!" said his mother. "I wish you would get hurt!"
"What you wish that for?" cried the old grandmother, rushing to the rescue, brandishing a long iron spoon with which she had been stirring the gruel. "Can't nobody never have no fun in this house? Bless us! what 'ud we do, if 't wa'n't for Joey, to make us laugh and keep our sperits up? Jest you stan' back now, Bill!—'d ruther you'd strike me 'n see ye hit that 'ere boy oncet!"
"He must let my things be, then," said Bill, who couldn't see much sport in the disrespectful use made of his wearing apparel.—"Here, you! surrender my property!"
"Laws! you be quiet! You'll git yer cut agin. Only jest look at him now, he's so blessed cunning!"
For Joe, reassured by his grandmother, had stopped screaming, and gone to tailoring. He sat cross-legged on one of the unlucky coat-skirts, and pulled the other up on his lap, for his work. Then he got an imaginary thread, and, putting his fingers together, screwed up his mouth, and looked over the spectacles, sharpening his sight,—
"Like an old tailor to his needle's eye."