I took some rather long steps going out which were due to the fact that Aunt Deel had hold of my hand.  While I sat weeping she went back into the parlor and began to pick up things.

“My wreath! my wreath!” I heard her moaning.

How well I remember that little assemblage of flower ghosts in wax!  They had no more right to associate with human beings than the ghosts of fable.  Uncle Peabody used to call them the “Minervy flowers” because they were a present from his Aunt Minerva.  When Aunt Deel returned to the kitchen where I sat—­a sorrowing little refugee hunched up in a corner—­she said:  “I’ll have to tell your Uncle Peabody—­ayes!”

“Oh please don’t tell my Uncle Peabody,” I wailed.

“Ayes!  I’ll have to tell him,” she answered firmly.

For the first time I looked for him with dread at the window and when he came I hid in a closet and heard that solemn and penetrating note in her voice as she said: 

“I guess you’ll have to take that boy away—­ayes!”

“What now?” he asked.

“My stars! he sneaked into the parlor and tipped over the what-not and smashed that beautiful wax wreath!”

Her voice trembled.

“Not them Minervy flowers?” he asked in a tone of doleful incredulity.

“Ayes he did!”

“And tipped over the hull what-not?”

“Ayes!”

“Jerusalem four-corners!” he exclaimed.  “I’ll have to—­”

He stopped as he was wont to do on the threshold of strong opinions and momentous resolutions.

The rest of the conversation was drowned in my own cries and Uncle
Peabody came and lifted me tenderly and carried me up-stairs.

He sat down with me on his lap and hushed my cries.  Then he said very gently: 

“Now, Bub, you and me have got to be careful.  What-nots and albums and wax flowers and hair-cloth sofys are the most dang’rous critters in St. Lawrence County.  They’re purty savage.  Keep your eye peeled.  You can’t tell what minute they’ll jump on ye.  More boys have been dragged away and tore to pieces by `em than by all the bears and panthers in the woods.  When I was a boy I got a cut acrost my legs that made a scar ye can see now, and it was a hair-cloth sofy that done it.  Keep out o’ that old parlor.  Ye might as well go into a cage o’ wolves.  How be I goin’ to make ye remember it?”

“I don’t know,” I whimpered and began to cry out in fearful anticipation.

He set me in a chair, picked up one of his old carpet-slippers and began to thump the bed with it.  He belabored the bed with tremendous vigor.  Meanwhile he looked at me and exclaimed:  “You dreadful child!”

I knew that my sins were responsible for this violence.  It frightened me and my cries increased.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opened suddenly.

Aunt Deel called: 

“Don’t lose your temper, Peabody.  I think you’ve gone fur ’nough—­ayes!”