Uncle Peabody stopped and blew as if he were very tired and then I caught a look in his face that reassured me.

He called back to her:  “I wouldn’t ‘a’ cared so much if it hadn’t ‘a’ been the what-not and them Minervy flowers.  When a boy tips over a what-not he’s goin’ it purty strong.”

“Well don’t be too severe.  You’d better come now and git me a pail o’ water—­ayes, I think ye had.”

Uncle Peabody did a lot of sneezing and coughing with his big, red handkerchief over his face and I was not old enough then to understand it.  He kissed me and took my little hand in his big hard one and led me down the stairs.

After that in private talks uncle and I always referred to our parlor as the wolf den and that night, after I had gone to bed, he lay down beside me and told the story of a boy who, having been left alone in his father’s house one day, was suddenly set upon and roughly handled by a what-not, a shaggy old hair-cloth sofy and an album.  The sofy had begun it by scratchin’ his face and he had scratched back with a shingle nail.  The album had watched its chance and, when he stood beneath it, had jumped off a shelf on to his head.  Suddenly he heard a voice calling him: 

“Little boy, come here,” it said, and it was the voice of the what-not.

“Just step up on this lower shelf,” says the old what-not.  “I want to show ye somethin’.”

The what-not was all covered with shiny things and looked as innocent as a lamb.

He went over and stepped on the lower shelf and then the savage thing jumped right on top of him, very supple, and threw him on to the floor and held him there until his mother came.

I dreamed that night that a long-legged what-not, with a wax wreath in its hands, chased me around the house and caught and bit me on the neck.  I called for help and uncle came and found me on the floor and put me back in bed again.

For a long time I thought that the way a man punished a boy was by thumping his bed.  I knew that women had a different and less satisfactory method, for I remembered that my mother had spanked me and Aunt Deel had a way of giving my hands and head a kind of watermelon thump with the middle finger of her right hand and with a curious look in her eyes.  Uncle Peabody used to call it a “snaptious look.”  Almost always he whacked the bed with his slipper.  There were exceptions, however, and, by and by, I came to know in each case the destination of the slipper for if I had done anything which really afflicted my conscience that strip of leather seemed to know the truth, and found its way to my person.

My Uncle Peabody was a man of a thousand.  I often saw him laughing and talking to himself and strange fancies came into my head about it.

“Who be you talkin’ to?” I asked.

“Who be I talkin’ to, Bub?  Why I’m talkin’ to my friends.”

“Friends?” I said.

“The friends I orto have had but ain’t got.  When I git lonesome I just make up a lot o’ folks and some of ’em is good comp’ny.”