“I heard him say naughty words.”

“What words?”

“I—­I can’t say `em.  They’re wicked.  I’m—­I’m ‘fraid he’s goin’ to be burnt up,” I stammered.

“It’s so.  I said ’em,” my uncle confessed.

Aunt Deel turned to me and said:  “Bart, you go right down to the barn and bring me a strap—­ayes!—­you bring me a strap—­right away.”

I walked slowly toward the barn.  For the moment, I was sorry that I had told on my uncle.  Scalding tears began to flow down my cheeks.  I sat on the steps to the hay loft for a moment to collect my thoughts.

Then I heard Aunt Deel call to me:  “Hurry up, Bart.”

I rose and picked out the smallest strap I could find and walked slowly back to the house.  I said, in a trembling voice, as I approached them, “I—­I don’t think he meant it.”

“He’ll have to be punished—­just the same—­ayes—­he will.”

We went into the house together, I sniffling, but curious to see what was going to happen.  Uncle Peabody, by prearrangement, as I know now, lay face downward on the sofa, and Aunt Deel began to apply the strap.  It was more than I could bear, and I threw myself between my beloved friend and the strap and pleaded with loud cries for his forgiveness.

Uncle Peabody rose and walked out of the house without a word and with a sterner look in his face than I had ever seen there.  I searched for him as soon as my excitement had passed, but in vain.  I went out back of the cow barn and looked away down across the stumpy flats.  Neither he nor Shep were in sight.  All that lonely afternoon I watched for him.  The sun fell warm but my day was dark.  Aunt Deel found me in tears sitting on the steps of the cheese house and got her Indian book out of her trunk and, after she had cautioned me to be very careful of it, let me sit down with it by myself alone, and look at the pictures.

I had looked forward to the time when I could be trusted to sit alone with the Indian book.  In my excitement over the picture of a red man tomahawking a child I turned a page so swiftly that I put a long tear in it.  My pleasure was gone.  I carefully joined the torn edges and closed the book and put it on the table and ran and hid behind the barn.

By and by I saw Uncle Peabody coming down the lane with the cows, an ax on his shoulder.  I ran to meet him with a joy in my heart as great as any I have ever known.  He greeted me with a cheerful word and leaned over me and held me close against his legs and looked into my eyes and asked: 

“Are you willin’ to kiss me?”

I kissed him and then he said: 

“If ye ever hear me talk like that ag’in, I’ll let the stoutest man in Ballybeen hit me with his ax.”

I was not feeling well and went to bed right after supper.  As I was undressing I heard Aunt Deel exclaim:  “My heavens!  See what that boy has done to my Indian book—­ayes!  Ain’t that awful!—­ayes!”