“Umph!  We’ll see,” grunted Uncle Andy doubtfully, not guessing what the Child had in mind.  But when he saw him, with serious face, fish two bits of string from the miscellaneous museum of his pocket and proceed to frustrate the problematical yellow-jacket he grinned appreciatively.

The place for the watching had been well chosen by Uncle Andy—­a big log to lean their backs against, a cushion of deep, dry moss to sit upon, and a tiny, leafy sapling of silver poplar twinkling its light-hung leaves just before their faces, to screen them a little without interfering with their view.  Their legs, to be sure, stuck out beyond the screen of the poplar sapling, in plain sight of every forest wayfarer.  But legs were of little consequence so long as they were not allowed to kick.

For just about a minute the Child found it easy to keep still.  In the second minute his nose itched, and he began to wonder how long they had been there.  In the third minute he realized that there was a hard little stick in the moss that he was sitting on.  In the fourth minute it became a big stick, and terribly sharp, so that he began to wonder if it would pierce right through him and make him a cripple for life.  He feared that perhaps Uncle Andy had never thought of a danger like this, and he felt that he ought to call attention to it.  But before he had quite made up his mind to such a desperate measure the fifth minute came—­and with it the yellow-and-black wasp, which made the Child forget all about the stick in the moss.  The wasp alighted on the red, mosquito-bitten, naked skin above the top of the Child’s sock, and then, sure enough, started to go exploring up under the leg of his knickers.  The Child felt nervous for a moment—­and then triumphant.  He just saved himself from laughing out loud at the thought of how he had fooled the inquisitive insect.

And so passed the fifth and sixth minutes.  The seventh and eighth were absorbed in bitter doubts of Uncle Andy.  The Child felt quite sure that he had been quite still for at least an hour.  If nothing interesting had happened in all that time, then nothing interesting was going to happen, nothing interesting could happen.  An awful distrust assailed him.  Was it possible that Uncle Andy had merely adopted this base means of teaching him to keep still?  Was it possible that even now Uncle Andy (whose face was turned the other way) was either laughing deeply in his sleeve or sleeping the undeservedly peaceful sleep of the successful deceiver?

To do the Child justice, he felt ashamed of such doubts as soon as he had fairly confronted himself with them.  Then, in the ninth minute, both legs began to fill up with pins and needles.  This occupied his attention.  It was an axiom with him that under such painful conditions one should at once get up and move around.  Placed thus between two directly conflicting duties, his conscience was torn.  Then he remembered his promise.  His grit was good, and he determined to keep his promise at all costs, no matter at what fatal consequence to his legs.  And he derived considerable comfort from the thought that, if his leg should never be any use any more, his Uncle Andy would at least be stricken with remorse.