Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/173



BELIEVE there is something good about that boy!" said Mrs. Sampson, with conviction.

"He 's the most finished type of pagan I ever clapped eyes on!" answered the Reverend Ezra Sampson, with equal conviction.

"But after all, the boy's heart 's in the right place," protested the mother.

"Which can seldom be said of his body! Mehetabel Wilkins tells me that he comes and tortures her daily, hanging by his toes from the big maple in front of her house."

"But what harm does that do Mehetabel?"

"It 's all the boy's artfully contrived punishment, for impounding his goat. She tells me that it 's slowly driving her crazy, the awful sight of that boy swinging up there by his two toes, head down. She even offered him a fishing-pole of split bamboo and a custard pie, if he would stop."