Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/72

 followed, quite briskly, by the more portly Mrs. Sampson.

Once behind the screen-door of the inner kitchen, the two women exhausted every expedient to shoo or drive Gilead away.

Gilead, indeed, made himself quite at home, and discovering the large crock of carefully stoned raisins, slowly, contentedly, and deliberately made away with them, under the rueful eyes of Lionel, his mother, and the Swedish housemaid.

In despair, they at last sent in word to the Reverend James Sampson, busily preparing his sermon in the quietness of his study. That gentleman, noting the devastation which had been wrought, decided to take no half measures. Securing the horse-whip from the driving-shed, he boldly opened the screen-door into the kitchen, and, facing the unperturbed Gilead, vigorously and heatedly chastised the intruder on his hairy back.

It was not until an accidental stroke caught Gilead on the tender tip of the nose that the character of the action altered. Then the intruder turned sharply, and followed Lionel's father through the screen-door into the kitchen,