so conspicuous in such quietude that we were afraid to move. My 
     
     brother and I could not venture to look at each other, we kept our 
     
     eyes on our plates. One item of our meal was hard oat cake. It was 
     
     good but when we would bite it, it would make a cracking noise, and 
     
     in chewing it sounded like a horse eating hard corn. The sound of 
     
     this grinding was so weird in the solemn stillness of the place, that we 
     
     were getting more and more worked up every minute. I held on to 
     
     my laughing valve as hard as I could. I could hear Johnny, at the far 
     
     corner of the table, grinding away. I had a good mouthful well 
     
     chewed when I made a fatal move: I looked across the table at John- 
     
     ny. He also had a big mouthful partly chewed. We were like the 
     
     .squirrels when they fill their cheeks full of nuts. When our eyes met 
     
     it set us off so that we lost all control of ourselves. My mouthful 
     
     was not chewed enough for me to swallow it. I had to put my hands 
     
     to my mouth and get up and run. I got outside the door and blew 
     
     my mouthful out and took to my heels for the barn. I thought I had 
     
     disgraced myself beyond recovery. As I ran I looked back and saw 
     
     Johnny coming with his hands to his mouth. He was trying to hold 
     
     his big chew in as he did not want to lose it. When we got to the 
     
     barn we had to decide what we would do; we could not go back to the 
     
     house. If we went home we would have to tell why we did, so soon 
     
     after dinner. We decided home was the safest place for us, and we 
     
     got our baskets and. struck out for home. We told mother why we 
     
     had come so soon. She felt ashamed of our misbehaviour, but she 
     
     did not scold us. She was wise enough to know we could not control 
     
     ourselves. It was a long time until we ventured to that house again. 
     
     It was a good home, but too serious and solemn a place for two such 
     
    
   
   
    
     lively boys as we were. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Billy Nine Toes 
     
    
   
   
    
     One of our neighbour’s boys could play the fiddle very skilfully. 
     
     He was a bright, jolly, Irish boy. One day he was making a bat for 
     
     playing ball, when the sharp axe fell on one of his big toes and clipped 
     
     it off close to his foot. Johnny and I went often to see him when he 
     
     was unable to walk. He suffered severely; sometimes he suffered keen 
     
     pain. He said he could feel the toe suffering where it was buried. 
     
     He got someone to go and dig it up and wrap it in warm flannel; this 
     
    
   
   
    
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