goin' to kick up any row
about the oranges. She says she never knew of a boy that didn't go
into orchards in their young days, and that his dad did, and people
don't think no more of a boy pickin' up a little fruit than they do of
pickin' up a stick. Yet grandma will tan the hide off of me. She done
it once before, and I was stiff for a week."

"Take a tip from me, Andrew! March into your grandma bravely; she's
the best woman I've seen; you ought to be proud to have such a
grandma! She's in the right and Mrs Bray's in the wrong. Let her
hammer you for all she's worth, and every whack you get feel proud
that she's able to give it at her time of life, and I bet when you're
a man you'll be telling every one that you had a grandma who was worth
owning. When she leaves off tell her that this is the last time she'll
ever have to do it for anything like that, and see if you don't feel
more a man than you ever did before. Promise me that's what you'll
do."

"Is that what _you'd_ do if you was me?" he inquired with surprise.

"That's what you'd do if you were me," I replied with a smile. "Just
try that. Never mind if your grandma does go for you hot and strong."

Andrew wiped the table, wrung out his dishcloth in the back-handed
manner peculiar to his sex, hung it on a nail behind the door, dried
his hands on his trousers, which for once were not "busted up," and
with a less rueful expression than he had exhibited for several hours,
went forth to meet his grandma.

About ten minutes later he returned blubbering, but it was a sunshiny
shower, and I did not despise the lad for his tears, for he had a soft
nature, and was quite a child despite his big stature and sixteen
years.

"Well?" I inquired, recognising that he was anxious to relate his
experience.

"She banged away with the strap of the breechin' till she was winded,
and then I said I hoped she'd never have to beat me again for acting
the goat in other people's gardens that didn't concern me, an' she
didn't beat me no more then, but I had plenty as it was," he said,
rubbing his seat and the calves of his legs.

"Well done, stick to that, and be thankful for such a grandma!"

"She ain't a bad old sort when you come to consider," he said with
that patronage, also an attribute of extreme youth or unsubdued
snobbishness, and when compared, snobbishness and youth have some
similar characteristics.

Next item on the programme was Mr Pornsch, whom grandma invited to