o us what he said
to Bob Furniss when he took the filberts: 'If you begin by stealing
nuts, you'll end by being transported.' Do you think Jack and I shall
end by being transported?" added Jem, who had a merciless talent for
applying general principles to individual cases.

Mrs. Wood made no reply, neither did she move, but her eyelids fell,
and then her eyes looked far worse than if they had been shut, for there
was a little bit open, with nothing but white to be seen. She was still
rather red, and she did not visibly breathe. I have no idea for how many
seconds I had gazed stupidly at her, when Jem gasped, "Is she dead?"

Then I became terror-struck, and crying, "Let's find Mary Anne!" fled
into the kitchen, closely followed by Jem.

"She's took with them fits occasional," said Mary Anne, and depositing a
dripping tin she ran to the parlour. We followed in time to see her
stooping over the chair and speaking very loudly in the
school-mistress's ear,

"I'll lay ye down, ma'am, shall I?"

But still the widow was silent, on which Mary Anne took her up in her
brawny arms, and laid her on "Cripple Charlie's" sofa, and covered her
with the quilt.

We settled the Major and his wives into their new abode, and then
hurried home to my mother, who put on her bonnet, and took a bottle of
something, and went off to the farm.

She did not come back till tea-time, and then she was full of poor Mrs.
Wood. "Most curious attacks," she explained to my father; "she can
neither move nor speak, and yet she hears everything, though she
doesn't always remember afterwards. She said she thought it was
'trouble,' poor soul!"

"What brought this one on?" said my father.

"I can't make out," said my mother. "I hope you boys did nothing to
frighten her, eh? Are you sure you didn't do one of those dreadful
wheels, Jack?"

This I indignantly denied, and Jem supported me.

My mother's sympathy had been so deeply enlisted, and her report was so
detailed, that Jem and I became bored at last, besides resenting the
notion that we had been to blame. I gave one look into the strawberry
jam pot, and finding it empty, said my grace and added, "Women are a
poor lot, always turning up their eyes and having fits about nothing. I
know one thing, nobody 'll ever catch _me_ being bothered with a wife."

"Nor me neither," said Jem.

CHAPTER IV.

"The bee, a more adventurous colonist than man."
W.