sing."

"Mother, mother! what is it that is too true? How can anything be too
true?" asked Willy, dancing across the hearth, and almost upsetting the
dripping-pan in which Liddy had just made the gravy.

"You shall hear, by and by, all it is best for you to know," replied
Mrs. Parlin. And after dinner was served, and Siller had gone home, she
told him that Siller's nephew, Gideon Noonin, had been a very naughty
boy--worse than people generally supposed him to be.

She did not like to repeat the whole of the sad story,--how he had
stolen money from Mr. Griggs, the toll-gatherer, and how poor Mr.
Noonin, the father, had paid it back by selling some sheep, and begged
Mr. Griggs not to send his bad son to jail. She did not wish Willy to
know all this; but she told him she was more than ever convinced that
Gideon was a wicked boy.

"I don't know what makes you little children all like him so well," said
she. "He may be funny and good-natured, but he is not a suitable
playmate for anybody, especially for a small boy like you. Remember the
old proverb, 'Eggs should not dance with stones.'"

Willy looked deeply interested while his mother was talking, and said he
would never speak to Gideon except to answer questions.

"But he does ask so many questions! I tell you, mamma, he's always
taking hold of you, and asking if you don't want to go somewhere, or do
something. And then he makes you go right along and do it, 'cause he's
so big. Why he's twice as big as me, mother; but he can't spell worth a
cent."

A little while after this, Willy ran off, whistling, to buy some
mackerel and codfish at Daddy Wiggins's store. Before he reached the
store, he heard a voice up in the air calling out to him,--

"Hullo, Billy Button! what you crying about down there?"

Willy stopped whistling, and looked up to see where the voice came from.
Gideon Noonin was sitting on the bough of a great maple tree, eating
gingerbread. The sight of his face filled Willy with strange feelings.
What a naughty, dreadful face it was, with the purple scar across the
left cheek! Willy had never admired that scar, but now he thought it was
horrible. His mother was right: Gid must be a very bad boy.

At the same time Gid's eyes danced in the most enticing manner, and
laughing gleefully he threw down a great ragged piece of gingerbread,
which Willy knew, from past experience, must be remarkably nice. It was
glazed on the top as smooth as satin, and had caraw