. The lad, finding that
all the good lady's excitement was likely to be spent on the
square-room--though, alas! all wouldn't exterminate the
grease--recovered courage and magnanimity enough to reveal himself as
the author of the catastrophe, which he did with such contrition,
showing at the same time his wounds, that Aunt Polly soon began "to
take on" about her dear boy, to the seeming forgetfulness, while
anointing his burns, of the kettle of lard and her unfortunate
square-room.

But I must take up again the broken thread of my own adventures in
this square-room, where I left Aunt Polly flourishing about in joy at
our unexpected arrival.

A large, straight-backed rocking-chair stood in one corner of this
apartment, and on its cushion--stuffed with feathers, and covered with
blazing chintz--lay a large gray cat curled up asleep--decidedly the
most comfortable looking object in the room--till Aunt Polly
unceremoniously shook her out of her snug quarters to give my father
the chair. I then discovered that poor puss was without a tail! On
expressing my surprise, aunt only replied--"Oh, _my_ cats are all so!"
And, true enough, before we left, I saw some half dozen round the
house, all deficient in this same graceful appendage of the feline
race. The human domestics of the family were only half-grown--but half
did their work, and seemed altogether naturalized to the whirligig
spirit of their mistress. The reader may anticipate the consequences
to the culinary and table arrangements. For supper we had, not
unleavened bread, but that which contained "the little leaven," that
having had no time to "leaven the whole lump," rendered it still
heavier of digestion; butter half-worked, tea made of water that did
not get time to boil, and slack-baked cakes. I supped on cucumbers,
and complaining of fatigue, was conducted by my kind aunt to the
sleeping apartment next her own, as it would seem like old times to
have me so near. What was wanting to make my bed comfortable, might
have been owing to the fact, that the feathers under me had been only
half-baked, or were picked from geese of Aunt Polly's raising; at any
rate, I was as restless as the good lady herself until daylight, when
I fell into as uneasy dreams--blessing the ducking that saved me a
more lingering fate before. After a brief morning-nap I arose, and
seeing fresh eggs brought in from the farm-yard, confidently expected
to have my appetite appeased, knowing that they