gently:

"Now, Bub, you and me have got to be careful. What-nots and albums and
wax flowers and hair-cloth sofys are the most dang'rous critters in St.
Lawrence County. They're purty savage. Keep your eye peeled. You can't
tell what minute they'll jump on ye. More boys have been dragged away
and tore to pieces by `em than by all the bears and panthers in the
woods. When I was a boy I got a cut acrost my legs that made a scar ye
can see now, and it was a hair-cloth sofy that done it. Keep out o' that
old parlor. Ye might as well go into a cage o' wolves. How be I goin' to
make ye remember it?"

"I don't know," I whimpered and began to cry out in fearful
anticipation.

He set me in a chair, picked up one of his old carpet-slippers and began
to thump the bed with it. He belabored the bed with tremendous vigor.
Meanwhile he looked at me and exclaimed: "You dreadful child!"

I knew that my sins were responsible for this violence. It frightened me
and my cries increased.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opened suddenly.

Aunt Deel called:

"Don't lose your temper, Peabody. I think you've gone fur 'nough--ayes!"

Uncle Peabody stopped and blew as if he were very tired and then I
caught a look in his face that reassured me.