"Margaret says I may play with the clothes-pins. I'm only building a
fort with them."

"Do you hear me?"

"Mother!"

"Tom! if you don't come to me this instant, I'll almost skin you.
Margaret! take them clothes-pins away. Pretty playthings, indeed,
for you to give a boy like him! No wonder I have to get a dozen new
ones every two or three months."

Margaret now spoke.

"Tommy, you must go up to your mother."

She now took the clothes-pins and commenced putting them into the
basket where they belonged. Her words and action had a more instant
effect than all the mother's storm of passion. The boy left the
kitchen in tears, and went slowly up-stairs.

"Why didn't you come when I called you? Say!"

The mother seized her little boy by the arm the moment he came in
reach of her, and dragged rather than led him up-stairs, uttering
such exclamations as these by the way:

"I never saw such a child! You might as well talk to the wind! I'm
in despair! I'll give up! Humph! clothes-pins, indeed! Pretty
playthings to give a child! Every thing goes to rack and ruin!