In an instant the old woman was sitting up in bed and glaring at him.
"You imp of Satan!" she cried, springing after him with a singular agility for one of her age, and catching him by the arm with a vice-like grip that bruised the tender flesh and left it marked for weeks, drew him back from the door and flung him upon the bed.
"Stay there till I tell you to get up," she added, with a cruel threat in her voice.

"And mind you, there's to be no fooling with me." The frightened child crept under the bed-clothes, and hid his face beneath them.

Mother Peter did not lie down again, but commenced dressing herself, muttering and grumbling as she did so.
"Keep where you are till I come back," she said to Andy, with the same cruel threat in her voice.

Going out, she bolted the door on the other side.

It was nearly half an hour before the woman returned, bringing a plate containing two or three slices of bread and butter and a cup of milk.
"Now get up and dress yourself," was her sharply-spoken salutation to Andy as she came into the room.