Well, it's unbelievable, and every one saying something ought to be done about it--you just never would be able to guess!" Winona snapped shut the volume so rich in promise and leaned forward to face her mother desperately.

Mrs.Penniman here coughed in a refined and artificial manner as a final preliminary.

The parrot instantly coughed in the same manner, and--seeming to like it--again became Mrs.Penniman in a series of mild, throaty preliminary coughs, as if it would presently begin to tell something almost too good.

The real tale had to be suspended again for this.
"Well," resumed Mrs.Penniman, feeling that the last value had been extracted from mere suspense, "anyway, it seems that this morning poor little Patricia Whipple was going by the old graveyard, and the twins jumped out and knocked her down and dragged her in there away from the road and simply tore every stitch of clothes off her back and made her dress up in Wilbur's clothes----" "There!" gasped the horrified Winona.

"Didn't I say it would be Wilbur ?" "And then what did they do but cut off her braid with a knife!" "Wilbur's knife--Merle hasn't any." "And the Lord knows what the little fiends would have done next, but Juliana Whipple happened to be passing, and heard the poor child's screams and took her away from them." "That dreadful, dreadful Wilbur!" cried Winona.
"Reform school," spoke the judge, as if he uttered it from the bench.
"But something queer," went on Mrs.Penniman.