You did not know where to begin.

We were all a little tired before we found the hayloft, but we pulled ourselves together to make a fort with the trusses of hay--great square things--and we were having a jolly good time, all of us, when suddenly a trap-door opened and a head bobbed up with a straw in its mouth.

We knew nothing about the country then, and the head really did scare us rather, though, of course, we found out directly that the feet belonging to it were standing on the bar of the loose-box underneath.

The head said-- 'Don't you let the governor catch you a-spoiling of that there hay, that's all.' And it spoke thickly because of the straw.
It is strange to think how ignorant you were in the past.

We can hardly believe now that once we really did not know that it spoiled hay to mess about with it.