guess he won't run, bein's I'm so strong in my hands. Well, you
see Jane she hollered out o' th' window, 'Throw away your shawl,
M'rinthy, he'll kill you.'"

"O dear me!" exclaimed Phronsie. "An' did he kill you, Mrs. Big
Woman?" she asked anxiously.

"No; why here I be," said Abram's mother, with a hearty laugh.
"Well, how could I throw off my shawl an' me a-runnin' so, an'
'twas all pinned across me, an' my brother'd brought it from
over seas. So I had to run."

Phronsie sighed, and kept her troubled eyes raised to the big
face above her.

"An" the first thing't ever I knew, I went down kerslump into a
big compost heap, an'--"

"What's a compost heap?" asked Davie, getting up to stand in the
wagon back of them.

"Oh, manure an' sich, all gone to rot," said Abram's mother.

"O dear me!" said Davie.

"An' that cow--'twas a bull, I forgot to tell you, Jane's
husban' told me afterwards--he kept right on over my head,
couldn't stop, you know, an' he went bang up against a tree on
t'other side, an' it knocked him flat."