"If there's a stick on the premises, I'll use it, or my name isn't Grundy," said the enraged woman, at the same time starting for a clump of alders which grew near the brook. At this stage of affairs, Sal Furbush came dancing in curtseying, making faces, and asking Mary if she thought "the temperature of the kitchen conducive to health." Mary instinctively drew nearer to her, as to a friend, and grasping her dress, whispered, "Oh, Sally, Aunt Sally, don't let her whip me for nothing," at the same time pointing towards Miss Grundy, who was returning with an alder switch, stripping off its leaves as she came. "Whip you? I guess she won't," said Sal, and planting herself in the doorway as Miss Grundy came up, she asked, "Come you with hostile intentions?" "Out of my way," said Miss Grundy. "I'll teach, that upstart to break things when she's mad." Pushing Sal aside, she entered the kitchen. Mary retreated behind the cupboard door, and Miss Grundy was about to follow her, when Sal, with a nimble bound, sprang upon her back, and pulling her almost to the floor, snatched the whip from her hand, and broke it in twenty pieces. How the matter would have ended is uncertain, for at that moment Mr. Parker himself appeared, and to him Miss Grundy and Sal detailed their grievances, both in the same breath. "I can't get at a word," said he, and turning to the pleasant-looking woman, who was quietly paring apples, he asked what it meant. In a plain, straightforward manner, she told all, beginning from the time when Alice was first brought into the kitchen, and adding, as an opinion of her own, that the child was suffering from heat. Mr Parker was a good-natured, though rather weak man, and in reality slightly feared Miss Grundy. On this occasion, however, he did not take sides with her but said, "It was ridiculous to have such works, and that if Mary wanted whipping, he would do it himself." "But Sal Furbush," said Miss Grundy, as she adjusted her head-gear, which was slightly displaced, "can't she be shut up? There's bedlam to pay the whole durin' time when she's loose." Mr. Parker knew this very well, but before he had time to answer, Mary looked pleadingly in his face, and said, "if you please, don't shut her up. She was not to blame, for I asked her to help me." "Wall, wall, we'll let her off this time, I guess," said he; and as Uncle Peter just then put his head into the window, saying that "the lord of the manor was wanted without," Mr. Parker left, glad to get out of the muss so easily. No sooner was he gone, than Sal, catching up the cradle, sorted for the stairs, saying, "I won't work, but I can, and will take care of little Willie, and I choose to do it in a more congenial atmosphere." Then, as Mary looked a little startled, she added, "Never you fear, dearie, Sal knows what she's about, and she won't make the little boy the least bit of a face."