See if he don't."
Willie's neighbors had long since tired of waiting for the glorious
moment of his fame to arrive; and although they had too genuine a
regard for the little old inventor to state publicly what they really
thought of the strings, the nails, the spools, the wires, and the
pulleys, in private they did not hesitate to denounce derisively the
scientist's contrivances and assert that some fine day the house on the
bluff would come to dire disaster.
"Somebody's goin' to get hung or strangled on one of them contraptions
Willie's rigged up," Captain Phineas Taylor prophesied impressively to
Zenas Henry as the two men sat smoking in the lee of the wood pile.
"You watch out an' see if they don't."
Indeed there was no denying that Celestina was continually catching
hairpins, hooks, and buttons in the strings; or that some such dilemma
as had been predicted had actually occurred, for one day while alone in
the house a pin fastening the back of her print gown had become
inextricably entangled in the maze amid which she moved, and fearing
Willie's wrath if she should sunder her fetters she had been forced to
stand captive and helplessly witness a newly made sponge cake burn to a
crisp in the oven.
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