What can a few women do against one able-bodied
man? Nothing at all! That happened during the dinner hour. One of
our neighbors got the best of the Catcher, a woman who happened
rather to dislike me and my mother; they quarreled frequently.
Perhaps on account of this very dislike she was not over-excited,
and was able to hit upon the right course to take at the critical
moment. She went to our house, took in one hand a potful of roasted
groats, ready for dinner, and in the other a kettle of boiling
water. Unnoticed she approached the Catcher, spilled the hot groats
upon his hands, and at the same time she poured the boiling water
over them. A wild yell escaped from the mouth of the Catcher--and I
was free.--
There was no more tobacco in the pipe, and the old man lost his
speech. That was the way of Samuel the Beadle; he could tell his
story only from behind the smoke of his pipe, when he did not see
his hearers, nor his hearers saw him. In that way he found it easy
to put his boyhood before his mind's eye and conjure up the
reminiscences of those days.
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